Brexitwatch: the last days of cake-and-eat-it?

I explained in my last blog (12 December) how Brexit is actually quite simple, and the consequences that flow from that for the UK are simple too.

Once we decided to leave, we could try to stay close to the EU, which would mean obeying most of its rules. Or we could have a more distant relationship which would make us poorer.

Boris Johnson and the Conservatives did not find this a very attractive choice, and have tried to shirk it for the last three and a half years by claiming there was some kind of magic have-our-cake-and-eat-it solution.

Johnson’s dishonesty, short-termism and general fecklessness has now left him painted into a very fight corner where the choice is between a rotten deal that makes trade with the EU a lot more difficult and the UK a lot poorer, and no-deal which makes trade even more difficult and the UK even poorer.

(Theresa May’s deal would have made us about 3% worse off than remaining; Boris Johnson’s deal (if he could get it accepted by the EU) would make us about 4% poorer, while no-deal would carry an eye-watering 8% penalty.)

He was supposed to finally take a decision between these unpalatable options yesterday, but once again he bottled it. But the decision and the abandonment of cake-and-eat-it can’t be put off beyond 31 December, unless Johnson takes another unpalatable action: seeking the extension to transition that he said would never happen ‘in any circumstances’, and which would enrage the Brexit fanatics who maintain him in power.

  

Brexitwatch: understanding the 'negotiations'

 'Miss! The EU's being mean to us!' Of all the Brexit bleats, is this the most pathetic, and the most demeaning for Britain?

For a start according to Brexiters, the EU can't be mean to us. 'We hold all the cards, they need us more than we need them, the German carmakers will make the EU give in,' and all the other Brexit lies you know and hate.

Unless you don't want to understand, Brexit is actually pretty simple:

The EU didn't throw us out. We, foolishly in my view, left.

The EU doesn't owe us a trade deal or anything else.

If the EU believes a deal with us is in its interest, we get one.

If it doesn't, we don't. 

The EU gets to decide what's in its interest, not us.

That was always the way it was going to be. Isn't it weird how those Brexiters who are most fanatical about standing up for what they claim to be the UK's interests in the 'negotiations' are the most outraged when the EU stands up for its interests?

Brexitwatch: it's time Brexiters respected the referendum result

As a Remainer, I got plenty of abuse for allegedly refusing to 'respect' the result of the 2016 referendum. Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that the referendum was advisory not binding, that it had a gerrymandered electorate, that it was won by lying, cheating and possibly Russian interference.

What I wonder is why Brexiters aren't required to respect the referendum result? During the referendum campaign, they promised that 

we would stay in the Single Market 

we would be richer, with more money to spend on the NHS 

we would not in any circumstances leave without a deal 

we would get to vote on any proposed deal before we committed to leaving

there would be no border between Northern Ireland and the UK

there would be no disruption to trade

we would have a whole stack of new trade deals to start the day we left the EU etc, etc

With just 14 working days to the end of transition, we still have no idea whether we will get a deal or not. What we do know is that any deal we get will bear no resemblance to what the Leavers promised. The referendum was won by the deal the Leavers promised, not the lousy deal or no deal we are being offered today.

I want the referendum result to be honoured. I want delivery of the Brexit that was promised. If that can't be delivered, there is no justification for leaving the EU.

 

Brexitwatch: write to Labour

My MP happens to be the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer. Before the last election, he gave me a promise that Labour would vote AGAINST any Brexit deal that did not satisfy Labour's '6 tests'.

On 29 June 2018 at 22:55 STARMER, Keir wrote:

Sorry for the delay, John.

Yes, all six tests must be satisfied.

Otherwise, we vote against.

Best wishes, Keir 

The 6 tests can be found here. https://labourlist.org/2017/03/keir-starmer-labour-has-six-tests-for-brexit-if-theyre-not-met-we-wont-back-the-final-deal-in-parliament/

There are few certainties about Brexit, but two things we can be sure of are that any deal Boris Johnson achieves will bear no resemblance to what he promised while he was conning people into voting Leave and that it will not meet the 6 tests - especially test 2: 'Does it deliver the “exact same benefits” as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union?'

Any deal Johnson agrees will seriously damage our country. It would be an act of monumental folly by Labour to support such a deal, and would disqualify the party from protesting at any of the many damaging consequences that would flow from it.

So I have written to Keir Starmer again (see below). If you agree with me, write to Keir Starmer. If you have a Labour MP, write to them too.

Dear Sir Keir,

I hope that you and your loved ones are well. 

You may remember that before the last election, you gave me an assurance (see below) that Labour would vote against any Brexit deal that did not meet ALL the party's six tests.

I am sorry to have to ask you to repeat the promise, but I keep reading disturbing reports that Labour plans to vote in favour of Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, should he reach one. 

To put it mildly, it seems extremely unlikely that any deal he makes will satisfy the six tests, so can I have your assurance that Labour will not renege on its promise?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington

Brexitwatch: 'My indecision is final.' Will Boris Johnson's dithering wreck the UK?

Boris Johnson has painted himself into a corner that allows only two unpalatable choices: accept a Brexit deal that breaks virtually every promise made by the Leave campaign or allow a catastrophic 'no deal' which could have any number of adverse effects including denying people the medicines they need to stay alive. (See my posts of Sept 27 and Oct 2).

It is a measure of how Johnson has been paralysed by this dilemma that his government has made no progress since I wrote about it two months ago, and now there is less than a month, and a month interrupted by Christmas holidays, before the transition period ends, and the UK has to face all the consequences of Brexit for the first time.

Now even the right wing Brexit fanatic newspapers are full of scare stories about how Brits who own holiday homes in Europe will be limited about how long they can spend there, how they'll face bigger bills, how insurance policies and driving licences aren't going to be valid anymore, how fishermen might 'take back control' of our waters but won't be able to sell their fish, how farmers will be bankrupted, how European freight companies will decide carrying goods to the UK is just too much hassle, etc., etc.

Of course, this has all been known about for years, but the right wing press had suppressed the stories, or derided them as 'Project Fear', hoping something would turn up. Maybe those German carmakers would finally ride to our rescue?

Johnson's inability to take tough decisions was notorious when he was Mayor of London. Now, faced with a much more crucial decision, he seems to be stuck in the Micawber position, desperately hoping that something will save him from having to choose between a rotten deal and no deal. It's the same approach he adopted with Covid - taking every decision too late. A failure for which many paid with their lives.

What price will the UK pay for his inability to take a decision over Brexit?

Who let that thing out!? My new book 'Assassins' Deeds'

 

Out today. My new book Assassins’ Deeds. A history of assassination from Ancient Egypt to the present day. It does what it says on the cover.

Assassins’ Deeds identifies the earliest assassination in history so far as I can tell. An Egyptian pharaoh murdered about 4,300 years ago by his bodyguards. Then there is Britain’s first assassination in 293 AD – of Marcus Carausius, the self-styled ‘Emperor of Britain’, who was hired by the Romans to protect the south-east coast of England from Saxon raids, but was more interested in grabbing loot from the raiders than protecting the local residents.

I analysed 266 assassinations from ancient Egypt to the present day, and discovered the ace sniper of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal is a rarity. Most assassinations are up close and personal, with only 19 performed at a distance. Until the nineteenth century, stabbing was the favourite method, but even when firearms took over, it was usually the handgun at close quarters rather than the sniper’s rifle.

The book covers some of history’s weirdest assassinations – the king of Scotland killed by a booby-trapped statuette, the Swiss military leader hacked to death by a man disguised as a bear, and the Austrian empress murdered with a customised needle so fine the victim did not even realise she had been stabbed. She could count herself particularly unlucky as her assassin, an Italian anarchist, had been hoping to murder someone else, and she was a late substitute.

Fate moved in mysterious ways for some assassins too. An Italian nationalist was sentenced to the guillotine for a failed assassination attempt on the French emperor Napoleon III, but the emperor had a lot of sympathy for the would-be assassin’s cause of unifying Italy, and reprieved him at the last minute. He was sent to Devil’s Island for life, but escaped to the United States and went on to fight in and survive Custer’s Last Stand.

Then there is the story of King Zog of Albania, probably the only monarch to survive an assassination attempt by opening fire on the men who attacked him (as he was leaving the opera in Vienna).

Assassins Deeds’  also tells the story of history’s most famous assassinations – Julius Caesar, Thomas Becket, the French revolutionary Marat, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, etc., coming right up to the present day with the murder of Kim Jong-nam, renegade brother of the North Korean dictator, whose killers thought they were taking part in a reality tv show.

Assassins’ Deeds. A History of Assassination from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day by John Withington is published by Reaktion Books, price £18.

http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143515

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Assassins-Deeds-History-Assassination-Ancient/dp/1789143519

 

 

Brexitwatch: of cakes and decisions

 Another way of saying: 'I want to have my cake and eat it' is 'I am incapable of taking a decision'. Big political decisions usually involve making painful choices. Take Covid. The harder you lock down, the more you'll limit the spread of the virus, but the more damage you'll do to the economy.

The UK was late in imposing both of its lockdowns. Was this because Boris Johnson was incapable of taking the tough decision about how you balance economic damage against saving lives? Certainly, plenty of people complain about his indecisiveness when he was Mayor of London.

Brexit involves equally painful decisions. The more distant you want to be from the EU, the more damage you do to jobs, businesses and public services, and the greater the danger that you will break up the UK.

Johnson still seems not to have progressed from cakeism. He's still telling the dwindling band of people who believe him that we can have the benefits of EU membership without the responsibilities. The UK has tried demanding this for the last four years without success, but with perhaps just a week left to secure a deal, Johnson seems to have no fresh ideas.

Even if authoritarian nihilist Dominic Cummings has really departed, it will make the central decision no easier. What does the UK want: more distant and poorer, or closer and better off? With time running out, if Johnson continues to prevaricate, we will end up with no decision. And that will mean no deal. And that will mean we won't be able to have our cake or eat it.