I have always thought that John Redwood was better than he is generally presented by the liberal media. He has seemed - to me - more sensible than the hard core of boneheaded right-wingers who have made the prime ministerial careers of John Major and Theresa May unnecessarily difficult. There was, of course, the extreme embarrassment of him being filmed [as Secretary of State for Wales] trying to move his lower jaw in time to the Welsh National Anthem: and failing utterly. But in general I saw him as a 'trier' who was honest and not lacking in intelligence.
Then I saw a bit of his performance in the House of Commons yesterday: oh dear!
The issue was Brexit. His face was distorted with extreme, vitriolic anger. He was fed up, he declared, with the people who do this country down. The remainers and the soft Brexiteers - from his perspective - belittle this great country. Of course we can stand alone in the world, and triumph economically [with the implication that this task is trivial compared to the glorious achievement of solitary Britain in 1940-42].
It was painful and tragic to see him reduced to such a stupid and irrational argument. In descending to this lack of serious content his speech was about the best argument against his side of the issue that I have yet encountered.
The hard Brexiteers ignore the realities of the economic situation in the world. WTO Rules do not offer a safe basis on which the UK can instantly build a pattern of close trade deals with countries outside the European Economic Area, as has so often been stressed in this blog. Tariffs are not the key issue: regulations and quid-pro-quo deals that get round WTO standards dominate in world trade agreements, and the UK does not have the intellectual resources of trained manpower that would be needed to get even tentative interim deals in place by March 2019; or, indeed, by December 2021.
By declining to vote in the Commons yesterday, on the motion to publish the dossiers on 52 sectors of the economy and the potential impact on them of leaving the EEA, the Conservative Party again displayed that it has lost control of the House. It is almost certain that when these dossiers are released, they will provide a massive stock of ammunition for the remainers and will seriously undermine the sanguine daydreams of the hard Brexiteers.
The resignation on the same day of the highly-regarded Defence Secretary, on grounds that most men [and many women] of his age and origin would think to be spectacularly trivial, indicates to me that Sir Michael Fallon welcomed an excuse to get out from under the bonfire that is being built in the Tory party.
Redwood is - in political terms - dead wood, tinder dry; ready to support a conflagration that could end the two centuries of Conservatism as the dominant political organisation in the United Kingdom. The arch-Brexiteers would [apparently] force the collapse of the May government if their diabolical mission to undermine the economy is defeated. An election before Christmas has become a strong possibility; thought not yet probable.
Corbyn has always regarded the EU as a capitalist club: so he has been against it, even though Labour under his leadership notionally supported the remainers in the 2016 referendum: where millions of old-Labour voters went the other way. I doubt if the Labour leader has a clear view of what the European Economic Area is: and it is problematic whether Keir Starmer can bring him to a sensible stance on that matter. This is the one factor that could loose a December [or February] election for Labour. Politics have suddenly become much more interesting: and more frightening!
Showing posts with label Remainers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remainers. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 November 2017
Monday, 10 July 2017
Lame Ducks and Kamikaze in Cloud-Cuckoo Land
Mrs May's new ploy might be quite clever; and if it is, one wonders who dreamed it up for her. To issue a draft speech two days early is a new trick, as far as I know. It is designed to set the media into a frenzy and to challenge the opposition parties to make a considered response to the apparently-arid actual content of the discourse.
Mrs May appears to be a lame duck premier, but her party dare not precipitate an election if it can be avoided. She may indeed survive long enough for the arch-Brexiteers to be shown up as lame ducks, instead.
A so-called Kamikaze wing of the Conservative party is - against all reason - demanding a 'hard' Brexit, which seems to mean complete withdrawal from the European Economic Area and the destruction of what the Thatcherites [and the neo-Thatcherite New Labour crew] left of the British economy. With various degrees of enthusiasm about self-immolation, there are reckoned to be up to sixty people of that persuasion: enough the prevent any more moderate consensus in the Tory party. Before her spectacularly unsuccessful election campaign, Mrs May hoped to get a big enough majority, including a large number of Remainers among the new MPs, to be able to face down the loonies and come to a solution of the Brexit dilemma [which she did not solicit personally] that could probably attract massive support in parliament and in the so-called parliament of the EU.
She is now launching an attempt to build a Commons consensus anyway. It will take a long time, but it may have the effect of moderating the success of the Momentum movement in the Labour Party.
Corbyn was spectacularly equivocal in all the recent election grandstanding about the Brexit issue. His personal antagonism towards anything that might protect or strengthen capitalism is beyond doubt, and as is evidenced in Germany the EU is good for business. M Macron's euro-enthusiasm is largely driven by his recognition that it will be less difficult finally to smash the French trade unions in a context of a stronger European Union than in has proven to be in a still-sovereign France. The Corbynistas will have noticed that: Macron is a product of the French system for producing technocrats who serve the secret state that lies behind the constitution, and the hard left recognises the enemy. This is the context in which Corbyn's twists and turns in the coming months should be observed. He has command of the party - increasingly - thanks to the crazy constitutional changes that his predecessor pushed through the party: but he has no empathy with the mainstream tradition of the Labour party which most of his MPs [including the new cohort] represent.
Thus Mrs May's scenario planning could set the Corbynista minority of Labour and the Kamikaze minority of the Tories on the outside of a developing consensus. As that political experiment fails at the first hurdle, but might eventually be made to run, economic reality will turn the enthusiastic Brexiteer ministers into lame ducks. Putting both Fox and Davis alongside Johnson in key roles at the sharp edge of the Brexit negotiations seemed crazy at first: and perhaps it was simply that: crazy. But now the real evidence is coming to the top, the wedges between the three musketeers will become apparent. David Davis is learning the limits of practicality, and will soon have to make a decision about whether he sides with Philip Hammond [who has already, in effect, said that the UK must remain within the European Economic Area] or go out on a limb. Johnson will follow where the wind blows: he was late in deciding to opt for the Brexit camp, astonished when they won, and confused now that they are faced with increasingly harsh realities.
Liam Fox has appeared to be the most dangerous Brexiteer minister. He seems really to have believed what he said about the gains that post-Brexit agreements with the USA and India and China can bring to the country. But today the main manufacturing employers' body has emphasised that point protectionism is increasingly transcending overall trade agreements specifically in China, India and the USA. To protect their own firms, trade associations and governments in those countries are simply setting up ad hoc barriers against imports, especially of the high-tech and IP-strong exports that Britain needs to build up in the future. Fox will be proven to be a very lame duck before he can be really dangerous; and that public exposure will greatly strengthen the argument that the UK must remain within the European Free Trade Area: on almost-any terms.
Mrs May appears to be a lame duck premier, but her party dare not precipitate an election if it can be avoided. She may indeed survive long enough for the arch-Brexiteers to be shown up as lame ducks, instead.
A so-called Kamikaze wing of the Conservative party is - against all reason - demanding a 'hard' Brexit, which seems to mean complete withdrawal from the European Economic Area and the destruction of what the Thatcherites [and the neo-Thatcherite New Labour crew] left of the British economy. With various degrees of enthusiasm about self-immolation, there are reckoned to be up to sixty people of that persuasion: enough the prevent any more moderate consensus in the Tory party. Before her spectacularly unsuccessful election campaign, Mrs May hoped to get a big enough majority, including a large number of Remainers among the new MPs, to be able to face down the loonies and come to a solution of the Brexit dilemma [which she did not solicit personally] that could probably attract massive support in parliament and in the so-called parliament of the EU.
She is now launching an attempt to build a Commons consensus anyway. It will take a long time, but it may have the effect of moderating the success of the Momentum movement in the Labour Party.
Corbyn was spectacularly equivocal in all the recent election grandstanding about the Brexit issue. His personal antagonism towards anything that might protect or strengthen capitalism is beyond doubt, and as is evidenced in Germany the EU is good for business. M Macron's euro-enthusiasm is largely driven by his recognition that it will be less difficult finally to smash the French trade unions in a context of a stronger European Union than in has proven to be in a still-sovereign France. The Corbynistas will have noticed that: Macron is a product of the French system for producing technocrats who serve the secret state that lies behind the constitution, and the hard left recognises the enemy. This is the context in which Corbyn's twists and turns in the coming months should be observed. He has command of the party - increasingly - thanks to the crazy constitutional changes that his predecessor pushed through the party: but he has no empathy with the mainstream tradition of the Labour party which most of his MPs [including the new cohort] represent.
Thus Mrs May's scenario planning could set the Corbynista minority of Labour and the Kamikaze minority of the Tories on the outside of a developing consensus. As that political experiment fails at the first hurdle, but might eventually be made to run, economic reality will turn the enthusiastic Brexiteer ministers into lame ducks. Putting both Fox and Davis alongside Johnson in key roles at the sharp edge of the Brexit negotiations seemed crazy at first: and perhaps it was simply that: crazy. But now the real evidence is coming to the top, the wedges between the three musketeers will become apparent. David Davis is learning the limits of practicality, and will soon have to make a decision about whether he sides with Philip Hammond [who has already, in effect, said that the UK must remain within the European Economic Area] or go out on a limb. Johnson will follow where the wind blows: he was late in deciding to opt for the Brexit camp, astonished when they won, and confused now that they are faced with increasingly harsh realities.
Liam Fox has appeared to be the most dangerous Brexiteer minister. He seems really to have believed what he said about the gains that post-Brexit agreements with the USA and India and China can bring to the country. But today the main manufacturing employers' body has emphasised that point protectionism is increasingly transcending overall trade agreements specifically in China, India and the USA. To protect their own firms, trade associations and governments in those countries are simply setting up ad hoc barriers against imports, especially of the high-tech and IP-strong exports that Britain needs to build up in the future. Fox will be proven to be a very lame duck before he can be really dangerous; and that public exposure will greatly strengthen the argument that the UK must remain within the European Free Trade Area: on almost-any terms.
Monday, 19 June 2017
How Thick are the Tory Brexiteers?
I admit that I voted for 'Brexit' under the impression that the 'Remainers' were likely to win; but sure that even if the 'Leave' vote gained a majority the government's policy would be to remain in the European Economic Area, probably within the structure of EFTA. My opposition to 'Europe' was entirely to the political Union, especially the drift towards integration of the military and the threat to NATO.
I now read that there are some sixty Tory MPs who want to sever all institutional links with Europe, and shove Britain off into the wide world with no context for trade other that the World Trade Organisation. It is also widely believed that Mrs May, a lukewarm remainer in the referendum, has swallowed the sixty headbangers' line. It seems that the Maastricht ghost that destroyed the Major era is gathering strength to destroy what is left of Mrs May's residual authority in the Conservative party.
That party has a centuries-long tradition of disposing of dangerous and embarrassing leaders. Let them get on with it: even if it means another election, another hung parliament and a consensual coalition.
Meanwhile the Brexit Secretary has begun the pantomime in Brussels. It is all so sad, that I have no more words for today.
Normal service will be resumed tomorrow....
I now read that there are some sixty Tory MPs who want to sever all institutional links with Europe, and shove Britain off into the wide world with no context for trade other that the World Trade Organisation. It is also widely believed that Mrs May, a lukewarm remainer in the referendum, has swallowed the sixty headbangers' line. It seems that the Maastricht ghost that destroyed the Major era is gathering strength to destroy what is left of Mrs May's residual authority in the Conservative party.
That party has a centuries-long tradition of disposing of dangerous and embarrassing leaders. Let them get on with it: even if it means another election, another hung parliament and a consensual coalition.
Meanwhile the Brexit Secretary has begun the pantomime in Brussels. It is all so sad, that I have no more words for today.
Normal service will be resumed tomorrow....
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