Is the UK Going to Join the EEA as a post-Brexit Backstop?

The Financial Times reported (paywall) on Thursday that the environment secretary, Michael Gove, privately discussed the UK joining the European Economic Area (EEA) with liberal Tory MPs and Peers, as a backstop plan for Brexit. Gove, who supported the prime minister, Theresa May’s, Chequers plan for Brexit suggested that the UK could be ‘parked’ in the EEA, to avoid a no deal exit from the European Union (EU), at least for a temporary period.

The idea is remarkably similar to the one floated by Paul Goodman on the Tory grassroots website Conservative Home a couple of weeks ago. Gove raised the possibility at a private dinner with about 20 Tory Parliamentarians on June 25, as he ran through various options in the event of Mrs May being unable to agree a deal in Brussels before March next year. He is not alone in thinking that the Chequers plan will be rejected by the EU, as the noises coming out of the European Commission have not been positive. Nor from the Tory grassroots, where it is seen as a sell-out.

As one Tory activist puts it below the line:

‘This is about the worst Tory Cabinet I can remember. They don’t know what they are doing; they don’t know where they are going and they don’t have a clue about what their destination is - on Brexit or pretty much anything else. They are simply incompetent and incapable.

There is not one area of policy where you can say the Government is doing a good job - Brexit, transport, the economy, health, welfare, immigration, defence etc - and at Chequers they were all driven like sheep to produce a worthless agreement that is a national embarrassment. No one has a good word to say about it - not even May.’

It is hard to see many of these people supporting EEA membership, even temporarily though.

Gove was a prominent supporter of the Leave campaign during the referendum in 2016, but is said to have become increasingly concerned that the UK will not actually leave the EU at all, with all of the complications of leaving now exposed the public. There does seem to have been a shift in public opinion with the idea of a second referendum, with an option to remain in the EU, on the voting paper gaining ground. More Tory MPs from the more liberal wing of the party also seem to be coming around to the idea of a second ballot.

I can’t see that we will crash out of the EU without a post Brexit deal, but the default position of remaining in the EU is the most likely scenario if we don’t. There is no support in Parliament for a no deal Brexit, with an extension of the transition period to more than the just under two years already agreed with the EU also likely, but perhaps joining the EEA is the most sensible thing to do in the circumstances? The option of temporary EEA membership might appeal to the majority of Tory MPs, as a way out of the current crisis.

Britain would be out of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy, and would have some latitude on trade deals that the Chequers plan does not deliver. Free movement of people would have to continue, but an ‘emergency brake’ could be put on immigration from the EU, on a temporary basis (which EU rules allow now anyway), which conceivably could extend to whole period of EEA membership.

As Goodman points out: ‘All in all, if Conservative MPs believe that no deal with the EU, or a deal that is defeated in the Commons, would be followed either by a Doomsday Brexit or by no Brexit at all, they can only conclude that the risks of gambling on this Plan B are less than the risks of sticking with Plan A and with the Prime Minister.’   

But what of the Labour party, would Labour MPs also support EEA membership? The Labour leadership has already ruled out joining the EEA, saying that it is not suitable for the UK, and whipped their MPs to vote against an amendment to the government’s White Paper which would have committed us joining the EEA. Some MPs rebelled, but the majority voted against.

But this amendment was not for a temporary period, and Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit spokesperson, has said in the past that the UK should remain in the EU in a transitional phase of about four years, but that we should remain ‘as long as is necessary.’ Gove’s plan doesn’t look too dissimilar to what Starmer has said. 

Whether Labour would ease the political problems the Tories are in at the moment, is a moot point. Labour sees defeating the government over its Brexit plans as the quickest way to gain power. Politics works this way, I’m afraid, so I would be surprised if Labour backed this idea.

If the EEA idea does make it through Parliament, it would mean the end for Theresa May, but perhaps Michael Gove is positioning himself to replace her as prime minister? This is also how politics works, unfortunately.

Boris Johnson is a National and International Embarrassment

Has Britain ever had a foreign secretary anything like Boris Johnson? Foreign secretaries are normally very guarded about what they say in public, because first and foremost, the job is the most senior UK diplomat handling international issues. That is the way diplomacy works, and to do anything else is likely to be counterproductive. The art of diplomacy is to get agreements where everyone can claim some sort of victory.

As reported in the Guardian, the latest embarrassing remarks to emanate from the lips of Johnson are his almost casual comparison of the current Russian government as similar to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany of the 1930s. This was the exchange:

Johnson made the Hitler comparison while speaking before the all-party foreign affairs select committee and responding to remarks from the Labour MP Ian Austin, who called for England to pull out of the World Cup altogether. “Putin is going to use it in the way Hitler used the 1936 Olympics,” Austin said.

Johnson replied: “I think that your characterisation of what is going to happen in Moscow, the World Cup, in all the venues – yes, I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right. It is an emetic prospect of Putin glorying in this sporting event.”

The rule of thumb when debating issues is that the first one to mention Hitler has lost the argument, thank you foreign secretary! Whatever you think of Putin and the Russian government, it is crass to compare it to the Nazis. Even more so, given the history of the loss of millions of Russian lives sacrificed fighting Hitler’s army.

This though is just the latest example of Johnson’s complete unsuitability for his job. Of course, he is only in the job because the Tories need to keep a pro and anti Brexit balance in the Cabinet, but foreign secretary is definitely not the role for Boris. Come to think of it, I can’t imagine what Cabinet job he would do well at? Transport maybe? Although he did nothing for transport in London when he was Mayor, except inheriting those bikes and hiking the fares on tube and buses.

This is the man who has failed so spectacularly to get British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe released from an Iranian prison on a highly dubious espionage conviction. Going so far as to risk getting her a longer sentence, by using loose, flippant language about the case in public. He told a Parliamentary committee that Ratcliffe had been training journalists in the region, and she was promptly hauled in front of an Iranian court and told her sentence may be doubled to ten years.

At the Tory party conference last year, Johnson said that he knew businessmen who “have got a brilliant vision to turn Sirte (in worn torn Libya) into the next Dubai. The only thing they have got to do is clear the dead bodies away.” The remark was rightly, roundly condemned, and certainly not anywhere near diplomatic language.

Johnson also got into a row with the Italian economic minister Carlo Calenda, when Johnson claimed  it was “bollocks” that free movement of people is one of the European Union’s founding principles. Calenda is quoted as saying “he basically said: ‘I don’t want free movement of people but I want the single market,’” Mr Calenda told Bloomberg. “I said: ‘No way.’ He said: ‘You’ll sell less prosecco.’ I said: ‘OK, you’ll sell less fish and chips, but I’ll sell less prosecco to one country and you’ll sell less to 27 countries.’ Putting things on this level is a bit insulting.”

And so to Johnson’s part in the EU referendum. He had a reputation for being from the liberal wing of the Tory party, and despite some opportunistic journalism for the Telegraph and Spectator, was never really that animated by the EU. Indeed, his father and sister have gone on record as saying that Johnson had never shown any interest in leaving the EU, prior to the referendum being called.

Naked ambition got the better of him, as he calculated that whichever way the referendum went, there would soon be a vacancy for Tory leader (and prime minister), with party members being given final say between two MPs selected by their peers. The membership of the Tory party, aging, white, middle to upper class, are overwhelmingly anti-EU. Hey presto!

When David Cameron resigned as prime minister after the referendum, Johnson was quickly out of the blocks submitting his candidacy, only to later withdraw after being stabbed in the back by his colleague, Michael Gove. It did earn him his present job as foreign secretary though, and there may well be vacancy at the top again soon.

Johnson’s comment about the EU can “go whistle” for a divorce payment when we leave the organisation, has in fact turned out to be “bollocks” as UK has now agreed to pay around £40 billion. His claim that we can make Brexit a “Titanic success” betrays his schooling in the classics, and that he is completely out of touch with common parlance. Most people associate any reference to Titanic to mean the ship that sank after hitting an iceberg. Not what Johnson was trying to express at all.

We are enough of a laughing stock globally at the moment, why make matters infinitely much worse by having a national representative to the world who is such self seeking prat?     

UK Government Reshuffle – Rearranging a Few Deck Chairs on the Titanic

After all of the hype in the media, that the prime minister, Theresa May, was going to ‘re-boot’ her Cabinet, the reshuffle of ministers on Monday was a drab affair. Apart from two Cabinet ministers going by choice, one for health reasons and one because he’d largely had enough of it, it was mostly an exercise in the same set of clowns staying put in their ministerial roles.

The reshuffle was also meant to be about the Tory party sharpening up its act on appealing to voters. Thirteen new party posts of vice chair were introduced to champion various policy areas. It remains to be seen if this will make the Tories more appealing. But it was undermined by several social media gaffe’s during the day, most notably Tory central office tweeting out the news that Chris Grayling was to be the new party chair, when he wasn’t. The tweet was quickly taken down. It did at least provide some entertainment on an otherwise uneventful day.

The normally staunchly Tory supporting Telegraph newspaper began referring to a ‘chaotic’ reshuffle, and the dye had been cast.

There was some drama when Health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, declined to be moved to the business department, where May intended swap him with Greg Clarke. Apparently, Clark was kept waiting for an hour and half whilst Hunt pleaded to be able to stay put at health. May was eventually persuaded and Hunt gained an add on to the health brief in social care.

Sajid Javid also got an add on to his title, with housing joining local government and communities, although it was already a part of the department, but overseen by a junior minister. A cosmetic change that is meant to show the government is taking the housing crisis seriously, which it isn’t really.  

The other thing this event was meant to be about was shoring up the prime minister's authority, but this was far from achieved. Not only did Hunt refuse to move from health, but Justine Greening refused to move from education, not unsurprisingly turning down the offer of work and pensions secretary in the process, and leaving the government. At last some drama.

Greening was apparently upset by media briefing against her in the last week, and suspected Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, was behind the move, because of her views on Brexit (she supported remain in the referendum). It had certainly been trailed in the media that May was irritated by Greening blocking May’s grammar schools policy. Most reports forecast Greening was for the chop.

Greening pointedly mentioned carrying on working for ‘social mobility’ as a MP, in a tweet after she resigned.

May trying to look tough though, has a habit of back-firing. When she first became prime minister she fired Nicky Morgan, George Osborne and Michael Gove. Morgan is of course one of the Tory Brexit rebels and does her best to hinder May in general. Osborne, now outside Parliament but as editor of the Evening Standard, has a powerful media weapon which he doesn’t shrink from using to criticise May and her government. Gove is back in the Cabinet weaselling away, behind May’s back. 

Greening is the MP for Putney in south west London, but only has a slender 1500 or so vote majority, it is also a strongly remain (in the EU) voting constituency, like most of London. I would say she is pretty much guaranteed to join the Tory Brexit rebel MPs group in Parliament now. The rebels have already inflicted one defeat on the prime minister, and she has just bolstered their number in Parliament.

Only eight days into the new year, and Theresa May has botched another political initiative. She clearly isn’t cut out for the role of prime minister, but she staggers on from one crisis to the next, the latest being in the health service. I predict a number of public service scandals breaking out over the year, because the government is paralysed, by the lack of a Parliamentary majority and a deep division amongst its MPs and ministers. It can’t do anything other than Brexit, and they are not making a good job of that either, for the same reasons.

More governing incompetence and national humiliation, for the sake of unity in a political party with less than 100,000 members, which continues to drag the country down uncaringly. The new year begins as the last one ended, a complete shambles.  

How capitalism is destroying education

Capitalism has ripped the heart out of education’s fundamental principles.’ Bradley Allsop discusses how the focus on employment above learning,  the rise of ‘lad culture’ in universities, and stifling of creativity through curricula devoid of passion are all interlinked with the growing influence of market ideology into education.

First published on  Bright Green LINK

Students not consumers!’ Students at a Free Education Demonstration in Birmingham in March. Photo: William Pinkney-Baird

Remember the story of the woman who swallowed a fly? This unfortunate lady ended up with quite the menagerie within her stomach because of her ever-escalating ‘solutions’ to her dietary dilemma. On both sides of the Atlantic the higher education sector has ingested a whole lot more than a simple fruit fly, and it’s efforts to rectify things look set to swallow up my generation’s wealth, time, and ultimately their future. Bizarrely this old wive’s tale is becoming a new generation’s nightmare.

As a sector, there is now tens of millions of pounds spent on ‘marketing’ in UK higher education, a figure that rose by 22% in 2013 despite a 7% drop in applications due to fee rises. Marketing professor Chris Hackley claimed that such expenditure for large swathes of mid-level universities was likely to be ineffective, as for many students locality, variety of courses and grade requirements are the determining factor- something advertising can do little about. It is pointed out in the article that this is expenditure likely to only increase due to the ‘circular logic of the market’- if one university does it their competitors feel compelled to as well.

The documentary ‘Ivory Tower’ explores how this circular logic has reached truly epic proportions in the US, with plasma TV’s, swimming pools and saunas being offered at many universities, with a constant search for bigger and better that serves only to push costs up. In many ways this is divorced from student interests and the founding principles of higher education, yet it is the student that will end up picking up the bill.

I experienced this for myself when I recently attended a UCAS fair in London. Each university was squeezed into little boxes (with those with larger budgets being able to pay for extra space and fancier gizmos) piled high with prospectus’, usually standing in front of a TV screen with a student saying something vaguely inspiring on loop. The hall was one big procession of ‘one-up-manship’, universities competing against each other, no friendly academic spirit, just unabashed hostile competition. The little ‘careers’ section of the hall was populated by the likes of KPMG and Deloitte, ensuring that only the very best and least moral capitalist enablers were on show for young and impressionable students and this is the point. University is no longer about learning, it’s about employment.

As Noam Chomsky once said: “If you burden students with large amounts of debt, they are unlikely to think about changing the world”. Most of the students I know quite readily admit that they came to university to ‘get a better job’, that they’re doing their degree because ‘it’ll pay well’, and that they’re going to their lectures because ‘they have to’. Very few people actually enjoy education anymore, and even less are thinking about how to change the world.

Not only is the loss of academic passion beset by the employability agenda of successive neoliberal governments, it also suffers from a psychological onslaught best captured by the phrase ‘lad culture’. Increasingly universities seem to be little more than chauvinistic playgrounds rather than critical paradises. This is partly due to the profound ways in which paying for your own education distorts the relationship between lecturer and student: no longer is the student humbly learning and being challenged by their tutor, they are a customer, and the customer is always right. On some unconscious level the enormous debt we are saddled with seems to give us our entitlement to a good grade in the place of hard work and academic rigour.

David Hartley foresaw this back in 1995 in his piece: ‘The McDonaldisation of Higher Education’, arguing that increasingly education would have a focus on “efficiency,” “calculability,” “predictability,” and “control”, and that in all probability teaching in classrooms would become a thing of the past. Why bother with lighting and heating a room and paying an hour’s wages to a lecturer when you can just put the slides up online for the student to peruse from the comfort of their own home? In many institutions now the priority is not on quality but quantity, with many online courses having dreadful pass rates but lovely profit margins.

The problems are not just limited to higher education either, far from it. One anonymous blogger describes the painful experiences of their adopted children who have come through abuse and neglect to be met with an inflexible curriculum. They talk passionately about an educational system devoid of that very thing: passion. Where arbitrary lines are drawn between successes and failures, where a ‘one size fits all’ and ‘teach to the test’ approach stifles creativity and erodes self-esteem, and constant assessment of students and staff alike breeds stress and anxiety. This is no system that can help their vulnerable children, instead it only adds to their problems.

The Green Party’s Martin Francis also highlights the disastrous attempts by Michael Gove to introduce elements of competition and market ideology into the schooling system. Not content with putting intolerable amounts of pressure on staff and enforcing rigid and restrictive criteria for success, Ofsted have been used as a tool for ushering in more academies under Gove’s reforms. As Francis puts it, Gove’s reforms have fragmented the sector, pitting school against school (much like the UCAS fair I attended) creating a ‘corporate’ rather than a public service identity for education. This fundamentally undermines the cooperative nature of education.

Whether it be ever-escalating marketing wars, a customer mentality, or obsession with efficiency and employability, all have their roots in capitalist ideology, an ideology aggressively expanding into the education sector. The inevitable logic of ‘austerity’ as well, leading to cuts to students support and higher education funding and the tripling of tuition fees is the only real answer capitalism has to the deficit, an answer clearly not in the interests of students or anyone else without a Swiss bank account.
Capitalism has not killed education in the obvious senses that its proponents attempt to highlight—more and more attend university each year. What it is slowly doing is a much more subtle and lamentable death—it has ripped the heart out of its fundamental principles. It is confining the imaginations and the aspirations of a generation. It is offering a bleak and debt-ridden future to millions.