Just a Brexity train of thought.

Waking up Monday morning I couldn’t help but be impressed by an almost overwhelming sense of inevitability. It had to be this way; there is no other way this could have played out. From the referendum campaign itself, through a parliament sapped of it’s potency to Nigel faux-rage’s bloated, flatulent face emblazoned on every TV screen following the Brexit Party’s success at the European elections; It all feels like it was set in stone the moment Cameron promised that referendum.

The debate on which the referendum hung was really the same problem Liberal Democracies have struggled with since their conception; that of the ‘social contract’. The debate was between liberty and security. So, obviously in the age of social media where every message is simultaneously simplified and amplified the battle became unicorns vs project fear. And of course the positive vision of unicorns marginally won out.

The irony here is that a no-deal Brexit will certainly diminish our liberty. Let me put it to you this way: who has more freedom, the person in full-time work or the person on Jobseeker’s Allowance? True enough when you’re unemployed you can do what you like with your time but your options are severely limited by your lack of cash. This is why we sell our labour/time. We give away a portion of our sovereignty (the ability to spend our time between 9am and 5pm each day however we wish) in order to gain more options and thus greater freedom. Likewise, we club together with the European Union, that is give away a portion of our sovereignty, in order to gain greater freedom through the security this provides. But I digress.

The unicorns won and from then on the causal chain became clear; Cameron quit, The PLP declared war on it’s members, whipped on by the press May called her election and promptly lost her majority. Factions within the parties gained more power and parliament was effectively neutered, incapable of achieving anything. European elections come round and through frustration alone nasty Nigel winds up on my TV set grinning inanely.

The fallout of these elections, the analysis and the framing of the narrative is ongoing. Brexiteers will point to flatulent Faux-rage’s success, remainers will add up all the remain party votes and declare victory. The Centrist dads will bemoan the lack of a ‘moderate’ leader to rally around blissfully ignorant of the fact that the two main parties’ approach to Brexit has come entirely from the Centrist playbook.

The truth is the centre ground is a barren wilderness now, nothing can grow there and the polarisation is set to continue. The tories will install BoJo and in response Labour will swing behind a second referendum and this, this in itself might just coax the tories out to call a general election. Buckle up boys the culture war has only just begun...

Revoke And Rebuild

Another Week, another demonstration of this parliament’s complete inability to resolve Brexit. Indicative votes indicated Parliament has no particular preference and MV 2.5 revealed nothing but the Moral paucity of the principal Brexit cheerleaders.So, where do we go from here? More indicative votes are tabled for Monday and  a possible return of the meaningful vote for a fourth time. More of the same and most likely more of the same result. Like sisyphus, parliament will continue to push that boulder up the hill only to watch it come crashing back down.  Fact of the matter is, no matter how you split it or spin it the parliamentary arithmetic just will not add up. As parliament continues to demonstrate it’s continual dysfunction, every day more and more Labour voices will call for a General Election to break the impasse, and as that throng of voices gets louder it may just happen. I just have one question… Going into a General Election what will Labour’s Brexit position be?

On Sunday Tom Watson took to the pages of the Guardian to extol the virtues of a negotiate and ratify position. Watson argues ‘ Labour should embrace European elections just as we should welcome a general election that might get rid of this broken government. If we go into either contest with a positive policy on Brexit and say any final deal must be put back to the people, I am confident Labour can win.’  Personally, I think this is a risky strategy.

In any forthcoming election the Tories will undoubtedly paint a re-negotiate and ratify position as fundamentally duplicitous. That is, they will portray calls for a second referendum as a trick designed to frustrate the will of the people and overturn the original referendum result. At the same time Ummuna’s Change UK will question Labour’s commitment to a second referendum pointing to the reluctance of the front bench to take any kind of principled policy position on Brexit outside of vague obfuscations. As a result, Labour risks bleeding support to both a  resurgent UKIP and the newly formed Change UK forging a base of FBPE Centrist Dad types.

Furthermore, it’s a risk to assume that remain would win in any forthcoming referendum. In the ‘Politics’ Aristotle points out that there is a serious problem with direct democracy in fundamentally unequal societies. Namely, that in unequal societies those at the wrong end of the inequality gap (i.e most people) won’t vote for the public good but will instead vote for what they perceive to be their narrow self interest. At the 2016 referendum millions of people saw their narrow self-interest aligned with giving the establishment a damn good kicking. Since nothing has been done to address the inequality that led to the Brexit vote it would be both incredibly vain and incredibly naive to assume a different result this time around.

Rather, it seems to me Labour would be better promising to ‘revoke and rebuild’ in any future manifesto. There are several advantages to this position. First, it would effectively neuter Change UK. Second, it will negate the Tory attack line of duplicitousness- Labour will be open and honest about its aims. And Finally, it switches the focus of any election away from Brexit and onto  a positive vision of Britain’s future. The argument for ‘Revoke and Rebuild’ is actually shockingly easy to make and it runs as follows:      

We have spent the last three years debating, pontificating and fighting and we haven’t even figured out which is the best route to the door. During that time we’ve had Windrush and Grenfell, we’ve seen our NHS, our Schools and our Local services starved of resources. We’ve seen Knife crime rocket as Police numbers and social services funding are slashed. We’ve seen our high streets decimated, private debt rise and rise and rise, House prices, rent and amenities rocketing, likewise the growth of precarious work, depressed wages and the roll out of a benefits system so unfit for purpose it has been condemned by the UN. All of these things could have been, more, should have been dealt with but instead all of government’s time and resources have been completely consumed chasing the impossible. Voting for May’s Withdrawal agreement or even leaving without a deal does not signal an end to the Brexit saga rather it just prolongs it further. A vote for the Conservatives now just means another five years where all of Government’s time and resources will be consumed trying to negotiate new trade deals from a position of weakness and desperation. Five more years, where the problems this country face will be neglected. Seriously, do you really want five more years of this?