The MP for Rushcliffe [Nottingham] had agreed to stand down from the House of Commons, had the general election that cost Mrs May her majority not been held. If the last parliament had run to its full term, he would have retired with a good grace.
As things are, Ken Clarke ran again in the recent snap election, and is thus able to take a prominent part in the Brexit debate. As he emphasised in the Commons yesterday he has consistently supported the Tory party's pro-EU stance 'for the fifty years while I have been a member'. The Conservative Party was firmly in favour of remaining in the Union up to and during the referendum. Then Cameron ran away; and the party in a shuffling, sullen way declared that it was bound by the referendum result that almost none of them had expected.
As most of the party wallowed in stunned stupefaction, the tiny minority of Tory MPs who I call the headbanging Brexiteers stepped forward with the fantasy that the referendum vote obliges the UK to leave not only 'the European Union' but also the EEC and the European Economic Area. That this course of action would ruin the country - quickly - has not been considered by the loony right.The thousands of lorries that bring components to British factories from other factories located elsewhere in the common market, and take components the other way, are essential to the continuity of most of profitable UK industry, would be stopped dead in the event of a 'hard Brexit'. This would be calamitous: yet Mrs May is pressured to let it happen [largely, by letting David Davis spin out the sham negotiations until there is no time for rational argument to triumph].
Ken Clarke could be a powerful voice for commonsense; but instead he hankers after the Edward Heath vision of a Britain absorbed into Europe [thus removing the Irish question, as I mentioned the other day].
Britain must leave the corrupt sham democracy of the EU: that was the referendum result. But the economic benefits of the European Economic Area can be salvaged. It is tragic that Kenneth Clarke's obsession with a lost dream prevents such a competent political figure from pulling his weight at this crucial time.
Showing posts with label Commons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Commons. Show all posts
Wednesday, 15 November 2017
Monday, 13 November 2017
A Symbolic Bonnet?
I was brought up, long ago, with the constant admonition: 'do not mock the afflicted!'
I usually avoid doing so; but sometimes it seems that a voluntarily-adopted affliction makes an important point about the person who has adopted it. I increasingly feel this about the prime minister's selection of clothes. I recognise that she is tall and slim: as many leading models are, so there is an amplitude of clothing for women of means who are of those dimensions to choose from. Mrs May's choices vary between the odd and the wildly eccentric; and yesterday at the Cenotaph I thought that she established a new, abnormal norm. The black bonnet that she had selected - possibly it was even designed for her - looked like something that a war widow of 100 years ago would have dressed her teenage daughter in for a remembrance event: yet it was also vaguely reminiscent of a German army helmet. Yesterday it simply looked anachronistic on a grown woman.
But for me it also epitomised her situation. She gambled on winning enough seats in the Commons for the Conservative Party so that she could discount the ten-to-twenty headbanging Brexiteers who for various reasons - including pure stupidity - want to risk national economic ruin by interpreting the referendum result of 2016 as authorising the government to leave the European Economic Area altogether, on a cliff-edge date at the end of March 2019. As she totally misjudged the one-woman campaign that she ran, she lost her majority; since when the headbangers [and the DUP] have dominated her field for policy options. She has retreated into a psychological bunker, from which - so it is rumoured - she continues to radiate confidence that all will become well in the best of all possible worlds: sometime. And meanwhile, as M Barnier has said, the clock on the exit door is ticking.
Yesterday the Sunday Times - never known as a Labour-supporting vehicle - gave a prominent page to an article in the name of Jeremy Corbyn [which was, therefore, at least authorised by him]. In it he presaged a shift of parliamentary arithmetic, implying his recognition of the fact that while virtually all members of the Commons accept that the referendum result [though many of them think it unfortunate] must - at least, minimally - be implemented. But he also accepts that an overwhelming majority of members have come to recognise that to leave the Common Market and the European Union in a simple step would be a calamity for the country.
To demand a general election - which may become necessary if Mrs May is defeated by the defection of any section of her party - would mean that the current crop of MPs have abdicated all responsibility. It is deeply unclear what the result of a general election would be: but the most probable outcome would be a small renaissance for the LibDems, the Scots Tories at least holding their position, no change in Ulster, Labour gains in Scotland [but the Nats still in the lead] and no clear result from England. Labour might just be the biggest party, though the Tories have an equal chance of that; so the construction of a coalition would be a slow and painful business: while the Europeans could fold their arms and enjoy the British discomfiture and the tick of the clock.
The last time when Britain was in a comparable situation was in June, 1940; when a paralysis of government [albeit, with a strong Conservative majority] faced an existential threat. Talk of coalition was in the air; and Labour had already made clear that they could not support a Chamberlain-led government: though they also accepted that the Tory majority required that any coalition was led by a Conservative. In the crucial debate, as a government supporter spoke for the government, a fellow member challenged him to "speak for England". The government left the debate with a clear majority, but the loss of confidence in them was equally clear. Chamberlain - a sick man - resigned, and the amazing, anachronistic career of Winston Churchill reached its apogee.
Corbyn is no Churchill: he is no patriot, he has supported obnoxious alien regimes acting on the lines of the traduced anti-patriots of whom W S Gilbert wrote they admire "all centuries but this one, and all countries but their own". Corbyn's recent adoption of statesmanlike utterances - at odds with his career-long posturing - is utterly unconvincing: but if he were to prove capable of keeping to manifesto promises [and capable of keeping his close associates within those bounds] he might be useful in the hour of crisis.
I usually avoid doing so; but sometimes it seems that a voluntarily-adopted affliction makes an important point about the person who has adopted it. I increasingly feel this about the prime minister's selection of clothes. I recognise that she is tall and slim: as many leading models are, so there is an amplitude of clothing for women of means who are of those dimensions to choose from. Mrs May's choices vary between the odd and the wildly eccentric; and yesterday at the Cenotaph I thought that she established a new, abnormal norm. The black bonnet that she had selected - possibly it was even designed for her - looked like something that a war widow of 100 years ago would have dressed her teenage daughter in for a remembrance event: yet it was also vaguely reminiscent of a German army helmet. Yesterday it simply looked anachronistic on a grown woman.
But for me it also epitomised her situation. She gambled on winning enough seats in the Commons for the Conservative Party so that she could discount the ten-to-twenty headbanging Brexiteers who for various reasons - including pure stupidity - want to risk national economic ruin by interpreting the referendum result of 2016 as authorising the government to leave the European Economic Area altogether, on a cliff-edge date at the end of March 2019. As she totally misjudged the one-woman campaign that she ran, she lost her majority; since when the headbangers [and the DUP] have dominated her field for policy options. She has retreated into a psychological bunker, from which - so it is rumoured - she continues to radiate confidence that all will become well in the best of all possible worlds: sometime. And meanwhile, as M Barnier has said, the clock on the exit door is ticking.
Yesterday the Sunday Times - never known as a Labour-supporting vehicle - gave a prominent page to an article in the name of Jeremy Corbyn [which was, therefore, at least authorised by him]. In it he presaged a shift of parliamentary arithmetic, implying his recognition of the fact that while virtually all members of the Commons accept that the referendum result [though many of them think it unfortunate] must - at least, minimally - be implemented. But he also accepts that an overwhelming majority of members have come to recognise that to leave the Common Market and the European Union in a simple step would be a calamity for the country.
To demand a general election - which may become necessary if Mrs May is defeated by the defection of any section of her party - would mean that the current crop of MPs have abdicated all responsibility. It is deeply unclear what the result of a general election would be: but the most probable outcome would be a small renaissance for the LibDems, the Scots Tories at least holding their position, no change in Ulster, Labour gains in Scotland [but the Nats still in the lead] and no clear result from England. Labour might just be the biggest party, though the Tories have an equal chance of that; so the construction of a coalition would be a slow and painful business: while the Europeans could fold their arms and enjoy the British discomfiture and the tick of the clock.
The last time when Britain was in a comparable situation was in June, 1940; when a paralysis of government [albeit, with a strong Conservative majority] faced an existential threat. Talk of coalition was in the air; and Labour had already made clear that they could not support a Chamberlain-led government: though they also accepted that the Tory majority required that any coalition was led by a Conservative. In the crucial debate, as a government supporter spoke for the government, a fellow member challenged him to "speak for England". The government left the debate with a clear majority, but the loss of confidence in them was equally clear. Chamberlain - a sick man - resigned, and the amazing, anachronistic career of Winston Churchill reached its apogee.
Corbyn is no Churchill: he is no patriot, he has supported obnoxious alien regimes acting on the lines of the traduced anti-patriots of whom W S Gilbert wrote they admire "all centuries but this one, and all countries but their own". Corbyn's recent adoption of statesmanlike utterances - at odds with his career-long posturing - is utterly unconvincing: but if he were to prove capable of keeping to manifesto promises [and capable of keeping his close associates within those bounds] he might be useful in the hour of crisis.
Thursday, 19 October 2017
Mrs May's Incomprehension
In an emotional Commons sitting yesterday, Mrs May displayed her total incomprehension of the realities of life for the very people she has said she wants to convince that 'Britain is a country that works for everybody'. She absolutely refused to pause in the roll-out of the new single benefit, even though Tory MPs had lined up to warn her of the stress that this was causing in households up and down the land. She lauded the principle of the benefit, and gloated that it was forcing people to take low-paid jobs [though, of course, she did not formulate it quite in those terms].
The government more generally have emphasised that people can get an advance of 50% of their benefit for the six-plus weeks they have to wait to draw the main sum; downplaying the speed with which repayment of the advance is required once receipt of the benefit is confirmed. It is a matter of indifference to the government whether the 'helpline' charges 50p+ per minute or is free: no doubt, if more people can access, it more of the callers will find it constantly engaged.
The same day, figures were produced that show that more than a quarter of young mothers all over the country and of the people in north-east England lead the large league table of people who are locked-in to low-paid jobs, with no hope of shifting to better situations in the short term. Thus more people are more deeply depressed than have ever been since the introduction of the welfare state; with the food banks planning for a bumper Christmas this year.
A long way beyond Mrs May's comprehension is the fact that as more people are driven into low-paid employment, that is also low-productivity employment. So the more people 'gain' from the single benefit, the lower will be the average wage and the less will be the average output per head over the whole workforce: so the lower will be the average 'productivity' of labour: brilliant!
Today Mrs May is off to Brussels, to reveal her equally profound incomprehension of the plain English, French and German in which she and David Davis [and their team] have been told what the EU expects before they are willing to talk about giving Britain special access to the EU single market after Brexit. The Tory headbangers have sent her a formal warning not to be led into making any 'concession' to the EU: as if the UK has any real choice in the matter. Of course, none of the clots who have issued the warning lives on the breadline. None of them are dependent on the minimum wage, or on the single benefit; indeed, many of them have no need to earn their current income at all as they are rentiers or pensioners [or both]. So none of them will be in the categories who would experience extreme deprivation in an economically-isolated UK; but there are millions of people in Britain whose precarious living standards would be smashed to smithereens under WTO Rules. Thus these Privy Councillors and party hacks are showing the same arrogance of affluence as Mrs May and her Secretary of State for Work and Pensions showed yesterday. They are flexing their power to destroy the Conservative Party: perhaps they should be allowed to do just that; before the final vote in Parliament on the implementation of Brexit is held.
The government more generally have emphasised that people can get an advance of 50% of their benefit for the six-plus weeks they have to wait to draw the main sum; downplaying the speed with which repayment of the advance is required once receipt of the benefit is confirmed. It is a matter of indifference to the government whether the 'helpline' charges 50p+ per minute or is free: no doubt, if more people can access, it more of the callers will find it constantly engaged.
The same day, figures were produced that show that more than a quarter of young mothers all over the country and of the people in north-east England lead the large league table of people who are locked-in to low-paid jobs, with no hope of shifting to better situations in the short term. Thus more people are more deeply depressed than have ever been since the introduction of the welfare state; with the food banks planning for a bumper Christmas this year.
A long way beyond Mrs May's comprehension is the fact that as more people are driven into low-paid employment, that is also low-productivity employment. So the more people 'gain' from the single benefit, the lower will be the average wage and the less will be the average output per head over the whole workforce: so the lower will be the average 'productivity' of labour: brilliant!
Today Mrs May is off to Brussels, to reveal her equally profound incomprehension of the plain English, French and German in which she and David Davis [and their team] have been told what the EU expects before they are willing to talk about giving Britain special access to the EU single market after Brexit. The Tory headbangers have sent her a formal warning not to be led into making any 'concession' to the EU: as if the UK has any real choice in the matter. Of course, none of the clots who have issued the warning lives on the breadline. None of them are dependent on the minimum wage, or on the single benefit; indeed, many of them have no need to earn their current income at all as they are rentiers or pensioners [or both]. So none of them will be in the categories who would experience extreme deprivation in an economically-isolated UK; but there are millions of people in Britain whose precarious living standards would be smashed to smithereens under WTO Rules. Thus these Privy Councillors and party hacks are showing the same arrogance of affluence as Mrs May and her Secretary of State for Work and Pensions showed yesterday. They are flexing their power to destroy the Conservative Party: perhaps they should be allowed to do just that; before the final vote in Parliament on the implementation of Brexit is held.
Friday, 13 October 2017
Mrs May's Brexit: from Chaos to Catastrophe
Mrs May and Mr Hammond - her Finance Minister - are represented by various sections of the media as being in a serious conflict about making provision for a 'no deal' outcome from the current negotiation between the UK and the EU. The Chancellor [who is wedded, as tightly as if he were welded] to the concept of 'austerity' has told a Commons committee that he has contingency plans, but does not want to release any funds until the very last moment. He could not make that statement if staff time and some expenses [notably consultancy] had not been applied to the planning: so what he obviously means is that he is reluctant to release funds on implementing such a plan until that should appear to be the [utterly disastrous] inevitability.
Mrs May seems to be saying the same things, when she indicates that £250 million has been set aside for implementing a 'hard Brexit'. Yet the press, notably the Daily Mail, has become hysterical about the 'dispute' and the 'disloyalty' - even 'sabotage' - attributed to the Chancellor.
This stupid scenario shows that the minority of extreme Brexiteers are dragging the Tory party to its destruction; which would be no bad thing [in view of the appalling inadequacy that is apparent right across the government] if there was an opposition that combined honesty and competence over the board. But that is not the case. Labour is led by an unreconstructed Marxist who is as good as the late Comrade Suslov [the chief exponent of Leninist-Stalinist orthodoxy as the USSR was heading for destruction] at avoiding direct or evidence-based questions. The Momentum group show a dangerous revival of the 'entryism' that undermined the Labour government in the nineteen seventies, and thus opened up the way for Thatcherism and the dissipation of all that remained of the legacy of the first industrial revolution.
If May or Hammond was serious about managing a really 'hard' Brexit their first decision - however covertly it was taken - would be the abandonment of 'austerity'. Government spending far in excess of £250 billion would be needed to install a full customs border with the EU. The recruitment and training of hundreds of thousands of officials would need to begin now: somehow, the IT systems would have to be provided - almost instantly - despite the fact that even modest government schemes for computerisation are always over-cost and excessively delayed in implementation [to the extent that they often have to be abandoned].
British firms that still make things - there are many, often high-tech companies developed or reconstructed since 2008 - are almost all integrated into just-in-time Europe-wide supply chains [both in getting their necessary inputs and in selling components to EU companies]. Such businesses are making contingency plans that would require them at least to double the manpower and computer availability just to manage the 'paperwork' that would be involved in trying to maintain the flow of business after a default Brexit. Many such firms are already finding that their European customers are looking elsewhere for contingent supplies. Furthermore, insuring trade and the goods traded in a crash-Brexit situation will become massively more complex and thus expensive.
The clowns on the Tory right, with their airy assertions that all will be well 'under WTO Rules' [which they certainly do not understand:cf my many references to point protectionism], are driving an amazingly weak Cabinet towards the destruction of the national economy.
There must a popular movement, of Leavers and Remainers united, to avoid national economic destruction.
Mrs May seems to be saying the same things, when she indicates that £250 million has been set aside for implementing a 'hard Brexit'. Yet the press, notably the Daily Mail, has become hysterical about the 'dispute' and the 'disloyalty' - even 'sabotage' - attributed to the Chancellor.
This stupid scenario shows that the minority of extreme Brexiteers are dragging the Tory party to its destruction; which would be no bad thing [in view of the appalling inadequacy that is apparent right across the government] if there was an opposition that combined honesty and competence over the board. But that is not the case. Labour is led by an unreconstructed Marxist who is as good as the late Comrade Suslov [the chief exponent of Leninist-Stalinist orthodoxy as the USSR was heading for destruction] at avoiding direct or evidence-based questions. The Momentum group show a dangerous revival of the 'entryism' that undermined the Labour government in the nineteen seventies, and thus opened up the way for Thatcherism and the dissipation of all that remained of the legacy of the first industrial revolution.
If May or Hammond was serious about managing a really 'hard' Brexit their first decision - however covertly it was taken - would be the abandonment of 'austerity'. Government spending far in excess of £250 billion would be needed to install a full customs border with the EU. The recruitment and training of hundreds of thousands of officials would need to begin now: somehow, the IT systems would have to be provided - almost instantly - despite the fact that even modest government schemes for computerisation are always over-cost and excessively delayed in implementation [to the extent that they often have to be abandoned].
British firms that still make things - there are many, often high-tech companies developed or reconstructed since 2008 - are almost all integrated into just-in-time Europe-wide supply chains [both in getting their necessary inputs and in selling components to EU companies]. Such businesses are making contingency plans that would require them at least to double the manpower and computer availability just to manage the 'paperwork' that would be involved in trying to maintain the flow of business after a default Brexit. Many such firms are already finding that their European customers are looking elsewhere for contingent supplies. Furthermore, insuring trade and the goods traded in a crash-Brexit situation will become massively more complex and thus expensive.
The clowns on the Tory right, with their airy assertions that all will be well 'under WTO Rules' [which they certainly do not understand:cf my many references to point protectionism], are driving an amazingly weak Cabinet towards the destruction of the national economy.
There must a popular movement, of Leavers and Remainers united, to avoid national economic destruction.
Thursday, 5 October 2017
What Brexit? What Price?
The future of Mrs May as the Prime Minister is being much discussed this morning, while her distress in delivering her conference speech yesterday was so awfully exposed on television and excessively discussed on all the media almost as soon as the coughing began. She was 'escorted' from the platform by her husband, and one could pause to ask how she would have been able to walk without his immense support. The scene was one of extreme [and most unfortunate] personal stress, exacerbated by the security failure that allowed the 'prankster' - as the media all-too-quickly dubbed him - to hand her a sheet of paper. Boris Johnson could have secured his future as leader by grabbing the man by the collar and frogmarching him towards the exit, but in the stress of the moment he merely [weakly] tried to wave him away.
The whole episode was sad.
But it was also shameful.
If Mrs May and Mr Hammond have agreed to spend £2 billion on more social housing [of what kinds, where, when?] they must have an idea how much they are going to offer to the European Union in the next round of Brexit talks. Mrs May should have told us. Just as she should have made her 'Florence speech' in the House of Commons last spring, she should have regarded her speech yesterday as the very final chance to share her thinking with the electorate on the uppermost issue of the day. The reaction of the EU Commission, Council and Parliament to the imprecision of the Florence proposition should, surely, have impressed even on Johnson and David Davis [though perhaps not yet on Liam Fox] the understanding that waffle never had its day, and is now deeply irritant to the rest of the European Union.
It is legitimate to say that resolving the question of the Irish border is inseparable from the resolution of the question what sort of economic border it is going to be; which can only be decided when the question of Britain's membership of the European Economic Area is determined. But the Irish question would be much easier to set aside until a later stage in negotiations if the British government would clearly articulate its hopes in that area.
On the other two questions that the EU insist must be close to resolution before the wider issue of trade is discussed, the answers must be simple. Davis has implied his acceptance of the two-year transitional period, Johnson has specifically agreed to his version of that, and Philip Hammond has advocated it consistently and strongly.
For two years after March, 2019, the existing rights of EU citizens in the UK will remain as they are, with the European Court as the ultimate arbiter. After March 2021 a new relationship must be agreed; and here Mrs May - as a 'failed' Home Secretary - apparently has a serious hang-up. The UK has been willing to make laws which allow US courts to require the extradition of British citizens to the United States to stand trial for alleged offences committed while the Brit [usually, but not always, a geeky young male who has developed perverse software or algorithms] was safely located back home; usually in the back bedroom. This has always seemed to me to be an amazing concession, which puts the British courts in the role of part of the supply chain to the US Justice System. Surely, something similar can be devised for EU citizens in the UK, and for UK citizens in the EU, after we leave the political union?
This then leaves the most basic issue. Does Brexit automatically mean that the UK MUST leave the single market, and must leave the customs union, and must leave all the agreements on drugs, nuclear control, civil aviation,. research co-operation and a long catalogue of other working agreements whose abrogation would desperately hurt the UK [and which would take decades to replace, once abandoned]? These issues were not specified in the referendum question, which referred solely and specifically to membership of 'the European Union'. The extreme Brexiteers who have taken up the negative position are relatively few in number; and for that very reason, as empty vessels, they are making most noise. They will be opposed massively in the House of Lords; but the Commons is the forum in which the debate will be focused in the end. And here one man can ruin the country on his own: Jeremy Corbyn has been viscerally against the 'club of capitalist states' for decades; and although his party has adopted a sensible stance, he could undermine it on the basis of his antediluvian Marxism. He must be corralled.
Meanwhile, Mrs May's total failure of leadership is now apparent to all. Let the agony end, soon.
The whole episode was sad.
But it was also shameful.
If Mrs May and Mr Hammond have agreed to spend £2 billion on more social housing [of what kinds, where, when?] they must have an idea how much they are going to offer to the European Union in the next round of Brexit talks. Mrs May should have told us. Just as she should have made her 'Florence speech' in the House of Commons last spring, she should have regarded her speech yesterday as the very final chance to share her thinking with the electorate on the uppermost issue of the day. The reaction of the EU Commission, Council and Parliament to the imprecision of the Florence proposition should, surely, have impressed even on Johnson and David Davis [though perhaps not yet on Liam Fox] the understanding that waffle never had its day, and is now deeply irritant to the rest of the European Union.
It is legitimate to say that resolving the question of the Irish border is inseparable from the resolution of the question what sort of economic border it is going to be; which can only be decided when the question of Britain's membership of the European Economic Area is determined. But the Irish question would be much easier to set aside until a later stage in negotiations if the British government would clearly articulate its hopes in that area.
On the other two questions that the EU insist must be close to resolution before the wider issue of trade is discussed, the answers must be simple. Davis has implied his acceptance of the two-year transitional period, Johnson has specifically agreed to his version of that, and Philip Hammond has advocated it consistently and strongly.
For two years after March, 2019, the existing rights of EU citizens in the UK will remain as they are, with the European Court as the ultimate arbiter. After March 2021 a new relationship must be agreed; and here Mrs May - as a 'failed' Home Secretary - apparently has a serious hang-up. The UK has been willing to make laws which allow US courts to require the extradition of British citizens to the United States to stand trial for alleged offences committed while the Brit [usually, but not always, a geeky young male who has developed perverse software or algorithms] was safely located back home; usually in the back bedroom. This has always seemed to me to be an amazing concession, which puts the British courts in the role of part of the supply chain to the US Justice System. Surely, something similar can be devised for EU citizens in the UK, and for UK citizens in the EU, after we leave the political union?
This then leaves the most basic issue. Does Brexit automatically mean that the UK MUST leave the single market, and must leave the customs union, and must leave all the agreements on drugs, nuclear control, civil aviation,. research co-operation and a long catalogue of other working agreements whose abrogation would desperately hurt the UK [and which would take decades to replace, once abandoned]? These issues were not specified in the referendum question, which referred solely and specifically to membership of 'the European Union'. The extreme Brexiteers who have taken up the negative position are relatively few in number; and for that very reason, as empty vessels, they are making most noise. They will be opposed massively in the House of Lords; but the Commons is the forum in which the debate will be focused in the end. And here one man can ruin the country on his own: Jeremy Corbyn has been viscerally against the 'club of capitalist states' for decades; and although his party has adopted a sensible stance, he could undermine it on the basis of his antediluvian Marxism. He must be corralled.
Meanwhile, Mrs May's total failure of leadership is now apparent to all. Let the agony end, soon.
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