Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 59

So How Does It Look For May Today?

Better. This is why. The hard line Brexiteers are in a state of shock as they see their dream crumble. They have only themselves to blame by putting ideology before planning, soundbites before programmes, dreams above reality and jingoism before judgement. They do not have a majority in the country, they do not have a majority in parliament and, crucially, they do not have a majority in the parliamentary Tory party.  The Tory party has the smallest membership of the three main political parties, fewer even than the Liberal Democrats. In a general election any time soon voters would turn away, as they always have, from supporting a party split asunder on the main issue of the day, and the Tories would go down to a defeat which would make their record loss in 1997 look a  triumph. Any attempt to ditch May and choose a new leader would trigger a general election. So May is safe.

Yesterday she fought a pitched battle for survival which lasted from the early hours to late, but she won convincingly. Boris, her protagonist in chief, tottered from the field a total wreck. The sinister Jacob Rees-Mogg withdrew to wait under the shade of the trees to see what happens next. All the key top offices of state are now held by Remainers, who accept the referendum outcome to withdraw from the EU, but will do it only on terms which do not destroy the economy of the UK, requiring a rebuild greater than even post 1945. In Parliament there is a majority for that approach, as there is in the country. Among all political party memberships right across the UK there is a majority for sensible Brexit, if Brexit happens. Except in the ageing rump membership of the Tory Party. And the brutal political fact is they no longer count.

So is May now set fair to sail through the next level of the Brexit withdrawal process?

Well that is the question. Since becoming Prime Minister she has become prone to self-harm, indecision and trying to please everybody. What happens next depends on whether she can make up her mind, fix on a course, abandon the hard Brexit wing of her party and lead the country with bold conviction. Can she do that?

You tell me.

Government? What Government?

To describe the current state of collapse and confusion as a Cabinet crisis is to understate the case. Once again it is appropriate to reflect on Lincoln’s historic line.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Apply it to the fiasco at the heart of our country.

A party divided against itself cannot govern.

The Tory Party is tearing itself to pieces.

There is only one way forward. May puts country before party and governs through the majority in the House of Commons for a sensible Brexit which prioritizes the economy, jobs and the standard of living of millions. Failure to do that would make the eventual defeat of the government certain and the collapse of the whole Brexit project likely.

May: What Is She Talking About?

Yesterday May said at Prime Minister’s Questions the government would ensure “we are out of the customs union, that we are out of the single market, that we are out of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, we are out of the Common Agricultural Policy, we are out of the Common Fisheries Policy, we bring an end to free movement, we take control of our borders, we have an independent trade policy”.

She knows very well that to achieve that list only a hard Brexit is possible. Why not have the courage to admit that, go for it and face certain defeat in the House of Commons? At least she would go down all guns blazing. But in the next breath the champion of the multiple fudge tells business they are going to get tariff free trade and open borders, so supply chains will continue to flow. And what about the air flights, the medicines and the nuclear materials, space and every other thread of modern life you can think of?

We simply cannot go on being governed by a bunch of fantasists. Time to call in the grown ups.

 

Trump And Putin To Meet

As predicted by this blog, President Trump has followed up his success with Kim Jon Un with the news yesterday that he is to meet with President Putin. A strongman to strongman summit is to be a feature of Trump’s trip to Europe in July. This is very significant because it signals a change in the world order long overdue. The failure of Western post cold war diplomacy, especially since 9/11, with the launching of wars without end spawning a dismal line up of failed states, is stark evidence of this.

The truth is that nothing can be gained by continuing to shun Russia and exclude her from dialogue and inclusion, unless she submits to a string of demands, which in a million years we all know the Kremlin will never agree to. My guess is that Trump will seek to push the Democrats onto an island on the wrong side of events, by finessing their obsession with the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. This he will do with a deal that brings Russia back to the G8 and to its  formal association with NATO, from which it is currently excluded, in return for a cyber security pact of some kind. No more election interference etc. They will agree to continue cooperation in the fight against what is left of IS. Difficult issues like Ukraine and Syria will be discussed but solutions will be further down the track. When they come they will concede that Assad has won the war in Syria with Russian help, the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine will never agree to give up Russian protection and Crimea is, and has for centuries been, Russian.

Many people across the West, politicians, diplomats and generals, are unsettled by the dawn of an era for which they have no blueprint. Like all world orders of the past, the collective, pact driven, block system is crumbling, in part because it is no longer working and in part because people are tired of it. Whatever its merits before, now it breeds endless tension and solves no issues. Ahead is the more unpredictable world of strong leaders dealing with each other direct, rather than through armies of minders and negotiators sheltering under the broad umbrella of diplomacy.

The main players will be Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping. They will each have their red lines but they will be driven by their common interests in the new interdependent and inter-connected world which technology has empowered. This in turn may bring smaller players together to protect the interests of the majority of countries beneath the super-power strata. In other words instead of superpowers herding their followers, the superpowers will be a law unto themselves, leaving the rest to forage wherever they fancy. This may not be as bad as at first it sounds. Britain’s priority, especially post Brexit, will be to get along with all three. No prizes for guessing who, in the short term, will pose the biggest problem.

May: No Longer Governing

Something different is happening. In the past Britain had a reputation for strong and reliable government. You may not like the policies of the party in power, but they were applied through due process and either worked well or not so well. The government was united in its endevours, supported by a majority in parliament and held together by Cabinet responsibility.

None of this is now happening. The governing party is at war within itself, the cabinet is split asunder by Brexit, austerity and many other issues. Nobody knows what kind of Brexit is coming, whether policies announced will ever come into effect, like £20 billion for the NHS, enough money to maintain our defence programme, a third runway at Heathrow, no hard borders, funding for social care, improvements in education, the list is long and growing. Yet in not a single case does the government seem able or even willing to deliver. The reason is that no party so riven by disagreement, with Cabinet ministers openly attacking each other across the media and rubbishing policies which they are supposed to be supporting, can actually govern. It becomes an un-government, which is what we have now.

How long the country can cope with being un-governed we do not know, because we have not been here before. However we can, all of us whatever our allegiances,  unite around one verity. This cannot go on for much longer.

Trump Blinks: Good News For Children

And it may be good news for Trump too. Aside from being a cruel and heartless policy inflicted upon vulnerable people who have committed no crime in the accepted sense, making seeking asylum a crime is no more a real crime than making drinking coke a crime and especially in a nation largely built out of asylum seekers and immigrants. It was also a political blunder. Assailed on all sides on Capitol Hill and especially among leading Republicans about which Trump was irritated rather than surprised, from his close family which disturbed him, and from the international community about which he cared not a jot, Trump has issued another executive order stopping the separation of families in the border drama now unfolding.

America allows Trump to do all sorts of things for which any other president would be censured, because he was elected to disrupt the established order. One of the reasons he will escape immediate poll drain, is that very few presidents, having screwed up, will do anything about it. Trump did. Of course he dressed it up in familiar Trump wrappings, but it was a climb down. Yet he is bigger for it. What effect this will have on future electoral prospects varies from none to ‘the moment when’. In other words nobody knows.

Melania Hits Out: Laura Bush Too

It is surely unprecedented, certainly in recent times, for a First Lady to criticise an outcome of one of her husband’s policies, but Melania Trump has been forthright in her complaint about immigrant children being separated from their families. She has been supported by former First Lady, Laura Bush. This cruel and nasty practice is a direct result of pumping anti-Mexican prejudice and building walls.

This is America for goodness sake! It is a country built on immigration and breaking down prejudices and barriers. Treating migrants desperate to share in its opportunities as criminals and taking their children from them is an unforgivable behavior for any country and doubly so for America. If another 50 cities are needed in the United States to accommodate those who are willing to work hard  to become loyal Americans, then it can be done. Unlike Europe, there is no shortage of space or resources.

The Republican Party is rightly growing anxious and Trump needs to reign in his border authorities and the Justice Department. The Kim Jon Un votes dividend in November can easily be lost on videos of screaming toddlers being dragged away from their parents and herded into converted supermarket detention camps. That is the kind of thing America  is against. It is not what America does.

Parliamentary Insult To Women

Like millions of Brits I feel deeply disturbed that the country of which I am a citizen is governed by a legislature under standing orders which permit an entire law making process to be brought to a halt because one of its members shouts ‘object’. It is a childish tradition of secret societies, public schools and gentleman’s clubs to have words and practices which mystify outsiders but within the magic circle cast the spell of belonging. It is no way to govern a country.

When it turns out the law in question was to make the humiliating practice of upskirting, which causes women and young girls very real distress, unlawful, and that it was brought to a halt by a Thatcher era grandee who is reported to have admitted to not even knowing what upskirting actually was, there is a sense of national outrage. May is among the millions appalled and has promised to put the government’s weight behind the legislation to get it through. She should also withdraw the Tory whip from Sir Christoper Chope, his constituency party should deselect him and whatever authority supervises membership in this party of shrinking numbers, should expel him.

This insult to women across our country must not be allowed to go unchallenged.

A Split Parliament: The Case For Coalition.

At the start of WWII the Tory party was badly split between appeasers and those who wanted to confront Germany. As the blitzkrieg took hold and Churchill became prime minister, he was backed by a split and lukewarm Tory Party. Many in its ranks and in the War Cabinet wanted to open peace talks via Mussolini (Italy was not yet in the war) but Churchill wanted to fight on. His strength lay in his character, but his political power lay in the fact that he led a coalition. And the Labour and Liberal parties backed his fighting determination, together with enough Tories to see off the peace faction.

Brexit is the biggest test since WWII for the prosperity and strength of the United Kingdom. Whether you are for it or against it, the danger now lies in either course on terms which are structurally and financially hobbling to future growth, engagement, influence, opportunity and prosperity. Both the main political parties are split between Leave and Remain, and split again within those definitions as well. The government is itself so badly split it is unable to progress negotiations with the EU on all the key issues, because its warring ministers cannot agree what kind of Brexit it is they want. May is reduced to winning parliamentary votes by making promises which she cannot keep.

This is no way to run a country at the best of times but as of now it is the biggest threat the UK faces. Bigger than Russian hackers or IS terrorists. Because although malign attacks from without can damage and cause pain, it is conflict within which truly destroys. It is therefore the view of this blog that the nature of our government has at once to change. There is a substantial majority in the House of Commons for an intelligent Brexit, which puts the economy and jobs first and pays the price to achieve that. There is an even bigger majority in the Lords and polls predict that there is also a majority in the country.

Moreover there is now an existential threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom. If Brexit goes pear shaped, the SNP will get the support it needs to guarantee a win in a second independence referendum. And in Northern Ireland the obdurate power of the DUP will drain away and the North will unite with the South.

So Theresa May, Madame Fudge to this blog, can fudge no longer. It is imperative we have a united cabinet made up of ministers who put country before ideology and are willing to deliver an economically sound Brexit which protects jobs and business, preserves vital institutions and points the way to better times. This means relying on the majority in the Commons from across all parties for such a course, whether there is a formal coalition or not. The hard core Brexiteers, mostly rich and detached from ordinary lives, should be fired from the government and thrown onto the back benches. Here they can howl and shriek and cause a fuss but they will not have a majority there in the Commons, nor in the Lords, nor in the country. And, leaving the best bit till last, May needs to dump the DUP. Shacking up with them was the biggest mistake of all.

May: Madame Fudge Is At It Again

There was excitement last night as Tory rebels planning to vote against the arguing mob that their government has become, were bought off by promises from an anxious May, as they jammed into her office in the Commons not long before the vote. Afterwards they thought they could take her at her word and voted with the government, enabling it to claim a victory. However it was not long before official and unofficial denials were being issued across Whitehall that any meaningful concession had been made. So now there is said to be simmering anger. Wow.

The problem is not actually who voted for what last night, nor what they will vote for today. The problem is that the EU does not know, the country does not know, the worlds of business, law, medicine, money and science do not know, indeed nobody knows, where the government is trying to get to or what Brexit will actually mean in practice. We in fact know less than we did at the beginning in June 2016. The reason for this historic state of universal don’t know, is because the government, whose raison d’etre is to know, still has no idea and whenever it gets an idea, it is either unworkable or it produces so much shouting around the cabinet table that it has to be abandoned.

So today the only thing we can know pretty much for sure is this. It may not end well. Not for anyone. But especially not for the government.