When Theresa May stood on the Downing Street steps for the first time, she made an audacious pitch that sounded like a real break with Dave's government. No more demented deficit determinism, a planned approach to economic policy, a commitment to (nebulously defined) social justice, and a one nation community in which everybody had their place. Not my cup of tea nor I suspect yours, but it resonated and awarded the Tories a seemingly unassailable lead over Labour. Even worse, it suggested we could look forward to a new authoritarian consensus. Thankfully, we avoided that fate and all of May's objectives remained aspirations. What of Johnson's first address?
Unlike May, whose speech was peppered with generalities, Johnson's pitched a set of promises. More money for schools (a 0.1% spending increase), more coppers "forthwith", and a social care plan were among the more eye-catching pledges (more here, but overall and as you would expect, Johnson inflected his speech with sunlit uplands optimism. He talked about Britain as a beacon of democracy, and how leaving the EU by 31st October is the best way of affirming this most British of values. He talked up the potential of the country by unleashing the productive power of the regions, and waxed lyrical about science and technology (gene therapies for blindness, world leading battery power research, more satellites). This was a polemic against "the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters" which does characterise continuity remain, and set out to strike a settling tone with unbounded optimism. Whether we'll see these pledges realised, it is clear the tone of government is enforced cheerfulness with the less ebullient cabinet members required to paint on their rictus grins.
And those appointments, what can we say? The headlines were fixated by the greatest round of sackings of government by a sitting party, ever. The night of the blond knives, as The Sun predictably put it, saw practically all the remaining, er, remainers sent packing to the back benches. Jeremy Hunt said no to the defence brief and tried clinging on to the Foreign Office, but his vote share in the leadership contest was such that his disposal was a formality. As for the rest, hints of past impropriety didn't imperil the returns of Priti Patel and blog favourite, Gavin Williamson. They're back with big jobs - Home Secretary and Education Secretary, respectively. Sajid Javid gets the Treasury, a position he's long coveted, and Dominic Raab was appointed Foreign Secretary to ensure the Prime Minister doesn't go down in history as the UK's worst chief diplomat, among everything else. Gove gets the Duchy of Lancaster non-brief, where he will overlook Brexit preparations, Liz Truss replaces disgraced former minister Liam Fox at International Trade while Andrea Leadsom, another firm favourite of ours, goes to Business. After her public selling out of Never Johnson-ism, Amber Rudd stays at the DWP, and Nicky Morgan - another so-called hard remainer (and proof there's really no such a thing as a Tory rebel) - heads over to Culture. Jacob Rees-Mogg gets Leader of the House, where he'll no doubt look forward to tangling and wrangling with the Speaker over procedural matters - especially as the latter proved to be a frustrating opponent of May's. And Grant Shapps makes a come back too, replacing Failing Grayling at Transport. Alas, there were no spare positions for his stable of aliases so he had to make do with the one. And perhaps the most interesting appointment is Dominic Cummings as Chief of Staff. Needless to say, he hasn't been hired to sort out HR issues.
As many have observed, this is a Leave cabinet. Well, yes, would you have expected anything else? Cummings is a bruiser whose legend was amplified by victory in the EU referendum, the Machiavellian casting of him by "Shippers" in his popular and compulsive gossipy tell-alls, and getting played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Brexit: The Uncivil War. This suggests a number of things. That Johnson has brought him in to give the faint hearted the hair dryer treatment should they deviate from the true path of Brexit, that Johnson (eventually) wants to take an axe to the civil service, that Johnson needs someone to strategise his premiership and appeal to the same bundle of frustrations Cummings tapped into in 2016, and that sooner or later Johnson is planning an election. Good job we have a good idea what this could look like.
A good first day for Johnson? The optics, they say, look good. A bombastic speech followed by a norovirus-level clear out of government confers the impression of someone urgently wanting to get on with the job. Johnson promised decisive leadership, and his first actions in office confer the right impression. But might he have already made his first missteps with such brutality? His cabinet is overwhelmingly composed of the hard right and leave ultra-tilting wings of the party, but has pushed out most of the remainers May had hanging around as well as leavers who didn't display the requisite gushing sycophancy - like Penny Mordaunt. Johnson, never known for having much nous, thinks a cabinet of true believers and loyal bandwagon chasers can ram his will through the Commons where Theresa May failed. But his situation, while not as precarious as hers was, is still tricky. The would-be leaders aren't circling for the moment, but the parliamentary arithmetic is still against him and his majority is pitiful. Getting no deal across the line is tricky, and his preferred option - expertly burst by Andrew Neil during the campaign - is not credible nor available. The only other option is a return of May's deal with a lick of paint. That might satisfy the backbench remain grumblers whose ranks Johnson swelled yesterday and a few lily-livered Labour MPs, but even with Rees-Mogg on board the ERG are going to have a hard time swallowing it, as well as the members (remember them?), and Nigel Farage's Brexit Party. When Johnson proves to be as fixated as keeping the party together as his predecessor, he's going to be hit with a great stonking headache.
For the brief moment of right now, Johnson's government are looking confident and assured. We'll see how long that lasts as it faces up to the hard realities of a deeply sceptical Commons and a not-at-all-amused European Union. Johnson is about to find out his mindless boosterism can only carry him so far.
The Brextremists now just sound pathetic. It comes down to look we really mean it this time, we really are going to blow our brains out if your don't do what we want. If Britain does blow its brains out by pushing ahead with a No Deal Brexit, it will not be pleasant for people in the EU to watch, and they might get splattered with some of the brain matter, but they will quickly get over the sight of Britain destroying itself, and quickly wipe off the residue before moving on. For Britain, not so much.
ReplyDeleteClive Lewis yesterday also illustrated the inadequacy of both the Liberal and Labour position. Asked by Lewis what the Liberals line will be in the imminent election, Swinson said they would argue for a second referendum, with No Deal and Remain on the ballot. Asked what they would do if Leave won again, she confirmed they would not accept the result.
And, of course, not voting for Brexit in parliament whatever the result of a referendum is the principled position to take, but you can hardly make that case if you have been calling for that referendum in the first place! That is why Labour's position is still inadequate and illogical too. It makes no more sense for Labour to go into an election saying it will then hold a referendum, when on any rational or principled basis it could not vote for, let alone as a government implement a decision to Leave.
The only rational position for Labour, Liberals, Greens or anyone else opposing Brexit to take is to call for a General Election on the basis of a commitment to Revoke Article 50, just as Bojo is going to call an election on the basis of a commitment to pursuing a Managed No Deal Brexit.
Labour must make clear that whenever it is in a position to do so, it will oppose Brexit, and if the Tories take us out, a future Labour Government will take us back into the EU.
I'm sorry, because I wish that you were correct, but I think you are whistling in the dark. Johnson is not going to go away in a hurry. If he pulls off an October Brexit -- and I suspect the EU will be happy to go along with him on that -- he shouldn't have much trouble uniting the Tories behind his hard-right agenda.
ReplyDeleteDoes Labour have the capacity to challenge this? For one thing, Johnson has the time to make possibly irreversible changes to Britain. For another thing, how is Labour possibly to win an election, divided as it still is? I'm really worried that the departure of May will be a disaster for what remains of the British left.
Fingers crossed for the collapse of the United Kingdom.
ReplyDeleteDown with the union!
«For one thing, Johnson has the time to make possibly irreversible changes to Britain.»
ReplyDeleteAs the Conservative manifesto should have said, their aim was “a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of [property and business owners] and their families”, and that has been amply achieved, because a large minority of working and middle class people, made prosperous by good jobs, decent pensions, low housing costs won by Labour and the trade unions, then rediscovered themselves as petty rentiers and committed tories. As long as mass rentierism continues to be a big thing, thatcherism will continue to be an "irreversible" change.
«For another thing, how is Labour possibly to win an election, divided as it still is? I'm really worried that the departure of May will be a disaster for what remains of the British left.»
There is no british left to speak of: there is mild northern-european style centre left around Corbyn, a minuscule centre, and LibDems, New Labour, Conservatives, ... range from centre-right to extreme far right.
The centre left will gain importance as mass rentierism eventually evaporates: the 1% and perhaps even the 10% can live off the rents paid by everybody else, but the fatal illusion of thatcherism is that the 51% or even just the 30% can live off the rents paid by everybody else. That majority or even just mass rentierism is possible is an illusion that has been enabled by fast growing private debt.
@ Boffy "If Britain does blow its brains out by pushing ahead with a No Deal Brexit"
ReplyDeletethree years on and I'm going to have to explain this again.
If no deal is not possible, then there is no such thing as a negotiation. A negotiation in which I have no option to walk out is not a negotiation it is simply one side dictating terms.
If no negotiation is possible, then we cannot really leave the EU, as we are simply discussing different ways in which we can be subject to EU rules, laws, taxes.
If leaving the EU isn't possible, then the referendum was a lie, as it offered us a non-existent choice.
If leaving the EU is not possible, then we are going to get absolutely screwed, as the raison d'être of the EU is about solving the problems of German power in Europe, and as we are on the periphery, we are a resource which can be plundered at will as we have no realistic means of resisting. We cannot continue to use our veto as eventually other EU nations will remove it, inviting us to leave if we don't like it , which takes us back to the top.
The big surprise of this whole referendum thing is just how myopically dim most Remainers are. They just look one step ahead and take whatever is the easiest step, without any understanding of how we got here, where a succession of these steps takes us, who decides what is permissible and what isn't, and why they are taking us in this direction. It is like being ruled by morbidly terrified six year-olds.
... its like watching the East German Communist Party running round like headless chickens in 1989. but how can we make tractors unless we have a 5 year plan approved by our partners in Moscow? And without tractors we will all starve! We will die! we will die!
ReplyDeleteJohnson is going to steamroller parliament. For Parliament to stop Johnson they are going to have to unite and vote against him. They aren't going to unite, as uniting requires a single figure to unite behind, and however much people don't like Johnson they don't like uniting behind Swinson/Starmer/Corbyn/Watson even more as that will be the end of their faction's dreams of power, and there's a sizeable number of Labour MPs in Leave seats who will not vote to prevent Brexit.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say Johnson, think Cummings. As long as Cummings has a desk in number 10, he will be calling the shots. Johnson may be a muddle headed lightweight, but Cummings isn't. He has a plan for victory and isn't going to be swayed by a bunch of moaning lightweights.
«explain this again.»
ReplyDeleteAhhh now we get: to me this seems delusional paranoid thinking (the Fourth Reich variety rather than the EUSSR one)...
«If no deal is not possible, then there is no such thing as a negotiation. A negotiation in which I have no option to walk out is not a negotiation it is simply one side dictating terms.»
That's exactly how I feel every time I shop at Waitrose!
«If no negotiation is possible, then we cannot really leave the EU, as we are simply discussing different ways in which we can be subject to EU rules, laws, taxes.»
I wish I could declare my independence from Waitrose, but I too am afraid of ending up subject to Waitrose rules, prices, fees anyhow.
«If leaving the EU isn't possible, then the referendum was a lie, [...] and as we are on the periphery, we are a resource which can be plundered at will as we have no realistic means of resisting.»
That's exactly how Waitrose makes me feel, even if I voted for independence from Waitrose, being just on their periphery, then I am a resource they can plunder at will, and I have no realistic means of resisting, not having even the army, air force, navy, nuclear weapons that the UK has.
«We cannot continue to use our veto as eventually other EU nations will remove it, inviting us to leave if we don't like it , which takes us back to the top.»
And I don't even have representation and a veto at Waitrose, but indeed even if I had it, Waitrose would unilaterally remove it, despite me having a veto against its removal.
I guess I don't even have the alternative to shop online at mr. Trump's AmazingUsa.com, even if I am not clear why :-).
The problem for the Brextremists, as I pointed out in a recent blog post is that they have approached the question from their usual standpoint of being bosses sitting across the table from workers, whereas they needed to have reversed that perspective.
ReplyDeleteWhen workers go into negotiations with bosses over pay or jobs, other than in exceptional times, they know that they are negotiating over just how much they are going to allow themselves to get screwed over. The contract between labour and capital is, we will employ you provided you give us an amount of unpaid labour/profit. Even when workers living standards rise as a result of rising productivity, it goes along with workers giving a larger proportion of their labour to capital for free.
The capitalist knows they always have the option of No Deal, because ultimately workers have to work or starve. Its fitting that the Tories are actually in the same position they put miners in 1984-5, of being starved back to work after a year of extreme hardship, only to see their industry destroyed anyway.
Bosses always suffer some temporary losses as a result of a strike, but ultimately, they know that its not a negotiation between equals and they always have the whip hand. The trouble with Brexit and the Brextremists is they live in a fantasy world, in which the British Empire still rules the waves, rather than recognising that it long since lost that position. There is no real negotiation between the EU and the UK, precisely because its not a context between two equals. The EU's $14 trillion economy as against the UK's $2 trillion economy gives it the whip hand, putting it in the position of the employer with the UK in the position of worker.
If the UK really wants to leave it can do, just as a worker who doesn't like the wages employers are offering can choose to starve to death instead.
The people really calling the shots might be in the USA, where Farage is busy lining up Bannon, and getting all the Cambridge Analytica band back together, but who knows who really is pulling the strings behind those puppets. All roads seem to lead back to Putin and the oligarchs.
ReplyDeleteHere is the real story, giving up democratic participation and control however unsatisfactory in the EU, along with our connections and unity with workers across the EU to build upon that base, in favour of becoming the US's rubbing rag, and a vassal to Trump who will be free to dictate terms to the UK over which UK workers will have no control, as the US takes over the NHS and other services, removes workers rights in the same way Johnson sought to do, by removing the right to strike and so on, all to provide bigger profits for a bunch of oligarchs who might be sitting in Moscow or New York, as the distinctions between the two are blurred, and who will be prepared to use all means necessary to destroy any form of dissent.
Dipper,
ReplyDeleteThe reason I'm a Remainer is because it seemed obvious to me that Brexit would unite Europe against the UK: the nightmare scenario which Britain's diplomats and armed forces have sought for centuries to prevent (in fact it's even worse now that we can no longer hold Ireland by force: as has become clear with the issue of the Irish border).
If Europe really is being ruined by German mercantilism (a view which I am somewhat sympathetic to) surely the response should not be a unilateral UK exit from the EU, but rather the construction of an alliance of all the European countries that have been victimized by said mercantilism, as well as other policies (for those other countries as much as the UK) that would reduce the trade imbalance?
One obvious suggestion would be to reduce taxes on income and trade and increase taxes on land values, as this would eliminate the house price inflation that both sucks in imports (via MEWing) and incentivizes asset strippers. Perhaps one reason why Germany ended up being the strongest economy in Europe was because its own landed elite (who would always be the main beneficiaries of land price inflation, regardless of how many ordinary people they managed to let in on their scam) was dispossessed by defeat in 1945?
However it is also notable that two out of the three rabidly pro-Brexit tabloids (the Daily Mail and the Express) were also notorious for cheering increases in house prices. Perhaps their readers understood that they were in some ways themselves to blame for Britain's economic decline (by gorging on foreign holidays and luxury imports paid for by MEWing) and needed a scapegoat in the form of the EU to distract from this?
I'm also reminded of how the fishing industry's campaign for Brexit may have been about boat owners (who got rich quick by selling off their quotas to foreigners) seeking to obfuscate their own treachery, or about how the Nazis in 1941 recruited former Soviet collaborators (eager to atone for their 1939 treason) to help them kill the Jews.
Boffy, aren't you overlooking that Trump wasn't yet US President when the EU referendum took place? To me it seems fairly likely that if Trump had been US President when the EU referendum had been held, then Remain would most likely have won.
ReplyDeleteBut then, it seems like the Brexiteers bullied David Cameron into holding the referendum on a date favourable to them, when the youth vote was suppressed (due to Glastonbury plus the move by students back from their term-time digs to their family homes, resulting in many of them being registered to vote at the wrong address). Perhaps the Muslim vote was also affected by the fact that the referendum was held during Ramadan?
With respect, Dipper, as a Remainer myself I can
ReplyDelete- believe it is a wrong and stupid thing to do
- respect the result of the referendum
- yet reject the idea that "no deal" was what all but the hardest core Leavers voted for in the first place
May placed Leavers in charge of the process and they blew it. Indeed, she blew it. They did not sell Brexit on economic meltdown and short-term emergency. They sold it as extra money to the NHS and have your cake and eat it.
Now you can say well they won so that's it, but Remainers are not being woolly when they resist undermining democracy and the deception of a sizeable proportion of the population which definitely DID NOT vote for this, whatever small print you might point to - indeed in many other countries, there would be civil unrest at the prospect.
You do realise you are as bad as some Remainers with your high-handed contempt don't you?
George,
ReplyDeleteNot overlooking that at all. The Red-Brown coalition has been in place since before both Brexit or Trump.
The same money, trolls, and nationalist networks have been in place promoting Farage, Le Pen, Wilders, AfD, Trump, Bannon, Orban, Netanyahu, et al for many years now.
@ George Carty
ReplyDeletethat's reasonable. But there was no sign of the UK grasping how to manage to do that. It is possible we have pushed the EU into full federalism.
@ Speedy "May placed Leavers in charge of the process and they blew it" I disagree. We have found out that they were largely for show. It turned out. Remainers were in charge who didn't grasp or accept the basis of the result and behind DD's back were negotiating EU-.. Now we have Leavers in charge, and I'm feeling more optimistic. This time it is genuinely down to Leavers - no excuses. Obviously there are no guarantees, and we may have to steal ourselves and dig in to get a decent settlement. I haven't ruled out us going into EFTA.
"Remainers are not being woolly when they resist undermining democracy and the deception of a sizeable proportion of the population" I disagree. I think where we are was definitely possible when the Referendum was called. I don't think Remainers are thinking about what happens when you cave in and acceded to EU demands. There isn't a future where we sit and chat as equals. Ain't going to happen. We will be forever on the naughty chair unless we get a sense of how to work in our own interest and there is no sign of anyone in the Remain side having worked that out.
"You do realise you are as bad as some Remainers with your high-handed contempt don't you". Remain was a perfectly acceptable view. But as I've said, I don;t think many Remainers are properly thinking about consequences, or seem to have an understanding of how power works, or for that matter any sensitivity to how benefits and costs are distributed across the population and how winners should compensate or look after losers. I don't think it unreasonable to expect people offering up opinions to have some sense of strengths and weaknesses rather than just the religious devotion that seems to dominate much discussion.
Dipper -
ReplyDelete"I don't think it unreasonable to expect people offering up opinions to have some sense of strengths and weaknesses rather than just the religious devotion that seems to dominate much discussion."
Pot calling kettle?
"We have found out that they were largely for show. It turned out. Remainers were in charge who didn't grasp or accept the basis of the result and behind DD's back were negotiating EU-.."
Really? The "stab in the back hypothesis"? Leavers were in charge of all the key departments. Leavers were in charge of the process.
"I think where we are was definitely possible when the Referendum was called. I don't think Remainers are thinking about what happens when you cave in and acceded to EU demands."
You might think it was definitely possible, but are you telling me most Leave voters took the promises and assurances with a pinch of salt? Why this - "cave in and accede to EU demands"? It is the UK that chooses to leave, not the EU - the EU "demands" nothing. The UK "demands" to Leave.
"But as I've said, I don;t think many Remainers are properly thinking about consequences, or seem to have an understanding of how power works"
Surely this, most of all, relates to Leavers - it is precisely because power works in favour of the most powerful block that Leavers were holding a worthless hand. They could never have their cake and eat it. THAT is how power works, which anyone who actually understands it could tell you.
So you see Dipper (CAN you see?) how your own perspective is distorted by your religious-style faith in conspiracies (stab in the back), prejudice (accede to EU demands) and, I don't know, an inflated sense of national importance ("power") to shape your own vision.
I can understand Leavers in the context of the 28 per cent of hardcore believers who truly do subscribe to "burnt earth" US style capitalism, shorn of workers rights, a social safety net, "nanny state", the same 28 per cent that would like to see the NHS privatised, and that this is the 28 per cent that is apparently getting what it wanted - but it does not reflect what the other 24 per cent of Leave voters thought they were getting. It is something like a democratic coup.
You may - in fact I suspect you do - constitute this hardcore. Fair enough, but why sell yourself self-serving fantasies? To sweeten the pill? To justify beliefs that you yourself find unpalatable? Why not celebrate this future rather than drape it in fancy dress? As I said previously you seem to have more in common with some of the "left" wing ideologues on these pages who would prefer to retreat into dogma than reality.
The problem with most of the discussion of the EU and Brexit is it is framed as "The EU and us". Of course, if you are outside the EU that is true, but if you are a member of the EU, the EU is us, so the us and them narrative makes no sense, any more than it makes sense for members of UNITE to talk about UNITE as against them. They are collectively UNITE, just as the countries of the EU are the EU. Some members might disagree with the collective decisions made, but that is just the same for members of a union or any other democratic body.
ReplyDeleteFor workers in the EU this is even more true, because for us the relation is not the EU v us (Britons), but us EU workers as a whole v Capital, as a whole. Outside the EU, workers as a whole will be weakened, but capital as a whole will be strengthened, particularly as against UK workers. On the whole, capital will continue to be free to move across the globe to wherever the biggest profits can be made. Its always workers that suffer most from restrictions on free movement of capital, labour and goods and services. That is particularly so, when it is mainly the freedom of movement of labour that is restricted.
UK workers will particularly suffer outside the EU, precisely because they will lose any democratic control over the rules regulations, and terms of trade that the UK has to impose. If the UK wants to continue to trade with the EU, it will have to abide by EU rules and regulations, if it wants to trade with the US then with US rules and regulations, and Trump had made clear that means US rules and regulations have to be applied over those demanded by the EU, China or elsewhere.
It would mean having to apply US rules and regulations, and thereby cutting ourselves off increasingly from our largest market in the EU. It will mean the US gets to take over the NHS and so on, all without UK workers having any say in the matter. The Brextremists can say all they want that they could walk away from such talks with the US just as they say about talks with the EU, but the reality means that if they do, the UK economy would go into the toilet in very short order.
@ Speedy
ReplyDeletedisagree. Remainers are used to a politics where there are policies handed down on high from a higher, wiser authority (ie the EU) and expect Leavers to replace the EU with some other source of comforting polices with guaranteed success. Leaving is about taking responsibility with all that entails in terms of false stats, mistakes, dead-ends. ultimately we should be a better nation for it; more cohesive, dynamic, vibrant, and ultimately more prosperous. If you are looking for religious texts to replace those of the EU, you will be disappointed.