I was asked yesterday if I might like to consider writing another two year forecast, since I did reasonably well with the one I wrote before the referendum. I admit I will decline the request for the next day or two. I would not like to predict what will happen by lunchtime today. But if Liam Fox remains in office I will be amazed. Not that I suspect anyone would notice if he did not. We have a government that is in turmoil. It's time to take stock.
The first thing to say is no one need be surprised by this turmoil. The country elected (given our rotten political system) a government that was bound to be torn in two by Brexit. And it is proceeding to tear itself, and the country, to pieces. It is time to face the reality that has been left unaddressed for twenty-five or more years, which is that Conservative Party does not as such any longer exist. Brexit was not in any way a Conservative policy. Nor was it pro-business. Or pro-capital. Let alone pro-elite. It was an ultra-nationalist policy unbeloved by most Tory MPs, who retained true to their roots and that divide is what is now tearing the Party and country apart.
There is no solution to this for the Tories. Only power has held them together. And even that is not enough now. Unless the ultra-nationalists are purged I suspect the Tories face another 15 years in Opposition starting sometime soon. And that will even be true if the UK breaks up, as I still consuder likely. My only forecast is that this saga has to play out. We have a long summer and autumn ahead.
So let me move beyond the Tory crisis. I predict the EU will extend the Article 50 notice period now to allow for the problems that have arisen. My forecast is that if a general election happens this autumn - and I think that likely - then an end of 2019 extension will be allowed.
But that would mean a new government would have to address the Brexit issue. And I have no idea who will form that government. Logically Labour should be sitting on a land slide. It isn't now. Even as I write that I can hear Labour supporters saying look at last time, and the swing during the campaign. I note that. And I am not convinced. And for one reason. Labour too has been kicking a can down the road, just as much as the Tories have, and for exactly the same ineffectual reasons. Unless it decides what to do in Brexit now, just as the Tories are having to do, it will be rumbled and people will not vote for it. Talk of ‘a' customs union and not ‘the' customs union will, for example no longer do. People have had enough of fantasy politics, and Labour is partaking in them as much as the Tories.
The reality is Labour needs to acknowledge that it can control borders vastly better than we have to date within EU rules.
And we can control the economy much more too, including nationalising when appropriate.
The Green New Deal is possible within EU rules.
We can have a progressive tax system.
We could have decent benefits, housing, pensions, education and more within the EU.
Dammit, we could even do the impossible and fill potholes by empowering local government to act.
We could do all these things and vastly improve the country and sign up to Norway plus with an option to return.
But unless Labour says so it will not be elected.
And as worryingly, it will not represent its membership who Corbyn knows want this option, despite which he is steadfastly ignoring it. He will also tear his party apart unless he does what they want now.
Only in Scotland is there a party that knows where it stands. And they have, unfortunately, hitched themselves to the Growth Commission report that will be dire for its future.
So we have chaos, and politicians seemingly incapable of making appropriate choices for those they seek to represent right across the spectrum. It is a horrible perspective.
I can be pleased that Johnson and Davis have gone. But the chaos to come is not diminished as a result.
And worst of all, I can see May surviving unless Corbyn finally decides he has to reflect the clear wish of his membership. Little demonstrates better the mess that we're in than the fact that it is conceivable that May might through all this still be chosen as PM despite her own very obvious failings because she has at long last decided she has to act on Brexit.
One thing I can say as a result is that we are no longer a United Kingdom or Great Britain. But what we are is as yet anyone's guess.
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Your analysis / predictions sound logical enough … as of 8.35 am Tuesday morning! It’s a very fluid situation, with many variables, which could unravel unpredictably. Yet again ‘Events, dear boy, events’ seems an apposite comment. However, I’d be surprised if Corbyn’s strategy isn’t to let the Tory chaos continue for as long as possible – delaying a GE until the country at large appears to be totally pxssxd off with the Conservatives. It’ll be interesting to see the polls over the next few weeks, won’t it. My guess is there will be a slight shift to Labour but no landslide. As you say, Theresa May could be the survivor – appealing to the country for calm while continuing to deride Corbyn as a credible leader (with the help of the tabloids). And don’t discount the footie factor if England win the World Cup. While of course it won’t change anything in the longer term, it could offer May a temporary respite, giving her more time to re-establish herself. She’s a wily operator.
It all goes to show what a dismal state our politics has descended into and what a scary lack of leadership talent seems to be on offer. It’s genuinely scary.
I look forward to your more detailed and studied prediction. Light a candle and give the crystal ball a good polish – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk23YbgYpSw 😉
” …….Corbyn’s strategy……..”
Is that an example of what I learned at school as an oxymoron?
Who could forget the slogan ‘Take Back Control’, and note that we have arrived at a place where nobody has control, not the politicians nor the public who elect them. The neoliberal plot which demands weak leaders and strong institutions is still winning in this country.
Oh to have a chance to live under a strong leadership with the will and the power to direct the institutions and legal outcomes to our benefit
May’s plan won’t work. But at least there was a plan. Which is more than Rees Mogg, and all the Brexit zealots could produce. They are still planless. Planless as Johnson and Gove were the day after the refendum. Their trouble is that they have the same characteristics as Mr Corbyn: they are natural born protesters. Critics. But utterly incapable of producing a plan and of making decisions and of actually doing the difficult work of governing. Now we are headed to a constitutional crisis. Only a coalition can save the country. But the zealots of Labour, and the brainless nostalgists of the Tories, won’t contemplate a coalition. Labour cannot form a kajority without first displacing the SNP in Scotland – and that ain’t going to happen. So we’ll be left without a government. The Queen is Head of State, but 93 and unelected. The last time the monarch tried to govern the country without Parliament — 1629 to 1640 — was a disaster that led to civil war. The Queen’s marginally younger heir has the brains of an giant sloth on mogadon. Other countries in such circumstances would fall back on military rule, but the Tories have so reduced the size of the land forces that there would be not enough military to form an authoritarian regime. Scotland is lucky — it does have a government so independence is a distinct possibility. NI could well be forced chaotically into joining the Republic. But England and Wales are sunk. “Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. I see rivers of blood” etc – well, Enoch’s forecasts may prove correct – he identified the wrong cause of any constitutional apocollapse (immigration and miscegenation) but arguably saw a future of Britain dissolving into chaos correctly. Best to dig the garden to plant potatoes, and stockpile with baked beans.
FWIW I think that the most clear and damning indication of how bad things have become is the fact that the UK is complicit in an ongoing genocide and no one seems to give a monkeys. The UK likely could stop the killings and begin to alleviate the suffering in Yemen immediately if ‘we’ removed ‘our’ logistical, tactical and moral support for the appalling crimes being perpetrated there by our Gulf ‘allies’.
Until we start to recognise this and hold our rancid Government and corrupt Establishment properly to account, then I think ‘we’ deserve everything we get.
Breaking up the UK would be a great, probably necessary, first step towards neutralising our endlessly malign influence on the ‘world stage’ – if Brexit makes that more likely then that’s a very good thing indeed.
Adrian D., how I agree. What is happening in Yemen is one of the greatest crimes in history, and is effectively genocide. And the world just looks the other way, because it’s “our chums” doing the dirty – very dirty – work.
The fact that we both support, and are arming, that foul entity, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in their fundamentalalist Wahabist campaign to exterminate Shi’a Muslims (for their campaign in Yemen is really aimed at Iran), is a crime of aiding and abetting that will be held against the UK for all time.
The UK has done some pretty bad things in its history – the extermination of the aboriginal population of Tasmanian, the famines of India, and the Irish potato famine, for example – but our connivance at the rape and destruction of Yemen is right up there with them.
Excellent comment. Unfortunately the majority of the population are brainwashed by MSM and BBC and thus have no real idea what’s happening.
Given that the spending rules were broken (according to the electoral commision) in the Referendum and therefor it should be declared null and void (Venice Convention), why isn’t there a political party demanding a rerun?
The MPs know the referendum was a farce and now they have the excuse to say it doesn’t meet our democratic standards.
We should not be bound by a farce let alone, what is now just, a badly run giant opinion poll.
Even if it gave us a 40% chance of getting out of this mess surely it is worth it?
@KenM
No rerun of the referendum necessary – it was only advisory – remember? Not legally binding therefore.
We should still treat it as null and void but we are not REQUIRED to.
@Schofield
Ivan Rogers gave a speech at Glasgow University suggesting that the EU was a regulatory superpower
http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/the-eu-is-not-just-a-common-rule-book-but-a-regulatory-superpower
Precisely Ken. Now that we know the Leave campaign lied and broke electoral law, why isn’t the result of this referendum, obtained by fraud, being struck down?
The more people look into everybody behind the campaign, the more we see the influence of various extreme right wingers, and Putin, who wants nothing more than to destabilise bodies like the EU and Nato so he can push his own ‘Russia First’ nationalist agenda.
We all know the EU is far from perfect (what large, complex human organisation isn’t?), but its still vastly better than the competing nationalisms which tore Europe apart in previous times.
NI cannot be “forced” into joining the republic. The people of NI have to vote for it, after the UK govt has agreed to hold a border poll, and the people of the republic have to vote in favour as well. Ireland is well used to referendums and will not vote for anything which is left to politicians to decide what it means (they have voted against things simply on those grounds).
NI is an economic basket case. It can opt to join a modern, liberal European democracy if it wishes, but it can’t be “forced” since the Good Friday Agreement enshrines the principle of consent in international law. The UK can “persuade” NI that its future should be in a unified Ireland, and it can do so very simply, by adjusting NI’s funding. The income gap between NI and Ireland is already greater than that between E & West Germany before reunification. Ireland will never take on the bastard child of the rape of the country by the British without child support payments for a period. The UK broke it and pottery barn rules apply.
Labour under Jeremy Corbyn seems to me to be as stupid as Boris Johnson who fails to see that in today’s world there’s no avoiding accepting some organisation’s “rulebook” in order to engage in global trade and as such you will relinquish some of your sovereignty as a country. Both fail to see that also what’s important is the rule-making organisation has both just and rational rules and enforces them. This is why Donald Trump out of exasperation with the WTO is taking matters into his own hands by raising America’s tariffs. Of course, what is really required is for the world’s people to recognise that free market capitalism’s emphasis on competition and measuring well-being through money alone is inadequate. To recognise that a new trans-world trading organisation has to be established to correct free market capitalism’s failings.
http://www.ianwelsh.net/why-free-trade-isnt-efficient/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/09/mysterious-source-of-illegal-ozone-killing-emissions-revealed-say-investigators
What we don’t need but might get is Labour presenting itself as a safe pair of hands to deliver Brexit ‘the people’s will’. Some Labour members seem to see the issue as an attempt by the Tories/Progress to undermine Corbyn. Many of them also believe Corbyn is bound to win. But with 64 seats to gain, and a collapse of the SNP vote unlikely, the best that can be hoped for is to become the largest party. They will then require support from others, all of whom (aside from the Ulster Tories) are anti-Brexit.
Good post. Not sure about Brexiters representing an “ultra-nationalist” faction: they merely use that pose to be in a position to sell out the country to their Transatlantic ultra-conservative masters, enriching themselves in the process . Liam Fox stated the aims of his fake charity Atlantic Bridge as “Defending people of common interests from European Integrationists who would like to pull Britain away from its relationship with the United States…”. which says it all.
Corbyn on Brexit… just an extended facepalm.