Sunday 2 June 2019
If the Deltapoll research commissioned by the Mail on Sunday is to be believed, public opinion is swinging behind a no-deal Brexit.
This is based on 45 percent polled agreeing that a no-deal scenario is "nothing to fear" as opposed to 30 percent who believe that it would cause "severe" problems. And, to cap it all, some 35 percent of Tories say the turd giver's stance on Brexit "has won their backing".
That Tory members are taking this view comes as no surprise. That they support Johnson is a given, with 39 percent – according to Deltapoll – believing him to be the best person to lead the Conservative Party and thus become prime minister.
But what the poll also shows is that no-deal is now more popular in the country than Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement. If another referendum was held tomorrow, just 28 percent of voters would support her deal – lower than the 33 per cent who would be content to leave on WTO terms.
As if that isn't enough stupidity for one day, though, we have The Sunday Times is reporting on an interview with Donald Trump which is a prime candidate for the most idiotic commentary on Brexit yet delivered.
The US president, we are told, wants the UK to send Nigel Farage to negotiate with Brussels and pursue a no-deal Brexit if the EU refuses to give Britain what it wants. He adds that the next prime minister should refuse to pay the £39 billion divorce bill and "walk away" if Brussels does not bow to the UK's demands.
On the eve of the president's meeting with the Queen today, the man-child Trump says that it is not too late for the UK to follow his advice and "sue" the EU to give Britain greater "ammunition" in the talks. And, by way of encouragement, he pledges to "go all out" to secure a free trade deal between Britain and America within months of Brexit taking place to make up for lost trade with the EU.
Trump argues that doing a trade deal with America would more than compensate the UK for any lost trade with the EU and vows to move things forward during his trip this week, claiming that a deal could be concluded "much quicker" than a year. He says: "I would go all out. It would be a great, a great advantage to the UK. A tremendous advantage".
He continued: "We have the potential to be an incredible trade partner with the UK. We have tremendous potential to make up more than the difference. We will be talking to them about that. One of the advantages of Brexit is the fact that now you can deal with the No 1 economy in the world by far".
Trump makes it clear that he believes Britain must leave the EU this year, declaring from the White House Oval Office, "They gotta get it done, they have got to get the deal closed".
Still interfering in the Tory leadership contest, he is backing Johnson, Dominic Raab, Sajid Javid and Esther McVey, all of whom have said the UK must leave, with or without a deal, on 31 October. "If they don't get what they want I would walk away", Trump says. “If you don't get the deal you want, if you don't get a fair deal, then you walk away".
He believes it was "a mistake" for the Tories not to involve Farage in the negotiations and that his "success" in the recent European elections meant he had earned his place. "I like Nigel a lot", says Trump. "He has a lot to offer", asserting: "He is a very smart person". Yet, he complains, "They won't bring him in". He adds: "Think how well they would do if they did. They just haven't figured that out yet".
Days before his final meeting with Mrs May, Trump is also withering about the prime minister's handling of the negotiations saying she left the EU with "very little to lose" and "no downside".
He confirms that he told Mrs May to sue the EU to give Britain greater leverage. "What I would do is, for those mistakes made by the EU that cost the UK a lot of money and a lot of harm", he said, "I would have put that on the table, whether it is in the form of litigation or in the form of a request".
"But", he said, "they chose not to do that. It's very hard for the UK to get a good deal when they go into the negotiation that way".
Where to start with this isn't easy. The temptation to dismiss it as the dribble of a cretin is very strong. So much of what he says is so self-evidently mad that State Department officials must be cringing and our own people must be tearing their hair out. What Brussels will make of it is probably unprintable.
However, when madness strikes a nation – or a significant part of it – we cannot assume that sense will prevail and that what is self-evident will appear in that light to those smitten with the fever.
As pointed out by the Financial Times, its not as if leading Tory remainers are even bothering to run in the leadership contest, leaving the battle to be fought out by varying shades of leave. That, amazingly, puts Gove in the "moderate", arguing that Brexit should be delayed until late 2020.
He is telling his colleagues that a no-deal Brexit in October risks triggering a general election that will put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street. He wants us to bide our time until we are properly prepared. "These are the most complex negotiations in our peacetime history, it's not enough to believe in Brexit, you’ve got to be able to deliver it".
Nevertheless, with Farage snapping at the Tories' ankles, Johnson is going to be a hard man to beat, as long as those who believe that only he can provide an effective counter.
Yet, the FT observes that many Tory MPs and commentators have been noting Johnson's lack of ideological anchorage and his "inherent liberal side". They conclude he will sell out the hard Brexiters once he has won. We are told that the man himself stresses that while he is ready for no deal, "no one sensible would aim exclusively for one". He will get a great deal because he is ready to walk away.
In other words, this is more of the same – an infectious madness that drives out the last vestiges of sense. And no more is this evident than in a commentary from Andrea Leadsom who has joined the Tory leadership race.
Offering her "three no-deal Brexit steps", she would have us believe that a no-deal departure can be ramped up in a "managed exit", which include "delivering alternative arrangements for the Northern Ireland border with the EU".
She will propose "specific regulatory agreements" with the EU for some sensitive sectors that rely upon "just-in-time" supply chains, like automotive and aerospace. For other industries, like medicines and agri-foods, she will seek "specific customs agreements on tariffs and non-tariff barriers". This, she says, "will protect trade in the most vital goods and services but allow us to embrace new free trade deals around the world".
Thus, in different shapes of forms, we seem to be getting a jumble of expectations that centre either on the EU reopening negotiations is we threaten to "walk away" on 31 October, or that the EU will entertain negotiations on a series of deals to "manage" a no-deal scenario.
If so many of our politicians are living in these fantasy worlds, I suppose it cannot be too surprising if a substantial proportion of the population are gulled into accepting their "take" on possible developments and fail to see the dangers in taking the no-deal path.
With the lack of leadership from Labour - and the media all over the place, more interested in what celebrities have to say than in addressing serious issues – there is no firm basis on which people can base a decision, if they are still prepared to look to politicians for guidance.
On the other hand, if Muppets such as Sadiq Khan are going to respond by intimating that Donald Trump is a "20th Century fascist", they are simply going to lock in the madness. If ever there was time for cool debate on the implications of a no-deal scenario, it is now. But, in this febrile political climate, that seems to be the last thing we will get.
Richard North
02/06/2019
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Saturday 1 June 2019
I very rarely comment on US politics. I simply don't know enough about the system and have insufficient awareness of the nuances that make transatlantic politics special and different. Hence I have little to offer and could end up misreading the signs, drawing entirely the wrong conclusions.
That said, I wish US commentators would exercise the same caution when it comes to making observations on UK politics. And that particularly applies to Donald Trump, whose intervention on behalf of the turd-giver is singularly unwelcome.
Speaking glowingly of the ex-Foreign Secretary in a world exclusive interview with The Sun, POTUS declares that he has studied the Tory leadership contest "very hard" and knows the different players. "But", he says, "I think Boris would do a very good job. I think he would be excellent".
At least The Sun is sufficiently on the ball to realise that this intervention - just a few days before MPs start voting - is a major breach of protocol. It risks, says the paper, sparking a full-blown diplomatic rift between London and Washington if the turd-giver fails to take the Tory crown.
More to the point though, foreign politicians simply have no business interfering in UK domestic politics, and especially in support of such a tawdry and controversial character who, by any measure, is entirely unfit to take the office of prime minister.
As for Mr Trump, he seems to be finding it difficult enough looking after the affairs of the United States. He would, thus, be better advised to mind his own business, and keep his own counsel on matters that are not his concern.
Richard North
01/06/2019
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Friday 31 May 2019
Courtesy of one of my readers, my attention has been drawn to the very recent series of Reith lectures by Jonathan Sumption, judge, author and medieval historian, sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012.
The overall title of the series is "Law and the decline of politics" and only two of the lectures have been delivered so far, both with transcripts. Of particular interest is the second lecture, entitled "In praise of politics", specifically because Sumption takes a brief look at Brexit.
"Europe", he says, "has now become the defining issue which determines party allegiance for much of the electorate. As a result, we have seen both major national parties which previously supported membership of the European Union adjust their policy positions to the new reality".
"In a sense", he tells us, "that is what parties are for, it’s what they have always done, but there remains a large body of opinion, in both major national parties, which are strongly opposed to Brexit".
And from there he adds, "One would therefore ordinarily expect the political process to produce a compromise not entirely to the liking of either camp but just about acceptable to both. Now that may yet happen but it has proved exceptionally difficult". In Sumption's view, the "fundamental reason" for this is because of "the referendum". A referendum, he says, "is a device for bypassing the ordinary political process".
Alarmingly, in the view of this learned judge, this referendum "takes decision-making out of the hands of politicians, whose interest is generally to accommodate the widest possible range of opinion, and places it in the hands of individual electors who have no reason to consider any opinion but their own".
He then asserts: "The very object of a referendum is to inhibit an independent assessment of the national interest by professional politicians, which is why it might be thought rather absurd to criticise them for failing to do so".
And so he concludes: "A referendum obstructs compromise by producing a result in which 52 per cent of voters feel entitled to speak for the whole nation and 48 per cent don't matter at all".
Taking this in the context of the whole speech, and with having listened to the first, there is an interesting argument here, based on a number of quite disturbing assertions.
Picking out one of those, I don't know whether to be amused or mortified by his deference to "professional politicians", which appears to afford them gravitas and a status which they hardly seem to deserve. Earlier, he tells us that these professional politicians "can fairly be expected to bring to their work a more reflective approach, a broader outlook and a lot more information than their electors".
Thus, these obviously admirable persons are the ones who undertake an "independent assessment of the national interest", while the venal individuals voting in a referendum " have no reason to consider any opinion but their own". And it's fairly evident which scenario Sumption prefers.
However, in my view, what we have here is an extraordinary example of an intellectual disconnect. Still earlier he refers to the relationship between people and the state, arguing that we obey it mainly because "we acknowledge its legitimacy".
This is, Sumption says, "a collective instinct that we owe it to each other to accept the authority of our institutions, even when we don't like what they are doing". From there, he asserts:
It depends on an unspoken sense that we are in it together. It's the result of common historical attachments, of language, place and culture. In short, of collective identity. But even in an age when collective identities are under strain, legitimacy is still the basis of all consent for in spite of its immense power, the modern State depends, on a large measure, of tacit consent.
With this I would not disagree but that would seem to make Sumption's distaste for referendums rather perverse. By any objective measure, joining the EEC in 1972 involved a fundamental change in the relationship between the citizen and the state, imposing another tier of government – a supreme government in the areas of its competence - which was beyond the reach of the democratic system.
We can argue the merits of this until the cows come home, but the unarguable fact is that this change was made without the prior consent of the British people. And while, there was the ex post facto exercise of the 1975 referendum, not only did this not confer informed consent, it did not cover the additional European treaties which were agreed between then and now.
Taking the very point that Sumption makes, therefore, when our membership of the EU lacks consent – either tacit or explicit – it lacks legitimacy. And that consent is not a matter for "professional politicians". It can only be conferred by the people themselves. And how can this be expressed, other than through the medium of a referendum?
As to parliament's refusal – so far – to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement, and thereby formally take us out of the EU, Sumption believes that this is an example of politics, "in some small degree, reasserting itself". Parliament, he says, "has forced compromise on those who feel that the referendum entitles them to absolute outcomes".
In fact, that is a misreading of the situation. All parliament has shown is that it is chronically incapable of making a decision on Brexit. And indecision is not "compromise". It is indecision.
But what we are actually hearing from this judge/historian is the voice of the authoritarian establishment, a man who automatically assumes that his "professional politicians" can fairly be expected to bring to their work "a lot more information than their electors".
This is a man in his own bubble, oblivious to our own gradual realisation that the MP collective is the repository of the most staggering ignorance, limited by tribal politics and loyalties, and quite incapable of taking a "reflective approach" or a "broader outlook". In Sumption's little world, there is no such thing as the citizen expert, a concept he would doubtless regard as somewhat vulgar.
But then, who are we plebs to argue? While we have no reason to consider any opinion but our own, he is a judge. And, in his words, "Judges are intelligent, reflective and articulate people". Not only that, they are "intellectually honest" – although only "by and large", but they are "used to thinking seriously about problems which have no easy answer and contrary to familiar clichés, they know a great deal about the world".
This could be regarded as an elitist view, and I doubt whether Sumption would disagree with that. He is happy with the concept of a ruling elite – this, after all, these include his "professional politicians", the guardians of the collective national interests "which extend over a longer time scale and a wider geographical range than are ever likely to be reflected in the public opinion of the moment".
But whether or not it is elitist, it certainly reflects the arrogance of a class which self-evidently feels it is entitled to rule. With reference to Brexit, he implies that this is an instance where citizens are sacrificing the true interests of the country to short term considerations, unthinking impulses and sectional interests.
He cites the 18th century political philosopher David Hume who, we are told, first pointed out what he called the "incurable narrowness of soul that makes people prefer the immediate to the remote". If we are to avoid the same "narrowness of soul", Sumption says, "we have to take a view of the national interest which transcends snapshots of the current state of electoral opinion".
The inexorable conclusion to which he then leads us is that we should defer to these magnificent, all-knowing "professional politicians" who are taking the longer view, as opposed to us mere plebs and our "incurable narrowness of soul".
Sumption, however, needs to read his own speech. "Even in a totalitarian State", he warns, "civil government breaks down at the point where tacit consent fails and ideology cannot fill the gap". He then continues:
If that was true of the party dictatorships of Eastern Europe with their intimidating apparatus of social control, then how much more is it true of a relatively free society such as ours?
Says Sumption:
The legitimacy of State action in a democracy depends on a general acceptance of its decision-making processes, not necessarily of the decisions themselves but of the method of making them. A free society comprises countless individuals and groups with conflicting opinions and interests. The first task of any political system is to accommodate these differences so that people can live together in a single community without the systematic application of force.
He might reflect that the referendum which he so detests has unequivocally withdrawn consent to our membership of the European Union and its decision-making processes. No amount of "professional politicians" can change this. Their job is to restore legitimacy to the system, without which there is only "the systematic application of force".
If parliament can't do its job, as Pete observes, we're in for a pretty torrid time. The "systematic application of force" may be the only thing they have left. And we all know where that leads.
Richard North
31/05/2019
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Thursday 30 May 2019
Not a few have expressed reservations about the private prosecution of Boris "turd-giver" Johnson on three counts of misconduct in a public office, after allegations that he lied about how much Britain gives to the EU.
This is the infamous £350 million a week claim on the side of the big red bus and while there can be little dispute that Johnson was lying through his teeth, the concern is that the courts are not the place to do politics.
Moreover, the motivation of "campaigner" Marcus Ball, who is behind the action, appears to be very far from pure. Already, he has been outed as an anti-Brexit campaigner. This allows the turd-giver to claim victim status and the action to be dismissed.
Nor is there any certainty that this case will ever be tried. The case rests on the assertion that Johnson, while actively campaigning for Vote Leave during the Brexit referendum campaign, retained his role as a public official having been Mayor of London up to 9 May 2016.
In his defence, Johnson appears to be denying that he was acting in any official capacity and was simply taking on the role of political campaigner – the inference being, of course, that the lies of mere campaigners are beyond the reach of the courts. And, in pursuit of that argument, Johnson's legal team are intimating that they could challenge the decision to allow the prosecution to go ahead through the medium of judicial review.
Should the case go to trial, it will have to be heard in the Crown Court in front of a jury, since misconduct in a public office is potentially a very serious crime, carrying a maximum sentence of life. Thus, sub judice rules will apply which could either close down speculative reporting on the case, or give Johnson an escape route on the technicality that pre-hearing publicity has prejudiced his right to a fair trial.
All this notwithstanding, one can sympathise with the broader irritation at the proliferation of political lying and the failure of traditional controls to limit their spread. In better days, the politician telling an overt lie would be picked up by the media and taken apart by rival politicians, when a sense of shame on the part of the progenitor would act as a corrective and the lie would be recognised for what it was.
But what is lacking from contemporary politics is any sense of shame. As Peter Oborne wrote in his 2005 book, The Rise of Political Lying, Britain now lives in a post-truth political environment. Public statements are no longer fact-based, but operational. Realities and political narratives are constructed to serve a purpose, dismantled and the show moves on.
When it was published 14 years ago, Oborne asserted in his book that this rise in political lying was new. All governments, he said, have contained liars, and most politicians deceive each other from time to time. But in recent years mendacity and deception have ceased to be abnormal and become an entrenched feature of the British system.
Given this "post-truth political environment", when it came to the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016, it was inevitable that lies would form a major part of the discourse, especially when one of the most prominent campaigners on the "leave" side was (and is) a practised and fluent liar.
It says something of Johnson that I can write about him in such terms without the slightest fear of being sued. But this is the man who started off his journalistic career with The Times by fabricating quotes. And, although this behaviour got him fired, he simply moved over to the Telegraph, where his talent for mendacity was put to good use as the paper's Brussels correspondent.
After a long career marked by lies, plagiarism, petty theft, episodic thuggery and spectacular political incompetence, one would have thought that no self-respecting organisation would have anything to do with him. And that proved to be the case, as he joined the Vote Leave campaign to take on the role as its most prominent spokesman.
But in a domain where lies had become common currency, what offended most was the sheer brazen effrontery of a lie that was not peripheral to the campaign but a central part of it, emblazoned on the side of the "battle bus". And, despite the number and authority of the rebuttals, the campaign kept using the lie, impervious to any correction.
For all that, though, it is not as if the other side could claim the moral high ground. They, after all, supported an organisation which was built on a foundation of lies to the extent that its history could sustain our lengthy book with the title The Great Deception and which, only this week has one of its most senior officials perpetuate the lie that it was a "strong, pan-European democracy", with "a genuine mandate from the people".
Since lies have now become embedded in the very fabric of our politics, it hardly seems appropriate that the liar Johnson should be singled out for special treatment. After all, the originator of the "£350 million" lie was not him but Dominic Cummings where his performance in front of the Treasury Committee had him seeking to argue black was white.
What this demonstrated was not so much the Oborne thesis that the rise of political lying is a new phenomenon but that there is no longer any restraint on the use of the lie in politics. Not only has it become a normal and common tool, the progenitor of the lie is the one who prospers. Hence we see the turd-giver as the front runner in the Tory leadership contest.
But it is only a newspaper that itself is home to frequent and egregious lies that could cast its liar-in-chief as the "victim of a plot" when attempts are made to bring his lies to book. Whatever the motivation of the prime mover, the indisputable fact is that Johnson perpetrated and endorsed the lie at the centre of the leave campaign.
Such is the paper's complete lack of any moral grounding that it then casts the action as "legal harassment" which "reeks of Remainer despotism".
This "sustained legal harassment", we are told, is occasioned simply because Johnson "had the temerity to campaign to leave the EU". This is "truly the conduct of anti-democratic authoritarian regimes the world over", the Telegraph huffs.
One doesn't have to like, or be comfortable with, the idea of legal action to recognise special pleading when one sees it. Already, the Telegraph has so completely lost touch with any idea of what constitutes truth that it had its own political correspondent, the very same Peter Oborne, resign from it, calling its coverage "a fraud on its readers".
That it has now elevated a practised liar to its star columnist, and rushes to his defence when he is called out as a liar, tells you all you need to know about the paper. But it also tells us an awful lot about contemporary politics. This is the art where the lie proliferates and the liars flourish.
Across the board in politics, truth, accuracy and integrity have become redundant. And we are the poorer for it.
Richard North
30/05/2019
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Wednesday 29 May 2019
It was only recently, on the 10th of this month that I wrote about the delusion of democracy in what has become the EU. This was in the wake of the informal European Council at Sibiu, with the Sibiu Declaration, which sought to maintain the pretence that the European Union is democratic.
Now, with the European elections just over, they're at it again. To be more specific, Donald Tusk is at it, speaking after yet another informal European Council, this one held in Brussels. The EU leaders, he said, met to assess the outcome of the European elections and to discuss what these results mean for the EU, as well as for nominating the new heads of the European institutions.
First and foremost, he added, "we are very happy about the turnout, which was the highest in 25 years". And indeed it was. Since 1979 turnout had been steadily dropping, going from almost 62 percent in that year, down to a historic low of 42.6 percent in 2014. And now, it has crawled back to 50.5 percent, which stands as the projected turnout for this year.
But, according to Tusk, "This proves that the EU is a strong, pan-European democracy, which citizens care about". He then added, "Whoever will lead the European institutions, they will have a genuine mandate from the people".
So here we are once more, with a high-level statesman in the European Union making the fundamental error of confusing form with substance – the idea that because people are able to vote for something, the voting process confers democracy on the body concerned.
In many ways, this is an insult to our intelligence. Of the thousands of papers and books written about the EU and democracy, the concept of the demos features prominently in the discussion, with many serious people arguing that, without a demos, you can't have a democracy.
Moreover, even the strongest advocates for European political union will largely acknowledge that there is no European demos. In conventional terms, that rules out EU democracy. This leaves supporters to resort to the dubious practice of redefining the very nature of democracy, such as by asserting that it can be measured by reference to participation in the decision-making processes.
Even if one allowed this, the turnout in the election proves absolutely nothing about the democratic state of the EU, far less that it is "a strong, pan-European democracy, which citizens care about". Just for reference, the Soviet Union legislative election of 1946, under the benign, liberal leadership of Joseph Stalin, managed a turnout of 99.7 percent.
But to add injury to insult, Tusk goes on to assert that the new leaders of the European institutions "will have a genuine mandate from the people" – something which could not be further from the truth.
Oddly enough, I wrote about this, on this blog nearly fifteen years ago, and nothing has happened since to change the basis of what I had to say.
The use of the word "mandate", I wrote, is generally held to mean the sanction given by electors to members of parliament to deal with a question before the country. And this works because the candidates for an election set out their stalls by way of manifestos. In theory, the electors then look at the rival offerings and choose between the candidates on the basis of the promises made.
Even in national elections, this has a slender relationship with reality, although the argument does have some limited validity. At least at national level, the winning party (or coalition) goes on to form a government, which then (again in theory) implements the voters' mandate.
In the European Parliament, however, this cannot happen. For a start, the election does not produce a government, so the parliament has no power or authority to implement a mandate. It cannot, for instance, decide to repeal any EU laws – it cannot even initiate any laws. Those powers lie elsewhere.
Therefore, the candidates – or the parties they represent – cannot produce manifestos in any meaningful sense of the word, as they have no means by which they can deliver on promises made.
Furthermore, in a parliament currently standing at 751 members, Britain elects only 73 MEPs, and then from different parties with differing ideas of what they stand for. Even if all were from one party and were clearly set on one course of action, they do not have the numbers to dictate terms. Even if they decided to represent their electors as a united bloc, they could be swamped by the MEPs from other member states.
And there lies one of the central defects of the European Parliament. The essence of a parliamentary system is that it is the core of a system of representative democracy, where the members go to parliament to represent their electors' views (and safeguard their interests). But British MEPs cannot represent the interests of their electors – there are not enough of them to do so.
But the ultimate indictment of the system is the way that legislation goes rolling on, even when a new parliament is elected. In the UK system, when parliament is dissolved prior to an election, all outstanding legislation – not yet passed – falls.
This is not the case in the European Union. Legislation in progress continues apace, which leads to the situation where newly elected MEPs can and do find themselves voting on laws that were introduced to the previous parliament. The names and faces of the MEPs may have changed – the voters may have completely shifted their allegiances – but that makes absolutely no difference to the nature of the progression of legislation through the parliament.
The nearest equivalent to a manifesto – or perhaps the UK's Queen's Speech setting out the legislative programme – is the Commission Work Programme. In the 2019 version, published in October 2018, the Commission even went as far as to assert that, in the elections just past, the decisions that "Europeans" made "will reflect their confidence in the ability of the European Union to deliver solutions to the challenges that cannot be addressed by any of our Member States acting alone".
And here we have the most refined form of bullshit known to man. This famous vote does not give "Europeans" the opportunity to choose between competing visions. Merely, the plebs are allowed to express their "confidence in the ability of the European Union to deliver…" – a work programme that has already been determined and will carry on regardless.
There is certainly something of the USSR in this. European "citizens" are presented with just one work programme by an unelected body, which they are not allowed to reject. And when they vote in the Euro-elections, regardless of the fact that most of them are actually voting on domestic issues and could not tell you what the programme was about – this is taken as a vote of confidence in the ability of the European Union to deliver it.
The irony of all this, though, is when Monnet set up the template for the European Union, its USP was that it paved the way for a supranational government, deliberately controlled by unelected commissioners who were thus immune to the base motivations of national (elected) politicians.
Thus, the fact that the EU is anti-democratic is supposed to be an advantage. But so much do the Euro-luvvies lack confidence to assert the case for the construct which they so much adore that they must continually pretend it is something that it isn't, and cannot be – a democracy.
If they were at all honest with themselves – and us – they would be making the case that the EU is capable of delivering precisely because its Commissioners are unelected and owe nothing to a fickle public, whose wishes they can ignore in the interests of the greater good.
The truth, though, is obviously far too difficult to sell, so a ramshackle case for democracy is invented and the great deception continues. And so, as the lies proliferate, the European Council is the gift that keeps on giving – reminding us of why we needed to leave the EU.
For Mrs May, it was her last European Council as prime minister. Our only wish is that it is the last European Council for us as a nation.
Richard North
29/05/2019
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Tuesday 28 May 2019
Going back thirty years, politics to me was trade politics and I was actively engaged in what quickly became known as the Salmonella in eggs scare. But one of the hardest things to take was the torrent of ill-informed media coverage which had little to do with the reality of what was going on.
As the headlines poured out their misinformation, it got to the point where I could not bear to look at the papers or watch television. I had to switch off from the media completely until things calmed down – such was their degree of disconnect.
Right now, I get the same feeling with the coverage of the Euro-elections – the media has just become noise, lacking coherence or intelligence, failing in its most basic of functions of providing reliable information or reasoned analysis. The only sensible thing to do if one wants to stay in touch with reality is to shut it out.
One of the most fundamental defects in the reportage is the failure to evaluate the results in the context of what in fact is a low-turnout, low-interest election. Not least, with the results fully in, we're seeing the Farage Party gain 29 seats with a total vote of 5,248,533 as opposed to the referendum result which had 17,410,742 voting leave.
If we can assume that those who voted for Farage also voted "leave" in the referendum, that only means that 30 percent of the referendum's leave voters actually voted for Farage. On no grounds and under no circumstances, therefore, can Farage be taken to represent the totality of leavers. All he can claim is a minority interest, amounting to less than a third.
As for the overheated predictions that Farage is now a serious contender in the forthcoming general election, if we just look at the 2017 election, where no party gained an overall majority, the Conservatives with the highest number of votes, still took 13,636,684 votes. On that basis, to win the next election, the Farage Party would have to double its vote and then some.
Yet, experience of the Farage-led Ukip indicates that, whatever they might gain in the Euro-elections, they will take only a fraction in the general. Thus, while Ukip gained 4,376,635 in the 2014 Euro-elections, a year later in the general it recorded a mere 3,881,099 votes – reduction on the previous vote against a much higher turnout.
And yet, there are those who are suggesting that the election could be different this time, although they are somewhat at risk of wanting it both ways. The very essence of the support for Farage was that it was a protest vote in an election which didn't matter, where people were prepared to take a risk-free punt.
In a general election, however, it gets serious. People know that they are electing a government and are thus less inclined to take risks. Thus, time after time, where we see outliers in peripheral elections, the electorate tend to focus on the parties most likely to be able to form a government.
Then, as I pointed out last night, while Farage has done well, his achievement falls considerably short of spectacular. As the natural heir to the Ukip vote, he has to be measured against the 2014 baseline, where the party he then led took 24 seats. This time round, he's taken 29, a gain of a mere five seats.
Considering the amount of free publicity he's been getting, against the backdrop of a collapse in the Tory vote and a serious contraction in Labour, this is no great achievement, considering that his two rivals have shed 25 seats between them. By contrast, the pro-EU Lib-Dems have picked up 15 more seats, the Greens have taken another four and the SNP have added one to the two they already had.
Thus, measured in terms of gains, the party unequivocally in favour of a no-deal Brexit has gained five seats, as opposed to the pro-EU parties which have taken 20 of the seats shed by the Tories and Labour.
Now that the full results are in, we can also tot up the votes for the parties which have unequivocally declared their positions. On that basis, we can discount the ambiguity of Labour and the Tories in the throes of a leadership contest.
On the "leave" side, we have the Farage Party and Ukip taking 5.8 million votes, ranged against the Lib-Dems, the Greens, the SNP and Change UK. Collectively supporting EU membership, they took 6.6 million votes. That's a bigger margin than we saw in the 2016 referendum.
What this says is that the UK results of the Euro-elections can't be taken as a re-run of the referendum. There is a valid and entirely credible argument for declaring that the pro-EU sentiment came out ahead. And, once again, one has to state that there is no clear (or any) mandate for a no-deal Brexit.
There is then the third pillar which points us away from any specific mandate – the turnout, compared with the votes cast. With Farage taking 31.6 percent of the votes cast, from a corrected turnout of 36.9 percent, that means that only 11.6 percent of the electorate could be bothered to give him their votes.
This is not the start of a great revolution that Farage would have us believe. He doesn't even represent the majority of leavers, and has absolutely no claim to speak for the nation. Apart from not having an absolute majority of the votes cast, the low turnout – increased by a mere 1.8 percent – destroys the legitimacy of any claim to universal representation.
Yet, for all that, there is a distinct possibility that the Farage "victory" will cast a shadow over the Tory leadership contest. We know that Boris the turd-giver has already committed to a no-deal Brexit – in the absence of a renegotiated settlement (which he won't get) – but the danger is that some of the more "moderate" candidates may misread the signs and also opt for a hard line exit.
This, according to The Times, already seems to be happening, after Dominic Raab has stated that the Tories' disastrous performance meant that the party needed to show "unflinching resolve" to "get on and leave the EU" even without a deal.
But, if there is one clear message to be drawn from the Euro-elections, it is not how much support Farage has, but how little – alongside the evidence that "no deal" is the minority view. After all, Farage could not have made his position more clear, giving supporters of a no-deal Brexit the opportunity to express their views, yet less than 12 percent of the electorate took that opportunity.
On the other hand, while Corbyn seems to be drifting towards a second referendum – already favoured by the Lib-Dems - it cannot be said that the election just past demonstrates unequivocal support for this course of action.
In an attempt to divine some sense out of the situation, Lord Ashcroft has commissioned a poll which indicated that nearly two thirds (64 percent) of 2016 Leave voters backed the Farage Party. And therein lies the rub. Two thirds may say they support Farage, but two-thirds didn't vote for his party.
What comes over most clearly though is that the Farage Party was used as a receptacle for the protest vote, with 84 percent of self-declared supporters saying they wanted to show their dissatisfaction with the UK government's current negotiating position.
Interestingly, only two thirds (67 percent) of Farage's supporters said the best outcome from the Brexit process would be for the UK to leave the EU without a deal. A further 23 percent wanted to leave with a deal different from the one negotiated by Theresa May, although theirs was not the no-deal path. Thus, the actual support for the Farage policy may not be just under 12 percent of the electorate but closer to seven percent.
As to the general election, of the Tories who switched to Farage, only 52 percent say they will stay put. Currently, a third intend to go back home. That, however, is before the outcome of the leadership contest is known. And although the Conservative "brand" is highly toxic, a new leader could transform the party's image.
Needless to say, the hubris of Farage knows no bounds, as he rashly capitalises on his slender success to stake out a position for the general election. But, as the Financial Times points out, a general election could sorely test the party, including its ability to be a united force. Its newly elected MEPs are both left and right wing - such as ex-Communist Claire Fox and Richard Tice, a property developer and ex-Tory.
So far, Farage's Party has prospered by deliberately having no manifesto, thereby avoiding internal disputes over policy issues. This, though, is the fatal error made by Vote Leave, which has been one of the main contributors to the Brexit impasse. Once Farage attempts to create policy, the cracks between the disparate factions in his party will begin to show.
Finding a policy on taxation and public spending, for example, that can unite Ms Fox and Mr Tice could be "tricky", says the FT. On past form, within months – if not weeks – Farage's Party will be riven with dissent, erupting into public squabbles and resignations of some of the more prominent MEPs.
That leaves room for some of the more sensible Tory leadership candidates – possibly Jeremy Hunt – to put the case for Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement. Certainly, anyone with sense will realise that if we leave on 31 October without a deal, there will be 30 months before the general election for the public to experience the effects.
It is a given that the party will by then be unelectable. As Hunt rightly says, a push for no-deal would be political suicide. Farage, as a promoter of the no-deal pathway, will share the opprobrium. He will be the least of the Tories' problems. But, in the meantime, we have to get past the media noise and wait for people's brains to start working again.
Richard North
28/05/2019
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Monday 27 May 2019
"Vote like it matters! Every vote counts", said Mr Juncker when he cast his vote yesterday in the European elections. But, of course, it doesn't matter. The whole damn process is a charade.
There is one interesting irony though. With 371 of 373 counts completed (at the time of writing) the Tories who, in 1999, took 36 seats, are down to three – exactly the same number that Ukip gained in 1999 when they first won some seats. But the tables aren't exactly reversed. The Farage Party gets 28 MEPs, taking votes from the Tories and Labour.
From its peak of 23 seats in 2014, Ukip is down to zero, their seats effectively having been transferred to the Farage Party. But, despite the collapse of the Tory vote and savage trimming of Labour, which collectively have lost 23 seats compared with 2014, Farage has only picked up five seats.
Interestingly, the 18 gains making up the balance have gone to the Lib-Dems (up 14 from one) and the Greens (up four from three), which means that the unequivocally "remain" parties have made more gains than Farage.
Moreover, while the Farage Party took 5,244,893 votes, the combined votes of the Lib-Dems and Greens were 5,377,001. With Ukip polling 549,159 while Change UK gained 571,716 (without either getting any MEPs), that puts the remainers ahead of the leavers.
No doubt, there are endless ways of playing with the figures and there will be differing interpretations from the rival factions. Suffice it to say, though, that the great Farage "victory" seems to owe more to the voting system than it does the overall number of votes.
In fact, Farage seems to have under-performed on the day, taking 31.6 percent of the vote, compared with the 37 percent some of the opinion polls were giving him. The overall results, therefore, are ambiguous and settle nothing. Certainly, with less than a third of the vote, this is no mandate for a no-deal Brexit.
Nor can anything significant be taken from the turnout. This stands at 36.7 percent, up a mere 1.8 percent – hardly any evidence of a national display of exuberance. In terms of the total electorate, that gives Farage less than 12 percent of the electorate. That isn't a mandate for anything.
As for the rest of Europe, the EPP seems to be in the lead on 179, having taken some losses. The Social Democrats – who were expected by some to take the lead – are trailing in second place with 150, while the Liberals pick up 107 MEPs. Nationalists have not fared as well as predicted, so the traditional core of the European Parliament keeps its majority. There should be no overwhelming problems when it comes to a choice of Commission president, or confirming the Commission.
So, for all the hype, nothing much changes – here or abroad. Specifically, in the EU-27, there is no substantial move either for or against "Europe", but nothing which will threaten the status quo either. And so ends an enormous amount of effort with very little to show for it.
And the European Parliament still ain't democratic.
Richard North
27/05/2019
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Sunday 26 May 2019
Since the referendum in 2016, this blog has been devoted to charting the progress towards Brexit – not that we've seen much of that. The very last thing I want to be doing, therefore, is to chart the ins and outs of a Tory leadership race.
It may be a cliché, but watching paint dry is far more interesting – and that is without the slightest hint of exaggeration. As an amateur model-maker, having only recently resumed a boyhood hobby, I am a fairly new convert to modern, water-soluble acrylic paints, which dry within minutes to a consistent, predictable finish.
The painting is the final stage of what might be a long, difficult build, and it really is something akin to magic to see flat, two-dimensional parts emerge as a three-dimensional representation of a complex machine, redolent with history and past achievements – such as the Saracen armoured personnel carrier pictured above (with over a hundred separate parts).
A fascinating aspect of the human psyche is how we can compartmentalise our lives, so that different, entirely separate aspects can assume huge personal importance, even though they may be entirely trivial and inconsequential when compared with other parts of our lives.
Thus, when not fully engaged with Brexit, or building up my collection of scale models (my aim is to build 100 separate types of tank, from the First World War to the present day, a museum in miniature of the development of this fascinating machine – and much harder than you might think), I am engaged in a prolonged war of attrition against the local population of cats.
It is a feature of certain parts of Bradford that you get whole rows of houses without gardens, front or back, and such is our immediate neighbourhood where Mrs EUReferendum and I are the owners of a house with a garden – one of only three in the street so blessed.
A significant proportion of the householders of the other houses, however, have decided to acquire pet cats - I've identified at least twelve in close proximity. I don't know what passes through the minds of their loving owners when they let their cats out after a period of confinement, and what they think their little darlings might be doing when they make a bee-line for our garden.
Suffice to say that the stench of a communal cat latrine, the flies and the risk of bringing these unwanted gifts into the house if one is unwary enough to tread on them, is not something that fills me with unalloyed joy. Take twelve and multiply by 365 and that is the scale of the problem that confronts us. It is long since I have enjoyed the smell of fresh-mown grass. The scent released by the action of inadvertently running the mower over the accumulated deposits is not one about which any poet would rhapsodise.
So far, I have spent a small fortune on ultrasonic cat deterrents, which actually do work, except that the buggers find gaps in the coverage and sneak behind them to make their daily deposits.
By dint of purchasing multiple units and plastic mats akin to beds of nails (called prickle strips), augmented with mesh fencing to protect vulnerable spots, we have managed to bring the problem down to manageable proportions. The flower beds are now largely clear, with considerably less damage from feline digging activities.
However, we still have one persistent offender which seems to be immune to all our devices, and insists on gifting us with a glistening turd each morning, deposited strategically in the centre of the lawn. Unsurprisingly, we call this creature Boris.
And it is there that my two worlds collide. In political terms, this is precisely the equivalent of what Mr Johnson is doing in the Tory leadership race, the one difference being the applause he gets from the feeble-minded for his efforts.
But what we are also seeing is the emergence of a new pitch for this foul creature. On top of his pledge to take the UK out of the EU without a deal at the end of October, his supporters are telling us that "Boris the turd-giver" is the only man who can stop the combined threats of Corbyn and Farage.
I've always wondered, incidentally, why the Telegraph is so keen to publicise the exploits of Farage, when Johnson is so obviously their man. Then it suddenly occurred to me that it makes absolute sense to talk up the Farage threat if you can then position your man as the saviour. Hence the paper seems to have adopted a "promote Farage, get Johnson" strategy, which has some MPs holding their noses and pledging to back the turd-giver.
For all that we've been there before, and once again we can call upon the experience of history to illustrate the point – with the added bonus of having the naysayers squealing with indignation.
That illustration, of course, comes from Germany of the 30s, where the rise of the Nazis in Germany was treated by foreign observers – not least Neville Chamberlain – as a bastion against the growing threat of Communism and, therefore, the lesser of two evils. Even the Vatican fell into this trap so that, while it had a strong record for excommunicating foreign statesmen for transgressions against the Church, it never took any formal action against Hitler.
In this context, there are those who are very ready to deploy the "slippery slope" argument – something we've seen recently with the use of tactical, political milkshakes. And, while it has long been considered the right of every Englishman to express his displeasure of politicians by the use of such devices, we are now sternly cautioned that it might be dairy products one day, but this could so easily lead to acid-throwing the next.
If we are to buy into this argument, it is indeed a very slippery slope to support politicians not for their intrinsic merits, but for what they might prevent. "Elect Johnson – stop Farage" might have a certain appeal, but it allows the intrinsic character of the "blocker" to be discounted, on the premise that some greater good is being achieved.
Here, it would be the ultimate in betrayal – to resort to an over-used word – if MPs were to opt for the turd-giver, purely on the basis that it might protect the Conservative Party from the assaults of Corbyn and Farage, thus elevating the party to a status way above the national interest.
But then, that highlights the ultimate obscenity of this contest. In its first phase, we have the very MPs who have made such a pig's ear of Brexit now charged with defining a shortlist of two, from which the party leader will be chosen, then to become prime minister.
In the final stage, it will then be for 120,000 or so party members to pick from the two candidates selected for them. And, if the "Stop Boris" campaign gets its way, this will not include their person of choice.
Even then, the membership could be deprived of any choice if, as is being discussed, one of the two finalists withdraws from the contest immediately after selection.
On the other hand, if the members are given a choice, they should be acting in the national rather than the party interest. But, depending on how one would define the national interest, it could be argued that the Conservative Party members are uniquely unqualified for that task – notwithstanding that there will be little debate as to what constitutes the national interest.
It surely cannot be right that the fate of the nation is to be determined in such a manner, while the rest of us are forced to look on, as powerless spectators. This must be the very last time a prime minister is chosen by such means.
For Mr Corbyn, though, the answer to this dilemma is easy: there should be a general election. Yet, this mindless response neglects several important factors. Firstly, general elections embrace a multiplicity of issues and it would be entirely wrong to interpret any result as a mandate for a particular line on Brexit.
Secondly, in general elections we vote for constituency MPs, not prime ministers. We, as an electorate, have no power to ensure that the person we vote for by proxy will actually be the leader who makes the decisions. The political parties who choose the leaders owe no allegiance to the electorate at large, and are not obliged to act in the national interest. As we are seeing at the moment, the coming prime minister will not even have the figleaf of an electoral mandate.
Thirdly – and peculiar to this particular situation – with the closeness of the two main parties and with the complication of the Farage Party, there is no certainty that a general election would resolve anything. We could just as easily end up with a hung parliament where the end result is an unstable coalition which is not able to decide anything.
That, to some, points us in the direction of another referendum, which at least has the merits of being focused on the issue at hand. But even if there could be any consensus on the question(s) to be asked, the outcome could be just as inconclusive as the votes in parliament.
When it comes down to it, there is no substitute under the current system for parliament doing the job for which the MPs are paid – making decisions which then allow government to perform its functions. And, whatever the manifest failures of Mrs May, we have reached this crisis point because parliament has not done its job.
The irony here is that Mrs May resigned as prime minister because she was unable to convince parliament to do what was necessary. A new prime minister is unlikely to have any better luck – and especially if, as seems likely, the wrong person is chosen for the wrong reasons.
Richard North
26/05/2019
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Saturday 25 May 2019
Well, the deed is done, the prime minister bowing out with an admission of failure, and pledging to resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday 7 June "so that a successor can be chosen".
In truth, though, she's been a dead woman walking ever since the Lancaster House speech on 17 January 2017, when she set out her government's negotiating objectives for exiting the EU, under the title of a "Plan for Britain".
Unwittingly (she can hardly have done it deliberately) she set herself up for the fall, excluding the UK from the Single Market and thereby creating the conditions where her eventual nemesis, the Irish "backstop", emerged. This was the inevitable consequence of her decision and one which was to lead directly to her downfall. The rest, as they say, is history.
This is a story we've already told and, even on the day, we knew it for what it was – a complete disaster which I labelled a "car-crash plan", only to upgrade it to a "Jumbo-jet crash". From thereon there was no way she could succeed, so it was only a matter of time before she was making that dreadful, lonely walk to the lectern outside Number 10. The only surprising thing is that she lasted so long.
But now that she is on her way out, nothing is solved. The Withdrawal Agreement document still stands, together with the integral Irish backstop, which isn't going to go away. Upon the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement rests our entry to the transitional period, which will keep us away from the cliff edge while the government negotiates the future relationship.
Without the Withdrawal Agreement – as we've been told so often by the "colleagues" – there will be no transitional period and we drop out of the EU without a deal, into the no-man's land of the "WTO option", which is nothing more than a recipe for chaos and economic ruin.
Changing the prime minister isn't going to change the facts on the ground. A new leader might have delusions about going to Brussels and renegotiating the deal, but that isn't going to happen, even if the Oaf thinks he can walk on water – assuming he gets the poisoned chalice.
Thus, any new prime minister will still have to confront a recalcitrant, dysfunctional parliament which has long since failed to work out which way is up. He (or she) will still have to present the Withdrawal Agreement to the House and get it ratified, if a no-deal exit is to be avoided. And, if Mrs May could not get the MP collective to move, there is little hope that her successor will fare any better.
The Oaf, however, has kicked off the leadership race by declaring that we will leave the EU on 31 October, "deal or no deal", despite suggesting that he could try to renegotiate a better deal with Brussels before pressing ahead with the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.
Of course, it takes no talent at all to go down the no-deal route. This, after all, is still the default option so all he would have to do is about the only thing he is any good at – precisely nothing. Dealing with the aftermath, however, would tax the skills of an organisational genius, demanding a level of competence that the Oaf would surely fail to demonstrate, bringing his tenure in No 10 to an end faster than Mrs May has achieved.
Necessarily, that assumes that the Oaf would take the crown and, although he is firm favourite in this obscene contest, the front runner doesn't always win. In fact, during the 2016 contest from which Mrs May emerged as leader, the Oaf was very much the bookies' favourite, only for him to drop out of the contest before it had started.
In 2005, David Davis was favourite for the crown, but it was outsider David Cameron, on the basis of a single speech at the Conservative Party conference, who was first past the line. Heseltine was the firm favourite in the 1990 contest but it was John Major who went on to become leader. And, going back to 1975, the eventual winner, Margaret Thatcher, was not even a runner when Heath came under fire for losing the previous October election.
That the Oaf is even a contestant in this current race, however, says much for the deterioration of British politics. That a serial plagiarist, a known liar, thief, bully and thug – with a record of incompetence in office – can be presented as a serious candidate for the highest political office in the land has to rank as one of the lowest points in British political history.
The worst of it is that, for the duration of the contest, we are likely to see the suspension of any serious politics – even if it has been some time since we have seen the likes of any serious political debate about Brexit. But it is unlikely that we will get anything noteworthy from any of the candidates.
In a way, there is nothing very much any of them can actually do. Mrs May not only boxed herself into a corner, she also closed down all the options for an orderly exit – bar one, the universally unpopular Withdrawal Agreement. No candidate is going to prosper by advocating more of the same, or by admitting that any new prime minister is going to be in exactly the same position that Mrs May found herself in.
Any honest debate would have to concede that the options are so limited that the only thing a successor should be able to do, in order to avoid a cliff-edge Brexit, is follow exactly in the footsteps of Mrs May – which would then raise questions as to why she was forced out of office. Hence, the very last thing we are going to see over the next few weeks is an honest debate.
There are still those, for instance, who assert that a no-deal exit would simply give way to a series of "pragmatic mini-deals" with Brussels.
Doubtless, the EU will act to protect its interests but its actions so far have been to implement a series of unilateral measures which, where they provide some relief for the UK, do so only because it is in the interests of EU Member States – and on the basis of reciprocity. Such measures can hardly provide the conditions for frictionless trade that UK companies need, or put us back in control when all we are doing is reacting to EU initiatives, the nature of which we learn only when they have been published.
One can see, though, the dishonesty and self-deception pervading such arguments when the current author of the claims still calls in aid Article XXIV of the GATT, despite its assumed application having been comprehensively debunked.
It doesn't help either that Brussels is in the midst of its electoral cycle, as well as replacing its Commission president and renewing the Commission. As it winds down for the summer, it is the very worst time for a new prime minister to seek new terms from the EU. The "colleagues" have more pressing matters to deal with, and are not without their own problems.
The idea that the Commission is then going to drop everything and focus on the needs of the UK is beyond absurd. The UK will be way down the queue in the list of things the Commission has to do, and the UK government will find it hard to get the attention of European policy-makers.
Yet still we see the UK-centric assumption that the EU will immediately launch a series of complex negotiations for the benefit of a UK which will have walked away from the political declaration as well as the Withdrawal Agreement. The arrogance of such an assumption speaks for itself.
It is nevertheless the case that some of the more lurid scare stories have been overblown, but there cannot be any dispute that the UK leaving without a deal will place us at a grave disadvantage – with full consequences emerging only after the event. Blind optimism and disregard for the implications of a no-deal exit do nobody any favours.
Despite this, we are going to be forced to endure the endless prattling of vacuous, self-seeking pundits, all for no political gain whatsoever, just for the dubious benefit of seeing a different face at Number 10. And then, in early October, when the conference season is done, we will start all over again, with exactly the same agenda, with the same unresolved issues on the table.
But, as the Westminster bubble devotes itself to its own private agenda, the real world continues to exert its own influences. Soon enough they will find that getting rid of Mrs May has achieved nothing at all of any consequence.
Richard North
25/05/2019
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Friday 24 May 2019
Just about everybody's at it, homing in on Mrs May who is expected today to announce the date of her departure from Downing Street. Monday, 10 June is widely forecast as being the start of the leadership contest, after the state visit from President Trump and the Peterborough by-election.
Once again, therefore, the political classes have turned in on themselves, playing their dire games instead of getting on with the job for which they are paid. By way of a consolation prize for the Brexit we should have had but haven't got, we have a vast spectator sport called "guess the new leader", as the Westminster bubble takes time out to focus on its own concerns.
And, of course, it is a spectator sport. Unless you are a fully paid-up member of the Conservative Party - one of a tiny minority – you don't get a say in who is to be the leader of the government in one of the most critical periods in the country's history.
And then, even in that privileged position, you only get to vote on the pickings of three hundred or so Tory MPs, who will do their best to ensure they control the selection process, the net effect being that no one, at this stage, is able to predict who will be in the final run-off.
In what amounts to a thoroughly undemocratic process, the one small consolation is that the MPs may at least act as a filter to block the loathsome Johnson being put to the wider membership. Left to the rank and file members, they would probably vote for this creature. He has long been their favourite.
Possibly manifesting a sense of guilt about going AWOL at such a time, the bubble-talk is of the contest being over by the end of July, by which time parliament will be in recess. But that, as I have observed before, will require the agreement of the minor candidates. With as many as 25 expected to throw their hats in the ring, the bulk of them will have to stand down after the first round in order to speed up the voting process.
But, with a significant number of MPs on the "anyone but Johnson" ticket, that degree of cooperation cannot be assured. There will be a significant number who want to game a system where the short-sharp campaign is said to favour Johnson.
It certainly says something of contemporary politics that his supporters want that quick campaign, fearing that, if it is stretched out, their favourite will "blow it", by making one of his frequent gaffes. Presumably, they want him to be in post as prime minister before he makes his next gaffe – which he most assuredly will.
Until the Tories have sorted out their own internal grief, though, serious politics has been suspended. And since it is a long time since we've seen anything like serious politics, there is no guarantee that they will resume once a new leader has been appointed.
The one guarantee we do have is that, should the Tories be rash enough to allow Johnson to be their leader, we will not see anything approximating serious politics until he is gone. With that - and the certainty that this man would not command a lead in any general election – one hopes that this partisan electorate will see sense.
The trouble is, of course, that the Conservative parliamentary party is not exactly a reservoir of huge talent. In fact, the gene pool is such that it challenges the very fundamentals of Darwinian theory, where the most prominent of the candidates conform more with observations of what happens in a sewage farm.
However, to be presented with the choice of the least-worst, as an alternative to an outright wrecker, is not exactly a sound basis on which to select someone who will have to make some extremely difficult and complex decisions and then, potentially, go on to lead the government through complex and prolonged negotiations with the EU on our future relationship.
Nor is a general election any answer. This nation has been doubly cursed, having suffered not only the worst prime minister in living memory – if not our entire history - but also a staggeringly incompetent opposition. Between the two, they have destroyed public faith in our system of government, to the extent that even rather dubious demagogues begin to look attractive to the feeble-minded.
Confronted with what amounts to a non-choice, one can have a certain sympathy with those who look beyond the current party mix for their salvation. But if party politics is at the root of much of what ails our system, opting for more of the same, only with different colours, is hardly going to solve our problems.
It would be a mistake, though, to think we are alone in our problems. Most countries in Europe are experiencing some degree of popular disillusion with their politics and, across the Atlantic, the spectre of a divided nation is just as real. It is not just our party political system that it at fault. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we do politics, not just here but in many other countries.
Sadly, in this country at least, the response has been very much in keeping with the tenor of our own parliament, articulating our dislike of current systems and volubly expressing opinions on the things we don't want. But there is a singular paucity of positive ideas for improvement and most thinking in the area of reform is restricted to trimming round the edges of existing systems, dealing with procedural and consequential matters.
Short of a violent uprising and open civil war though – or the sort of low-grade armed insurgency in which the IRA specialised - it is hard to see how fundamental change could be achieved in a system where the establishment is highly skilled at maintaining the status quo, and marginalising those who are seeking genuine change.
But then, in the history of mankind – right up to and including the establishment of the modern Irish state – it is difficult to find a successful example of activists enforcing fundamental change to a system without violence.
The one exception might be the relatively peaceful transition of the former Communist satellites to a style of democracy, after the collapse of the Soviet empire. But even in this, we have yet to learn whether the Ukraine is an outlier or a harbinger – without forgetting Yugoslavia. One could say that the post-Communist settlement is still work in progress.
Viewed in that context, the UK's travails over Brexit might be seen in the broader context – possibly in terms of the gradual disintegration of the post-war settlement in Europe. Every now and again, the political tectonic plates do shift and, with three-quarters of a century having elapsed since 1945, we are probably ripe for change.
I would like to think that, as a species, we are capable of devising a new political settlement, and without the violence so often attendant on such change, and without having to endure the tedious histrionics of passing demagogues before we are able to identify a lasting model of governance, suitable for the 21st Century.
Whatever does evolve, one thing is for certain: representative democracy as we know it is dead in the water. The primacy of this system depends on the foundation myth that elected representatives are somehow better qualified and equipped to make decisions than the people they supposedly serve.
If Brexit has done nothing else, it has exposed for all to see the emptiness of that premise. Far from being leaders of thought and opinion, many MPs have shown themselves shackled to their tribal factions, weighed down by empty mantras and trailing in the wake of ordinary people, who are far better informed than they.
The rise of the citizen expert is something on which we commented back in August 2016, noting that the phenomenon had not yet been properly (or at all) understood. The aphorism "knowledge is power", I wrote, is still as valid as ever it was, and it is fair to say that much of a politician's power resides in the impression that they have better access to knowledge than ordinary mortals.
The important thing here, I continued, is that, with extraordinary wealth of information now available, it is not access which is the limiting factor, but time – and then skill. There simply isn't enough time in a day to visit all the information on a given subject, so even if MPs devoted all their time to keeping themselves up-to-date, they could never compete with the specialist who can afford to devote more time to the acquisition of information than they can.
In a sense, I concluded, information has been democratised. It is possible that, in its wake, we could actually see a true national democracy, rather than the pale shadow that passes for it at present. Thus, if information really is power, the people are probably closer to real power than they ever have been.
What they and the politicians need to do is to realise that there has been a shift of power, and then the "citizen experts" need to learn how to use their new-found power to effect. That is as true now as when I wrote it. The only thing that has changed is that the need is that much more urgent.
Richard North
24/05/2019
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