Wise in their own sight (but not so wise in ours)

Scotland, Shenanigans, United Kingdom
8 Comments

It doubtless seemed clever to challenge prorogation in Scotland; Scots law differs much from English and their chance of victory was higher. However I can think of two audiences in Scotland who may be unimpressed.

(South of the border there is a huge third audience whom I expect to be very unimpressed, but that is another matter.)

Firstly, a Scot does not need to be unusually honest or unusually lacking in nationalism to wonder how exactly to defend the Scottish supreme court’s ruling on the United Kingdom’s parliament. Every Scot can defend Scotland’s supreme court bullying the MSP’s who sit in the 11-times-over-budget building at the end of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, but I’m not the only Scot who “couldna juist charge his memory” over why the propriety of a Westminster-affecting act is being ruled on by a provincial court. (There will be some justification, of course – but, in the words of “1066 and all that”, it will not be memorable.)

Secondly, her majesty is in Scotland for the summer, as usual. Also as usual, she has prorogued parliament. It is something she’s accustomed to doing every year at roughly this time for roughly this length of time – but which May did not advise her to do last year during a session whose length was unprecedented in three centuries.

Many a PM has noted how their meetings with the Queen, unlike their meetings with their loyal cabinet colleagues, do not leak. I have no idea whether, after Boris performed his constitutional duty to inform and advise her majesty of prorogation, she chose her constitutional duty of ‘warn’ instead of her constitutional duty of ‘advise’ – but it seems at first glance unlikely she ‘warned’ against something whose unprecedented feature was how long it had been since she’d last done it.

I therefore conjecture that her majesty may think the Scottish supreme court’s action ill-advised rather than her own.

As this ruling is mere PR skirmishing before the UK’s supreme court rules (IIUC, it has no actual effect in itself), it seems to me that the remoaners are again paying a high PR price for a stunt that will play well with themselves but with not so many beyond. The court that travestied historical custom to rule for Gina Miller in 2016 is not the strongest oak for leavers to lean against, but it is being said the case has “no hope” in English law. I hope that’s true, but I anyway think that remoaner lawfare victories have a cost they underestimate.

Et tu quoque?

Shenanigans, Westminster Parliament
5 Comments

Parliament demands to see all the private messages sent between nine advisers since 23 July relating to the prorogation of parliament (or to Yellowhammer), claiming there might be constitutional issues.

Suppose Boris demands to see all private messages sent between remoaners and the EU, under a similar claim?

Of course, it may not matter in either direction.

– On the one hand, even May only yielded to a similar demand after parliament, in a second vote, held her in contempt (one of the few sentiments I share with them). In Boris’ case, such a vote cannot now happen for weeks – and if it finally does, he might ignore it anyway. Meanwhile, he may exploit the humour of insisting that EU law (GDPR and/or similar) means he cannot comply. It makes an obvious introduction to a speech echoing Churchill on how the 1930s parliaments were

“adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent”

– On the other hand, Boris may already know whatever a counter-demand could tell him. In the days before Corbyn became its leader, instead of the kind of backbencher that worried its leaders, the Labour establishment, whenever it won an election, was delighted to discover that the UK security services were keeping an eye on their wilder backbenchers (whom they could then head off from their wilder antics before public embarrassment ensued). I don’t see Barnier and friends as the men to keep secrets, despite their passionate belief that there are many things the masses do not need to know, still less decide on.

So I’m more interested in the ‘why’. Mostly, I’m assuming (and hoping) that it’s just a standard insolent PC establishment fishing expedition.

“Perhaps the outrage over the fact that Parliament is to be prorogued – something that normally happens at about this time each year – tells us more about the Remainiac establishment’s state of mind coming to terms with Brexit, than it does about our constitution?” Douglas Carswell

If you want to insist that something that “normally happens at about this time each year” (and is now, abnormally, a year overdue) is an unconstitutional outrage then you need to gather a lot of material to have a chance of finding something you can misrepresent.

However – although I would be glad to think otherwise – it is just possible that the people who are so sure they are the clever ones found themselves on Monday feeling the need of some intelligence. Last week, 102 amendments were tabled to help time out the wrecking act in the Lords – standard parliamentary tactics which the remoaners well understood. But then No. 10 said, “Don’t bother – go get a good night’s sleep”. (Other ways of timing it out or delaying it were likewise left unexplored.)

As regards public opinion, I can see the benefits.

– Now, not just the remoaners but Labour – and Corbyn personally – are incredibly on record: no letting the public decide, no election, and in Corbyn’s case, no more plausible pretence of being different, still less of being brave, but just doing what Tony Blair and the spin doctors tell him like a good party hack.

– Boris, by contrast, now has the perfect out for the negotiations. If he’d negotiated for 5 weeks without the EU-advised act shouting “ignore him” to the EU negotiators, then failure to present a Canada++ deal on October the 14th would be something he’d have to explain. Now, he can throw it in parliament’s face (which won’t bother them but will destroy any traction they might otherwise have had with the public). If he already felt sure the EU’s stubborness meant we’d have to leave before they’d negotiate for real, it was very much in his interest to have the act to blame. And if he already felt sure he’d have to leave on absolute no-deal to reel in the Brexit voters or ally with The Brexit Party, it was wise to make that parliament’s fault, not his choice in rejecting some no-backstop-but-still-smells-fishy deal.

Remoaners and Corbynites may not realise just how big a political price they have paid, but they surely know they need their procedural win to be a real win on October 31st to make it worth it. I hope they feel lazily sure they have Brexit boxed in and it’s all over bar the shouting – that’s their rhetoric – but is it possible that, as Monday progressed, they found themselves really wanting to know what the despised Dominic thought and why Boris didn’t sound more panicked?

(Of course, they’re not alone in that. 🙂 )

What value parties?

Party politics
9 Comments

Almost 50 MPs (almost 8% of the house of commons) have changed party since the June 2017 election. (Some have changed several times, so there have been 73 switches of party overall – like divorce, party infidelity rates can seem higher if one forgets that a smallish number of people contribute a lot of the statistics.)

For better and (often) for worse, parties, not personalities, have been how we vote for three centuries. Burke wrote that he

was quite sure he rested wholly on the Whig interest and would not obtain a single Tory vote (in point of fact he did obtain but one)

in Bristol in 1774 – and few MPs have done better. Manifestos, not our local MP’s opinions, are most of what we vote for. Party leaders, not local MPs, are most of whom we vote for. And parties are how MPs are disciplined to pay attention to these things – and therefore to our votes, and therefore to us. It doesn’t work at all well – but the alternative is relying on MPs’ consciences. That works well sometimes – but fails often.

One of Churchill’s reasons for praising the oblong shape of the house of commons was that when you changed party in Britain you “crossed the floor” (something he did twice but, as with other aspects of his career, that was unusual). Everyone saw Churchill cross the floor – and Churchill was very aware of himself doing it. In the continent’s universal semi-circle, representatives could gradually move their sitting positions leftwards (or rightwards) without ever facing such a moment of public admission.

However when “everybody’s doing it” and SW1 approves, the effect is weakened.

That the great realignment sees a breakdown of the old party structures is hardly something to complain about. But until we can get something better – until we can get not just a few who are better but 632 who are better – I fear we need either a new party or a purged one with the same discipline – or both. If the current crop of Tory MPs are purged to the point that we can safely rely on MPs’ consciences to deliver Brexit, not party discipline, then well under half will be in the next parliament.

Failing, flailing, and doing surprisingly well in the polls

Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexit Party, Conservative Party, Elections, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Media, Party politics
3 Comments

I read everywhere that Boris Johnson’s government is flailing and failing. They have been soundly defeated in the Commons. It looks like Boris will be forced to ask the EU for another extension, and according to the Times it has been pre-approved:

Rebel Tory MPs and opposition leaders received private assurances from European leaders that a request by parliament for a three-month Brexit extension would be granted in one last attempt to break the deadlock.

The Times understands that senior figures behind the bill to force an extension on Boris Johnson cleared their plan with EU capitals before it was published this week. They received reassurances that the European Council, which is made up of EU leaders, would not stand in the way of one final extension if it was approved by parliament.

Amber Rudd is but the latest high-profile Tory to resign the Conservative whip, to the delight of her brother Roland Rudd, the chairman of the People’s Vote campaign.

Yet…

“If Parliament is unable to decide on Brexit it would be better to have a snap General Election”

Agree: 50%
Disagree: 18%

-Tweet from the “Britain Elects”, quoting a poll by ComRes carried out from the 4th-6th September. It is not the only such result. The Independent‘s John Rentoul has observed,

Average of 3 polls this weekend (Survation, Opinium, YouGov)

Con 33%

Lab 23%

Lib Dem 18%

Brexit 14%

The promise that was never meant to be kept is now the hill they have chosen to die on

Shenanigans, Westminster Parliament
16 Comments

It is said of Obama that his every promise had an expiration date. That way of phrasing it seems almost too kind – as if each promise once had value and then lost it after it expired. Some promises are only ever meant to be believed – they are never meant to be kept.

MPs of all UK-wide parties voted to hold the Brexit referendum – but for many, the promise to leave the EU if Leave won was only ever meant to justify remaining in ever closer union when Remain won. The believe that we would have left had Leave won was expected to have great value – to remainers after Remain won, justifying their putting an end to the carping criticism of a minority of MPs and those stupid voters. “We’d have left if you’d won, so shut up” was to be the essence of politics thereafter.

Now, after both major parties campaigned in 2017 on a promise to honour the result, blood has finally been squeezed from a stone – and promises they do mean to keep from Remoaners. Their bill is astonishingly frank (for them) in its determination to give power over Brexit to the EU. Their refusal of an election makes equally explicit their intense desire not to give that power to UK voters. The difficulty of defeating the deep state is that they will not openly stand to fight and so risk being beaten. It’s a sign of how much has been achieved that people so given to deceit are being so open.

I hope Boris, Dominic and others have foreseen, and are masters of, the procedural and constitutional technicalities needed in the next few days between now and prorogation. But, however that turns out, I think their enemies too caught up in this fight to see beyond it. They imagine that, if they can only delay leaving forever, they can get us back to the grudging attitude of a few years ago, when most people did not like the EU but most thought it was as inevitable as bad weather, and was merely an add-on to Britain, not a replacement. I think their own antics are ensuring that that particular Humpty-Dumpty cannot be put back together again.

Realignment spotted in mainstream media

Media
5 Comments

A Telegraph opinion piece by Dr Stephen Davies of the Institute of Economic Affairs appears in the Telegraph titled: “An early General Election will confirm the total realignment of British politics”.

If and when this happens, this will be a realigning election. The Conservative Party would seek a mandate to leave the EU even if this meant leaving without a deal. Faced with this, a significant number of Conservative MPs will either leave politics or run on a separate ticket, probably with a deal with the Liberal Democrats and Greens. This alliance will be founded on an explicitly remain platform, placing the Labour Party under enormous pressure to adopt the same position – though it is not clear what Jeremy Corbyn will do.

The Conservative Party will then become the representative of one side of the new divide; both the party of leave and a kind of British nationalism that rejects the EU’s supranational politics. (Electoral incentives mean this will not be as straightforwardly free market as many suppose).

Meanwhile a new kind of centre left will be emerging on the opposite side. There will be a clearly Remain-oriented bloc of Lib Dems, Greens, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists and dissident Conservatives, that supports the supranational politics of the EU and a different vision of Britain’s identity and place in the world. If the Labour Party is not very careful and lucky it will be caught between these two new poles and the election will truly realign British politics. This will shape our history for decades.

You can see why the opposition does not want an election. They don’t know what to do with one.

Brexit news

Brexit
3 Comments

What just happened? Some probabilities have shifted but nothing is yet decided. A vote has been won to enable remainer MPs to introduce their European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill 2019 which, among other things, may force the Prime Minister to ask the European Council for an extension of a length determined by the European Council.

Boris Johnson has initiated a procedure to enable a debate and a vote on whether or not to have a general election. He has threatened, should an election take place, to deselect Tory MPs who opposed him in the previous vote.

Much remains to be seen.

  • Will the remainers’ bill pass the first vote?
  • Will it be delayed by arcane procedures?
  • Should it pass, will it be put in front of the Queen for royal assent? Boris has said only that he will obey the law and the constitution. The constitution seems to allow him to prevent it becoming law.
  • A general election may delay it.
  • A general election may or may not be possible. Jeremy Corbyn says he does not want an election (until no-deal-Brexit is removed as a possibility).
  • Nobody is quite sure whether the election would be before or after the 31st October.
  • Should a general election take place, Boris might deselect Tory MPs who have opposed him thus far. Update: Confirmed that Boris has withdrawn the whip (they are expelled from the party and are now independent) from 21 MPs who voted against him.
  • Unless leavers are completely satisfied, the outcome of any election is very uncertain, and includes the possibility of a Corbyn government.

Farming and Brexit: whatever did we do before the EU?

Brexit, Historical
3 Comments

As the saying warns, those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it – but sometimes, reliving the past is worth considering at least. 🙂 After all, it was in the past that we were not in the EU. How did we survive in that dim and distant time?

When Britain joined the EU (it was called the EEC in those days), many people – on both sides of the channel – pointed out that the UK’s prior method of supporting a viable farming sector had some things going for it.

– The EEC set minimum prices for agricultural products – so had butter mountains, wine lakes, etc. (Basic economics: want a surplus? – set a minimum price; want a shortage? – set a maximum price.) Food cost more, which was bad news for the poor inside the EU, and EU protectionism was especially focussed on agriculture, which was bad news for the poor in the third world. (When the UK industrialised, it let its farming sector shrink as Europe sold it food in exchange for high-tech products. Thanks to the EU, Europe’s approach to the rest of the world is the opposite.)

– The old UK system of “deficiency payments” for farmers was a negative sales tax. UK farmers sold what they could in competition with imports, and, instead of paying sales tax on it received a ‘deficiency payment’ – an annually-set sum per unit sale for farm products in the scheme. Thus food was cheap to the consumer, and a lot of it was imported, but UK farmers could budget each year to compete with third-world farmers without having to adopt a third-world living standard.

I’m not a fan of state intervention. However even Milton Friedman says that keeping enough of a local farming sector to survive e.g. another WWII can (sometimes) be a valid exception. If today’s politics tells us that Brexit’s effect on farmers will be addressed somehow then I’m prepared to discuss how best to do what will anyway be done. Joining the EU raised food prices. Why shouldn’t leaving it lower them? If the government will spend money on it anyway, then what do people think of motivating farmers to produce for the market instead of for the surplus, while helping the UK poor by lowering food prices instead of giving them yet another state handout, and allowing the poor in the third world to sell us what they can produce instead of tariffing them? It’s what we did before.