Today we had the unedifying sight of yet another government minister on TV trying to defend the indefensible with the usual, rote-learned, mantras. “Record levels of investment this year and next”, etc.

This time it was a schools minister trying to defend why some schools, in England, are so impoverished by budget cuts that they can’t afford toilet paper (yes, toilet paper) or, in one case, the head Teacher is working in the school canteen, and may have to clean the toilets herself, because she can’t afford to employ staff.

He acknowledged that there are “pressures” but apparently these derive from trying to sort out “the deficit”. There’s that naughty deficit again. Nothing to do with policy then, and no mention of the unanticipated multi-billion hike in tax income announced by the Chancellor last month. Presumably that’s going under the mattress in case we have to fill a Brexit black hole.

He suggested that there was enough money and the problem was, really, one of budget management. He bravely offered to visit any school to help them manage their pennies better. Must be suicidal as well as stupid. It’d be too much to hope for a canteen-applied custard pie in the face – the staff are too polite and, anyway, they probably can’t afford one. Maybe he’d suggest efficiency savings by double use of school writing paper: anything marked ‘B’ or lower goes to the loo? Perhaps in his tiny mind he’d think having to wipe your arse on your work would be an incentive to try harder? How about old copies of the Conservative manifesto? Or maybe it’s just back to slates and chalks, only until “the deficit” is sorted. Tour of the workhouse anyone? Tory twat.

It seems that, every day, our UK government (if you can call it that) is achieving new standards for selective memory. I can’t work out if the ministers and spokespersons who are put front-and-centre to explain away the latest debacle really believe the utter crap they spout. Do they really think our memory, and attention span, is so short that we can’t remember who has been in charge for the last 8 years? It takes a special kind of liar to keep a straight face while talking up some patently bankrupt bit of logic, in fact often there is no logic. However, there is no escaping the conclusion: either they are lying or they simply lack the mental capacity to understand.

The present Home Secretary Sajid Javid has had the brass neck to stand in front of cameras saying that the government will think about and consider all requests from police for additional funding in the face of the crisis of knife crime in our country. The Prime Minister has stood in parliament, this week, to deny that reduced police manpower has anything to do with the rise in crime. In case you have forgotten, our present Prime Minister was previously the longest serving Home Secretary. This was happening on her watch then too. This morning the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, as good as said the police don’t need more money, they just need to be smarter and more efficient. Good grief!

It’s true the rise in crime (and criminality as a mindset) has many causes but they want us to forget that they, the Conservatives, have been responsible for policy in every area that bears on these causal factors. They don’t seem to understand that knife crime (the use of knives in violence) is a symptom of something wider: the police clamping down on that (one type of) crime will only ever be a short term gain unless the underlying causes are dealt with – and that’s not a purely policing issue. The truth is, though, that the underlying causes are almost all rooted in austerity: the deliberate policy of the Conservative party (and this government) to eviscerate public services, and privatise them, under the guise of restoring the public finances. Where they could they shifted the burden and responsibility into the voluntary sector under the grandose title of “The Big Society”. They want us to forget too that the financial crash which preceded austerity was itself the direct result of greedy capitalism.

When young, disadvantaged, people have reduced educational opportunities (because education for many has been stripped of all but the core subjects), when their only sense of belonging is that of a gang member, when rites of passage into their peer group involve crimes up to murder, what can we expect? When there are too few police to respond to any but the most urgent and high value crimes, when there aren’t enough doctors and nurses, teachers, youth workers, social workers, meaningful jobs with long term prospects, and access to support and state benefits ever harder to achieve, what do we expect? Aggression and violence (verbal or physical) is promoted as an acceptable way to behave, whether in film, music, computer games, sport, employment, personal relationships: why should we be surprised when people reach for violence as the way to express and empower themselves?

How dare they, HOW DARE THEY, say they are listening NOW, as if all these crises are new? Why weren’t they listening last year, the year before, in fact every year since the slash-and-burn Conservatives came to power? They were told. We told them. Common sense told them. How dare they act as if “We didn’t see that coming, but we’re listening now”? They, the government, may not want us to join the dots. I think we’re better than that, at least I hope so.

The problem of the border between the North of Ireland and The Republic, which the so-called “backstop” attempts to address, is not one of managing trade, or even of immigration, but the apparently intractible political one of a “United” Ireland. The paranoia of the Northern Irish Unionist community causes it to react in a Pavlovian way to anything that sounds remotely like untying the Union with the UK. The “Good Friday Agreement”, flawed though it is, is being held hostage through the means of a moribund Stormont, where the Northern Ireland executive is supposed to sit, and a UK government without a majority in the House of Commons. Both of these things are political problems that could be resolved unilaterally by the UK, by a change of government in Westminster, and/or re-opening the Good Friday Agreement. The challenge there is that, by losing her majority in the UK Houses of Parliament, Theresa May has handed the Northern Irish Unionists a stranglehold on the Good Friday Agreement, and a lot else besides. If that is correct, then it seems to me that “decoupling” the arrangements for trade and security at the Irish border might be a way forward.

We currently trade across an open border with the Irish Republic, a fellow member of the EU, with whom we happen to have a land border within the island of Ireland. EU member states can, and do, have independent trade relations with non-EU states, both with and without contiguous borders. Fortunately the UK has a benign political relationship with the Republic of Ireland, despite the 100 years of demands for a united Ireland, and paramilitary activity (even open conflict during the so-called “troubles”). If you want to see how difficult a land border, on a island, between two antagonistic neighbours might be, have a look at Cyprus – the Republic of Cyprus is an EU member, the Northern (Turkish) part is not! Turkish Cypriots are treated, by the EU, as EU citizens living outside the EU.

Why can’t the UK, when out of the EU, have a discrete trade arrangement with the Republic of Ireland that exactly replicates the present trading arrangements and regulations? On mainland Britain, we don’t have a land border with Northern Ireland. People and goods arrive in Northern Ireland in exactly the same way as they do in the Republic: by sea and air. The points of entry to the island of Ireland, both north and south of the border, are already limited. Might there be something in the form of , what used to be called, “Free Trade Zones” or “Free Ports” at our ports in Northern Ireland – to handle imports and exports? These ‘enterprise zones’ are used all over the world to facilitate trade and often attract inward investment, and create jobs, which I would think the Northern Irish government (when it has one again) would welcome. It may be hopelessly naive, and may already have been considered and rejected for good reasons, but is it worth a thought?

The issue of security at the border would be exactly as it is now: the Republic would be responsible for policing its borders from non-EU arrivals and departures (as we do now). It’s hard to imagine that the Republic of Ireland would have less stringent security on their borders than we would. People and goods arriving in the Republic from non-EU countries would be subject to the same checks as they are now when passing on to the UK. It would be up to us to decide what we want to inspect, as we do now, mostly led by “intelligence” based customs and security work. We could send goods to the Republic which, if then ‘exported’ to the rest of the EU, would have whatever tariffs had to be applied set there, or in the “free ports”, just as we will have to do if they were going direct to mainland Europe from Dover.

For more than a year, Stormont has failed to deliver devolved government in Northern Ireland.  Perhaps there is a case for Westminster to take direct control again, if only for this one issue. The threat of that alone might force Sinn Feinn and the Unionist communities to wake up to their part in all this mess.  Re-opening the Good Friday Agreement would be difficult, and as part of resolving the Brexit impasse would take time – necessitating an extension to the Article 50 process (which seems increasingly likely anyway). 

Brexit is sometimes more entetaining than Match of the Day. There are certainly more goals, especially own goals, in the Houses of Parliament. I recall the late manager of Liverpool football club, Bill Shankly, saying that Football was more important than life or death. That was, of course, hyperbole, but I really do think Brexit is that important. We now have the unedifying prospect of PM Theresa May going back to the EU to negotiate the un-negotiable. The prospects for success are so unlikely that former Pro-Hard Brexit Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, is preparing the ground by blaming the EU for the failure before it’s happened!

Let’s remember that we, the UK, signed up to the Lisbon Treaty and all the Ts&Cs in the first place. We, the UK, fired the starting gun on departure by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty; we didn’t have to do that when we did. Our negotiators have spent the best part of 18 months negotiating the terms of our exit while arguing amongst themselves about what they were negotiating on. Negotiation implies both ‘sides’ having a wish list and meeting somewhere in the middle: compromise. In the midst of that process Theresa May called a snap general election because she, mistakenly as it turned out, thought the Labour Party would lose seats and thus secure her position in Parliament. The disastrous consequence of losing her slender, but workable, majority was having to give the 10 Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MPs a massive influence over the Brexit process. Hence the disaster of the so-called “backstop”, a way to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (which is and remains in the EU) open. Doing this in the toxic context of the Good Friday Agreement, the failed devolved Northern Ireland executive, and the simmering unresolved legacy of the “troubles” was nothing short of criminally reckless.

Whatever, a negotiation was concluded and the UK signed. Now, in the face of massive dissent across the House of Commons (never mind the country as a whole) our government is seeking to re-open the negotiation, in the face of explicit and oft repeated statements from the EU (individually and collectively) that there will be no renegotiation. We must remember that word: “compromise”. In order to get to a Brexit agreement at all, both ‘sides’ have compromised. We would do well to remember what the other 27 members of the EU have given up from their wish lists. For example, will Spain want to bring Gibraltar back into play? The EU Parliament is about to have elections too, and we don’t know what the make up of the new legislature will be; perhaps it will be more nationalistic. Poland and Hungary have already ‘lurched’ to the right. Other EU states are former eastern bloc countries with significant ‘rumps’ of pro-nationalist voters. Italy is (habitually) in meltdown and so is Greece. Perhaps the EU Parliament will have a distinctly right wing posture. Perhaps it will want to reopen the negotiations too? So, even though it will impact on the EU overall, the EU cannot afford to delay. It may suit them, overall, to say “We’re done with negotiating – leave”, both to set an example to the others but also to concentrate on the bigger picture of EU stability.

On 29th January 2019 the UK Parliament had opportunities to pass amendments which would have bought more time to conclude an agreement, or even amended the existing agreement, and they passed up the chance. Having spent 18 months taking a negotiating position of saying “No deal is better than a bad deal”,what they have done is tell the EU we will not accept “No Deal” and we have less than 2 months until Brexit Day. The timescale for passing legislation to give effect to our departure is impossible.

It should be no surprise that Parliament is split from top to bottom on this issue. The main parties are split, both for and against Brexit, as is the country as a whole. No amount of negotiating, of renegotiating, of persuading or bullying is going to change that. No new referendum, the so-called “People’s Vote”, will change that. I believe the process of achieving Brexit will prove to have been vastly more damaging to our society than the fact of Brexit. We urgently need, both politically and personally, to prepare for what comes next. We, the UK, as a nation (or collection of nations) need to have a grown up conversation about who we are, and what kind of country and society we want to have. We need to heal. The sight of Nigel Farage laughing out loud at the frustration of the EU Parliament last week was hard to take, but it encapsulated the very real danger we face now. There is a political vacuum forming which is ideal ground for populist and charismatic politicians with extreme views. It’s no use wishing it were otherwise. I believe Brexit is a disaster for the UK, you may agree or disagree, but a fractured Europe is something we should all fear and we cannot afford to look away now.

I despair.  I watched a bit of BBC “Question Time” (‘QT’) last night. For my ‘friends’ out side the UK, ‘QT’ is a current affairs Q&A programme with a selected panel facing a public audience. Naturally enough, just now, it was dominated by Brexit. I hate to say this, but it demonstrated just how broken our Parliamentary democracy is. It’s all about holding on to power, or gaining it. You couldn’t get a straight answer to “Is the ship sinking?” if the programme were held on the Titanic as it was sliding under the waves!

‘QT’ also showed (again) why Diane Abbott should never represent the Labour Party in any public forum, how inept the Labour Front Bench team is, and how Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t score a goal, except an own goal, even if he were the only person on the pitch. By refusing to talk to Theresa May unless she “takes No Deal off the table”, he just looks playground petulant and out of touch. A number of other party representatives (including some of his own senior back benchers) have managed to go through the door of 10 Downing Street to say much the same – but at least they can’t be accused of not engaging. As it is Theresa May can come back to the house on Monday with whatever ‘Plan B’ she decides, and criticise the Labour Party for not helping shape it, and Jeremy Corbyn won’t be able to say that, although he met with the PM, her Plan B ignores his contribution. “I’m not playing unless we can use my ball”.  Pathetic.

Let me say, up front, that for most of my early adult life I was a supporter of the Soviet Union.  I filtered my experience of the ‘Cold War’, because I was aware of the machinations of the state apparatus of the USA and UK, sometimes affecting me personally, to discredit and undermine the Soviet Union (and its allies).  Then along came Mikhail Gorbachev, Glasnost, Perestroika.  It seemed we all basked in his personal warmth as he thawed, it seemed personally, the cold war.  Those of us who had lived for 30 or 40 years under the threat of global nuclear anihilation were relieved.  Then came the collapse of the Soviet system, the dissintegration of the USSR and the rise of a new Russian Federation (for which now read Russian Empire) and, by the way, the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church.  It seems to me that some of the older Russian generation (by which I mean those who lived through the Soviet era) still harbour nostalgic and proud feelings for the achievements, and crucially certainty, of that system.  The younger generation, who focussed more on the hardships, constraints and, yes, the abuses of that time, were only too thrilled to discard collectivism in favour of individualism.  Here, in the UK, we are still reaping the consequences of ‘buying into’ the philosophy of putting yourself, rather than ‘society’, first even though, arguably, we had a better developed sense of when we were being ‘sold a crock’.  Then along came a new Tsar, Vladimir Putin: ex-KGB.  The writing was on the wall, but over the same time we had the global financial crash and we took our eye off the ball as successive UK governments set about eviscerating, amongst other things, our military capability.  We became embroiled in war in the Middle-East and Putin saw, and learned from, our effectiveness and weaknesses.  He had also learned from the debacle of Russian miitary intervention in Afghanistan. He set about modernising his military inventory and thinking: no more full frontal invasions to extend Imperial influence, but cyber warfare and proxy wars.

Put that into the context of a rise across Europe, especially in the east, of far-right nationalism.  Patriotism is, I would argue, a good thing; nationalism (which is not the same thing at all) is very dangerous.  Just now Putin’s “approval rating” in his own country is, we are told, on the slide.  There is a real danger of creating conditions where he could whip up support for patriotic / nationalistic support for external action.  1930s all over again?

 

There are strong arguments for and against holding a second UK referendum on Brexit (UK leaving membership of the EU).  To be clear I was, and am, passionately against Brexit but, in this blog post, I’m not arguing one side or the other.  I’m questoning process, and possible outcomes.

In my opinion the UK government made a fundamental mistake by not setting a majority threshold for the Ist (2016) referendum.  To me it seems crazy that such a significant and long lasting change could be, theoretically, decided on a simple majority of 1.  All of the angst, downstream of the vote, about “the will of the people” or “democracy” could have been avoided if a majority of, say, 60% one way or the other had been set.  Instead we were left with a relatively small majority in favour of changing the status quo.

Now, after 2 years of negotiating the terms of our exit (the “deal”), we know more about what Brexit means.  Some of the myths, and gaps in our understanding, that underpinned the referendum result have been clarified.  The UK is still on track to leave the EU on March 29th but the government, and Parliament itself, is split from top to bottom and has failed to ratify the terms.  There are calls for this impasse to be resolved by returning to a referendum.  Would demographics come into play? There are two more years worth of young people who have reached voting age since the last referendum; there are two years worth of older voters who have fallen off the roll.  It is widely believed that young people voted to Remain and older people voted to Leave.

I ask what the referendum question, or questions, could be?  It can’t again be as simple as asking to vote to stay or leave but what, short of a vote to rescind the decision of the first referendum completely, would resolve the question of the border between Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and The Republic of Ireland (part of the EU)?  Obviously there are other EU member countries with land (or sea) borders with non-EU countries,  How do they manage?  They have border controls.  Whatever we decide it seems highly unlikely that an open border in the island of Ireland can survive a no-deal Brexit.

It’s a mess; I can’t see how this is going to resolve unless there is a general election which returns a big Labour majority, and therefore a government with some authority.