Monthly Archives: June 2016

The political fallout from project fear

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One of my earliest political memories is of the political “assassination” of Margaret Thatcher. Then, as now, the Conservative Party was convulsed with the question of membership of the European Union. A group of senior cabinet members that were committed to the European project conspired together to bring her down, in order to ensure that the UK joined up to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (the precursor to the Euro).

Many of us will remember the consequences of that decision when, under the illustrious leadership of John Major, the UK was forced to quit the ERM having failed to control sterling through the spectacularly incompetent manipulation of interest rates.

The Conservative Party has never properly recovered from that debâcle – yet I wonder if, paradoxically, this Referendum process may just achieve that outcome, and establish a new consensus within the party structured around a consistent and principled Euroscepticism.

David Cameron’s time as party leader, surely, is coming to an end. The Conservative Party itself is significantly more Eurosceptic than the parliamentary party, and much more Eurosceptic than the Cabinet. What will cause Cameron the most problems, however, is the way in which he has conducted himself during the Referendum campaign.

This has two parts: first, the way in which elements of the Remain campaign seem to have benefited from the use of excessive government funds, such as through the distribution of leaflets advocating a Remain vote that were circulated to every household in advance of the Referendum. This – whilst doubtless considered legal by the government advisers – clearly constitutes a tilting of the playing field, allowing the Remain campaign to benefit from hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of extra advertising outside of the limits that apply to each of the campaigns proper (I find it interesting that the Leave campaign is rising in the polls now that the spending limits for both sides are equivalent).

More crucial for the Prime Minister’s own political prospects, however, is the second part, that is, the way in which he has criticised and demeaned those who have been campaigning for Vote Leave – those, remember, who form a majority of his own party.

This does not just apply to his criticisms of Boris Johnson – clearly there has never been a healthy relationship between the two of them, and that is not normally an issue for any party, so long as the two individuals concerned can put aside those differences when they need to work together (think Blair/Brown). What is much worse is the way in which Cameron has sought to characterise the Vote Leave campaigners as in various ways immoral and irrational, and – as part of his campaigning – clearly identified himself with the left of the political spectrum in doing so (thus revealing, in my opinion, where his true metropolitan political sympathies lie).

Recently Cameron even claimed “Can we be so sure peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash to make that assumption” – suggesting that to vote leave is to actively risk another war. This is risible, and will not be forgotten by the Conservative Party.

So what is likely to happen? Lots of noises are being made by the ‘usual suspects’ like Nadine Dorries, but they will not be the people that make the crucial decisions. Much, obviously, will depend on the specific nature of the Referendum result itself.

Should there be a very clear mandate to Remain – in other words, in excess of a 55%-45% split in Remain’s favour – then Cameron’s position will in fact be strengthened and he will be able to choose the time of his departure. On the other hand, if there is an equivalently clear vote to Leave then he will be obliged to resign within days. That much is, I believe, the commonly accepted political wisdom.

However, if the voting is more narrow than that – as presently seems likely – then things become more difficult. There are three scenarios I would like to consider.

The first is a narrow victory for the Leave campaign. I suspect that this will also eventually lead to a Cameron resignation but the process will be more fraught, as he will argue that he is best placed to lead the subsequent Brexit negotiations. Few believe that to be true, but things will be messy.

The second is a narrow victory for the Remain campaign. This, I believe, will simply lead to a re-run of the latter days of the Major administration. The majority of Conservative MPs are Eurosceptic and there will be immense bitterness at the way in which Cameron has behaved. The arguments about manipulation will not go away. Cameron may be able to hang on for some time, but he will be a mortally wounded figure.

The third is a slight tweak on the second: the UK as a whole votes to Remain, but England votes to Leave. This is an outcome I consider quite likely, and the consequences could be profound. The Scottish referendum raised all sorts of questions about the unity of our nation, and if England seeks to move in a different direction to the other home countries then it is not difficult to see the Eurosceptic cause gaining huge encouragement from such an outcome.

The question would then be how far the political right in this country was able to morph in such a way as to harness that latent English nationalist and Eurosceptical sentiment for electoral gain. I could conceive of a situation that saw a rapprochement between the main part of the Conservatives and UKIP leading to a re-alignment of the right – and I could see such a ‘new’ party being electorally immensely successful. It would certainly have my sympathies.

As always, we shall watch and await the outcome with great interest. We live in very interesting times.

Why I shall be praying for Vote Leave

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I shall be praying for the EU Referendum vote to result in a clear decision to leave the European Union – and I’d like to use this article to spell out why.

My most fundamental political instincts are to support the local and particular, and to be sceptical of – and often hostile to – the myriad great schemes that fertile minds can dream up. In saying that, I am conscious of standing in a long line of English political thinking, from Edmund Burke through to Roger Scruton, by way of William Morris and JRR Tolkien.

Such thinkers have tended to stand over against the particular patterns of human life that have come to be associated with modern industrialism, and the best imagined example of that comes when Frodo returns to the Shire following the destruction of the Ring (not a scene that has ever been filmed). In Frodo’s absence, modern industrial practices have come to the Shire through the leadership of the former wizard Saruman, now known as Sharkey, and a bundle of new rules and regulations have been implemented, leading to the dreadful state of “no beer and very little food”.

This pattern of modern industrialism is both an economy and a philosophy. It looks upon human life and considers what might be extracted for economic profit. A good real-life example comes when we consider the impact of a multi-national conglomerate like Monsanto upon local farming practices. Where those local practices are ‘inefficient’ then Monsanto and their ilk will use their market power to drive the opposition out of business before exploiting the subsequent monopoly situation to raise great profits, rather as medieval landlords extracted all the profit from the labour of the serfs.

I see the EU as an embodiment of this mentality. It was formed (with CIA sponsorship) in the 1950s and has always been concerned to maximise the economic interests of member states. As part of that process, and especially since the completion of the single market legislation post-1992, Brussels has become a key headquarters for corporate lobbying. Companies like Monsanto set up dedicated groups to ensure that the single market is structured in such a way as to favour their economic interests. This is why, to bring things back to a smaller scale, we now use metric measures rather than imperial – it meant that manufacturers could enjoy the greater economies of scale that became possible with the larger market. Remember – efficiency is a god that must be worshipped!

More locally, here on Mersea we are very aware of the impact of the common fisheries policy on our local fishermen, and the way in which the various rules and regulations impact on fishing in such a way as to outlaw common sense and prevent this country from taking full control of its own territorial waters.

So my objection to the EU is less to any particular rule or regulation – although there is no shortage of options when considering those – than to the particular ideology and mind-set that the EU embodies. The EU is a creature of industrial capitalism – it cannot help but seek to grow ever larger and accumulate ever more power over its subjects. To those who believe that this will inevitably be benign, I simply point to the experience of Greece in the last few years, when the interests of the residents of what was once a sovereign democratic state were sacrificed in order to ensure that Teutonic bankers were able to maintain their financial balance sheets.

No, it seems to me that we need to take a courageous step towards reclaiming our independence and freedom. There are those who would advocate for the EU in economic terms, who come out with statistics saying that it would cost each household x thousand pounds if we left. Such critics seem to be soulless slaves to the machine, mindlessly pursuing its programming. It is a perfect example of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

For me, such speculation is baseless, as we are in a state of profound ignorance about what may or may not happen economically to this country in the event of a leave vote. We do not know for certain whether a ‘Norway’ option (which would also involve reviving trade with our historic commonwealth partners) would lead to more jobs here than remaining in the EU market. We do not know how EU partners would react to a Leave vote, or whether such a vote would trigger a wider realignment within the EU itself as other countries realised that it was possible to leave, and so forced through proper measures of democratisation.

What we do know for certain is the character of the EU as a bullying and imperialist force for financial capitalism. We know that it has systematically and progressively gathered more and more power for itself over the last several decades and that it has fully worked out plans for increasing that power in the future. For those who believe that this is a benign state of affairs there is no problem in allowing this process to continue. For those of us who have become increasingly alarmed by the anti-democratic and exploitative practices that have become the overwhelming hallmark of EU governance this Referendum seems to be the once-in-a-generation opportunity to stand against the principalities and powers and say ‘No’.

This may seem to be a wildly romantic gesture, with shades (referencing Tolkien again) of simply saying ‘You shall not pass!’ Yet it is not unrealistic. Whatever the outcome of the vote, almost nothing will change overnight (except, hopefully, the occupant of No 10 Downing Street). We will wake up the following morning and will consider the choice that we have made. This will still be England, and we will doubtless conduct our morning rituals of tea or coffee in the same way that we usually do. Yet I am confident that if we do vote to leave the EU that people will start to walk with a spring in their step as we start to make our independent way in the world once again. Sometimes, as Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel, true life has to begin with a ‘no’. Sometimes we simply have to do the right thing, no matter what the world might think of us. Sometimes we simply have to walk out of the door on an adventure, without knowing where the road will take us.

I pray that we can remember ourselves to ourselves, regain our courage and sense of joy and life and exploration, and vote Leave.