Brexit

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State Visit and Brexit

You have to have sympathy for Mrs May. She probably has two in-trays, one, and by far the biggest, how to make Brexit work and second, everything else. Given this you might think it is not surprising that she drops the occasional diplomatic clanger.

The decision to extend an invitation for a State visit to President Trump is clearly a mistake. Rattled by the public outcry Downing Street’s initial response seemed to be “it wasn’t us”. There was the “clarification” of the process whereby invitations are proposed alluding to a some arcane Committee which no one had ever heard of as if it had come up with a proposal which Mrs May had just accepted. This was so obviously incredible no one really pushed it. According to all reports, Mrs May’s faults do not include a failure to attend to detail. The idea one of the UK’s most powerful weapons in the arsenal of soft power would be deployed without her specific proposal much less considered approval is laughable.

The question then arises about why do it so early in Trump’s presidency. Yes Mr Trump was elected and yes he is now the leader of the most powerful nation in the world but why offer him the star prize this early in his Presidency. Usually this is something that happens a couple of year in. Mrs May seems to have gone a lot further than most British leaders on the first date. Well beyond holding hands.

It could be that no one in her team appreciated how unacceptably President Trump could behave. This seems unlikely. Whilst his capacity to shock is undiminished his ability to surprise is long past. His demeanour is boorish, his attitude to almost every minority, and some majorities, is appalling and his politics are vile. All of this is clear and has been so for some time.

He is, non the less, the democratically elected leader of the US and it is a key part of the job description of the UK Prime Minister to establish a professional and friendly relationship with the “leader of the free world”.  With everything that was known before the visit however you might have thought the emphasis, at this early stage, would be on establishing a professional relationship. Friendship, might have been seen as a future goal, growing out of cordial in the fullness of time.

The fact Mrs May had forewarning of the ban on immigration makes things even more puzzling. She was not ambushed in the Turkish press conference, she and her advisors had plenty of time to think about this. Something which the majority of our allies responded to in clear and unambiguous terms almost immediately was given a straight bat in Turkey.

Unfortunately, she has now painted herself into a corner where there is no good move. She sticks with the invitation and risks a visit marred by demonstrations or withdraws it and upsets the biggest toddler on the planet who will scream and scream and scream.

But why? How has someone who was selected precisely because she was seen as a safe pair of hands arrived at this pass? I started this piece speculating about Mrs May having two in-trays. Of course that is not true. There is only one and it is Brexit. Her place in history will be defined by Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. To make this a success is probably Mission Impossible but to prevent it being an unmitigated disaster hard Brexit requires alternative trading agreement being put in place and in record time.

Could it be that the need to make early progress on a trade deal with the United States blinded Mrs May to all the risks in developing a close relationship with President Trump? Perhaps. It is impossible to know from outside. What is clear is that it has not been Mrs May’s best moment so far and it has created an issue which has a long way to run. More significantly it betrays a failure to appreciate quite what a challenge President Trump represents. With him politics has shifted gear and the existing political elites are struggling to come to terms with this. They need to and fast.

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Brexit means…?

Mrs May’s axiomatic definition reassured many after the referendum. For some it was a clear statement of a withdrawal from Europe and all its works, for some it was a democrat’s recognition of the will of the people, and for some there was room for hope about how terms would be agreed. There were doubtless some who thought Mrs May was bound to say something of the sort in the heat of the result but that perhaps over time cooler heads would prevail and a route to remaining in would be sought.

What was a stroke of genius in the immediate aftermath of the referendum is looking increasingly threadbare. In the intervening period the Tory party has managed to rub along without undue stress. There have been the occasional spats but a statement that can comprehend such a wide range of policy options from hard to soft Brexit does not provide enough of a target for anyone to secure purchase on for an argument.

At the moment the Conservatives are like a pack of hungry wolves looking for a carcass to fight over, growling at each other but unable to give vent to their growing frustration because no body of policy has emerged. No wonder Mrs May does not want to reveal her hand, it would likely be bitten off. It will be a feat of legerdemain worthy of Dynamo if she can carry out the negotiations without having to reveal what the deal is until it is done. Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, no one is that good.

Over the weeks and months to come, as statements crafted by the finest minds in the university of the bleedin’ obvious start to give way to substantive proposals these will be seized upon by hungry wolves on all sides of the debate. Depending on the level of compromise attempted the policy for Brexit will either enthuse some and outrage others or, more likely outrage all.

Worse for Mrs May, as all this is going on, the settled view of the majority of the electorate may start to change. If inflation and wage restraint take hold at the same time next year, those that voted for Brexit may have second thoughts. (Warning – votes for Brexit can go down as well as up). Given this an early election might be a good call, but then, who knows.

Mrs May seems to have a good way with words. Her promise to focus on those just about managing, her firm line on executive pay and footloose executives treating tax as optional were all launched with rhetorical flourish. The difficulty is when these things have to be delivered. Her political skills do not seem to match her verbal ones.

I cannot however feel much sympathy for the leader of a party whose leadership are able to transubstantiate infantile ambition into gravitas and lift party interest and power above the interests of the nation. A leadership which has almost destroyed the Union of the United Kingdom, indeed may still yet, and has put at risk the European project which, for all its faults, represents a way to unite in opposition to global forces which threaten the livelihood, and indeed the lives, of its citizens.

There is some way to go in the process of Brexit and better counsel may yet prevail. With all the challenges that exist in the world at the moment having the whole of the British political elite and public administration focused on taking the UK out of Europe is an error of political leadership of the highest order. Tony Blair’s premiership will rightly be forever blighted by the decision to take us into Iraq, David Cameron’s will surely be the same over taking us out of Europe.

The decision on Iraq casts a long shadow, down to the fate of the people of Aleppo and beyond. Brexit does not mean Brexit, it means a whole lot more. If the vote for Brexit was a protest vote against the incompetence of the political elite it cannot be dismissed as completely irrational.

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Brexit – What a Mess!

Political elites around the world have been infected by an inability to provide genuine and convincing leadership. This partly because of examples of personal ambition or plain greed getting in the way of rational governance but it is much more to do with a far more insidious and profound undermining of concern for the big issues of politics.

It is thirty years since the “big bang” in the City of London, this, emblematic of a global process of financialisation and deregulation. Everything, being given a monetary value, traded and then gambled through more and more “sophisticated” derivatives.

The idea that there is something called society or that the economy is anything other than a series of rational, utility maximisers with perfect knowledge seek personal advantage has been undermined if not destroyed.

Politicans when they looked to set up the European Community had a rather greater vision. They had just come through two “Great” wars which had devastated a continent and killed millions of men, women and children. They knew that there were things that were more important than the price of bonds and derivatives. No one worries about the LIBOR rate in the cemetery.

I am not suggesting the past was a land where politicians were noble, selfless guardians of the greater good of humanity. Men’s motives have roots deep and complex. Neither am I suggesting that a well functioning economy is not vital for a good society. However I am arguing that there are some profound political issues which have been increasingly marginalised. Issues about who gets what and why have been parked on the basis that all boats rise as the productivity tide come in and what is there to worry about if living standards are increasing.

This model probably always had a limited life but when the tide is no longer rising, all the little boats in the harbour are stuck in the mud and the only ones gaining are those in the ocean going yachts the prospects for the future are grim.

We now have a set of politicians on the remain side of the argument who are reaping the discontent they have sown over the past thirty years. The everyday disparagement of the European Union, the failure to challenge a world-view which sees all current evils through the prism of immigration, an unwillingness to accept that being filthy rich is not a sign of being one of the elect and that inequality is eroding national solidarity.

Worst of all a failure to make a case for the European Union that is more than, it is the least worse future. Europe clearly has its problems, the democratic deficit being a key one. But the same politicians who rail on and on about faceless unelected bureaucrats would go apoplectic if you said ok we want to elect them. Europe needs radical reform, Britain should be at the heart of that process holding up a vision of a better future which is more than simply a more efficient economy. For many people “the economy” is a mythical beast. Which, bites them when there is a recession and does very little for them when there is a boom.

Whilst the remain side are reaping the seeds of discontent, the out campaign are busy sowing a more virulent strain of the crop. If they win I fear we are all in for a bad harvest.