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What is the point of Labour now?

The time has now come for Labour to move aside in Warrington.

They have totally lost touch with their traditional voter base. For nearly 100 years, Labour had a real sense of purpose, and stood up for working class communities. Together with the trade unions, they fought for and won workers’ rights, and forced better working conditions. They helped to establish universal healthcare, and the safety net of welfare benefits.

In doing so, Labour became a political brand that we came to trust. Myself and my own family didn’t just vote for them, but actively supported and campaigned for them over many years.

In the 1970s, the Labour party was savvy and astute enough to resist and stand up against the EEC / EU. All their predictions of what would happen if we joined have come true. Intelligent and passionate politicians such as Tony Benn, Michael Foot and Peter Shore knew exactly what we were dealing with, and warned us that it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Benn asked 5 fundamental questions about democratic accountability that are still relevant even today.

So what went wrong with Labour? In 1988 they were seduced by the President of the European Commission, Jacque Delors. Delors promised Labour and the unions that, in return for their support, the EU would introduce the social chapter – a set of European legislation that bypassed the UK Parliament, entering straight onto the UK statute book, and there was nothing our own MPs could do to repeal it. If Labour couldn’t persuade the electorate to vote for their policies democratically, well never mind, they could do a backroom deal with the EU to impose these policies undemocratically instead.

Soon, Labour politicians like Kinnock and Mandelson were welcomed over to Brussels, festooned with sky-high salaries and gold-plated pensions, evoking comparisons with the snouts in the trough of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Having delegated all their major political areas of interest to the technocrats in Brussels in the 1990s, Labour were suddenly confronted with a deep and searching question: What was the whole point of them now? Their raison d’etre? Blair employed the best PR gurus in the business, and developed a new product, a new brand: “New Labour”. It took a few years to fully understand what this meant. It was the third way neoliberal social democracy. Offering identity politics, “progressive” liberalism and the emphasis of social justice over equality. It also ushered in an era of institutionalised hypocrisy to justify its new ideology, culminating in the dreadful invasion of Iraq, and the “removal” of Dr David Kelly.

As UK voters (like me) began to wake up to what was going on, Blair latched onto the growing national mood of euroscepticism, and pledged a referendum on the new EU constitution. It was enough to secure victory at the 2005 general election, but three years later, his cohort Gordon Brown performed a most sensational confidence trick on the population, by signing the Lisbon treaty – a repackaged constitution – without the promised plebiscite. At the same time, revelations of PFI debt and the mid Staffs hospital scandal demonstrated to a more sceptical public that Labour could no longer be trusted with the NHS. Valued supporters were sneered at as bigots for having the temerity to voice concern over an open-door immigration policy.

By 2010, Labour had run out of steam and was unceremoniously kicked out of government, and one wonders if it could ever make it back. By 2015 the UK had finally won its highly sought EU Referendum, only to discover that Labour was more than ready to deploy every obstacle available to it to resist a Brexit outcome, followed by parliamentary manouvres to undermine the process of decoupling.

What we have learned in the past three years is that like most of Labour’s heartlands, Warrington is most decidedly a Leave town. And what we also know is that both Charlotte Nichols and Faisal Rashid simply don’t get Brexit.

The retirement of Helen Jones was an ideal opportunity for the Labour party to send out a positive signal to voters. Jones was not the most approachable or visible of MPs, and her indifference to Brexit did not go down well in a constituency where 58% voted to leave. Voters felt cheated, and the Labour party could have selected a Brexiteer to get their natural support back on board.

And what did they do instead? They parachuted in a Momentum-supporting trade union official from Islington. A Corbynista loyalist, and the daughter of the TUC President, there is a whiff of nepotism and back-scratching about this choice.

There is a feeling that our town’s Labour PPCs are nothing more than stooges put in place by the Islington leadership and bien pensants of Warrington, and if they get elected, will only serve to vote the way they are instructed to by chief whip Nick Brown, under the stewardship of communist Seamus Milne, and marxist John McDonnell. Does anybody doubt that Labour has now outlived its usefulness and lost its sense of purpose? Warrington deserves so much better in 2019.

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No Deal Brexit

Since Boris Johnson has become PM of the United Kingdom, there is a real likelihood of a No Deal Brexit.  

From the perspective of Brexiteers, our preference has always been that we should leave the EU with a mutually beneficial withdrawal deal, but we are also very comfortable leaving without a withdrawal deal if it is unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, Theresa May returned from Brussels with a treaty that the Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis described as a document that only a country under the terms of surrender would consider signing.

In fact it is a deal that is so awful, it was rejected by an overwhelming majority on three occasions by our Parliament, and directly led to Theresa May being kicked out of office by her own party.

We note that Remainer campaigners are extremely vociferous in their opposition to the prospect of leaving the EU without a withdrawal deal, but yet almost all Remain-supporting MPs rejected Theresa May’s deal.  Maybe Remainer MPs failed to consider the consequences of their own actions, but it is a result of their votes that the UK is now about to leave without a deal.  So what is their complaint? Given that they are against leaving with a deal, and they are against leaving without a deal, why can’t they for once just be honest and concede that their true motive here is simply to undermine and overturn the democratic decision to leave the EU? Why can’t they just accept the wishes of 17.4 million voters, and allow it to be implemented?

Parliament passed the EU Withdrawal Act last year, which addressed leaving the EU either with or without a withdrawal deal, and so we can see that Parliament has already considered and contemplated this No Deal scenario.

Without a deal, we will trade with other EU countries under the same trading terms as other countries around the world. The USA, China and India have booming economies, and they trade with the EU, but are not members of its customs union. While the UK has been a member of the EU, we have developed a huge trade deficit with other EU states, so we can see that it has inflicted negative economic consequences on the UK, and, apart from Cyprus, our country benefits the least from participation in the single market (source).

We want to trade with the EU, but we do not want any part in its project of political integration and unification. There has never been any consent for this, and that is why we are leaving.

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The myth of the Brexit exodus and Guardian fake news

As somebody who works in the IT industry, I have worked with, and continue to work with fellow professionals who have moved to the UK from the EU. Like their British counterparts, they are not just highly-skilled, but highly-valued. By creaming off the best talent of the continent, the UK enjoys a booming economy. And this phenomenon is not only confined to the IT sector, but also to many other sectors.

During the EU referendum campaign, the Remain campaign warned that in the event of a vote to leave, EU citizens would respond by leaving in their droves, since such an outcome would indicate that they are not valued by British people. This seemed like yet another instalment of #ProjectFear, and so was treated with the contempt it deserved.

Fast-forward to a couple of months ago, September, when the Guardian wrote a story claiming that we were witnessing an exodus of talent from the NHS. This caused some alarm across the country. Furthermore, this story was based on factual data supplied by the NHS’s statistical body, so was impossible to dismiss.

But some digging around the source of the data revealed something startling. The web page containing the data can be seen by clicking this link. Scroll down the table to the row dated 22nd September, and click to download the spreadsheet. A direct link to it can be found here.

The data confirms the Guardian story: 9,832 EU workers left the NHS. But in the same spreadsheet, we see that in June 2016, there were 58,382 EU citizens working in the NHS, and we know that that 9,832 of them left over the next 12 months. But in June 2017, 61,563 EU citizens were employed, which shows that 13,031 EU citizens joined in the same period. They focused on outflows, and ignored the inflows to the NHS.

So we see that the Guardian cherry-picked data from this spreadsheet and neglected (deliberately?) to show that actually, more EU citizens joined the NHS, whereas they gave the impression that there is an exodus.

I think we should be frank & honest here, and concede that the Guardian is manipulating data to support its narrative – that “Brexit is a catrastophe”. A reasonable person would agree that this is a stark example of fake news.

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Extortion: The EU “divorce” bill

For many weeks, the EU / UK Brexit negotiations have dominated the headlines in the British mainstream press – daily.  In the early days, we learned that the Government had immediately caved into the EU demand of sequencing – making “sufficient progress” in agreeing withdrawal arrangements before discussing a future relationship.

It’s to be hoped that Theresa May’s negotiating team familiarised themselves with Yanis Varoufakis’s feedback on his experiences dealing with the EC. Having learned that the EC just doesn’t do compromise or negotiation, Varoufakis concluded that there was absolutely no point in taking part in such a charade.

All the way through the referendum campaign, not once did Cameron, or the EC make any mention of any need to pay an exit fee. Why is that? As soon as the EU realised that the UK really was leaving, it was confronted with the terror of a funding black hole, and the prospect of enforced austerity. But the EU has something that the UK longs for… a trade deal, so all that was needed was to despatch a bill to London, and then quickly find a justification.

The problem was that there is no legal or contractual obligation for the UK to pay a single penny. It’s not even alluded to in Article 50, or any of the treaties. You can bet that if it was, Barnier would be screaming about it from the rooftops, and enforcing it. A House of Lords report investigated this, and concluded that there is no justification, and that the EU has no case for enforcing such a demand.

In terms of moral obligations, the EU has insisted that the UK, along with 27 other member states, agreed the MFF budget in 2014. But this was only on the implicit assumption of the UK’s continued membership, and the budget will simply have to be revised in order to adapt to changing circumstances.

Furthermore, if the EU wants to focus withdrawal discussions on the topic of liability, it needs to understand that liabilities and assets are two sides of the same coin. And it seems unethical to obsess about the UK’s liability while simultaneously refusing to concede that the UK has contributed to numerous tangible assets over decades.

Now let it not be said that the UK doesn’t play fair. Most Brexiters who say we don’t owe a penny are not averse to making a token payment as a gesture of goodwill, and to display British reasonableness and flexibility. In May’s Florence speech where this idea was first mooted, it was generally welcomed.

It has to be said though, that in pursuit of this dangling carrot, the UK is dealing with a side that has made no concessions while concurrently insisting that the UK makes compromise after compromise.  This puts me in mind of Rudyard Kipling’s poem on the “Dane-geld” – the moral being that agreeing to pay an unreasonable demand for money only encourages the bully to make even more excessive demands.

There is a noticeable dishonesty about the language used by the EC. In refusing to move to the second phase of talks, Barnier consistently emphasises that there has not been “sufficient progress”. Is this simply a reference to the financial aspect? Those defending the EU will refute this, and insist that this encompasses the Irish border, and EU citizenship rights. But the vibes coming out of Brussels this week suggest that the two parties are incredibly close on these matters. So it’s obvious that “insufficient progress” is nothing more than a euphemism for “Give us more money”.

All UK voters, including Brexiters, are keen to see a trade deal struck. However, the only sensible conclusion one can arrive at is that the UK should also play hard ball, and start to prepare for leaving the EU without a deal. Because it’s becoming clear that the EU is not serious about agreeing one.

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The sad loss of EMA and EBA

This week saw final confirmation that two EU bodies will indeed be leaving London. The European Medicines Agency, employing 890 staff in Canary Wharf, will be relocating to Amsterdam in 2019. The European Banking Authority, with 180 employees is moving to Paris.

This won’t have come as a surprise to many Leave campaigners. It was discussed before the referendum, since it’s pretty obvious that any agency that belongs to the EU institution would have to be located within a member state of the European Union. I can’t speak for any other Leave voter, but for me, after some considerable soul-searching, I felt it was a price worth paying in pursuit of the overall goal.

One expects that of those 890 EMA staff, a considerable number must be highly-skilled knowledge workers, the like of which we would be sad to see leaving the UK. So it came as a nice surprise to find out that 75% of them have indicated their desire to stay in the UK. This must have come as a shock to Brussels – to discover that even their own employees reject the opportunity to stay in an EU state, and instead wanted to embrace Brexit Britain. I can imagine that this is perceived as a gross act of treachery.

But still, it should still be regarded as an unfortunate aspect of leaving the EU, especially if one considers that the UK is losing over 1,000 tax-paying jobs. But wait… actually it turns out that these agency staff are in a privileged position of not paying tax in the UK – EMA’s own procedures confirm this. They are not just exempt from paying UK income tax, but local council tax also. I daresay there is justification for this, but bear in mind that they are able to make use of typical benefits such as schools and hospitals.

It is with some dismay that we found out earlier this year that the EMA had signed a long-term property lease on its London premises. In a demonstration of breathtaking ineptitude, it appears this was signed without an exit-clause, which means the EMA is liable to pay €400m over the next 20 years. Extraordinarily, although this agency is part of the EU, and the contractual liability rests with them, the EU has demanded that the UK pay for this lease.

Now although it’s understandable that the EU wishes the EMA to relocate, there is no compelling technical reason to do so. And so, a reasonable person would conclude that if the EU insists on taking this action, then so be it, it is their prerogative, but maybe they should take responsibility for their own resulting liabilities.

There is no doubt that there is a certain kudos in hosting high-profile agencies such as these, but is it such a source of huge regret to lose them?

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The future border between Ireland & Northern Ireland

There seems to be a current theme in the media & social media that this conundrum is in fact an intractable problem. But it seems to me that there are solutions, and what we are seeing are political games being played in order to protect self-interests.

The British government has released a position paper that suggests ways in which a hard border can be avoided. But it should be understood that a ‘virtual’ border is already in place – there are differences in currency and taxation between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Leo Varadkar’s threats last week to veto trade talks unless the UK provides a guarantee of no hard border seem bizarre, considering that this is one of May’s red lines from her Lancaster House speech.

Many political commentators have been insisting that a hard border is now inevitable, either between the two regions, or in the middle of the Irish sea. However, there are two European countries that have already dealt with such a situation – Sweden and Norway. They share a border, Norway is outside the EU, whereas Sweden is inside the EU. And yet the people of both countries have enjoyed open travel ever since the EU was formed. Thousands of frictionless border crossings occur every day as people go to work, shop, and trade goods.

So how do they do it? And can we use this model as a template for Ireland and NI?  We should first acknowledge that Norway is a part of the EEA, however it is outside the EU Customs union – and that is what is causing the greatest anxiety. ANPR systems log vehicle number plates, and each country’s police force is allowed to operate cross-border. For anyone arguing that the differences are too great to make a comparison, what is clear in this scenario is that a will to cooperate will make it work.

There is a further mechanism that Norway has introduced to smooth border crossings. Back in 2008, the EU adopted a world standard designed to simplify customs interaction between member states – the AEO programme. Mutual recognition agreements have seen this extended beyond member states not only to Norway, but to Japan, China and the US also.

Such agreements are outside the scope of the current phase of EU negotiation talks. Which is why the EU must agree to proceed to the second phase, in order to properly address this issue through a free trade deal.

While it’s clear that both Ireland and the UK are committed to having no hard border, it’s not so obvious whether the EU is also in favour. That they have poured scorn on the UK position suggests that there may be a reluctance in Brussels to permit an open border – not a surprise when you consider the high risks of cross-border smuggling, denying the EU important customs revenue.

Maybe Leo Varadkar should be directing his open border demands to Michel Barnier?

 

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Could the ECJ continue its jurisdiction of UK post-Brexit?

Today’s Daily Telegraph runs with a story hinting that UK EU negotiators may ditch one of Theresa May’s red lines:

Government may be ready to accept continued jurisdiction of ECJ after Brexit

So far, there has been no suggestion that the UK Government intend to do this, but the article quotes Brandon Lewis (Immigration Minister) so it has to be taken seriously. Back in January, May gave a speech at Lancaster House where she insisted that ending ECJ jurisdiction was a red line, so we should take that at face value until she says otherwise.

It’s more likely that the Government will propose that ECJ will have a role in enforcing rights of EU citizens as part of an arbitration facility – similar to EFTA court – where the UK supreme court & ECJ are equal partners. With neither having any primacy over the other.

There is also the question of whether May will agree to preserve EU citizenship rights. The position so far is to offer ‘settled’ status – effectively conferring rights of UK citizenship to EU citizens who remain post-Brexit.

But if the Government does concede and accept preservation of EU citizenship rights, this will create parallel sets of legal rights among the UK population. This would lead to an unreasonable & unacceptable state of inequality, and I’m sure the Government would not even entertain such an idea.

if we do end up with an arbitration facility that assists the ECJ and the UK Supreme court in enforcing citizenship rights, I have no objection to that. To be honest, I don’t see the point in it, because I’m happy that UK Supreme court is fair. But… no problem with it.