Liberal Democracy in Britain — now is the hour

     I spent my life assuming that the Liberal Party (becoming in time the LibDems) was my natural political home. But I was thinking of Gladstone, Asquith, and Lloyd George; thinking of a liberalism that extended the franchise, gave home rule to Ireland, massively taxed the landed magnates, introduced pensions and a heath service, and weakened the privileges of the House of Lords. I was taken with the idea that Liberals commanded the moral high-ground, unique in British politics and perhaps in world politics in that they fought not for their own pockets, but for other people's welfare, people less privileged than themselves. Liberalism was much more than laissez-faire free markets. 

     I trusted that Liberal policies would be well considered, and costed; by philosophers and economists. As I have grown older I have begun to doubt that superior moral and intellectual underpinning, and realise now that I have to do some radical thinking myself. I cannot rely on the Party line, but must shoulder my share of responsibility in forming the Party line. We must not let the LibDem label signify an empty reluctance to hold an opinion.

     I was brought up to the typically British notion that we have little or nothing to learn from other countries. It was a shock to find that, back in the seventies and early eighties, Germany and Scandinavia had already legislated for worker participation (Mitbestimmung, q.v.). More recently I came across the concept of Ordoliberalismus (q.v.), which emphasises the role of the state in actively ensuring that the free market produces results close to its theoretical potential. Germany evolved this vision back in the fifties; we seem not to have fully grasped it yet. 

     We have become mesmerized by the USA. There is the facile and lazy assumption that whatever works in the USA will work here, so we build shopping malls and BurgerKings, and watch Hollywood films, and abandon the adverb. But the USA has as maniacal a fear of socialism and trade unions as it has a love of firearms. Have we not yet grasped that we are different? We (I speak for myself and surely for many millions) are nearer to Europe than to the USA, geographically, climatically, emotionally, historically. 

     I think Capitalism is too rampant, in the UK. Are the current LibDems going to do anything about super-tax, wealth tax, off-shore accounts, money laundering, green energy, worker participation on boards of large and medium companies, curbing director salaries, reviewing student fees, and local government funding? If we stay in Europe have the LibDems got any policies to ameliorate real defects of the Europe project or to improve the way Europe is?
     In the history of the LibDem party this is a crucial 15 days. If we want to vote against the chaos of Brexit, we may have to vote with Labour in certain marginal constituencies. It would be an absurd vanity to expect a labour candidate to stand aside for a LibDem candidate if they are polling far more strongly. (In some few constituencies it should be the labour that steps aside.) 
     There will never be any future for the LibDems, and no proportional representation, till that is grasped. But absurd vanity seems to exist. Oh dear!

--

Ian West, 9 Thenford road, Middleton Cheney, Banbury, 

Why not a Second Referendum?

I suggest something like the following, bearing in mind:

[a]. The question is “What is the best for the country?”,  not “What do I want?”. There is only one “best for the country”.

[b]. This whole exercise needs more spirit of compromise. Think before you cast your vote “What if one option is clearly unpopular? Then why vote for it?"

*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&

We suggest the following as a way forward that might appeal to a majority of MPs and be ‘fair’. Voters are to be encouraged to a spirit of compromise, and to reflect on what is best for the country and fellow citizens rather than the outcome that suits them personally.

[1]   It is widely understood and accepted that Westminster Parliament is sovereign in the United Kingdom, as established in 1649. The Queen and her ministers play an executive role that must ultimately be reversible by Parliament. Parliamentary (i.e. representative) democracy must trump plebiscites or referendums. Referendums are useful as ‘straw-polls to test the weather'.

[2]   It has been argued that the 2016 referendum did not specify sufficiently the terms of exit that would emerge if the country sought to leave the EU. Further, it was not made sufficiently clear to the public that the 2016 referendum was advisory not definitive. Further, there were electoral rules broken. There can be delay and expense but no affront to democracy in asking for another referendum. (The Swiss have frequent advisory referendums; 3 were held in the first 5 months of 2019.) 

[3]   We therefore suggest asking the EU for a 6 month extension (or an indefinite revoking of Article 50), in order to run the following referendum:

[a] UK voters to vote for one only of the following three options:

[i]  Remain in the EU with full existing rights, exemptions, rebates and duties. 

[ii] Leave the EU on Theresa May terms (*One-off divorce bill of 39B£, respect EU-citizen rights reciprocally, transition period, UK leaves Single Market, and Customs Union, and EU institutions, but Northern Ireland stays in the Customs Union if Britain diverges.)

[iii] Great Britain leaves the EU without a deal in place, without a transition period, but presumably with the ability to make deals in the future without prejudice. A hard border is created in Ireland with immediate effect. 

[b] In the event that no single one of the three options exceeds any other by at least 1% of the votes cast the default position is that we retain our present EU membership with full existing rights, exemptions, rebates and duties, as there being insufficient justification for massive upheaval.

. 

[4]   Parliament will be expected, but is not bound, to endorse and enact the result of this referendum.

(*I have not found it easy to find a clear statement of Theresa May’s deal. Something like this would need to be on the ballot-paper)

---

Ian West
9 Thenford Road, Middleton Cheney,
BANBURY, OX17 2NB,

Brexit conciliation

The question of Brexit has proved very divisive and damaging to that feeling of unity and common purpose that carries a country towards progress. There seem to be two 'nations' living in one country, drawing apart in order to vilify each other. Most of the comment on social media is distastefully vituperative, scoffing, and exaggerated. Few participants seem to be aware that they will eventually have to settle down next to their fuming and mud-bespattered targets, to resume normal life; buying, selling, helping and being helped.

I am myself a natural Europhile, looking a little into the workings of the Union, at the Court, Council, Commission, Parliament, and Bank; wondering who was trying to improve its weaknesses; but generally pleased with its success in transforming and strengthening the Europe of which we are geographically and inevitably a part.

I noted two of today's tweets. Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) bemoaned the lack of conversation and compromise, and asked whether Remainers had a plan for winning over people who voted Leave. Guy Dorrell (@guydorrell1), however, thought that the UK was now #Remain, what with the exploding of the £350m lie, and the introduction of 3-years' worth of fresh young voters since the 2016 referendum, not to mention unease about #darkmoney. No need, he thought, to change the minds of the ideologues. For Guy Dorrell, it would be enough to swing the opinion in the country to 51% remain:49% leave. It seems he would happily ignore the disappointed 16 million, but of course that would leave the country just as riven as at present, but heading in the opposite direction. Ash Sarkar (and I) would prefer a route that could be chosen by most or all of our 46 million electorate.

In the spirit of compromise and conciliation I tried to draft a few 'tweets' that might bridge the divide.
1. The idea that leaving the EU would save us £350m a week turns out to have been a deliberate lie; the truth is complex, what with Thatcher-rebates, EU-funded projects, grants, and collaborative research. Britain does make a small net contribution as Britain is of above-average wealth, but the intangible benefit is in bringing Europe towards a common standard; it is a laudable objective and it applies as much to Cornwall and the Scottish Highlands as it does to Romania.
2. We want the UK to benefit financially from the Common Market, buying and selling across frictionless borders. So, why choose to leave the EU table and lose the moderate degree of control that we are accorded by being a moderately large and moderately wealthy component of the EU?
3. We democratically elect members to the European Parliament, and this country elects its own representatives to Council and Commission. In terms of 'democratic control', the EU is not greatly different from our own government.
4. How could abandoning the regulations imposed by the EU benefit our citizens? That would likely lead to lowered standards of quality, and worker-welfare. It might enrich businesses, but impoverish our citizens.
5. UK retains sovereignty as long as, in the last resort, it can leave the EU. It has become clear that negotiating a sensible and orderly Brexit will require far longer that 2 years, even if we were all pulling in the same direction, and with enthusiasm. Nor is there a need for desperate haste, except in the minds of parliamentarians elected for 4-years.
6. Which of us realised that Brexit would mean severing Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom (leading maybe to a united Ireland)? It might be good for some and bad for others; but it was completely unforeseen.

Would it not be a sensible compromise to delay Brexit for 2 - 5 years, to let Parliament and the Civil Service think more about these complex issues, work out the costs and the benefits, and a plan of action?

An historian's view of Brexit.

The many views on Brexit.

    When the dust has settled, historians will begin to study and debate what happened in the momentous years 2016 — 2019, when parties, elites, and families in Britain were torn apart by the question of whether or not to pull out of the European Union.

    The referendum forced us into two great camps: that of 'Leavers', and 'Remainers'. But in truth there are many little camps, all rather isolated from each other, and in many cases having little internal communication either. (In pubs and cafés, talking about Brexit is taboo for it is easy to cause offence; and pointless anyway, because it is impossible to sway minds. Apart from family and a handful of journalists and politicians, I know few who think as I do. I would love there to be a Remainer's café where I could hang out and discuss strategy.)

    Eventually a party will have to form, a coalescence of groups supporting a single course of action. In the meantime some think Brexit will make them better off, others think the opposite; some would cosy up to USA, others prefer Europe; some think that Britain can make better laws on its own, others that EU laws are better. 

    Let me try and define your particular group. Perhaps:

(1)  You wish to achieve maximum national and personal sovereignty, trading as and when circumstances allow, but contributing as little as possible to world peace, stability, or culture: "little Englanders".  (Perhaps Rees-Mogg?)

(2)  Or you want to "take back control", mistakenly believing that the European Court consistently or repeated over-ruled British laws (actually 72 times out of 34,000 and in those cases on good grounds http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP10-62/RP10-62.pdf)

(3)  Perhaps you prefer an alignment with the USA, to one with the EU (dominated as it is by Germany and France), perhaps on the grounds that the USA and UK share a common language.

(4)  Perhaps you think Brexit will allow Britain to trade freely, and gain an advantage over others by lowering standards or loosening restrictions. (Perhaps David Davis?)

(5)  Perhaps you think that Brexit could be a ticket to leadership of the Tory party. (Perhaps Boris Johnson?)

(6)  Perhaps you acknowledge that Brexit looks bad commercially, but believe that it is the duty of Government to deliver a form of Brexit that few (or no-one) voted for. (Perhaps Thersesa May?)

(7)  Perhaps you think that Britain is not ready for the degree of monetary and political integration that is the trend in Brussels, but would nevertheless vote Remain to retain our present position at the European table. (Perhaps George Monbiot.)

(8)  Or you know about the Erasmus scheme and think that Britain benefits financially and culturally from the EU, and you welcome both the supply of labour from the East and the meticulous law-making of 'Benelux'.

(9)  Perhaps you voted remain because you see a united Europe as a potential superpower more akin to British tastes and interests than the combative, exploitative, and increasingly isolated USA. 

(10) There will be those who see Britain as being (for at least the last 1,000 years) consistently and essentially a part of Europe, sharing its history, culture, religion, fighting its wars, exchanging monarchs, migrants and refugees, skills, trades, diseases. Admittedly, this point of view might be restricted to those who speak Latin or two or more of the core European languages. But Kings William I to Henry IV spoke French, while George I & George II spoke German by choice, even if you did not know that; and most of our Kings had a European mother.

    If I have not grasped your position on Europe I would be most grateful if you would tell me, so I can add it to my list. 

--
Cawstein: cawstein@gmail.com 

Should Parliament decide, or "the people"?

Dear  Member of Parliament,

     It is not my position — “that it should be the people, not the politicians, who decide on Brexit.”  After the fateful referendum of June 2016 it did seem, for a while, that the only way to overturn a plebiscite, might be another plebiscite; that the only way to stop Brexit might be to ask "the people” again, in the hope that some had changed their minds. It is a shallow piece of nonsense to pretend that it would be “disrespectful" to ask a second time; flattering rather. But (I think) it was a mistake  in the first place, and it would be a risky gamble to ask the people to vote again on the same question – 'in' or 'out'. But there are other questions.

    If there were to be another referendum, I am beginning to think that my favoured question would be something like: “Should the question of Britain remaining in (or leaving) the European Union be decided by Parliament, or by Referendum?”  I would hope that some voters might have concluded that there is necessary information that they lack; and a responsibility that they are unprepared for. 

    I do believe in (representative) democracy —  as the least bad form of government, and on matters of morality; but not on matters of fact.  I would not try to determine the population of France or the GDP of Germany by asking the electorate.  The butler Stevens, in Ishiguro’s “Remains of the Day”, was asked by a sneering house guest if it was his opinion that Britain should raise or lower bank rate; he wisely answered that it was not his place to have an opinion on that matter. Nor would it be my place to decide that; the best we can do is to elect an honest banker.

    I thought John Major spoke well this morning (19th Jan) on BBC radio 4, advocating a series of ‘free’ votes in the House of Commons.

   Yours sincerely, Ian West

(Middleton Cheney, South Northamptonshire)

Another Public Meeting on Brexit?

Another Public Meeting on Brexit?

Dear Tommy Gilchrist,

    Thank you (and Andrea Leadsom) for inviting me to attend your public meeting on 25th Jan. I would have come, but once again travelling abroad prevents me; I fly that morning. 

    Two years ago, I joined Varoufakis and advocated a Norway-style arrangement that would cost, but might last 10 years while we sorted things out. I still advocate that. 

    The next best option might be a second referendum, though there are arguments against.  Of the various sound reasons for avoiding (if possible) a second referendum (what of the cost? should we ask the public their views when they do not even know how the EU parliament is elected, nor its function? what if it has a different result on a smaller turnout?  what is the question? what about having a third, and a forth?), reaching from the sensible to the ludicrous, the one argument that is unacceptably illogical is to say that it is an offence against democracy and an insult to the public to ignore the first referendum. It IS democracy to have another referendum. We have all-but established that the public was both ill-informed and mis-informed at the 2016 referendum, and electoral rules were broken. Two years is a long time. Anyway, the 2016 was itself the second referendum on this topic. 

    The ‘May deal’ seems worse than the above two options. (The Irish problem is geometrically insoluble — a border between UK and EU, but not between Eire/NI/GB). And to sidle up to Europe for frictionless trade but with no say in the rules seems semi-daft. 

    The handling of this affair (both the enthusiastic widening of Europe, and the subsequent ill-informed panic) shows up the British Parliamentary system as weak. The Labour Party has spent 2 years manoeuvring to overthrow Tory austerity; they are neither united, nor interested in Brexit. There has still not been a debate in Parliament on the issues involved. Why? Fear of the result? And anyway, Parliament is not representative. 

    Yours sincerely, Cawstein

---

9 Thenford Road, Middleton Cheney,
BANBURY, OX17 2NB,

Leadsom's Towcester Meeting

Dear Emily Hall,

Thank you for the invitation to attend Andrea Leadsom's meeting on 8th December. I am currently in Mexico, and it would be impractical. Sorry.

My views:

(1)  for complete separation, the task for the civil service seem essentially impossible inside 2 years. Five would be more realistic, or 10.

(2)  a solution to the Irish border seems almost impossible, except that of UK staying inside an EU-compatible customs union.

(3)  to maintain trading access to EU we must maintain EU standards, which in any case suit the British preference for safety, and the environment. 

(4)  we have already lost the medicines agency, and banking authority. We must clearly brace ourselves to lose remaining vestiges of influence in the world's second largest trading and cultural block as we press on out of the EU.

(5)  I THEREFORE FAVOUR A NORWEGIAN TYPE RELATIONSHIP WHERE WE PAY WHAT IS NECESSARY TO RETAIN THE ACCESS WE NEED AND WANT. At least for 5 years.

Yours sincerely, 

To Andrea Leadsom, MP

Dear Andrea Leadsom,

You are my MP; you represent me in Parliament. 

I believe that M. Barnier has just put the crucial question in a concise form. Yesterday (20th November), Barnier said: 

“The UK has chosen to leave the EU. Does it want to stay close to the European model or does it want to gradually move away from it? The UK’s reply to this question will be important and even decisive….”. 

That is it in a nutshell. I want regulation and high standards. What do you want? What does Britain want?

According to a good piece in the Guardian, Peter Mandelson added 

that many Brexiters would be “very happy for the UK to become a regulatory satellite of the US”, while “some in the present cabinet barely know what a trade negotiation is, let alone why it is desirable”.

Where do you stand? Close to the USA, or close to Europe?

Yours sincerely, etc.

Yanis, and DiEM25

Dear Yanis, and DiEM25,

     A year and a half ago, the launching of DiEM filled me with hope, particularly in the context of the British referendum. Since then DiEM25 seems to have slipped off the main stage, which is a pity. I wish I could help it re-find its momentum.

    One way of seeing the problem is when we hear Yanis Varoufakis describe his confrontations with the central powers of the EU. They met, talked, listened. He left. They did nothing. My first analysis was that they did not understand. Indeed, I found it very hard to repeat the argument to myself;  about how it is all Germany's fault, so stubbornly bent on recycling money so that the Greeks can go on buying Mercedes cars. My second analysis is that Yanis does not understand. Oh yes, he understands the  economics; but the crux, the movable fulcrum, the point in the argument against which a popular movement might push and win — has he identified that? 

    Martin West thinks the single currency is a mistake. No single interest rate can suit both Germany and Greece. Put another way: how does it work in the USA, and how can Ecuador and the USA both use the same currency?  I believe there is an understanding in the USA that federal money must be returned to poor states if they are going to be kept in the union. I do not know how. There may, in that complex and subtle constitution, be a degree of political integration that is still missing in Europe. Or is it just the common language? But perhaps we do agree that something needs to be done about the Euro Currency Union.  

     Yanis Varoufakis suggests there is a democratic deficit? Before the Brexit Referendum, that sounded like a promising slogan, but we now see what a mess is made if complex issues are decided by simple people. It is not obvious to me that it is democracy that we lack. I believe it is education.  

     Can Europe be 'cured' by allowing more power to the EU parliament?  I doubt it. Or by curbing the EU civil service? Possibly. But we have to recognize that the origin of the EU depended on the dreams of a very few people; integrated Europe is not the product of a popular dream. Only by imbedding the guiding force in a hidden and inaccessible committee was it possible to get the project of a united and inter-dependent Europe off the ground.  It is true that we pay lip service to democracy, but I doubt we really believe in it, except to rally forces against flagrant corruption. I do not think we are quite there yet; I mean the corruption is not flagrant enough; people are not convinced that revolution would improve their situation. 

     I think the Pro-Europe lobby finds its greatest traction at present by showing that the EU is protecting workers rights, clean beaches, fish-stocks and, by instituting uniform production standards, is allowing economies of scale. These are the tangible and practical benefits of integration. For me, and for a considerable fraction of Europeans, there is some appeal in the thought that United Europe could be (would be) a great power. Britain being part of Europe would allow Britain to effect some control in world affairs.

     Arguably the most depressing sign at present is the resurgence of nationalism. The British seem to think they are special (which may be true), but special in a ‘good’ way; this, to any travelled person is clearly a delusion. 

     Yanis Varoufakis believes that right-minded people will spontaneously support socialism. In Britain, they do not; or they are too few. He suggested that all businesses subvert a fraction of their profits towards the public purse, to illustrate the principle that wealth is generated by a combination of capital and labour**. That suggestion sounds drastic and risky, and unlikely to garner mass public support. (Though admittedly, it is little different from our widely accepted but as widely resented corporation tax.) 

    But thank you DiEM25; please keep the ideas coming.

    Yours sincerely, Ian West

(**capital and labour — See http://occidentis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/pre-distribution.html)

Nostalgia and Brexit

Nostalgia and Brexit

Nostalgia: “The pain of homesickness”

     I love words and was delighted to learn, recently, that the word ’Nostalgia’ means ‘homesickness’. It is a word concocted around 1688 from the Greek ‘nostos’ = returning home, and ‘algos’ = pain (c.f. neuralgia), to describe “severe homesickness treated as a disease; occasionally with fatal outcome”.

     I had an ‘aperçu’ in the middle of the night, as follows. I watched a film in bed, and my last few wakeful minutes conceived a romanticised image of coal miners in 1970 issuing from their mine at the end of the working day; grimy, tired, cheerful and fulfilled. I woke from a dream with the realization that this type of work is a thing of the past; as dated as horse-drawn vehicles. There are in Britain many thousands of people who, in the seventies, would have felt the cheerful exhaustion of manual work but who now find themselves unskilled for the present, and gloomy about the future. From 1800 to 1950 the North of England was the powerhouse of our economy. You could almost say it was the workshop-of-the-world, as they build railways for Argentine, and wove cotton saris for India.

     That glory has gone. They are left with their allotments, leeks and whippets, watching the Eastern Europeans come over to pick our carrots and mend our ball-valves. We have witnessed in a shockingly short time the redundancy of a whole social class. Could that be the real cause of the startling outcome of the Brexit referendum, at least in the north of England?  

The loss of status.

     There were two quite different reasons for voting “Leave”; but both can be described as nostalgia for lost status.

     I doubt the ‘manual working classes’ ever thought themselves to be ‘as good as’ the landowners, or factory owners. But they could justifiably think of themselves as ‘utterly essential’ to society; and even (with justification) as ‘carrying the whole of society on their shoulders'. Who, after all, sowed, reaped, and milled the corn, who built the houses, mined the coal? Not the vicar, nor the squire nor the school teacher. Nobody needed to feel equal, because everybody knew they were all family. Today we import much of our food, and 65% of our cars (Of the 2.4 million cars sold in UK in 2015, 35% were made here). Unemployment, at 5%, is not that different from the seventies, and is much less than in the eighties. So there are jobs; but it is not men’s work.  A degree of nostalgia for the lost status of ‘the manual worker’ is very understandable.  

     However, I meet many who admit to voting “Leave”, but who never were employed in manual work, and whose jobs are not remotely under threat from abroad. So they do not fall in that category, and are not nostalgic for a vanished personal status.  Nevertheless, I find that they also are yearning for a bygone era. Someone talked of ‘cricket on the green’, someone else wanted to revive trade with the ‘Commonwealth’. I sense, in this second category of leavers, a nostalgia for the time when this country was know (officially and throughout the world) as Great Britain. 

    

Is this the real Brexit mindset — a desire to restore the fifties, and sixties?  

     Those who voted to leave unified Europe may have made some canny calculations about wages, or realized that we are already severely overcrowded on this little island. But I doubt it. There may be incisive reasons for exit. But I do not hear them. Most ‘Leavers’, though now a little subdued, as they begin to realize the giant task ahead, still re-affirm their commitment to leaving. For them, there never was a reason for leaving, just an emotion. 

The Future

     Whatever the terms of Brexit and whatever the rôle of Britain in the next 20 years, it will NOT be as it was in the fifties, sixties and seventies.