Brexit hasn’t failed

Many say Brexit has failed.  I disagree. 

While without doubt many of the “sunlit uplands” promised have failed to materialise (at least not for most of us) nor has the Government found the £350 million a week for the NHS that was promised on the side of a bus, we don’t even have the access to the Single Market many leading Brexiteers promised we would keep.  We were also told explicitly that the environmental, consumer & employment rights we enjoy through EU law would be kept, although the Tory Government is currently doing it’s best to dismantle them.   We still can’t control our borders & the notion we lost sovereignty by being in the EU has been show to have been false as member countries all took individual decisions when facing the pandemic

However, these were never realistic expectations and were just propaganda used just to convince people that leaving the EU would not be harmful to the UK, they were there to disguise the real aims of Brexit which were (and remain) far more sinister.

After the Global Banking Crash of 2008, the EU began to look at how to tackle tax avoidance, the legal ways people & companies use to avoid paying tax, with a view to outlaw to more aggressive ways of doing this like shifting income or profits from a high tax country to a low (or no) tax country.  Thie lead to the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive, the draft of which was presented to the FU Council in January 2016. 

The possibility of these new obligations scared many rich people in the UK as it would mean they would need to start turning the anti-EU feelings in the UK (nurtured for years by media like the Daily Mail, Express & Times) from a minor election issue for most people in 2010 to becoming the most important issue of the 2015 General Election, forcing Cameroon to promise a Referendum on our membership in the Tory Manifesto of that year. 

In addition, the libertarian wing of the Conservative Party, who had long hated the regulations on environmental, consumer & employment rights the EU gave us (often accepted in the Council with UK support) and wanted to be able to be rid of them so they could maker more money at workers & consumers expense.

Some of those politicians who supported the Leave campaign did so because they genuinely believed that the UK would be better off outside the EU, however I suspect many (especially but not exclusively in the Conservative Party) did so because they saw it as advantageous to advancing their career or getting re-elected.  The alacrity with which many “Remainers” in both Labour & the Tories, switched sides to be Brexiteers showed that many were more interested in their career than what was good for the country.

Brexit was never designed, by those that bankrolled the Leave campaigns, to help ordinary people or to make the UK richer.  That we are now worse off as a nation, more divided as a people, and the UK is seen as a laughing stock around the world is just collateral damage in that success.

Brexit was pushed through to protect the rich & powerful. In that is has succeeded.

I will be in London on Sunday, will you?

On Sunday, I will be travelling down to London to demonstrate against the extreme right-wing Government that is trying to stop the Supreme Court to hold it to account, to makes sure it acts within the law and to protect democracy.

This isn’t the UK Government (although it is also going down the same road) but the Israeli one.  I and many other Israeli Citizens living here in the UK will be making our stand against the Benjamin Netanyahu led Coalition that is currently in power in Israel, we will be standing alongside the 100,000s of Israelis (in a country of less than 10 million) who have been demonstrating every Saturday night at locations across Israeli for over 16 weeks against what Netanyahu calls Judicial Reforms, a package of changes that will:

1. severely curtailing Judicial Independence in Israel,
2. limiting the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to overturn laws passed by the Knesset that that violate fundamental rights protected by Israel’s “Basic Laws”,
3. dilute the role of the Attorney General in giving legal advice and
4. give Ministers more powers to act without fear of Judicial Review.

This should disturb not only Israelis & those who support Israel but also those who want to see Palestinians establish their own state on the land that Israel captured from Jordan and Egypt in 1967.  If these reforms are allowed to be enacted, they will give the current Israeli Coalition the power to fully annex the West Bank & continue the siege of Gaza without any chance to have it overruled by the Courts.  Also, there will be no power to stop of the actions of the armed settler vigilante groups (who already act with near immunity), many of whom are supporters of one of the parties in the Coalition.  The changes will also allow the Government to erode to rights of the minority groups inside Israel itself, groups who already feel marginalised.

Indeed, it is this ongoing Occupation of the West Bank (also called Occupied Palestinian Territories) that many in Israel are now realising that has given rise to the extremist parties in the current Israeli Government and that until a way is found to end the occupation, and Israel being the occupier, democracy in Israel will continue to be under threat.  Indeed, for me the Occupation is like a cancer at the heaty of Israel, something I first realised when serving in the Israeli Army in Ramla on the West Bank back in 1980.   Until the Occupation is ended, Israel’s democracy & security will continue to be under threat and there will be no peace for Israel or Palestine.

If you want to join me on Sunday, standing uo for Israeli Democracy, then here is the link to the event. I look forward to seeing you there

At the Lib Dem Spring Conference, we debated a motion on “The UK’s Nuclear Deterrent“. As ever, the issue was debated hotly with passionate contributions from many members, including me. The full debate can be seen on the Liberal Democrat YouTube channel here, starting at 2:29:00 with my speech at 2:50:00. The Amendment I refer to can be seen on Page 8 of the Conference Daily.

Here is the text of my speech, as I wrote it which is slightly different to how I delivered it:

Conference,

So here we are again, discussing Nuclear Weapons and the spending of billions we don’t have (or there are better uses for) to replace our out of date Trident missiles & their out of date submarines used to not deliver them.

Let’s not delude ourselves, the UKs few nuclear weapons will not deter a dictator who doesn’t care about his citizens, who could obliterate much of the UK almost before our missiles were even launched if they so desire.

They do not deter terrorist attacking the UK with a dirty bomb because who would we fire them at?

They will not deter a conventional weapons attack as we have “No First Strike” rule for nuclear weapons.

The only case for keeping them was that they could be used as part of a mutual disarmament program with USSR / Russia.  Now that there are no such programs, and indeed it looks very unlikely there will be for the foreseeable future, even that case has disappeared.

Unless you are going to have nuclear arsenals on the scale of Russia, China or USA, there is no point having any.  Our potential enemies won’t be scare of the few we have & keeping them only runs the risk of a miscalculation leading to launching them in error, triggering a nuclear holocaust.

Meanwhile our conventional forces have been “hollowed out”. We have too few soldiers, too few ships, too few planes.  Spending money here would be a real deterrent to potential enemies.  It would also allow us enough manpower to deploy our forces in peacekeeping & humanitarian operations around the globe.  It would allow us to provide work here in the UK building the ships, the planes, the kit for these forces.

Conference, please have the courage to say no to new nuclear weapons and support Keith’s excellent amendment or, if it isn’t accepted, against this motion.

Tory Fantasy Politics

The Sunak Tory Government has entered the realms of fantasy politics.  In so many areas, they are putting forward policies they know won’t work (and may actually make the situation worse) , they know simply can’t be implemented, they know are just being put forward to make it look like they are dealing with a problem when they are not.

Just look at this week, Sunak’s policy to deal with the refugees arriving via small boats across the Channel.  With an ever-increasing crisis in dealing with Asylum Seekers already here in the UK (and many are waiting months in hotels & temporary accommodation for decisions), they need a distraction from that with a “new” policy for those arriving via irregular means.  Having closed nearly all the legal routes for refugees to claim asylum in the UK, they now want to punish these desperate people for taking the only way possible for them to arrive here. 

Never mind it doesn’t make any attempt to clamp down on the people smuggling gangs, never mind it is probably illegal under the UK’s International Commitments, never mind many are desperate people fleeing war, famine ort persecution in their home land, never mind most refugees are dealt with in other countries, the Sunak Government has (after the failure of their last policies) now want to simply to lock them (at great cost) up before return these people to somewhere else (actually no-one is clear where this will be as the UK no longer has agreements with other European countries to return them).  All that matter is good headlines and supportive coverage from the right-wing media. 

The practicalities are glossed over, those who oppose the new policy (which is in reality a rehash of past failed polices) are accused of not having solutions (even when they do have good workable ones), the Tory motto seems to be just keep repeating the Party manta on the issue and ignore those pointing out where it is not going to work.

The Tories have used the same formula of fantasy polices or claims time and time again, from Johnson’s promise to get 40 new hospitals built, claims to have increased spending on schools by over £5000 a pupil, to the promise to build 300,000 new homes a year, and of course Brexit.  All were made and trumpeted but the reality is very different.

For the Tories, the reality is that after 13 years of being in Government (& 8 years of not having the Lib Dems to restrain them) they have run out steam & ideas, not helped by the 2019 cull of all Tory MPs who would not back Johnson’s suicidal Brexit agreement.  All we have left in Government is mediocre politicians who owe their Ministerial position to blind loyalty to the failed Brexit ideology.  No wonder they are failing to deal with any of the problems of the UK and its people, just crashing from one crisis to another, desperate to get hide their failures by announcing more fantasy polices in search of a headline.  Roll on the next General Election to allow the Tories to go away and rediscover their Conservative past.

The Tories & the Wee Noes

The Tories crying crocodile tears over the Northern Ireland Protocol would do well to remember that in the Referendum they so revere, the people of the Province voted to remain in the EU, that at the last NI Assembly election, over 50 (out of 90) seats were won by parties who accepted the Protocol.
It is not the people of NI who want rid of the Protocol. It is the “Wee Noes” politicians of the DUP.

Conservatives no more just hard right Tories

Rishi Sunak’s appointment of Lee Anderson MP as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative and Unionist Party has confirmed, to me at least, what I have been thinking for some time.  It is that that Party is totally misnamed.  Its is neither trying to conserve anything but its hold on power nor is it trying to unite the country, even its own Party.  So for clarity, I will call it the Tory Party in this post.

Making Anderson, MP for Ashfield, Deputy Chairman (and the job title includes the “man”, which already tells you much about the Tories) shows how far towards the extreme of Politics in the UK the current Tories have travelled. 

This is a man who espoused the Death Penalty, made (under Parliamentary Privilege) racist remarks about traveller community, had been investigated for Anti-Semitism over membership of a FB group that promoted George Sorts conspiracy theories and is being sued for libel by Jack Monroe & Michael Hollis who runs a food bank in Ashfield.  Anderson (whose CV include being a Labour Councillor on Ashfield Council before defecting to the Tory Party) bases his political platform on appealing to the bassist instincts in what is a former mining area that has suffered much in the last 40 years.  He attacks anyone who looks or sounds different, he offers simplistic solutions to complicated issues and seems to take pride in not caring what his opponents think.  He is the model of a populist right-winger you could meet in a pub, plenty of obnoxious opinions & simplistic solutions that have never worked or are based on racism & intolerance.

I can’t imagine any Tory leader, from Churchill through to Cameroon who would give Anderson the time of day, let alone appoint him to help run the Party.  It is only after the European Research Group took over the Conservatives and drove it further and further to the right, that people like Anderson have found a political home in it and changed the Party of Major, Heseltine, even Hague into an extreme right-wing Party that has adopted the language and policies of the BNP. No wonder so many Conservatives are fleeing what was their Party, disgusted by the polices & behaviour of those who now lead it.

While having such people running the governing Party is a worry, the save grace is that they are making the Tories unelectable in the coming General Election (and the current projections point to the Tories being reduced to a rump in the next Parliament).  Such a defeat will give them time to reconsider what sort of Party the want to be.  Are they really the extremist Party with few principles & even fewer workable policies that Johnson, Truss & Sunak have created? Or are they the Party of the centre Right, the Party that looks to conserve the best in our society and strengthen the Union?

I am not a Tory & have never (nor ever will) voted for the Conservatives but for political balance and good Government we need a Party of the centre Right that will help counterbalance the centre against extremists on either side of politics.  Currently we don’t have one, & with Anderson in a leadership role, the Tories don’t look capable of being one.

Why is Sunak not acting like other

In most organisations, when you are accused of serious wrong doing, you are suspended (on full pay if applicable) while an investigation is carried out and (if needed) a disciplinary hearing is held.

Sunak’s claim that it is “natural justice” for him not to suspend ministers who have been accused of serious breaches on the Ministerial Code pending an investigation flies in the face of most people experience and shows that he has scant regard for “natural justice”.

Rightly, we expect those who serve in our Government to be above any suspicion of wrongdoing so it is time for Sunak to act to remove any minister how is subject to any credible accusation of breaking the Ministerial Code (let alone the numerous accusations that Dominic Rabb is facing) instead of hiding behind the investigation.

We deserve better from those who would govern us

Labour’s Problems

If I was a Labour member, I would be worried now that, if they win the next General Election, due within the next 26 months, the economic situation they will inherit will still be dire and with many of the spending cuts promised by Jeremy Hunt in this week’s Autumn Statement still to be implemented. 

While the Tory & Brexit induced Cost of Living Crisis and subsequent recession may be ending by the time the General Election is called, the chances are that the recovery will be weak but the expectations on Labour to undo the damage done by Brexit & the Tories since 2016 will be great, probably too great to be met.

Given the current Tory Majority, despite what the current polls suggest, it is unlikely that Labour will have a large majority (if one at all), making life difficult for Keir Starmer as the ne Prime Minister. Also, as Starmer has already ruled out re-joining the EU ‘s Single Market, UK industry will still be trying to recover with one arm tied behind its back further reducing the new Government’s room for manoeuvre. 

Even if Labour manages to survive for 5 years in Government, I doubt whether they will have managed to revive the UK economy so that people will feel better off or that there is enough money to revive the public services which have suffered so much even before the current recession. This will give the Conservatives, revitalised after a spell in opposition, the chance to get back into power before the end of the decade, which would be a disaster for most people in the UK. 

The only way to make sure that this doesn’t happen is for Labour, regardless of whether they have a majority or not, to push ahead with introducing Proportional Representation to replace the failed First Past The Post (better named “Winner Takes All”) system that has give us Conservative Governments for 41 years out of the last 77 without once winning a majority of the public vote. Defenders of the current system can’t even claim it gives strong government after the political turmoil of the last 6 years.  

PR is the only hope that extremist Governments, as we have had for 6 years here in the UK are less likely in the future and we can rebuild the UK to be a more inclusive and more prosperous country. 

Sunak may be our new PM but it won’t solve our problems

It may be Sunak’s coronation as Tory Leader & PM tomorrow but doing the job Cameron, May, Johnson & Truss have all failed at remains difficult if not impossible.

This is because many Tory MPs (& voters for that matter) still believe in Cakism, that we can have left the EU & still have a market to export too, that we can slash taxes & still pay for a decent welfare state, NHS & education system, that we can be a sovereign country & ignore the international money markets.

The swivelled eyed loons & spivs of the EGG/ UKIP wing of the Parliamentary Conservative Party are still there and still a big enough group to make Sunak’s life as PM difficult.

He may be a better media performer than Truss (not very hard) & have a better grasp of financial reality than Johnson (also not hard) but many of Sunak’s now disaffected Johnson supporting backbenchers will still want him to cut taxes, still beleive in deregulation, still believe that Government is there to help them not us out here in the real world.

Political life will remain interesting & dramatic in the next view months as we continue to lurch from crisis to crisis. Only a General Election can lance the boil and allow a new Government to come in and begin to clean the mess of Augean Stables proportions that Brexit & Tory misrule have created.

Brexit has failed

It must by now be obvious to all but the most myopic of Leavers that Brexit has failed and that the UK is now a poorer, less influential country than it was before the 2016 Referendum.  Indeed, some are now using Brexit as slang for a self-inflicted disaster for which you take no ownership.

The “wonderful” trade deals with other countries that Johnson, Frost & others promised have failed to materialise and Brexit has made exporting to our neighbours cumbersome & bureaucratic so we need to remove these barriers. 

Also, one of the biggest barriers to growing the UK economy is that we lack people to work.  UK unemployment is at an historic low, so we need to bring immigrants in.  One of the biggest lies of the Brexit campaign was that Eastern Europeans (and many extended this to immigrants from further afield) were taking “British” jobs that should go to British people.  The lack of workers to fill vacancies in the care homes, in agriculture, in industry has shown that this claim simply wasn’t true and that in a country with a population getting older, we need immigrants to keep many parts of the country working and to contribute to the Exchequer through taxes.

Even worse, Brexit has polluted our politics.  The last 4 Conservative Leaders have lost office because of it.  Even though most of the country are now in favour of closer ties, even Rejoining, with the EU, the toxic effects of Brexit mean neither the Conservatives nor indeed Labour can admit that Brexit has failed.

The question now is how to deal with repairing the situation now. 

Obviously, Rejoining the EU would be the best way to start unpicking the damage but that is no longer in our control.  Yes, we could apply but until the EU is convinced that there will be no Brexit II, i.e., all our major Parties are for re-joining & that groups like ERG/Farage’s latest party/ the oligarchs who poisoned many against the EU no longer have any influence, they will not start negotiating seriously with us. This is before we start dealing with issues like adopting the Euro, joining Schengen, agreeing with Spain a solution for Gibraltar & many other issues.  Put simply, Rejoining won’t be easy, simple, or quick.

For now, we need to concentrate on getting back into the Single Market/Customs Union (SM/CU), including the free movement of workers, and rebuilding our relationship with the EU as a first step towards re-joining in the future.  Getting back into the SM/CU is vital to revitalise our domestic economy.   

I hope at the next General Election, there will be Parties who will stand up and say it as it is, Brexit has failed & we must integrate back into the Single Market.  This is the only way we can begin to repair the damage done to tour country by Brexit.