There are moments that require anyone to reappraise what they think. Brexit has been one, of course. The Tory leadership election has been another. Put them together and the toxicity of the combination becomes apparent.
I think Ian Blackford was correct when he described Boris Johnson as a racist in parliament yesterday. All the evidence supports Blackford's view. It hardly, in itself, needs further debate. And yet Johnson is likely to be our next Prime Minister. It is as if the Conservative Party does not care.
That is a possibility for which the evidence is heavily reinforced by polling by YouGov, which reveals the staggering indifference of Conservative Party members. As YouGov noted, as reported by Politics Home:
Tory members are willing to destroy their own party, sacrifice the Union and allow Scottish independence and a united Ireland if it means leaving the European Union, according to a new poll.
A survey by YouGov suggests a majority of them would prefer Brexit took place to a host of scenarios, including 61% in favour of it even if it caused “significant damage to the economy”.
They added:
Almost two-thirds of the members would be willing to allow Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, and 59% would rather Northern Ireland left than Brexit not taking place at all.
This research is not a freak; it replicates previous findings. The important thing is what it suggests. Whole books could, of course, be written on that. I will restrict myself to four thoughts.
First, there has been a collapse in the traditional culture of caring for a neighbour as you would for yourself. This could, of course, reflect the declining influence of the Christian Church in all its varieties, with its emphasis on the Good Samaritan. Other faiths do, of course, embrace similar ideas. Those ideas appear to be very unfamiliar on the political right wing now. What is very clear is that we are all worse off as a result, whether culturally, socially, economically or politically.
Second, irrationality has become the norm. Although I have still to meet anyone who can actually explain what the benefit if Brexit might be, barring a mistaken belief that this will give us back the control over migration we have always had and not used, the Tory membership is apparently willing to impose substantial economic cost on everyone to secure that non-existent gain. Rational thinking has, then, departed. Blind faith in mythology is taking its place. That is the foundation for toxic populism, and worse.
Third, this is a gift to Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalists. The repair being observed is very largely English. My belief that the Union is nearly over grows by the day. And I am increasingly convinced that Scotland at least will not wait for English permission to depart.
Fourth, the prospects for the collective action required to manage climate change do not look encouraging. If human life on earth is to survive we must act together, locally, nationally and internationally to create the changes required, which are radical and far-reaching. And what we can see from this evidence is that a significant part of the population is basically indifferent to all others apart from themselves, or their very narrowly defined tribe.
So, some questions. What prospect is there that they will change? Will the reality of the climate crisis provoke that necessary reaction? Or will it give rise to even greater denial and factionalism? All our futures may depend upon the answers to those questions.
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I have thought the UK on course for break-up since 24 June 2016. The latest sign is the report from NI of a significant fall in the number of people identifying as unionists (a minority even before this). They’ve moved to the “neither” camp and will vote Alliance, and if push comes to shove will resist being taken fully out of the EU against their will. Whatever concessions they obtain, Scotland will demand.
Only the collapse of the Conservatives will prevent it. Trouble is they’re determined to take the country with them.
Agreed
On irrationality, what perverse logic leads the Conservative party to believe that Johnston, who has failed miserably at every brief he has had, can suddenly come good and deliver something as complex as Brexit.
What the Johnson movement tells us what we all suspected anyway about the Lynton Crosby influenced Tory party: that THE TORIES are the original populist party in the UK.
They have ushered in a new era of populist politics in the UK because it was the only way for a declining party to hold onto power and influence as their very ideology destroys them (and us). So what else could they do?
There is no doubt about that in my mind now. The Tory party are the enemy within in this country – never mind Corbyn.
Damn them all.
What you advance has validity, but I don’t think it’s sufficient to capture the essence of this mess.
In a recent Guardian article Jonathan Freedland quoted Michael Oakeshott’s 1956 essay “On Being Conservative”: “To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.”
Once they have achieved any degree of security for themselves and those closest to them, most people are small “c” conservatives. They will cling to arrangements defined by the first set of nine attributes – and, conversely, oppose any arrangements defined by the second set. And this applies to varying extents to traditional Tory and Labour voters.
For many voters, rightly or wrongly, the EU is defined by the second set of attributes and their reflexive instinct is to reject it. (In a similar manner they are repelled by the ideology and political objectives emanating from those close to Jeremy Corbyn.)
It doesn’t seem to matter that if the EU didn’t exist something similar would be invented – and would have to be invented. They just don’t like it. Nor does there seem to be sufficient awareness that the UK over time has won major concessions and derogations to the extent that it is now very much a semi-detached member while retaining all of the benefits of membership. Nobody now seems to remember the major exercise conducted by the Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition from 2010 on the ‘Balance of Competences’ between the the UK and the EU which covered all government departments and major statutory agencies and which concluded that the balance, subject to some limited amendments, was just about right.
On the other hand, the EU does itself no favours with these voters by promoting national politicians who have been rejected by their own voters to positions of power and influence or by advancing great political and economic projects without securing sufficient democratic consent. In addition, the EU’s system of governance, mirroring the governance arrangements of France’s 5th Republic, is entirely alien to English voters.
And so it appears that a sufficient number of voters primarily in England simply want out irrespective of the consequences. There will always be argument about the extent to which politicians and activists are whipping up support for this intent or simply channelling it. Conducting a politically convenient but ill-thought through referendum in a representative democracy always ran the risk of causing political and constitutional upheaval, but it has happened and some form of Brexit must be delivered. Those who voted to leave must be confronted with the full implications of their desire. And sadly those of us who voted to remain, with many of us doing so with little enthusiasm, must also bear the consequences and trust that some sense will eventually prevail.
Thanks Paul
I appreciated your thoughtful argument
Hmmmmm…………………
From what I have read (check ‘This Blessed Plot’ by Hugo Young amongst others) euro-scepticism exists in both of the major parties (Labour and Tory) and always has. It may have different origins; it may not – but I suspect being ‘English’ and even a Parliamentarian has something to do with it.
In both cases, what I see is an over-emphasis on sovereignty – some Labour and Tory politicians do not like to share power outside of Parliament and not even within Parliament between parties – a situation that is now ossified I feel.
To me, this aversion to power sharing with the EU in particular is a problem of the ruling elite in this country – not the common man. When we went into Europe (reluctantly under Labour) the people were worried about prices rising – not sovereignty. It turned out that prices actually dropped.
What I think you should consider Paul is that a small coterie of the most fervent BREXITERs have actually been very successful at making the elite’s problem with sharing sovereignty the common man’s problem – which it is not.
To do that they have used modern technology in a very underhand way , a way that is still being come to terms with. And BREXIT has ruthlessly exposed the known weaknesses in our constitution and the use of money in political mobilisation. And also helped the sceptics of all parties to come out of the wood work. BREXIT and the Leave vote in the public realm has been manufactured Paul – from scratch.
I would also contend that your quoting of Oakeshott is somewhat misplaced. Forget Freedland and read Martin Kettle:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/19/margaret-thatcher-brexit-tory-folly-40-years-conservatives
BREXIT is no fait-accompli solely based on some old fashioned notions about conserving the past and keeping things familiar. The Tories since 1979 couldn’t be more different to those of 1956.
And today’s Tories couldn’t be more different from the Tory party of 1979 because they have come to end of the road of Neo-liberal theology in that since they do not believe in Government, they do not believe in ruling either – here, or involving the EU. It is the anti-Government sentiment in the Neo-lib Tory party that rejects the EU. Its purest expression perhaps?
Their aim is to create a free market for every human problem or need – just as Nicholas Rigby intended.
The Tory party has become a Trojan horse, harbouring some of the most silly and cruel economic and social policy ideas whilst still pretending to be a serious political party. And they have pulled it off with some elan – posh, well spoken middle class men and a few women coming from institutions that breed our leaders creating an impression of competence.
Why do we put up with them? Because we are predominantly aspirational now thanks to Margaret – the dirty secret of the English voter is that they too want to be like Cameron, Osbourne and Boris.
Those others who have not yet had a genetically implanted ‘aspiration’ gene remain angry and easy fodder for populists and are cast adrift by the Labour party and their faux intellectual superiority and problems with St George’s crosses on white vans around the country (Question; Why? What is your priority? A decent , unified opposition would have caused the Tories these last 10 years lots of problems). And then there’s the rest of us – whom I think should be called grown-ups.
I do agree however with your last paragraphs. But there is still a way of framing BREXIT that might work. Speaking to Leavers, I find on the whole that they did not mind being part of the EEC on an economic basis. What they have become artificially mobilised by is the feeling that the whole thing has gone too far politically (which arguably it has not since our own ministers of state are actually involved).
So, if a party was to try to bring us back together, the promise of a reversion to a more EEC style of membership of the EU might be doable, it might do the trick given all of the lies and misrepresentation governing the BREXIT.
The only way to preserve the future with the EU might be to go back in time to a more primordial style of membership. If I had been in the Tory party or one of the others that is the message I would be selling to heal the rift. It could very well be an accommodation Leave and /Remain could work with. And if explained by a grown-up politician to the EU, they too might consider it.
I have yet to hear anyone else at the centre of BREXIT espouse it. What a shame.
All we have had is auto-destruction in the form of ‘No Deal’ on the table.
Rather than the ‘essence’ of the BREXIT problem, we must think of ‘essences’ Paul.
It seems from the Yougov polls et al that Conservative party members are suffering from a severe dose of cognitive dissonance, believing as you point out irrationality and policies that are completely the opposite to what tradionally they are supposed to support. Whether this will apply to the electorate as a whole is another matter. I still have the slender hope that “the people” will come to their senses when the full realalisation of the Tory Brexit disaster becomes clear and that the misplaced “charisma” of Nigel Farage sinks below the horizon.
That is one of my bases for hope
With respect, I suggest that you may be reading too much into these survey results. We know that the Tory Party in the country is now a self-selecting band of no more than 160,000 members — and probably considerably less. We know that their composition in terms of age, sex and income is very unrepresentative of the population as a whole. The fact that anyone can be a paid-up member of the modern Tory Party indicates that they a rather nasty person, or at best a deluded one. The fact that sixty thousand or so silly old gits have persuaded themselves that leaving the EU without a deal is the magic pill to return to the days of their boyhood imaginings when they read the Eagle comic back in 1958 may be a sad comment on their mental condition rather than a sign of a more general malaise. That such a bunch of reprobates can determine who our next prime minister is — if even for a few weeks — is however an inditement of the state of our politics.
But they do choose our next Prime Minister
It is hard to avoid that fact
A few years ago, when the Telegraph pages were free and under a different editor I think, it was a readable publication. The comments below the line however, from what I recall, mirror the results of that survey.
The readership (and let’s face it, the Telegraph is the house journal of the Tory party) have been fed a diet of lies and untruths by the likes of Johnson and so the core members will come to the same conclusion. Basically those comment pages are just an echo chamber with each contributor reinforcing the same myths. I’ve not read any of that paper’s articles for years now so can’t see the comments but I would not be surprised to see exactly the same convictions.
As to myself, I try and keep an open mind and am mindful that I don’t fall into the same trap, just reading what I agree with (however correct it may be based on evidence!). Basically ‘confirmation bias’.
But yes I agree the members are divorced from reality.
Richard wrote: “My belief that the Union is nearly over grows by the day.”
If you’re looking for further evidence, try the YouGov poll of Tory party members on 18th June. 63% of those polled said they’d prefer to see Scotland independent if that would enable Brexit to happen. Only 29% wanted to ditch Brexit in order to preserve the Union. Factor out the don’t-knows and these figures rise to 68.5% and 31.5% respectively.
The message that this sends to Scotland is loud and clear: the Tory party rank and file, who, let us not forget, will select the next/last UK PM and thereby set the tone for the UK Government, don’t care about the Scots and don’t want the Scots to have any potential influence on their plans for governance.