The papers are full of debate on Tory divisions on Brexit today (try here for some links).
That party is as riven as ever on this issue. Many are portraying Jacob Rees-Mogg as the leader in waiting, seeking an opportunity to pounce.
Many others rightly pick on his attack on the civil service, that appeared deliberately staged with a minister last week, and suggest that he is already laying out the defence for the failure of Brexit, seeking to establish in advance who will be accused of stabbing that cause in the back when, as he knows will happen, the hopeless charade of logic that it still clings to are finally revealed as being totally false and so a sham.
Most commentators do not, however, take the logic of this post-failure of Brexit beyond consideration of Rees-Mogg's electoral prospects; a new strained relationship between the government and the civil service; and Tory inability to govern for any longer in any meaningful sense. I suggest that is negligent of them, for Rees-Mogg and his cronies need to be wary of the forces they are letting loose.
I agree with Simon Wren-Lewis when he wrote:
Leavers often say they do not understand why Remainers cannot just accept that we are leaving. There are many good reasons, but the one that I keep coming back to is this. Brexit is fantastical. There is nothing about the case for Brexit that is based in reality. This is why everything Brexiters say is either nonsense or untrue.
I think that the time when this will finally dawn on a significant majority in the UK is fast approaching. I would suggest that 75% (at least) of those in the Commons and well over 90% of those in the Lords already know it. And in the Treasury, for all its many faults - and they are legion, I suspect that the awareness rate is nigh on 100%. And when this happens the mood in the country will turn. In that case the chance of Johnson, Give and Rees-Mogg taking over the government, as the Sunday Times suggests they are plotting to do, will cease to have any serious relevance, except, and this is my point, to a die-hard Brexit minority.
That die-hard minority are not dedicated to Brexit for reasons of logic. Nor do they have much regard for democracy, as is apparent from their dismissal of the fundamental democratic right to change one's mind. Instead they are driven by what Simon Wren-Lewis calls a fantastical vision that has no relationship with any known economic or political reality that determines the actual outcome of international relationships, which is, of course what Brexit is actually about. But this fact (for fact it is) does not matter to those in the die-hard minority.
I think it inevitable that some Brexit supporters will over coming months see how impossible Brexit is and will seek sufficient compromise that any outcome achieving public support in the likely forthcoming second referendum that I now think likely will be in favour of a Norwegian style soft Brexit that will retain very close relationships with the EU, largely because the economic reality of trading with the EU requires this whilst it continues to exist, which it looks like doing for the foreseeable future.
But for the diehards this will be tantamount to a declaration of war on all they hold dear and which they will then think has been clutched from their grasp. And Rees-Mogg is laying the grounds for their blame game.
My fear is about the nature of this blame game. I see little chance of it being restricted to the media, whether conventional or social. Nor do I think it will be limited to Westminster. What troubles me is that whilst the vast majority will accept the outcome a tiny minority will not. And for them the alternative, in a world where so many boundaries have been torn down and radicalisation to support so many causes where the relationship between realistic possibility and dogmatic political aims has become fantastical, is violence.
I have lived through political violence. We had it in Northern Ireland for thirty years. It spread to mainland UK. And we now suffer it again, with the weapons of choice being those we cannot control. I believe that the risk of such violence if we do not have a hard-Brexit is very high. It only takes a few thousand disaffected people and some alienated communities to harbour them to create such a scenario. Let's not pretend that in this country these conditions are implausible: to me they seem likely to exist.
I do not for a minute suggest that this means we must acquiesce to the demand for a hard Brexit. We do not pander to illogical dogma by granting what it demands. But let's also be realistic about the risks in the horribly divisive path on which the UK is now set, because they are enormous.
As it is Brexit will define the politics of the UK for the next two generations - and so well beyond my lifetime. That is what the divisions of Irish partition in 1922 should teach us. But what we have to do now is ask for all sides to think carefully. Ireland wasn't just divided in 1922: it had a civil war in which thousands died. I doubt we will have civil war in the UK. But the risk of domestic terrorism is very real unless Brexit is now handled with great sensitivity by all sides.
And in this context Jacob Rees-Mogg currently ranks as the greatest risk to peace. I am not suggesting for a moment he would ever endorse violence. But he is already fanning what look like the sparks that could ignite flames through the recklessness of his actions and comments. And that worries me, greatly.
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“a fantastical vision that has no relationship with any known economic or political reality that determines the actual outcome of international relationships”
Please set out what those “known economic and political realities” are and please do it simply so that people can see and understand – that is the only way the realisation will spread because at the moment we have condemnatory phrases from both sides but no cogent, succinct content to back it up.
So for starters: what IS the best economic argument against Brexit? Who created it? Why is it the best we have?
The Treasury pre Brexit (not Osborne’ version of Project Fear; what the treasury said)
What the Department for exiting the EU now says, which is pretty much the same as the Treasury said pre the referendum
What the Scots have reported
What Sadiq Khan has reported
Every analysis says the costs of leaving are significant and will have a big impact on the UK
They may all be wrong: I doubt it.
How many more do you need?
The language being used and the messages being conveyed are extremely concerning (and I chose the word ‘extremely’ deliberately). ‘Enemies of the people’, ‘traitors’, ‘undermining the will of the people’ – they are building the case for a ‘them vs us’ divisiveness and implicit justification for those determined to get their vision of Brexit at any costs.
Trump has shown in the USA the power of language to override truth – and the willingness of too many to follow and defend. It’s the 21st Century ‘Mark Anthony turning the people’ moment; and it bears disturbingly strong resemblances to 1930s Germany, when the carefully chosen language built a momentum of popular support that enabled Hitler to pass the laws – stage by stage – that eroded people’s rights (and worse). I’m not comparing the end-points, just the process – although who knows where any road might lead?
It worries me greatly, too!
I agree completely, Richard. The ultras in Parliament and elsewhere display a deep seam of intolerance, stoked by a right wing populist media. Division is deepening, and it’s highly likely that there will be civil unrest if they don’t get what they want. But they don’t represent the best interests of our nation, and their threat to the rule of law must be resisted.
For those of us who care about the economic future of our nation, the obvious route, whether short or longer term, is the EEA. It provides the most direct route towards addressing the Irish border problem, allows us to choose the programmes in which we want to participate, and substantially limits the extent of EU law to which we would be subject. The EEA option has been both widely misunderstood and also misrepresented.
The government’s Brexit objectives cannot be achieved given its red lines. There will be no frictionless trade outside the single market. The fee that the
UK would pay for EEA membership would be justified many times over by the ease of market access, compared with being a third country.
Our MPs had better wake up and man up if we are to avoid the nightmare scenario of a hard Brexit which will enrich the few but reduce the lives of the many.
If you’ll forgive the lapse into household economics, we’re all (as taxpayers) funding Rees-Mogg and his ‘ditchers’ in the shadowy European Research Group, according to Peter Wilby in this week’s New Statesman. It’s all part of a plan to undermine evidence-based opinion and establish a Randian ideological hegemony similar to the Trump model (aka fascism).
Although he only has about 50 or so Tory MPs behind him, Rees-Mogg has media support (Daily Mail & Telegraph) and the bulk of the Conservative Party membership (under70,000 mainly old, white men) behind him. If he ever got onto the leadership ballot, he would win.
I doubt it will happen (though in a world of Trump and Putin, who knows?). But Mogg’s group is certainly behind all the pressure on May to stick to their ‘over-the-cliff’ WTO model when Boris’s ‘cake-and-eat-it’ strategy fails. There is more at stake in this struggle than Brexit.
Rees- Mogg has been meeting with Steve Bannon. When are journalists / BBC going to start asking some pertinent questions of Rees – Mogg and the other hard Brexiteers? BBC impartiality seems to be allowing hard Brexiteers free air time, much as they did with UKIP which has led us to this point. Rees-Mogg has already said he expects hard Brexit to result in cheap food. I have yet to hear any journalist challenge the impacts of that statement i.e. lower food standards and the decimation of much of our farming and subsequently tourism as our countryside ceases to be managed. Fact free statements are repeated and allowed to go unquestioned. It is a dereliction of duty.
There is in my opinion a danger of serious regional divisions and disputes brought on by hard Brexitiers and their new champion “of the peoples’ will” – Rees-Mogg. Where Wales, Scotland and even northern Ireland may become “the enemies”. I am not so sure about violence, but who knows, the state is engineered to employ violence when required.
The Welsh economy relies on the EU for 60% of its exports and unfettered access to EU markets is essential to improve the persistent regional problem of low GVA (Wales has 75% GVA of EU average). Wales relies heavily on progressive EU regional funding. God forbid the realities of Tory regional funding policies of filling that huge gap.
Both the First Minister of Wales (Carwen Jones) and Scotland (Nicola Sturgeon) are of the mind that regional funding, left to unelected Whitehall officials, make investment decisions that are a “betrayal of devolution”.
Brexit will hurt the regions more, of course, including the English regions.
A clear precedent for the blame game (Moggite rebellions): both Cameron and May lazily and unfairly dammed the performance of the [Labour run] Welsh NHS. May recently misused A&E waiting time figures, again. Her comparisons of poorer Welsh performance are wrong. Welsh NHS starts the ‘A&E clock’ when a patient arrives, England NHS does so when a doctor attends to a patient. Carwen Jones has asked the statistics watchdog to investigate May’s prejudiced misuse of statistics. https://www.scotsman.com/news/carwyn-jones-challenges-theresa-may-over-use-of-nhs-statistics-1-4672473
PS I note a concordat developing with Simon Wren Lewis and Chris Dillow, both excellent bloggers.
Thanks for this
I like both Simon and Chris, who as you say are excellent bloggers. Of course we don’t always agree. But that’ not an issue; that’s part of the life in which ideas develop.
The reason for this unreconcilable tension within the Government is because nobody knows what the Conservatives want from Brexit; even the Cabinet. There is no plan. We are told that the reason there is no (known) plan is that the Government must keep its negotiating tactics secret in order to achieve the best Brexit deal from the EU. This is false, and quite obviously false, but the Government has three principal reasons for making the false claim.
1) The Conservatives do not have a plan, not because of negotiating strategy with the EU, but because they are profoundly split. Conservatives have suddenly discovered that the differences between themselves are incommensurable. We are living in a new political age, in which the medium of politics is already moving towards a post-political-party dynamics.
2) Even more critical, the Conservatives are very, very afraid of the political response of the British public to whatever plan for Brexit the Government finally proposes. The Conservatives originally thought they had pulled off an opportunistic coup when they conducted a Referendum in which they led both sides, and were allowed to remain the Governing Party, whatever the result; by the simple expedient of sacrificing David Cameron. That was easy. What they actually did was tie their credibility solely and wholly to Brexit, without really knowing what that meant. They have been hoist by their own petard.
3) The Brexiteers and hard-Brexiteers within the Conservative Party have begun to realise that they can divide their party and the country very easily; they can declaim, generalise, protest, accuse, demand, wrap themselves in a quasi-religious righteousness; but they cannot offer an iota of reconciliation to their opponents, within or without the Party; and they do not even aspire to offer a genuine consensus. They have to inherit the earth, and everything in it; no strings attached. They thought belligerence and rabid media hectoring would be enough. It isn’t. They cannot even carry their Party. They are already laying out the “defence for failure”; in order to inherit what is left of their Party after they have bullied everybody into submission, but all that this may achieve is not their triumph, but the final destruction of the Conservative Party itself, that even the internal divisions of the ‘Corn Laws’ did not deliver in the nineteenth century.
This all reminds me of a phrase in a book I’m reading – the cowardly state, run by cowardly politicians. Not one of them, the UK parties of Tory or Labour is big enough to call out what Simon Wren Lewis called the “fantastical” or statements which are “either nonsense or untrue”. And it’s not just about Brexit that we have cowards in charge.
Where blame is cast, scapegoats are then found. And we know what happens to scapegoats. As the child of a refugee from racist and political oppression I find Jacob Rees Mogg one of, if not the, scariest people around.
“Scariest” …. ….. writes Max Schreck!
To me Rees-Mogg is a success story.
He (and others who stand on the shoulders of more capable people like Boris Johnson stands on mater’s) has proven beyond all doubt what happens when a generation just inherits wealth rather than creating it.
He proves that all that is needed in such a case is wealth; that you can be as thick as two short planks, ignorant as a pig and completely oblivious to the workings of the real world and none of that matters. Your wealth is all that you need – sod brains or humanity.
Therefore Jacob Rees Mogg and his ilk are the biggest justification for progressive politics and the creation of policies that produce social mobility. When the gene pool of those who rule us gets too small, this is what you get – the beginning of the descent of society into mediocrity, chaos and corruption.
Mogg is ‘the git (sic) that keeps on giving’.
Perhaps the Brexiteers suffer from a collective hiraeth (as I believe I’ve said here before) and, driven by that impossible to resolve yearning, they seek to create not a Heaven in which they might serve, but a Hell in which they would rule. Hopefully they’ll wipe themselves out in the process, but it could be a long and unpleasant process.
Ed note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiraeth
The Brexit brigade are one of the biggest con-jobs in recent history- false explanations by a money-manager class to a stressed and and angry populace. This is politics at the level of the underground sewer. But let’s admit that this is partly the result of the failure of the left in recent years to find a narrative that could offer coherent and straightforward explanations to our country.
Mogg was a Tory who suggested hitching up with the vile, false-consciousness of UKIP, a party also dominated by money managers and ex-stockbrokers, the very rentiers who are part of the underlying dissatisfaction they exploit.
The Labour narrative has improved massively over the last few years as it shifts from the neo-liberal framework but it is still massively divided despite the Trappist-like stance of Corbyn’s critics (170 M.P’s!) since the election . let’s hope the narrative strengthens because Mogg will take us into super-rentier capitalism on steroids and like the Trump phenomenon, no one will be witnessing anything becoming ‘great again.’
Rees-Mogg and his co conspirators are ( italics ) the Tory party, the last redoubt on the road to oblivion . How do I know this ? Think of your friends, your children’s friends and tell me how many of them even faintly resemble this crew of misbegotten bunch of Y front wearing loonies. Even sitting on a plane this afternoon returning from a bit of winter sun and talking to a fellow passenger of similar age ( three score years plus ) demonstrated to me the imbecility of these people. The world is moving on faster than most of us can comprehend with very little evidence of a serious attempt to comprehend what is happening in any press or media generally and here we have Rees-Mogg and co proposing what precisely ? We hate the EU is not a policy . Ok if you want to lay in your bed and night and conjure some Daily Mail vision of Heaven that is your choice , but as to life on earth it bears no resemblance.
Agreed
‘We hate the EU is not a policy .’
I would thing Mogg knows this. But he will also know what his real policy is: to create a massive wealth- siphoning tax haven with a brutalised policy towards those that are not financialised -a more intensified version of what the Tories already do with ghastly , third-rate jingoism thrown in as a bit of serrotonin reuptake inhibitor to keep the populace ‘happy.’
I’m cheered by the fact that, even if he got into power, it can’t work. It is simply a very Bwitish (sic) version of the Trump phenomenon and we know it can’t make Britain ‘great again.’ The Americans will soon discover that about Trump – at that point expect anger on a big scale.
“a fantastical vision that has no relationship with any known economic or political reality” – Re-smogg lives in the past (old cars, old school tie, old attitudes). His politics is perfectly in tune with this.
In the case of the violence: MI5 in the 1990s were already modelling for where the next gewenration of terrorist would come from – they identified the : middle-class (as they became poorer etc). Well, MI5 got that wrong – for the moment. However, listening to some of the nut jobs that dial in to James O’Brien (I’m giving him up for Lent plus commenting on the Torygraph) – you can see a mindlessness that is fertile ground. As for supporting violence, Re-smogg knows what he is doing & knows what the end point is. The man is odious, but he ain’t thick – and will have a clear understanding where his views & words will lead.
Whether you hate, love, despise or admire the politicians invoking Brexit they are only carrying out the wishes of the public. They wish to leave the EU. It’s not for the government to debate if we partially leave or not but to do the peoples wishes. The people have spoken and wish to bring all governmence back to our courts and parliament. Any politician who wishes to subvert the will of the people should be sacked or resign.
With respect, your comment makes no sense
The debate is in whether we stay in the single market and customs union. We can do both and leave the EU. People were not asked about either of these issues.
Your claims are then wholly incorrect.
I hate to break bad news, but there is no “will of the people”. If there were, it would be gone almost as soon as it formed (and with Brexit – it probably has); think of Heraclitus, or ‘matter-in-motion’: a will-of-the-wisp, a metaphysical illusion. There may be “wills” of the people, but I wish you luck making much philosophical sense of that. I doubt if there are even stable majorities (for almost anything, or for very long); but rather there are unstable, passing, fleetingly usable compromise semi-agreements thrown together by political parties too often as the self-serving servants of (well, you tell me whom?), and coalescing for a short period around usable policies sufficient to govern, after a fashion.
At the political system’s best (not very often), these policies are usually progressive, but not always; and often they simply do not work at all. Sometimes there are no policies at all; just soundbites. Often there are thoroughly bad policies mendacioulsy created and cynically applied.
There is a technical term for this complexity. It is called “reality”. You might try engaging with it.
I think that fair comment
T J Hughes says:
“…. The people have spoken ”
Sure thing Teejay, but WTF did they say ?
And what was the question ?
Tell me Mr Hughes, did the people vote for hard brexit or soft brexit? Where was this indicated on the ballot paper? In that case, how can the govt follow the will of the people?
By the way, all this will of the people stuff? Sounds a bit like Robespierre to me.
I think you are Madame Lafarge and I claim my £5!
As long as the EU allow us to have a trade deal and unrestricted free trade with the rest of the world with us controlling immigration and our laws there will be no problem.
With respect, they can’t stop us having that
With as much respect, some of us think that the people might be shocked at the cost this will impose on us
Mr Hughes claims that the people voted to “bring back all governance back to our courts and parliament”. If parliament chooses to ignore the result of the referendum as it is constitutionally entitled to do (referendums not being binding on parliament) would that still constitute the will of the people in his eyes. It is the elected parliament that actually represents the will of the people in this country and not the result of a referendum. Parliament allows for a proper debate between our duly elected representatives and at the conclusion of the debate a vote is held. The referendum stifled any properly constituted debate which was left to sloganeering (Project Fear, 350 million for the NHS etc) and a lack of any facts. A simple stay or leave question was never going to provide a proper discussion as to what that meant as we are finding out now after the event. Cameron’s misuse of referendums has unfortunately brought about a political crisis which was wholly avoidable in a misguided attempt to solve internal Conservative Party divisions. We will all now have to pay for that misuse of power.
It will all blow over. In 2029, people will consider the whole Brexit issue in a similar light to the Millennium bug. As for international relationships, there’s a whole lot of difference between international co-operation and supra-nationalisation. The UK has been, and will continue to be, highly co-operative internationally. All this ‘Little England’ stuff is a load of nonsense. Hypothetically, if the Brexit vote had gone the other way, later down the line there would be a point where the UK population would have vetoed further integration. I’m highly optimistic about the future. I am pro-international co-operation. And pro-immigration. But having worked for two EU institutions (plus another more international one), for the past twenty years, highly against supra-nationalisation. My belief is that the UK will be a very good thing – not just for the UK itself, but also for the EU. Which will reform one way or the other depending on the type of ‘a-la-carte’ relationship that will inevitably be agreed between the UK and the five or six key players in the EU. The other EU members really don’t matter.
I regret to say that experience says you are very wrong
Ireland is not over partition yet
The UK may not be over Brexit in a century
For two generations it will blight all of our politics
And blight is the right term
Let’s not forget that Rees-Mogg, the supposed uber Catholic, voted against the Dubs bill enabling some child refugees to come to the UK — and was the only person in parliament to do so.
The faux mien of an Edwardian gent is a facade covering something very unpleasant.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan/26/guardian-icm-brexit-poll-full-results
Is Rees-Mogg in touch with the will of the people?
The ICM poll suggests not.
If there were another referendum tomorrow how would you vote?
Remain 51% Leave 49%
Should there be another referendum after the negotiations?
Yes 58% No 42%
What impact will Brexit have?
Positive 36% No Impact 13% Negative 49%
It’s frightening to think anyone would go against the will of the people to promote their own agendas and political ideals. Any government that ignored the referendum because they didn’t like it, would be out of power quickly. On the facts of the ill advised election, May increased her share of the vote and also the eurosceptic vote, although not Tory,
The main reason wanting out of the EU is lack of control over our own affairs. The money was just a plus even if not the true amount.
Cameron’s mistake for which he will never be forgiven, was to give the people a chance to vote against the will of the ruling officialdom. It has come as a terrible shock from which they will try everything by any means to correct.
Every time a government changes the will of the people has changed too
Do you say that we should not change government then?
Do you say that elections should be one off, and forever?
Do you say when the facts change we should not change our minds?
And why should a non-binding referendum be binding?
Nothing you say seems to make any logical sense at all
T J Hughes says:
“It’s frightening to think anyone would go against the will of the people to promote their own agendas and political ideals.”
What ? You mean like they’ve been doing for the past forty years ? Like some politicians always have done and probably always will ?
You’re teasing aren’t you? Or an expat ?
No. I say that if we continue to cede power to the superstate EU there will be no election, only dictates. The reason the referendum was binding is because the P.M., Cameron said, that what ever the result, it would be carried out. Are you saying P.M.s aren’t to be trusted? Of course elections must take place to make sure the people have their say by electing representatives with their own views. If they don’t do the job properly they will be replaced.
The facts have not changed. We are still becoming more involved in a superstate of Europe with control ceded to people who act disgracefully. Even the European Parliament can’t stand them.
I hear your fundamentalism. But I have also now heard enough of it.
I note you did not answer my fair questions
In that case you’re not debating but proclaim8mg and I am not very interested in that
I see “the will of the people” has now become “I say that if we continue to cede power to the superstate EU there will be no election, only dictates”. Well, to paraphrase the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, ‘you would say that wouldn’t you’.
“The facts have not changed”, or to put it in other words “nothing has changed”. In fact change happens continuously. Nothing is unchanged by events; least of all in politics. The “people” now understand more about the EU and Brexit than they did when they voted; and the “people”, quite clearly, do not care much for what they can see. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that even today nobody knows what the Government Brexit plan is; not even the EU. I assume even you can see that.
How do I know? Because if the “people” did care for what they could see, I will guarantee that this cowardly, manipulative government would be a great deal more assertive about what Brexit means, and what the Government is actually going to do. It is transparently obvious that the reason for that is that the Conservative Government is scared out of its wits to tell the British people what is planned for them; because if and when it goes wrong, finally there will be nowhere for the Conservative Party to hide; not even in opposition. The Government’s own, half-baked impact assessments are uniformly bad (just like the Scottish government’s, and everybody else’s assessments have clearly shown), and the bizarre, feeble excuse in 10, Downing Street, is that no impact assessments have been done on the Government’s own brilliant plan for the future: because – the plan doesn’t exist.
The real problem however is that you, Mr Hughes, clearly cannot distinguish between “democracy” and “elective dictatorship”. You do not understand the real nature of liberty and distributive justice, and what responsibilities these critical requirements place on a constitutional democracy: all power must have limits (Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely – Lord Acton). The EU Withdrawal Bill is an exercise of unvarnished Diceyan ‘abosulte power’, complete with Henry VIII arbitrary powers and Satutory Instruments: it is the opposite of Parliamentary Government.
Finally, you clearly have no understanding whatsoever about the complex nature of the multinational ‘compromise’ (fudge) that is the nature of the British State. Brexit may now cost Britain itself, and even its continuity, a great deal more than you seem able even to understand.
Thanks for taking the time to reply
I did not have the will to do so
You give the impression that the partition of Ireland caused the civil war of 1922-It did not.
It was caused by the Pro Treaty later Fine Gael fighting the anti Treaty-later Fianna Fail fractions in the newly formed Irish Free State,Northern Ireland was not involved as it was and remains part of the United Kingdom
You clearly know nothing at all if Irish history
It’s been niggling me for ages. I couldn’t quite catch hold of who Rees Mogg reminds me of and I’ve finallly twigged.
He’s Walter from Dennis the Menace isn’t he ?