Friday 29 September 2017

Mask slips as Tory schemers open Brexit think tank - repost from behind the times paywall

Mask slips as Tory schemers open Brexit think tank

james mcgrory

For more than a year, the government has promised that Brexit will not be used as a wedge to undermine the rights and conditions guaranteed by EU membership that protect people in this country. Theresa May even said in her Lancaster House speech that “a fairer Britain is a country that protects and enhances the rights people have at work”.

Yesterday, however, in the gilded chambers of the Foreign Office, the mask slipped and we found that the prime minister’s warm words were being undermined by her complete lack of control over her cabinet ministers. Boris Johnson and Liam Fox last night used a government building, paid for by the taxpayer, to host the launch of a new think tank arguing for a hardline, right-wing, extreme Brexit. The new Institute for Free Trade is to be led by Conservative MEP and prominent Leave campaigner, Daniel Hannan.
Open Britain, the cross-party, pro-European group, has had a look at the policies and the priorities of the Institute for Free Trade and its president and it does not make for pleasant reading. It is difficult to over-emphasise how extreme some of their positions are.

They support so-called “unilateral free trade”, a policy that would dump all UK tariffs on imported products, without achieving reciprocal reductions from other countries. The practical consequence of this would be to flood the British market with cheap, low-quality goods that would quickly overwhelm our domestic producers. The author of this plan, Professor Patrick Minford, has cheerfully admitted that doing so would “mostly eliminate” British manufacturing.

They are relaxed about letting hormone-injected beef and chlorine-washed chicken into our country as the price of a trade deal with the US, despite even Michael Gove promising that food safety standards would not be compromised by Brexit.

They have no time at all for the vital firewall of employment protections that have been built up over decades of EU membership, describing these rights as “heavy-handed regulations that impede the creative process”. Just so no one is under any doubt, these regulations include the right to paid maternity and paternity leave; to paid holidays; to join a union; and to work free from discrimination on grounds of gender, race, nationality, sexuality or disability. Mr Hannan has gone even further and stated his opposition to the minimum wage.

Hannan’s views on the National Health Service are perhaps most worrying of all. This is someone who delights in scuttling round American TV studios attacking our NHS, one of this country’s proudest achievements. He has called it a “mistake” that the UK has had to live with “for 60 years now” and called for the introduction of “price mechanisms”. Mr Hannan’s unpatriotic and dangerous ideas, if implemented, would restrict ordinary peoples’ access to health care. Mr Johnson and Mr Fox have made similar comments in the past, with the international trade secretary calling for health spending to be cut and the foreign secretary saying that people should have to pay to use NHS services.

None of this is current government policy but the frequency and speed with which this government floats and then ditches policies means they might be one day soon. Mr Johnson’s leadership ambitions are the worst-kept secret in Westminster and this think tank should serve as a window into the gruesome agenda he and his fellow Brextremists want to impose on the country if they get their way.
It is perfectly possible that these policies could be introduced even if Boris does not come to power. Theresa May’s weakness is such that she may end up being forced into throwing some red meat to her rabid right flank. If the Government is as desperate as it seems to get a trade deal with the US after we leave the EU, regardless of the cost, it will undoubtedly be forced into concessions on issues such as food safety.

This manoeuvring by Mr Johnson and Mr Fox is undermining the government’s policy; furthering divisions within government; and advancing an agenda which would leave British working people worse off. Their plans and their scheming should be exposed and opposed by everybody who rejects an extreme Brexit.


James McGrory is executive director of Open Britain reposted from the Times

Monday 24 April 2017

Brexit was a victory for "stupid" - how can "smart" win this time around?


It is  hard to deal with this election. It's one like no other, both because it really is a second referendum on Brexit (but one where there's no simple question and no simple answer) and because results on 2015 were badly skewed by exceptional factors.

Among the complexities, one thing is absolutely clear, if we are to have any chance of crushing the tory majority in parliament we have to cooperate across the progressive movement to vote tactically. This post is an attempt to explore the mistrust and misunderstandings about tactical voting and to lay down a few pointers to the best approaches to making it work.

What went wrong in 2015?


The tories should not have won in 2015. They were deeply unpopular but they still managed to win a majority. It's worth looking at how this happened, because it shows how badly things can go wrong, and how, at worst, misguided tactical voting could give the Tories an even bigger majority.

"Coalition resentment" scuppered Liberal Democrats with LD/Tory swing voters feeling they may as well have a fully fledged conservative government and LD/Labour swing voters turning to Labour in disgust.  "Small c" working class defections from Labour to UKIP and loss of support from from the more radical left because of the party's steady rightwards drift trapped Labour in similar kind of "perfect storm". The Tories shouldn't have won but they did - and they won because of a toxic mix of tribalism, a resurgent hard right and extreme political naivety on the part of many progressive voters.

"Lib/Lab/Green no matter what" - how to avoid "2015 -  the sequel"


The most important thing we need to hold in our minds is that we need to elect progressive MP's. "Anyone But Conservative" "ABC" is the watchword. Use your vote for the candidate best placed to win - whatever the party.

The danger is that many of us will vote on the basis of what is being said by Party Leaders at national level or, in the case of Labour, to punish them for voting for Article 50 in the Commons. In this election more than any other - voting in this way is suicidal. The Tories depend on us to do this, and know that if we do, they will be back with an even bigger majority.

The only thing that will beat the Tories is getting a lot more MP's than they do. Why a lot more? Because if the Tories are the largest party they get first call on a coalition and could form a government with a single smaller political party. The Tories think we are too naive and too tied up in petty differences to work together.

We progressives like to think we are the smart ones but we struggle to recognise that unless we elect more progressive MP's than there are tories we've lost,  seems to have escaped many of us. Social media threads are alive with comments like:


"Only a vote for Liberal Democrats will keep us in Europe".
"Corbyn has said he will lead the UK to a soft Brexit",
"Farron has ruled out forming any coalition",
"I could never trust the Liberal Democrats after the coalition"  

Sorry - but these remarks are absolute rubbish. If there is one certainty in "GE2017" it's that neither Labour nor Liberal Democrats can win outright. If remainers vote on the electioneering pitches of party leaders in a period of extreme political volatility Theresa May will win power with a bigger majority, and the certainty of the UK crashing out of Europe in flames.

Simply equating our concerns about Brexit with either of the two main progressive parties stated position on Brexit, coalition or their past behavior is suicidal. It doesn't matter if you think the Lib Dems are less likely to take us out of Europe than Labour - if you vote Lib Dem in a Labour seat where the Tories are running second - you will let the Tories in. Same applies if you are a Labour supporter in a seat that the Lib Dems lost in 2015 - voting "Labour no matter what" will let the Tories keep that seat.

Finally - if you are a green voter - please think long and hard about this particular election. I know you are always being asked to sacrifice your hopes in general elections but in this particular election we are trying to defeat a government intent on abandoning carbon targets, cutting environmental controls and are actively hostile to renewables - this is part of their reason for taking us out of Europe

So please - forget about anger towards Corbyn's position on Brexit, Forget about the Lib Dem coalition with the tories - take a deep breath and vote for whoever will defeat the Tories.

I've got principles - I can't be this cynical


I understand - I have principles too - but without power - principles are worthless junk.

I know so many remaniers are devastated by Corbyns's stance on Europe, I am myself, anyone wanting to know just how furious I was can read this blog - but we do have to understand Corbyn's position. His party strategists believe Labour could lose many of it's northern heartland seats if it goes directly against the referendum results. It's that old bogeyman again, winning seats. 

Corbyn has ruled out a second referendum - but he's actively supported a "meaningful final vote on a Brexit Settlement" in Parliament. That's Corbyn's wriggle room. MP's can reject a Brexit deal outright unless they are convinced it will be in the UK's interests. If he's in a coalition he can also say Brexit was a deal breaker and agree to shift his position.

Faron's position on "No Coalition" is his attempt to deal with the perfect storm that decimated lib dem MPs. Remember, Lib Dems lost most of their seats from a combination of left wing supporters defecting to Labour to punish them for the coalition and right leaning Lib Dems deciding they may as well go the whole hog with a Tory government. 

A lot of us Labour supporters argue that "Lib Dems can't be trusted because they should have refused to form a coalition with the Tories" - but Labour form coalitions with Lib Dems all the time in local government despite the party's mantra of "Never trusting a bloody Liberal"! Farron obviously believes his best bet is to isolate himself from any commitment post election to allay the "coalition ghost", but if there is the opportunity to power share he will take it - and Brexit can be his deal breaker.

So how do we assess the best tactical options?


Take a look at the demographics of Norwich's much respected anti-Brexit MP Clive Lewis. In several of Norwich's anti-brexit forums remainers are calling for a Lib Dem vote in his seat. This is suicidal,

Lib Dems would have to triple their vote to beat him. That's not going to happen - but we can see the makings of another perfect storm brewing in these figures. If UKIP to pull out and urge their supporters to vote tory it would only take a couple of thousand of voters to switch allegiance from Labour to Lib Dem for Clive to lose his seat - to the Tories.


General Election 2015: Norwich South[4]
PartyCandidateVotes%±
LabourClive Lewis19,03339.3+10.6
ConservativeLisa Townsend11,37923.5+0.6
GreenLesley Grahame6,74913.9-1.0
Liberal DemocratSimon Wright6,60713.6-15.7
UKIPSteve Emmens4,5399.4+7.0


Now look at the position in the Liberal Democrats in North Norfolk

Norman Lamb is in an even more vulnerable position than Clive Lewis - the combined Tory/UKIP vote is about 23,500 - but add the Labour and Green votes to Lamb's total and he has over 26,000 votes

Of course, we can't say for sure that all UKIP votes will go to the Tories, but many will. We can't say for sure all progressives will vote tactically - but we can do our best to try and make it a reality - at least that way we are in with a chance.
General Election 2015: North Norfolk[5]
PartyCandidateVotes%±
Liberal DemocratNorman Lamb19,29939.1-16.4
ConservativeAnn Steward15,25630.9-1.2
UKIPMichael Baker8,32816.9+11.5
LabourDenise Burke5,04310.2+4.4
GreenMike Macartney-Filgate1,4883.0+2.0

These are the kind of stories that will be repeated across the country. Remainers need to get smart - whatever their political allegiance, and look at the hard realities of returning a non-conservative MP.

Kick out the Tories


  • remember - neither Labour nor Liberal Democrats can win this election outright
  • forget about what leaders are ruling in or out right now - if progressives win a majority - we will do a deal 
  • vote to beat the tories in your constituency not on the national campaign 
  • it's not about principles - it's about winning more seats than the tories

Campaigning for tactical voting is as important as campaigning for our parties in this election.This is a link to a seat by seat guide to tactical voting options - I have no idea if this is entirely accurate - we are the smart ones so dig around. Find your constituency on wikipedia and look at results over the years. Think how falling support for UKIP will affect the Tory vote - they will almost certainly benefit more than anyone else.


If you want to be a keyboard warrior this is a link to a facebook page I've set up to encourage tactical voting ABC _ Anything But Conservative. I try and post relevant stories and news every day. Like the group invite friends, share posts. If there's one thing about his election that's positive is that it seems to have ignited genuine political debate. We can do this. We can turn the pollsters predictions on their heads. There's so little between all us progressives - so lets co-operate to keep the Tories out






Finally, remember Brexit is not the only reason for kicking out the Tories. They have presided over the slowest economic recovery since records began, the real value of wages has fallen by at least 10% since they came into office. They have bought schools and the NHS to their knees, and their treatment of disabled and dying people is little short of barbaric. 

Let's do everything in our power to not hand this country to the most vicious nasty right wing politicians it has seen since the Second World War - let's win it smart!

Thanks to Marc Roberts for the illustration - first published in New Internationalist - Marc  features regularly in the New Internationalist and Ethical Consumer. He has a horribly low profile on the web but you can see some of his work here - http://throbgoblins.blogspot.fr/2007/06/acid-cheeseballs.html

Monday 6 February 2017

Fight them on the Beaches - no chance - let’s just let the fascists win

in the days when we believed in Corbyn
Depressing title? Yes, could be something to do with waking at 3-30 am in a mood blacker than the night. Last night I heard Clive Lewis MP trying to explain the Labour Party’s Parliamentary strategy for Brexit. I was hoping for at least some spark of a fight, perhaps a recognition that while parliamentary tactics was forcing our hand in Parliament we would acknowledge the catastrophic nature of Brexit to the wider world.

Parliamentary tactics are affairs of the head, I understand that, but Brexit was won with appeals to the heart using a seductress's finery and false promises. It's manifest injustice, stupidity and political danger could open dozens of avenues for the Labour Party to relearn the art of reaching out to the electorates emotional core. My black despair flows from the certainty that the Party has closed them all, an act of shortsightedness and cowardice that will be a disaster for the country and a disaster for a party I've supported all my life.

Clive looked like a man torn in two. The conflict between the unfolding disaster of Brexit and his desire to hold the party line was etched into his being.  This was a man confronting unreason with reason,  and repeated use of the phrase "we are where we are", a pragmatic sounding cliche that generally means "we've lost", suggests he can see that defeating unreason demands more than soft words. If, on the eve of disaster, Churchill had made a speech to the nation that ran:

"we will think about fighting them on the beaches - but we have to bear in mind that quite a lot of people have been manipulated by sleight of hand and distraction and we have to think about their feelings before we even think about any kind of fight and maybe right now what we should do is more or less give up and then try and negotiate with them after they have won"

It would sum up Labour's position perfectly. We are re-running Neville Chamberlain in Munich, Trump and Brexit are the storm troopers riding in. 

A major part of Clive's case was that Labour couldn't oppose Brexit because of the "fragile state of our democracy". 

I'd say the exact opposite. "Brexit is happening because of the fragile state of our democracy".  I understand the sensibilities and can accept  can accept 25 % of the population winning a general election. But election results are reassessed every 4 or 5 years . Brexit will be permanent, a change that is disaster for millions, most of whom didn't even have a vote.

It's a fact that more people were disenfranchised in the referendum than voted leave.  Four and a half  million people who's long term future depends on freedom of movement and over fourteen million under 18's didn't get a vote. That's eighteen and a half million people. They outnumber leave voters, and they are the groups who's future will be most affected by this descision. Seventeen million out of a population of sixty-five million is not a majority. Seventeen million imposing a course of action that will blight the lives of 18.5 million people who had no vote is not democratic. MP's could do far more for democracy by remembering their duty to look at the wider interests of the country than by flawed calculations aimed at saving their own skins.

Another justification for Labour's position was that opposing the referendum would "give UKIP a platform". This was the point where patience and sympathy for his dilemma was finally replaced by outrage. The Tory Government under May already is "UKIP in power". 

UKIP is no more a separate political party than the Tea Party in the USA. Both were established and funded by ideologically driven billionaires to deliver the messages their more moderate counterparts wouldn't say out loud. Their job is done, both here and in the USA.

I understand that "giving UKIP a platform" is a sanitised way of saying "we are going to lose seats". I'm just not convinced trying to placate the "traditional" Labour voters who switched to UKIP in droves in 2015 is a good tactic. The Blairite years destroyed their faith in us, and the 2010 message on the doorsteps of Milecross was, at times, shockingly hostile. I don't think these guys will come back to us anytime soon just because we lay down and surrender to a right wing coup. Meanwhile, all the enthusiasm and energy surrounding Corbyn is seeping away unused. People who joined the party because they believed things could be different are leaving in droves. WE may lose seats in remain constituencies for opposing Brexit - we will definitely lose not just seats, but wholesale support to the greens and lib-dems everywhere - don't underestimate the level of anger remainers feel.

The message I took From Friday's meeting was that Labour are sacrificing a blood and guts fight for the future of Britain and probably the future of Europe for narrow self interest and that maybe - at some point in the future, a brave new left wing Labour under Corbyn will win power and create a socialist paradise. With an independent Scotland, Gerrymandered boundaries and unforgiving remainers that is never going to happen - I suspect it's more likely the Labour Party's current stance will see it's demise.

If Brexit happens it will be permanent, and it will be the starting gun for removing almost every concession the left has fought to win from "the owners "over the last 120 years. Listen to Jacob Rees Mogg talking about stripping out environmental regulation in the UK - the Tories behind May have already targeted Human Rights, Worker Protection, Heath and Safety Standards and Carbon Emissions and "Honest Theresa" has "promised the NHS is not for sale" - which pretty much means "it's going to be sold".

The democracy Labour wants to defend has been undermined for decades by a very powerful, well funded, extreme rightwing movement. It's genesis is in the States. I often mention  Atlantic Bridge and its links with the US and British right. George Monbiot blogged  about them couple of days ago, and its well worth reading the story if you are not familiar with it.  Trump and Brexit are both symptoms of the political forces that Atlantic Bridge promotes. Trump isn't just a maverick voice - his deliberate trashing of government and defiance of the rule of law are a clear part of the extreme right agenda he represents. It's no coincidence that Farage, a man who threatened violence if leavers lost, had unprecedented access to Trump only days after he was elected and you can be sure that the current dominant forces in the Conservative Party speak with the same voice. The names associated with Atlantic Bridge are the Tory men of the moment.

Now image if Jeremy Corbyn did find some Churchillian spirit - a strong "Fight Them on the Beaches speech". Some of that powerful emotive oratory he's good at using Brexit as a platform to fight back. 

The North East think it's immigrants screwing them - it's not - it's 40 odd years of deliberate and systematic neglect.  Some of it was Labour 's neglect, say so, tell them we are different now.

Immigrants are denying British people health services? No - deliberate vandalism is doing that. Real term spending cuts in health have the service on it's knees and it's only getting by because of all the European Nurses, Midwives and Doctors. And on that one, a few case studies of the terrible things being said and done to good people who are delivering essential services would hit the British sense of fair play right between the eyes

Same applies to Education, Social Services and the failure to put resources into helping communities and immigrant groups manage the impacts of new and different cultures on existing populations and  of coming to terms with life in a foreign country.

Lets scream about the taxbreaks and loopholes, the lobbyists that bend brains, the lies and the misinformation could be exposed in a "fight them to our last breaths" position. If we are going down let's go down in flames - not with "a whipped abstention" on the third reading.

Our current position is beyond disappointing - it's heart breaking. Now more than ever, with Trump riding into absolutism in the USA Trump and Brexit can be used as a lever to help rewrite the narrative. They are two sides of the same coin - not the people who voted for it - but the people who are trying to make it happen - and even for Brexit voters Trump is too much.

Even now it's not too late for the Labour Party to change tack. MP's can vote against the 3rd reading - with a whip - and  launch an all out attack on the reasons why "we are where we are", expose the systematic and deliberate destruction of democracy and most of all - you can learn a lesson from the likes of Farage and Trump - these guys don't sell sausages- they sell sizzle - right now Labour need the sizzle.