Children or adults?

So, at long last, the government has arranged for some of the children from 'The Jungle' in Calais to be brought across to the UK to be re-united with their families. (Someone must have needed press coverage to show how 'caring and compassionate' she is).

The tabloids went mental at the suggestion that some of them might not be quite as young as they say.

• An MP suggests dental checks: dentists refuse ... 
• Gary Lineker (amongst others) shows sympathy with the refugees; The Sun calls for him to be sacked ...

... and so the story developed.

Our super-competent government is planning to introduce a visa system to decide who will, and who will not, be allowed to enter this country.

If it cannot screen 14 children, in slow time from as close as Calais, how are they successfully going to screen the other 320,000 [... and falling*] that want to come to the UK each year?

We are surely not going to use any of the £350m a week (Brexiteers' estimate) saving from being in the EU to hire more border staff. That is already committed to the NHS (Brexiteers' promise)?

* An after-thought: with the racist atmosphere being promulgated by our media, egged on by those who should know better, it is unlikely that the demand will be as high as this in future. Well, I suppose it is one way to bring down immigration.

Still 'moaning' ...

What an amazing mess this government is continuing to make of Brexit. As the clock winds down, nothing is becoming clearer and it is being dragged kicking and screaming to the realisation that some sort of parliamentary scrutiny is going to be inevitable. Its objective, it seems, is to prevent anyone derailing its view of what should happen.

Fine in principle, it is just that it has not explained what that is.

As David Davis told Parliament recently there was a clear, overwhelming and unarguable mandate for Brexit in the referendum. As one commentator pointed out, this sentence contains three lies in six words. For 'clear' let us use 'wafer thin'. For overwhelming, let us remind ourselves that about a third of the country voted to leave the EU and for 'unarguable' let us remind ourselves that the vote was 'advisory'.

There are three possible positions for Remainers to take: to accept, to squirm or to refuse to accept. The bullying cosh of 'democracy' has forced most Remainers into one of the first two groups. I am firmly in the third which people enjoy referring to as being 'in denial'.

For a Remainer to Accept the Result seems a complete cop-out. Democracy is not some magic fairy dust which has clear and unambiguous rules. It is the will of the people. Our chosen method is representative democracy. To judge each issue in isolation is naive and simplistic. Every decision has knock-on consequences which need to be balanced and we delegate this to people called MPs.

No one has written the rules down of our system of democracy. We have written constitution and so our system of governance has to be based on precedent and goodwill. (I note, in passing that the British Constitution A level has recently been deleted from the curriculum).

No one could objectively call our country a model of democracy, despite our belief that we created the system and have the mother of parliaments. A simple mention of the words 'House of Lords' and 'Proportional Representation' should suffice to show how far we are from a true 'democracy', if such a thing is actually achievable. We are hardly progressive. A natural British conservativism has prevented any meaningful change since women's suffrage.

The second option is To Squirm. It is encouraging that, at last, Parliament is beginning to demand to be involved. It will have to contend with the whips of course, and the machinations of a government which seems to think that a parliamentary rubber stamp will suffice. WS Gilbert would love the idea.

Even the Telegraph's sketch writer, Michael Deacon, seems to be questioning the government's approach, however, rightly suggesting that the government seems to think that they have a free hand to do whatever they want. An earlier piece, again very surprisingly from the Telegraph, showed that migration was an economic benefit to the country and that migrants were not actually taking jobs away from 'British people'.

For The Times, the incomparable Matthew Parris has had his Damascus moment, opining that we are facing the biggest crisis since Suez. For those who do not remember this (and Matthew was close to this as a boy), this was the moment when the UK finally showed that it was no longer capable of 'gunboat diplomacy'. The end of empire followed. Now we are about to show that we no longer understand international trade. Truly the end of any chance of 'Greatness': a horrid concept, much loved by Brexiteers.

People like Keir Starmer and Nick Clegg seem to understand the parliamentary game and are leading the charge. It is a far more astute political - note the lower case 'p' - game than some. 'OK, so you have a plan. Tell us what it is before you do anything irrevocable. Just explain to us how it is going to work and we will judge it on its merits. If Parliament approves it then think how much stronger your position will be in any negotiations.'

I like their style. It is not surprising that this sends the government into a tailspin. 'Oh dear me no. That would be to betray our negotiating position.' This response conveniently hides the fact that the three blind mice cannot agree amongst themselves, let alone other members of the cabinet. Allow the public and media to judge us on what we are seeking to achieve. Oh dear me no. There will be no running commentary.

My response is one word much-favoured by Brexiteers: 'Democracy'.

Finally, there is the Refuse to Accept or denial group. This is the purists option.This is the silent group that needs to be placated in any compromise deal. I suspect that long-time Europhile Ken Clarke is in this group.

The arguments here are that the referendum did not produce David Davis' clear, overwhelming and unarguable mandate. It was a single, advisory vote which told us almost nothing about the mix of reasons why people voted as they did. It told us what people wanted to do - leave the EU - but gave no information about why. In many ways it was a selfish, single issue vote without context.

It was a vote in the same category as 'Do we all want a free pot of Marmite every day'. There would be those who loved it and those who hated it but it would make no economic sense.

It was a question on a single issue with neither side setting out no a clear economic and social manifesto in advance It told us what we did not like but not why, nor what alternative we preferred.

Before we went to war with Iraq, we were given many 'facts' and invited to make up our minds. Many of us said 'Not in my Name' but the government of the day went ahead anyway.

The debacle was followed by the hugely expensive Chilcott review. This concluded that the decision had been based on lies and there have even been calls for Tony Blair to be prosecuted.

Let's wind the clock forward. If Brexit produces the economic effects predicted by the 'experts' then will we be looking back with another Chilcott review and wondering how we ever took the decision to leave the EU after a campaign of lies? Nick Clegg refers to the comments by the main culprits as 'mendacious'.

With each day that goes past, another lie is exposed, another 'commitment' withdrawn or 'clarified'. All we are left with is the conclusion that we should leave the EU: a conclusion whose foundations have faded away.

This week, a Tory councillor suggested that anyone in the last two groups - the Squirmers and Deniers - should be charged with treason. If that does not give you some flavour of the Tory mindset and love of freedom of speech, I don't know what does.

In the absence of any sort of plan, the government seem to be doing nothing but sit with their hands over their ears to avoid hearing the messages coming out of the EU and the leaders of the other 27 countries. It is saying that 'metropolitan elites' with their 'sneering' and 'logical arguments' should be told to shut up. And it is doing nothing to persuade people like me to join the first group.

Truly a new take on the fable of the three wise monkeys.

Enough is enough

The recent Tory Party Conference was genuinely a watershed. As Ian Hislop has said, the first few days sounded like the UKIP Conference and then we had one day of the Labour Conference in which the PM made lots of smooth-sounding platitudes about bringing people together, governing for all and making a success of Brexit.

She has become rather good at such noises ... but ruined the effect the following day by allowing Sajid Javid to announce that fracking is to go ahead in Lancashire in defiance of the wishes of the local community and in favour of big business (sorry, 'our national energy policy'). I am sure that the people of Lancashire will have enjoyed the exercise of 'democracy'.

It was possible to feel deeply insulted by the response that it was not for Parliament to double-think the will of the British people, presumably because that was reserved for the ruling clique who have interpreted the June vote to suit their own purposes. One commentator even tried to justify the government's strategy on the basis of 'polling' which makes one wonder why we bother to have elections at all.

Just as we were reeling from Liam Fox' suggestion that existing EU nationals were mere cards to be played in our negotiation with the EU we heard from our Home Secretary which was surely the nadir of the Conference. (Not forgetting that our control-freak PM's former job - record definitely doubtful - was Home Secretary and this is a policy area in which she would have a special  interest)

Amber Rudd's speech said that companies would need to record the nationality of all staff and name and shame those that were employing foreigners. This was particularly appalling as it came from a minister in a cabinet that prides itself on its micro-management of news (with the exception of statements by the three blind mice/wise monkeys who seem to be a law unto themselves and frequently contradict each other).

Her speech was the moment that I said 'I can no longer stand by. I must act.'

A clarification assured us that Rudd had not meant what she had said at all and that there was no question of naming and shaming it was just that government was going to collect the statistics so that it could work out where there were 'skill shortages'. Back-tracking under pressure, and so quickly.

As an aside, can someone explain to me how the system is going to work? Data would be submitted by firms. This will no doubt say 'this database manager job is occupied by a person born in Czechia' ...which will feed through to the Education Department who will train up a new database manager so that, in 20 years, we will have a person available who can fill that job. This is the apparent thinking behind Jeremy Hunt's delight in announcing that 1500 extra doctors are to be trained each year (and about time too).

Or will it feed through to Employment Offices who will be required to trawl through their records to find someone who claims to be a database manager so that they can be posted to the firm concerned who can then 'let go' of the Czech national?

And, if so, then how many civil servants will it take to administer such a scheme? And at what cost?

And will the number of vacancies - less the number of existing Brits who claim to be able to do the job - be passed to our Consulates so that they can 'let in' suitable people who can then apply for the jobs?

And what happens if the Brits concerned turn out to be wholly unsuitable for the jobs concerned? What of the government's productivity drive then?

Then there was the message to the LSE that the government would not permit anyone with a foreign passport to provide advice to government on matters to do with Brexit, ostensibly for fear that 'our negotiating position - (do we read 'lack of any coherent plan'?) should leak. This was so swiftly and strenuously denied as to be deeply suspicious.

I can no longer stand by at such centralist fascist bullying, such xeno-racist talk. All it requires for evil to prosper is for good people to do nothing. Just as Donald Trump's vile remarks show the true character of the man - not something that can be dismissed as locker-room chat - so last week's announcements show the true character of this government.

Let me state my position clearly: this government must go, starting at the top.

In 1997 we were a nation that was at ease with itself. Not now. Not when half the country is regarded as deluded for their views. Not when the government of the day behaves like the worst sort of bully - 'you lost get over it' - aided and abetted by most of the mainstream media (owned by rich tycoons who stand to benefit most from Brexit). Not when the government of the day does nothing - not a single thing - to win us over to their vision of the future: not an explanation, not a reasoned argument, not an invitation to engage: just platitudes and 'it will be alright on the night'.

Some of us wish the UK to continue as an Open, tolerant and united country and yes, those words may be familiar but they should apply to all political parties in the great tradition of UK.Why, they are probably enshrined in the 'British Values' which the government is so keen that all schoolchildren should learn about.

Parliament managed to find time to discuss - but not vote on - the plan for Brexit this week. Of course a vote could not happen: the government might have lost it. Was this the re-capturing sovereignty for our own parliament that was promised?

I do not normally post things verbatim on this site but every now and again something appears which hits the nail on the head. What follows is a letter from someone about whom I know nothing but who clearly feels the same as many of us:

Dear Prime Minister

I was a Remain voter.

When you became Prime Minister I was cautiously hopeful because I felt you would be a voice of reason and moderation in a country where these qualities seemed to be being cast aside. Even when you appointed Messrs Fox, Davis, and Johnson to government, I felt perhaps that this was an intelligent move to give the responsibility for execution to those who had so carelessly made lavish and unfulfillable promises.

However, the Conservative Party Conference has disabused me of this hope.

Although I am now in my sixties, I have never known the country so divided as it has been since 23rd June. 

The Conference would have been an opportunity for a real leader to reach out to try to start to heal some of the wounds. Instead, you decided to use your speech to disparage the 16 million voters who felt it would be a huge mistake for this country to leave the EU.

Thanks to your speech I learn that I am, in your eyes, part of a “sneering, metropolitan elite” because I struggle to understand why a slim majority of my fellow citizens voted to go down the disastrous route of leaving the EU.

It is certainly true that I have sneered at the manifest dishonesty of senior politicians (some now in your cabinet) who misled the electorate by telling lies so crass, so grotesque, that they had to be withdrawn a day or two after the referendum.

However, I do not sneer and never have sneered at the concerns of the poorest and most disadvantaged in our society – I myself grew up in that sort of background. I believe they have very real causes for concern which have been ignored for far too long. The irony of this is that you have been a senior member of governments which, for the last six years, have been doing the ignoring, so trying to place the blame on those who voted Remain is a cynical misdirection of responsibility.

Truly, if you want to see real sneering, you have only to glance at the Daily Express or visit a Brexit website.

That apart, I am angry.

I am angry at MPs who seem to think that it is perfectly acceptable to make the most significant decision of a generation on the basis of these lies, and who lack the moral courage of their own convictions.

I am angry at a government which, after a narrow margin in favour of detaching from the EU (with a significantly disenfranchised electorate and where “Leave” voters were motivated by a wide range of considerations) now seeks to convert this advisory vote (for thus it was) into a mandate to lurch to the extreme right and to turn on those of foreign birth who have made their lives in this country.

I am angry at a government which, pursing a policy supposedly in the name of “taking back sovereignty”, now believes that it alone has the right to decide on the future of the country without reference to our elected parliament.

I am angry at a government which appears intent on a “hard Brexit” which will condemn us to a further decade or more of recession which will hit hardest the poorest and most needy in our society, will severely diminish our place in the world, and which may well fragment the United Kingdom itself.

I am angry at a government which fails to invest in housing, education, health, and other infrastructure and then cynically encourages the blame to be passed on to immigrants when services cannot cope.

I bow to no-one in my pride at being British, but patriotism is not the same as a narrow, xenophobic nationalism. I believe that our future lies in close co-operation with other European Democracies, rather than with regimes like China, or in gloriously futile isolationism. In truth, right now I am feeling ashamed of my country.

I do not normally spend a huge amount of time engaged with politics. I have only once written to a Prime Minister before: to Tony Blair on the eve of the Iraq War. However, it appears that you now think of me as your enemy, along with the sixteen million others who voted Remain and who are, for the most part, still deeply concerned about the direction in which our country is heading. So be it.

A few years ago, you yourself said of the Conservatives: “They call us the Nasty Party”. Well, after your party’s Conference, people are now calling you the Nazi Party. There’s a legacy to be proud of, Prime Minister! 

Yours sincerely 

Martyn Calder

The job I am used to

Have you noticed how someone who is promoted internally seems to enjoy doing the same job they had before? There is a natural comfort in knowing the topic.

It is akin to what follows the familiar line If I were in charge we would ... which usually results in a rather narrowly-focused solution largely based on the person's current job rather than one which takes other factors into account.

Our new PM is certainly following this trend with her interpretation of the referendum result as being all about migration (which she failed to control in her previous job) and squeezing the European Court of Justice (with whom she crossed swords in her last job) out of our affairs.

It is sad that the economy will need to be sent down the pan to overcome her previous failings.

Democracy in action?

With Theresa May firing the starting pistol on Brexit over the weekend, the world is coincidentally full of referenda (referendums?).

Hungary has just voted in a referendum to prevent the EU from telling it how many migrants it should take. A turnout of 50% was required but the vote only achieved 43%; however 98% of those supported the government's stance. Naturally, the Hungarian PM claimed it as a victory with a spokesman calling it 'binding politically and legally'. Hmm ...

We could learn from the Hungarians on phrasing a question. Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary even without the approval of the National Assembly. In its English translation, the question probably requires the reading age of an intelligent eighteen year old but really only invites one answer: the one it received.

Hungary had only been asked to take 1,294 migrants: about 0.1% of its existing population and the equivalent of the UK taking about 8,000. They went to the expense of a referendum for that? The cost of the vote must have well exceeded the cost of housing the refugees.

Meanwhile, in Colombia, a country that has been ravaged by drug wars for over 50 years, they held a referendum on the FARC peace deal which was rejected by a tiny fraction over 50% of the population, even more finely balanced than the Brexit result. The opponents wanted heads on plates, not reconciliation.

As to our Brexit one, with its simplistic question and 'advisory' result, everyone has been interpreting the result as 'meaning' whatever they wanted it to mean. We are now told that it was not about a hatred of Westminster/banker's bonuses/austerity/human rights/taking back control/fishing quotas ... but it was about migration, pure and simple. Apparently the voters have given their verdict with 'emphatic clarity' (TM).

But there are parliamentary rumblings ... as former Tory minister Stephen Dorrell succinctly put it: focussing negotiations that were about economic policy on immigration would be an 'odd' move ... To pursue a pure objective on immigration - that way lies madness.

Referenda may be the latest tool of 'democracy' but they are blunt and silly ways to make coherent, joined up policy. Just ask the Swiss.

Another week, another Turkey

The turkeys continue to vote for Christmas although we now seem to have different and very conflicting recipes on how to to cook our bird.

Over the weekend various groups who were worried about the slow progress (if any) with Brexit started to cohere demanding the idea of going for a 'Hard Brexit'. This, as far as anyone can define is to say 'let's forget about the single market and simply go it alone in the world'. I make this the microwave recipe for it assumes we simply send in the Article 50 letter as soon as possible, put two fingers to our former friends and get on with it: fast.

The fact that this group included great striding minds like John Redwood and Jacob Rees-Mogg should surely tell us all we need to know about its credibility.

If David Cameron's original intention in calling the referendum was to sort out disagreements within the Tory party then it is clear that it has not yet succeeded. There seems to be no consensus on whether we need/want/will get access to the European single market.

• On Monday we heard that Senior Tories had 'warned against hard Brexit' despite people like Boris backing the idea 
• On Tuesday Michael Howard took a typically tough line and argued for a hard break while showing his lack of understanding of existing trade relationships - and this from a former party leader
• On Thursday, Liam Fox seemed to want to have his cake and eat it. In a speech as full of optimistic visioning and as devoid of detail or rational facts as David Davis', he hinted at a hard Brexit and suggesting that we would have access to the single market with little problem. The old adage of 'they need us more than we need them ...' which stands up to about 30 seconds worth of analysis. Nick Clegg was on hand to point out the fallacy. It is so good to have a Trade Minister who really understands his brief

Also on Thursday, the big beast Ken Clarke appeared to be 'agreeing with Nick' when he said that the PM was running a government with no policies and had not a clue what she was doing with Brexit. He went on to say he was not going to change the conviction of lifetime and vote in favour of Brexit despite the referendum result. It is good to see someone saying it at last.

Liam Fox later waved away the warning from Nissan bosses that they would stop investing in their highly successful plant in Sunderland if tariffs made them uncompetitive. What an irony that it was Sunderland that was the first to declare their vote in the referendum and the poor people of that city look like being the first turkeys to discover the meaning of Christmas.

It is worth reading the full article in the Independent in which the author, James Moore, leaves us in no doubt about his view of Liam Fox or Brexit.

• [New models will] almost certainly be built in countries that haven't chosen to shoot themselves in their economic foot
• ... but Brexiteers like the odious Liam Fox, Secretary of State for International Trade ... 
• [And when the jobs go in Sunderland] ... you wonder whether Mr Fox has given any thought to what he might replace them with? More call centres?
• Will Mr Fox, a wealthy man who will be all but immune from the economic fallout of Brexit, be welcomed if he visits the affected areas after this has happened? Probably not a question worth asking. I doubt he'll have the guts.  

No doubt he, like the Express (whose link with reality was lost long ago) believe that 'we will be fine' because the economy is doing well just now.

It took a wonderful piece in Private Eye to nail the truth in a few well-chosen words:  To put it in more technical term, the shit hasn't hit the fan yet, as Theresa May tries to delay turning the fan on for as long as possible.

Turkey itself was in the news with Boris once again flip-flopping his views on the benefits of their joining the EU.

• Two years ago, in a television documentary he sat on the banks of the Bosphorus and underlined the cultural importance of Turkey joining the EU
• In May/June this year, he backed the Brexit campaign and stressed the danger of 70m Turks (overtones of 'Muslims', terrorists, Syrian refugees ...) flooding into the EU and thus into the UK (despite everyone pointing out that Turkey had a very long way to go on the process and the UK would have a veto on them joining anyway) 
• Now he wants to be very helpful in assisting Turkey to join

It must be such good news for Turkey to have the support of such a reliable partner, even if we are about to leave the very thing they are about to join. I wonder what help the UK - the least credible member of the EU - could possibly give.

Somewhere during this week, there was a Labour Party Conference but other than re-crowning Saint Jeremy, it had little connection with the reality we face and barely mentioned Brexit.

Next week we have the Tory Party conference at which we expect to hear much about domestic matters and probably very little detail from the PM about Brexit. After all, she would not want to give us a running commentary, would she?

'Dead cats' - like the proposals for grammar schools - will be thrown in our paths to distract us from asking difficult questions about her least favourite topic.

Having had a French and a German minister trying to explain the four freedoms - and the link between access to the single market and freedom of movement - to the UK in words of one syllable, rumours abound that it just may end up as a mess.

The last word of the week must go to that Euro-hero Guy Verhofstadt (who we last met being dropped from Nigel Farage's Christmas card list). Here is his 'Christmas' message to the world:

So Boris Johnson wants to help Turkey join the EU, after he just campaigned for the UK to leave the EU on the basis that Turkey would be joining the EU in the near future.

The UK Defence Minister today says the UK Government will block EU efforts to enhance its security capabilities, even though the UK is leaving the EU, yet they say they want and enhanced security relationship with the EU after Brexit.

Liam Fox, the UK Trade Minister, has indicated the UK will leave the EU's customs union, because he thinks other markets are more important, yet his Prime Minister tells us that the EU27 'will sign' an ambitious trade deal with the UK.

It is good to know that the man with whom we will be negotiating has such a high regard for our ministers.