brexit

    Today is Irony Day: Wetherspoon’s short on some beers as Brexit affects deliveries.

    They blame ‘lack of lorry drivers and strike action.’ Hadn’t heard about a strike; does it exist? And more importantly, what on Earth could have caused a lack of drivers???

    No Project, Plenty of Fear

    All through the Brexit debate, and after, people warned that it would cause problems in Northern Ireland. And now here we are:

    Loyalist paramilitary groups have told the British and Irish governments they are withdrawing support for the Good Friday agreement in protest at Northern Ireland’s Irish Sea trade border with the rest of the UK.

    – Rory Carroll in The Guardian, Brexit: loyalist paramilitary groups renounce Good Friday agreement

    Brexiters dismissed those concerns as fearmongering.

    I don’t know what the end result of this will be, but I can’t imagine it being good.

    Four Years Gone

    Four years ago, in a piece called ‘Which is Worse?,’ I wrote that:

    Brexit is worse than Trump, because Trump is only for four years — less if he gets impeached or twenty-fived, which is almost certain; but Brexit is forever.

    – Me, Which is Worse?

    Who would have thought, back then, that, while Trump would be gone (having been impeached not once but twice) but Brexit, in its final form, would only be getting started?

    I use the word ‘final’ facetiously. David Allen Green has been writing about this too, and he avers:1

    In 2016, American voters (via the electoral college) elected Trump for a term of four years, while those in the United Kingdom voted for Brexit with no similar fixed term.

    One decision was set to be revisited in four years, the other was not.

    […]

    There will be no cathartic Biden-like ceremony to bring Brexit to a close.

    This is because of the nature of the 2016 referendum (which, unlike the election of Trump, was not a decision for a fixed period); and because of the dynamic structure of the new relationship as set out in the trade and cooperation agreement; and because of the unsettled politics both internally in the United Kingdom and of its relationship with the European Union.

    And so, to a significant (though not a total) extent, the United States was able to bring what it decided in 2016 to a formal and substantial end, the United Kingdom cannot similarly do so.

    For the United Kingdom, 2016 is here to stay.

    – David Allen Green, The United States had its cathartic post-2016, post-Trump ceremonial moment – but the United Kingdom cannot have a similar post-2016, post-Brexit moment

    His ‘here to stay,’ and my ‘forever’ could be overstating the case. I feel sure that the United Kingdom, in some form, or at least parts of it, will join the European Union again one day. How far away that day is, and what form the accession country or countries of the time will have, we can only learn by living through it. It will be more than another four years, that’s for sure.


    1. As he loves to do. It would be hard to find one of his posts without the word ‘aver’ in it. I think they get inserted by automatic operation of law.

      He also loves a long title: ‘The United States had its cathartic post-2016, post-Trump ceremonial moment – but the United Kingdom cannot have a similar post-2016, post-Brexit moment’. ↩︎

    Endings

    Well, this year of infamy is finally lurching towards its end. I don’t think too many of us will be sad to see the back of 2020.

    With it, though, we have to also say a final goodbye to Britain’s membership of the European Union. I don’t think too many of us will be happy about that. Even people who are pleased about it now will realise over time that leaving is a huge mistake.

    At least with the exit agreement in place, we shouldn’t see the immediate shortages and queues at the ports that we feared. That agreement is problematic, though.

    To get an example of its dangers, I refer you to David Allen Green’s Law and Policy Blog. Yesterday’s post is entitled ‘The Bill implementing the Trade and Cooperation Agreement is an exercise in the Government taking power from Parliament,’ and in it he says:

    The draft bill is complex and deals with several specific technical issues, such as criminal records, security, non-food product safety, tax and haulage, as well as general implementation provisions.

    Each of these specific technical issues would warrant a bill, taking months to go through the normal parliamentary process.

    But instead they will be whizzed and banged through in a single day, with no real scrutiny, as the attention of parliamentarians will (understandably) be focused on the general implementation provisions, which are in Part 3 of the draft bill.

    […]

    This provision will empower ministers (or the devolved authorities, where applicable) to make regulations with the same effect as if those regulations were themselves acts of parliament.

    In other words: they can amend laws and repeal (or abolish) laws, with only nominal parliamentary involvement.

    There are some exceptions (under clause 31(4)), but even with those exceptions, this is an extraordinarily wide power for the executive to legislate at will.

    These clauses are called ‘Henry VIII’ clauses and they are as notorious among lawyers as that king is notorious in history.

    Again, this means that parliament (and presumably the devolved assemblies, where applicable) will be bypassed, and what is agreed between Whitehall and Brussels will be imposed without any further parliamentary scrutiny.

    – David Allen Green, The Bill implementing the Trade and Cooperation Agreement is an exercise in the Government taking power from Parliament

    The whole piece is worth reading (and note the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy references).

    Take back control, right enough: take it back from the elected representatives of the people, and give it to the executive.

    2020 made 2016 look like 2012. 2021 offers hope to the world as the Covid vaccines roll out, and hope for America as Trump is rolled out of the White House. But things still look decidedly dodgy here in the UK.

    In the Departure Lounge

    Here we are, then, on the last day of the UK’s membership of the EU. We fought, we lost, and now we’ve got to live with the consequences.

    Which won’t really start to take effect until the start of next year, of course, because we’ll be in the transition period until then. Until 2021 we’ll still be able to travel freely; there will be no added tariffs on goods; food standards will still be the high ones we’re used to.

    Ah yes, food standards. Just the other day I had a realisation — no, it was something that I already knew. More a dawning fear of how close a bad thing was. What brought it home was this headline in the Independent: “Brexit: US insists chlorinated chicken must be on menu in any UK trade agreement.”

    Obviously no-one’s going to force anyone to buy or eat chicken, chlorine-washed or otherwise. But remember why chicken in the US is washed in chlorine, and why importing it into the EU is banned: it’s because the food standards are significantly lower than those in the EU. The chlorine washing is to kill off bacteria and make the meat fit for human consumption.

    So what that headline means is that a US trade deal could depend on the UK lowering its food standards. That’s what Brexit means: our government could choose to lower the standards of hygiene required in food production. Sit with that thought for a while.

    There are a couple of good things to think about on this bleak day. Both of those are also from America, and neither has anything to do with Brexit. But I’ll leave them for later posts. Stay tuned.

    I leave you with this delightful snippet of Alex Andreou, on the Remainiacs podcast, suggesting how to cope with today, and the future.

    Broken Glass

    I’ve been feeling kind of sorry for Jo Swinson today. Also for myself, and the whole country, especially underprivileged people, people with disabilities, the young, the old, minorities, the marginalised… Anyone who’s going to suffer under the new regime.

    But Swinson lost her seat by just 149 votes, which must be especially heartbreaking. She always impressed me as someone who knew what she was talking about and was on top of things. She was part of the Cameron/Clegg coalition, which is problematic, but let’s let that go.

    She’s quoted as saying:

    One of the realities of smashing glass ceilings is that a lot of broken glass comes down on your head.

    which is great, and sad.

    People criticised her for making the Liberal Democrat campaign too presidential, too much about her, and that probably was a mistake. Though would they have criticised a male leader in the same way?

    And there’s the business of promising to revoke Article 50. Which I was and am completely in favour of, even if it can seem undemocratic.1 The problem was not the promise, but the messaging. The story should have been, “Elect us to government and you’ll give us a mandate to revoke. Give us less power and we’ll work for a second referendum.” That was the story: she just seemed to have some difficulty expressing it in clear, simple terms, at least in the debates I saw.

    All that said, I’m still baffled as to what has happened to the country.


    1. it wouldn’t be if handled properly, but it’s too late to go into that now. 

    Election Blues

    I don’t fully understand the rationale of the Lib Dems and SNP pushing for an election at this point. No-deal is still firmly on the table, it seems to me, and if the Tories get a big majority — or even just an actual majority — then we remainers are done for.

    Yet Ian Dunt at politics.co.uk describes it at as “one last chance” for remainers. He makes a compelling case. If he hadn’t gone for the election, Johnson could likely have got the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) through parliament. This way, at least there’s a chance. A hung parliament, a coalition that gives us a second referendum.

    A new Remain campaign that is successful.

    That’s a lot of “ifs,” and we lose everything if any one of them goes the wrong way.

    And Carole Cadwalladr reminds us that the illegality and foreign money in the referendum have never been addressed.

    Another “if”: if Johnson could have got the deal through parliament, why did he back down and go for the election? Maybe it’s just be that he expects to get a majority, and thereby make it easier to get the WAB through in a new parliament. But I can’t help thinking that he’s up to something. That he and Dominic Cummings have some plan that will get around parliament somehow.

    Hard to see what that could be, but how far would you trust those proven liars and crooks?

    I hope everyone’s not petitioned out, because we need this: To establish a Public Inquiry into the conduct of the 2016 EU Referendum.

    There will be a public enquiry about Brexit and how it was mishandled, eventually. But it could be years from now. Sooner is better.

    EU Citizens

    It’s sad when even pro-European organisations get things wrong about us.

    Last week I signed up for, and tweeted about, a programme designed to encourage people to vote in the EU parliamentary elections:

    Today I got an email from “This Time I’m Voting,” containing the following text:

    If you are one of the 3.5 million EU nationals still living here in the UK

    Therefore, whether you are British or an EU citizen

    Last time I looked there are around 67 million EU nationals living in the UK. At least until next week, and hopefully for a long time after that. I mean, that’s kind of the point of this whole struggle we’re having, isn’t it?

    The fact that (some) people in the UK fail to identify as EU citizens is partly what has got us into this mess.

    OK/Cancel

    The other day I was explaining to my daughter why I thought a second referendum would be right and democratic. I reached for an analogy, and came up with the idea that you don’t (usually) do something as serious as deleting a file without getting a confirmation dialogue to confirm that you really mean to go ahead.

    So now I’m planning on making a banner with some version of the image below for the “Put it to the People” march on Saturday. Just trying to perfect the wording. All suggestions gratefully considered.

    Text saying 'All we want is a confirmation dialogue' above a dialogue box with leave and remain options

    Not shown: my Unix-based joke alternative, which would be something like:

    # Leavers be all like:
    rm -rf britains-special-place-in-the-eu/
    

    Though maybe “Abort, Retry, Fail” would be more in keeping with the times.

    What's Next for Brexit?

    Parliament has again voted against May’s deal — the only one on offer. If, as is highly likely, they vote tomorrow against leaving the EU without a deal, doesn’t that leave only one option?

    The one we’re all hoping for: revoke the triggering of Article 50.

    Or at the very least, take the whole thing back to the people for a second referendum.

    Unhelpful Thoughts On Brexit

    You could spend a lot of time wondering what makes Theresa May tick.

    She says she supported remain and voted to stay in the European Union. So her increasing fervour for Brexit has been one of the most confusing factors in British politics over the last two and a half years.

    Taking over the Tory leadership after David Cameron resigned was always going to be a poisoned chalice. No-one would have had a good time in that position, except maybe a genuine hard quitter like Jacob Rees-Mogg. That’s probably why Gove and Johnson pulled out.

    If she truly believed that staying in was best, though, she would not have rushed into triggering Article 50 (nor would she have gone to court to fight for her wish to do so by diktat; luckily National Hero Gina Miller had the nation’s back on that one).

    If she had used more care, collaboration, and consideration, she might have had an easier time when Article 50 finally was triggered and the negotiations started. In fact if she had been more thoughtful in the first place she might even have said something like, “The vote was close; the country is clearly divided. We will discuss the possible ways forward in parliament and with the rest of the EU, and come back to you, the people, for confirmation when we better understand what Brexit means.” 1

    But no: “Brexit means Brexit”: she knew up front what it meant, and never deviated. Even if the majority of the country had no idea what it would mean.

    She then proceeded as follows:

    • ignore any idea of cross-party talks and so involving parliament (the UK’s sovereign body) in the negotiations;
    • trigger Article 50 as soon as she could;
    • negotiate with the EU27 almost in secret;
    • have inflexible “red lines” to appease the hard quitters, leaving herself no room for compromise in the negotiations.

    It’s a truism, even a cliche, to say that she puts the Tory party before the country. But the only way I can explain such a dramatic change of heart is that her love for the Tory party overruled her knowledge that being in the EU was, is, and will be the best situation for the UK. And that she somehow convinced herself that she could heal her fatally-divided party.

    In fact, the very thing that Cameron was trying to do by calling he referendum in the first place.

    “Tory eurosceptics” used to be a common enough phrase, but it denoted a tiny fringe of the party: a few loons like John Redwood. But in trying to appease them, two Tory leaders and prime ministers have turned them mainstream and brought us to where we are today, on the brink of leaving the EU without any kind of agreement for our future relationship.

    And their party is as divided as ever.


    1. That’s fanciful, of course. But it’s what a sane, thoughtful person, who cared about what might happen to the country would have done. 

    The Compulsive Pursuit of a Product That Does Us Only Harm

    Rafel Behr analyses our national condition:

    It looks like British social awkwardness elevated to the scale of a constitutional meltdown. It is the stiff upper lip chewing itself to pieces rather than name the cause of our suffering: not the deal, not the backstop, not the timetable, not Brussels, but Brexit. The poison in our system is Brexit. We need a path to recovery, not May’s frantic hunt for a stronger, purer dose.

    At The Guardian

    “Why’s it taking so long? We should just leave!” | The Reinvigorated Programmer

    Good analogy:

    Suppose your family lives in a flat that’s rented from a housing association. And you have come to feel (rightly or wrongly) that it’s not a very nice flat, and that the association interferes too much. So you discuss it as a family, and you think about all the lovely houses out there that you could live in, and eventually you decide to leave. So far, so good.

    EU Figures Rule Out Concessions as May Postpones Brexit Vote

    Honestly, she has no idea what she’s doing. Plus, she seems to be acting alone. We don’t have a presidential system here. The Prime Minister is not the entire executive.

    EU figures rule out concessions as May postpones Brexit vote

    Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

    I realised after yesterday’s post about Corbyn and Brexit that I’ve said similar things before. So today I’ve put talk into action. I’ve cancelled my direct debit for my party membership, and written to my constituency party secretary tendering my resignation.

    I also did this:

    Cut-up Labour Membership Card
    Cut-up Labour Membership Card

    Perhaps most significantly, at least symbolically: look up there. ⬆️ This blog has been called “A Labourer At the Bitface” more or less since it started, partly as a reference to my political stance, as I explained in this post.1 It’s now called “Tales From The Bitface,” which was the name of my Livejournal version. That’s still there, but it, along with the whole site, pretty much, is moribund.

    I still support the principles of the Labour party, and I’m sure I’ll vote for them again. But not until they sort themselves out about Brexit.


    1. Even then, I note, I was “consider[ing] my future in said party.” 

    Some Labour MPs are thinking along similar lines to me.

    Wes Streeting:

    “Labour cannot sit by and allow the choice to be between the economic ruin of a hard Brexit or the loss of sovereignty under Theresa May’s deal, with Britain subjected to EU rules but with no say over them,” he said. “As with any fork in the road, there is always the option of turning back home.

    “We know this is a mess made by the Tories, but the Labour party can’t just sit back and watch. It’s time for all of us in the Labour party to make the full-throated case for a people’s vote with the option of remaining in the European Union.

    “That leadership must now come from the top, or our party may never be forgiven for the consequences that follow.”

    Chris Leslie:

    “With even Tory ministers recognising Brexit threatens the poorest in society, our public services and Britain’s place in the world, to have a Labour leader just shrug about it, then go awol, is nothing short of a dereliction of duty.”

    OK, they’re maybe not planning to leave the party, but still.

    Ex-Corbyn Fan

    You know what? I’m done with Jeremy Corbyn. This interview in Der Spiegel, in which he says “Brexit can’t be stopped,” is the clincher.

    As always, literally everything else he says is on the good side of politics — the side I tend to agree with, to be less judgmental. But he refuses to resist — even, really, to engage with1 — the thing that is the most important political issue and biggest political mistake of our lifetime (setting aside for the moment climate change, which is not just a political issue, and is global in scope, not just European). Look at this:

    DER SPIEGEL: Not just Labour, but the whole country is extremely divided at the moment — not least because of Brexit. If you could stop Brexit, would you?

    Corbyn: We can’t stop it. The referendum took place. Article 50 has been triggered. What we can do is recognize the reasons why people voted Leave.

    This is that “will of the people” nonsense, the idea that it would be undemocratic to ask again. The will of the people can change, and almost certainly has. And you don’t agree to a deal with going back and checking that it’s still OK. Having a confirmatory referendum would be considerably more democratic than not having one.2 And we can stop it. Parliament, which is, and always was, sovereign, could revoke Article 50.

    Back to the interview:

    I’ve been critical of the competitions policy in Europe and the move towards free market, and obviously critical in the past of their treatment of Greece, although that was mostly the eurozone that did that. My idea is of a social Europe with inclusive societies that work for everyone and not just for a few.

    You don’t build a “social Europe with inclusive societies that work for everyone and not just for a few” by leaving the EU! You build it by staying in, and working to build that society! God, it’s infuriating.

    I voted for him as leader, I respect and believe in most of his policies, but he needs to go. Labour won three general elections under Tony Blair, and was able to do a lot of good. They could have done more, they could have been better, and Blair destroyed his legacy by throwing his lot in with George W Bush and the Iraq War. But those were times when things were improving in the country and we looked to the future with positivity. It can be like that again.

    But it won’t — for decades at least — if we destroy our economy, hobble worker’s rights, and undercut food-safety regulations, by leaving the EU.


    1. Note, for example, his complete absence from the country on the day of the People’s Vote march
    2. “Measure twice, cut once,” as the old saying goes. Or in this case, better not to cut at all. But at least measure twice so you’re sure a cut is what’s wanted. 

    March in October

    Numbers

    After the Trump thing earlier in the year, another walk through London on Saturday just past. This time with over half a million people — 770,000, by some estimates. That’s a hugely impressive number, and a measure of the strength of feeling in the country against Brexit. Or at least against the idea of the government pushing it through without us having another say on the matter.

    You’d imagine it might be enough to make them at least consider enquiring as to the will of the people. But I highly doubt it.

    The March

    Arriving at Green Park Station

    A group of us from Hackney joined at Green Park. There’s an exit from Green Park station that comes out in the park itself, which I don’t think I knew before.Then it took us an age to get out of the park, because of the crush a t the gate. Quite a lot of people were trying to get in at the same time, which didn’t help.

    We milled around on Piccadilly for a while. The main march started on Park Lane, so we were ahead of it, and it wasn’t clear to us whether the head of it had already passed us, or if not, then when it actually reached us. It looked like nothing was moving ahead of us. My assumption was that they hadn’t yet closed all the roads between us and Parliament Square, but there was no way to know for sure. Eventually we started moving.

    These noisy bastards were around all day

    The mood was universally peaceful and cheerful. There were hardly any police to be seen.

    I tried to post a couple of photos, but inevitably the network was swamped and nothing would work. I guess even if people weren’t trying to post, just that many phones trying to register with a cell tower would slow things down dramatically.

    An idea of the numbers

    The Rally

    By the time we got to Whitehall Parliament Square was full, and we couldn’t get in. The organisers had set up some big screen-and-speaker systems, so we could hear the speeches (at least when the hovering helicopters weren’t too close).

    Wee Nicola on screen

    Conclusion

    There isn’t one, really. Like I say, the Mayhemic leadership of the country won’t pay any attention. But if nothing else it helps to keep our spirits up in these dark days.

    rafalgar Square in the aftermath

    The Syllogism of Betrayal

    Earlier today I added a short microblog post in which I called Nigel Farage a traitor. Its a strong word, and maybe one that I shouldn’t throw around so casually.

    I don’t really go in for patriotism, nationalism, and all that kind of thing. But I do want Britain — the country I live in, was born in, and am a citizen of — to be the best country it can be. On the assumption that most citizens would have a similar desire, it seems reasonable to me to think that a citizen who acts against that desire — against the country’s best interests — is betraying the country.

    Nigel Farage has made it his life’s work to get Britain to leave the European Union, and has been successful in making (or at least starting)1 that happen.

    Leaving the EU is not in the best interests of the country.

    Therefore Nigel Farage has been working against the best interests of the country. Therefore he is a traitor.

    It’s a simple syllogism.

    Of course, he’s far from alone in this. I count Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and, of course, Theresa May in the same group. And many more.

    Indeed, you could argue that anyone who voted to leave the EU is similarly guilty, but that seems unfair. Many knew exactly what they were doing, of course. But many also (possibly many more) were duped.

    It doesn’t mean much if I name these people as traitors, but it’s worth recording what my thinking was behind using that term


    1. Brexit can still be stopped, and must be. ↩︎

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