Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 40
December 30, 2018
Migrants Crossing the Channel
It would be a pity if the UK became heartless to the plight of migrants, yet there is real public anxiety about immigration. Locally people can feel overwhelmed by the influx of a new culture, even if the overall outcome for the country is positive. The diaspora of people from poorer countries to the magnet of prosperous Europe and to its southern border, the United States, is in large part due to a combination of globalization leaving many behind and foreign wars without end. Into the deprived arena these create, has stepped a new kind of criminal. The terrorist fighter and the people trafficker.
There can be no doubt that Western economic and foreign policies bear much, if not all, responsibility for the conditions which lead to people on the edge of despair to go to any length and place their trust in anybody to help them towards something better. But to enter the picture only at the point of rescue is too late for the West. More must be done to disrupt the trafficker’s easy business model and very much more must be done to stop unseaworthy, or indeed any sort, of boats putting to sea from the coast of North Africa and more recently Northern France. That is an absolute priority. Hanging about waiting to rescue people from drowning is the very worst option. It actually make the situation worse not better.
December 28, 2018
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A Gift of Treason
The narrow, ordered life of a gentle but almost reclusive artist, Jane Block, is disturbed when a bequest, intended for her dead mother, passes to her. Mystery surrounds the nature of the inheritance and Jane is led on a sinister trail to secrets of the past, forcing her to confront her own fears and inhibitions. She finds herself caught in a frightening quest to unravel one of the greatest cover-ups of World War Two, and in so doing finds intrigue, love and betrayal.
Stanislaw’s Crossing
St.John Whilloe is the black sheep member of a wealthy legal family, whose firm of solicitors looks after the affairs of many of the top families in the country. He is consulted by a young woman who claims to be frightened by her husband. Things are not as they seem and St.John finds himself drawn into a complex web of intrigue and murder. He is soon in a race against time to solve a mystery with roots in a tortured family history, with sinister paranormal undertones.
Corbyn Calls for Parliament’s Recall
It is of course the case that May will ignore him. He knows that. She knows he knows that. Yet the request is worth making because it highlights once again the risk that May runs. Her plan is that the shear potential horror of a crash Brexit, whether real or imagined, will drive remainer and and soft Brexit MPs to back her in the final vote, while fear of losing Brexit altogether will drive the hard Brexiteers to go along with the kind of incomplete break they hate. There is also the growing fear of a general election on all shades of the Tory benches, which will grow worse after the holiday, as the instability of the government becomes ever more apparent.
Corbyn knows that too. Which is why he is pushing for a vote now. To clear the decks for what comes next.
By the way, what is that?
December 21, 2018
Gatwick: The Wider Lesson
The drone threat has been obvious for some time. So why did it take so long to get the assets and personnel in place to provide protection from this drone? Why did all those people have to experience such discomfort, distress and uncertainty for so long and will continue to do so, because every hour wasted requires several hours to correct the knock on?
Is this bad planning or a failure of the responsibility of governance? Is this shattered Tory party capable of executive governing and is this parliament, riven with factions, capable of legislative oversight? The answer to both has been obvious too for some time. No. And if a lone drone can cause this, just imagine what a hard Brexit will do. Forget about the silly concept of a managed no deal Brexit. To manage anything you first have to have competent managers.
Enough said.
December 20, 2018
Trump Pulls Out Of Syria: But What About Yemen?
There are two ways of looking at this. One is the conspiracy theory that somehow Trump is under the thumb of the Kremlin through money or women or whatever. So he is trying to please Putin, who is the big winner of this sudden and dramatic decision. This blog has no plans to explore that minefield.
The other way to view this is that Trump, who shows marginal interest in traditional politics and diplomacy, is determined to carry out campaign promises to extricate America from foreign wars, most of which cost a lot and achieve little to nothing. It is America First. We know that. If you cut out all the traditional stuff about America the world policeman and American domination of everything, there is merit in his plan. Syria, even in the Cold War, was within the Russian sphere and has never been much to do with the US. Both Russia and Iran as well as Assad are capable of dealing with the remnants of IS, which all regard as an enemy.
The overwhelming priority is Yemen. A fragile ceasefire is holding , but with sporadic fighting locally. It is very much time for Trump to focus on this war. He should lean on the Saudis and extend some kind plus for the Iranians if they cooperate in a serious drive for peace. For Trump that is a much trickier problem than Syria. He has boxed himself in by being too forgiving of the Saudis and too antagonistic to Iran. Reversing the effects of those themes will not be easy. But he needs to try. He is good at reaching out to undemocratic autocracies and semi-democratic dictatorships. It is within his comfort zone. Time to get busy.
December 19, 2018
Crisis: What Now with May? Or Corbyn?
There is emerging a kamikaze strategy from No.10. Ramp up preparations for No Deal, with blood curdling warnings; oppose a second referendum; exploit the fear of losing Brexit altogether. The calculation is that constituency pressure on MPs will change their minds over Christmas. Remainers will back May to avoid a hard Brexit. Leavers will back May to avoid losing Brexit. Will it work? Possibly. Possibly not.
Nothing can be predicted. May no longer leads a government in the conventional sense. Her cabinet is split in three separate directions. Unity after meetings lasts about an hour. The Tory party leads the government, but is split into so many factions that count has been lost. May is no longer in control, but neither is anybody else. So she is trying to ride the storm demasted and the rudder gone, in the hope that the wind and currents will beach her on the land where the Bong Tree grows, i.e her deal is passed by the House of Commons.
Corbyn is looking for his own Bong Tree. He has resisted calls for a No Confidence vote because he knows the Brexiteers, including the DUP, are terrified of either a general election or a second referendum, so they will prop the government up and Labour will lose the vote. But if we are heading over the cliff to a disorderly Brexit, there could be enough Remain MPs in the Tory party to put their country first and bring the government down. Four have already declared. The DUP might be cutting their own electoral throats if they back the government, because a cliff edge crash would be a disaster for their NI constituents , most of whom voted remain. So they might at least abstain. And that could be Corbyn’s moment.
As for business, the poor, the vulnerable, the young and the over 16 million who think Brexit is barmy, what about them? Like fielders waiting for catches from a spinner, they are hovering for an opportunity to take power. Make no mistake about that. The question is who will they give it to?
Click links for details December 18, 2018
Parliament Is Failing the People: Dissolve It.
Parliament is now failing the people. The government has ceased to govern. That more than Brexit itself is the crisis now. And this crisis is real, deep and damaging. A listen in to yesterday’s performance by a straw clutching May, revealed so many conflicting views among the Tories that it is impossible to see how they can govern.
Yet there is no majority to bring the government down, to accept any permutation of any deal, to avoid a crash Brexit, nor to hold a second referendum. In my view our unwritten constitution requires the monarch, as head of state, to intervene by calling the parties together as George V did in 1930. If they fail to agree a way forward in the national interest, Article 50 should be delayed, Parliament should be dissolved and an election held.
The first duty of the new parliament would be to restore the proper balance between executive and legislature, distorted by a combination of the fixed Term Parliament Act and the Supreme Court ruling. Next must follow reforming the House of Lords and formalising the difference between parliament sitting as the Union and sitting as England. Reform of the civil service will be needed too and only when our governing institutions are seen to be fit for purpose should we even think of proceeding with Brexit.
It will not happen so we will blunder on. But this failure of governance proves the most powerful reason of all to stop Brexit. Brexit was promoted as a means of returning full sovereignty to the U.K. parliament. It is now clear that after 45 years of sharing, parliament has lost the capability to exercise coherent sovereign government. That is a most unwelcome revelation, with consequences far greater than Brexit itself.
