2018 – The Year in Blog Posts

Below are the most popular posts on this blog, as judged by unique page views, by month, for 2018. The blog is closing now until the New Year.

Happy holiday to all our readers.

January

Is the Tory Party in Terminal Decline?

It is not just a lefty like me pondering this matter, the Tories are openly posing this question themselves. Rumours are circulating that membership has fallen to as low as 70,000, and this is causing some soul searching in the party.

February

Why I Hate the Tories

I am from a Labour party supporting background, raised in local authority housing, schooled and paid for and maintained in higher education by the same municipality, a Labour run council. My dad was a shop steward in the engineering union too, so it’s no surprise then that I have never even considered supporting the Tory party.

March

Theresa May’s Response to Outing Gay People is Cynical and Irresponsible

Being gay in Pakistan is a much bigger deal than in Britain, and this news could well endanger Sanni’s family. Why Parkinson decided to make public the fact he and Sanni had had an eighteen month relationship, is not entirely clear, but it certainly looks like an attempt to smear Sanni’s revelations in some way as unreliable.

April

Why Remainers Should Vote Green in the Local Elections

The local authority elections on 3 May, are the last full scale elections in England before our departure from the European Union in March 2019. Yes, it looks like we will get a transitional deal which will last for almost two further years, when to all intents and purposes nothing will change, but we will no longer be a member of the EU. So, this is the last chance to send a message to the Labour and Tory parties, whose leaderships are in favour leaving.

May

The UK Monarchy and the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists who Pay for It

After writing about the Royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recently, I got to thinking about the overall cost of the Monarchy to UK taxpayers. Estimates put the cost of the wedding itself at around £32 million, but this is just an added extra. The more you look into the matter, the more you wonder why we put up with this historical privilege?

June

Football World Cup – England’s Triumph of Hope over Expectation

“It’s not the despair, I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.” So says John Cleese in the film Clockwise. This quote rather sums up the attitude of England football fans as each World Cup and European Championship comes around. The 2018 World Cup in Russia began yesterday, and England fans and pundits are in familiar territory.

July

Could the UK be Self-Sufficient in Food After Brexit?

With stories circulating about the British government stockpiling food, as part of a plan to cover the eventuality of a no deal Brexit, there is talk that the UK should become more self-sufficient in food once we leave the European Union (EU). Of course all this would take time, certainly longer than by our exit from the EU, which will happen in eight months’ time. But as a longer term objective, this would surely be a sensible thing to do. It would avoid tailbacks at ports and environmentally concerned people should welcome it, too. But is it feasable?

August

Tory Brexiteers Finally Come Up With Alt-Brexit Plan

It is more than two years now since the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU), where of course we voted to leave. It has been a feature, during the referendum campaign itself and in the period since, that those who advocated Brexit haven’t come up with any sort of plan for life outside of the union. What kind of relationship with the EU do they want, if any at all?

September

Why the Green Party Should Not Adopt the IHRA's Contentious Examples

In fighting antisemitism for a long time, the threat has been adequately understood as ‘hostility towards Jews as Jews’.  But this simple definition does not suffice for a different political agenda, namely: conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to attack the Palestine solidarity movement and intimidate its supporters.   This article will explain the attack, its background in a racist agenda and the necessary anti-racist response. For numerous sources, see hyperlinks in this piece.

October

Removing the Borrowing Cap on Councils Alone is not Enough – End the Right to Buy as Well

In her closing address, Theresa May, the prime minister, told the Conservative Party Conference removing the cap on local authority borrowing against Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) would help the Government achieve its ambition of building 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade.

November

Extinction Rebellion London – I was Arrested, but that’s Not going to Stop Me Protesting

Following my involvement, on Saturday 17 November, in Extinction Rebellion’s very successful Rebellion Day 1 in London, friends have said I should feel proud of what I did.  ‘Yes’, I was one of over 6000 climate protectors who, peacefully, blocked 5 of London’s central bridges for most of that day - my allocated one was Lambeth Bridge:

December

Emmanuel Macron & the Yellow Vests Protests: A Lesson in How Not to Mitigate Climate Change

Capitalist climate governance has always relied on pseudo-reforms that leave the richest free to accumulate capital, while dumping taxes on working people to nudge them in the ’right direction’. But as the protests of the gilets jaunes show, many working people no longer accept the moralising terms of capitalist approaches to climate change. In this article, Andreas Malm argues that if we really want to save this Planet, we must pursue a different kind of climate politics, one that could learn a great deal from the methods and tactics of the gilets jaunes. 

Does Anyone Believe a Word Theresa May Says?

It would be comical if the UK government and prime minister were not such a shambles at the moment, at this crucial stage for the country. As we approach what is probably the most critical period for Britain since the end of world war two, Theresa May appears to have no idea as to how to look after our interests, and to make matters worse, she seems to think she can just bluff her way through as the impending national crisis looms. She is making it up as she goes along.

It is now more than two years since May succeeded David Cameron as leader of the Tory party and prime minister. Cameron wasn’t a hard act to follow, as he whistled his way out of public life after setting in motion events that have led to this pass. Lazy, dripping with privilege and arrogance, it should have been easy to impress by comparison, but May has flunked it.

Yes, she was dealt a difficult hand with the result of the Brexit referendum, but she has played it all wrong, with a series of strategic mistakes. The country was crying out for someone to bring us together, but May just furthered the divide with her ill judged rhetoric and no discernible plan. She triggered Article 50 before she had decided even remotely how we will leave the European Union (EU).

May attacked the 16 million remain voters as ‘citizens of nowhere,’ insisted that 'no deal is better than a bad deal’ and failed to give guarantees to the 3 million EU nationals residing in the UK , that they would be allowed to stay here. Even Brexiters like Michael Gove said that giving such a guarantee would be ‘the decent thing to do'. No they were held as bargaining chips in the opening round of negotiations which inevitably led to a lack of goodwill on the part of the EU.

Then May called a snap general election, after previously ruling it out, pursued the hardest of Brexit language during the campaign, and promptly lost the Parliamentary majority that she had inherited from Cameron. To salvage something from the disaster May was forced into bribing the bigots of the Democratic Unionist Party to cling onto power by her finger tips. A series of bad calls, quite unprecedented in UK politics, to my memory.

But more than the incompetence it is her untrustworthiness which the most shocking aspect of May's reign. She began by saying that she would tackle the ‘burning injustices’ at play in the country, but is there even a shred of evidence from the last two years that she meant it? No.

May then took to prefacing anything she said publicly with ‘I have been clear…’ before going onto say something that is anything but clear. In December last year, she agreed to the EU’s back stop position on keeping the border open between Northern Ireland and the Republic, but seems to be breaking that commitment, saying it is unacceptable now.

Jean Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, revealed this week that May had been the one who suggested that we could stay in the transitional period for longer than planned after our formal Brexit. May denies this, but with her track record, I know who I believe.  

In 2009, May told her constituents in Maidenhead "we must say no to a third runway at Heathrow", but approved the expansion just after becoming prime minister. At about this time she called in the decision to go ahead with the new Hinkley Point nuclear power station, only to change her mind and give it the go-ahead.

Simon Wren-Lewis, a professor at Oxford University and a leading economist, strongly denied the prime minister's suggestion in Parliament on Wednesday, that he had said (in a chapter he wrote for a book, titled Economics for the Many) that the figures in Labour's last manifesto ‘did not add up’. The claim appeared to be ‘a deliberate lie told to gain political effect’, he said. The facts are easily checked, but May just can’t seem to stop herself from making things up.

May told the Tory party conference earlier this month, that austerity is over, but who has any confidence that is not just another fabrication?

We know that most politicians are a bit slippery, but when the prime minister tells blatant lies, it is no surprise that the public concludes that you can’t believe a word May says, and become disillusioned with our democratic system in general.  

I will leave you with Captain Ska's Liar, Liar.

Is Trying to Deny Parliament a Meaningful Brexit Vote Taking Back Control?

The government is trying to bar amendments being tabled by MPs to whatever deal is struck on Brexit with the European Union (EU). MPs managed to amend the Brexit Bill to allow a ‘meaningful vote’ on the result of the negotiations, but the government seems to think that meaningful is a take it or leave it vote. The implication being that if the government loses the vote, then the default position will be to have no deal at all.

This was first revealed by Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, saying that amendments will not be allowed because amending it could prevent it from being ratified. He wrote to the Commons’ procedure committee hoping to secure its endorsement of this position, but Labour party members of the committee managed to convince the committee to seek opinions from independent constitutional experts, on whether this would be unconstitutional.

I think it would be unconstitutional and I can’t really see how the government can get its way on this. This was perhaps reflected when Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsome appeared to be accepting of this when she said yesterday that, the reality before the United Kingdom would ‘amount’ to an either/or choice on May’s deal, even if the Commons were to debate possible amendments.

It is just about possible that the government will try to use the ‘Royal Prerogative’ which is part of the British constitution, and used for mainly foreign affairs matters, like deploying the armed forces and making or unmaking international treaties. Basically, the government can use this prerogative to sideline Parliament. Although, with MPs specifically previously amending the legislation to have a proper say, it is debatable whether or not the government could bar them now.

The government used the prerogative to trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, when notice was given to the EU of the UK intention to leave the bloc. Use of the prerogative remains subject to the common law duties of fairness and reason though. It is therefore possible to challenge use of the prerogative by judicial review in most cases. This is what Gina Miller did when she took the government to court, and won.

All of which leads me to think that this route will not be attempted by the government over the final Brexit deal. Some Pro-EU MPs are considering an amendment to the approval motion to authorise a second referendum, whilst hard Brexit MPs are thinking about an amendment to limit the timescale of any transition period. This is all normal constitutional and Parliamentary behaviour, if rather inconvenient to government, but it is 'taking back control' in action.

Whatever Brexiters say about upholding ‘the will of the people,’ constitutionally, the people are not ‘sovereign.’ Indeed, the referendum itself was only advisory, as all referendums are under the British constitution. Apart from where we have pooled our sovereignty with the EU, technically the Monarch is sovereign, but in practice sovereignty in the UK is held by Parliament, not ‘the people.’ You might disagree with this, but it is true all the same.

The rather vague but effective slogan of ‘taking back control’ deployed by Brexiters at the referendum, is surely meant to mean ending pooled sovereignty with the EU and returning it entirely to the British Parliament? But the way politics and politicians work, arguments are made on the basis of whatever agenda the politicians are pursuing at the time. MPs by and large know what our constitution consists of, even if it can be vague at times and is infamously ‘unwritten,’ or least not all written down in one place.

Parliament is of course divided over Brexit, and shows no signs of coming to a sensible compromise over the issue. I have argued before that joining the European Economic Area when we leave the EU would be such a sensible compromise, but there doesn’t seem to be enough support in Parliament for this. There is also no support for a no deal Brexit. So, what to do?

The way I see it, we have two options that could move the country on from where we are today. The first, is a general election, where either the government is changed or the complexion of MPs is, one way or another. The second option is to put this back to the people in another referendum, now that all of the implications have become clearer, with the option of whatever deal we are offered, or staying on our current terms. Realistically, a general election, and perhaps a referendum, will require an extension to Article 50 beyond 29 March next year.

The People's Vote March in London tomorrow (Saturday) will demand a final say referendum. Assemble at 12 noon at Park Lane, near Marble Arch, and march to a rally at Parliament Square at 2pm. More details here.     

May’s Charm Offensive to Labour MPs Smacks of Desperation

Theresa May’s piece in The Observer on Sunday, was ostensively aimed at Labour voters, with talk of antisemitism, threats to national security and the deselection threat to ‘moderate’ MPs, as evidence of Labour being unfit to govern. This narrative has been running for some time in the Tory supporting press, a smear campaign no less, of what May refers to as the ‘Jeremy Corbyn party’. But more immediately, she needs to win over ‘moderate’ Labour MPs to get her Brexit deal though Parliament, rather than voters.

In the Tory party in Parliament the numbers just don’t stack up for May’s Chequers Brexit plan, so she is really appealing to Labour MPs in thinly veiled code with The Observer piece. There is said to be up to 80 Tory MPs who are ready to vote against the Chequers plan, although some estimates put it as low as 20 in the end game. I suspect there are more than twenty. These MPs are from the hard Brexit wing of the Tory party, and probably prefer no deal at all, to the prime minister’s plan, even before the European Union (EU) starts chipping away at it, which it is sure to do.

What the most pro-EU Tory MPs will do, maybe a dozen or so MPs, I’m not sure, and it probably depends on what final deal May brings back to Parliament, but they might go along with it - perhaps. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) might well prefer a no deal scenario, as I think they want a hard land border with the Republic of Ireland, so May has to find a way of keeping them on side, which she has so far. She really has no other choice though, or the numbers in Parliament become even shakier than they look now.

There are 316 Tory MPs at present, with 10 DUP MPs sustaining the government, a total of 326. 326 is the magic number for a majority in the House of Commons, but one MP is the speaker, and seven represent Sinn Fein, who on principle take no part in the British Parliament historically, and show no signs of changing. This effectively reduces the number required for a governing majority to 318.

Labour has 257 MPs, excluding 6 who have lost the whip or are self declared independents. The Scottish National Party has 35 MPs, the Lib Dems 12, Plaid Cymru 4, and the Green Party one, and two other independents. An ‘opposition’ total of 317 MPs, who mostly look likely to vote against the prime minister’s Chequers plan. If this is the case, then it will take only a handful Tory hard line Brexit MPs to defeat whatever the government ends up with as a deal with the EU.

But as I say, I am pretty sure that more than 20 Tories will vote the against the government, and perhaps as many as 30 or so, and it could be even more than that, so May needs twenty odd votes from elsewhere at least, and Labour, together with its ex-MPs, now independents, is surely where May is hoping to get them from. It is not clear to me whether these independents will support the government though, as some may prefer a no deal scenario, so I don’t think these MPs can be taken for granted by the government.

The other target will be disaffected, and pro-EU Labour MPs, of which there are many, but from public statements from MPs like Chuka Umunna, they have expressed opposition to May’s proposals so far. It is possible that the EU will propose something more to their liking, but that might mean even more that 30 or so Tories rebelling.

Pro-EU Labour MPs will probably prefer to vote May’s plan down, so that Parliament could then manoeuvre to get no Brexit rather than no deal. In other words, postpone Article 50. This in turn might lead to a second referendum, which may see us remain in the EU. That is a more attractive prize to these MPs, even if they are nervous of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. 

There is a cultural resistance amongst Labour MPs to the Conservative party too, not to mention an instinct for self preservation, that will make many recoil from supporting the government. Defeat for the Tories may lead to a general election giving Labour the chance to make a better job of Brexit than the Tories are ever likely to do.

May’s tactics look to be a forlorn attempt to square the Brexit circle, and is almost certainly doomed to failure.   

Removing the Borrowing Cap on Councils Alone is not Enough – End the Right to Buy as Well

Well, well, well, the government has finally seen sense and will allow local authorities to borrow as much as they need to, to build new social housing, it seems. I have advocated this course of action before on this blog, most recently last month here.

In her closing address, Theresa May, the prime minister, told the Conservative Party Conference removing the cap on local authority borrowing against Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) would help the Government achieve its ambition of building 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade.

She said: ‘Solving the housing crisis is the biggest domestic policy challenge of our generation.

‘It doesn’t make sense to stop councils from playing their part in solving it.’

This does seem to be an admission of non-sensible government policy for the last eight years, when voices from across the sector have pleaded with the Tories to do just that. Alternative policies, if we can call them that, have been an utter failure, and we now have a full blown housing crisis. Homelessness has rocketed, and many big cities in the UK have many thousands of rough sleepers on their streets every night.

However, all may not be as it seems. The government has yet to reveal when the cap will be scrapped and whether there will be conditions imposed on councils. A statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, said the cap would be lifted as “soon as possible”, with more details due in the budget scheduled for 29 October.

Some areas will not benefit from the end of the HRA borrowing cap as they have transferred their entire housing stock, perhaps a third of councils in England, to housing associations, so will be unable to effectively re-mortgage existing stock. These “non-stockholding authorities” do not largely hold HRA accounts.

The housing revenue account (HRA) is a ring-fenced account for the local authority’s housing responsibilities. Revenue, such as council housing rent, is paid into the account and housing costs, such as property management and maintenance, are paid out. It is kept separate from the council’s other funds and accounts by law.

The existing policy on council’s borrowing to build, was relaxed last year, but only allows local authorities to bid for a share of a £1 billion pot. Aside from this, since 2012, rules governing HRAs have restricted the amount councils can borrow to fund house-building. The cap varies from council to council, depending on how much housing debt they already have.

But even if local authorities are allowed to borrow as much as they need to provide social housing, this is just one side of the equation. The other is, the ‘Right to Buy’ policy, whereby sitting tenants are allowed to purchase their home, at generous discounts, and means that almost as fast as new homes are built for rent, they are sold off to private ownership. The best properties are the first to go, and only the less desirable properties remain as social housing. Invariably, these desirable homes end up in the hands on private landlords, and are let at market rents.

Right to buy is costing English councils £1bn - £300m net - a year and cutting the discounts could lead to an extra 12,000 homes being built every year, according to the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).

Since 2012, when the discount was increased to £108,000 in London and £80,000 in the rest of the country, 69,467 homes have been sold, the Chartered Institute of Housing revealed in a briefing paper on Tuesday. But construction has only started on 18,958 to replace those homes sold, the CIH has calculated.

CIH research from January found that more than 150,000 social homes for rent in total had been lost between 2012 and 2017 due to right to buy and other factors, like new ‘mixed’ housing developments, replacing council stock. It estimated this figure will reach 230,000 by 2020.

Terrie Alafat, CIH chief executive, said: “Not only are we failing to build enough new homes for social rent, we are losing them at a time when we need them more than ever.” The CIH is calling for Right to Buy, to be at least suspended until the housing crisis can be resolved.

Without ending the Right to Buy, the social housing stock will never be able to provide enough homes for social rent, but that is probably not the government’s intention anyway. It will certainly get more homes built though, and I think that is the aim of the Tory government. More money will be made by private landlords in the longer run too, which again the Tories will welcome.

But why should local authorities be, in effect, building homes for the private sector to profit from? The beauty of council housing is that it pays for itself with rental income, for maybe a hundred years or more, but only if councils aren’t forced to sell it off after a couple of years, meaning they will lose money, rather than recover it. Another example of the corporate welfare state? 

Would a Canada-Style Deal with the EU lead to the Breakup of the UK?

Well, that’s what the prime minister, Theresa May, said as she arrived in New York for a United Nations summit, which take in trade talks with the US amongst others. The idea of pursuing a Canada style free trade deal has been gaining ground in the Tory party since the European Union (EU) pretty much rubbished May’s Chequers plan, for our exit from the bloc.

May, of course, is desperate for Chequers to be at least the basis for a withdrawal agreement, having put so much political capital into it, so she is trying to dig in ahead of the Tories conference next week. She argues that Chequers is better than no deal, in that it attempts to give us some kind of favourable arrangements with the EU, more than no deal anyway. She claims it offers a solution to keeping open the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic whereas a Canada style deal is worse than no deal, in that it would break up the UK.

May said the Brexiters’ plan would necessitate a hard Irish border and thus invoke the EU’s so-called backstop, which would keep Northern Ireland within elements of the customs union and single market, effectively drawing a border in the Irish Sea.

As she said: ‘I think a bad deal will be a deal, for example, that broke up the United Kingdom. We want to maintain the unity of the United Kingdom.’

It is true that the EU have said that any offer of a Canada style deal with the UK is contingent on the backstop agreement of last December, of Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union and single market. We know that the Democratic Unionist Party, who May relies for a governing majority are strongly opposed to this, so it probably wouldn’t get through Parliament anyway, and could collapse the government.

Presumably, May thinks that a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is preferable to what is on offer in the form of a Canada style deal. There has been talk coming out of the government of leaving this decision to the Northern Ireland Assembly, although that is suspended at the moment. If reconvened, it would, as always, have a built in Unionist majority.

In a further twist, if the UK left the EU without a deal, an opinion poll in the Irish Times, conducted by Deltapoll puts support in Northern Ireland for unity with the Republic at 52%, hauntingly the same as percentage that voted for Brexit in the UK. Only 39 per cent said they would vote for Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK.

The poll also found that more people would vote for a united Ireland in the event of a hard border being erected. In such circumstances, 56 per cent said they would vote for unity if a hard border is in place, while 40 per cent responded they would vote to remain in the UK. All of which would suggest the prime minister’s rationale has some foundation, but is not the whole picture. No deal is more likely to see the UK break with Northern Ireland.

In the event of no deal, might Scotland think again about independence? Because Scotland is landlocked to England and Wales, the border issue would be of a different order, but even so, might the Scottish be encouraged by a united Ireland? Perhaps Scots readers can give an opinion here?

A similar poll was held in Scotland, where 47 per cent said they would vote for Scottish independence in a future referendum if the UK left the EU as planned while 43 per cent said they would vote to stay in the UK. But if Brexit was stopped, 47 per cent said they would vote for Scotland to stay in the UK and 43 per cent said they would vote for independence.

May’s championing of her Chequers proposals also rather falls down on the fact the EU have already said it is not acceptable anyway, even if it could get support in Parliament, which looks extremely doubtful, to say the least. So as things stand, we are looking at no deal in any case.

It looks as though the only way to keep the country from breaking up, is to remain in the EU or a close approximate of it.

EU Calls May’s Bluff – Time to start Stockpiling Tinned Food?

The European Union (EU) has been consistent in the two and a quarter years, although it seems like longer, since the UK referendum vote to leave the EU. They stated what their red lines were: a workable solution to keeping open the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and maintaining the ‘four freedoms’ of free movement of goods, services, capital and persons within the EU. Yes, the negotiations on Brexit, if we can call them that, have been couched in diplomatic language, but the EU’s position has not changed.

Indeed, on Northern Ireland, the UK agreed to the ‘backstop’ arrangement for the Irish border in December last year, but now wants to renege on this it seems. The EU summit in Saltzburg, Austria, appears to have displayed the utter frustration of EU nations with Britain’s delusions of grandeur, where prime minister, Theresa May was told in no uncertain terms that nothing the UK has come up with so far, is even close to addressing our Brexit relations with EU when we leave.

It was always likely that push was going to come to shove this autumn, as substantive agreement really needs to reached by the EU summit on 18 October, less than a month away, for the EU to deem it is worth holding a special summit in November, to finally make an agreement.

After farting around for over two years the British government, wasting everyone’s time with ludicrous plans, has now been put on the spot. Do we want a deal or not, appears to be the exasperated message from Europe?

Maybe we don’t want a deal, and should fess up and tell the EU this, because even a Canada style free trade agreement (no tariffs on trade) is not on offer unless the no border in Ireland issue is resolved. Certainly some people prefer the World Trade Organisation default position on the right of the Tory party and perhaps elsewhere.

This scenario would almost certainly cause a recession in the UK in the short term, eventually the UK may recover, but this will take several years, maybe ten, before we get back to anything like the situation we have inside the EU.

Some Brexiters even agree with analysis, Jacob Rees-Mogg thinks it might take fifty years for Britain to see the benefit of leaving the EU, so why is this so desirable? The rather vague slogan of ‘taking back control’ is the only justification that they can come up with. But what does this mean in practice?

Allowing US businesses to run the NHS? Eating fluoridated chicken and hormone pumped beef from the US? Allowing Genetically Modified crops to be grown in the UK? Reduced employment rights for workers? Reduced protection for our environment? Some freedom that.

It is not as though immigration will stop, or even reduce to the fabled tens of thousands when we do leave the EU. Britain is apparently trying to recruit Jamaican nurses to work in the NHS, and other sectors will need to do similarly, if the country is to function properly. After the Windrush scandal, why anyone would want to come to Britain is an open question, perhaps we will have to bribe them handsomely?    

Anything could still happen, we might crash out, we might compromise enough to get some kind of deal with EU, we might have another referendum and vote to stay in the EU, we might have a general election which if the Tories lose, could be a game changer.

But the way the Tory government is riven with division, but still clinging onto power, I now think that the most likely scenario is crashing out of the EU, which I didn’t think would happen. I thought sense in the end would prevail, and some sort of compromise would be reached. It looks like I was wrong.

So, start stocking up on tinned food and lock all doors and windows on 29 March next year. We are in for a bumpy ride.

The Tories Upcoming Autumn of Discontent over Brexit

Tory MPs are back from their summer holidays, where no doubt they managed to fit in a good deal of plotting, over Brexit and the immediate future of the prime minister Theresa May. Now they are back though, the in-fighting has already gone up several notches, with the European Research Group (ERG) of hard Brexit Tory MPs finally launching their alternative plan. Much of it has already been ruled out by the European Union (EU) though, but the intention is to kill off the prime minister’s Chequers Brexit plan, as much as anything else.

Members of the Cabinet are some of the few Tory MPs who support the Chequers plan, and indeed party members overwhelmingly reject it too, but the government insists it is the only plan being pursued. Dominic Raab, Brexit secretary, said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

‘there will be the choice between the deal that I’m confident we can strike with the EU and the no deal scenario.’

Take it or leave it, in other words. But this won’t phase the ERG MPs, who would rather have a no deal Brexit than the Chequers deal. Meanwhile, Tory MP Nick Boles, from the pro-soft Brexit wing of the party, has outlined his alternative to the Chequers plan, which is joining the European Economic Area (EEA), ‘at least on the way to some kind of Canada style deal.’ More broadly, pro-soft Brexit Tory MPs are beginning to get organised, for the expected punch up in the party over the next few months. 

Boles writes on Conservative Home website: ‘So the questions that every Conservative MP needs to ask themselves are these. If the Prime Minister’s plan does not get through the Commons, what then? If MPs also can’t stomach a “No Deal” Brexit, what’s the alternative?’

There is certainly a good chance that the Chequers plan will not get through Parliament, with Labour saying it will vote against the deal, even before the EU has wrought some expected concessions out of the British government. So, Boles has a point, Chequers looks to please no one, and as there is no majority in Parliament for no deal, what then?

George Trefgarne, makes the case for joining the EEA also on Conservative Home:

‘The EEA not only delivers Brexit by being outside the jurisdiction of the ECJ and, for that matter, the Common Fisheries Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy. Norway and co also have input to single market legislation via the decision shaping process. They have rights of adaptation. And, in extremis, right of veto.

…George Yarrow, an Oxford University economist (and intellectual father of Better Brexit), estimates Britain’s net payments to the EU would fall from £9 billion to around £1.5 billion (per year).

I’ve written before that joining the EEA is the most sensible thing to do, other than remaining in the EU. It may be the only viable option if Chequers and no deal are ruled out by Parliament. The only other option is to extend our stay in the EU, which worries some pro-Brexit members of the Cabinet, like Michael Gove.

There has been talk of toppling Theresa May from elements of the ERG, but even if they managed to do this, and replace her with a hard Brexit MP, like Boris Johnson, the make up of Parliament would remain the same, unless a general election is called to change this composition in the House of Commons. Even then, the Tories might lose the election, and so be in an even weaker position than they are now.

As the temperature rises in Parliament, the previously Eurosceptic Daily Mail, has accused those hard Brexiters plotting against the prime minister, as being ‘traitors.’ The piece goes on to say:

‘It is not as if they have the numbers to bring her down. Let alone do they have a coherent alternative plan for Brexit – nor, indeed, an obvious candidate to replace her, capable of uniting a divided party.’

And there you have it. The Tories are a (deeply) divided party over the terms of Brexit, with no easy way that I can see of resolving their differences. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, while they indulge themselves in this carnival of self-destruction, the country faces the possibility of chaos.       

MPs Should Legislate for an Abortion Referendum in Northern Ireland

Momentum is gathering in Parliament and outside for a referendum in Northern Ireland to allow women living in the province access to abortion on the same terms as those in the rest of the UK. Prompted by the vote to liberalise access to abortion in the Republic of Ireland last week, Northern Ireland will have the most restrictive laws on abortion in Europe.

The UK government is resisting legislating and looking increasingly worried by the situation, saying that it is a devolved matter for the Stormont Assembly to act on. This is true, but rather falls down under the reality that there is no Assembly to devolve it to. The Assembly was suspended in January 2017 over a green energy scheme, of all things, but there were other differences between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Under the Sewel convention, the UK government has agreed that it will not normally legislate on matters that are the responsibility of devolved administrations without their consent, but as I say, there is no one to give consent.

In another twist, the UK government has just broken the Sewel convention by stating that it will be legislating on Brexit, against the wishes of the Scottish Parliament. May is making a habit of breaking conventions, as she did when ordering the bombing of Syria earlier this year, when she refused to allow a Parliamentary vote on the matter. Whatever suits your political agenda is deemed to be more important than constitutional convention for this government.

And liberalising the Northern Ireland abortion laws most definitely does not suit the government’s agenda. The government only has majority in Parliament by virtue of the rather expensive deal done with the DUP’s 12 MPs, who are absolutely opposed to any change in the abortion laws in Northern Ireland.

Over 160 MPs have signed a letter calling for Westminster to legislate for a referendum on the issue and many more are said to be privately in favour of a change in the law, so this might well become unstoppable. There are two ways (possibly three if you count an adjournment debate) MPs could force the issue.

The first is by an ‘early day motion.’ The censure motion by which the Labour Government of James Callaghan was ejected had its origin in an early day motion, put down on 22 March 1979, by Margaret Thatcher. But it is quite cumbersome in nature, and so the second option of amending an existing bill may be a better bet.

This is probably what is going to happen. The Labour MP Stella Creasy is proposing an amendment to the domestic violence bill which will be debated in Parliament, probably in the Autumn. My feeling is that the amendment could well get enough support from MPs of all parties (except the DUP), and this is why the government is so worried.

The DUP might, probably would, withdraw their support for the Tory government, which would inevitably lead to a general election, although it is hard to see any new government not proceeding with liberalising the abortion laws in Northern Ireland. I think the DUP are stuffed, what a shame.

Meanwhile, the UK Supreme Court is set to make a ruling on whether Northern Ireland’s abortion laws are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Everything seems to be moving in the direction of bringing Northern Ireland’s law into line with the rest of the UK.

Which is kind of ironic, because throughout the Brexit negotiations on the border in Ireland, the DUP have demanded that Northern Ireland, is treated no differently to the rest of the UK. Well, as far as abortion is concerned, that may be about to happen.

Abortion doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of issue that should be devolved anyway, since it effectively makes women in Northern Ireland second class citizens to those in the rest of the country, and now even on the island of Ireland. If this brings down the Tory government, then so be it, it has been a complete shambles in all other respects anyway. And the DUP will not get to trouser any more money from UK taxpayers as a reward for the shameful deal that props up this minority Tory government.

What is not to like?  

With Rudd Gone May is now in the Firing Line

Amber Rudd bowed to the inevitable on Sunday night and resigned as Home Secretary over the Windrush Scandal. Rudd was only able to stay in post for the last week or so because she was shielding the prime minister, Theresa May, her predecessor as Home Secretary. But after the drip, drip of leaks from the Home Office to the media, the knockout blow was the publishing of a letter from Rudd to May by the Guardian on Sunday afternoon.

The letter from January last year states that Rudd’s aim was ‘increasing the number of enforced removals by more than 10% over the next few years.’ Rudd had previously denied, including in the House of Commons, that any targets had been set for removing illegal immigrants from the UK. The game was up, Rudd was caught red handed misleading Parliament, and she had to go.

The ‘hostile environment’ was introduced to the Tory government by former prime minister, David Cameron, before he scarpered after losing the EU referendum. But it was May that made the policy flesh when she was Home Secretary, and this led to pressure on immigration officials to deport more people, and the Windrush migrants, here completely legally, were caught up in this zeal for deportations.

May also initially refused to meet Caribbean leaders to discuss the issue, before the scandal took off. Opposition MPs, like David Lammy and Diane Abbott asked questions in Parliament and wrote to May when she was Home Secretary, highlighting how legal immigrants were being treated. All were blithely batted away.

The policy is still in place, although renamed ‘compliant environment’ and May aside from issuing a general apology to those incorrectly detained, refused medical treatment, have lost their jobs and have been refused re-admittance to the UK, there has been no real contrition from the prime minister. Let alone any acceptance that the ‘hostile environment’ was the root cause of the unfair treatment.

But there are more specific questions that May has not adequately answered too. May has said that when she was Home Secretary, there were targets for deportations that she was aware of. “When I was home secretary, yes, there were targets in terms of removing people from the country, who were here illegally,” she told Sky News. So, why did May assume Rudd was telling the truth in Parliament when she said there were no targets?

Even more to the point, having presumably read Rudd’s January 2017 letter to her, and the request from Rudd to have a discussion about increasing deportation targets, why did May then not act when Rudd misled Parliament, saying there  were no targets for this, when May knew there were? It can only be that May was desperate to keep Rudd in place because it kept the focus off May herself. Well, focus there can now be.

May refused a demand from Labour to come to the House of Commons on Monday to answer urgent questions about Rudd’s resignation and her part in it. Instead, the new Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, was sent along to make a statement and take questions. It is a good public relations exercise to make Javid Home Secretary, with his immigrant background, and he made a decent fist of it, but the questions for May remain. We will have to wait until prime minister’s questions on Wednesday for Parliament to be given the chance to question May on this.

One has to wonder too, will there be any more compromising leaks coming out of the Home Office or other parts of Whitehall relating to this scandal? Was the requested meeting in the January 2017 letter from Rudd to May, which surely took place, recorded in minutes? If it wasn’t, why was that? Did May reply to this letter in writing? Might there be some incriminating documents from the Home Office from when May was Home Secretary?

I imagine there are some Tory MPs who are dissatisfied with May’s handling of the Brexit negotiations and other matters. Will they take the opportunity to get rid her over this scandal? Not completely unlikely, I think. An opinion poll for Sky Data indicates that almost eight times as many Britons blame May than Ruud for the Windrush scandal. Even the Spectator has a comment piece saying May is to blame.

May is on pretty thin ice and it would not take a great deal to bring her down. The curse of the Home Office, which she managed to dodge when she was Home Secretary, might finally catch up with her.

Tory Immigration Narrative Caught Pandering to Racism Again

Credit to the Guardian for exposing the plight of the ‘Windrush’ generation, whose parents brought them from British Caribbean countries to the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, and who have had their lives ruined by the Home Office’s administrative cruelty. The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, was forced to apologise to Parliament and the people effected for her department’s ‘appalling’ actions. 

Some of these people may have already been deported, although they were in the UK perfectly legally, but were unable to provide the documentary proof required by the Home Office. Others still in the UK have been put into detention centres for illegal immigrants. Most came as children with parents encouraged to migrate to Britain after the second world war, to drive our buses and work on the railways, rebuilding the country.

This latest stance on immigration from the government goes back to 2013 when the Prime Minister, Theresa May was Home Secretary and announced a ‘hostile environment’ for illegal immigrants, and sent vans around areas with high ethnic populations, saying basically ‘go home.’

It was a response to the failure of the Tory government to make good their pledge to cut immigration to the ‘tens of thousands,’ when it carried on in the hundreds of thousands. It was to spin that they were doing something about immigration, because it was deemed to be electorally popular, perhaps correctly.

The law now requires employers and private landlords to check the immigration status of employees and tenants, and these people, even those still here are in a kind of limbo, where they are not allowed to claim benefits, work, get medical treatment or rent a home. Bank accounts are also often frozen. 

This in turn leads to Ministers informing senior civil servants of the government’s wishes, and the officials then try to put them into practice. The ‘hostile environment’ intention could only be interpreted in one way, to make immigrants, or those who they deemed to be immigrants, illegal in the first assessment. The burden of proof being put on the individual, when surely some official records existed, like school registers? It is much easier for government to trace these things than it is for individuals.

So, I don’t think Amber Rudd can blame this on her department’s officials entirely, when the lead signals were coming from her government on this.

This week’s news was on the back of a U-Turn by the Prime Minister, on meeting Caribbean leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in London. May turned down the request for a meeting about the fate of the Windrush generation, but has since said she will meet with these leaders.

The ‘hostile environment’ also feeds into the Brexit narrative, with Rudd suggesting after the Brexit vote that employers should publish lists of immigrant workers they employ. This was quickly dropped though as businesses objected and some likened it to wearing yellow stars. But again it was driven by the government’s desire to look tough on immigration.

The way the government has handled the issue of the status of EU nationals post Brexit, also feeds the anti-immigrant narrative. The British wanted to exclude new comers to the UK from the EU, during the transitional period once we leave the EU. The UK had to concede this as it was a EU red line for the deal. 

No guarantees have be given either on whether EU nationals will be allowed to stay in the UK, as the British government is always keen to proclaim ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ with our future arrangements with the EU. The implication being that if we don’t end up with a deal of our liking, these individuals may well be deported. No wonder EU nationals are nervous. 

And the government even treats British citizens like this too, forcing them to leave the country if they do not earn the £18,600 per year required to bring their non-EU wife or husband to live with them.

It is fifty years on from Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood speech’ about the dangers of diluting the British white race with dark skinned immigrants, which proved to be wrong as history panned out. It is clear though there is still an undercurrent of racism in this country, which unscrupulous politicians can tap into with populist rhetoric about immigration. The government should be ashamed of themselves, rather than trying to blame civil servants for this debacle.

UK Engages in Expensive Gesture Politics in Syria

Damage to the Syrian Scientific Research Center after it was attacked by U.S., British and French military strikes to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad for suspected chemical attack against civilians, in Barzeh, near Damascus (credit NBC News).

In the early hours of Saturday the US, France and UK military forces launched a missile attack on targets in Syria, as a response to the alleged chemical weapons attack by Syrian forces last week. The Pentagon says three targets were hit by more than a hundred missiles. The facilities hit were used in the production of chemical weapons according to the Pentagon and has reduced Syria’s capability to produce these weapons. Missiles were launched from aircraft and ships.

At the time of writing information is short on the extent of the damage on the ground and whether there have been any civilian casualties resulting from the strikes. It is hard to believe there were none, from what we have seen in the past when cruise missiles are used in urban areas, like Saturday’s attack. If the reports coming out of the US, France and UK are correct and these sites did indeed hold chemical weapons, then there is surely a risk of chemicals being released into the atmosphere?

For the UK’s part, official reports say that four Tornado war planes took part in the attack, launching cruise missiles while airborne, probably from outside of Syrian airspace. It costs millions of pounds to use one these missiles, so the raid will have run into approaching half a billion pounds to the UK taxpayer, when we have been told for the last eight years that the country is skint, and can’t afford decent public services. How many nurses and police officers could that pay for? Quite few, I think.

The UK prime minister, Theresa May, took the decision to authorise the attack while Parliament is still on Easter recess. MPs return on Monday when Parliament reopens, and an emergency debate will be held, in retrospect. Constitutionally, it is not entirely clear that May is allowed to take military action, without the approval of Parliament.

This is because the British constitution in general is not clear, it is not written down in any one document, like the US constitution, but rather has evolved over time and has many different feeds into what is constitutional. May will claim that she doesn’t need Parliament’s approval, and in some ways she is right. Declaring war was always a subject that attracted the Royal Prerogative, like other foreign policy issues.

But the British constitution is in many cases based on conventions. In 2003, Tony Blair to his credit, allowed a debate and vote on the UK getting involved in the invasion of Iraq, although he didn’t have to constitutionally. I think he wanted the extra cover this would provide him with, because the action was controversial in the country at large. David Cameron followed suit when he was prime minister and wanted to bomb Syria. Cameron unlike Blair lost the vote in Parliament.

What this did was to establish a convention, that when acts of war are being authorised, Parliament should have a say, and take the final decision. So, from this point of view, May’s actions are unconstitutional. This illustrates why we need a proper written down constitution, rather than the mixed bag of a one that the UK currently has.  

The attack appears to have been careful to avoid Russian military casualties, and Russia was given advance warning of the operation. The scale is also fairly limited, but is being justified as a deterrent to Syria’s president Assad using chemical weapons again. I find this unconvincing. The US bombed Syria a year ago with the same reasoning, but appear to have not deterred this latest use of chemical weapons, if they were used, which is still not fully established.

So, the assumption is that this is just an expensive gesture type of politics, which has no further justification or aims. A deadly but futile gesture. I hope MPs put the prime minister on the spot on Monday, because I can’t see what this action was meant to meaningfully achieve?