I am noting left-wingers on Facebook and elsewhere saying that Boris Johnson is good news for the left, because he faces all the problems Theresa May did without the same firepower, having now alienated so many in his own party. I wish that was true. I do not think it is.
Firstly, this analysis is, as almost ever, deeply parochial. In other words, the analysis is solely about whether Labour can secure the general election it appears to have made its sole political objective. It appears to have no wider perspective than that. This is depressing, not least when comment from Labour front benchers yesterday made it as clear as ever that there is no consistent Labour position on Brexit, which will fatally undermine any prospects it might have in an election, even if it secures one.
Secondly, since Johnson's position seems designed to undermine the Brexit Party above all else, and may well succeed in that objective, the analysis appears well wide of the mark. A singular pro-Brexit position presented by Johnson that negates Farage is a massive electoral threat to Labour.
Third, unless Labour knows how to stop a government now very definitely dedicated to leaving the EU on 31 October, come what may, then whether or not Labour can secure a victory thereafter is at present of little consequence: the damage will have been done and will be very hard to undo. Johnson will have secured his sole goal. In that case the relaxed attitude to Johnson only reveals an enthusiasm for Lexit and a continuing, I think wholly misplaced, belief that for inexplicable reasons Brexiteers will then flock to Labour.
To put it another way, I think those saying this wholly misread the political situation.
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You are right not to underestimate the potential strength of Johnson’s re-positioning of the Tory party in terms of domestic politics. Labour may well not be able to stop Johnson taking the country out of Europe without a deal. In the GE which follows, Labour must run on the Brexit policy it has set out and consistently stuck to, which means, following a no-deal exit: restoring a customs union and reasonable terms of re-entry into the single market, as a non-EU member. If the election comes before exit, Labour must offer its own deal (which the EU would accept before the ink has dried) subject to a confirmatory referendum (unless the GE can double for it). If Labour puts its cards on remain, it will hand Johnson the election, with an increased and probably unassailable mandate for a neo-liberal Brexit.
I´m not quite so sure the EU “would accept (a Labour deal) before the ink has dried.”
It sounds a bit like “you British have negotiated a deal with yourselves and the foreigners are expected to be happy with it”. 🙂
Look at the proposed customs union.
Labour says that as part of the customs union they want a “say” for the UK in EU trade negotiations.
Just what is the definition of the word “say” here?
Does it mean consultations? The EU could probably agree to that.
Or does it mean having a veto on new EU trade deal? That would be difficult if not impossible.
The UK is after all not a member state.
What about the single market?
You can be a member of the single market by being a EU member, an EEA member or having hundreds of negotiated agreements like Switzerland.
Now Labour seems to propose the Switzerland option.
Which means negotiated agreements.
There are just two small problems here.
First, the EU has said for years that they don´t want a second Switzerland.
Saying that it takes too much time and effort to keep all these agreements updated.
And second, no frictionless access to the single market without freedom of movement.
Which according to Labour stops once the UK leaves the EU.
And Corbyn mentioned more than once that he doesn´t like the EU rules concerning subventions, state aid and public procurement?
So how then will he get frictionless access to the single market?
The belief that a Labour proposal would miraculously solve all problems strikes me as unrealistic?
And yes, I know that Corbyn and Starmer visited Brussels. Broad proposals are well and good but the devil is in the details.
The Labour plan is as unacceptable to the EU as Johnson’s in my opinion
I hate to say this, but watching Mr Johnson speaking from the lectern outside Downing Street to the assembled media, and listening to his vigorous and impassioned nonsensical promise to be out of the EU by Ocober 31, I could not help but think that an awful lot of our fellow citizens will feel elated by the proffering of inspired and charismatic leadership, or at least will be hopeful of a final end to the tedious and frustrating endless lack of solution to the Brexit melodrama. This relief promised by the new Prime Minister was almost certainly emphasised by the following peevish and insipid mutterings from Mr Corbyn, a man who briefly won adulation, not through his own very limited talents, but rather due to the unquestioning faith propagated by his evangelical ideologues, but never really offered or exhibited the skills of true leadership. The Labour Party is a shambles, and the Lib Dems and Greens are sadly peripheral in the great drama, while of course the SNP are relevant only in Scotland.
Mr Johnson has positioned himself and the Tory Party so that they will be able to present themselves as the Saviour of the UK and so win an election with a dramatic and substantial majority. It would be ridiculous to compare Mr Johnson to Adolf Hitler, but we on the more progressive side of the political argument should perhaps remember that the Fuehrer who ultimately led the German Reich to destruction in 1945, came to power in 1933 as much by the failure of the flabby dispirited Weimar Reoublic leaders to offer any message of hope and inspiration to a German people devastated by military defeat and economic chaos and great inflation, as by the charismatic leadership and specious promises offered by the evil figure commanding the street fighters and brutal legions after the death of Horst Wessel and the burning of the Reichstag.
Johnson is using the Republican rule book, right down to reckless and partisan spend and tax cuts
The rest I leave to others to comment on
It’s at times like this that you wish the House of Lords had the real power in this land, and that the Church of England was the biggest influence in the House of Lords. Accountability to the people who get a say on what laws we live under and who represents us is looking rather over-rated.
Oh come on….don’t be ridiculous
The issue is that uncertainties and anti-European sentiment exists in both the biggest parties in our political structure. That is a unifying element of sorts. But for the Labour Party, it is cataclysmic because it cannot really be a party of one particular view on BREXIT without causing trouble amongst the membership and the PLP who have the opposing view. This new cabinet of Johnson’s has effectively solved that problem for the Tories.
This is the dark art of the Tory inspired BREXIT – that it would also split and disable the opposition. And it is working.
All Labour can do is change the framing of the question of democracy deficit in the referendum and go on the attack about the way it was conducted. But even that would cause trouble with the likes of Caroline Flint. The only hope is the rejection of no deal.
We are in a real mess at the moment and with a number of the architects of one of the most undemocratic processes in recent history now advising Johnson I warrant than things are going to get much worse. We are possibly going to see a ramping up of populism for BREXIT and a diminution of Parliament.
Going forward I hear of politicians being scared of revoking BREXIT. If it were me I’d be cancelling the vote and then inviting those who wanted to kick off to do so. And I would then ruthlessly put them down like was done to the miners alongside a public enquiry into the conduct of the referendum that would take on the money element very seriously and deal with the funding side of Leave comprehensively and once and for all, exposing their criminality and punishing them very severely indeed for undermining democracy.
You are spot on about creating division
PSR
Re: your last paragraph, a couple of points/questions:
– I don’t think you can just ‘cancel the vote’ as Parliament voted to accept the result of the advisory referendum by a substantial majority. Of course Parliament can vote to revoke Article 50.
– Assuming A50 is revoked then a large number of the public would wish to protest against this decision, as have Remain supporters in authorised peaceful protests. As for encouraging them to ‘kick off’ this could be viewed as encouraging violence. ‘Ruthlessly putting down’ – well. I hope you don’t mean that?
– Public enquiry into the financing of the Referendum, I don’t think you can just investigate Leave funding as I would think any investigation should encompass the whole position.
Graham – over joyed to oblige you……………..
1) There are as yet unanswered and unresolved issues with the referendumb over the unauthorised use of social media data. So those who say ignoring the vote or revoking it is undemocratic are basically ignoring the undemocratic means by which the result was arrived at which was – in my view – undemocratic in the first instance. My view is that this was an invalid vote Graham.
2) A further invalidating factor of rampant ‘undemocracy’ in the campaign leading up to the vote is the funding issue of the Leave campaign. Again, this has not been resolved or prosecuted in a fitting way that reflects the seriousness of the proposal – to leave a fairly well functioning trade treaty for what exactly? Why have rich individuals been allowed to use personal funds for dubious origin to sway a supposedly democratic process and where did that funding actually come from?
3) Outright lies have been put forward by the Leave campaign – we should all know what these are now – concerning the NHS and Turkey joining – amongst others.
I find the lack of scrutiny concerning the BREXIT referendumb deeply disturbing Graham. I also do not like this conflation of the principles of general elections with those around referenda. A GE vote is the end of the process and winner and loser alike accept it. The referendumb in this case was an advisory (for further discussion and debate) but was treated as a FPTP GE vote (‘Brexit means BREXIT’) by politicians like Theresa May who wanted to use the result to increase her term in office (and whom vastly over-rated that tactic big time).
‘Cancelling the vote’ – a party with a big enough majority and thinking along the lines of myself (and others) could indeed revoke the referendumb in the national interest. We are living in a time where Parliament itself could be prorogued for a No Deal – so, why not consider the other unmentionable and tell the Leave brigade that their ‘win’ was insecure and quite possibly illegal and will not be allowed to stand? I certainly have the minerals to do that. Corbyn does not because his party is as divided by this Tory idea as much as the country is. In my view Corbyn needs to give his Leavers an ultimatum – including the Union big boys.
The kicking off of trouble – as I’ve said already, look at how HMG treated striking miners or print workers? Look at what they did to well meaning and relatively harmless peace protestors who even had undercover policemen sleep with protestors so that they knew what they were up to? Look at how Thatcher’s Government built up coal stocks to see us through the strikes. It is funny how in our midst we have a new ‘enemy within’ (rich, well connected and anti EU) but no one seems to give a damn? Why? Ask yourself why?
All I am doing is saying that there is something deeply wrong going on here. The characters involved are in my opinion guilty of treason and sedition themselves – warnings from the Leave brigade about not carrying out BREXIT are not warnings concerned with maintaining order – they are threats. Every time Danial Hannan has read the Telegraph in the European Parliament or Farage has disrupted a meeting – these are treasonable and seditious acts against Parliamentary sovereignty. So, if it were up to me, by the time I would have finished with them, they would have nothing – I would have stripped them of everything I could under the law including the money men who stand behind them. I’d destroy them and sleep well afterwards because of their callous disregard for the millions of people in this country and others who are going to affected by their arrogant stupidity and self interest.
Something really stinks about BREXIT Graham. And the more you dig into it, the bigger the stink. I am not going to walk around with a peg on my nose pretending that nothing smells. The simple matter is that democracy has been outflanked, out thought and out fought before the BREXIT vote. Remain were playing by a different set of rules to the shadowing figures whose money backed Leave. Looking back, Remain did not stand a chance because Leave changed the rules without telling anyone – even Parliament who are supposedly governing this God forsaken country.
And still – questions are unanswered. Me? Trust me – I’d be asking questions, taking names, getting answers and making people accountable because BREXIT is a crime scene – pure and simple.
I’m afraid that there is no other conclusion I can come to and therefore no other course of action than what I have prescribed.
Mmm… well yes, clearly he’s a different kind of opponent. Understand him. Understand the threat. Yes. But a conspicuous lack of confidence doesn’t sound much of a plan to me esp with Johnson Methinks he and his like, not to mention the media would walk all over that. Criticising people for not having enough fear in their eyes seems to me to show no political understanding.
I admit I do not follow your logic
I am reminded of the halcyon days of the 70’s. Free higher education beer vouchers as well, and a complacent left. The discussion about Mrs Thatcher completely missing the point. The damage once done takes an age to undo. The aim now must be to prevent the 31/10/19 being a success for Mr Johnson. If this date passes and the UK is still in the EU huffle and puffle…Trouble is unlike ‘79 when I could vote now I sit as a spectator and gasp. What is to be done?
It is mind boggling that given the situation the largest counter argument from Labour is that in extreme heat workers can be eligible to take the day off.
That’s not a counter, it’s waffle, a sticking plaster and a clear lack of any substantial policy.
My janitor at high school had more of a commanding presence.
There are no clear ideas coming from Labour to coalesce around and motivate voters. Being wishy washy at this point in time be it brexit or climate meltdown is not political leadership or effective opposition. We do not have an opposition in government currently to mitigate the effects of ideologues
The sad reality is that we will be forced to watch this slow motion car crash and then maybe sift through the ashes in some form of forlorn hope
I have to say that critical as I can be you are overstating your case
I wouldn’t have thought it was that difficult.
I suspect Johnson is rather a bully who would seize on perceived weakness. Also relishing the fight looks rather better and more likely to prove attractive than obvious trepidation.
Johnson is a major danger to everything civilised in the polities of these islands. His outrageous ‘performance’ in the Commons yesterday had all the hallmarks of a fascist demagogue. It trashed any semblance of the recognised procedures of the House and, for once, Bercow failed utterly in his duty as Speaker – for if a PM can so brazenly lie and refuse to answer the major questions put to him by the Leader of the Oposition and the House’s third party, what is the point of the House’s procedural rules, or indeed of its proceedings? Just as serious is his choice of Cabinet Ministers and advisors. Readers of this blog know the charge sheet well – but it is blood-chilling in its brazen contempt for any sense of propriety or moral worth. Patel and Williamson – whose behaviour in anyone less well-conected could well have meritted prosecution and custodial sentencing, Cummings – a man already held in contempt (le mot juste in his case) of Parliament – and the list goes on. His choice for SoS for Scotland – a country 2 to 1 against Brexit – already dismissing its FM and government as ‘Remainers’ in an institution which he thinks should not even exist. The choices have sought confrontation and are aggressive challenges to any sense of civilised politics – and combined with the obvious testing of Facebook ads all point to an early Election intended – in the Telegraph’s disgusting headline – to “smash the Remainer enemy”. The James Butler’s NYT piece on “Boris Johnson is how Britain ends” had this telling line…. “He prizes victory above government – his first ambition as a child was to be “world king” – and his political career has been marked by ferocity of campaigning and indifference in office, as both London mayor and foreign secretary. ….. His easy talk of parliamentary prorogation – effectively suspending the legislature – may be a taste of the chaos to come.” We should all recognise where we now are – and that is somewhere uncomfortably close to Italy in the 1920s – or the US just a few short years ago. The Election is coming – and Jonson must loose it, or the land we thought we lived in, will be gone for a long time to come.
Will his opponents wake up to the danger and make an effective alliance against him – including electoral pacts? Are you listening in Corbyn’s dithering and doctrinaire office? – in Jo Swinson’s gathering and delusional ‘court’? No wonder Borisovich looks as self-inflated as the Michelin man – for these are the last flimsy bariers to his ego – and devil take the rest of us.
If we have a general election that Johnson wins it will be because greed is the most binding shared value in our Country’s.
A Tory voter is absolutely aware of what they are supporting and chooses to ignore the consequences.
On BJ’s possilbe idea of winning a snap general election by displacing Farage and exploiting Labour weakness, worth considering the remarks on the Scottish dimension by the Guardian’s correspondent today (in their live politics feed). Maybe Scotland is the fly in the ointment he is brewing?
Just thinking out loud: if labour loses an immanent election, possibly by quite a lot. Is Corbyn likely to resign?
I find the glorification of Corbyn’s demise deeply depressing. Yes, he has not lived up to expectations.
Yes, he has not dealt with ‘anti-semitism’ in his own party, partially I believe, a faux manufacture of the right wing press aided and promulgated by some so-called labour MPs.
Yes, he has had to deal with the fracture within in own party between leavers and remainers.
Yes, he has to deal with the ‘peoples vote’ which has been traduced and misrepresented by the leave campaign. Sadly representative democracy has been lost by that vote and the ideals behind it that we send to parliament those best able to make informed choices on our behalf.
Yes, he is a flawed individual but so are we all. None of us have a monopoly of knowledge, experience and insight but if we ‘vote’ , through 160,000 Conservative members out of a 46 million electorate for people without the appropriate mandate who think they know what to do then we lose our democracy and our capacity to have oversight and control over our own future.
Not glorifying in Mr Corbyn’s demise. He is a pooterish, unintelligent leader goven to peevish and insipid responses to Mr Johnson’s wild oratory. He is totally uninspiring. But there is nobody else around to take his place. Not in the Labour party, nor in the Lib Dems. Caroline Lucas is admirable but unfortunately peripheral, and the SNP are not going to supply a leader for England. There is nobody to replace Mr Corbyn, and nobody to seriously challenge the Johnson phenomenon. He will continue to be the dull dreary uninspiring critic targeted merrily by the confident bragart on the other side of the House. It is deeply depressing.
If ever there was a greater demonstration of why we’ve had Brexit, Trump, Farage and Johnson, the last three threads, full of pseudo-intellectual nonsense seeking to rationalise another outcome the metropolitan elite can’t get their heads around is it. The reason we keep getting these ‘surprise’ outcomes is that the people whose views you think you represent actually hold you, who spend your days theorizing with each other on the internet, whilst they are out trying to earn a living, in greater contempt than those you profess to oppose.
Until you get your heads around that, you will keep being surprised / appalled / confused.
I presume you realise that most advances in human life have been based on theorising?
And that intellectual activity had until populism arose been seen as the foundation for human problem solving?
What do you suggest the populist alternatives to be? I am well aware it is deeply anti-intellectual. But how does it suggest progress is to be made?
The truth is those who are critical of theoretical and intellectual thinking don’t’ give a damn about making progress or the common good or worry about the consequences of their actions. They are willing to give blind support to their (charismatic?) authoritarian leaders as they are incapable of thinking for themselves as they are in thrall to the mass media. Populism is really a euphemism for racism. The whole basis of the Brexit campaign was based on a tub thumping whipping up of anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner feelings which would not have ashamed Mussolini or Hitler.
Boris Johnstone’s conservative government is beginning to sound more and more like one which understands Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). With Kit Malthouse, the new Policing Minister’s, comments on the BBC’s Breakfast programme that
“We still have to work out the exact number but we’re going into the spending review with the number of 20,000 as a fixed obligation and the finances will have to, kind of, back-fit,” sounding more like the MMT view that the budget should be used to balance the economy rather than forcing the economy to balance the budget.
All it needs is for the Tories to introduce a Job Guarantee to provide a job for people as they are and where they are to meet Tim Montgomerie’ s manifesto suggestions for Family and Place( https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/tim-montgomerie-future-conservative-party) and the acceptance of MMT will be complete.
I long ago said the Tories would embrace people’s quantitative easing before Labour ever would….
So, I get the logic here – the Tories are going to use MMT to bribe the electorate – right?
It cannot be for any other reason because already there are tax cuts proposed for the rich who will get even richer from any MMT cash injection into the general economy.
And let us be clear – MMT and say the NHS for example? How does MMT as we have been discussing it work with an NHS contracted out to American health providers via a Johnson-Trump love-in? Who is hoovering up the cash? It would be akin to exporting pounds into already very fat and rich American health providers.
What I’m getting at is that I feel MMT principals are going to be misused – not used. How can MMT really work without an effective tax policy when a purely anti-tax government is in power?
None of it seems to add to me to MMT. But then again I am not the fastest gun on the block either on these matters.
I do not think this is really MMT
More like big deficit funding
It has worked for the Republicans
I see – thank you – so once again if the Tories are voted out, they will leave a huge debt for Labour to deal with – but only insofar as they treat that debt in an orthodox way and not like MMT?
My worry is that the Tories will create a really bad inflation problem – bad because of the reluctance to tax – with their deficit spending. Yet more Government money going straight into the mouths of the rich and few morsels for the many.
I’m getting heartily sick of this – aren’t you?
Yes….
Governments only “use MMT” in the sense that they use its insights as to how money works in a modern economy to pursue what they consider their public purpose to be. The Tories appear to consider that their public purpose is best served by leaving the EU and rewarding the rich on the basis that they contribute more to society. Progressives on the other hand would use the insights of MMT to achieve their idea of a government’s social purpose which is best served by running an economy which benefits the many not the few leaving no one behind so that all are able to lead a life they have reason to value.
@ Pilgrim and Richard
I think we are getting into thinking MMT is ‘policy’ again here. And MMT is tricky enough to undertsand without inventing ‘real MMT’ and not real MMT.
MMT is reality. So if the Cons can do it – it is MMT. What will almost certainly be false of course is what the Cons will claim they are doing and/or what they think they are doing. The problem with big deficit spending is not that it is impossible. MMT clearly says it is. And it is not that it constrains government spending. MMT rightly says it doesn’t. But it does have consequences. MMT then says look at the real effects not the financial ones. And the real effects on the economy are likely to be good. There is no point trying to twist that as bad because it is Boris doing it.
Tory fiscal policy since Osborne has been to prioritise the nominal effect on our national debt at the expense of the real effect on our economy and people’s well being. This policy of Boris is a volt-face and it certainly is a bribe. And it completely overturns Osborne’s notion of ‘fiscal prudence.’ The difference between the Left and Right here is in really understanding the underlying mechanism to the policy and secondly in the real effects of it and how those effects are judged. The Tories should not be allowed to get away with spinning the story that their fiscal prudence has created the ‘fiscal space’ to make the spending possible. That really would be a ‘misuse’ of MMT.
And you raise a very thorny question when you ask “How does MMT as we have been discussing it work with an NHS contracted out to American health providers?”
Can the NHS be sold to private owners? Of courses it can. And government spending would then fall? Highly unlikely – the new owners are likely to insist on subsidies. But as MMT does say saving the government money is not the point. For a government with a sovereign currency the aim of saving the government money is nonsensical. But ownership of the NHS is very signifiant because whoever owns it controls the scale, availability and quality of our healthcare. The point is not that we would be sending profits abroad (although doing that for no gain is stupid) but that health-care would then be re-fashioned by the market to serve the needs of the wealthy. Needless elective and expensive operations for the wealthy would increase and basic healthcare for the poor would shrink.
Of course the lie that ‘we can’t afford the NHS’ and privatisation will save us money would be pushed hard by the Tories. MMT can be used to oppose that policy because it explains why it is wrong.
We need to understand that MMT is important not just because it is about what you can and can’t do. But it is about understanding the difference between real and nominal outcomes and being clear-sighted about which is which.
MMT is reality
But you can pretend it is not
And that is the alternative being offered
Using MMT in this context is accepting reality