Heroes: Scorched Earth 

 

‘Through the aging, the fearing, the strife

It’s the smiling on the package 

It’s the faces in the sand’ 

 

This weeks article is rich with irony; ‘the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected.’ 

We start with NI, and big ‘up’s to Sunak for seemingly solving the impossible. Ironically, in doing so Sunak started telling us how wonderful the EU single market was and how lucky NI was to remain part of it. The very same Rishi Sunak that campaigned to get the UK out of the EU and the single market and was adamant that Brexit wouldn’t be Brexit unless the UK left the single market. 

This was the Sunak that fought the 2019 general election campaign Johnson’s leadership on the platform that the NI protocol was the Brexit miracle cure. Then, suddenly, as PM he’s telling us that the protocol had been a rubbish idea all along. 

Inconsistencies to one-side, the question being asked is, can he steer it through his own party and the naysayers of the DUP? 

The innovative solution withing the agreement, known as the Windsor framework, is the  ‘Stormont brake’, which will allow the NI assembly to stop new EU single market rules from applying in the region. 

Sunak said:  

‘The only EU law that applies in Northern Ireland under the framework is the minimum necessary to avoid a hard border with Ireland and allow Northern Ireland business to continue accessing the EU market….Many have called for Stormont to have a say over these laws, but the Stormont brake goes further and means that Stormont can in fact stop them from applying in Northern Ireland. This will establish a clear process for which the democratically elected assembly can pull an emergency brake for changes to EU goods rules that would have significant and lasting effects on everyday lives. If the brake is pulled, the UK government will have a veto.’ 

This feature, assuming Sunak has described it accurately, and that critics do not find a catch when they get to inspect the small print, will make it hard for the DUP to oppose the deal. 

If the DUP continue boycotting the executive, the ‘Stormont brake’ will not apply. The alternative would not be no protocol, but NI remaining in the single market with no right of veto. 

This puts the balls squarely in the DUP’s court, only time will tell if they can move on from their usual obduracy of ‘no’ and ‘never’. 

The DUP have set ‘seven tests’ for any deal that arrogantly assumes they should be the sole judge and only jury of what is good for NI and the UK. The reality is somewhat different, their judgement is tainted;  they supported Brexit against the wishes of the majority in NI, they then scuppered Theresa May’s attempts to resolve the border question, finally, they foolishly believed in Johnson who repaid their faith with the despised NI protocol. 

 

‘they foolishly believed in Johnson who repaid their faith with the despised NI protocol’

 

The signals from No.10 are clear; when asked whether it would be implemented even if the DUP declined to accept it, Sunak replied: ‘The framework is what we have agreed with the European Union.’ 

Speaking after Sunak’ sales pitch to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers , Steve Baker, a leading Conservative voice on Brexit issues who is now a Northern Ireland minister, said: ‘The prime minister is not going to be losing any votes on this. Everybody realises this is as good as it is going to get.’ 

For once we are standing up to the DUP; they are a minority, winning less than a third of the seats at the most recent elections for the NI assembly, which they have prevented from functioning for more than a year. Like everyone else, they have a right to a say, but not to a veto.  

So, to the DUP and their ‘No’ and ‘Never’ approach we can say this: ‘No’ one cares what you think, and you will ‘Never’ be in power again!  

At home, much is being made of whether Boris Johnson will lead a revolt to scupper Sunak’s triumph. 

Firstly, NI is just another in a series of mistakes Johnson made when PM. He lied when promising there would be no trade border in the Irish Sea, and then agreed terms that created just that. He claimed he had an ‘oven-ready’ deal at the 2019 election and rammed ratification through parliament, after which he denounced as diabolical the very agreement that he himself had signed.  

Johnson is an opportunistic, he has no interest in NI other than as an opportunity to unseat Sunak, and to return as party leader. 

Sunak’s deal has ‘humiliated’ Johnson over his post-Brexit deal with the European Union. Allies who had been agitating for Johnson’s return in an attempt to try to reverse the Conservatives’ low poll ratings, are beginning to concede that the appetite among sceptics of Sunak’s to challenge their leader was depleting. 

 

‘Sunak’s deal has ‘humiliated’ Johnson over his post-Brexit deal with the European Union’

 

A significant moment came when Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Commons leader, urged fellow Tory MPs to ‘calm down and live with the leader we’ve got. If we’re a grown-up party we cannot change leader again between now and an election.’ 

Several MPs who were part of the C. 100 that supported Johnson’s attempt to re-run for Conservative leader in October privately said they believed the clamour for him to return was waning. One is quoted, saying; ‘We are getting close to the general [election], it’s just around the corner. We’ve run out of time for Boris’s antics.’ 

There has always been considerable irony within Brexit and its extremists. At its epicentre was destruction and insurrection against the status quo, that was defined by a promise to upend the established ways of Westminster government. 

It was based on fantasy; leaving the EU would be a piece of cake and that Britain would hold all the cards in withdrawal negotiations. Johnson’s hard-Brexit  once hailed as the road to Nirvana, has become the road to perdition. 

 

‘Johnson’s hard-Brexit  once hailed as the road to Nirvana, has become the road to perdition’

 

Brexiters, Sunak inlcuded, now understand that the national interest demands harmonious relations with Brussels. His statement that NI enjoyed a ‘very special position‘ in the EU single market, making it a magnet for investment, highlights what has been lost by the other three members of the UK. Effectively summing up the contradictions and the absurdity that has defined British politics since the referendum.  

There appears to be a belief among Brexiters that it is a zero-sum game where the EU’s raison d’etre is to take away our sovereignty. This is becoming at odds with the Tory’s natural instinct for electoral self-preservation, and the realisation that voters have no appetite for Brexit Wars II, especially over NI. 

This explains why the conjuring trick of the ‘Windsor framework’ has so disorientated Brexit fundamentalists. The ‘Stormont brake’ allows for a unilateral UK halt to the application of European regulation in NI, which is a major concession from the EU.  

In reality, it shows respect from the EU towards Sunak and the proportionality and good faith he brought to the table, a welcome change from the bombastic swagger and bullying displayed by both Johnson and Frost. 

In this way Sunak is moving closer to Keir Starmer. Both can benefit from Brexit drifting to the margins of political debate. For the Tories, Brexit brings forth division and disloyalty, whereas with Labour there is a liberal ‘remainer’ base that remains at odds with the leave voters it needs for a majority. As such it suits both to trade on the on the fiction that, this time, Brexit really is done. 

Which leads me onto what a mess the next PM will inherit after 12-yrs of Tory neglect. 

NHS waiting times, staff shortages and service backlogs have been flagged as concerns in relation to dozens of patient deaths across England and Wales since the start of last year, with coroners facing a succession of inquests concerning ambulance delays. 

Coroners issue prevention of future deaths reports (PFDs) when they believe preventive action should be taken, and send them to relevant individuals or organisations, which are expected to respond. 

Among 55 cases identified by the Observer are 24 patient deaths where coroners raised concerns about ambulance delays – all of them occurring before this winter’s ambulance crisis, when response times rocketed to their worst-ever levels. 

But the issues highlighted by coroners in relation to patient deaths go further. They include lengthy elective surgery backlogs; high referral thresholds and long waiting times for children’s mental health services; a national shortage of neurologists; long waiting times for psychological therapies; a lack of mental health beds and unfilled mental health staff vacancies; and a shortage of cardiologists compounded by a shortage of theatre capacity and beds. 

A focus groups summed up the current state of Britain as ‘grim’. It isn’t just the NHS, the trains don’t work, prisons are overcrowded, the courts jammed by backlogs, the military so shrunk by cuts that they can no longer defend the country. School classes are so big that children cannot learn properly.  

 

‘It isn’t just the NHS, the trains don’t work, prisons are overcrowded, the courts jammed by backlogs, the military so shrunk by cuts that they can no longer defend the country. School classes are so big that children cannot learn properly’

 

The electorate understands this, which is why Labour have an average poll lead of 20 points. The downside is that the scorched earth that Labour could inherit becomes an increasingly daunting, if not impossible, task.  

In 1997, whilst the public sector needed repairing, Tony Blair took over a growing economy benefitting from rising tax revenues, whereas now we are now experiencing what could be termed as structural decline: growth in labour productivity is lower now than it has been for 250 years. As the economist Adam Tooze puts it, assessing the epoch from the start of the Industrial Revolution until now: ‘There has literally never been a period of underperformance, of stagnation in labour productivity, of the type that we have seen since the 2010s.’ 

In the same vein, Starmer is returning to the New Labour playbook and speaking of public service ‘reform’, believing that our crumbling services need more than cash to work better. 

His theme of ‘mission-driven’ government is reassuring rather than exciting. There is also the realisation that he is taking the long view, thinking in terms of two-terms in office, with a clear 5-point message: economic growth, NHS renewal, safety in the streets, social mobility and clean energy.  

All highlight the broken Britain the Tories caused, and each requires new directions rather than the sticking plaster solutions. 

 

‘a clear 5-point message: economic growth, NHS renewal, safety in the streets, social mobility and clean energy’

 

Aside from the unexplained pledge that we would have the highest rate of sustained growth of the G7 nations by the end of its first term, others areas included childcare, planning reform and fixing Brexit. Starmer was clear that low pay and a London-centric big bang were not the way forward, but said nothing about taxes.  

He talked of a government-led partnership with the private sector, and of reforming corporate governance and workplace codetermination. Levelling-up wasn’t explicit but he talked of the need for every region and nation of the UK ‘to be heard‘ and for institutions to be ‘respected, not bypassed‘. 

 

‘Has the behaviour and record of the Tories left people doubting government’s ability to improve their lives?’ 

 

What he can’t know is how the electorate views politics? Is there a feeling of scepticism as to whether politics works. Recent Tory administration have been a disgrace; the madness of Liz Truss, the serial scandals and deceptions of Boris Johnson, impact not only the Conservatives, but politics as a whole. Has the behaviour and record of the Tories left people doubting government’s ability to improve their lives? 

A senior Labour figure said; ‘People’s belief that even modest change is possible is just rock bottom‘. 

Paradoxically, whilst the Tory’s failure has given Labour a large lead in the polls, it is viewed by many voters as the failure of politics itself, sapping public confidence that Labour could do any better. 

What is without question is that the next government will be staring into a hole so deep, many will doubt the country can ever dig itself out. 

 

‘Soon found out I was losing my mind 

It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind 

 Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind‘ 

 

 

Grudging admiration from Philip this week, as Rishi seems to have pulled an NI deal out of the bag, bopped Boris square on the beak and ‘got Brexit done’; just the Dinosaur Unionist Party to defeat.

This was a big week:

‘This week it’s big ‘ups to Rishi. Perhaps he’s not so wishy washy after all.

His solution to the NI Protocol borders on genius, and largely side-lines the DUP. You may have noticed my dislike of them. Sullen, prehistoric people who have been pandered to, and allowed to control the narrative for too long. Their time has passed.

As, it would appear, has Boris Johnson’s. His insurrectionist populism seems to have run its course, with Tory MPs realising that Brexit is over, what we have is what we are going to get; move on, nothing more to be seen.

For Labour, Starmer presented cogent, well thought out ideas that succeed in being both underwhelming and welcome. The electorate has had too much excitement in recent years.

The question I and others are asking is, has the Tory’s behaviour and collective failure destroyed the electorate’s faith in mainstream politicians? Is this the watershed that creates a vacuum for someone such as ReformUK.

Last week, in “Out of Time” I quoted the Tory’s deputy chair,  Lee Anderson, who said that the next election will probably be “a mix of culture wars and trans debate”.  Or, more accurately just a nasty attack on other people he doesn’t like.

Quite by chance I stumbled across an article by Peter Tatchell where he talked about the 1983 Bermondsey by-election.  

This is seen as a key moment in modern British political history, and is widely regarded as one of the dirtiest and most violent elections in 20th-century Britain.

Tatchell, as a left-wing gay Labour candidate, was subjected to more than 100 assaults while canvassing. There were also nearly three dozen attacks on his flat, including bricks and bottles through the windows and a bullet posted through the letterbox in the middle of the night.

Bermondsey was without doubt the most homophobic UK election ever. Tatchell was subjected to 15 months of media smears, anti-gay violence and sabotage by the right of the party, subsequently he lost what had been a safe Labour seat.

The article deviates and focuses on Labour’s internal failings and own homophobia, but there is a clear message and warning that can be taken from it. If the Tory campaign is to be a mixture of culture wars and trans debate, then we can expect more of this all over the country.

People must learn to live and let live, at the same time we are different and all the same. There is so much wrong with the country that Anderson should be ashamed of picking on gender and sexuality, when we are in the depths of structural decline.

Despite this week’s success I still find the Tory’s desperately depressing, perhaps because they are so nasty, it simply isn’t necessary. Therefore we open this piece with Interpol and “Evil”. To play us out, I continue the theme of voter disenchantment with “Heart of Glass” by Blondie. Enjoy!

@coldwarsteve

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

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