Brexit is calamitous and regressive. But do you know what would be even worse? Ignoring a democratic vote and staying in the EU. That is why Labour were absolutely right to ignore the siren calls of the hard remainers, and why it will oversee Brexit if we're able to pull off the biggest political upset since 1945. However, the polls are against us still so I want to concentrate on the imminent danger: Theresa May's approach to Brexit. Not because she won't get a better deal than Labour. It's far more likely that she won't get a deal at all and crash us out of the EU. A disaster that doesn't bear thinking about.
In her trailed speech today, May returned to the Brexit theme. Anything to put distance between polling day and her abject cowardice. She talked about the "national mission", of talking up the opportunities of Britain and seizing a place for it in the international firmament. This will be a Britain that matters again, a Britain free to make its own opportunities and its own success. In her usual projection tactics straight from the Tory playbook, Labour "haven't got a plan", "doesn't have what it takes" and, bizarrely, "doesn't respect the decision made by the British people". The Maybot is clearly malfunctioning.
May's speech was a word stew designed to make good gravy for the right wing press and shore up her fracturing coalition. Unfortunately, her hardcore vote would guzzle up the Brexit dumplings rather than choke on them. But, again, that ominous and moronic phrase - no deal is better than a bad deal - keeps getting repeated. Like so much of the Tory manifesto, she refused to put specifics and a cost on what this actually means when she faced Paxo on Monday. And it's this vagueness that is so dangerous and makes the possibility of crashing out more likely.
Want my workings? Here you go. Repeatedly, the Tories have shown themselves utterly unfit to be the custodians of the interests they represent, let alone preside over the rest of the country. Since 2010, for example, the Tories cut public spending when the economy was crying out for stimulus. That meant jobs lost unnecessarily, hard times inflicted on millions, and a further deterioration of Britain's competitive position in world markets. Then we had Dave gamble Britain's future on a minor threat to the Tories in a handful of constituencies - and lost. And now May and her car crash election, wasting Article 50 negotiation time just to wrack up a few score more seats in the house. Petty minded and stupid about sums this lot up. They are not to be trusted.
With 'no deal is better than a bad deal', May has painted herself into a corner. Consider for a moment, who gets to define what is a good or bad deal? One that sees Britain hand over an annual sub for tariff free access to the single market, plus cooperation on science, security, trading standards and so on seems totally reasonable to me. However, May and her ghastly Brexit team - Boris Johnson, David Davis, and disgraced serving minister Liam Fox, are operating according to a different set of stakes. Details of the negotiations are going to leak like Trump's White House and the government are in for constant badgering by the right wing press. As soon as costs come in, they will splash them, particularly if the sums are large - which they will be. Ditto with Britain's Brexit bill. May will be under constant pressure to reject them. Furthermore, as she has set herself up as a "bloody difficult woman" the temptation to grandstand the EU27 will be too much. Thatcher had her Falklands moment, and May is not averse to cast herself as the mother of the nation standing up for British pluck against the continental monster. Never mind that she can't even stand up to Woman's Hour on Radio 4.
The sad truth of the matter is all the pressures on May, all the political capital she can reap will come from refusing to sign a deal. What small details the interests of our people and the health of British capitalism are compared to favourable Daily Mail headlines and wrapping the Tory party in the flag of British intransigence. The additional danger is the stupidly bellicose rhetoric indulged by the government is setting up the same dynamic for the EU27 negotiators. If May is behaving like a petulant child, so the political benefits of collapsing the talks and booting Britain out grows. Here too, remember, for their own short-sighted reasons the EU were (and still are) happy to destroy Greece's economy even though the interests of EU capital-in-general was and remains in a speedy return to solvency, not eternal debt and austerity.
These are the stakes then. It's not inevitably, but the stars are aligning for the most ruinous of Brexits and no deal with the EU. That will damage economies across Europe, but would prove to be a catastrophe for our faltering recovery. A Conservative government led by Theresa May makes this all the more likely, and why she must be stopped.
Thank you Theresa May for confirming my argument. When she took to her favourite podium this afternoon and denounced the European Union for interfering in the General Election, the cynicism scale on my sideboard broke. Just like her predecessor, who frequently put the short-term electoral interests of the Conservative Party above all else, the Prime Minister's (contrived) paranoia is putting the Brexit negotiations in jeopardy just so she can grub a few ballots from the four or five per cent of voters stubbornly sticking with UKIP. If that isn't Conservative Party decadence in its purest elemental state, I don't know what is.
The sad fact is May will probably get away with it. She and Crosby know full well the character of the anti-politics vote that underpinned last year's Leave vote. For many leave voters, it was a protest against an intangible sense of 'them'. And 'them' could be coded any which way. Politicians (of all parties, especially the LibLabCon), bankers, Eurocrats, cultural Marxists, brown people, immigrants. It was a protest against globalisation, but in exactly the same way Marine Le Pen articulates such a sentiment. When the labour movement is down and not articulating a positive alternative to the status quo, other sentiments and ideas rush into the vacuum. Across the Middle East, religion is the basis of opposition to corrupt and dictatorial establishments in too many Arab countries. In the countries of Europe, a yearning for community in a fragmenting and rapidly changing world finds crumbs of comfort in the flag. After all, things ain't what they used to be but we're still bloody British, dammit.
May is trying to ride that wave to a thumping majority, setting herself up as a mother-of-the-nation figure that Thatcher, because of her divisiveness, never accomplished. You might not like the Tories, which is why their name is banished from so much campaign literature, but you can trust May to stand up to Johnny Foreigner. Pompous, stupid, pathetic, but again, she's trying to create a sense that Britain is under siege, that Britain's Brexit decision is in danger, and only by getting behind Theresa May can we ensure that 'they' don't succeed in thwarting The Will of The People.
The irony of this posturing is, of course, that the EU would much prefer to have Theresa May at the head of the British government than the alternative. With Brexit, all May is seeking is a withdrawal, albeit in the hope that some privileged access to markets can remain in situ. A Jeremy Corbyn Brexit, however, would be framed in terms of workers rights, state intervention in the economy, and other Labour left nostrums. Not helpful for a Europe led by the centre right for whom the radical and populist left are a loud and sometimes viable vehicle for discontent. They look at the polls and believe Labour's chances of winning are remote, which is just as well because that prospect terrifies them as much as it does London-based tabloid editors.
As we have seen, May thinks she's got it in the bag. Which is why we have no promises around tax, VAT, and National Insurance rises. Why the Tories have gone all vague over the pensions' triple lock. Why she hides from the public and makes like a Dalek with her soundbites. And why she can engage in the most cynical stirring of nationalism seen in British politics for decades. The more she keeps piling up the absurdities, the greater the chance of getting found out and falling short of her electoral objectives. In that case, perhaps we on the left should be encouraging her to do more grandstanding in bad faith.
Political parties are more or less the expression of classes or class fractions. They organise classes, articulate and arrange their interests, and are a means by which they become conscious of themselves. The durability across nearly all the advanced nations of parties that represent business, that represent labour, that represent small employers and layers of professionals, and how all party systems have seen the eruption of left and right populisms tied to changes in class composition confirms the durability of that insight. Even in the more open party systems of Continental Europe, where parties seemingly appear over night and carry all before it, Emmanuel Macron's En Marche, Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement, and previously Berlusconi's Forza Italia, do not escape this sociological truism. These parties and movement/party hybrids succeed where they succeed because they speak to and condense constellations of interests and conflict that exist in the real world. Politics is concentrated economics, and why it's a nasty, filthy, unprincipled affair.
If only politics wasn't like this. That, instead, it was a nice debate among nice people who only mean nice things. Is there a saviour among us who could transcend chronic division, cast aside the muck of ages and guide us along the golden path to full liberalism? Readers desperately casting around need not worry any more. There is a man, and what's more, he has a plan. I give you Jolyon Maugham, Queen's Chambers and Graun/Twitter celeb, and the Westminster-trembling news that he's (sort of) launching a political party. Yes, if liberal ex-ministers with loads of insider experience and a big media profile can get through to the final round of the French presidential elections, so an occasional guest on the Daily Politics sofa can shake up politics. And like Macron and sundry others, Jolyon's even given his party its own stupid name: 'Spring'.
Jolyon originally intended to stand in Theresa May's Maidenhead constituency but, after telling us he has "some great friends in the music and creative industries. Serious people ...", he reluctantly decided that Spring will not get its outing at the general election. Come now Jolyon, to announce a new party and then declaring an intention not to stand, what have you to lose apart from your deposit? If it had stood, it would have been a corker alright. Honest. Theresa May, politics as a whole would not know what to make of it. His shtick? According to the strategy document, Spring's debut campaign was about throwing a party. This would be
a joyous, optimistic thing. Not political.
Not talking about politics then, during an election. Great start.
He goes onto say his party's, um, party would be about
celebrating unity. 28 days long, each day ‘hosted’ (food, drink costume) by one of the member states. We have bands, and comedians, and writers, and thinkers, and artists, and designers.
Foreign stereotype cosplay is perhaps best left for UKIP socials.
And to deliver focus, and urgency, and to frame the contrast with the nation at large, and to make the party a national event, we stand a candidate (Jo Maugham QC) in Maidenhead against Theresa May.
Are you going on the doorstep with your berets and bicycles?
On the feasibility of toppling Theresa May, Jolyon knew he was against a sheer face with jellied eels for grips. But he has positivity on his side, a can do mentality!
There are local pro-Remain groups. The seat has great symbolic value. And – most importantly – if we can inspire people with our celebration they will come again. They will come early, tomorrow. And knock on residents’ doors, and smile, and talk
I can imagine what most residents will say back when you let on you're part of the 28 day freak show parading through town.
The celebration will lay the foundations for a new political party. The strength of those foundations are our metric of success. We will collect members. We will build a brand. And we will raise funding. Spring. A new start. A brighter future.
Inspiring. Sign me the fuck up.
Spring is a party of the radical centre. Solutions for the world today and tomorrow. Not yesterday.
New Labour sloganeering to stir the soul.
After saying they're honest, fair, and progressive, he subjects the mainstream parties to withering critique.
Like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, Labour’s left and moderates are bent on one another’s destruction.
Hark at that on trend telly reference!
No one knows what the Lib Dems are for – other than the Lib Dems.
Nope. Everyone now knows Tim Farron very definitely, definitely loves gay people. But not in a gay way.
And we vote for the Tories reluctantly, lacking an alternative.
Do you now, Jo? Such declarations make your progressive creds look ropey ...
Then he moves to wrap up the strategy document.
Step One: Jolyon announces to The Maidenhead Advertiser that he’s standing. It filters out to the National Press. The website goes up, with a short biog, a teaser, a ‘register’ button and a ‘donate’ button.
Step Two: We announce the festival and some acts.
Step Three: We begin to release policies.
All of which would have got Spring off to a flying start.
There is a lot to do. But. If you build it, they will come.
Field of Dreams. Generations of political people who've read all the notorious tracts from The Prince to What is to be Done? have been doing it wrong.
Yes, there are a layer of people who'd love to see the EU referendum result reversed. And if it wasn't for the utterly foolish and downright dangerous precedent ignoring a clear majority result would be for a democracy, it might be a good idea. The problem is for these folks, remainiacs if you will, the European Union is more than a trading bloc with an opaque bureaucracy. It's their Soviet Union, their City on the Hill, their Jerusalem. In their minds, the EU condenses Enlightenment values and liberal internationalism. It's an achievement standing above the nationalisms and tribalisms of old, that proves we can all get along on the basis of common humanity. And they have the nerve to look down their noses at Leave voters and call them deluded. It's stop-the-world-we-want-to-get-off, liberal-stylee.
Jolyon might think he's putting down a flag and showing leadership, but the laughable awfulness of his foray into party politics shows he's rudderless and without ideas. The remainiac milieu not drawn into the LibDems haven't a clue what to do next, and from that flows confusionism and sense-denying idiocy. At least those taken in by the yellow party, albeit under a false prospectus because they think the referendum result should be honoured too, have a focus. They're getting stuck into politics and helping shape the post-Brexit landscape. What is Jolyon and his oh-so modest "party" doing, apart from parading his naivete?
Taking a sneaky from things Stoke-related, it's time to cast an eye over last night's Commons vote giving the government permission to trigger Article 50. Annoyingly, it is not the Tories who find themselves poisoned and split over Europe, like the Lexiters promised. It's Labour. As the government won by 494 to 114, 47 Labour MPs joined the SNP and Ken Clarke in voting against.
Like John McDonnell, I have some sympathy for the rebels' position. Some MPs hail from constituencies in which majorities voted for Remain, other believe leaving the EU is a catastrophic act of self-harm. These for me are all valid reasons to oppose Brexit, but to my mind are trumped by another consideration: democracy.
Representative democracy at the best of times is inefficient and imperfect, especially so in capitalist societies where economic and political power are more or less separated. The former, formally, is subordinate to the will of the latter and has to submit to its laws, regulations, and other interventions. In practice, it's the other way round. For most of the last 30 years, as learned folks across the political spectrum told us class didn't matter any more, inequality increased, production gains accrued to the owners of capital as productivity was decoupled from wages, and ever more ingenious ways were devised by successive governments to transfer tax monies into private coffers via the marketisation of public services. And coincident with this, educational institutions and popular culture have tried churning out obedient subjects that would meekly accept all this.
It's a rare situation to find economics assuming a subordinate role in government policy, but this is one of them. Theresa May's Wrexit trajectory will be profoundly damaging to the British economy, and it's our people who will pay the price. But ultimately, politics has asserted itself. Brexit is a massive pile of shit, as a lately prominent comrade of mine put it, but it must happen. The referendum wasn't sold as a "consultative" exercise, it was clearly and unambiguously a plebiscite on Britain's continued membership of the European Union. Prat about with the turn outs, pull out pie charts proving a majority of people didn't vote to leave, it doesn't matter. A democratic vote was had and the wrong side won, but we have to take the consequences. Because if we don't, the political fall out would have been far more damaging to our people and our movement than a reversion to WTO trading rules post-Brexit.
What I would euphemistically describe as unhelpful is how the party, or rather those who rebelled last night, completely conceded this ground to the right. Democracy isn't a free floating idea, it is bound up with interests and it's in the interests of the people our party represents to extend it beyond the realm of formal politics. We have to make politics substantive, and this means economic democracy. By refusing to support the Brexit process, this ground has been ceded to the right. Our rebels have presented the Tories a crock of political gold with a gift tag that reads "unified to deliver the referendum outcome". At this crucial moment in British political history, the Tories have captured the mantle of champions of democracy without so much as a tussle. And that is profoundly damaging to our future political prospects.
The liberal establishment is a thing. It exists and it has power, influence. But it is not in charge. Liberalism has its privileged place in our media output. It is the primary outlook of academia. It casts a wide net across our politics, claiming one party officially but finding adherents in whole and in part on the government and opposition benches, not to mention large numbers of the politically active and civic-minded. It's shared by senior people across the civil service, is de rigeur among celebrity, and is the common sense of millions of people. Yet its philosophy is at odds with the assumptions guiding the government, including our most illiberal Prime Minister. It plays second fiddle to the investment and divestment decisions that really rule the life chances of millions, and where liberal principles come into conflict with the exercising of economic and political power, there is no contest.
In short, liberalism - and here, I mean it in the sense of a movement, a trend in society encompassing prominent individuals and institutions, as well as ideas - is dominant. Or, rather, a dominant. As elites go, their power and influence is nothing compared to conservative elites. It's this status, as a dominated apparatus of discourses that confers liberalism progressive social creds, not least because it has on plenty of occasions defined itself against powerful conservative governments. And it always finds friends who aren't liberals happy to make common cause - a so-called progressive alliance being just one of its manifestations. And so liberalism has a seductive allure. As a philosophy of individualism, it chimes easily (superficially) with Labourist and socialist concerns with inequality. Liberalism, at its consistent best, is opposed to discrimination. It is philosophically antithetical to bigotry and prejudice, though that hasn't stopped liberalism being used as a means to discriminate against minorities deemed to be illiberal. Therefore liberalism presents both as is and what should be, as the common sense of the (self-certified) enlightened and the state of grace to which everyone should aspire. Who, after all, could possibly disagree and not accept the rights of the individual, that people should go about their business unmolested, that folks should not get held back because of their gender, ethnicity, and sexuality? Isn't there, after all, a progressive consensus held by the majority and backed by the state?
This last year, liberalism in Britain received four body blows that fundamentally undermined its sense of place in the world and has rendered it spent and decadent as a force that paid lip service to progressive social change. In each of these cases, the world asserted itself as something at odds with the accepted liberal way of things. With the EU referendum vote, liberals discovered that those outside their accepted terms of reference did not see the world in the same way. That people voting to Leave weren't swayed by the huge apparatus of liberalism arrayed behind the Remain case, that the statsplaining and Eddie Izzard appearances didn't do the trick. This was partly because Leave tapped into anti-political establishment populism, of which liberalism is a (subordinate) part, and because liberalism was utterly incapable of providing answers to Leave attack lines. Small wonder immigration proved so potent as liberalism for the last 30 years has either copied "tough" rhetoric, or championed free movement without addressing the lies written and broadcast about jobs, housing, and strains on public services. Leave made hay with the anxieties and insecurities ever-present in advanced, de-industrialising societies and drew deep on decades of their being married to racism and scapegoating. In short, liberalism treated the referendum as a battle of ideas and not what it really was: a clash of interests.
An identical dynamic was at play in the US presidential elections. Donald Trump is an utter moron, so how could anyone vote for him? He had no experience of political office, is obviously unsuited, is a racist degenerate with nothing but contempt for disabled people and sees women as objects to be groped. And this is before you get into the finer points of policy, such as the repeal of Obamacare and a free-for-all for America's most polluting companies. His election, despite receiving almost three million votes fewer than Hillary Clinton, scrambled liberalism's networked brains much more than Brexit because of the characteristics that would have sunk anyone else. They cannot conceive how someone so anti-liberal to the the point of offence managed to pile up the votes where he needed to. Part of which is their fascination with American politics (something shared by British conservatism) and the illusions they had in Clinton as a great liberal hero, and part, again, an inability to analyse the social relationships and dynamics that determine the course of elections.
Third, there is the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and the transformation of the Labour Party from the B-team of British capitalism into something else. As I've argued previously, understanding what was going on meant looking at the character of the new people coming into the Labour Party. Yes, there were a lot of "usual suspect" lefties. As Alex Nunns points out in his excellent account of the Corbynism's emergence, networks of established activists flocked into the party. But Corbyn's challenge activated a wider, coming strata of working people for whom networks are part of their everyday, in and out of work, but more on that another time. However, the nine-tenths beneath the surface were invisible to liberalism. For them, the Labour Party - and therefore a viable leader - has to remain within (their) bounds of political respectability, differ from the sitting government by degree and not by kind play the Parliamentary game, and be able to win votes from the Conservatives. Because the majority of the membership rejected this view, liberalism was at a loss to explain what happened. It was a matter of lefty self-indulgence, Trot entryism, or a middle class takeover. Nothing to do with wider changes in British society, and certainly sod all to do with the campaign of destablisation liberalism aided and abetted in and outside the party. And so, for now, Labour is closed as a vehicle for liberalism's ambitions.
And lastly, there is the shift in social media. Gone from being the relatively quiet and charming plaything of Graun commentators and hangers on, in successive years it's been flooded by waves of hyper-partisan and seemingly unreasonable people. In 2013, it was fresh kippers. 2014 came the cybernats. 2015 the Corbynistas. And 2016 racists and Nazis trading under the alt-right tag, and fanatical brexiteers. For the leading lights of British liberalism, particularly those in politics and the media, death threats and rape threats have surged, utter nonsense and "fake news" is bandied about like the revealed truth, conspiracy thinking has mainstreamed, and the line between naivete/bampottery/trolling has grown so thin it's impossible to pin some people down. That this was the year places like Breitbart and The Canary captured widespread attention is no accident: they rode the wave. For the liberal mindset, the chaotic jumble of social media at once confounds and reinforces its prejudices. It confounds because like Brexit, Trump, and Corbyn, how can anyone believe this shit? And it confirms because, ultimately, it comes down to a lack of education, of not being reasoned or informed enough to construct and understand the liberal outlook, of failing to grasp the things that matter.
At the dawn of 2017, liberalism finds itself confused. The world isn't what it was, it's bewildering, normless, chaotic. Nothing makes sense, the counter-intuitive rules. Liberalism is lost and cannot even think about a way forward, let alone plot a course. In effect, it moves, it shambles around, but there is no coherence, no answers, no intelligence. It has gone the way of the living dead, and can only throw out a decomposing imitation of life. Living dead liberalism manifests in two zombified forms. The first is liberal virtue signalling. You know the sort. The kind that fights shy of the world. It prefers not having to deal with it, and so shuts reality out by blocking or ignoring, or pretending they're Dumbledore's Army or some such childish shit. Even worse is that variant of zombie liberalism that doubles down on all the elitist faults ascribed to it. Calling people thick because they voted Trump? No problem. Brexiteers are all stupid morons who don't know what's good for them? Let's have it. Coming up with colourful ways to call people names make well remunerated journalists with big platforms feel better, but what does it do apart from signify one's impeccable (and super-intelligent) creds? Nothing. This form of liberalism accomplishes its retreat from the world and becomes the rhetoric of shrill but frightened narcissists.
The other type of undead liberalism says it's vital and alive, but is anything but. So-called muscular liberalism has poured a gallon of paint onto its red lines and is prepared to fight relentlessly, tweet-by-tweet, rebuttal-by-rebuttal, by-election by by-election against the rubbish pushed by the right. Challenging opponents' commonsense and redefining politics is, well, what progressive politics is supposed to do. And, to be fair, I'd much rather have liberals mindlessly tap polemic into their laptops and mail it in than posture uselessly to other liberals. But ultimately, what's the end game? Defeating the right in their Tory, kipper, and alt-fash guises requires boots-on-the-ground politics, a vehicle for transforming lives and implementing policy. Labour is no longer the vehicle for liberal aspiration, the liberalish Cameroons are marginalised in the Tories, the SNP are too ghastly, and so all that is left are the LibDems. While their real support is probably underestimated by nationwide polling, nine MPs and 70,000 members can hardly strike out for liberalism, especially as they remain compromised by their previous association. And so liberal writers will write, liberal campaigners will campaign, and the world will not be better or worse for it. Liberalism can rage all it likes, but as a movement with political power it is diminished.
And so liberalism offers no way forward. It is paralysed because as an elite movement, it is structurally incapable of seeing the world from anywhere but its position near the top of the pile. Yet, the irony is, liberalism should be strong. The spontaneous outlook of growing numbers of young people in most developed countries is more liberal than preceding generations. It should be the liberal moment, and yet liberalism cannot relate. Its fixation on the language games of posture and polemic, and its basic philosophic resistance to viewing the world in terms other than individuals struggling for recognition and position means it cannot orient itself to a rising generation blighted by precarity, debt, low pay, housing shortages. To start probing this world of interest means abandoning liberalism, but when so many are comfortably self-satisfied with it, not least the feted leading lights and their zombified comment cabaret, what incentive have they in building something alive?
He's been gone five minutes, and already he's poised for a comeback. According to The Indy, David Cameron is Theresa May's nomination for the next NATO general secretary. This, according to Michael Fallon, is part of a move that would deepen Britain's commitment to the alliance to make up for Brexit. Presumably that would involve an extra spending commitment. After all, ways have to be found for blowing that phantom Leave dividend.
A Briton has held the secretary generalship on three occasions. The last was George Robertson who, according to rumour, was placed there by His Blairness to avoid newspaper attention. The position is granted by a consensus among member states and, typically, the candidate who can win US backing gets in. There are some things that commend Dave for this role. NATO secretary general is a bit of a non-job. It involves fronting the alliance to the press, chairs a number of committees and some staff management duties, which can easily get palmed off on the deputy. Given Dave's recklessness, we should be grateful it has no decision-making powers. For someone who never did detail and whose only talent was was to look the part, Dave would fit this job like a snake slipping into a sack. Trotting about the world stage and looking ever-so-important, it's enough to bring the green eyes out in Tony Blair.
There are some issues though. As the strongest and most sophisticated military power in NATO after the United States, he might be a shoe-in. But then again, politics could get in the way. The EU is separate, but politics always overspills. Only fool liberals think it respects institutional boundaries. In the five months since Theresa May entered Downing Street, her foreign secretary has spent his time swaggering around Europe insulting allies and stupidly snubbing meetings of his continental counterparts. Not the most auspicious start to a campaign of glad handing if May is to get her man in position. Then there's the unforeseen fall out from Brexit negotiations. No one yet knows how smooth or bumpy they're going to be, but at some point they will involve frank exchanges, frayed tempers, unreasonable behaviours, and perhaps the odd falling out. Some of which are bound to affect Dave's chances.
The nomination also says a few things about the Prime Minister's nous deficiency. She might have concluded that giving Dave a grace and favour job will prevent him being a future annoyance, a la Blair's tendency to repeat. But, excuse me, was May so buried in the Home Office that she didn't notice what was going on during the last six years? Her then boss time and again scored cheap populist points for short-term gain, alternately acting like a petulant brat and then pleading for special treatment and, by losing the referendum, has exacerbated the crisis tendencies in the EU project. Only Nigel Farage would be less acceptable, politically speaking. Plenty of commentators have talked up the differences between May and Dave, but they have one thing in common: all plays second fiddle to the immediate interests of the Conservative Party.
Whether Dave is able to waltz into this plum job or not remains to be seen, but it appears the politics are against him. And as, once again, it demonstrates May's cluelessness, this most unwelcome of Christmas time surprises doesn't bode well for her oversight and direction of the Brexit negotiations.
We're used to the Leave campaign lying. They made stuff up during the referendum campaign, and there's no let up even during the Christmas holidays. Change Britain is a "cross-party" outfit active across all the main social media platforms, and it made a bit of a splash today with its report doubling down on the notorious and widely-debunked £350m/week savings claim and said the figure could actually be as high £450m/week. That is the Brexit dividend, apparently, the value of what they're desperately trying to brand a "clean Brexit".
There is some confusion over the size of these savings. The Graun says £24bn, The Telegraph £40bn, and Change Britain, um, £10bn, the press reporting of what is, in actual fact, a press release, has been appalling. Papers and news sites, which ever way they lean politically, have blandly trotted out the figures as if they were gospel. Does no one know how to critically scrutinise numbers any more?
Needless to say, Change Britain's figures describe what they describe, but nothing else. As with a great many things, it's what they don't say that counts. I've had a look at their workings so you don't have to, and what's there is little more than wish fulfillment and, in a few cases, some worrying positions.
First off, they make the easy claim that Britain will save paying membership subs, which works out as a saving of £10.4bn. Presently, countries outside of the EU but are members of the European Economic Area, like Norway post a contribution, but at a significantly lower level than the subs the UK presently pays. Change Britain's clean Brexit, however, has us lying outside the EEA completely. We would have to pay no more into the EU pot than Canada is set to do through their trade treaty. i.e. Nothing at all. Sounds attractive, but there is a problem. In October, exports to the EU were worth £26.8bn and imports £39.6bn. There are significant interests both sides of the channel for trade to continue uninterrupted, but that doesn't necessarily mean cool heads will prevail. There is every danger a deal cannot be negotiated in two years, hence the open talk of a bridging arrangement that would extend the negotiations into the never-never (a move entirely in the Prime Minister's character). However, Change Britain want none of that - they want tariff-free access, but without the rigmarole of the complex negotiations that will get us there. In short, if they want to hop out of the EEA, Britain will face tariffs, no ifs, no buts. The wrexit crew might say that will harm the EU more than that harms the UK, but in the real world that would be small comfort to the millions of jobs placed at risk and the damage done to the economy. So yes, we might save £10bn in subs, but how much disappears as the economy takes a hit? How many people have to have their livelihoods ruined until a inferior Canada-style treaty comes along?
Change Britain's second moment of dishonesty regards the freedom Britain will have to negotiate trade deals elsewhere. One of Leave's strongest suits during the campaign was playing up Britain's strength. The economy has serious, long-term problems the Tories don't seem at all fussed about, but yes, Britain is one of the richest economies in the world and, of course, people from all over will want to do business here. Pulling out a list of countries that have already expressed an interest in trade deals, or are likely to, they estimate an increase of between £8.5bn and £19.9bn worth of exports once we enter into arrangements with them. How Change Britain arrived at these figures are mathematically reasonable (though their link for 2016 trade balances leads to 2013's), they are economically suspect. Suspect because a trade deal doesn't generate exports, economic activity does. The tearing down of tariff barriers does not create jobs or boost productivity, it relieves costs borne by exporters and importers. It can improve profitability, but as we've seen in almost a decade's worth of a capital strike here in Britain, boosting profit rates doesn't necessarily equal more investment and greater productivity. Secondly, tariff-free access can harm economies, or does Change Britain need to read about the consequences of cheap Chinese steel again - that is until the hated EU put a hefty tariff on it? And thirdly, these trade deals aren't going to get struck overnight. Working out something with Mercosur - the Brazil-led economic bloc of Latin American countries - is not going to be a simple head-to-head between governments. And as for the deal with the USA, well, there might be a problem. Until we get those deals, there will be no economic benefit whatsoever. For years.
Lastly, let's look at the bonfire of red tape. Apparently, British business is getting choked by Brussels bureaucracy. A strangulation to the tune of £1.2bn, which is very small beer in the context of a £1.8tn (or thereabouts) economy. But still, let's play Change Britain's game. Going through the 100 most burdensome EU regulations as identified by Open Europe, Change Britain are at least honest enough to acknowledge that only a small proportion of EU regulations would be repealed because of international treaties and continued policy commitments. Nevertheless, they've earmarked some pretty interesting regulations for the chop. These include the Data Protection Act, genetically modified food regulations, non-road gaseous and particulate pollutant regulations, registration and restriction of chemicals rules, waste batteries and accumulators regs, and farmed animal welfare rules. In short, irony of ironies, their Clean Brexit would result in more airborne pollution - a filthy Brexit, if you will. As well as a free for all in hazardous materials, and an abandonment of farmed animal standards. And greater freedoms for those who hold personal data to abuse it. I guess it hadn't occurred that their repeal might create unforeseen externalities, like monies lost through fraud, added costs to health care, the cost of cleaning up environmental damage, it goes on.
In all, Change Britain's bean counter's approach to a Clean Brexit amounts to politics of the dirtiest kind. This is not an exercise in cost/benefit analysis. It's a balance sheet of dishonest thinking and convenient forgetting, and deserves branding as such.
Only two things have come out of Sleaford. Those mods (well, their name anyway) and predictions of imminent doom for the Labour Party. Yes, at the Sleaford and North Hykeham by-election, Labour failed to turn in a creditable performance. It dropped seven points, the Tories and kippers lost a couple apiece, and the LibDems surged past from nowhere and claimed the number three spot.
I don't see cataclysm written in the by-election results. It's hardly a place Labour should expect to do well, but it does condense two problems the party has. The first is with the former LibDem voters. The 35 per cent strategy so-labelled by Dan Hodges claimed that Ed Miliband's Labour was content with building an electoral coalition from existing Labour voters and those fleeing the LibDems during the time of their coalition with the Tories. That, apparently, would be enough to carry a general election. Unfortunately, there was some substance to this as the data sent back to canvassing teams screened out Tories and had us knocking on doors of voters with Labour and LibDem affiliations, don't knows, and no previous data. I digress. The problem Labour has is these folks are going back to the yellow party. This is powering their excellent showing in local council by-elections, and the upset in Richmond.
This is not unrelated to the second problem: Labour's incoherence over Brexit. The LibDems are the party of in. UKIP remain the party of out. The Tories are managing the process and routinely cloak their cluelessness in babble like the infamous objective of a "red, white and blue Brexit". And Labour? Um.
This paralysis is simply not good enough. The official position of the leader's office is the acceptance of June's calamitous result, but that is where clarity ends. A simple critical Brexit position is all that needs taking up, one putting the interest of our people first. Let's call it what it should be: a class position. From here flows the rest - the holding out for a Brexit that isn't paid for by our class, that retains the environmental and workplace protections guaranteed by EU legislation, that doesn't shell out free money to some of Britain's biggest companies under the guise of tariff protection. Yet what do we see? The shadow chancellor borrowing May's rhetoric about making "a success of it", next to nothing from the leader except at Prime Minister's Questions, and too many Labour MPs who think shouting about the "need" for immigration controls will connect with our voters.
Brexit isn't going away and until the party pursues a clear, Brexit-critical line explicitly aligned with the interests of our people, more miserable results await.
If you were feeling nostalgic for this summer's Brexit chaos, the last couple of days should have provided you a fix. The High Court judgement that - rightly - stipulated the requirement for Article 50 to come to the Commons before its trigger threw the government into a panic. It also reminded us of the utter stupidity of senior Conservative politicians . Not having read the judgement, let alone understood it, morons like David Davies and IDS have paraded into the studios to decry this "assault" on the referendum result. This greenlit the unhinged editorial suites of the rightwing press to parade contrived outrage befitting the froth of a Nazi rag. The Mail providing a new low in their grim history as Britain's most vile newspaper. This was almost matched by The Sun who purposely chose to darken the skin of Gina Miller - the petitioner who brought the case - to emphasise their "foreign elite" headline.
The press are accustomed to exercising their power without responsibility, and it's an unalloyed good that the circulations of our most irascible organs are plunging downwards. However, the government, content to let the press mobilise rape and death threats (which, true to hypocritical form, The Sun subsequently branded sick), certainly isn't immune to consequences. On the one hand, it gives more power to the elbows of Cameroons like Nicky Morgan and Anna Soubry - any old rope will do to remind folks they exist and are halfway relevant. On the other it stirs up uneasiness among the wider Tory fraternity as they interpret press outrage as the stirrings of a populist mob of demented bigots venting anger toward institutions the Conservative Party cherishes while simultaneously making their new, strong leader appear powerless. And it can lead to some quitting in disgust, like Stephen Phillips's resignation from Parliament. Despite being a Tory and a Leave supporter, his objection to the sidelining of Parliament in the Brexit negotiations is right and principled. Furthermore, he's not returning to the Commons either. See, Zac, that's how you resign in protest.
Theresa May's project has two strands to it. First off, there is the patching up of the Thatcherite settlement and, of course, securing Brexit. Her base in big business will ensure as softer a Brexit as possible is secured for them, despite current disagreements and round robin letters from our captains of industry. And, indeed, the High Court judgement, which seems unlikely to get overturned on appeal, is going to help that. The problem for May is the former, for the foreseeable, is destined to be conditioned by the latter. If she makes efforts to follow through on the one nationism, which is ultimately about giving British capitalism some degree of stability, they are under threat of getting blown off course and/or undermined by the volatile mess of the latter. Given circumstances are less than ideal, what with a small majority and all that, and commanding huge leads in the opinion polls (which, lest we forget, have historically overstated Labour support), there are voices in the cabinet and media urging her to go for a general election. A whopping majority would, after all, shrink to insignificance the rebellious potential of Cameroons and diehard Brexiteers and ensure, should the Supreme Court find against the government, a large majority to get Article 50 through the Commons with the minimum of fuss.
I still think a general election is unlikely. Firstly, and it often appears that professional commentators need reminding of this, it is no longer in the gift of the Prime Minister to call an election. If there is to be an early election, it requires either a vote of no confidence in the government or a two-thirds majority in the House assenting to Parliament's dissolution. Now, some figure that a way around this is for the introduction of a bill for its abolition, which would only need a simple majority, or the Act's amendment granting the Prime Minister discretion. The problem is both would take up Parliamentary time. It would be very surprising if opposition parties opposed such a move, but it means every party can see it coming a mile off. Effectively, the day it appears on the parliamentary timetable is the day electioneering begins. And it could go on a while if the Commons gets into a game of legislative ping pong with the Lords. The process of calling an election is far from easy.
Second, an election means May would be forced to do the very thing she doesn't want to do, and that is set out the government's Brexit negotiating positions. It is simply not sustainable for the next Conservative government to issue a manifesto and merely say it is dedicated to the best possible result for Britain on page after page. Ordinarily, most voters don't pay attention to detailed minutiae, but with millions politicised by the referendum, this time's would be a little bit different. Oh yes, and there's EU politicians too. While it is impolitic for governments to give running commentary on the internal politics of other governments, there's nothing stopping politicians that are more junior, or are in opposition parties from making statements about the latest Brexit news to come from the UK. And in the febrile atmos of a general election, they could make quite a splash. In short, it's an absolute nightmare that defies the imposition of control.
And there's the issue of whether May could win an outright majority. On the basis of the polls, it might appear absurd to suggest she wouldn't. The PM, however, is nothing but ultra cautious. With politics behaving strangely, she knows it's possible Jeremy Corbyn's Labour could do better. In 2010, despite getting its second worst result since the war and led by a perceived lame duck, it ran the Tories much closer than mid-term polling would have suggested. The second is what would happen to the Liberal Democrat vote. May's majority rests on the ruthless wipe out operation Dave pursued against his erstwhile partners, particularly in the South West. Yet, as we know, the LibDems have been kicking up a storm in local council by-elections. Ordinarily, they mean very little but the trend is sustained and consistent across a spread of constituencies. Not only have they outpaced UKIP, reclaiming the position of third party in England and Wales, but their performance is well in advance of polling figures. If there's a trend in actual elections as opposed to the polls, then chances are it's real. Seeing as May has foolishly flirted with Wrexitism, she is doubly exposed as liberalish Tory types recoil and strong Remain identifiers give the LibDems a punt where they are best placed to win. And if I know this, you can bet she does as well.
How likely is a general election? Not very is the answer. I could be mistaken, but a review of the political terrain and the additional problems a poll in the Spring entails should rule it out. And yet, if she does go to the country despite all this it wouldn't be a first in recent times if politics indulged the irrational.
... much the same as the old chancellor. "Call me Philip" Hammond didn't apply smug factor 50 before his speech to Tory party conference, but he didn't need to. Beneath the boring exterior and the truly, truly awful jokes is a politician whose programme is little different to his unlamented predecessor's. Yes, in tune with his boss's whole nation conservatism, Hammond has woken up to the role the state can play in stimulating the economy and making things a wee bit better. That said, so had Osborne. Before his unceremonious disposal, the deficit and austerity had largely become political window dressing* for a more, how should we say, sensible approach to economic management. The slower, steadier austerity of the old Darling plan necessity forced on Osborne in 2012 had given way to a Keynesian-lite iteration of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls. Not that it was politic to admit this.
And so Hammond is picking up where Osborne had left off. Nevertheless, for politics watchers the speech was entertaining as a plod along a tightrope can be. The long-term economic plan, which never existed, has found itself replaced by the "flexible and pragmatic" plan. A phrase that won't be finding its way to a leaflet near you, Hammond's message, like Osborne's previous trajectory, has economic and political necessity stamped all over it. One of the architects of Tory austerity, Hammond was keen to lay claim to the book balancing rhetoric that served Dave well. Making sure the public finances are sorted is a top, but not the top priority of his economic strategy. And for good measure, he had a go at the "la-la-land" (his words) approach of John McDonnell. Apparently, borrowing while interest rates are at historic lows is not the thing to do, but of which more momentarily. In practice, the Tory manifesto surplus commitment has got itself kicked into the long grass along with all the other decisions May has singly avoided these last three months. Yet for those Tories mono-maniacally wedded to cuts and small-statism, provided they don't look too deeply (and the odd sacrificial lamb is hauled onto the slab), there was enough rhetorical gruel here to keep them sated. After all, with all May's party management problems, she can ill-afford a division opening up on economics.
With the right flank covered for now, the Keynesian turn addresses two pressing problems. If Brexit isn't going to mean wrexit, the state has to intervene to stabilise British capitalism. As overseas investment is likely to wind down once negotiations get underway and given the PM's idiot preference for a hard Brexit, insulating the economy from shocks is a big ask. Unpicking commercial ties and supply chains built up over 40 years of EU membership is as uncertain an endeavour as it is fiendishly difficult. Oh, and remember that thing called the world economy? Instability there hasn't gone away either. Undoing Britain's ties to the EU would be hard at the best of times, but should a new tsunami of crisis break over the world economy then things could get very messy indeed. Having the state undertake industrial activism now and into the immediate future to meet housing demand, provide investment, and sort out the productivity puzzle (which really isn't much of a puzzle).
Then there's political positioning vis a vis Labour. The media and assorted "friends" of the party may have written it off, but May certainly hasn't. Remember - again, that thing: memory - how she made a splash when she told her party they were seen as "the nasty party", and that was the root of their electoral woes. She hasn't forgotten this, despite running stunts like her universally-panned racist van. And neither have other smart lieutenants like Robert Halfon, one of the few Tories who tries to understand his opponents in their own terms. Having seen public opinion swing away from the Tories on tax credits and disability cuts, and a sense that politics is no longer "normal", Hammond's economics must work toward the political centre. And as that is more to the left than in the times of Blair, Brown, and Dave, failure to do so would give Labour an opportunity to define the debate. Don't forget, we've already had some success here despite a year of damaging in-fighting.
A country that works for everyone is the Tory conference slogan, but a paternalist concern for those at the sharp end of crisis and Brexit is entirely absent from the rollercoater ride we're about to embark upon. The bottom line is the bottom line: the preservation of British capital, and the Tory party's place as its chosen political vehicle.
*Only largely, because local government can still look forward to a difficult time.
If politics is war by less violent, constitutional means, it follows that truth fares no better in the peaceful competition between interests. This is especially the case when politics is staking out new territory. If one can define what a problem or challenge is, your solutions, such as they are, have a certain credibility from the off while everyone else plays catch up. Consider the deficit determinism Dave's administration served up for for six years, and scored him a general election result too. The truth didn't matter. By linking the crisis in the public finances with alleged Labour profligacy and not with bail outs and recession, the Tories controlled the story.
Theresa May is doing exactly the same with Brexit. And that means dishonesty at the very basic level is fundamental to how she defines it. In her short speech at Tory party conference earlier, she had this to say:
I believe there is a lot of muddled thinking and several arguments about the future that need to be laid to rest. For example, there is no such thing as a choice between “soft Brexit” and “hard Brexit”. This line of argument – in which “soft Brexit” amounts to some form of continued EU membership and “hard Brexit” is a conscious decision to reject trade with Europe – is simply a false dichotomy. And it is one that is too often propagated by people who, I am afraid to say, have still not accepted the result of the referendum.
She and every leading Tory knows full well this is untrue. When matters turned to Brexit over the summer, proponents of soft Brexit - presumably favoured by reconciled remainers and a large number of leave voters because, after all, a soft exit is what the likes of Johnson and Grayling talked up during the referendum campaign - defined it as fundamentally non-disruptive. Britain after Brexit was to be business as usual with as many benefits retained as is practicable. The hard Brexit position, which has only recently started speaking its name this last month or so, isn't the rejection of trade with the EU as May pretends. It's the reckless abandonment of arrangements that have strengthened the British economy and allowed for the interpenetration of capitals, of workers, of flows of trade and the circulation of goods. The EU sells more to us than what we buy, say the idiots, but as an entity where risk is distributed among a market of 440 million people, the sundering of free ranging economic ties with Britain are going to hurt us far more than our withdrawal will hurt it. And we know from the 2008 crash who'll end up paying for this failure.
In the Bermuda Triangle of the Foreign Office, Dept of International Trade, and the Brexit office sense disappeared right after truth vanished from the radar. May has swallowed the Leave line that Britain can negotiate its own exit that retains all the benefits of the EU with none of the responsibilities simply because, well, we're Britain and we're a Very Important Place. As an assumption to hang a negotiating position, it's utterly reckless. For one, as the default party of British business the Tories show scant awareness of capitalist economics. To demonstrate, there is some evidence British car exports to the continent have taken a hit post-referendum. Who benefits? Well, that would be other manufacturers. Imagine that on steroids. Two years of Article 50 negotiations means a drop in inward investment for companies wanting unimpeded access to the single market. Meanwhile multinationals with a significant presence in the UK, such as Toyota and Nissan, will no doubt hold negotiations of their own with a view to relocation. And European competitors are going to go hell for leather on EU market share held by UK companies because they cannot respond quickly to competitive pressures thanks to Brexit uncertainty. May's foolhardy Brexit is going to put British capital at a disadvantage. Again, remember, this is supposed to be the party of business.
There's a strategic deficit when it comes to the 27 member states too. She seems to have forgotten they have politics too. As above, some would gain from a Brexit as UK-based business relocates and their companies muscle in on markets: they have an interest in a bumpy landing for Britain. At the same time, EU member states - Germany especially - working toward greater integration have to strike a fine balance between maintaining stability that won't negatively impact on their economy, and ensuring no one else has exiting thoughts. While the Tories believe in appealing to the rationality of unimpeded Mercedes sales in Britain, German and EU politics are divided over detente or punishment because EU business benefits differently and unevenly from Brexit. The second big political issue is the Tories' fantasy of free trade without free movement. If by some fluke Britain negotiated such a deal, the populist and the far right in the EU could be emboldened to demand the same. With immigration and the refugee crisis a perennial issue, it's difficult to see how Brussels, with the backing of Paris and Berlin would sign up to an arrangement that could accelerate EU disintegration.
Recall how we got into this mess? That's right, the short, medium, and long-range interests of the country were put into jeopardy for the sake of a small number of Tory voters tempted by a declining and doomed fringe party. May likes to pose as a different kind of leader, but I can't shake the feeling this negotiating position is also conditioned heavily by parliamentary party management. The Brexiters were always going to be her bastards, so the pre-announcement of Article 50 and a clear, if stupid and dangerous position on hard Brexit would keep them happy. But couple it with the Great Act of Repeal (an invite for a limited but publicity-hungry backbencher to call for a national holiday in perpetuity to fall on that date, to be sure), due to be legislated for as the EU negotiations take place and the PM can now look forward to a trouble-free conference. Let this be clear. The government are adopting the weakest negotiating position vis a vis the EU because it preserves party unity.
Asked about his son's role in negotiating Britain's future, Stanley Johnson reportedly said his Boris needs to avoid Brexit becoming a wrexit (wrecks it). Even if he was competent, which he is not, his boss is determined to steer the ship of state right into the harbour wall.
A view from my old mucker, @ianpmclaughlan.
Darwin’s Law, that it's the species that best adapts to change that will survive, is as true of political parties as it is of the natural world. That is the main reason we see such turmoil in our politics right now: they simply haven’t adapted quickly enough to change.
The second factor, and this is crucial, is that people need good information to be able to make the decisions that best suits them. There is very rarely a right or wrong choice, just one which suits the individual taking them. Because of vested interests in society, people were lied to during the referendum campaign. The scale of the lies on the Vote Leave side were an order of magnitude higher than the exaggerations and scare-mongering of the Remain side and so, quite rightly, they will have the most difficult job of reconciling themselves with a public who may turn on them. When Cornwall realises that no Conservative government will want to replace the money the EU spent there, when Sunderland realises that investment decisions at the Nissan plant will be impacted by changes in the UK’s relationship with the single market, when Stoke realises that the UK ceramics industry is best suited, short and medium term, to remaining in the EU people are going to be angry that they were lied to, and rightly so.
That, however, does not mean the decision was wrong. It just means we need to adapt to it. We’ve moved to values based politics, where people care that you are competent, able to do something, and then vote in line with your values. To do so they need to know what those values are, including some concrete examples. Or policies, to use an old fashioned word.
For someone like me, a Labour member, that means by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone. That value should be sweeping all before it right now. That value applies to the UK as much as the EU, both of whose futures are at stake. However, if the Conservatives’ famous adaptability comes through while Labour is still working out who and what it is then they will triumph in an election which will not wait until 2020.
All Labour needs to do is start a national conversation, led by its values and people will flock to it. People are crying out for leadership, solidarity, compassion. The next election will be what it always is: a vote for the party that looks the most competent firstly, but then secondly the one whose values most capture the zeitgeist. The mood of the nation should be about standing together: the four countries of the UK as well as the 27 of the EU because we are better together.
But we do need change too. Managed change is much preferable to a sudden shock, particularly for those who have least. The Article 50 trigger is not one to relish. Labour has all the trump cards: it stands for change, togetherness, compassion in a harsh world and the UK and EU as entities. The leadership battle is an irrelevance – Labour just needs to do something! Corbyn will either get with it or fade away. Start a national conversation about how we save Britain and the EU. Make things better in accordance with its values. I’ll even throw in the slogan they could use: better together. Make sure we link the angst and isolation that people are rightly feeling with a political movement and national conversation led by Labour. And one against narrow nationalism – English or Scottish.
The referendum vote was a vote for change – that is not wrong. Change will come. But political parties must harness it positively and manage it well and in that, we definitely are better together. The Conservatives got us into this mess because of the lies they told – economy and nation safe with them? Don’t make me laugh! They placed personal and party interest over the common good and this unholy mess is the result.
If Labour remembers its values: common endeavour and compassion and uses these to drive a national conversation about who we are and why we are all better together, then it will win the next election.
Large numbers of people support a campaign scarred by racism, hate, and deliberate misinformation. Outraged opponents take to social media to make sweeping generalisations of those taken in. They're all thick. They're all bigoted. These people have fucked it up. I've heard it, you've heard it. Thing is, we've heard it all before.
In 2009, 900,000 people voted for the British National Party in the European elections. Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, now both ex of that crumbling ruin of a parish, packed themselves off to Brussels for all the EU money they could trough. As I said then:
Morality is basic to socialist politics. But moralism is no basis for socialist analysis. The reasons why people vote for the BNP are complex and multi-faceted. In this respect this piece of excellent research commissioned for Channel Four is a good way in. Among the points about BNP voters' attitudes to race and immigration (which, unsurprisingly are more negative than the national average), there are a large minority for whom such concerns are secondary. But these concerns are not new. They have been part of the British political landscape for a long time, predating even the significant influx of Afro-Caribbean and Asian workers after the war.
But when you couple this with the relative lack of security they feel and their relatively low socio-economic status, scandalous media coverage of race and immigration, and the (correct) belief Labour and the other mainstream parties have abandoned working class aspirations, it's small wonder people are prepared to vote for a party that appears to speak to these concerns - whether they have the Mark of Cain or not.
Apart from the stuff about Labour and working class aspirations, the outpouring of Remain complaints, be it the two million-strong petition for a re-run, David Lammy's ridiculous bid to use Parliament to block Brexit, the frantic retweeting of Leave voters suffering "Bregret", and, of course, the name-calling, it is the 2009 bigot blame game writ large.
Of course, you can understand why people are pissed off. I was in a black mood yesterday, and apart from the lone Brexiter it was like someone had died in the office. I spoke to comrades whose reaction ranged from the angry to the despairing. As the economy tipped into the trash can and anecdotal evidence of increased racist behaviour (as predicted) is doing the rounds, there are millions of people horrified at where the country's going. Their venom and bitterness is entirely understandable and, sad to say, for some the shock has proven so large they may never recover. But every crisis has within it seeds of opportunity. And the most immediate is the huge outpouring of anger from millions with the scurrilous campaign Leave waged. Once the disappointment and London independence nonsense has died down, there are signs a wider politicisation is happening. There is a massive opportunity here for the Labour party and the labour movement to articulate this anger and draw hundreds of thousands into politics. It is possible that despite Thursday's awful setback, the future could belong to us.
One man is responsible for today's fiasco, and that is the Prime Minister. Or, thankfully, the soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister. Dave joins Neville Chamberlain and Anthony Eden - coincidentally Tories too - in the hall of notorious failures. For his political vanity, for narrow party advantage over a hard right insurgency that began petering out before he conceded them the EU referendum, Dave has inflicted incalculable damage on the British economy, on the politics of this country, and goes into retirement trailing a bitter legacy of division and hopelessness. Well done that man. Well fucking done.
There's a lot to be written about the referendum - the character of the people voting leave, what it means for mainstream politics, whether UKIP will do a SNP, and the looming no confidence vote in Jeremy Corbyn. But here, while he's still relevant, I want to concentrate on Dave's miserable figure and the trajectory of his career. And there are a couple of things that stand out. As I've argued before, actually Dave is a proven weak leader but his sole discernible talent is to look the part. Hence when politics is aestheticised and image is everything, that is able to cover for his legion of faults. This brings us to his big problem. Dave, you see, is an addict. A gambling addict, and this frame can be usefully employed to think about his career.
Dave's brinkmanship started small. Upon his election in 2005, he put the party in the bath to hose down the muck of ages and the nasty, bigoted toxins the Tories had accumulated. A lot of members didn't like it, and off they went. At the end of it we had a shiny new entity. "Vote blue go green" was the slogan as our youthful PM-to-be preached compassionate conservatism and made out with huskies in the Arctic. It wasn't long before Dave faced his true test. Going up against a wounded and flailing Gordon Brown, he took a chance breaking with the Tory commitment to matching Labour spending and used the window opened by the financial crisis to oppose the measures necessary to save Britain's banking system. Economically, it was as bankrupt as Lehman's, but politically Dave skillfully - with some help from his media friends - turned a crisis of capitalism into a crisis of public spending. Matters were helped by Brown and Darling deciding that the route back to normality meant passing through a period of austerity. Dave gambled by staking out new political ground, and won by setting the terms of the debate.
The next big gamble came shortly after. His "big, open and comprehensive offer" to the Liberal Democrats to join him in a coalition government was a novelty, and commentators - including not a few Labour MPs - were bowled over by this new "cooperative" approach to politics. In practice, there was little qualitatively different between it and any other Conservative government. But Dave reasoned rightly that the LibDems were hungry for ministerial office, and would cling on for as long as they could knowing another chance may never come their way. A recipe for chaos it was not.
Dave's next big stake was the war of equal marriage. Trying to give the Tories a progressive gloss after implementing their first round of cuts, Dave more or less purged the party of its remaining bigots and homophobes. Tory associations folded and UKIP, then presenting itself as a libertarian party, promptly junked these principles and cleaved to the old school to hoover them up as recruits. A risky gamble because a declining Tory party could ill-afford to dispense with activists, and it gave UKIP the shot in the arm it needed.
His gambling appetite was now whetted. While it had simmered away for a while, Scottish independence wasn't a decisive issue then in Scotland. But with the SNP in power, he thought to lance the boil and go down in history as the British PM to see off Scottish nationalism. I don't believe he was far-sighted or Machiavellian enough to believe the referendum would destroy Scottish Labour, but this was the happy consequence as, somehow, the project fear approach of Better Together won the referendum at the price of immeasurably strengthening the SNP and Scottish nationalism in general. It doesn't matter, as what happened in Scotland allowed him to play the English identity card and scaremonger enough voters in swing seats to grant him a slim majority.
The problem with problem gamblers is, unfortunately, they don't know when to stop. Fresh out of the Scottish referendum, Dave sought to neutralise the UKIP vote in the marginals by offering the in/out EU referendum. Fully expecting it to be negotiated away in subsequent coalition talks that didn't happen, the majority landed him with a promise he'd be hard pressed to wriggle out of. What raised the stakes even higher is Dave went away to Europe with the promise to renegotiate the UK's relationship, and came back with thin gruel. He gambled this would be enough, along with a project fear-style 'it's the economy, stupid' campaign to win again and secure his place in the pantheon of all-time greats. His gamble failed. For the sake of a small number of votes from a minor party in decline, he was happy to risk everything. With the risks so high for a stake so small, why didn't someone make an intervention earlier? It's too late. He lost, and - ironically - it will disproportionately be those who voted against him who will pay the cost of exiting.
Dave's career is one gamble after another, gradually growing in risk and increasingly marked by personal vanity. I always knew Dave would get found out one day, and when that happened he'd be finished. He has, and a dislocated and dysfunctional country is what it took.
