Beginning to See the Light: ‘Five Years’

 

‘We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes

We’ve got five years, what a surprise

We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot

We’ve got five years, that’s all we’ve got’

 

It will shortly be the fifth anniversary of the Brexit referendum, as such this column has decided to look back and review what has happened since.

The outcome of the referendum, 52:48 in favour of ‘Leave’ was, at the time, a surprise to many. But, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps it shouldn’t have been.

The result was engineered by two of the most divisive political characters post the GFC and fronted by a buffoon who had barely a passing acquaintance with the truth, Messrs Farage, Cummings, and Johnson.

Farage, as leader of UKIP, has been a thorn in the side of the Cameron government and, in a move that with hindsight, smacked of desperation, Cameron promised the electorate a referendum which, he hoped, would bring closure to the subject of our EU membership for a generation. The referendum did achieve closure but not in the way he expected, we voted ‘leave’, and his political career was in tatters.

 

at the moment he utters the lie he genuinely believes it to be true

 

Cummings, it must be said, orchestrated a brilliant ‘Leave’ campaign, long on snappy slogans such ‘£350m a week extra for the NHS,’ and ‘taking back control’. This, allied to data mining, allowed him to successfully woo the undecided.

The front man was our now PM, Boris Johnson, who, even I will acknowledge, is a good campaigner. In equal parts charming and witty and able to deliver bare faced lies with conviction. The latter skill seems based on the fact that, at the moment he utters the lie he genuinely believes it to be true.

The turnout to vote was impressive C. 30m people equal to 70% of the electorate. Of the 12-regions, only 3, London, Scotland, and Northern Ireland (‘NI’) voted to ‘remain’.

There was a more comprehensive demographic split amongst the electorate; the majority of voters aged 18-44 voted ‘remain’, whereas for those aged 45+ the majority voted ‘leave’.  The biggest difference was between the 18-34s and the over-65s.

What the Brexit referendum highlighted was:

 

1. The age divide,
2. The divide between ‘haves’ and have not’s’,
3. The divide between metropolitan areas and the rest,
4. The divide between ‘progressive’ and regressive’.

 

Of the above, perhaps the most interesting is point 2. It has always been assumed that there is a north-south divide, if there is a geographical divide it is both starker and more polarised; London versus the rest.

The divide between ‘haves’ and have not’s’ is the most interesting one, as it threw up people in areas in the north who, as homeowners had benefitted from house price inflation. Whilst it was assumed that ‘left behind’, the term often used to categorise them was economic, it was actually political; they despised what they saw as the London liberal elite, with their multi-cultural, progressive views which, to them, symbolised ‘remain’.  

There are numerous issues with Brexit, the most obvious today being is its incompatibility with the Good Friday agreement.

Economically, it’s almost impossible to measure its impact as the economy has been overwhelmed by C-19, politically it has enabled the Tories to keep a firm grasp on power, as they have benefitted from the nebulous part of Brexit. I use the term nebulous as, for many ‘leavers’, it wasn’t about trade, or economic prosperity, but about control, nationalism, about their perception of Britain’s place on the world stage.

Brexit has taken on a wider role, it has become part of a cultural revolution, sustained by belief and national pride.

 

it has become part of a cultural revolution, sustained by belief and national pride

 

The last weeks fraught diplomacy over NI and borders highlights this point, and the difference it makes to the opposing camps. For Johnson, the Withdrawal Agreement was a means to an end, for the EU it was a set of rules that governed how both parties worked in the future.

The Good Friday agreement was predicated on both Ireland and the UK being members of the single market and customs union, eliminating the need for any border between the two countries. A hard Brexit in which the UK refuses point-blank to align with EU standards and regulations for some goods is impossible to achieve without either imposing border checks on the island of Ireland, or in the Irish Sea, or compromising the integrity of the EU’s single market.

The compromise the parties agreed upon was that NI would remain aligned with EU rules and regulations that affect trade in goods, avoiding the need for border checks on the island of Ireland, but necessitating checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

It was a true compromise: the UK accepted the Good Friday agreement necessitated some alignment for Northern Ireland. The EU agreed to separate its four freedoms to enable Northern Ireland to remain in the single market for goods; for the UK, a non-member state, to enforce the border checks to protect the single market, requiring significant trust in the UK; and for the arrangement to be subject to a democratic vote every four years in Northern Ireland assembly.

To make this compromise work it was critical that Johnson built support for these arrangements with unionists; instead, he brazenly lied by claiming the protocol would require no checks in the Irish Sea. The government has since done little to prepare for the end of the protocol’s grace periods that delay introduction of border checks; instead of negotiating to extend these, the UK announced it would be extending them without any dialogue.

Johnson doesn’t misunderstand the situation in NI, he has simply chosen to ignore it. Politically, he dares not concede the principle that any part of the UK is subject to European regulatory standards, as it represents an admission that a portion of sovereignty was conceded in the negotiations. Confrontation suits him, it plays to the media and the masses, who love nothing better than ‘EU bashing’, especially if France is at the forefront of it.

 

it plays to the media and the masses, who love nothing better than ‘EU bashing’

 

In addition, by keeping the NI fire ablaze, he avoids having to explain that customs checks’ at Irish Sea ports were a post-Brexit administrative fact of life. His gamble is that in allowing the situation to degenerate it puts the EU under pressure to make concessions.

This sort of brinkmanship plays well with his domestic audience and allows him to continue to make the EU the fall-guy for his follies. For Labour it’s a no-win situation, Starmer either sides with the government who is playing ‘dare’ with international law, or he further disenfranchises Labour from the electorate by siding with Brussels and appearing disloyal to the country.

Disloyalty is a key offence under the nationalist, populist revolution we are experiencing.

Because of its nebulous nature there is little that can be measured to highlight Brexit’s success, after all nationalism never created new jobs. Therefore, it thrives on the need for confrontation to maintain momentum.

Electorally Brexit is a money-tree for the Tories, allowing them to play the role of representing the mainstream, practical and patriotic, whilst Labour is painted as joyless, ‘woke’, and supporters of ‘loony’ causes.

Starmer is closer to the majority opinion with his realisation of the need for timely lockdowns and cautious re-openings during the pandemic. Despite this he is viewed as sitting on the side-lines and being a ‘remainer’, even though he never talks about Europe.

Whilst Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, was broken by the incompatibility of Brexit and the peace accord in NI, he has simply ridden roughshod over this point, agreeing a treaty he had no intention of honouring. In this he is fully supported by the current cabinet who have signed up to the ‘Johnsonian code of conduct that makes evidence and truth subordinate to the performance of boosterism’.

 

‘Policies have been replaced by mantras such as ‘levelling up’ and ‘building back better’’

 

Policies have been replaced by mantras such as ‘levelling up’ and ‘building back better’, whilst governing is reduced to arguments over what is available on current budgets and, if more cash is needed, who will pay. Any serious plan for green energy, or reducing NHS waiting lists or reforming social care begins by telling the public about tough choices and present sacrifice for future gain.

Brexit will continue to provide for the government, being so nebulous there is no end to it. Covid showed that the emperor has no clothes on, it forced him to govern, and made him deliver unpalatable messages in many live coronavirus press conferences. It was clear he hated every second, for this is a man who only delivers ‘good news’.

As we touched upon last week Brexit has transposed patriotism into nationalism which has led, inevitably, to an increase in racially motivated violence; ‘The UK’s referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU) was followed by an increase in race and religious hate crime of 15-25% in England and Wales’.

‘Although the estimated effects seem considerable, a 15-25% rise in recorded hate crime translates into approximately 2,000 additional hate crimes in the third quarter of 2016 in England and Wales (Carr et al, 2020). But this finding is likely to understate the effects of the referendum, as typically only half of hate crimes are ever reported (Home Office, 2020). To put this number in perspective, international hate crimes on a monthly level in 2016 hovered around 300 in Germany (xenophobic hate crimes) and over 400 in the United States’.

English nationalism long predates Brexit; however, the referendum did highlight the divisions in English society that had been building over several years. Brexit did, however, highlight the fact that existence of a right-wing lunatic fringe was a myth.

When England fans at Euro 2016 started singing: ‘Fuck off Europe, we all voted out’, they were only putting in words what 53% of their countryman (slightly higher than the UK as a whole) had just voted for.

Before we finish, we must make mention of the current expose from Dominic Cummings regarding the governments Covid shortcomings. Part of this is the devastation that the virus caused in care homes after patients from hospitals were dumped there to free up beds. The Office for National Statistics estimates 42,000 care home residents in England and Wales died of Covid, an outcome that was entirely predictable in the absence of meaningful infection control.

 

Uncertainty is not a reason for inaction, and hope is not a strategy

 

In his defence the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, claimed that only 1.6% of care home outbreaks were seeded from hospitals, citing Public Health England (PHE) research. That research is flawed as to detect an outbreak you need testing, and tests were in short supply over the most serious period of the spring surge in 2020.

In fact, the same PHE research states that ‘the majority of these potentially hospital-seeded care home outbreaks were identified in March to mid-April 2020, with none identified from the end of July until September where a few recent cases have emerged’, which suggests that once testing was finally mandated for discharge from hospitals to care homes in mid-April, it was helpful in preventing outbreaks.

Before mid-April, testing was also limited to those with symptoms, which, given the potential for unwitting transmission from currently asymptomatic people, was disastrous. Hancock’s claim that asymptomatic transmission was not appreciated at the time is rubbish; as the minutes of the Sage state, ‘There is limited evidence of asymptomatic transmission, but early indications imply some is occurring.’

This really sums up our approach to the pandemic response. Whenever scientists conveyed the message, ‘We don’t know exactly how bad it is, but it might well be really bad and you should act accordingly,’ the political response was: ‘So you mean it might not be that bad,’ and to avoid making hard decisions. Uncertainty is not a reason for inaction, and hope is not a strategy.

The government cannot defend itself by saying a few errors might have been made here and there. There has been a persistent pattern of serious mistakes, especially by Hancock, from which nothing was learned, and the mistakes were soon repeated.

As Dr William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard, wrote, ‘close to 130,000 have already lost their lives so far. They deserved better. So does the country’.

Rarely has there been a truer statement.

 

‘In my life

Oh, why do I give valuable time

To people who don’t care if I live or die?’

Sources:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028

https://www.economicsobservatory.com/did-the-vote-for-brexit-lead-to-a-rise-in-hate-crime

 

Following last week’s reflective piece, by his own admission, Philip’s look at Brexit, five years on, comes tinged with resignation; as Brexit remains such a nebulous concept, a state of mind, it suits Boris to keep the media and electorate on a permanent war footing.

As suits The PM’s populist style, consistently identifying enemies both within and without, and then delivering solutions to the problems they create can be a galvanising force; it also allows him to be chameleonic and adapt the message according to the audience.

Philip acknowledges the efficacy of Boris’ oratory, but maybe he deserves equal recognition for the way in which he has dealt with the Northern Ireland issue; guaranteed to be a thorny and emotive topic, Boris simply signed on the dotted in the hope that he can pick off both sides when they have punched themselves out. Sometimes less worse can be sold as a positive.

The issue of inequality is raised again, and only this week there is a further proposal to enlarge the gulf between young and old by allowing the double jabbed to travel back from ‘amber list’ countries without quarantine; Saga Louts 1 Gen Z 0.

Having said that, fit as a flea and replete with a double dose of Pfizer’s finest, my brother has gone down with the ‘so called Delta variant which originated in India’. ‘Mild symptoms?’ no, not at all; totally avoidable and all Boris’ fault – absolutely; but still he surfs the crest of the vaccination wave.

So the shops are half empty; or is that ‘half full as a result of our world leading fight against the virus’?

It seems that nothing Mr Cummings can dredge up is going to land a fatal blow either; how many people read that Boris had called Mr Handcock ‘totally f**king useless’ and thought ‘I say, that’s not fair’ – but neither did he look out of place in this Cabinet. Anyway, Boris has made things better there by today saying he ‘continues to have full confidence’ in his Health Secretary. Who knows WFT J R-M was up to.

So where will his Waterloo be? Well, the good burghers of Chesham and Amersham are clearly not keen on HS2 or Mr Jenrick’s planning reforms; however much you’re trying to demolish red wall, don’t slap a tunnel boring machine under one of the wealthiest parts of the country.

Yet apparently nothing can dent Boris’ popularity; reports have been received that thousands of tartan-clad Tory supporters are making their way to London today in an act of homage. Nice touch.

Two tracks, just for fun – the return of the Thin White Duke with ‘Five Years’ and The Smith with ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’; and he is. Enjoy! 

 

 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

Click on the link to see all Brexit Bulletins: