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UK politics - The Yellowhammer Made The Robin Weep


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20 hours ago, Werthead said:

Watched the Channel 4 documentary Tories at War, which had exclusive inside access to all wings of the party for most of this year. Completely barking what the Tory MPs decided to say in front of the cameras when they knew it wouldn't air for 9 months. Also some embarrassing turn-abouts, including from Alan Duncan who was putting the knife into Boris relentlessly at the start of the programme and is meekly going along with him at the end. Nicky Morgan does the same thing as well, at one point angrily saying that Boris can never be PM and then going, "Er, okay then." For some reason she seems really keen to remain chummy with Anna Soubry, who clearly thinks that she is full of shit for not standing by her principles, or indeed, having any.

...

Also, a surprisingly good soundbite from Farage, who happily says he'll work with Boris but doesn't trust him, because Boris got into politics to "be somebody" - Prime Minister - by any means necessary but has no idea of what to do with the power when he gets it. Farage and Soames both seem to think that Boris is incapable of negotiating on the level of the likes of Macron, Merkel or Barnier, which seems to have been proven. Farage also notes that other people get into politics to "do something", perhaps without fully appreciating the cost, which I'm still trying to work out is him realising he's talking about himself or not.

One natural feature of the Tory party is that it has always attracted those who want power for its own sake: it's been in power for much of recent British history, and therefore it doesn't surprise me that it's full of backbiters and and infighting.  The Congress party in India was much the same (until it was destroyed by Modi).  Farage did get into politics to do something, and his moment of self-pity apart, his principal problem is that he won't accept a win when it's offered to him. 2006 Farage would have jumped at any version of soft Brexit.  But he has to set himself apart politically, so no deal will ever be good enough.  This is the kind of logic that lead to the burning of Carthage. 

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14 hours ago, mormont said:

Um... if this were true, we would not be where we are. 'The country', by which I mean England, is actually pretty right wing. It just has some vestigial attachment to a few left-wing positions, like universal healthcare. On almost every other issue - immigration, law and order, taxation, foreign policy - the English, at least, are very right wing by European standards. And on these particular questions, I see no evidence that they are going to strongly oppose such moves.

This, I'm afraid, is blind optimism. The culture war will not end. It has been going on for decades and Brexit being achieved will energise it to a new level. Expect to see a lot more of Rees-Mogg on your screens in that event.

Sigh .... you may well be right.

FWIW, I didn't mean the culture wars would go away, but rather the issue of our relationship with the EU getting de-coupled from the broader culture war if a WA is agreed with a couple of years transition and the question of a future trading relationship consequently becoming less politically sensitive than it is now, while we are still attempting to withdraw. I mean without membership of political institutions, immigration and the ECJ red herring in the mix, I didn't think most of the population would care about free trade area vs customs union vs single market, but I might be underestimating the demagogues. Actually as I'm writing, NAFTA came to mind .... sigh.

Well, let's hope for a thumping majority for remain in another referendum then, as anything very close will unfortunately not make this issue go away and leaves us in this current dysfunctional state. Just the guarantee of the minimum result of a free trade agreement (as opposed to a no deal chaos) opens up  some of the pent up investment flow and allows businesses to plan for the future again. The longer this drags on, the  coming global recession would probably be here (in which case no investment is happening anyway) and whichever camp has lost will shrilly blame the other for the  economic mess. If it feels bad at the moment, wait for a synchronized global recession.
 

Anyway, the only good news I could find:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/cuadrilla-packs-up-in-preston-and-uk-fracking-bites-the-dust-3tdmbmg99

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John Rentoul also thinks a deal reduces polarization and returns the political debate to more traditional lines.
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-deal-boris-johnson-corbyn-labour-election-jo-swinson-a9153276.htm
 

Quote

If we leave the EU at the end of this month – or possibly a few weeks later if that time is needed for the legal formalities – politics is going to change utterly. The great cleavage between Leave and Remain that has reshaped parties will suddenly lessen in intensity. 

The two parties on the far wings of that divide, the Brexit Party and the Lib Dems, will shrink. The competition between Conservatives and Labour over tax and public spending will snap back to familiar territory – although, as a result of Brexit, Tory support is more working class and Labour support more middle class than it has ever been. 

snip

But there will be a breathing space of at least a year in which politics will be about something other than Brexit. Whatever shall we talk about?

If he is right about the Tories retaining their newly acquired working class Brexiteer votes, it will force them to be less economically right-wing, isn't it? Though they may try to sneak some stuff through on the quiet.

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1 hour ago, Ser Hedge said:

John Rentoul also thinks a deal reduces polarization and returns the political debate to more traditional lines.
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-deal-boris-johnson-corbyn-labour-election-jo-swinson-a9153276.htm
 

If he is right about the Tories retaining their newly acquired working class Brexiteer votes, it will force them to be less economically right-wing, isn't it? Though they may try to sneak some stuff through on the quiet.

I think that is pretty optimistic. The ERG and extremists have taken the ascendancy in the Conservative Party and, especially if they win an election, they will be buoyed to go after the NHS and what's left of public spending with a chainsaw. If Boris gets elected on a spend spend spend/magic money tree mandate though, that will cause renewed Tory tensions within the party, which will be fascinating to see unfold. If Boris wins an election, then we'll see Corbyn and McDonnell go and presumably the Labour Party will lurch back centrewards.

I think the Brexit Party may stick around to complain of BRINO and betrayal, but Farage won't be able to sustain it in the face of the lucrative after-dinner speaking market and will fuck off to do that. The LibDems could permanently benefit from the move to the centre ground, though, and hoover up former centrist Labour and Tory votes. Whether it'd be enough to supplant one of the other parties as one of the big two, or create a new big three system, is less clear.

The other issue is if Britain leaving the EU even with a deal still causes a noticeable decline in living standards, rise in costs etc. We've been so focused on the nightmare of No Deal that I think a lot of people (even Remainers) have forgotten that even Brexit-with-a-Deal will likely still hurt Britain, it just depends on how much in relation to No Deal and for how long. If Britain takes a serious hit to prosperity and the economy with Brexit-with-a-Deal, don't expect the issue to disappear overnight.

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Yeah. Though Rentoul is right about many things, particularly the prospects for the Lib Dems, he is also being naive if he thinks we'll suddenly be talking about something else. The phrase Ser H uses - 'culture wars' - is key. This isn't, and never has been, about the workings of the customs union or free trade deals. Those are proxies. Very few people in the UK genuinely want to leave because of these things. And it's not coincidence that we talk almost exclusively about striking new deals with English-speaking countries or Commonwealth countries (ie formerly British-ruled) countries.

This is about whether we identify with the Anglosphere (ie people like us), or those foreigners who talk funny and who we had to rescue in two World Wars, don't they have any respect?

I've noted before that the US is culturally much more different from the UK than many people realise, and that this is hidden by our common language. We think we know what the US is like because we see it on TV. We don't see France on the TV. We don't see Poland, or Denmark. Very little Portuguese pop in the charts.

The issue is that the likes of Rees-Mogg and Farage think we should be more like the US in every way, and particularly in how our economy works, and Brexit (as noted) is the start, not the end, of that process. That's why they're enthusiastic about No Deal: fewer rules, fewer remaining connections to the EU, easier to rip it all up and start our Glorious Anglosphere Future.

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

This is about whether we identify with the Anglosphere (ie people like us), or those foreigners who talk funny and who we had to rescue in two World Wars, don't they have any respect?

Actually it has always been about whether you want Britain to be a part of a supranational organisation that compromises British sovereignty. I mean you remember the whole 'take back control' thing right? I'd say most leavers are very happy to have a solid and close relationship with Europe post-Brexit, they just don't want to be part of the EU. 
 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

The issue is that the likes of Rees-Mogg and Farage think we should be more like the US in every way, and particularly in how our economy works, and Brexit (as noted) is the start, not the end, of that process. That's why they're enthusiastic about No Deal: fewer rules, fewer remaining connections to the EU, easier to rip it all up and start our Glorious Anglosphere Future.

Again, if you don't agree with those policies, you are able to vote out a government that is doing things you don't like.. Although Corbyn himself would like to well rid of the EU in order to enact many of the policies he has been dreaming of, so the Tories are hardly alone in seeing the benefits and freedom of being outside the EU. 

On another note, I have found it interesting how the conversation around Brexit in the media has shifted dramatically over the past few days. We've gone from outrage that Boris was lying about even bothering to come up with a deal (silence on this in the media now for some reason), to outrage that Boris has come up with a deal that could never be accepted and is obviously a plan to go for no deal (silence on this as well interestingly.) Now that we are closer to a deal, the outrage and panic has moved away from the dangers of no deal, to the dangers of a deal and how we should now not want a deal at all.

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I think the outrage is more about mistrusting Boris and co. That he would suddenly back completely off the NI/Ireland border and yet that is somehow something the ERG and DUP and people who have been calling for no deal as the preferred outcome will vote for. People are smelling several rats over this, so they think it's a deal that will never go forward and is just a ploy to get around the Benn Act to deliver no deal on 31 Oct. Hopefully someone somewhere will find a way to make sure if this deal is put to Parliament that no-deal won't be triggered anyway because of delaying tactics.

I don't see anyone around these parts who have been willing to accept a deal suddenly saying they will only accept remain. Remainers of course have mostly consistently wanted to find a way to remain. So opposing this deal might be the least bad way to leave the EU, but it's not remain, so why should remainers offer any more support for it than any other leave option?

If taking back control of your sovereignty just means bending over and being shafted by the US on a whole bunch of things then I have rather a different understanding of regaining lost sovereignty.

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3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Actually it has always been about whether you want Britain to be a part of a supranational organisation that compromises British sovereignty. I mean you remember the whole 'take back control' thing right? I'd say most leavers are very happy to have a solid and close relationship with Europe post-Brexit, they just don't want to be part of the EU.

Except that any close relationship with the EU post Brexit is going to require staying in regulatory harmony, and that is "surrender".

 

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Again, if you don't agree with those policies, you are able to vote out a government that is doing things you don't like.. Although Corbyn himself would like to well rid of the EU in order to enact many of the policies he has been dreaming of, so the Tories are hardly alone in seeing the benefits and freedom of being outside the EU.

Except that post Brexit, the country will suddenly be a lot poorer, and we are going to be in a long term forced austerity because there will be no money, whatever sort of government we end up with.

 

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

On another note, I have found it interesting how the conversation around Brexit in the media has shifted dramatically over the past few days. We've gone from outrage that Boris was lying about even bothering to come up with a deal (silence on this in the media now for some reason), to outrage that Boris has come up with a deal that could never be accepted and is obviously a plan to go for no deal (silence on this as well interestingly.) Now that we are closer to a deal, the outrage and panic has moved away from the dangers of no deal, to the dangers of a deal and how we should now not want a deal at all.

Personally, I think the odds are still strongly against Johnson getting this last minute deal that he was eventually cornered into trying to get. (And part of me suspects that he is not expecting to get it and is still playing the blame game). If he does get one, it will be very interesting to see what it is (and possibly not co-incidentally there will be very little time to examine it in detail). I suspect that it is likely to be May's deal with a new coat of paint, and we will see how the ERG reacts to that.

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It's a pretty good idea to mistrust anything Boris and his team are saying, but at the same time I think having a healthy dose of scepticism around everything else we are hearing is a good idea. We've heard a lot of things in the media and from the EU which have turned out to simply not be true, and that tends to get heavily skimmed over after the fact. I think it's closer to say we are rarely being given the whole truth about anything. 

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I don't see anyone around these parts who have been willing to accept a deal suddenly saying they will only accept remain. Remainers of course have mostly consistently wanted to find a way to remain. So opposing this deal might be the least bad way to leave the EU, but it's not remain, so why should remainers offer any more support for it than any other leave option?

I'm really talking about numerous publications and twitterers and MPs who have changed tac in the last few days, moving away from scares about no deal, to pushing a new story that we should now be scared of any deal because its not remain or trying to scare us all into believing we are heading for Libertarian nightmare. 

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If taking back control of your sovereignty just means bending over and being shafted by the US on a whole bunch of things then I have rather a different understanding of regaining lost sovereignty.

You are talking about a free trade agreement. That is very different to joining a supranational organisation who's laws supercede national laws and which has competences  in numerous areas of British life. I'd take chlorinated chicken (lol) over that for sure.

1 hour ago, A wilding said:

Except that any close relationship with the EU post Brexit is going to require staying in regulatory harmony, and that is "surrender".

Some level of harmony makes sense, but it doesn't mean we need to mirroring them in every way.

1 hour ago, A wilding said:

Except that post Brexit, the country will suddenly be a lot poorer, and we are going to be in a long term forced austerity because there will be no money, whatever sort of government we end up with.

That's really not a fact. Long term we could all be a lot better off.

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The only way we are likely to be better off after Brexit is by reducing the welfare state and also environmental, consumer and worker protections so as to make us more "competitive". Which then leads to the question as to exactly who this "we" who are better off are.

As for a free trade agreement being very different from being in a "supranational organisation who's laws supercede national laws and which has competences in numerous areas of British life"; your phrase describes exactly what trade agreement ISDS clauses are in a nutshell. That is why the ECJ recently ruled one of them to be incompatible with democracy. Despite the name, trade agreements these days are far more then just agreements over tariffs on imported and exported goods. Chlorinated chicken is the least of it.

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10 minutes ago, A wilding said:

As for a free trade agreement being very different from being in a "supranational organisation who's laws supercede national laws and which has competences in numerous areas of British life"; your phrase describes exactly what trade agreement ISDS clauses are in a nutshell. That is why the ECJ recently ruled one of them to be incompatible with democracy. Despite the name, trade agreements these days are far more then just agreements over tariffs on imported and exported goods. Chlorinated chicken is the least of it.

You would concede that being part of the EU is not the same as a Free Trade Agreement however?

Quote

The only way we are likely to be better off after Brexit is by reducing the welfare state and also environmental, consumer and worker protections so as to make us more "competitive". Which then leads to the question as to exactly who this "we" who are better off are.

Thats not really true either. You could even say it could go the exact opposite direction were Corbyn to come into power, and he suddenly had the ability to nationalise everything.

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

You would concede that being part of the EU is not the same as a Free Trade Agreement however?

Indeed not. In the EU we get to vote in EU elections.

 

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Thats not really true either. You could even say it could go the exact opposite direction were Corbyn to come into power, and he suddenly had the ability to nationalise everything.

You say that as though the EU prevents nationalisation. I know that Farage claims it does but, while there are a few EU limitations, it is basically another lie. On the other hand, any trade deal signed with the US is very likely to not only massively limit nationalisation, but also to require further privatisation, for example of the NHS.

In any case, I find the idea that the economic impact of Brexit will be significantly offset by the limited gains of renationalising the railways and utility companies somewhat implausible, however much I would welcome such renationalisation.

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45 minutes ago, A wilding said:

 

Indeed not. In the EU we get to vote in EU elections.

 

You say that as though the EU prevents nationalisation. I know that Farage claims it does but, while there are a few EU limitations, it is basically another lie. On the other hand, any trade deal signed with the US is very likely to not only massively limit nationalisation, but also to require further privatisation, for example of the NHS.

In any case, I find the idea that the economic impact of Brexit will be significantly offset by the limited gains of renationalising the railways and utility companies somewhat implausible, however much I would welcome such renationalisation.

Lol. I’m sure you are being deliberately obtuse here and you know full well the difference. Also best not using EU elections as a barometer of making meaningful changes.

While the EU doesn’t directly prevent nationalisation of industries it’s does make it a lot more difficult due to its rules on compensation for acquiring private property. Add in State aid rules and you can see why Corbyn would be less enamoured with the EU... as it’s very far from being a simple trading unit.

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I am entirely serious. And if you think otherwise, I think that that it is for you to point out some losses of "national sovereignty" from being in the EU that can't also be caused by a trade deal.

But I would not advise you to include nationalisation/privatisation in your list as, to repeat myself, any US trade deal would likely limit manoeuvre there at least as much as the EU does. Nor "control over our borders", given what the Indian government has said is likely to be a pre-condition for any trade deal with them.

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How would a trade deal with the US affect the UK governments ability to aquire private property from British companies? 

Even if India asked for easier access for its citizens to move and work in the UK, it certainly would never be 'freedom of movement' in the same way that the EU has. 

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In any trade deal with the US they would almost certainly demand what they would refer to as a "level playing field" for bidding for any government work and for taking over any businesses (i.e. running prisons and hospitals, purchasing utility companies, etc ad nauseam). If a US company bid for any such thing and lost out to an in house UK government deal (or indeed to any other company) then they would have the right to appeal to the adjudication of an ISDS tribunal. Forcible nationalisation of any business would certainly trigger such an appeal. The UK government would have no power over this tribunal and no redress against its decisions. Of course even the possibility of a complaint would have a chilling effect.

We already see a sort of precursor to this in the way that some rail franchise companies have sued or threatened to sue over franchise decisions,

Of course, in negotiating a trade deal the UK may (depending who is in power) push back on this demand, but given the probable relative strengths of the US and UK's negotiating positions it is likely to be tricky.

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9 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I'm really talking about numerous publications and twitterers and MPs who have changed tac in the last few days, moving away from scares about no deal, to pushing a new story that we should now be scared of any deal because its not remain or trying to scare us all into believing we are heading for Libertarian nightmare. 

You are talking about a free trade agreement. That is very different to joining a supranational organisation who's laws supercede national laws and which has competences  in numerous areas of British life. I'd take chlorinated chicken (lol) over that for sure.

 

It does make sense to pivot from one threat that is no longer present to another when you have a specific outcome you want. For a hard out remainer any form of Brexit is a threat, and the thing to do is elevate and hyperbolise that threat to try to get people to come around to a remain position. And if you believe (rightly or wrongly) that any deal put forward by Boris (and supported by the ERG) before 31 Oct is merely a Trojan horse to circumvent the Benn act and achieve a no-deal Brexit, then of course you are going to shout and scream about the evil intent of any deal that's presented to the country, which is why you have the likes of the lib Dems and SNP saying they will consider voting for a deal but only if there is a people's vote. Others will be a lot more aware than me of whether there are actual flip-floppers who last week were all about getting a reasonable deal together and achieving an orderly exit and this week are fully on the remain train. 

If you think a FTA is all about we'll buy your stuff and you'll buy ours with minimal tariffs then you haven't been paying attention. And US FTAs are less free than most. The USA basically practices trans-boundary regulation. And it's not so much about what you bring in to Britain, but the conditions of getting into the USA. They are simply going to ignore your sovereignty and to all intents and purposes directly regulate any and all of your businesses that want to trade in the USA. As a sovereign and independent UK you're going to have very little capacity to prevent this trans-boundary regulation of your industries. As a member of the EU you would have far greater chance of limiting or eliminating the US's regulatory reach into your domestic industries.

An FTA isn't the same as being in a supranational entity. But that doesn't mean it's better.

It's funny that many hard Brexiters are so enamored of the USA, when the USA is itself a supranational entity, the likes of which Brexiteers hate with a vengeance if there is any suggestion of  something remotely similar being applied to the UK in a European context. It's this very fear of a future USE that partly motivates a desire for Brexit. And yet, the USA is the shizz and the shining example of capitalist freedom.

 

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One of the bigger (not the biggest) talking points during the referendum was that we had to leave the EU to avoid the TTIP with the US.

Of course, the EU refused the TTIP anyway, but that doesn't matter; and now the same leavers, who wanted so much to avoid the TTIP want a deal that would be so much worse (for Britain) than the TTIP - and can't see the problem with it.

 

ETA: I will allow, that some may indeed think that, when it comes to negotiating with a body of 327M; a body of 66M holds more than power than a body of 508M. Or possibly even that the Trump administration is both most trustworthy and less ruthless in negotiations than the Obama administration.

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