Pick a side - will you continue to press the button?

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. That is how buttons work generally. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

So yet another attack has taken place by a hate-filled extremist on people going about their daily business. This time around it took place in New Zealand. A right-wing Australian with guns and hate massacred unarmed unsuspecting people going about their regular business. A few days later an attack on a tram in Utrecht appears to be people being shot by a suspected Muslim terrorist with guns and hate. Just this week we hear that devices have been placed on railway lines by Brexiters.

We can add these to the list of atrocities committed by many different individuals. Manchester concert bombings, the Pittsburgh synagogue attack, London Bridge, Finsbury Park. When you start to research these atrocities often a motive is given for the attack – Anti-Semitism or Racism or Right-wing Terror. I think it is a lot simpler than that.

Often when I write I compare events or opinions or arguments and look at them side by side and explore the differences. Lots has been written about the New Zealand attack – how it was out of the ordinary, how it has driven an immediate response in New Zealand, profiles of the attacker asking what went wrong to bring him here, how the attack was carried out.

What saddens me is how obviously similar it is to all of the other attacks mentioned above. And that we will face many more of these. The script, the background story always seems to be the same. Lone individual, possibly some contact with hate groups, obtained weaponry and attacked at a time / in a way designed to create maximum outrage and fear.

What brings these individuals or small groups to this point? A point where they decide that the only way to make an impact to further their views, to achieve success is to go out and kill people they have never met and have no connection to, on the basis of whatever motivation they wish to give? Some of these attackers have left their thoughts – either in the form of videos or manifestos or even Facebook posts. So we can state their ideologies and way of thinking with a bit of certainty.

Firstly, they all seem to believe in absolute groups. Us and them. Whoever the “them” are doesn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things. They could be Muslims, Immigrants, Jews, Non-Muslims. It is still very fresh in the memory that Jo Cox was murdered by one of these attackers. Her “them”? She was a remainer. Just imagine that. The line that separated people who should live and have rights and people it was acceptable to kill was which way they voted in a referendum.

These lines don’t exist. These separating lines that split us into definite groups are not real. But we do it all the time. We align ourselves to others of the same religion, the same political party, family, country, football team and use that alignment to see Them as somehow different. We have far more in common with other people, no matter how little we think we do, than we have that is different.

Secondly, They have either done some unfairness or injustice to us, or are going to and we should do something about it – because nobody else is. This is the deep-rooted belief that the threat / unfairness is obvious, that everybody sees it, but that the authorities are ignoring it OR are powerless OR weak. This is either that immigrants are taking over our country, that Jews are pulling the strings to control government, trying to steal Brexit from us, invading our countries to steal our oil / power / influence. Whatever It is that They have done or will do, It is obvious from the messages / communications / inputs the attacker sees. They are all equally guilty of It too, because they are one group solely defined by one characteristic.

Again, we have to call bullshit on this thinking. And we see it all the time. Not all Muslims are terrorists or paedophiles who trade young girls. Not all Westerners supported various invasions. Not all immigrants are trying to steal your culture and your land. What I find really scary is that often when talking to otherwise sensible people they have been conned into looking at one example and extrapolating that risk across the whole They, and unless you can refute that single example that is proof They are all like that. We have to be better than that.

Thirdly, that they are acting on behalf of the rest of the Us. They are doing it in Our name or Their name. Depending on which side of their invented line you sit. This might be the act that wakes Us up, shows Us what to do, and scares Them into stopping / giving up. It will ignite / unite Us in taking action – because we are all just waiting.

How do they get to this point? Where do these ideas come from? That they have support for their actions, some sort of reward awaits them? They’ll be seen as some sort of hero? Whilst their worldviews may be coloured by the mainstream media, or religion, or groups, and this is where their “motivation” comes from, this belief that they are supported and believed seems in almost all cases to come from social media interactions. This seems to be the only place they could possibly take the belief that there is a legion of support for what they are about to do.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

We know from the writings of Anders Brevik he took most of his motivation and ideas from other people writing on forums and social media. ISIS regularly use facebook, twitter and youtube to get their message across because they know these lone wolf individuals take succour from it. During the recent attack in New Zealand the perpetrator live streamed it on Facebook. Over and over these vile individuals take their comfort, their support, their motivation from posts of other people on social media.

It’s also important to remember – the people who do this – they think differently from us. For the vast majority of us the idea of getting so angry that we decide to attack, injure and kill people is abhorrent. More so in cold blood. But none of them are picked up in advance. They suddenly follow up on their decision making. Often family and friends are aware of their views – but not that they are dangerous or genuinely considering this action. Until somebody is dead. I am not a psychologist – I have no training to say who will behave like this. Maybe we are all capable. But I don’t know which of my friends, family, readers of this blog, and colleagues are capable of turning. Neither do you.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

We have to choose a side. Are we the person who presses this button or not? This week as an example videos emerged of British Army soldiers shooting as an image of Jeremy Corbyn. If you support this – can you be certain that won’t be seen as a message to someone to take out his old service revolver and do it? After all Darren Osborne (who attacked Finsbury Park) was looking for a way to kill Jeremy Corbyn. That post decrying Tony Blair as a war criminal who got away with it? Posting videos calling remain supporting MPs traitors? Linking Leave supporting MPs to violent racism? Do you really know the impact of the language of hate on people around you? Perhaps you do. Strangely I reckon the families and friends of the people mentioned as carrying out these attacks felt comfortable sharing hate, and bile, and anger. I wonder if they do now.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

The importance of appearing in control and how not to do it (when in opposition)

I started out this particular blog post to try and suggest some answers as to why we have ended up in such a mess over the Brexit process (because the road to the decision is a strange and dark one, and I have talked about it enough. In particular to look at the behaviours of the two main political party leaders in the UK. They have, in my opinion, both shown a lack of leadership and this is at the heart of the situation we currently find ourselves in.

            I have already spent a lot of time on the first part of this blog considering how Theresa May has fared against a relatively common set of leadership characteristics:

• ·      Integrity – not just being honest, but being seen to be honest, and doing the right thing even when you can get away with doing the wrong thing
• ·      Courage – in making decisions, even unpopular ones, with limited information, and willing to address difficult points
• ·      Impartiality and fairness – not pandering to special or favourite causes, identifying the fairest outcome for everyone from a situation
• ·      Good communication – in both directions, able to explain their message so others get it with clarity and conviction, and able to listen to others and hear their points
• ·      Flexibility and responsiveness – able to alter not only their plans and direction, but their style to achieve their outcome, and able to listen to other people’s ideas and use the best one, not simply their own

Against which time and again she has been found wanting, and badly ( https://unexpectedsocialist.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-importance-of-appearing-in-control.html ). But surely it is only fair to consider Jeremy Corbyn by the same yardstick? The great man of principle who is very much beloved of party members (if not entirely by his parliamentary labour party) must hold these qualities in spades?

Its much harder to cover the entire process for the opposition leader. Firstly he has had very little (i.e. nothing) to do with the formal process. I will therefore focus on a few key points in the process where he had opportunity to show leadership. Specifically: in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result; the vote on Theresa May’s deal and calling and holding the vote of no confidence.

I remember after the vote itself being completely shocked, saddened and well, scared the following few days. This was a fundamental shift for our country. I had always been European as well as British and English, with family, friends and work colleagues across Europe and here from Europe. I’ve worked as an accountant and seen the millions of pounds of EU money coming in to areas of the North East desperate for regeneration. I’ve studied Economics and understood the absolute logic of being part of trade blocs.

This was a body blow to me and many others. We were dismayed and confused. What we needed was calm, a chance to re-group and get used to this. Instead we got a Prime Minister running away from the problem he had created and a leader of the opposition calling for an immediate invocation of article 50. There were two massive problems with this immediate approach.

Firstly, Corbyn had a long history of concerns over being members of the EU and expressing a desire to leave. He belatedly became an advocate for staying. Throughout the campaign he had stayed away from the main campaign to avoid standing with David Cameron (his reason). Calling for this so quickly immediately left his integrity open to question. It doesn’t matter whether he was being genuinely honest or not. Its whether people see you as being honest. This approach damaged his integrity. Coupled with repeated questions on which way he voted that he refused to answer, he was opened up by his detractors and across the press as lacking integrity.

Secondly, what we needed was calm and a chance to come back together as a nation after a referendum campaign that had been divisive and nasty. But it appeared that this opportunity to make political capital, and to put pressure on the conservative party was more important. It is really hard to see the fairness in that – putting party politics ahead of doing the right thing. Both of these issues stemmed from a man who was no longer listening to the pulse of the country, and a man who had failed to get out his message.

Of course many Corbyn supporters (and I class myself as a supporter) will point out that it is hard to communicate when you have large parts of the press against you. This hasn’t happened over night. There has always been an image of him portrayed by his detractors. It didn’t suddenly appear. The narrative he has been wrapped in is made to measure. But the reason it fits so well is that decisions he makes and how he communicates absolutely lend themselves to it. It sometimes feels like there is a conspiracy to ruin his credentials – and that conspiracy is made up of the Conservative party, right wing media interests and Jeremy Corbyn.

I absolutely get that Jeremy has painted his life as a man of integrity, and a man of principle. There can be no question that he has made difficult and unpopular decisions based on a strong moral sense of right and wrong. Once he has decided what he feels is the morally right thing then he sees it through.*

I absolutely get that Jeremy Corbyn is unwilling to change. He’s made a career out of purposefully choosing the other view – almost for fun. He makes a snap decision on evidence at the time and sticks with it come hell or high water. This “man of principle” is so addicted to being morally right that he can’t accept when he is wrong or things change.*

(*Delete as appropriate)

And therein lay the problem. Because his behaviour and the way he acts and delivers his message can be played both of those ways. In order to be an effective leader you must be able to communicate and be flexible. You have to be responsive and aware. Sometimes sticking to your guns and your tried and trusted methods because you have always been that person is actually the counter to integrity – not the embodiment of it. Jumping into the trap laid for you over and over again shows a lack of flexibility, responsiveness and communication skills.

We’ve seen this behaviour in the House of Commons over the last few weeks. In fact both Corbyn and May have been guilty of the title of this blog – wanting to appear in control rather than wanting to be in control.

When Theresa May lost, as she knew she must, the vote on her badly-won, self-serving, ill-communicated, cowardly deal she immediately challenged Corbyn to bring forward a motion of no confidence in the government. Everyone knew he had to. But to her mind this was her showing the world she was still in charge. If anybody other than May and Hammond believe she is still in control of events then please send them my way – I have a second-hand bridge over the Thames I would like to sell them. However it gave her a chance to remove the initiative from him.

When that motion failed, as he knew it must, Jeremy Corbyn immediately rebuffed May’s offer of talks without his pre-conditions were met. Again, this was an attempt to show he was now in control and would only meet on his terms. Whilst this has now proven to be correct, and that the talks were merely Mrs. May trying to sell her original deal, only in smaller groups and with coffee and biscuits, this was immediately played in the press as Mr. Corbyn refusing the outstretched hand. It could not have been more clearly a trap if the prime minister had read it from a card marked ACME on the back. Because it is how he is expected to react and unfortunately no flexibility or learning is allowed.

I do worry for Brexit and our immediate future. We have days left now until we crash out without a deal. The leaders of our political parties, whilst having very different policies, views and desired outcomes, appear very similar in their approaches. Once the referendum result came in, any opportunity for coming together as a country was lost. Both leaders have allowed their own personal views and animosity along with political calculations to stop them from doing what we need most. Which is actually lead.

The importance of appearing in control and how not to do it

In the space of less than 24 hours we had 2 of the most unique, important and interesting votes that the House of Commons will ever give us. Most would argue that we have had enough drama of the sort we have seen to last us for a long time. Unfortunately, those votes and the debates and issues supporting them appear to really only be at the end of the beginning, not even close to the beginning of the end. The ongoing saga of Brexit has now dragged on for over two and a half years since the referendum itself. Legally speaking, as it stands, we only have around 10 weeks left to organise a withdrawal deal, or we crash out with No Deal.

            Nobody knows how this is going to turn out. Nobody knows, with absolute certainty, what is the best result for the UK and the EU. We can all choose to believe whichever experts, anti-experts or shaman most suits our views. Generally, that is what the overwhelming majority of use have been doing. My view, and one I want to explain, is that the biggest gap we have faced throughout the process has been the gap in genuine leadership – none more so than from the party leaders themselves.

            There are hundreds of lists of leadership qualities, and books have been written about the subject since we started recording history. I want to focus on a few of those qualities that appear across a wide range of them – it’s impossible to find some that appear in all of them. The most regularly repeating qualities for effective achieving leaders appear to be:

• ·      Integrity – not just being honest, but being seen to be honest, and doing the right thing even when you can get away with doing the wrong thing
• ·      Courage – in making decisions, even unpopular ones, with limited information, and willing to address difficult points
• ·      Impartiality and fairness – not pandering to special or favourite causes, identifying the fairest outcome for everyone from a situation
• ·      Good communication – in both directions, able to explain their message so others get it with clarity and conviction, and able to listen to others and hear their points
• ·      Flexibility and responsiveness – able to alter not only their plans and direction, but their style to achieve their outcome, and able to listen to other people’s ideas and use the best one, not simply their own

If we start by looking at how the negotiations process has been operated by Theresa May, and the strategy taken to those negotiations, it becomes very clear very quickly why she is not the right leader for the country. And most certainly not at this point in our history. Look at the strategy she has taken and it crumbles very quickly.

First of all, from the outset the decisions and approach have been her decisions and approach. She ignored every opportunity to reach out to other parties. She refused to listen to ideas from anyone outside her immediate circle. Throughout her career there are countless examples that point to her need to be completely in control. It is a unifying thread that runs like iron through it. How can you be impartial and fair if you are always right? Where is the space for responding to other ideas if you wont even hear them? This political change was the biggest we faced for at least 40 years – and arguably since the Second World War. Why not put in place a specialist commission? A government of unity? Citizen’s panels? No – Theresa knows what is best. Much better for her to go away, decide and then come and tell US what is right.

Of course she realised very early on in the process that in order for her to get away with that as Prime Minister, she needed to have as much personal power and mandate as possible. So whilst we had a backdrop of a clock running down, she called a General Election. Not for the good of the country, not for the good of the negotiations, not even for the good of her party. For her own benefit. And all after explicitly ruling out the idea. Because she believed she would win a landslide. Where is the integrity in that decision? Where is the impartiality and fairness of putting her wants in front of our country’s needs?

During the election itself, she showed herself again and again to have no communication skills. Strong and stable can not be the answer to every question. I imagine during that period if asked her how she took her coffee she would answer “strong and stable”. She ran scared of taking part in debates – sending other people to do them. Because she has all the communication skills and warmth of Buck Rogers friend Twiki, but without the warmth. Or communication skills. Where is the courage in being afraid to stand up without all of your lines safely locked down – taking no risks.

Having refused to talk to other parties, setting out her way of doing it as the only way, and having been embarrassed in a general election because she didn’t realise that the public didn’t want one, she then found herself weakened. The hung parliament that she caused meant that she then had to sell out some of her power to the DUP. This was at the cost of £1bn+ and additional red-lines. She used public money to protect her own position. She reduced her flexibility further.

Whilst all this carried on, Brexit Secretaries and other ministers led a constant stream out of her government because she wouldn’t listen to anyone else, and she kept coming back to the UK having given away more and more negotiating strength. Because she was right, and how dare anybody question or challenge her. She had to survive – she was the only one who was right. The single most important point, throughout this process, has been the survival of Theresa May. On average we have lost a government minister every month since she became Prime Minister. Nobody knew what the current deal was, until she deigned to tell us. No communication, no flexibility.

Where did this lead us? Her own party realised this couldn’t continue – and she survived a confident vote there. 117 of her own MPs – one third of her parliamentary party – wanted her to go. Did this change her approach or make her consider her position? Not for a minute. She not only led her government to be in contempt of parliament (for the first time ever), but she ran down the clock by delaying the vote on her deal. Not for any purpose other than she didn’t want to hear the truth – that she had gotten it completely wrong but couldn’t bear to hear it. She suffered the biggest governmental defeat in history. Only one third of parliament supported her deal – not even the £1bn bung could persuade the DUP. Did this make her consider her position? Not for a moment.

On the back of this she faced a vote of no-confidence in parliament. And I want to return to that point in part 2 of this blog – because we also need to consider the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in doing that.

The art of comedy? Timing

Well, unexpectedly the Prime Minister called a “snap” General Election yesterday. Unexpectedly because as recently as September 2016 she was quite clear in her refusal to do so “I am not going to be calling a snap election…we need a period of stability to be able to deal with the issues the country is facing”. So, why the sudden turnaround in that view? Has the Prime Minister decided we need less stability? Or that Brexit is actually much easier than she expected it to be? Or could there be another reason for it?

It all feels a bit strange, and for those people who are not engaged in politics, this must seem the worst possible outcome. After all we had the particularly nasty and bad tempered Scottish Independence referendum in 2014. Then a general election in 2015. Following on from that David Cameron decided he would shut up UKIP and the brexiteer side of his party by destroying them with ANOTHER referendum in 2016 (and that went so well for him) on EU membership. That was quickly followed up with wall to wall coverage of the US presidential elections (no genuinely, he actually won under their system).

Since then the Prime Minister has insisted that any referendum on Scottish Independence would be a distraction and the government must be entirely focussed on Brexit. In fact just 5 weeks ago, she said “Now is not the time. Just at this point all our energies should be focused on our negotiations with the European Union”.

So why have we had this sudden change of heart from the Prime Minister? There are a number of reasons that this may have taken place. Apparently it is to get a stronger hand for Brexit, and to do the right thing for the country. There are a number of other alternative theories too, so it seems only fair that we explore them all. And just for fun, let’s add a plausibility score out of ten – on whether it has directly impacted on the announcement at this time.  

Official explanation from the PM

Part1: The other parties and the Lords are trying to stop Brexit, and I need a larger majority to force it through.

An interesting statement really, and one that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny on any level. Firstly, the other political parties AND the Lords have had opportunities to delay and frustrate the process. These votes have been held. The opportunity to stop Brexit has been passed already. The votes are completed, and Brexit will happen. As Yvette Cooper pointed out today - 3/4 of MPs and 2/3 of Lords voted FOR Brexit when the vote was held. There is no opportunity of stopping Brexit now, unless there was a massive change in direction and views of the country. That would really require the PM herself to come back and say “we can’t achieve what we promised if we leave”. If that were really her fear she would have called a general election during the NINE MONTHS she has had before triggering Article 50.

Plausibility rating: I wouldn’t buy a used car from her.

Part 2: Negotiations will continue until just before the next General Election, and then you will be able to see what deal we have and start to feel it impacting you. The other countries will use that to drive a hard bargain.

There is probably more truth in this part of her statement. But there are some massive implicit promises in there that you are expected to miss out on. Firstly, it is an acceptance that we will not get everything we want from any negotiations. In fact, it is the first time publicly that any Conservative minister has admitted that the negotiations will be a 2-way street, and that there will be give and take depending on the political pressures the politicians feel at home. Secondly, there is an admission that ordinary people will feel the negative impacts of Brexit. Even those who voted for it and supported it will by then realise we have ended up with a potentially worse deal than we had.

Theresa May is terrified the government will be blamed for that. Perhaps, people may think, if they had spent more time negotiating the best deal and less time threatening war with Spain and coming up with catchy little phrases we wouldn’t be heading into a recession. I can understand Theresa May wanting to avoid that. After all, she was a Remain supporter, who never wanted to leave the EU. She can see closer and in much more detail how hard it will be. I wouldn’t want to be measured on the basis of how successful or painful it was in that situation.

Plausibility rating: More than a ring of truth about it.

It’s a snap annihilation of the Labour Party

Obviously, the staunch conservative voters and those who have wanted the left wing of the Labour party to fail since the election of Jeremy Corbyn are desperate to believe this is the reason for calling it now. Certainly, if you believe the polls (you know, the ones that showed us there would be no overall majority in the last election, that we would remain in the EU, and that Trump would lose) then this makes good political sense.

However, why now exactly? We have only 2 years to negotiate the exit from the EU, and this will take 7 weeks out of that timetable. Labour have been wallowing in the polls for about 18 months. Why not as soon as David Cameron resigned? Labour have said all along they will support it. So did this really make Theresa May directly contradict herself and break a promise she made publicly? Also, was the best time to launch it after Labour have had 2 weeks of announcing a number of incredibly popular policies – one a day – that have strong public support? Finally, if this IS the case, it is a clear admission that calling this election has nothing to do with the good of the country – just the good of the Tory party.

Plausibility rating: A consideration, and an expectation, but not the main reason.

Alleged Tory electoral fraud from 2015

There is still, hanging over the Tories, a police investigation into electoral fraud during the 2015 General Election. This arose because the Tories spent a lot of money in specific target seats that they claimed as central spending, when actually it directly related to the results in those seats, allegedly. A file of possible charges has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, and an announcement was expected THIS WEEK. Obviously, that announcement is now up for grabs.

Certainly, we can glean some clues to this – the fact that the CPS have confirmed they are still looking to continue this work suggests there is a case to at least be considered. If there is a fresh election, it means that this can be glossed over as having been solved at the Ballot Box instead of in the courts. Secondly, when the Prime Minister was asked, on the floor of the House of Commons whether she would allow anyone facing criminal or legal proceedings over this to stand, she said that she would support all Tory candidates to stand it begins to show the contempt that she feels towards free and fair elections. Obviously, this is not something that the PM would want to call an election for. But it may just be that this has been the final straw. And it is hard to argue against, given the rushed and surprise nature of it, the obvious U-turning and the fact she is now eating her own words on stability.

Plausability rating: Ticks the box for the timing aspect.

So, there we have it then. A lot of conjecture, and a lot of assumptions, and a lot of admittance on the part of the Government about how bad things are. The most likely scenario is that this is a government who are afraid of admitting the mess they are making of Brexit forced into this decision by the timing of CPS decisions. They are putting the needs of their party above your needs as citizens of this country. I would suggest you remember that, and don’t let them get away with it when you are in the polling station. 

Some Leave voters have every right to be angry. They just need to work out who with.

So quite an extraordinary act took place last week. 3 judges from the High Court in London made a decision on a technical point of law and sent the news and the political sphere into overdrive. This doesn't happen very often, but given the topic they were ruling on this was hardly surprising. They were passing judgement on a case brought by a group of private citizens against the UK Government on the specific legal steps the government must take to invoke Article 50 of the EU - that is to start the formal process of Brexit.

This has been jumped on, by members of the public and experienced politicians alike as an attempt to derail the democratic will of the UK - that we want to leave the EU. The majority have spoken, and here are a bunch of bremoaners trying to stop that from happening. Is that the case though? Our democracy that has been hard won and hard protected now under attack? Certainly during the Leave campaign much was made of our governance, rights and democracy tying back to the Magna Carta and being uninterrupted since then. Is someone trying to run roughshod over that?
I believe the answer is an unequivocal yes. Should Leavers be angry? For some of them, I think they have every right to be.

Lots of leavers voted that way for lots of different reasons. I think it is a real shame that so many have wanted to tar them all as racists. Some Leavers had decided, long before any cases were put forward that they wanted to Vote Leave. That is absolutely fine. It is a democracy. We don't get a right to limit the vote to only people who consider issues in the way that we do. It is the system we have. But over the course of the referendum campaign, there were really 4 key issues that were used to push the Leave vote. Firstly, to take back control of unchecked immigration. Secondly, to take back control of our laws and rulings. Third, that we would be able to create new and better trading relationships with a wider range of partners. Finally, that we could save money paid in to the EU and use this, for example, to give the NHS an extra £350 million a week. 

These 4 issues, when combined and brought together, spoke to the very heart of the issues a large group of people care about. It spoke to our national pride and national strength. Anyone arguing against this could easily be derided as not patriotic (I know this, because I took this claim fairly regularly). But I can see the emotional flow of that argument. These claims were pushed very strongly, not just by the official campaign, but by UKIP and the majority of the British press too. 

It's quite easy to see, when someone is faced with this level of emotional argument, and see a set of factors that are so clearly wrong and unjust, that they expect everyone else to see it too. I actually wonder why there wasn't more aggression and violence. But also, if you have been given this story, you would assume that once through the referendum, this horrible situation would be remedied quickly. No more EU, no more money paid, no more immigration, control back in your hands.

Unfortunately, they have been both badly let down, and badly lied to. Firstly, David Cameron has let down not only Leavers but everybody in the country. This referendum was only ever meant to kill off UKIP. There was never any intention within government that Remain would actually lose. For this reason, there was never any clarity or honesty as to what would happen if they did. The government didn't even make contingency plans for that outcome. Just imagine that, a government not planning for a possible outcome of a binary referendum. Leave was never on the cards. Why else do you think the PM immediately resigned?

The other effect of this is that there was never any clarity given on how we would or could leave and what leaving would free us from. Had government departments been allowed to work on both outcomes then a clear option would have been given. Stay, and you get A. Leave and you get B. Unfortunately, this was taken away from the electorate. Instead, the Vote Leave campaign, UKIP and press barons were allowed to fill the void where official government guidance should have been. 

A really good example of this is shown by the reaction to the court case last week. The legislation which allowed the referendum was quite clear that it was advisory. Any decision was always going to be subject to British laws and British government - in the shape of the houses of parliament. But if you have been told for three months - you, personally - that you were taking back control, wouldn't you be shocked to now hear that? I would be. 

But this belief that people were given, came quite clearly from UKIP, Vote Leave and the press. It is therefore not at all surprising that all of those bodies have immediately come out and attacked the judges and the law of this country. Not because they ever believed it. But because the alternative is that this raw emotion they have unleashed turns on them to hold them to account for selling them a fairytale. 

Indeed, the judges had not made any ruling on whether we could or couldn't or even should or shouldn't leave the EU. They were purely ruling to say that British Law must be followed. However, social media and the mainstream media were awash with this attempt to stop Brexit by these judges. Never mind the fact that reading of it is completely untrue - UKIP, The Daily Mail, The Express all presented it as an attempt BY THE JUDGES to stop Brexit. In fact, in ever more dangerous behaviour Nigel Farage has called on people to march on the Supreme Court. Because nothing says respect for the rule of law like attempting to intimidate judges. 

Of course, this is just one example where a lack of planning and honesty is going to cause problems. There was never any decision or agreement on whether we would have any future relationship with Europe at all. This was not covered in the referendum. We were given a binary choice between the status quo and whatever the Leave campaign wanted to sell us. So it is far from certain whether our final leaving deal will include: Trade tariffs, freedom of movement, single market access, accepting some European rules. But the Leave camp have already sold all of these things. Given the level of emotion they have plumbed and brought to the surface, this could lead to even greater anger in the future. 

If you voted or now want to Leave, I would not expect any other outcome. But it is time to look at what you have been sold, and whether you actually want it. And if you do, what should it look like? The problem is that other Leavers might have a different view from you. There is no way you can all be kept happy. So, you have every right to be angry. But be angry with David Cameron for making a mess of such an important democratic process. Be angry with those who have lied to you. But don't be angry with the courts. Once this is all over, it is likely they will be the only ones left to us. Do you really want to damage them to the point that they can no longer hold the government to account?

A heartfelt letter to Nicola Sturgeon

               It’s a funny old thing when you start writing a politics blog. I chose to do it entirely for my own interest and to get myself writing regularly. My original aim was to write semi-amusing articles that some people would like and some wouldn’t – and to deliver something every couple of weeks. I hadn’t realised that politics in the country would be turned on its head by a vote to leave the EU. I sat down last night and counted 15 separate topics I wanted to cover in separate blogs. It’s a funny old world sometimes. We now have a smirking Nigel Farage trying to destroy any goodwill remaining in the European Parliament, racism and xenophobia rampant on the streets, David Cameron resigning, looking less likely that we will actually Brexit every day, Boris Johnson not standing for PM (right now) and a thoroughly horrible coup in the Labour party threatening to rip the party apart. But there has remained one constant – Nicola Sturgeon would like to take Scotland out of the United Kingdom.

                

Dear Nicola Sturgeon MSP

             

               Firstly, well done to Scotland for voting to remain within the EU. This would have been my preferred outcome for the whole of the UK. Many people across the country are still reeling from that vote. The only thing that we can say with clarity because of that vote is that we are heading for a great deal of uncertainty. This uncertainty affects all of us – whether we are in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland or Gibraltar.

                The numbers in the vote were quite stark – and the differences between the countries marked. 1.6 million people voted to Remain across Scotland compared to 1 million people who wanted to Leave. That is a 62% remain vote within a turnout of about 67% (http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/upcoming-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/electorate-and-count-information) . A huge push for Remain. Whilst this was across the UK the biggest democratic exercise that has ever been performed (in terms of turnout) it wasn’t in Scotland. Many more Scots voted in the Independence referendum in 2014. Then you have another 1 million people voting.

                Obviously, we can’t know which way people voted in each referendum – whether people who wanted to stay in the UK wanted to also stay in the EU for example. I am not sure the data is readily available for that. But it is a desperate shame that we couldn’t get more EU remainers out to vote in Scotland. It could have had a big impact on the overall result. As it is such a low turnout in Scotland may have helped the Leave side – and forced you into considering a second referendum yourself.

                Although I say forced, I am not sure that is quite the correct word. You are after all the leader of the SNP. Your entire raison d’etre as a party is to take Scotland out of the UK. The party line following the defeat in the last independence referendum was that something would have to materially change to hold another one. This certainly seems to count. I can understand to some degree how you must have felt after that result – I am sure it was similar to how I felt this week. But here’s the thing – given the uncertainty can you be sure that is the right thing for Scotland?

                My often repeated views during the original referendum were quite simple – the case put forward for independence was pie in the sky and didn’t add up, and that we are all better being part of something bigger. That co-operation with others was always the best way to go. To not follow arguments that were purely nationalistic rather than actually good for the country. I would have argued until I was blue in the face that the people of Britain believed that. I would have argued that leaving to go it alone was an inherently more risky proposition for Scotland. I can see how some of those arguments have absolutely been holed below the waterline now.

                Of course at the time we had no idea what the Scotland Out campaign would really deliver. A manifesto that promised a government to be all things to all peoples was never going to wash. The fact that the manifesto was predicated on receipts from oil money that has largely dried up also now shows the wisdom of the Scottish voters in rejecting it (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/12052565/Independent-Scotland-would-be-bankrupt-and-appealing-to-IMF.html) . There seems to be an interesting learning from both referendums best summed up by Jamie Vardy – “Chat shit. Get Banged.”. If you try to sell the voters a clearly unreal picture they will rally against you. Of course in your case that was a picture of Scotland that could never come to pass. In the EU case that was a serious of threats to do horrible things to pensioners and the working class that no-one believed by George Osborne.

                I would imagine you have learned from that. I am sure there are some very clever election strategists working out how to avoid that pitfall. Maybe that would help in any future campaign to deliver the result that your party has been seeking for its entire life. Certainly it must be really tempting, whilst the rest of the UK and our politicians are looking the other way to try and push ahead with your agenda. Knowing they are out of the game whilst fighting within their party or negotiating with the EU would certainly make me go for an early referendum.

                But would that, right now, be in the best interests of Scotland or Scottish people? Or is your desire for independence at any cost clouding your judgement a little bit? Because to win a referendum you would have to change the minds of about half a million Scots – and if I may generalise for a moment – it is hard enough getting one Scot to change their minds once they have decided on something. Would using the fact that Scots want to be part of the EU be enough to change how voters would vote?

                Firstly, you would need a clear, realistic plan of what would happen if you left the UK. That needs to be clear from 2 points of view to win people over. One of those is that you would have to be clear what you are going to. If you ceded from the UK, what would that plan be – to immediately rejoin the EU? If so, you would need to be really clear the terms that would be on and get assurances from the EU on that. Do you think that is going to be, right now, a top priority for EU politicians? Never mind the fact that you would have Spain standing in your way at every step (because of their own Catalan separatists) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36656980)? So how quickly would you be able to do that? Also, given that the oil price has fallen off a cliff and doesn’t look like recovering the economic case this time round would be much weaker that isn’t helping your case.

                The other point of view is showing people what they are voting away from. As you have shown once simply answering “The English” to this question really isn’t enough. Whilst the Leave EU campaign managed to tap into people’s anger, you have failed to do that once. So what would you be taking people away from? The answer is that you simply can’t know. I get that neither would any Stay campaign – and from a political point of view that would possibly help you massively. But look inside yourself and be honest  - would that really be doing your best for the Scottish people as a whole? There still remains a possibility that a UK outside of the EU would be a good thing for Scotland. There also remains an increasing possibility that nobody will be brave enough to pull the trigger on Brexit – or as Leavers hoped – we end up with all the benefits and none of the costs.

                You simply can’t know. And so you would be asking the Scottish people to vote blind-folded, with one hand tied behind their backs on what would be right for them. Purely to achieve a vote for independence from something unknown and unknowable on the basis of nationalism. If you think you can live with that on your conscience, perhaps go and talk to David Cameron.

                I understand that the SNP will re-run this referendum time and again until it gets the right result. But please, do what is right for Scotland first and foremost, and wait until people can honestly know what they are voting for and against. Because voting in the absence of knowledge can often get you the wrong result.  

If Immigration is your answer, someone has given you the wrong question

                Well, there are only 3 weeks left (ish) until probably the biggest vote any of us able to vote will take for the next 50 years. The EU referendum. As a topic, for a lot of people the single biggest turn off since the first time they realised that their parents had sex. The reason for that disengagement is varied, and consists of several strands according to various insights and polls produced for our delectation. For some people it is a lack of hard facts, for others it is the language and behaviour of both sides of the argument – spurious figures, absolute certainties shared, fears mongered. There is also some concern over the topics that the debate seems to now centre on – immigration, the economy and control / democracy.

                Now this is only a little blog, so I am going to focus in on just one of these areas – and the one that still a lot of people feel uncomfortable talking about – immigration. It is probably the most pertinent and divisive of the areas. After all, where were all these democracy warriors when the referendum on proportional representation was happening? Probably best to set a few ground rules for myself though. Firstly, talking about immigration, and the volumes of immigration, and the process for managing immigration is NOT racist. Some views might be, but the subject itself isn’t. It worries a lot of people, and so is well worthy of consideration. Secondly, in any discussion about remain or leave there are a limited number of hard facts. There is only evidence and expectation, assessment and opinion. But where possible I will try to bring in what facts there are.

                A lot of the arguments about immigration really focus on one thing – the sheer VOLUME of inwards migration of people from Europe and our ability to control it to suit our needs. Indeed the UKIP Leader Nigel Farage has gone so far as to claim that Britain “is in the grip of an immigration crisis” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-34348834 ) and that we can’t do anything about it until we leave Europe – as they set our immigration policy. But we need to pick this apart in to chunks that we can consider, and see what stacks up.

                So, we should really look at whether immigration has increased to the UK firstly, and whether Britain is particularly special in this. Next we need to define what a crisis would be and whether what we are experiencing is one, and if we are, is it being caused by immigration. Finally, we should look at specifically the impact of Europe on that migration level, and whether leaving the EU would help.

                So, is immigration higher now than historically? Well, almost certainly. Various studies have been done on long term trends on migration. Just between 1960 and 2000 the growth in the number of people living outside of their birth country is 100 million. That is 100 million more migrants in just 40 years (http://www.jstor.org/stable/27645348?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ). Clearly, that is a huge amount. But is this particularly surprising? Simply factoring in advances in travel, our economies (and how we work) and the increase in the middle class, you would expect more people to be living, working and settling overseas. So it is not unfair to say that we are seeing more immigration now than before. But this is part of a global trend. The problem with trying to put barriers in place for inwards migration is that those same barriers then go up for outward migration too.

                Are we taking the brunt of this immigration (from a European perspective) in the UK? Certainly there has been an ongoing attempt by the media to create a “moral panic” about Eastern European flooding to the UK to either steal our low paid jobs or live off our benefits system (or from some people, confusingly, live off our benefits AND steal our jobs). Actually, when we look across Europe we are pretty much middle of the pack in how many immigrants we have living in our country. This graph is from 2009, but is a good indication:

( http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/07/immigration-europe-foreign-citizens ). So whilst the overall average level for the EU is 6.4%, for us it is 6.6%. Hardly evidence that we are an outlier in this case.

                Still, size isn’t everything. It is still possible this is a crisis. What should really decide that is the impact it has on the receiving country. So even though we are not receiving lots more immigrants than other countries it is how they are affecting the indigenous populations that can really have costs (and in some cases benefits). In fact the official Vote Leave campaign points out two areas in particular – the  NHS and schools ( http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/our_case ). But also in other areas people genuinely have concerns – availability of housing, access to jobs and the impact on our culture. All of these have been raised as problems of uncontrolled immigration.

                It is a quite simple supply / demand question. You have to do one of two things - either increase supply or reduce demand. "Get control of our borders" rhetoric is about a belief that you can reduce demand (but there are strong arguments it wouldn't have any impact). The alternative is to increase supply of all of these things.

1) The majority view of experts is that just in order to stand still in terms of housing we need to build 250,000 new homes each year. No government has achieved that since 1980. In fact, since the economic crisis in 2008 housebuilding has tanked (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building table 211). And I am not suggesting we concrete over the green belt – there are £12 BILLION of empty homes in the North West alone (http://www.mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/070811937-housing-crisis-%C2%A312billion-worth-homes-lie-empty-across-north-west-according-report )

2) When the last coalition government had an opportunity to secure the NHS and pump extra money in, they instead pushed ahead with a costly top-down re-organisation. One which makes the NHS much more privatisation-ready. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31145600 )

3) LAs are no longer allowed to open new schools where they are needed - these can only be opened at the mercy of the open access academy system. This is purely to break the link between those dangerous left wing county councils and school leadership.

4) LA funding and social services funding has been strangled on the back of an austerity drive which has ADDED to the national debt, not taken away from it.

5) We are currently told by the government that we have the lowest unemployment figures in a long time at 5.1% and holding (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36320028 ).

So really, this crisis is not one made from too much demand, but one created by too little supply. Quite simply, our governments have created this issue. And migrants are a handy scapegoat for us to blame. Of course, all of these things have to be paid for, and have a cost to the economy too. How can we do that?

Well, migrants are actually net CONTRIBUTORS to our economy (http://www.cityam.com/213058/eu-immigrants-contribute-463-second-uk-economy ) – in other words having migrants actually means we have more money to pay for services even after taking account of the cost of providing services and benefits to them. Where has this extra money gone? Over the period of tory-imposed austerity that has led to many of these cuts the government have managed to find the space to cut corporation tax to 18% - even though there is zero evidence base this brings more companies and employment. The real pressure on services has been created by the recent governments this country has had – none more so than the coalition and current governments. I don’t deny that there are crises in all of these areas – but the cause is much closer to home.

So, a fairly fact informed consideration of immigration (I hope) and we haven’t yet mentioned EU Brexit OR been racist (I REALLY hope). We should probably turn to one of those two topics now – Brexit. How much of our immigration comes from within the EU as part of freedom of movement rules? Again, trying to arm ourselves with the best facts available, the ONS reckons that EU migration makes up less than half of our inwards migration (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/may2016 ). Not only that but MORE of the EU citizens coming here have definite jobs to go to than ever before (about 60%). So most of our migration comes from outside the EU, and those from within the EU come here with definite jobs. So if we could stop EU immigration we would only be stopping half of the inflow – and a half with a good track record of helping our economy.

Maybe that would be enough? Perhaps cutting immigration in half would allow our underfunded services to get back to an even keel over time, house building could pick up etc. Well, there are still a couple of major challenges with that suggestion.

The first is that a lot of those services (particularly the NHS) rely on European immigrants to fulfil their staffing requirements (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/26/nhs-foreign-nationals-immigration-health-service ). A lot of other areas do too – construction being another. Not a great idea when you are trying to increase housebuilding.

The second problem is that leaving the EU does not guarantee that we would be able to refuse rules on freedom of movement if we wanted to trade with Europe. All of their other local trading partners who are NOT members of the EU have had this stipulation placed on them. It is almost certainly one that the EU would place on us too. So Brexit would not in any way guarantee us the ability to stop EU migrants, whilst at the same time carrying lots of other risks. Quite simply, Brexit do not know what would happen with free movement of Labour.

So, there you have it then. It is not racist to be worried about the crises in public services, in housing and in jobs. The problem is that you have been given the wrong cause of the problem by political parties and media alike. It is much easier for you to be told the problem is economic migrants (and by extension the EU). Actually, the problem has been our own leaders. So if you are still not sure which way to vote (and that will be many people given the way the campaigns have run) do think carefully. But do one thing right – don’t make your decision based on immigration. It is the wrong argument to be focussed on.