It is not often that I agree with my MP - certainly not recently - but I was pleased to be able to agree with her comment in a recent email: I greatly value democracy and understand how fragile it is.
Yes, democracy is fragile. We have heard much about it recently, usually from people using as a hammer to beat others into submission: We voted out, get over it: that is how democracy works.
But are the rules of democracy written down or are they, like most things in the UK, based on sound British common sense: something we all took in with our mothers' milk?
One dictionary defines it as the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves.
The drafting of this is good as it starts with people and their freedom and equality, not simply with the mechanism. It also includes the word 'belief' suggesting that democracy is not a set of rules but comes from an attitude.
The Brits delight in boasting that we 'invented' modern parliamentary democracy: a boast that is probably as thin as many of our other claims to pre-eminence. It is simply one of those boasts used to underpin British exceptionalism.
But how do I reconcile my MP's views with what is going on now?
A referendum was held with a binary question so, for once, we were asked what we wanted on a specific question (let's set aside the lies, confused messages and dissembling that the campaign involved). We apparently said what we wanted.
The government of the day has then studiously ignored the views of the people thereafter - despite strong evidence that those views have changed - putting words into our mouths whenever necessary. It is what the people voted for is a useful refrain when there was only one actual question: I don't remember migrants, sovereignty or trade deals with dubious regimes being mentioned on the ballot paper.
It also refuses to consult with the people again. How can this be right?
Either we are a representative democracy - power held by elected representatives - or we are a Swiss democracy with the major issues being decided by the populace. It appears we live in a halfway house: we will ask you when you are likely to give the right answer, otherwise we will just get on with things and ignore your views.
In two weeks time, MPs will vote on the Prime Minister's withdrawal deal. Currently, its future looks bleak and so she has gone over MPs' heads to write a letter to all of us (or, more likely to Tory supporters).
Why bother? We have no power. She has told us that decisions will be taken by our representatives. All we can do is tell our MPs what we think and mine does not seem prepared to listen or debate the issues.
Meanwhile, the whips will start the usual arm-twisting, cajoling, bribery - offers of knighthoods, peerages, promotions, parliamentary time - and use of 'the little black book' to get MPs to fall into line behind the PM. As Giles Brandreth, a former whip, said on the Today programme there are always toilets into which MPs can be locked if they look likely to turn the wrong way.
Is this really the best way to run a democracy? I have argued before that we have a C19 parliamentary system which is long past its sell-buy date. If the PM's withdrawal deal goes through then we will not only have undermined the future for our young but any credibility as a successful democracy: how to manipulate a democracy perhaps but run one, no.
Tuesday 27 November 2018
Monday 12 November 2018
Populists from another age?
Writing about the Russian Revolution in Natasha's Dance, Orlando Figes says:
'Popularly seen as a war against all privilege, the practical ideology of the Russian Revolution owed less to Marx - whose works were hardly known by the semi-literate masses - than to the egalitarian customs and utopian yearnings of the peasantry. Long before it was written down by Marx, the Russian people had lived by the idea that surplus wealth was immoral, all property was theft, and that normal labour was the only true source of value.
'By giving institutional form to this crusade, the Bolsheviks were able to draw on the revolutionary energies of those numerous elements among the poor who derived satisfaction from seeing the rich and mighty destroyed, regardless of whether such destruction brought about any improvement to their own lot.' ... which we now know it did not.
'Popularly seen as a war against all privilege, the practical ideology of the Russian Revolution owed less to Marx - whose works were hardly known by the semi-literate masses - than to the egalitarian customs and utopian yearnings of the peasantry. Long before it was written down by Marx, the Russian people had lived by the idea that surplus wealth was immoral, all property was theft, and that normal labour was the only true source of value.
'By giving institutional form to this crusade, the Bolsheviks were able to draw on the revolutionary energies of those numerous elements among the poor who derived satisfaction from seeing the rich and mighty destroyed, regardless of whether such destruction brought about any improvement to their own lot.' ... which we now know it did not.
Saturday 10 November 2018
Current heroes?
The list of political heroes has just increased by one: Jo Johnson for his incredibly well-crafted resignation letter (see below). He can now take his place alongside Anna Soubry, Dominic Grieve, Keir Starmer, Nicky Morgan and others who still seem to have retained a degree of independent spirit.
Then there are non MPs like Simon Coveney (the 'Foreign Minister' of Ireland) who seems incapable of opening his mouth without making sense, Seb Dance (MEP Labour) whose quiet good sense is equally admirable and almost any non-British journalist writing for a leading newspaper or magazine. such as Jan Fleischhauer with his piece Britain has never looked so foolish in the world’s eyes.
Could it be that we are seeing the beginnings of a central grouping which might form the core of the coalition that will follow Theresa May's inevitable resignation when her deal is rejected? The relentless logic of Brexit points to this as the inevitable solution.
Anyway, to Jo Johnson. Read and enjoy:
Indeed, the choice being presented to the British people is no choice at all. The first option is the one the Government is proposing: an agreement that will leave our country economically weakened, with no say in the EU rules it must follow and years of uncertainty for business. The second option is a “no deal” Brexit that I know as a Transport Minister will inflict untold damage on our nation. To present the nation with a choice between two deeply unattractive outcomes, vassalage and chaos, is a failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis. My constituents in Orpington deserve better than this from their Government.
What is now being proposed won’t be anything like what was promised two years ago.
Hopes for “the easiest trade deal in history” have proved to be delusions. Contrary to promises, there is in fact no deal at all on our future trading relationship with the EU which the government can present to the country. Still less anything that offers the “exact same benefits” as the Single Market, as David Davis promised, or the “precise guarantees of frictionless trade” that the Prime Minister assured us would be available. All that is now being finalised is the agreement to pay the EU tens of billions of pounds. All that may be on offer on trade is the potential for an agreement to stay in a temporary customs arrangement while we discuss the possibility of an EU trade deal that all experience shows will take many years to negotiate.
Even if we eventually secure a customs arrangement for trade in goods, it will be bad news for the service sector — for firms in finance, in IT, in communications and digital technology. Maintaining access to EU markets for goods is important, but we are fundamentally a services economy. Many in Orpington, for example, are among the two million Britons employed in financial services, commuting into the centre of London to jobs of all kinds in the City. Countries across the world go to great lengths to attract financial and professional services jobs from our shores. An agreement that sharply reduces access to EU markets for financial services — or leaves us vulnerable to regulatory change over which we will have no influence — will hurt my constituents and damage one of our most successful sectors.
While we wait to negotiate trading terms, the rules of the game will be set solely by the EU. Britain will lose its seat at the table and its ability to amend or vote down rules it opposes. Instead of Britain “taking back control”, we will cede control to other European countries. This democratic deficit inherent in the Prime Minister’s proposal is a travesty of Brexit. When we were told Brexit meant taking back powers for Parliament, no one told my constituents this meant the French parliament and the German parliament, not our own. In these circumstances, we must ask what we are achieving. William Hague once described the goal of Conservative policy as being “in Europe, but not run by Europe”. The government’s proposals will see us out of Europe, yet run by Europe, bound by rules which we will have lost a hand in shaping.
Worse still, there is no real clarity about how this situation will ever end. The proposed Withdrawal Agreement parks many of the biggest issues about our future relationship with Europe into a boundless transitionary period. This is a con on the British people: there is no evidence that the kind of Brexit that we’ve failed to negotiate while we are still members can be magically agreed once the UK has lost its seat at the table. The leverage we have as a full member of the EU will have gone. We will be in a far worse negotiating position than we are today. And we will have still failed to resolve the fundamental questions that are ramping up uncertainties for businesses and stopping them investing for the future.
My brother Boris, who led the leave campaign, is as unhappy with the Government’s proposals as I am. Indeed he recently observed that the proposed arrangements were “substantially worse than staying in the EU”. On that he is unquestionably right. If these negotiations have achieved little else, they have at least united us in fraternal dismay.
The argument that the government will present for the Withdrawal Agreement ‘deal’ is not that it is better for Britain than our current membership. The Prime Minister knows that she cannot honestly make the claim that the deal is an improvement on Britain’s current arrangements with the EU and, to her credit, refuses to do so. The only case she can try to make is that it is better than the alternative of leaving the EU with no deal at all.
Certainly, I know from my own work at the Department of Transport the potential chaos that will follow a “no deal” Brexit. It will cause disruption, delay and deep damage to our economy. There are real questions about how we will be able to guarantee access to fresh food and medicine if the crucial Dover-Calais trade route is clogged up. The government may have to take control of prioritising which lorries and which goods are allowed in and out of the country, an extraordinary and surely unworkable intervention for a government in an advanced capitalist economy. The prospect of Kent becoming the Lorry Park of England is very real in a no deal scenario. Orpington residents bordering Kent face disruption from plans to use the nearby M26, connecting the M25 to the M20, as an additional queuing area for heavy goods vehicles backed up all the way from the channel ports. This prospect alone would be a resigning matter for me as a constituency MP, but it is just a facet of a far greater problem facing the nation.
Yet for all its challenges and for all the real pain it would cause us as we adapt to new barriers to trade with our biggest market, we can ultimately survive these difficulties. I believe it would be a grave mistake for the government to ram through this deal by once again unleashing Project Fear. A “no deal” outcome of this sort may well be better than the never ending purgatory the Prime Minister is offering the country. But my message to my brother and to all Leave campaigners is that inflicting such serious economic and political harm on the country will leave an indelible impression of incompetence in the minds of the public. It cannot be what you wanted nor did the 2016 referendum provide any mandate for it.
Given that the reality of Brexit has turned out to be so far from what was once promised, the democratic thing to do is to give the public the final say. This would not be about re-running the 2016 referendum, but about asking people whether they want to go ahead with Brexit now that we know the deal that is actually available to us, whether we should leave without any deal at all or whether people on balance would rather stick with the deal we already have inside the European Union.
To those who say that is an affront to democracy given the 2016 result, I ask this. Is it more democratic to rely on a three year old vote based on what an idealised Brexit might offer, or to have a vote based on what we know it does actually entail?
A majority of Orpington voters chose to leave the EU in 2016 and many of the close friends I have there, among them hard-working local Conservative Party members, are passionately pro-Brexit. I respect their position. But I know from meetings I have had with local members that many are as dismayed as me by the course of negotiations and about the actual choice now on offer. Two and a half years on, the practical Brexit options are now clear and the public should be asked to choose between the different paths facing our country: we will all have different positions on that choice, but I think many in my local party, in the Orpington constituency and around the country would welcome having the last word on the Government’s Brexit proposals.
Britain stands on the brink of the greatest crisis since the Second World War. My loyalty to my party is undimmed. I have never rebelled on any issue before now. But my duty to my constituents and our great nation has forced me to act. I have today written to the Prime Minister asking her to accept my resignation from the Government. It is now my intention to vote against this Withdrawal Agreement. I reject this false choice between the PM’s deal and “no deal” chaos. On this most crucial of questions, I believe it is entirely right to go back to the people and ask them to confirm their decision to leave the EU and, if they choose to do that, to give them the final say on whether we leave with the Prime Minister’s deal or without it.
Then there are non MPs like Simon Coveney (the 'Foreign Minister' of Ireland) who seems incapable of opening his mouth without making sense, Seb Dance (MEP Labour) whose quiet good sense is equally admirable and almost any non-British journalist writing for a leading newspaper or magazine. such as Jan Fleischhauer with his piece Britain has never looked so foolish in the world’s eyes.
Could it be that we are seeing the beginnings of a central grouping which might form the core of the coalition that will follow Theresa May's inevitable resignation when her deal is rejected? The relentless logic of Brexit points to this as the inevitable solution.
Anyway, to Jo Johnson. Read and enjoy:
Why I cannot support the Government’s proposed Brexit deal
Brexit has divided the country. It has divided political parties. And it has divided families too. Although I voted Remain, I have desperately wanted the Government, in which I have been proud to serve, to make a success of Brexit: to reunite our country, our party and, yes, my family too. At times, I believed this was possible. That’s why I voted to start the Article 50 process and for two years have backed the Prime Minister in her efforts to secure the best deal for the country. But it has become increasingly clear to me that the Withdrawal Agreement, which is being finalised in Brussels and Whitehall even as I write, will be a terrible mistake.Indeed, the choice being presented to the British people is no choice at all. The first option is the one the Government is proposing: an agreement that will leave our country economically weakened, with no say in the EU rules it must follow and years of uncertainty for business. The second option is a “no deal” Brexit that I know as a Transport Minister will inflict untold damage on our nation. To present the nation with a choice between two deeply unattractive outcomes, vassalage and chaos, is a failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis. My constituents in Orpington deserve better than this from their Government.
What is now being proposed won’t be anything like what was promised two years ago.
Hopes for “the easiest trade deal in history” have proved to be delusions. Contrary to promises, there is in fact no deal at all on our future trading relationship with the EU which the government can present to the country. Still less anything that offers the “exact same benefits” as the Single Market, as David Davis promised, or the “precise guarantees of frictionless trade” that the Prime Minister assured us would be available. All that is now being finalised is the agreement to pay the EU tens of billions of pounds. All that may be on offer on trade is the potential for an agreement to stay in a temporary customs arrangement while we discuss the possibility of an EU trade deal that all experience shows will take many years to negotiate.
Even if we eventually secure a customs arrangement for trade in goods, it will be bad news for the service sector — for firms in finance, in IT, in communications and digital technology. Maintaining access to EU markets for goods is important, but we are fundamentally a services economy. Many in Orpington, for example, are among the two million Britons employed in financial services, commuting into the centre of London to jobs of all kinds in the City. Countries across the world go to great lengths to attract financial and professional services jobs from our shores. An agreement that sharply reduces access to EU markets for financial services — or leaves us vulnerable to regulatory change over which we will have no influence — will hurt my constituents and damage one of our most successful sectors.
While we wait to negotiate trading terms, the rules of the game will be set solely by the EU. Britain will lose its seat at the table and its ability to amend or vote down rules it opposes. Instead of Britain “taking back control”, we will cede control to other European countries. This democratic deficit inherent in the Prime Minister’s proposal is a travesty of Brexit. When we were told Brexit meant taking back powers for Parliament, no one told my constituents this meant the French parliament and the German parliament, not our own. In these circumstances, we must ask what we are achieving. William Hague once described the goal of Conservative policy as being “in Europe, but not run by Europe”. The government’s proposals will see us out of Europe, yet run by Europe, bound by rules which we will have lost a hand in shaping.
Worse still, there is no real clarity about how this situation will ever end. The proposed Withdrawal Agreement parks many of the biggest issues about our future relationship with Europe into a boundless transitionary period. This is a con on the British people: there is no evidence that the kind of Brexit that we’ve failed to negotiate while we are still members can be magically agreed once the UK has lost its seat at the table. The leverage we have as a full member of the EU will have gone. We will be in a far worse negotiating position than we are today. And we will have still failed to resolve the fundamental questions that are ramping up uncertainties for businesses and stopping them investing for the future.
My brother Boris, who led the leave campaign, is as unhappy with the Government’s proposals as I am. Indeed he recently observed that the proposed arrangements were “substantially worse than staying in the EU”. On that he is unquestionably right. If these negotiations have achieved little else, they have at least united us in fraternal dismay.
The argument that the government will present for the Withdrawal Agreement ‘deal’ is not that it is better for Britain than our current membership. The Prime Minister knows that she cannot honestly make the claim that the deal is an improvement on Britain’s current arrangements with the EU and, to her credit, refuses to do so. The only case she can try to make is that it is better than the alternative of leaving the EU with no deal at all.
Certainly, I know from my own work at the Department of Transport the potential chaos that will follow a “no deal” Brexit. It will cause disruption, delay and deep damage to our economy. There are real questions about how we will be able to guarantee access to fresh food and medicine if the crucial Dover-Calais trade route is clogged up. The government may have to take control of prioritising which lorries and which goods are allowed in and out of the country, an extraordinary and surely unworkable intervention for a government in an advanced capitalist economy. The prospect of Kent becoming the Lorry Park of England is very real in a no deal scenario. Orpington residents bordering Kent face disruption from plans to use the nearby M26, connecting the M25 to the M20, as an additional queuing area for heavy goods vehicles backed up all the way from the channel ports. This prospect alone would be a resigning matter for me as a constituency MP, but it is just a facet of a far greater problem facing the nation.
Yet for all its challenges and for all the real pain it would cause us as we adapt to new barriers to trade with our biggest market, we can ultimately survive these difficulties. I believe it would be a grave mistake for the government to ram through this deal by once again unleashing Project Fear. A “no deal” outcome of this sort may well be better than the never ending purgatory the Prime Minister is offering the country. But my message to my brother and to all Leave campaigners is that inflicting such serious economic and political harm on the country will leave an indelible impression of incompetence in the minds of the public. It cannot be what you wanted nor did the 2016 referendum provide any mandate for it.
Given that the reality of Brexit has turned out to be so far from what was once promised, the democratic thing to do is to give the public the final say. This would not be about re-running the 2016 referendum, but about asking people whether they want to go ahead with Brexit now that we know the deal that is actually available to us, whether we should leave without any deal at all or whether people on balance would rather stick with the deal we already have inside the European Union.
To those who say that is an affront to democracy given the 2016 result, I ask this. Is it more democratic to rely on a three year old vote based on what an idealised Brexit might offer, or to have a vote based on what we know it does actually entail?
A majority of Orpington voters chose to leave the EU in 2016 and many of the close friends I have there, among them hard-working local Conservative Party members, are passionately pro-Brexit. I respect their position. But I know from meetings I have had with local members that many are as dismayed as me by the course of negotiations and about the actual choice now on offer. Two and a half years on, the practical Brexit options are now clear and the public should be asked to choose between the different paths facing our country: we will all have different positions on that choice, but I think many in my local party, in the Orpington constituency and around the country would welcome having the last word on the Government’s Brexit proposals.
Britain stands on the brink of the greatest crisis since the Second World War. My loyalty to my party is undimmed. I have never rebelled on any issue before now. But my duty to my constituents and our great nation has forced me to act. I have today written to the Prime Minister asking her to accept my resignation from the Government. It is now my intention to vote against this Withdrawal Agreement. I reject this false choice between the PM’s deal and “no deal” chaos. On this most crucial of questions, I believe it is entirely right to go back to the people and ask them to confirm their decision to leave the EU and, if they choose to do that, to give them the final say on whether we leave with the Prime Minister’s deal or without it.
Wednesday 7 November 2018
The televised interview
We have had a masterclass this week on how (not) to avoid a car crash when faced with a difficult interview.
Aaron Banks should never have been invited onto the Andrew Marr Show when his case had recently been passed to the NCA. As Caroline Lucas remarked, it might well have prejudiced his ability to get a fair trial. He would be delighted with this of course.
The interview was not Andrew Marr's greatest moment. He is not a Paxman who can ask the same question 13 times, nor is he an accountant. Banks said nothing and dodged every question, merely trotting out the old populist lines that everyone is corrupt (except him of course).
But then we had the hapless Caroline Nokes, Minister of State for Immigration: not once but twice.
Her appearance before the Home Affairs Committee chaired by Yvette Cooper was a simple car crash which reduced Yvette Cooper to putting her head in her hands. Dramatic stuff indeed.
OK, let's give the Minister the benefit of the doubt: she was up against a seasoned parliamentary performer from the other side. Her performance required her boss, the Home Secretary, to issue all sorts of 'clarifications' to try to rescue things.
Caroline Nokes has form. Back in May she appeared before the Norther Ireland Committee and was completely at sea.
One of the joys of these three examples is the style of the questioner: Andrew Marr was considered and adult (but did not get the truth); Yvette Cooper was precise, direct and dramatic.
I love the last one for its gently spoken approach:
'The Government tells us that it puts great store by the Good Friday Agreement. Have you actually read the Good Friday Agreement whose 20th birthday we have been celebrating?'
'No.'
'Have you read any part of it?'
'No. Twenty years ago I was having a baby. I have only been a Minister for five months.'
Ouch! It is not always best to have heavy feet to make one's point.
How do people face themselves in the mirror after sessions like this? Aaron Banks is arrogant to think he had 'won' (cf Trump and the Mid-term elections). When Tracey Crouch disagreed with a policy announcement, she resigned. Caroline Nokes clearly does not think it necessary after two car crashes.
Aaron Banks should never have been invited onto the Andrew Marr Show when his case had recently been passed to the NCA. As Caroline Lucas remarked, it might well have prejudiced his ability to get a fair trial. He would be delighted with this of course.
The interview was not Andrew Marr's greatest moment. He is not a Paxman who can ask the same question 13 times, nor is he an accountant. Banks said nothing and dodged every question, merely trotting out the old populist lines that everyone is corrupt (except him of course).
But then we had the hapless Caroline Nokes, Minister of State for Immigration: not once but twice.
Her appearance before the Home Affairs Committee chaired by Yvette Cooper was a simple car crash which reduced Yvette Cooper to putting her head in her hands. Dramatic stuff indeed.
OK, let's give the Minister the benefit of the doubt: she was up against a seasoned parliamentary performer from the other side. Her performance required her boss, the Home Secretary, to issue all sorts of 'clarifications' to try to rescue things.
Caroline Nokes has form. Back in May she appeared before the Norther Ireland Committee and was completely at sea.
One of the joys of these three examples is the style of the questioner: Andrew Marr was considered and adult (but did not get the truth); Yvette Cooper was precise, direct and dramatic.
I love the last one for its gently spoken approach:
'The Government tells us that it puts great store by the Good Friday Agreement. Have you actually read the Good Friday Agreement whose 20th birthday we have been celebrating?'
'No.'
'Have you read any part of it?'
'No. Twenty years ago I was having a baby. I have only been a Minister for five months.'
Ouch! It is not always best to have heavy feet to make one's point.
How do people face themselves in the mirror after sessions like this? Aaron Banks is arrogant to think he had 'won' (cf Trump and the Mid-term elections). When Tracey Crouch disagreed with a policy announcement, she resigned. Caroline Nokes clearly does not think it necessary after two car crashes.
Tuesday 6 November 2018
And the plan is ... ?
Laura Kuenssberg reports on the BBC website today that Theresa May was at a Monday night reception in Westminster and talked about how, 'in her view, Brexit gives the government a big chance to reform the country'.
Interesting to hear but exactly how is the country 'going to be reformed' and are we allowed a say in what this might be?
The sad state of politics today is such that everything has now been reduced to a soundbite.
Did any one actually read and consider the Tory manifesto before voting in the general election? Did our revered Prime Minister go out on the stump spelling out the way in which she believed that the country could or should be 'reformed'? Was there any sort of 'debate' about her vision of a newly reformed country?
No, of course not. All we got was a repeat, and repeat and ... of 'Strong and Stable'. Is that how we plan our futures nowadays?
So where's the plan?
No competent business would operate like this. Why do we accept it from our government?
Interesting to hear but exactly how is the country 'going to be reformed' and are we allowed a say in what this might be?
The sad state of politics today is such that everything has now been reduced to a soundbite.
Did any one actually read and consider the Tory manifesto before voting in the general election? Did our revered Prime Minister go out on the stump spelling out the way in which she believed that the country could or should be 'reformed'? Was there any sort of 'debate' about her vision of a newly reformed country?
No, of course not. All we got was a repeat, and repeat and ... of 'Strong and Stable'. Is that how we plan our futures nowadays?
So where's the plan?
- There was no plan for Brexit before the referendum.
- No plan for Brexit was shared with the public after Brexit (was there one to share?)
- David Davis lied his way through the 58 sectoral analyses which were the basis for his negotiating plan.
- 'Chequers' - the nearest thing to a plan that has appeared, was shot out of the water by the EU's first salvo.
No competent business would operate like this. Why do we accept it from our government?
Monday 5 November 2018
Finding some soldiers
So we are going to take back control of our borders and ensure that only 'highly qualified' people who are able to command salaries over £50,000 pa will be allowed in unless there are special shortages ...
... like soldiers apparently.
Commonwealth residents will now be allowed to join the military without having first lived in the UK for five years.
Will they be given residency? How will this affect the immigration figures?
Wasn't it the Roman empire that fell to pieces when all its forces were staffed by mercenaries?
... like soldiers apparently.
Commonwealth residents will now be allowed to join the military without having first lived in the UK for five years.
Will they be given residency? How will this affect the immigration figures?
Wasn't it the Roman empire that fell to pieces when all its forces were staffed by mercenaries?
Sunday 4 November 2018
Consulting
How strange that we all rejoiced in the election of M Macron as President of France using a system of STV but avoid it in the UK. We note that the Tories wish to get rid of STV for the election of the London Mayor, presumably as it doe snot give them the result they want (a 'strong and stable' one party state).
And then there is the role of MPs. We have to find a better way of encouraging regular and informed consultation if people are to feel engaged and enfranchised. One vote every five years is laughable given the speed of modern communications and the pace of life.
Yes, Proportional Representation would result in more coalitions but might this not be a good thing? Autocratic rule by one or other of the two largest parties cannot be the right answer for the long-term. The British people are not all one thing or all the other: the balance of their views is probably just to the right or left of centre. A more balanced House of Commons would reflect this.
And then there is the role of MPs. We have to find a better way of encouraging regular and informed consultation if people are to feel engaged and enfranchised. One vote every five years is laughable given the speed of modern communications and the pace of life.
Yes, Proportional Representation would result in more coalitions but might this not be a good thing? Autocratic rule by one or other of the two largest parties cannot be the right answer for the long-term. The British people are not all one thing or all the other: the balance of their views is probably just to the right or left of centre. A more balanced House of Commons would reflect this.
Letter to an MP
She won't listen. She never does. The only answer we get is a clip form Central Officer saying how wonderful everything is.
Her latest hobby horse is that 'there is real anger in the country and therefore we have to deliver Brexit'. Maybe intelligent people should get angrier instead of marching peacefully.
Dear MP,
I am returning to the familiar subject of Brexit.
It will not have escaped your attention that over 700,000 people took the trouble to march, or rather shuffle, through Central London last week in support of a People’s Vote. I was very sorry not to be able to join them.
The arguments for a further public vote are surely now inescapable.
It is now abundantly clear there was never a single plan for leaving the EU. Instead, the leading Brexiters made a series of wildly extravagant and conflicting promises. There is evidence that they both lied and over-spent their permitted budgets. They promised vast additional sums for the NHS and that we would ‘take back control’ by leaving the EU. They clearly had no plan but were motivated entirely by emotion.
Having changed sides herself, the Prime Minister brought some of these individuals into the Cabinet and challenged them to implement their proposals. Gradually, as reality has bitten and they have been faced with the contradictions of their positions, some of the ‘big beasts’ and many of their acolytes have left the stage, unable to support the Prime Minister or the way the negotiations have progressed.
What is now emerging as being on offer bears almost no relation to the proposals made by the Brexiters during the campaign. The nearest we have had is ‘Chequers’ which was summarily dismissed by the EU and which, anyway, would have left the country as a rule-taker – hardly taking back control – with no say in the making of those rules. It had the merit of keeping us economically linked to Europe but the disadvantage of offering no realistic solution to the problems of Northern Ireland or the possible domino effects of any NI solution on other parts of the UK.
Survey after survey confirms that the public believes that, for whatever reason, the government is making a mess of the negotiations. What we were told was going to be ‘easy’, ‘the simplest negotiation ever’, ‘we hold all the cards’ has turned out to be anything but.
To add to the difficulties, the government’s own studies have confirmed that any alternative to staying in the EU is going to impact the economy of the country negatively. It may sound like a revival of ‘Project Fear’ but the reality is now becoming clear. Stockpiles of food and drugs, lorry queues, visas, staff shortages, aeroplanes unable to land, ‘adequate’ food, companies exporting their head offices, manufacturing and investment to other countries, investment stagnant and the UK dropping down the world rankings: the list goes on. And these are not campaigning slogans, they have come from the government.
The country was, and remains, split. Remainers like me have refused to lie down and be silenced, convinced that the best future for this country is as part of a wider partnership of countries: not giving up sovereignty but sharing in certain areas in the common interest. ‘Subsidiarity’ is and will remain, enshrined in EU law.
No doubt many of those marchers last weekend were Remainers but many more were people who originally voted Leave as there is no confidence in the government or Parliament to deliver anything remotely like what was promised by the Brexiters. Even if we knew what that was.
Parliament has been promised a ‘meaningful vote’ on any deal but the government seems intent on gerrymandering anything but. If the Tory party calls on the dark arts of the whips, strong-arms a few Labour MPs, buys off a few more DUP MPs to push through a vote in favour of the Prime Minister’s deal then it will, yet again, have shown the narrow politics and party interests are of more importance than the good of the country. I have argued before that In or Out of the EU is not a party political issue despite the cynical attempt of many in your party to make it one.
And let us remind ourselves that the deal we are being asked to consider is only the deal on the terms of exit and a political statement about our, as yet un-negotiated, future which will no doubt be suitably vague. That we have got to this situation with five months to go, is irresponsible in the extreme. No wonder companies are holding back investment, the housing market is stagnant and people are moving investment offshore.
Ah, you will say, there is genuine anger across the country at the way things have been in the past and we must listen to the people. I agree. People are cross with elites: and I include both you and me in this. They are cross with austerity when those in power appeared not to suffer from pay and investment cuts. They are cross with the London-centeredness of investment and the media. They are cross because the trains don't work, the prisons are overflowing, because crime that affects people is not being tackled. They are cross because individual people suffering hardship or disability are being 'examined' by people with no brain, sensitivity or specialist training, tick boxes in hand. They are cross at the lack of investment in the regions – and here we can include Cornwall.
It is the populists who have harnessed this anger, offering up the EU as the whipping boy to suit their own ends. You know the EU was not responsible for this list of failures. Can you honestly face your Cornish constituents and say that investment is going to be greater in Cornwall after we leave the EU than we have received during our time in it?
If you do push ahead and leave the EU then, the government will be hated by well over half the country (all those who would wish to remain plus either the deal or the no dealers). As the impact of leaving begins to bite, businesses will fail and more and more people will fall into poverty, gearing up the hate to levels not seen in generations.
The country will look round for someone to blame and it will not be the EU. It will be the Tory party. The whole parliamentary system will have been tainted leading to even less confidence in our system of governance. That may suit a right-wing dictatorial regime but it is not the liberal democracy in which you and I grew up.
The only credible way out of this bind, and the statesmanlike approach, is to allow a proper three option People’s Vote. This would allow the government to breathe a sigh of relief, put it back to the people and agree to implement that result in full and final settlement.
‘In 2016 you voted to leave the EU. Key elements behind that were large sums of money for the NHS, the ability to ‘take back control’ and the promise of a much richer economic future. I have to say to you that these are not deliverable. We have done what we can to talk to the EU but find ourselves in a bind.
'If we continue to be linked closely to them economically then we will have to accept their rules without having any say in the content of those rules. If we break away completely then we will incur a massive bureaucratic burden which will take years to establish and pay-off, for a questionable economic future. We were already the 5th largest economy in the world and are now the 6th. It is hard to see how we can do any better than we have in the past.
‘Having come to the end of our negotiations on the withdrawal agreement, and before we start work on the really difficult negotiations about our future trading relationship, we are going to ask the British people once again whether they want to go ahead and leave the EU. If we leave without a deal then we estimate the economy will suffer a 7.7% hit. If we leave with a deal then the economic hit is estimated to be between 2-5%, depending on the deal but we will have to accept others’ rules. Or we can simply stay in the EU as we are at present and take our chances.
‘Yes, there are real challenges in our country. The ‘Have-nots’ and the ‘Just about managing’ are struggling. We have been through a period of austerity but we can genuinely see the end of this and we are determined to ensure that in future the benefits are shared more widely.’
'But first, we need to decide whether we tackle these problems from within the EU when there just might be enough money to make a difference, or from outside when we will have to weather a difficult storm as we settle down to t anew reality.
‘The decision is to be yours’
I accept that any further vote is going to be divisive but it is a bit late to be worrying about that now. The country is already divided. It is also not a denial of democracy as some would have us believe; on the contrary, it is the best sort of democracy. I need hardly echo the words of last weekend’s campaigners about being allowed to read the small print before signing the contract.
And this time can we make sure that the vote includes all those who are affected by the result.
My sister is a UK passport holder who exercised her right to work in a European country travelling smoothly between EU countries and working without problem. When the referendum came she and her adult children were denied a vote. Now she faces being deprived of her right to hold a UK passport and to travel smoothly between different EU countries.
If we leave the EU then you will have deprived her of her rights without her having any say in the matter. This feels positively C19. Because she owns no property and has not lived in the UK recently – which there was no requirement to do – she has been deprived of a vote. Americans threw tea into a harbour for such things.
And then there are the young people, many of whom could not vote in 2016 but who may well be of voting age when we finally leave the Transition period in 2021. A 23 year old voter could wake up in December 2012 outside the Eu and yet never having had an opportunity to vote in the decision which will have the greatest affect on their career and life. They have to have a chance to vote now.
It was all very well to have an 'advisory' referendum to test the feeling of the country but now that the lies and deceptions have been exposed, now that the government had finally issued some advice on what the various futures might look like - none very rosy - then the people must have another option to review the detail and decide whether they still want to go ahead. And it must be a three way vote. Transferable voting is possible, you know; it is just hated by dictators and bullies.
If Brexit is such a good idea, what have the Brexiters to fear?
I look forward to your reply and please do not make it one of those photocopied Central Office replies such as you sent me last time which was so shot full of self-serving illogicality that it did more harm than good.
Yours sincerely
She was probably better off with the short version.
Back in business
We have been silent for far too long: overwhelmed by the sheer horror of the way the world has been moving. Trump in the USA who does not seem to know anything about truth, decency, morality, equality, kindness, thoughtfulness ... Brazil who seem to have elected a look-alike.
And our own government flailing around like demented cats, unable to listen to any contrary opinions and ploughing on, dropping ministers on a weekly basis, as though they had a divine right to dictate. We have lost count of the number of times we have been told 'I am perfectly clear' and 'not in the national interest'. Both lies.
None of them ruling 'by the people, for the people'.
It is time to call them out when we can.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)