Tory Brexiters are ignoring Northern Ireland because it’s inconvenient

Last week Boris Johnson was in Northern Ireland, attempting to renegotiate his own protocol that has given his party so much of a headache that you do have to wonder what he was thinking when he signed it. That’s a joke. He never thinks. 

Johnson agreed to this protocol way back in 2019 (remember then? Oh, how innocent we all were). The thing about this protocol, and the larger Brexit agreement it’s a part of, is that there are no new options that have appeared between 2019 and now - and there never will be.

The Three Brexit problems

The three issues Johnson faces now are the same as the three he faced back then. One: the Tories want to set their own (read lower) standards than the EU so they can’t have a customs Union with the EU. This means we need checks on goods moving between the UK and the EU. This creates a problem for the UK’s only land border with the EU in Northern Ireland.

This brings us to two: as Northern Ireland has been a site of conflict within living memory, and the border is largely arbitrary - cutting through communities and in some places people’s homes - the idea of making this a big deal border with loads of checkpoints and guards is a really bad idea. An even worse idea than Brexit.

This leads us to problem three, the one that Johnson chose to ignore and has been a pain in his ass ever since: an open border between the UK and the EU in Northern Ireland means there must be checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the mainland if the UK wants to set its own standards on what’s allowed.

Northern Ireland drama

By ignoring problem three, Johnson created an Irish Sea border between one part of the UK and the rest, which has upset the DUP who are now refusing to join a new government in Northern Ireland until this barrier is gone. As far as they’re concerned, Northern Ireland is as much a part of the UK as Somerset, and it shouldn’t have a border or different trade agreements.

Last week was also the next (and final) chapter of a different Northern Ireland drama, but this one was a much funnier one: the Channel 4 sitcom Derry Girls. The final episode dealt with the referendum on The Good Friday agreement and the protagonist’s 18th birthday. The two tie together into a message about stepping forward into the future.

One character, Granda Joe (Ian McElhinney), whose life would have covered the entirety of The Troubles, gives a passionate monologue about how the violence and fear of The Troubles could become a thing of the past, with his infant granddaughter perched on his knee for a neat visual metaphor. The episode ends with the characters voting for The Good Friday agreement before heading home. The final shot shows Granda Joe leading the polling station holding the hand of his granddaughter who can grow up in a world without fear of bombs and soldiers on the street.

Lack of thought

The finale is a touching reminder that peace has to be strived for and compromises need to be made, but if we’re willing to work hard and with a little faith in each other we can leave behind for our children and grandchildren a better, less violent, world than the one we inherited.

I don’t know if Johnson or anyone on his staff watched the finale of Derry Girls before going to Northern Ireland, but they should have. Pro-Brexit politicians have paid little heed to Northern Ireland as they pushed for the most severe exit from the EU they could get. During the campaign, between trading blows on the economy and hollering about immigration, Northern Ireland was hardly mentioned.

Whilst Theresa May’s government was melting down over Brexit we didn’t pay enough attention to how the Brexit the Tories were pushing for would undermine The Good Friday agreement. When Johnson was barking about getting Brexit done, did we think what the implications for peace were?

Northern Ireland is far away

Brexiteers have pretended Northern Ireland doesn’t exist for too long because it makes their ideal, low-regulation Brexit more difficult. To be honest, most Remainers only care about Northern Ireland when they can use it as a stick to beat Brexiteers with.

Brexit is pushing Northern Ireland closer to joining the Republic of Ireland, which I assume the Tories don’t want. They are the Conservative and Unionist party after all, and the ‘Unionist’ part was about Ireland before it was about Scotland. I’m sure they don’t want to see a United Ireland. So why does everything they do make it more likely?

Well, they care about other things more. Managing rebellious backbenchers or getting more trade freedom out of Brexit is much more important to the Tories than whatever happens in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is far away, and unhappy backbenchers crowing about trade policy are in Westminster. Besides, the Tory Party doesn’t even field candidates in Northern Ireland.

Sleep running into danger

We’re sleep-running into political upheaval in Northern Ireland and maybe even a return of violence to the region, which was a common occurrence as recently as Live Forever by Oasis being in the charts. Not exactly ancient history.

The pressure on Northern Ireland will only get worse until this government makes Northern Ireland a priority, or we get one that does. We cannot keep ignoring the effects of Brexit on Northern Ireland and hoping that another round of Tory led negotiations will solve them. It won’t.

EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

As Britain leaves the EU I am left disappointed in my county

I write this on the morning after the night before that many thought and hoped would not come. Yesterday, at 11pm, the United Kingdom left the European Union. Whatever happens next, that cannot be undone. We are now outside the EU.

Those of us who thought that Brexit was a bad idea have lost the argument. Whether or not Britain should leave the EU has been the defining political question since David Cameron won a surprise majority in the 2015 general election. It has now been settled. We have left.

Now it’s up to those who supported Brexit to show the tangible benefits of leaving the EU. Whatever happens over the next few years, the victorious Leave side cannot fall back on “we have left so everyone has to live with it” or just saying: “The benefit is that Brussels is no longer telling Britain what to do.” Well, sure, but how does that help anyone? We cannot eat our sense of pride in our nation, we cannot be employed by national self-determination and we cannot exert leverage in the world by simply being outside of a political union. It’s up to those who voted Remain to remind Leavers of this.

Frankly, I'm disappointed

Frankly, I’m disappointed that my country has not seen that Brexit is a bad idea over the last three years. The chaos and paralysis Brexit has unleashed should have been enough to convince people this was a waste of time. Brexit was born out of a need to settle a dispute in the Tory Party. It’s not a means to serve the national interest. However, most people have either not noticed this or don’t care, so we’ve got Brexit anyway.

I’m also disappointed in my side, those who advocated against Brexit and have failed to come up with an argument that has made a difference. From Remainers, there has been a complete lack of willingness to reach out to the other side. Instead, we have fallen back on insults and denial. Us Remainers are more interested in expressing our Remainyness through pointless gestures (like hiding 50ps) than in convincing the people who voted for Brexit that it’s a bad idea.

Remainers are more interested in being angry at Leavers than we are in stopping Brexit. We would rather post on Twitter or Facebook about how stupid the other side is, than do anything that would stop the thing we hate so much. I have watched in despair over the last five years as the anti-Brexit cause has gone from smug, to ineffectual, to bitter, to laughable and finally to irrelevant. We have learned nothing and it’s completely depressing.

We have to do better on the next big debate: what to do about the looming environmental catastrophe or it will be the human race that is lost, and not just Britain’s standing in the world.

Why Brexit happened...

There are a lot of reasons why we have left the EU: a nostalgia for a lost Britain that never really existed, the economic impact of neoliberal globalisation, some people’s unease at the cultural change over the last few decades, rising immigration, some outright racism about wanting there to be less brown people or less people with funny languages in the country, and a cultural backlash to socially liberal, metropolitan values that lots of people find alienating. Some of these are valid complaints about the way the country has been run for decades, some are small minded prejudices, and some are both.

If the grievance at the root of Leavers’ desire for Brexit is that people outside London and other big cities have done badly out of the last 10-15 years (or longer) then I can understand that, but I would say to Leavers that Brexit is not the solution to their problems. But what is? People haven’t wanted to give moderate social democracy a chance to sort out their problems. Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband both lost elections.

People also don’t want socialism (or Scandinavian social democracy, which is what the manifestos of 2017 and 2019 were really offering) either, as Jeremy Corbyn was rejected by voters twice. Do people really want a social democrat who is draped in the flag and who isn’t a vegan, craft beer drinking, Picturehouse membership holder, who doesn’t care much for what the London Review of Books thought about the new John Lanchester novel? I doubt it. Do they want a socially conservative, borderline nationalist, bag of flag-waving hot air who will bellow about the glorious history of Britain in lieu of finding a solution to our current problems? It looks like it.

If most people really do think that nostalgia and nationalism are the solutions to all our problems than anyone whose political views are anywhere in the space between David Cameron and Aaron Bastani has a serious problem.

...and what next

Many Remainers I have spoken to think that everyone who voted Leave is a lost cause and that politics will sort itself out when enough of them have died from old age or a diet made up entirely of Cumberland sausage and Yorkshire pudding. They think that Labour must find a new electoral coalition, as Northern and Midlands Leaver voters are beyond the pale, which means winning over the people who really liked George Osborne. They feel that Labour should be the party of bellicose pro-Europeanism and that the next Labour leader should spit in the faces of every Brexit voter and call them a racist.

These are the people who will make Kier Starmer the next Labour leader. I don’t know if this is the route back to power for Labour, or the means to stop the spread of xenophobia we have seen in the last five years, but it will, given the chance, transform the Labour Party into something unrecognisable and engage in a level of triangulation that would make even Tony Blair think this puts political expedience ahead of principal. I’m not hopeful about the future.

Brexit won't resolve Brexit

The mere fact that we have left the EU will not resolve the cocktail of feelings and grievances that convinced people to vote to Leave. Us Remainers need find a way to address these concerns, either directly or indirectly, or they will mutate into something much more terrifying than ripping up the basis of our economy for the last 47 years.

Us Remainers don’t have to accept Brexit and we certainly don’t have to like it. However, if we want to counter the rising tide of xenophobia (or region the EU at some point) then we need to a better narrative than howls of rage that the stupid people have fucked the country. We need something that convinces people who wanted to leave the EU that there is an alternative to wallowing in nostalgic nationalism.

We may have lost of the argument over whether Britain should leave the EU, but there are still many more battles to fight. We need to learn from the last five years and resolve to do better in the future.

EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

Is this election the last opportunity to stop Brexit?

Once again an election looms over the country. This time, Brexit is the most pressing issue facing the nation. Despite it being three years since the referendum, it’s still unclear if and when Britain will actually leave the EU. Let alone what our relationship will be afterwards. 

It has been said that an election is needed to resolve Brexit and after months of parliamentary deadlock I can see the logic in that. British politics has been paralyzed since parliament voted down Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in January. No way forward has commanded a majority in the House of Commons, so it makes sense to send the decision back to the voters.

I can see the logic to this explanation of recent history, but I don’t believe it to be true. An election is not needed to resolve Brexit as parliament looked likely to pass Boris Johnson’s new withdrawal agreement in October. The reason why we’re having an election is that both Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn feel that winning a parliamentary majority is possible, and not because we need it to resolve an impasse on Brexit.

Is this the last chance to stop Brexit?

If parliament was about to pass a withdrawal bill, it follows that this election is the last chance to stop Brexit. A new parliament might vote to hold a second referendum or even stop Brexit entirely; the parliament elected in 2017 was never going to do either of these. Alternatively, a new parliament might pass Johnson’s withdrawal agreement, which means that the composition of this new parliament is essential for stopping Brexit.

For those of us who think that Brexit is a bad idea - sucking the oxygen out of politics and preventing action on crucial issues from NHS funding, to rising inequality and the collapsing natural environment - this election is crucial. The only way to stop Brexit is to return a parliament of Remainers. Tactical voting websites have been set up to tell the electorate exactly how to vote in their constituencies to achieve this; with various degrees of legitimacy. 

I can see the logic of voting Labour in clear Labour/Tory marginals and Liberal Democrat in clear Lib Dem/Tory marginals. Especially for constituencies where the other party is as likely to win as Donald Trump is likely to voluntarily published his tax return. The problem with this approach is what should Remainers do in seats where it’s not a two-horse race or in Labour/Lib Dem marginals? I’ll tell you now that if the Lib Dems hold the balance of power in the next parliament it’s more than likely they will prop up a Tory government.

As much as I would like the Lib Dems to beat the Tories in rural South West constituencies where the last person to represent the seat who wasn’t a Tory won by opposing the Corn Laws, the Lib Dems will not win enough seas to be an influential player in government. To adapt a phase Remainers are fond of using, the Lib Dems will be a rule takers and not a rule makers. If Remainers vote Lib Dem in large numbers and deny Labour a majority they will be rewarded with a Tory hard-Brexit. Even in a coalition, the Lib Dems won’t be able to stop the Tories doing what they want on Brexit, just as they couldn’t stop austerity after the 2010 election.

The only way to stop Brexit is to return a Labour government

The only way to stop Brexit is return a Labour government who can deliver on their election commitment of a second referendum. Corbyn is clear: vote Labour and get a second referendum with the option for Remaining in the EU, and if that option is taken, no more Brexit. Gone forever. Into the dustbin of history.

My biggest concern about this election is that this won’t happen. The Remain voter has hardened since 2016 and hardened a lot in the last year. Now, Labour’s second referendum pledge is not enough to convince many Remainers. This is partly Corbyn’s fault, as his inaction on Brexit has allowed the debate to be filled with chancers who promise a lot that sounds good and press the emotional buttons of Remainers, but ultimately offer things that will never be delivered on. It’s Nick Clegg in 2010 all over again.

Labour’s impossible position

Corbyn has been put in an impossible position. One of the reasons why Labour are not seen as Remainy enough is that Labour need to hold onto some Leave voters to have any chance of winning this election. Brexit has divided the Labour coalition and any Labour leader would have found navigating this issue a serious challenge. Corbyn’s approach of trying to please both sides has not worked, but in the worlds of Harold Wilson: “If you cannot ride three horses at the same time, you should not be in the circus.”

Brexit has also cut the Tory coalition in half and Johnson’s plan to deal with this is to be the party of Leave, including pressing as many cultural war buttons as he can. This has risks and the Lib Dems are openly flirting with Tory voters through Jo Swinson saying she would use nuclear weapons. Johnson is hoping that pro-EU, pro-business, socially liberal Tories (we might call them Osborne Tories) will stick with his party out of fear of Corbyn’s plans to tax and spend. 

Labour cannot respond to the Johnson’s grab for the leave vote - aimed at Northern and Midlands Labour seats and stereotypes of Labour voters such as Workington Man - by becoming the party of Remain. Partly this would leave open a Labour flank to the Tories, but mainly because Osborne Tories will never vote Labour, whether the party is led by Jeremy Corbyn or Tony Blair. They curse Thatcher in economically depressed former pit towns (and maybe Johnson can win over some of these people through a single-issue campaign on Brexit, but I have my doubts), but remember they still curse Blair in leafy rural Oxfordshire, as was so brilliantly parodied in Peep Show.

Vote Labour. Stop Brexit

Labour are caught in the middle of the Brexit divide, and I don’t believe that Yvette Cooper or Chuka Umunna could have steered the party between the Scylla of Leave and the Charybdis of Remain either. Due to this, the Tories currently look like they might win a majority (although frankly anything could happen in the next week).

If the Tories are still in power in January then we’ll get Brexit and not just Brexit, but a hard-Brexit, a Brexit that will make us cry out for the Norway Plus that was Labour’s position a few months ago. Even if we get a Tory minority government propped up Lib Dems or even a Tory/Lib Dem coalition then we’ll still get a hard Brexit. 2010-2015 shows how good the Lib Dem are at restraining the Tories in government.

This is the last chance to stop Brexit and the only way to do it is to vote Labour. Remainers need to get over the fact that Labour is not Remainy enough. I know it’s not fun to do the sensible thing, to grow up and stop throwing tantrums whenever you don’t get everything that you want, but voting Lib Dems will get you a Tory government and a hard-Brexit. Vote Labour and you get a second referendum. If you want to stop Brexit then vote Labour.

EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

The anti-no deal side need to come up with something better than further delays

This week, I actually felt good about parliamentary politics for the first time in a while. That's a novel experience. Partly, it was because something substantive happened with the biggest issue facing the nation. After months of nothing happening with Brexit - apart from a lot of talk, hot air, name-calling, insane proposals that will never happen in a million years and other things that collectively amount to nothing - there was finally something worth writing about.

In the last week, legislation has been passed by Parliament that makes it harder for a No Deal Brexit. The new act, passed by the Commons and the Lords, means that the government must get the approval of the House of Commons to enact a No Deal Brexit. In practicality, it means that unless the government can get the Commons to approve a No Deal exit, the government must ask the EU for an extension to article 50 when the clocks runs out on the 31st of October or on any future deadlines until we either leave the EU, Brexit is toppled or the act is revoked. In other words: the government in general, and Boris Johnson in particular, can't rely on the legal default of No Deal cliff edge to achieve Brexit or to bully parliament into passing his Brexit deal.

I have been really worried that we were sliding towards No Deal at the end of October, as the main obstacle to No Deal last time it loomed big in March - the fact that the Prime Minister was against it - had been removed. I thought that what divided the opponents of No Deal would prevent them from acting together and allow Johnson to Crash the UK out of the EU in the worst possible way.

Short-lived joy

It's still not out of the question. This Commons or a future one could approve No Deal or, more likely, the EU might not grant an extension when one is sought. However, I'm further away from all-out panic than I was a few weeks ago. Johnson's furious rumble towards No Deal has had a pin put in it.

It was pleasing to see the disparate opposition groups uniting around a single point: that No Deal would be a disaster, it has no popular mandate and should be opposed. The last week comes dangerously close to a sudden outbreak of common sense. I'm supremely pleased that just over half of MPs felt they were able to agree that something needed to be done to stop the No Deal madness.

My joy has been short-lived, however. No sooner was I done celebrating that something actually happened, that a realisation dawned on me. This is not an end to the Brexit mess. What needs to happen is that anti-No Deal MPs need to come up with something better than further delays to Brexit. We can't just keep extending Article 50 and not leaving, but also technically still be doing Brexit. That satisfies no one. So, what comes next?

Stopping Brexit

My preference is that we should stop Brexit. It will do tremendous damage to the country, that will be felt by the poorest the hardest, and it’s sucking up all the oxygen of politics thus preventing us from tackling the problems caused by austerity. Yeah, the EU is not perfect. It has many flaws and is wrong about a lot of things, as are many of the politicians that oppose Brexit. I have always preferred Remain and reform to leave and be stuck on a damp island where the likes of Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have nothing to constrain them. Yes, I find the #FBPE crowd somewhere between slightly irritating and hopping mad, but that doesn't negate their basic point that Brexit is a bad idea.

The problem with stopping Brexit is that I can't see how this will happen. A second referendum? Well, MPs were given the chance at another referendum in the grab bag of votes that occurred after Theresa May's deal went down a second time and a majority didn't support it. I'm not sure enough has changed since then. I also think that the country is not united in stopping Brexit. Leave is likely to win a second referendum and there are any number of ways the result could be seen as illegitimate; such as lower turnout, Remains wins by less than 52%, Remain wins with less than 17.4m votes, etc.

An election might lead to a parliament that is more inclined to a second referendum. Although with the Brexit Party and the Tories doing well in the polls this seem unlikely. First past the post still means that voting for the Lib Dems and their Bollocks To Brexit slogan is likely to achieve little, whatever Jo Swinson says. 

We need a plan

What then? Do a soft Norway style Brexit? No one wants that. That won't appease Leavers or Remainers. It might have once, but both sides are too polarised now to accept any form of comprise. I can't see a way forward.

We have been going around in circles on Brexit since parliament decided that it won't pass May's deal, the only deal that is realistically on the table. We can tinker with the details of that deal, but realistically our choice is May’s Deal, No Deal or No Brexit. These have been our options for six months we haven't been able to choose one. Yes, something did actually happen this week, which was refreshing, but we're not much closer to getting a resolution to Brexit either way.

I’m glad that something positive has happened. The last week has helped my blood pressure come down from the high it’s been at since Johnson became Prime Minister, a worrying sign for anyone who wanted a sane end to the Brexit situation. What is important now, is that those inside and outside parliament who oppose No Deal must come up with something more substantial than further delays. We need a plan to stop Brexit that is actually going to work.

 EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

The sudden success of the Brexit Party should make everyone on the left very worried

A party that didn't exist a few weeks ago, has no policies and campaigns on only one issue has won the European elections. This should give everyone on the left pause for thought. This was a clear sign that there are still millions of people in the country who want Brexit to happen, no matter what. 

Granted the Brexit Party did about as well as UKIP did in 2014 and they are led by Nigel Farage, the most recognizable politician who isn't the prospective Prime Minister or the leader of the opposition. However, it took UKIP years to build enough momentum to win a European election and as appearing as Farage is to a certain class of voters, he is toxic to others. The success of the Brexit Party goes beyond the appeal of Farage.

The terrifying success of the Brexit party

The Brexit Party have used the frustration at the fact that we haven’t left the EU very well. When campaigning, Farage doesn't talk about immigration or the cost of the EU or EU democracy or any other prominent pro-Brexit talking points. He only mentions one thing: people voted to leave and we haven't left. This has whipped up rage aimed at the leaders of both main parties. Even if Britain leaves the EU this year, the anger at the political class that Farage is exploiting will not go away.

The Brexit Party is just a vehicle to get Farage what he wants: to go on TV and act like a big shot. However, I’m very worried but how far he will take this. He is clearly riding a tiger of populist rage, which could lash out in any direction. The more Farage winds up Leave voters about how the elites have betrayed them, the more likely it is that something terrible will happen.

A riot? Bricks being thrown at MPs? Another assassination? None of these are out of the question. I am worried that the Brexit Party could become Britain's Yellow Vest movement with Farage riding the nuclear bomb like Major Kong from Dr. Strangelove until it explodes.

Brexit extremes

Already the Brexit vote is drifting to extremes. Support for Theresa May's deal, a deal to take Britain out of the EU, has been described as treachery as, apparently, it’s not Brexit. Farage is at the core of this hardening of the Leave vote. He is simultaneously benefiting from the hardening of the Leave vote and encouraging a narrative of Brexit betrayal to make the Leave voter harder.

As gratifying as it was seeing the Tories do really badly in the most recent EU elections, those of us in the Labour Party have to admit that last Sunday's result was a disaster. This is not the performance Labour should be delivering if it wanted to form a government soon. The Labour Vote is being split, but Labour voters are mainly backing the Greens and the Lib Dems, pro-Remain parties. Change UK have failed to make an impression and will doubtless be folded into the Lib Dems so that its surviving members don’t leave their seats.

Despite the growing threat to Labour from the unambiguously pro-Remain parties, I’m not convinced that calling for a people's vote with a "Fuck Brexit, stay in the EU" option on the ballot paper is the best way forwards.

The country is split three ways: between No Deal, No Brexit and an orderly Brexit. Nothing commands a majority. Yes, the parties of No Brexit won the most votes in the EU elections, but that’s only the case if you include the nationalist parties (I'm pretty sure there are people who want Scotland out of the U.K. and the EU) and even then it is still less than 50% of the vote. We are a long way off the slimmest of consensus on Brexit, let alone anything that will put the cursed issue to bed one way or another.

I don't think this EU election settles anything. Lots of people voted for strongly pro-Leave and pro-Remain parties. This indicates that we are still deeply polarised on Brexit, which we didn't need an election to know.

Problems for Labour

Losing Remain votes to the Lib Dems and the Greens is bad if you want to see a Labour government any time soon. However, Labour pretty much maxed out its pro-Remain vote in the last general election and it didn't win. The route to a Labour government is either through Leave voting swing seats or Tory voting Remain seats, which will not be swayed by Labour's radical program. The choice is either compromise on Brexit or compromises on everything else. I guess I’m resigned to a compromise in Brexit.

Once again, I feel the need to say that I voted Remain and would like Brexit to go away. I just don't want the Labour Party to have to throw itself on the fire of populist anger to save us from Brexit. The lesson from the pain destruction of Scottish Labour after siding with the no to independence side in 2014 should be instructive. Yes we saved the Union, but at the cost of Scottish Labour.

We need a new argument

The sudden success of the Brexit Party should make us make left Remainers worried about our complacency over Brexit. I’m worried that Remainers are underestimating how deep and how strong the support for Brexit is. There is a powerful feeling, that transcends traditional party affliction, class and region that Brexit is what's best for the country. This is not a sentiment I share, but we need to accept that this big cultural divide won't go away even if we can convince 51% of the people to vote against Brexit in a second referendum.

I don't see anyone on the pro-Remain side making arguments that would appeal to people on the Leave side. Who’s saying that a vote for Remain in a People's Vote is a vote for a serious commitment to rebalancing the economy and that voting for Brexit is a vote for a Singapore style No Deal Brexit that only benefits the City of London? Who is making the patriotic argument that Britain has been committed to being heavily involved in Europe since the Napoleonic Wars and that we would honour the troops for have fought for a free Europe by not walking away from the continent of many Britons lost their lives defending?

This invocation of patriotism doesn’t appeal to me, but I voted Remain. You don't need to convince me that making it easy to pop to The Pompidou Centre for a day trip is in my best interest. We need different arguments to stop the spread of The Brexit Party.

Remainers fall back on the arguments that play well to Remainers. That all Leave voters are racist, that Vote Leave cheated, that it's bad for the economy. All of these arguments have had a fair hearing and they're not moving the dial. If we really want to stop Brexit then we need a new argument.

No Deal vs No Brexit

No one learns anything and Farage is still on TV advocating the worst possible thing for the country as the best possible thing for the country and no one has worked out a way to make this simple point stick. I am worried that if Labour comes out for a second referendum then this will only grow the support for the Brexit party and Farage’s narrative of the elites stealing Brexit from the people.

It may eventually come down to a showdown been Farage's No Deal and No Brexit, in which case I hope that the left pulls together and stops the economic suicide of No Deal, whose pain will be felt the most by the most disadvantaged in society. Until then we need to work to lower the temperature on this issue.

The sudden success of the Brexit Party should worry everyone on the left. We are running the risk of ignoring a rising tide of populist anger that could bury us all. I am worried that despite our noble efforts to oppose Brexit, we are not taking seriously how angry people are about the issue.

Nigel Farage picture taken by Gage Skidmore and used under creative commons.

The end of a career that no one will mourn

Until the day before yesterday, my life has seen five Prime Ministers leave office. On Friday Theresa May became the sixth and I have never seen a Prime Minister leave in such a sorry state of disgrace; including John Major slinking off after the Tories’ extreme drubbing in 1997. 

May leaves the country in a much worse state then when she came to office. Around 560,000 people use a food bank every year, the number of people sleeping rough has grown, the NHS is on its knees and in some parts the country the schools are so cash strapped that pupils have to bring their own toilet paper. May has done almost nothing with the enormous powers of state that the Prime Minister is invested with to improve people's lives. 

Despite this disgraceful lack of action, the ruin that she has left Brexit in is even worse. Brexit has become a dumpster fire that has that has ultimately consumed her premiership, ended her political career and most likely tarred her name in the annals of history.

This is the point where I have to acknowledge that she was given a difficult job. David Cameron owes some blame for the mess that we’re in after calling a referendum, losing it and then fucking off. A 52% vote for Leave with no clear plan of what that meant was a difficult situation to inherit. However all Premierships face challenges. It is the measure of a Prime Minister as to how they rise to them.

Following a narrow vote for Leave, May could have bought the country and Parliament together around a soft Brexit. She could have reached out to the Labour Party early on to secure a sensible Brexit that would have passed the Commons. She could have been honest with the public about the compromises that were necessary to deliver Brexit. She didn’t.

Instead Theresa May saw an opportunity to use Brexit to destroy the Labour Party. By owning the process and trying to deliver a Tory Brexit, for which she could claim credit for, she planned to steal the support of social, small “c”, conservative Labour voting Leavers and lock Labour out of power. In failing to destroy the Labour Party she might have destroyed the Tories. The next Tory leader could well be their last. The world's oldest political party could split in two and this will be largely May's fault.

While I shed crocodile tears for the likely death of the Tory Party, there is still the wildfire of Brexit burning through British politics. Brexit is in a dire state. May's often utterance of "no deal is better than a bad deal" is partly responsible for the fact that the complete economic suicide that would be a No Deal Exit from the EU currently polls at an alarming 45%. Extremism has completely captured the Leave side of the Brexit debate. No compromise is brooked. Faith in politicians is at an all-time low. Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson are likely to do well in the EU elections. This is a shit show.

It is terrifying that for many supporters of Brexit, May's deal, which is a deal to deliver Brexit, is seen as at best no-Brexit or at worse treachery. Let that sink in. Brexit supporters feel that a deal which delivers Brexit is treachery. Some of the blame for this situation - which would be funny if it wasn't terrifying - must go to supporters of No Deal, the Boris Johnsons and Nigel Farages of this sorry world. However, much of the blame must land on May and her complete failure to unite the Leave supporters behind not only her Brexit, but any kind of negotiated Brexit. This situation is so utterly fucked that the only thing I can do is to try to think about it as little as possible to avoid a life spent cowering under my bed in a constant state of sheer terror.

May has made an utter mess of Brexit. Nothing commands a majority in the polls. We have become a country divided into three unreconcilable camps of No Brexit, No Deal and an orderly exit. Never mind uniting the country, the sunlit uplands of a slim majority getting their way and the rest having to lump it seem a long fucking way off. We’re stuck in a state of constant crisis and never-ending paralysis.

There is something deeply terrifying about the person whose main job it was to deliver Brexit, walking away having completely failed. I cannot see a way out of this situation other than having a People's Vote and hoping to god that Remain can find a winning narrative this time. That won't solve the problem of a lot of angry Brexit supporters, who are now a lot angrier following May's "efforts". Eventually we will have to have a reckoning with the fact that so many people are angry and alienated. Another thing May did nothing about.

The only nice thing I can think to say about May is that what comes next will likely be worse. This is just another way that we lower our expectations from politicians. Then they fail to meet our lowered expectations and everything gets worse. The prospect of Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister is just another thing that I’m trying really fucking hard to not have to think about. Maybe we'll be lucky and get Michael Gove as PM. At least he pretends to be a normal human being and not a cartoon version of an aspiring authoritarian.

So May has gone and no one will mourn the end of her political career. My Brexit box is well stocked, which means that I will stay alive long enough to see the complete collapse of the country into civil war. Watch this space for further updates on that. May's legacy is the terrible mess of Brexit that she leaves behind. Whoever comes next's legacy will be the fallout from that mess and it's likely to be much worse than what we have seen already.

Theresa May picture created by Jim Mattis and used under creative commons.  

Brexit has broken our politics

Brexit is getting worse and not better. The longer we delay in either doing it or canceling it, the angrier everyone gets. The indecision that has gripped parliament is causing tensions to rise. At this point, having an election or another referendum will only make people madder as they are both different forms of Parliament not making a decision and opting for further delays.

Brexit has broken our politics because it has created a problem that cannot be resolved as no option commands popular support. The parties are split on Brexit; it cuts across the traditional left/right divide. This new political axis combined with the old is tearing out politics apart.

Parliament refuses to pass Theresa May’s Brexit deal and has instead been holding a series of indicative votes on what they want instead. Although, none of these are supported by a majority of MPs. Both a customs union and a second referendum came close to passing, but not close enough to be the unambiguous will of the house.

No one can agree on what Brexit should be, which is the essence of Brexit itself. It’s not one thing, but a collection of loose ideas, values, aspirations and fears that have merged into a single political project. Nothing tangible can satisfy these feelings. The debate we are currently having, about what real-world form the bundle of dissatisfactions that are Brexit should take, is one that we should have had during the referendum or immediately afterward. We have left this terrifyingly late.

There is no consensus in Parliament because there is no consensus in the country. There is no majority in Parliament for what the majority of the people in the country will hate, which is currently everything. Everyone is waiting for some group to jump first in some direction, be it the DUP, ERG, Labour or Tory Remainers, and no one is willing to take the damage of sticking their neck out first. So it looks like everyone is going to stay hunkered down in their fox-holes until we crash out of the EU without a deal.

As no one is willing to compromise, delay is the only viable option. Although the continual delay is only making everyone angrier. We cannot escape from this cycle of delay and rising exasperation without a viable solution, which is the one thing we don’t have.

The more time goes by, the more I am convinced that Brexit is something that needs to be stopped. It will do huge economic and culture damage to our country, which will be felt by the poorest hardest. Even with May’s deal, that is a lot worse than the deal Britain has as an EU member. The left must oppose the regressive, nationalistic, anti-immigration, hyper-neoliberal Tory Brexit that the Boris Johnson or any other of May’s likely successors will visit upon the country.

At the same time, I am worried about how angry people could get if Brexit is canceled (or even if a second referendum is held). On 29th of March, the supposed Brexit day, the atmosphere in Westminster took on a new, frightening character. This was not a few old people with “Leave Means Leave” signs in Parliament Square. This was Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage speaking, people drinking and marching wearing St George’s crosses, journalists being verbally abused and fights with the police being started. This was angrier, nastier and more energetic than anything we had seen before and it’s a taste of what’s to come.

I find myself with unhelpful opinions. I have lots of detailed criticisms of the mistakes that got us into this mess - such as no Brexit white paper, the media not adequately scrutinizing Leave’s claims, a social media Wild West, dodgy campaign money sloshing about and no ownership of the outcome – all of which would be helpful if I could just find my time machine.

I think that we should have some kind of public vote if the deadlock in Parliament isn’t resolved soon. However, I must highlight that I disagree with, and am not associated in any way with, those who think that Remain could easily win a second vote or that revoking Article 50 would be universally welcomed. Anyone who believes that is crushingly naive.

Farage and Robinson are already whipping people up. It will get a lot worse if their message of Brexit betrayal is given legitimacy by the right leaning press or bunch of self-serving jingoistic clowns that are the Brexit wing of the Tory Party. This could get very ugly indeed.

It won’t be white, craft beer drinking, liberal, Remainers in Dulwich whose doors are kicked down by the Brexit mob. It will be poor people of colour in forgotten corners of the country, in small towns most people don’t know the names of. It’s these peoples’ lives we gamble with if we roll the dice on a second referendum. That’s if Remain wins that vote. Imagine the state of British politics if Leave wins for a second time.

My lack of useful suggestions mirrors all politicians’ lack of solutions. We are stuck and I don’t see a way out. Delay and indecision are making things worse. Now there is talk of holding EU elections, which may be the flare that the “Brexit is being stolen by the establishment” mob needs to really get going. If these elections return a horrendous group of right-wing, pro-Brexit reactionaries then this will demonstrate how bad a public vote could be. Either a second referendum or general election. However, a set of disastrous EU election results may be the catalyst Parliament needs to stop delaying and to do something, even if that something is putting this back to the people. I guess if we’re going to tear ourselves apart over Brexit we should get on with it.

Until Parliament makes a decision there will be delay followed by further delay, which will make everyone angrier. Brexit has already broken out politics to the point where it cannot function. That doesn’t mean that things can’t get much worse. 

 EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

Should the radical left support a People’s Vote?

The radical left doesn’t have a moral or philosophical position on Brexit. There are arguments for both Leave and Remain from a radical left-wing perspective, but there is no consensus. Take the figurehead of the radical left, Jeremy Corbyn. He doesn’t have a principled position on Brexit, which is odd for a man who has strong principals on everything else. He prefers the position that will make him Prime Minister. Brexit is making Corbyn act like a regular politician, where his great strength is how unlike a regular politician he is.

The radical left finds itself in the difficult position of thinking tactically about Brexit and not leading from our core principles. Our principles of Internationalism favours Remain, but the nature of the EU as a hyper-neoliberal, technocratic institution favours Leave. The memory of how the EU treated the economically ravaged Greece doesn’t inspire good feeling from the radical left, but then neither does the nationalistic and right-libertarian tones of the Brexit movement.

Many people I know strongly support the idea of having a second referendum as a means to kill Brexit once and for all. This has led me to think about whether, as a member of the radical left, it’s the right thing to do.

Giving people more of say over their lives is something I strongly believe in, which is why as a member of the radical left I support more localism and democracy being more than just people putting an X next to a name on a ballot paper every five years. A citizen’s assembly would be a good way to address Brexit, but neither the government nor Parliament is considering this.

A People’s Vote would give people another chance to express what they want and it could break the deadlock in Parliament. It might also be a way to avert a No Deal Brexit, the economic fallout of which would be felt by the poorest hardest. You can bet that Boris Johnson is financially protected from the No Deal he advocates.

If Remain were to decisively win another referendum it could end the nationalism, racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric that has come to dominate the country since the referendum campaign began. It would be a chance to revoke the language of hatred that has infected our political discourse.

Whatever Brexit was supposed to be, it has become an attack on all the positive functions of the state (such as linking disparate people together into a common web to achieve things together and provide protections for labour and the environment) by attacking the EU from a right-wing free-market position and focusing anti-government rage against it, whilst simultaneously seeking to enhance all the negative functions of a state (such as heavy-handed policing, mass surveillance, data collection on an industrial scale and a mechanism for perpetuating inequality and plutocratic rule) through a sovereignty oriented appeal to give more power to the British government. All this must be opposed and a People’s Vote would give us the opportunity to stop it.

Despite this, I have my doubts about a second referendum. My main concern is the anger unleashed by any attempt to stop Brexit. Certainly, a People’s Vote could be sold by any unscrupulous politician wishing to whip up support for themselves as a betrayal of the first vote. Do we know anyone who might be tempted to act like that? There are certainly elements of the pro-Brexit press and Conservative Party that are itching to splash “Brexit Betrayal!” across newspapers and internet. Already Donald Trump Jr is talking about Brexit betrayal and that democracy is dead in Britain.

Satirist and host of The Bugle podcast, Andy Zaltsman, described the first EU referendum as like the nation sticking it’s penis in a plug socket. This seems like an apt description as, like walking in on man with his penis in a plug socket, I have no idea how we got into his situation but everything about it is simultaneously incredibly stupid and incredibly degrading. I’m not sure what can be gained from sticking the nation’s penis in the plug socket for a second time.

Emotions ran high over the last referendum and they will run higher over another one. The last one pushed the country apart and ripped open a new political fracture. Another EU referendum could shatter us entirely. One MP was killed in the last referendum campaign. How much violence could be unleashed by another?

There are many other ways a second referendum could go wrong. What happens if Remain wins, but by less than 52%? What happens if Remain wins on a lower turnout, or wins but with fewer votes than the 17.4 million who voted Leave last time? All of these outcomes will resolve nothing and make us a more divided and bitter nation.

I am not sure if it’s even possible for Remain to reach the dizzying heights of 52% in a People’s Vote. It’s hard to gauge which way opinion will jump after the campaigns gets going. Supporters of a second referendum have highlighted how demographic churn could benefit Remain in a People’s Vote - it’s always the sign of a decent political movement that it’s celebrating the deaths of people who think differently to them – but Remain started with a larger lead last time and went on to lose.

I also don’t think that we have a convincing argument for Remain beyond “make this shitshow stop”. I’m sure many people wish this nightmare was over, but do they really want the pre-2016 status quo back enough to vote for it? I don’t think this is what most people in the country want and I don’t see Remain providing any other arguments beyond the raw of indignation of a middle class person in a slightly posh restaurant when something hasn’t gone their way.

Recent voting has also shown that there is no majority in Parliament for a People’s Vote. Many strong Remain supporting MPs, like Caroline Flint, have changed to supporting Brexit as that’s what their constituents voted for. Is there an argument that can win other these MPs? The most obvious one is that Brexit won’t fix their constituents’ problems and will most likely make them worse.

Herein lies the core of the problem with the case for the EU. The best way to argue for it is convincing an elected leader that what’s in the best interest of their constituents is the exact opposite of what they want. Their views don’t matter, only some other greater good whose benefits are intangible. Meanwhile their lives get worse, they feel they have less control and become more culturally alienated from everyone else. The arguments for the EU have contained within them their own undoing.

If we had a People’s Vote, we will need to learn from the last referendum. We haven’t got any better at selling the EU. In the last three years, no new arguments have risen for Remain that can convince people this time. The only new development is now that we see how complex Brexit is.

Politics right now is too unpredictable to call another referendum. The outcome is almost impossible to predict and with the likes of Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson having a larger platform than they did three years ago, a second vote could turn very nasty.

Despite this, a No Deal Brexit would be so disastrous that I cannot support the idea in any circumstances. It must be prevented at all cost. The wealthy won’t suffer under a No Deal, but everyone else will. It will be like the 2008 financial crash all over again, but much worse. However, if we do nothing then a No Deal will happen. A second referendum would be accepted to stop a No Deal Brexit. The possibility of something terrible happening is preferable to the certainty of something terrible happening.

All of this is tactical thinking. I have not managed to find a moral answer to the question of whether the radical left should oppose or support a People’s Vote. Brexit is dividing our movement, cutting across the political spectrum and creating new divisions. This is the effect of the great wound that Brexit has opened up in our politics.

Brexit is eating a shit-sandwich, but No Deal is eating a grenade

I am at my wits end over Brexit. As I write, the only certainty is that Britain will leave the EU next Friday unless an extension to the Article 50 period is agreed. Currently, there is no agreement. This gives us five days to sort something out or face the national catastrophe of a No Deal Brexit. 

Even if the Article 50 period is extended, what happens then? MPs clearly don’t want the deal that is on the table as they have already voted it down twice, and now Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow has said it cannot be tabled a third time. MPs have also voted against a No Deal Brexit - or a momentary outbreak of sanity has occurred, whatever description you prefer - but without MPs deciding on what alternative they want to a No Deal exit, No Deal remains the default position.

So, nothing has changed and we’re dangerously close to throwing the country off a cliff because parliament cannot agree on which of a series of shit-sandwiches it wants to eat.

If there is an extension, will it be just another in a long line of kicks to the proverbial can as it travels down the road towards the cliff edge of a No Deal Brexit? If so, we are rapidly running out of road to kick the can down. What will be done with this extension? More arguments that produce no solutions? More votes that don’t provide resolutions? More time wasted chasing the Brexit mirage that is constantly on the horizon but forever out of reach?

Brexit was never something I desired. I never found it appetising, but it has certainly now become the political equivalent of freshly battered faeces served in bread in a cafe with very poor health standards. Parliament is presented with a series of bad options, from May’s deal to Norway+++, or whatever they’re calling it this month, to the Malthouse compromise, a compromise that is already compromised as it won’t work. So, we now have a whole menu of shit-sandwiches that no one wants to eat.

It looks increasingly likely that Parliament cannot decide on which flavour of cack-bread it's going to chow down on. Which is understandable as no one wants to eat poo, no matter how nice the bread is. The hitch is that MPs were able to pass the triggering of Article 50 into law and fix the leave date of 29th March 2019, which means that if Parliament doesn’t eat one of the shit-sandwiches by that point the whole country will be forced to eat a grenade. I assume I don’t have to tell you why that is a bad idea.

If Parliament cannot decide what to do, then it needs to either call an election, so that we can get a parliament that can agree on which flavour of disgusting excrement it’s are going to eat, or have a referendum in an attempt to call this entire stomach churning dinner party off. It’s that or eat the grenade.

Someone at the back is screaming: “Don’t eat any turds at all! Just hold a second referendum and the smell of all this will be so bad it will put everyone off!” The issue with this is that some people are really into this whole eating already digested and excreted food and they’ll be pretty angry if their dinner party is called off.

We may not understand these people and their weird ways, their culture may be unfamiliar to us, but does that mean we should ignore the outcome of a referendum? They might have different views from us, but one man’s shit is another’s delicious bowl of organic, locally-sourced muesli washed down with a lovely hoppy IPA from an East London microbrewery.

Again, I can hear the call of: “Yes! We should hold these people and their weird different views in contempt! Fuck Brexit!” At the risk of being unpopular, I’m not sure it’s as simple as just stopping Brexit, or even calling a second referendum, winning it by a huge margin and then stopping Brexit. Doing this won’t be the cakewalk some claim it would be.

Let me be absolutely clear that I don’t want Brexit to happen. I voted against it. I think it’s a bad idea. I just wrote over 500 words about how Brexit is a shit-sandwich because I believe it is. I’m not in the pay of the mainstream media or the EU. I do this on my own time.

I think Brexit is an awful idea, but I know that many people disagree with me and would dispute this whole shit-sandwich analogy. For them, Brexit is not so much a turd-filled piece of bread, but a cool glass of water for someone who has crawled through a desert. Just because everyone I know is against Brexit doesn’t mean that stopping it would be easy. Over the last three years I have become painfully aware of the bubble I live in.

Around a million people marched for a second referendum this weekend and an online petition requesting the revoking of Article 50 currently has over four million signatures, so I’m not alone in wanting to stop Brexit. The question is: does the majority of people in the country want to stop Brexit or is this just a very large bubble with several million people in it? Demographic churn suggests that Remain could win a second time, but the campaign hasn’t begun yet and last time Remain started way ahead and went on to lose. Also, it’s always the sign of a decent political movement when it’s celebrating the deaths of people who think differently.

I’m worried about what could happen with a second referendum. Last time there was an increase in racial violence and an MP was killed. Emotions are running higher now. I’m frightened of the rage a second referendum could unleash and what it’s political outlet could be. The SNP now dominate in Scotland following losing in the Scottish independence referendum, a second EU referendum could be the fuel that English Nationalism needs to get going in a big way. Also, has anyone thought about how awful the Brexit situation will be if Leave wins for a second time? Surely, that will mean a No Deal Exit.

I’m worried that we’re being complacent like we were in 2016. A second referendum is not so much playing with fire, but playing with fireworks on top of a huge pile of TNT. Bad things could happen in another referendum and anyone who says otherwise is naive. There’s a risk, so a second referendum is another shit-sandwich on the buffet of foul poo-filled food that no one wants to touch.

Despite all of this indecision, something has to happen. We cannot continue to defer the moment when something awful finally gets eaten. I am terrified that the decision has been deferred for this long, but we cannot carry on for much longer like this. There’s been a lot of huffing and objecting, but now it looks like someone is going to have to eat something rank. Brexit maybe a shit-sandwich, but Parliament may have to eat it to avoid eating a grenade.

Labour must force May to drop her Brexit red lines

In this last week Brexit has gone from bad to worse, something I scarcely thought possible. Brexit as a whole is poorly conceived and its execution has also been terrible. To make it worse, this particular train wreck has a countdown attached. If we don’t resolve this mess by the 29th of March this year then Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal and worse will become Biblically awful.

This week Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement was voted down by parliament and a vote of no confidence in the Tory government failed. It has been a whirlwind. In order to clarify my thinking on what we should do now, I have laid out a few facts as I see them.

Firstly, May’s deal clearly won’t make it through parliament. The only way I can see this happening is if it’s the last few days before a No Deal exit and, all other plans having failed, MPs vote it through at the last minute. Other than that, this withdrawal agreement that has been negotiated over nearly two years is as dead as Boris Johnson’s integrity. Not only is May’s deal dead, but I don’t think any other bespoke deal that the EU is willing to give us will be passed by the House of Commons.

Secondly, this government isn’t going anywhere. Now that a vote of no confidence in the government has failed, the chances of a general election and putting Labour in the Brexit driving seat have been massively reduced. Following the failed leadership challenge in December, May is safe as Prime Minister for the foreseeable future. This means that we have to accept that the Tories in general and May, in particular, will see out the Article 50 deadline in power.

Thirdly, and most importantly, a No Deal Brexit would be a disaster of unparalleled proportions. It could lead to hospitals closing and medicine shortages. The economy could collapse and there could be rioting in the streets when food shortages hit. The economic and social damage done could make the 1970s look like a minor stock market adjustment. A No Deal Brexit must be prevented at all costs.

MPs have been clear that they won’t accept a No Deal Brexit and have done their best to bind the government’s hands to prevent it. However, unless MPs can decide on what kind of Brexit they do want (or postpone/stop Brexit) then No Deal wins by default at the end of March. Parliament needs to act to prevent a No Deal Brexit.

As May’s deal is dead, the Prime Minister has been dragged, against all of her political instincts, to the table of cross-party negotiation. This begs the question, what should Labour ask for in these negotiations? What type (if any) of Brexit should they pursue?

What the past two years of wasting time over Brexit has shown, is that May’s red lines on Brexit cannot be reconciled with each other. She has ruled out remaining in the regulatory orbit of the EU, a border between Northern and the Republic of Ireland (having this as a red line is sensible) and customs checks between Northern Ireland the rest of the UK. Maintaining all three of these is only possible in the deal that May has negotiated with the EU, which is not going to pass parliament.

May’s red lines exist to keep the Tory party happy. It is what they want from Brexit. May is putting her party’s unity ahead of the best interest of the country. As there is no Brexit that the Tories will accept, whilst May retains her red lines she is running the risk of a No Deal Brexit.

All of this leads me to express what is probably going to be an unpopular opinion amongst my middle class, metropolitan, muesli eating, Uniqlo shopping, Guardian reading, craft beer drinking, casual dining, friends. Quite simply, Labour must force May to drop her red lines and embrace a Norway style Brexit with customer union membership and maybe even EEA membership.

This is clearly the best Brexit deal. It minimises the risk of an economic shock, guarantees continuity for UK business and the European people living in the UK and protects pace in Northern Ireland as well as ensuring the Good Friday agreement stands. It is the best way forward and would pass through Parliament. This is what Labour should make the government agree to.

This week Corbyn has been criticised for wanting No Deal taken off the table before negotiations can begin. This is a sensible starting place as No Deal cannot be countenanced by any politician who hasn’t take leave of their senses. The fact that it is being endorsed by Nigel Farage tells you all you need to know about it as an idea.

But what about a People’s Vote, I hear you say? Well if Remain and stop all this madness could win a People’s Vote that would be one way out of this shitstorm. There are a few problems with this as a plan. Firstly, I don’t see it getting through parliament. Secondly, I haven’t seen an official confirmation of what the question on a People’s Vote be. Will it be May’s Deal verses Remain? Will No Deal be allowed on the ballot? Will it be a two-stage referendum? No one from the People’s Vote has a clear answer to these questions.

These technical questions can be addressed and they are not the root of my objections to a People’s Vote. Where my objection comes from is: can Remain win a People’s Vote? Brexit is a slow-motion disaster that threatens to become a high-speed catastrophe, but I think that the millions who voted for Brexit still want the vague jumble of things that Leave were offering and will vote for it again. I don’t think Remain can win a People’s Vote. Also, what happens if Leave wins by a larger margin than last time? What would that mean for the country?

My objection to a People’s Vote is that the ideas is based on an assumption that is not true. Everyone thinks Brexit is going badly and wants it to be over, one way or another, which is completely correct. The assumption is that people are so hacked off with Brexit that they would prefer a return to the status quo over Brexit, which is not true. Most people don’t want the status quo, which is what a People’s Vote is offering.

On top of this, there is the outpouring of rage a People’s Vote will create amongst Brexit voters that will be seized by the far-right. One MP was killed by the last referendum. Will a People’s Vote be worth it if it leads to more violence? How many lives lost is too high a price to stop Brexit? This may seem like pure shock rhetoric, but the People’s Vote need to engage with this question if we’re going to have another referendum. They can’t just shrug and assume that everyone else thinks exactly like them, ie really really wants Brexit to fuck off.

I don’t think a People’s Vote will get us out of this mess, which is why I don’t think there should be one. Although if Labour fails to get May to agree to non-suicidal Brexit, or even any Brexit, then it may be the only option left on the table to prevent a No Deal exit.  

I am very worried about the Brexit process. Time is running out and MPs must do everything they can to prevent a No Deal exit. The nation and history are watching closely what MPs do, so in the words of RuPaul I will say to MPs: good luck and don’t fuck it up.

 EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

Much needed sober reflections on Brexit

After a particularly crazy year of Brexit chaos I wanted to take some time to reflect on the state of Brexit. Sober reflection is the one thing this debate is lacking. Everyone knows what is pissing them off, but not what should be done about it. The need for some clarity of thinking has never been greater. 

I’m pro-European on an emotional level, but I have serious criticisms of the EU as a project. I feel a connection to my European neighbours and a sense of community with them. We have a shared history and a shared culture. The EU as an institution is one that is difficult to love as - like local government - it’s overly complex, staffed by technocratic functionaries who have their own impenetrable jargon and deeply is involved in citizens lives but seems unresponsive to their wishes.

I think the best course of action (given a magic wand) would be to stay in the EU and reform it from the inside. I dislike the anti-immigration, anti-politics rhetoric of Vote Leave. I’m also worried by their implication of Britain's Imperial past and a vision of a hyper neo-liberal future outside the restraint of EU protections of workers’ rights and the environment.

To pretend that the EU isn’t in need of reform is self-delusion on the same scale as those who deny the damage a No Deal Brexit would do. The way that the Greek economy was treated like spoilt child that needed harsh discipline, and not a sick patient who needed treatment, is worrying to say the least. As does the fact that the EU has done little to intervene against the Tory's savage austerity, and done nothing to alleviate the plight of the homeless or children suffering from malnutrition.

The EU has made deals with authoritarian Turkey to keep out millions of poor people seeking a better life. It has also been good at ensuring the easy movement of financial resources across Europe away from tax authorities or into the London property market, thus perpetuating the housing crisis. I’m not sure whose needs the EU is prioritising, but I am beginning to think it’s not the poor and the needy.

That said, letting a Tory government take us out of the EU won’t help any of the above. Putting the Tories in charge of Brexit will lead to either a No Deal Mad Max hellscape where we murder each other for the last bottle of Prosecco or a Blade Runner neoliberal nightmare as Britain becomes Singapore with a more historically entrenched class system.

What if the Tories weren’t in charge of Brexit? I hear you say. What if it was all down to Jeremy Corbyn and Labour? Well, I doubt that they could do any worse. However, under different leadership the central problem of Brexit won’t go away. This is that no one is agreed on what Brexit should be. Labour’s insistence that they should be in charge of it (via angling for a general election) overlooks the fact that we need to know what Brexit would look like if we were in charge. On that, there is no agreement.

Due to all this, I’m still against Brexit. The way to address the problems with the EU is not to storm off in a huff. Nor is Brexit the way to address the problems of this country and it will likely make poverty worse if there is a huge (or even slight) economic contraction. Brexit is a bad idea and all the versions of Brexit on the table are bad ideas, which is why politicians are unable to agree on the particular shit sandwich they want to eat.

What I don't believe, is that the tide of popular opinion is turning against Brexit. Brexit voters on the whole don’t regret their decision and none of the factors that led Leave winning the referendum have changed in any meaningful way. Poverty, inequality, immigration, concerns about British identity, distrust of politicians, none of this has changed since the last vote. Voters certainly regret putting Theresa May in charge of Brexit, but I don't think there’s a ground swell against it.

I still think Brexit should be stopped but I have two concerns about the People's Vote, the most prominent method of stopping Brexit. The first is that a second vote could trigger huge support for the far-right, who will seize a narrative of the people being betrayed by the elites. My second concern is that even if Nigel Farage doesn't end up storming parliament ahead of an army of gammon, I don't think that Remain can win a second vote so we might end up with an even more fractured political landscape and even more support for Brexit.

Whenever I raise these with supporters of the People's Vote, my concerns are usually dismissed out of hand and then I am usually asked if I voted Leave. When I try to explain my concerns, what follows is usually a lot of condescension about the people who voted for Brexit. Twice someone has told me that street violence is an acceptable price to stop Brexit, which is chilling in itself. None of this reassures me that Remain can win a second referendum.

Coupled with this unwillingness to consider that not everyone is a horrified by Brexit, there is tangible desire (occasionally directly expressed in these terms) to turn the clock back to 2015. They want to go back the days when the debate was between David Cameron's austerity, Ed Miliband’s small shuffle towards redistribution and whatever Nick Clegg stood for. This desire is as fantastical as the wildest, mercantile dreams of Brexiteers. Not only does time move forwards not backwards (I can't believe I have to explain that), but the EU today is not the EU from before the referendum.

The EU has been changed by the spread of right-wing populism taking governments in Eastern Europe and opposition parties in Western Europe. I still think Britain needs to remain with the EU to fight this, but not engaging with developments in the EU over the last two years is naive. This comes from many Remainers not really understanding or following European Politics or even caring. They are more motivated by a dislike the pro-Brexit narrative in Britain. Nothing wrong with this, I hate the immigrant bashing too, but let's stop pretending that politics goes back to reasonable after a People’s Vote.

The question all this poses is what should Labour do? No Deal must be avoided at all costs. It is a disaster of untold proportions. If we think politics or the economy is bad no, wait until planes can't fly, shops run out of food and hospitals run out of medicine.

Labour has been on the right track in trying to get the Tories out of office, as is the job of any opposition, but it looks like government will not fall before the Article 50 deadline. If a general election cannot be brought about, then Labour should accept the deal on the table. It's not good, but it's better than No Deal and it's unlikely anything better can be negotiated in the time left. If the party really cannot stomach May's deal and parliament is deadlocked, then the decision needs to be handed back to the people to resolve the impasse. This could either in the form of a Citizens Assembly or a People's Vote.

Another thing that must be avoided is a People's Vote that is Remain against No Deal as we cannot run the risk of No Deal being decided upon in a referendum. Farage and his pals will be on TV telling everyone that No Deal will be fine - and then it will visit destruction upon the country. The reason why No Deal must not be on the ballot is the same reason that general election ballot papers don't have "fuck all politicians, burn down parliament" as a voting option. It might win. Then we would have to do it.

So, Brexit is a mess and there are no way forward. The only thing I can say with a degree of certainty is that a No Deal catastrophe must be avoided. Beyond that, all I can say is that both doing Brexit and stopping Brexit are very risky courses of action.

 EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

Remainers are angry with the establishment that ignores them

700,000 people marched through London last week to demand a People’s Vote. From those I know who attended the march, and what I read on social media, the point of a People’s Vote is to give the government a democratic reason to stop Brexit. The fact that 70,000 marched for this goes to show that a lot of people are still very hostile to Brexit.

Although the tone of the march was good-natured and overall it was positive, many Remainers are angry at the political establishment. Not only are they angry, they feel there is no democratic outlet for their anger. Remainers feel they have been ignored, as over the last year and a half a narrow referendum win for Brexit has steered us increasingly towards a No Deal cliff edge.

As with every Brexit article, I feel I need to make my position clear at this point: I voted for Remain and I think Brexit is a bad idea. I am very angry with this government that is being reckless with the livelihoods of millions of people. It’s farcical that the government is risking crashing out of the EU without a deal, which would do enormous damage to our economy. Damage that will be felt the hardest by the poorest. I understand the anger of Remainers, because it is my anger too.

I understand that many Remainers feel that Brexit is an existential threat to them. There is a very real danger of a No Deal Brexit and something biblically awful following, like hospitals closing because they can’t get medicines or recession so severe that it will make the last one look like a minor economic adjustment. Remainers are right to be angry about how careless the government is being.

This anger goes beyond the fact that the government is handling Brexit terribly. It comes from a feeling of that Brexit project itself is illegitimate. The fact that Leave won the referendum doesn’t settle the issue for many Remainers, as it wouldn't be for many Brexiters if they had lost by only 2%.

The government’s poor handling of Brexit has made this worse. No one voted for the debacle we ended with and many Brexit voters didn't vote for a No Deal cliff edge. Remainers are angry that the Brexit leaders lied to win and possibly had support from Russia. The fact that these charges have gone largely unacknowledged by many politicians means that many Remainers feel let down by both Labour and the Tories.

Not only do many Remainers feel that Brexit is fundamentally illegitimate, the very idea of Brexit strikes at the heart of how Remainers see the world. Brexit is the political expression of suspicion of foreigners, hostility to people with different cultures and nostalgia for an imagined past of British global supremacy. Remainers feel that their values are under threat from a culture of intolerance and backwardness. Remainers feel that their culture of tolerance and openness is under attack not only from the government but in the streets by emboldened nationalists. They also think they are being sneered at for being soft and out-of-touch by a political class that prefers to pander to knee-jerk bigotry.

The way that many Remainers see Leavers is deeper than the specific issues that came to a head around the time of the referendum, such as migration from Eastern Europe or the refugee crisis. The cultural difference between Remainers and Brexiteers comes down to basic things like a dislike of patriotism and preference for internationalism. Many Remainers simply don't understand why people would love their country to the point that they want to do huge damage to it so that they can save it from foreigners. The idea of patriotism (especially the way patriotism has been expressed through Brexit) is an anathema.

Remainers are also angry about being told to listen to Leavers. A lot of the Remainers I talk to don't want to listen to people with different views from them. They don’t want to listen to peoples’ concerns about immigration or the loss of British identity. Remainers are constantly implored to understand Leavers, but why is the opposite never said? Why are Brexiters never told to listen to Remainers? No one is suggesting that there be a pro-EU column written in the Daily Express to broaden their worldview.

At this point, it's worth remembering that not every Brexit voter was an unemployed former steelworker. Many were middle-class, property owners who feel insulated from an economic shock that Brexit cold produce. Most Brexit voters are older and not university educated, but that doesn't mean their howls of anger directed about the EU is the product of a life of being crapped on by the system. It could equally be the product of a close-minded, curtain twitching, dislike of others. Most young, University educated, Remainers, trapped in the private rented sector, have a better claim to being the people abandoned by the political class then Daily Mail readers who have been pandered to at every possible opportunity.

Remainers feel betrayed by the establishment. They feel betrayed by Corbyn and Labour for failing to mount an effective opposition to Brexit. They feel betrayed by the Tories for failing to put the practical needs of the economy ahead of the whims of the anti-EU loonies in their party. Above all, they feel betrayed by supposedly sensible politicians for pandering to people’s dislike of immigration to the point where the political manifestation of this dislike has driven the country to the brink of disaster.

There is the very real possibility of crashing out the EU without a deal and doing huge damage not just to our economy but also to the basic infrastructure of the country. If Brexit is a gargantuan disaster (which we may discover it is, very soon) then we will have ruined our country because a few people are sent into waves of existential anger because they hear Polish being spoken on the bus, and politicians were too frightened to tell them this is small minded and bigoted.

Remainers are angry that despite the fact that 48% of the country voted not to gamble our future on the promises of Boris Johnson, no serious political party is representing this group of people. Ignoring this number of angry people or dismissing these concerns as just those of "metropolitan liberals" will make Remainers feel less alienated. So far this anger has not found itself a radical outlet, but it will. Given time. Doing Brexit and getting it over with will not make this anger disappear. It needs to find adequate political expression.

EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

Should we have a People’s Vote on Brexit?

Okay … deep breath … we’re going to talk about Brexit.

Before we start, I want to get this out of the way, just so there’s no doubt: I voted Remain. Remain with a capital R. I hated the leave campaign and how they lied about money, exploited love of the NHS and whipped up fear of immigrants. I think Brexit is a terrible idea, likely to reduce workers' rights, cause an economic shock that will hit the poorest the hardest and restart a sectarian war in Northern Ireland. Even if Brexit wasn’t an awful idea, it’s been handled atrociously by the Tories who can’t even agree amongst themselves as to which horrendous, dystopian visions of the future they want to force on everyone not lucky enough to be financially insulated from this bullshit.

Yes, I have criticisms of the EU and the official Remain campaign couldn’t find a decent argument with both hands. But on the whole if I could wave a magic wand and make the whole Brexit thing go away I would. Slight problem with that: I can’t.

Now, there’s lots of talk of having another referendum or a People’s Vote. The point of this is to stop this Brexit nightmare by democratic means. I’m not going to dignify the colossally stupid idea of stopping Brexit via a non-democratic means with any discussion. Ideas for what exactly the People Vote would be differ, but generally it’s another referendum between some form of Brexit and Britain remaining a full EU member.

Brexit and the left

A lot of the people who don’t like Jeremy Corbyn and don’t like his stance on Brexit are pushing this. The Venn diagram of being Labour, anti-Corbyn and anti-Brexit has a lot of overlap. Also, Corbyn is a Eurosceptic of long standing.

On the other hand, a lot of young people and middle class metropolitan lefties (I’m at least one of those things) are really into Corbyn and really anti-Brexit. Calls for a People’s Vote is not just a means to get rid of Corbyn without the awkwardness of winning a Labour leadership contest. A lot of people on the left think Brexit is a bad idea, handled badly and would like it to go away. Not least the Corbyn leadership who want to turn the many against the few (such as by supporting more money for the NHS), not the many against the many (by rubbing salt into Brexit wounds).

The case against holding another referendum is that most normal people really hate politics, politicians, the time the media devote to politicians, elections and most of all referendums. Everyone remember this?

Another referendum would empower the far right by handing them an easy narrative of the people betrayed by the elite. It would also massively empower the regular pro-Brexit right. “Brexit Betrayed!” Splashed across every right wing paper is a) something all right learning papers really want to do, and b) would mean right wing or far right government until the point the sea rises high enough to drown London.

The case for a second referendum

Another reason not do it is (and I haven’t read this elsewhere is so this maybe, shock horror, an original thought) that it wouldn’t stop Brexit anyway. Even if we stop the current Brexit process without making Arron Banks Fuhrer of Britain, what’s to stop Boris Johnson leading the Conservative Party to a huge election victory at the next general election on the platform of Brexit? After he hoovers up all Tories and Leave Labour voters he’ll take us out of the EU without another referendum or a parliamentary vote or anything. Does the People’s Vote do anything other than kick the can down the road?

The case for a second referendum is built on the idea that significant numbers of people have buyer’s remorse over Brexit. If we do this again, only the diehard immigration haters will vote Brexit; so the logic goes. I don’t think many people do regret their vote, to be honest.

They regret putting Theresa May in charge of Brexit for sure, but the idea itself remains resolutely popular. If anything we’re more Brexit-y now than we were in 2016, as it has been given the sheen of democratic approval - the government wouldn’t throw its weight behind not-Brexit next time. If you’re rolling your eyes right now: remember people do listen to the government, even when David Cameron is in charge of it.

That said … Brexit is currently a massive mess. A mess because it is filled with contradictions and I don’t see how we can resolve these contradictions without another referendum.

With Brexit, essentially, we have to choose between two models: Norway or Canada. High access and taking rules, or low access and striking our own trade deals. Peace in Northern Ireland or more control on immigration. This government is incapable of choosing between the two because it is unwilling to accept the negative consequences of either. I don’t see how other governments, say a Labour one, could resolve this either, as Labour voters are split between wanting controls on immigration and single market access.

Fantasy policy making

Brexit has only got as far as it has through fantasy promises made during the campaign and then fantasy policy making by those who were supposed to be the grown ups and sort this out. Too much bullshit has been said about Britain being able to negotiate something different from these two models. We can’t. Certainly not now, after we have wasted all our good will and nearly all our time. The fantasy crap has obscured the single choice facing Britain.

No one wants what May is offering. Her Chequers agreement won’t work and neither the EU, her party or MPs will accept it. There’s really only one way to resolve the fundamental Brexit split: put both options - with full details, no more fantasies about artificial intelligence, the blockchain or Churchill coming back from the dead to save us - on the table and let the people decide.

That way we can have a proper debate about Brexit, not the farce we had in 2016. People will have to decide whether they want (and newspaper/politicians will have to be honest about the trade offs between) a reduction on immigration and an end to EU red tape or peace in a Northern Ireland and economic stability.

Would there be an option for Remain in such a referendum? As in a complete no Brexit, time machine back to 2015, option? I don’t see this happening in the event of another referendum. Although, if we are going to give people a choice, it’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t be given the option to make it all go away. Whatever referendum we have will embolden the far right.

Two Brexits and one Remain

The real problem with this plan is: what happens if most people vote for the two Brexits but Remain still wins with about 45% of the vote? We would be in real trouble. Like, armed Gammons storming parliament trouble.

All options are risky. Also, there’s no time to arrange any of this and make sure that the Russians don’t rig it so that Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister.

So, should we have a People’s Vote or another referendum? I don’t see how we can resolve the two-Brexits issue without one. Parliament would rather tear itself apart than resolve this problem themselves. I would like Remain on the ballot, under the proviso that Brexit is only cancelled if more people voted Remain than both Brexit options combined.

What I really want is for the government/parliament to resolve this. However, I don’t see that happening. Party politics and government are struggling to absorb the result of a referendum. The two seem incompatible. Certainly, having no plan for what happened after the referendum if Brexit won didn’t help. Also, not having a proper debate about what Brexit would actually mean during the referendum made things worse. For this, I blame both the Brexit and Remain press, but we can’t change what happened.

The entire process of Brexit has broken down. As we are going, I don’t see a way forward that doesn’t run the serious risk of a no deal, cliff edge, hospitals run out of medicine, Brexit. Maybe the unthinkable second referendum is the only way to settle this once and for all.

EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

Britain is not Great

The Telegraph wants us to stop talking Britain down, as if the only thing stopping the UK from landing a great Brexit deal is lack of faith. It’s not really a surprise. Brexiteers really believe in Britain. Nothing gets them hard faster than the Union Jack rippling majestically in the wind. Nothing makes them happy like the idea of Britain negotiating our own trade deals free from EU inconveniences like environmental safety. Nothing makes them more nostalgic than the pomp and ceremonial hangovers from the British Empire.

Brexiteers believe Britain is great country and we can achieve great things. We have a huge economy and a dynamic workforce. This confidence is characterised by the view that the EU needs us as much as we need them. They believe that Britain is so rich that it would be a mark of idiotic, economic self-harm not to give the UK an amazingly accommodating trade deal.

It is this confidence in Britain that got us into the Brexit mess. Pro-Brexit MPs managed to convince enough of the country that Britain is so bloody good it can rip up its trading relationship with its biggest trade partner and be better off. Liam Fox claimed striking a trade deal with the EU would be one of the “easiest in human history”. Now that this has proved more difficult than anticipated, Brexiteers believe that confidence in Britain will get us out of the mess it got us into.

For many Brexiteers, belief in Britain is like a religion and don't you dare question it. Britain won two world wars and conquered half the globe, but are we are great country today? Britain is the world’s fifth large economy and has a history of being a great merchant power, but having a high GDP and a history best viewed through rose tinted glasses is not the same as being a great country. Whatever Brexiteers believe.

A few facts about the British economy: real incomes are falling for most people, which means almost everyone is getting poorer despite working more hours than our European neighbours. The average British worker earns 10.4% less now than they did I in 2017. Real income is down because wages are stagnant. Britain has had the biggest fall in wages of any advanced country apart from Greece. In short, those dynamic workers need a pay rise.

The country as a whole is getting richer, GDP has grown by just under 2% in 2016, but ordinary people aren't benefiting. The economy gets larger, but the real income of the people doing the work is going down. I wonder where this extra wealth is going?

Take a look at the Paradise Papers, which show that the wealthy are avoiding taxes on an industrial scale. Economic growth is benefiting the rich and they are getting out of paying taxes through some very creative accounting. In Brexit Britain, the rich are getting richer while low wage growth and high costs of living are eating away at the income of everyone else. Does this sound like a great country?

On top of all this, Brexit is a real problem. If mishandled - and by mishandled, I mean conducted in the manner that reflects an idea that is poorly convinced, fuelled by nostalgia for a time when Britain could point at the property of non-white people and claim it’s theirs and is currently being excited by a group of people who think that the best way to solve a problem is to thump their chest and bellow about how amazing Britain is - it could cause huge damage to our economy. To say that Brexit is being mishandled is an understatement akin to saying that Donald Trump could do with spending less time on Twitter.

Britain needs a deal with the European Union to avoid an economic shock that could trip the country that is already poised on the edge of recession back into it. Brexiteers don't want to take what the EU is offering, so they might do the only thing stupider than leaving the EU: leaving the EU without a trade deal. Brexiteers would rather do this than admit that belief in Britain is insufficient to tackle this problem.

It is mainly because their belief in Britain is so strong they think that we can walk away with no deal and it not be suicide. Their belief in Britain doesn't extend to gambling with their own money, as evidenced by arch-Brexiteer John Redwood advising investors to take their money out of the UK. Ordinary people will have to suffer the consequences of Brexit. The rich are advised to avoid it where possible. No mention is made of talking Britain down.

Redwood knows this is all crap and it’ll get worse, a lot worse, and people are likely to lose a lot of money. Of course he doesn’t mind if those people are his constituents, but he does mind if it’s wealthy people. Everyone is supposed to believe in Britain, but rich people taking their money out of Britain is not talking Britain down. If you talk to Redwood then a few Remoaners complaining about how badly is being handled over pulled pork and craft beer in a pop-up pub is more of threat to the British economy than wealthy people taking their money elsewhere because we’ve fucked over our financial stability to appease a few old people who don’t like hearing Polish being spoken on the bus.

We are approaching an “the Emperor has no clothes” moment for belief in Britain. The economy is not strong and ordinary people's material circumstances are getting worse. We can’t eat the concept of freedom from EU red tape. We can’t live in the idea of sovereignty or control of our immigration.

Brexit is a shambles that will be visited on the ordinary people not the Brexiteers who pushed for it and then pushed for no deal because they believe in Britain so much. Brexiteers can't stand anything that threatens their idea of Britain being amazing - even if it’s an idea that’s good for our economy, or, you know, sane - and because of this they're going to wreck this country. Of course they won't go so far as to gamble with the money of wealthy people, but the rest of can live on confidence in Britain.

One Brexit outcome for the rich and another for everyone else, clearly isn't fair for the majority of people. If you point this out, or the fact that Brexit could be managed better by a group of five-year-olds, then you are talking Britain down. Well this situation can’t last much longer. Religious belief in Britain is about to collide with reality.

What does protesting against Brexit achieve?

I am writing this on the day that Britain triggers Article 50 and we formally begin the process of leaving the EU. The papers are full of optimistic headlines - that they may live to deny they ever wrote in the first place - and Theresa May has said: “it is time to come together”.

If you go to Twitter this morning, you will see that lots of people are not in the mood to come together. They did not vote for Brexit, and there is still little evidence that it will go well. On Saturday some of these people, including me, were at a protest in central London. I was genuinely surprised by how passionate people were in defending the EU. I had expected the tone to be demoralised, but marchers and speakers alike were defiant in their opposition to Brexit.

It was a very middle class march, judging by the way protesters descended on the Piccadilly Pret A Manger - it looked like a plague of locusts had swept through the sandwich shop. When the self-contented middle classes feel the need to get off Twitter and take to the streets, this should be a sign that things are not going well. Standing in line, trying to buy a bottle of water and a falafel and halloumi wrap, I realised that a casual observer would see a massive disconnect between these people marching under EU flags and the ordinary, salt of the earth, Brexit voter.

Not that everyone who opposed Brexit is middle class or that this march was about saying that the majority of people opposed Brexit. It was about fighting the idea that everyone was now united behind Brexit. It was also about making sure that the minority against Brexit are still heard. Brexit is the most complex and difficult thing the country has undertaken since World War 2 and the government is approaching with the same ill-founded confidence of a 16-year-old, hosting their first house party, who is generously pouring measures of vodka without really knowing what it is. To silence any opposition (as many want to do) is nothing short of irresponsible.

There was something else bringing people together on Saturday: defending the EU has become a symbol for a broader opposition to the right wing lurch of the country in the last year. Unpleasant arguments were made by the leave side during the campaign and the result has only emboldened racism and nationalism. Opposing Brexit is a byword for being against this. It shows that we are against populism and politics based around blatant lies, like £350 million for the NHS or that Turkey is about to join the EU. It shows we are against the attacks on the judiciary, parliament and democratic due process that have come from Brexit supporters. It shows that we are in favour of an open society, not a closed and narrow minded one.

The months since the referendum have been tumultuous and politics has changed a lot. As the public consensus has shifted to the right, many centrists now find themselves on the left. As someone who has always been on the left, I can’t help but feel that we are in a bad way if the thing we are primarily fighting for is a neoliberal institution that has inflicted massive pain on Greece and built up the walls of Fortress Europe to keep out as many refugees as possible - many of whom are fleeing some of the worst circumstances in the world.

How many of the people who I marched with on Saturday oppose the naked racism of Nigel Farage, the blatant lies of Boris Johnson and the disdain for experts of Michael Gove, but still believe that the Greek people should be punished for their government’s deficit? Or want refugees kept out? Or voted Lib Dem? A protest movement led by the Lib Dems and supported by the sort of middle class person who opposes raising progressive taxation (for whatever reason), and seeks to pander to right wing rhetoric on immigration is not radical enough for me.

Hopefully fighting Brexit will wake up people on the soft left to the idea of arguing for something and changing people’s mind, rather than just repositioning your offer to where the public is. To stop Brexit in the next two years we have to change peoples’ minds. Once we have changed minds on this issue, we can aspire to do more than just defending status quo. We can start articulating what we want the future to be like.

What does protesting against Brexit achieve? It shows that there are people opposed to the ruinous Brexit project. It shows that there are people who are opposed to the sudden rightwards lurch of politics. It shows that we can start thinking about how we want things to be different and that we do not have to accept the way that they are.

We are all cool with this, right?

I'm surprised with how relaxed everyone is about Brexit. 48% of the electorate voted remain, but you can’t tell that by reading the news. After a quick glance at the headlines and you would think that the winner of the referendum was people drawing in an additional box on the ballot paper saying "hardest Brexit possible" and then spitting on it. Why do we act like the whole country is united behind Brexit?

The only people standing up for the 48% are the Lib Dems, but if they get anywhere near actual power again I expect them to turn around and say: “We’ve looked at it and it turns out that what’s in everyone’s best interest is to drag the UK to the middle of Atlantic ocean”.

The public seems to be broadly united behind Brexit happening. Or more accurately: the public is united behind having no more elections or referendums. The public is sick of being asked its opinion and considering how hard I find it choose which craft beer I want in my local hipster pub, I too am dubious about the merits of having everyone make an important decision about the future of the country every year. The public don’t want any more referendums, expect perhaps, maybe, one more in Scotland, because that was fun last time and it ended well. Sort of.

The consensus is that we have to do Brexit, to stop Nigel Farage leading a pitchfork-wielding mob down to Westminster, but there are many different types of Brexit, so why are we getting hard Brexit?

The leave campaign was so woolly that it could mean anything to anyone. Paul Stephenson, is still saying that we should have £350 million a week for the NHS, although it's more likely that Boris Johnson will join a monastery and take a vow of poverty. The Brexit we are getting prioritises control on immigration and leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. The latter was hardly a feature of the campaign; it's just May’s personal desire to have a British Jack Bauer go to town on people she does not like, like a horrible cross between James Bond and Peter Sutcliffe.

The former priority is as widely supported as the Leave campaign’s offer of £350 million more for the NHS, which was dropped quicker than a Lib Dem MP’s majority and with no political consequences. So why can't we also drop the immigration pledge? It's not like the Tories think cutting immigration dramatically is possible.

I am surprised that the whole country seems to be relaxed that we are getting the most right wing Brexit possible. We voted to leave the EU, not to give the Daily Mail everything they wanted. I wouldn't be surprised if a referendum on reintroducing capital punishment and making it the law to sing the national anthem at the start of every school or working day is next.

I suppose we do have PM who is loved by the Daily Mail (apart from when she is trying to raise the national insurance payment of their columnists) and two thirds of the public want immigration to come down. The main division in the EU referendum was not between pro and anti-immigration camps, but between people who wanted immigration to come down but were not willing to be poorer to achieve this, vs people who either were willing to be poorer or thought that this would not be necessary.

The Tories have also given up pretending to be nice like David Cameron did (apparently that’s what the Tories think a nice human being is like) and now they really want to appeal to base selfishness by being pro-business and pro-hating people because of what they look like. There is also the issue that a significant number of remain voters were Tories and they don’t seem keen on turning against their government, even while it tramples all over our future prospects.

At first I was worried that giving two fingers up to the EU was likely to result in a bad deal for Britain. Now I am worried that there will be no deal and we will exit on WTO terms. The odds of us leaving with no deal are increasing and there is a complete lack of panic about this; in fact, some have argued that it would be okay.

I don't think that it will be okay to have a 15% tariff on food coming into Britain from the EU and a 36% tariff on dairy, raising cost of living and creating inflation. I certainly don't think that it will be okay if we have a hard border in Northern Ireland. This could literally lead to violence and the loss of lives. How many lives is it politically acceptable to lose to get a good deal from the EU? I am pretty sure some poor intern in Tory Party HQ has been given the job of working this out. It honestly frightens me when people are blasé about exiting on WTO terms as if that were not so bad.

This little talk has made me more nervous. I'm not sure why we are all so cool about the way Brexit is going. The 48% should be more angry about how their future is being mortgaged to placate the ire of Daily Mail-reading 70 year olds who won't be around to appreciate just how bad the long term implications of their dislike of immigration will be.

I'm worried by how little people are freaking out about hard Brexit or no Brexit deal (currently it's 50/50 between the two - I never thought I would root for hard Brexit on some level) and the lurch to the right. We're all cool with this, right? Because I'm not.

Brexit offers many opportunities for the Labour Party

It is certainly strange to be feeling disappointed that the Labour Party has a similar policy stance to the Tory Party when Jeremy Corbyn is leader. I voted for Corbyn precisely to avoid this feeling. If I wanted to be realistic about what the voters wanted, I would have supported Andy Burnham. I voted for a serial rebel, because I did not want to see Labour compromising. Now the preferred politicians of the Morning Star and the Daily Mail have little difference between them on the biggest issue of today. If Douglas Adams had submitted this as a novel, it would have been rejected as too surreal.

John McDonnell has said that Brexit offers many opportunities. It's worth remembering that crashing your car into a brick wall offers you the opportunity to get a better one, but most people just head down to their local Ford dealership. Although the British public has spoken - and their chosen direction is into the brick wall. Driving safely is apparently what metropolitan liberals do, and in 2017 no-one wants to be seen publicly shopping in Waitrose or being nice to another human being. So with that in mind let's take McDonnell at face value.

Brexit offers us the opportunity to get the economy we want. Everything is up for grabs and Britain is clearly too dependent on financial services and desperately needs to diversify its economy, so that the new jobs created are not just at companies that find inventive ways for the very poor to do for money what rich millennials’ parents used to do for free. (This, by the way, is not sarcasm, it's an actual Silicon Valley business strategy.)

No-one is more excited than me about giving a bloody nose to the cunts who do coke in the toilet of the Liverpool Street Station Wetherspoons. However, after every financial crisis we end up ever more dependent on an unstable financial sector and then banks get less apologetic. If you think that the slow crushing of prosperity that Brexit will bring is going to be felt in the square mile then remember we have a Tory government who would sell Newcastle to Kim Jong-Un to test his nuclear weapons before they contemplate inconveniencing the City of London. We always end up worse off and they always end up richer.

Let's not forget that the Tories back up plan for Brexit (if acting like an impatient child for some reason doesn't land a brilliant deal from the EU27) is to turn Britain into a low tax, low regulation, neoliberal hell hole to lure in the money of the most greedy and unscrupulous people in Europe. In essence we will be like Monaco with rubbish weather. Or Switzerland with rubbish trains. Or Singapore with rubbish. What everyone who does not work in financial services, the sex industry, the coke supply industry, or north of Watford is supposed to do in these circumstance is unclear. Certainly do not think about being a nurse or a teacher or anything useful and (formerly) supplied by the government, as the Tories will be rushing to deliver as much austerity as possible so that they can offer dodgy back handlers to any company that threatens to relocate to mainland Europe.

Brexit also offers the opportunity for Britain to regain sovereignty of its laws, this will surely be of benefit to a future Labour government. Never mind that we have a Tory government right now that treats the Human Rights Act as an inconvenience that stops us driving nails through the fingers of people we do not like. Leaving the EU will offer any future Tory government the ability to do whatever they like with workers', environmental and human rights.

The Tories are salivating at the prospect of bringing back child labour (you need to start on that CV early in today's competitive job market), drilling for shale glass in the Lake District (can anything that doesn't make money for big business be truly beautiful) and throwing benefit claimants who don't look for work into the Thames (only a metropolitan liberal who lives in East London, cycles to work and drinks vegan beer would disagree with this). Unless we were looking at very long period of uninterrupted Labour rule, I would be very wary about leaving the comforting, regulated embrace of the EU.

While Brexit offers a great opportunity to regain the sovereignty of the UK, it also offers a great opportunity to destroy it. After Wales and Cornwall have become Mad Max-esque hellscapes following the withdrawal of EU assistance grants, we have the prospect of Scotland leaving the union and the creation of a hard border between Northern and the Republic of Ireland. Of course the proposed Tory solution to the latter is to treat Northern Ireland as if it is in the Republic, which will definitely go down well with the Protestants and Unionists there. We may be able to rip Britain away from the tyranny of the EU, but we are very likely to rip the country apart in the process.

Supporting Brexit also offers Labour the opportunity to reconnect with its base, because what voters up and down country really want is to hear a Labour leader talk awkwardly about immigration. It went well for Ed Miliband and I for one am looking forward to more conversations with Green Party members about why our leader’s so keen on controls on immigration, while trying to silence that nagging bit at the back of my brain telling me that this is not right. All the time we will be accused of betraying the two thirds of Labour voters who voted remain, and being accused of being Britain hating, Brexit traitors by UKIP regardless of how much we hug the flag and try to stop people coming here to contribute to our economy by doing jobs that British people turn their noises up at.

Finally Brexit offers the opportunity to make a strong statement about the Britain we want. It's a great opportunity to tell the world that we are a closed and xenophobic island with a hugely exaggerated sense of a self-importance, and who would not be want to sign trade deals with such a nation? Never mind that we have no experience of negotiating trade deals for the last 40 years, our closest ally thinks that the point of a deal is to come out massively better off than the other side and that many of the other countries we want to do deals with want Britain to relax our visa laws, something that the reasonable Brexit voters will certainly be opened minded to as they are so keen to put national interest ahead of their small minded prejudices.

Only a metropolitan liberal who grows ironic facial hair, attends music festivals in Eastern Europe and wants to buried wrapped in old copies of the Guardian (it's more environmentally friendly) would have reservations about tearing up 40 years of law and rewriting them in 30 seconds while primarily considering whether the Daily Mail will like the result.

With all the opportunities for radical change what is there to worry about? Anyone who says otherwise is just a Remoaner who hates Britain. I'm not worried. I'm not even going to wear my seatbelt when I voluntarily crash my car into this wall. To do otherwise is to talk down Britain.

The rise of illiberal democracy

In my last post I talked about the threat to liberal democracy that comes from liberal undemocracy. Liberal democracy has been the basis of Western society since the end of World War 2, but now it is under threat from both liberal undemocracy and illiberal democracy, which is also spreading through the Western world.

To understand illiberal democracy, we need to start by looking at the basic elements of a liberal society. (This is liberal with a small “L” or liberal as in John Locke, not liberal like Hillary Clinton.) The main elements of a liberal society are a free press, an independent judiciary, a degree of economic freedom, a degree of social freedom and representative democracy coupled with universal suffrage. We are seeing the rise of a political movement that threatens all of these things and thus strikes at the heart of the liberal Western order.

Donald Trump is leading an attacking on the free press. He misses no opportunity to call the media biased against him and to question the legitimacy of any criticism of him. In Trump’s world there is no such thing as pro-Trump bias, there is only legitimate news that supports him and illegitimate news that criticises him. This is an attack on the liberal idea of a free press that holders the powerful to account.

Recently the independence of our judiciary has also been questioned. Following a High Court ruling that parliament (not the government) must decide to trigger Article 50, and begin the process of Britain leaving the EU, several British newspapers questioned the rights of judges to interpret the law and some even went so far as to label them “enemies of the people”. Another key principle of a liberal society is that parliament makes the law and judges are free to interrupt them. By suggesting that some political decisions are so important that judges must not be allowed to interrupt how the law applies to them is to question the independence of our judiciary. It is fine to claim that the judges made the wrong legal decision (or interpretation of the law), but to question their position as arbiters of the law is against liberalism.

Both of the above attacks were backed up by the fact that the political movements attacking liberalism (Trump and Brexit) won democratic elections. These political movements represent a huge change to Western society because they call into question our liberal democratic foundation. As political movements they attack liberalism in other ways: both want to restrict economic freedom and are a profound shift in the economic policy. This could be the end of neoliberalism and the beginning of a new age of economic nationalism. Although Brexit and Trump are profoundly different (Brexit is much more pro-free trade than Trump) they both question the current liberal economic consensus.

These two political movements also want to restrict social freedoms. At their core is nativist populism, which is frequently expressed as hostility to immigrants and non-whites. Winning elections based on illiberal practices such as curtailing immigration from certain countries, deporting large numbers Mexicans, banning Muslims from the country or exploiting latent xenophobia is an expression of hostility to the social freedoms that underpin liberalism. There is no valid liberal democracy without social liberalism and winning a democratic mandate on a platform of taking away people’s rights away is profoundly illiberal.

Trump and the Republican Party have even gone so far as to attack universal suffrage. Voting reforms put in place by Republicans and supported by Trump are designed specifically to stop poor people and ethnic minorities from voting. This is because they are more likely to vote for Democrats. We can expect to see more of this under President Trump and by making it difficult for citizens to vote, Trump is threatening the liberal principle of representative democracy through universal suffrage.

Finally, Trump attacks the foundations of liberal democracy by calling the election itself into question. Trump claims that millions voted illegally, which there is no evidence of. Questioning the legitimacy of elections themselves show the scale of Trump’s hostility to liberal democracy as does his fondness for dictators like Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Trump represents a clear and present danger to the very basis of western civilization through his attacks on liberal democracy.

These two occurrences, the rise of illiberal democracy and liberal undemocracy, are threatening liberal democracy because Western society is so divided. Trump, Brexit and other populist, nativist movements show the divisions of our society, which are mirrored by illiberal democracy and liberal undemocracy. Some people hail Trump and Brexit as the overturning of a corrupt political order and some see it as a threat to western society. Some are willing attack liberalism to destroy this corrupt political order and some want to subvert democracy in order to prevent them. This new divide between illiberal democracy and liberal undemocracy cuts across the old left and right political spectrum and is the key debate in contemporary politics. Restoring the old axis and liberal democracy is not possible until we unite our divided societies and return political debate to the old divisions.

This is not possible, partly because we cannot turn back time, but partly because the idea behind the old political debates do not explain the world we live in anymore. Neoliberalism does not make sense after the 2008 financial crash. Technocratic institutions are not protecting our society from existential threats. We need to engage with the ideas thrown up by illiberal democracy and liberal undemocracy so that we can combat the worst aspects of contemporary politics: ie racist populism and the desire of certain people to take away the rights of others.

The established liberal democratic ideas that underpinned Western society for decades are now being questioned. We cannot turn back the clock and stop this. Instead we need to ask ourselves: what do we want from our future and what must be stopped at all costs?

Donald Trump picture taken by Gage Skidmore and used under creative commons.

The rise of liberal undemocracy

Liberal democracy has been the bedrock of our society since the Second World War. The combination of representative democracy and a degree of economic and social liberalism is what united the West during the Cold War. It is this vision of government that we exported around the world, and since the fall of the Berlin Wall it has become the political structure that every country (bar a few exceptions) claims to have. Liberal democracy is so universal that it could be called the default form of government.

Now liberal democracy is being challenged in its own cradle. A conflict between liberalism and democracy has been born out of an old fear about democracy. Democracy has always been threatened by two fears: first, that the poor will use democracy to appropriate the wealth of the rich, and second, that democracy means the rule of the stupid over the smart against everyone’s best interest.

This has led to the rise of liberal undemocracy amongst liberals. Support for liberal undemocracy has become more prevalent in the UK since Britain voted to leave the EU. In its crudest form, it is the expression that the public is too stupid and too easily manipulated to be trusted with elections and referendums, with Brexit as the self-evident evidence of this. Liberal undemocracy’s more sophisticated form is the argument that it is in everyone’s best interest that the public are not allowed to make certain decisions.

Let me be clear that this criticism of liberal undemocracy is not support for Brexit. I am against Brexit, because I believe in workers’ rights and environmental protection at a European level. I believe that Britain should stay in the EU - mainly because for the above reasons it offers - but I am against liberal undemocracy for the reasons that I will outline below.

The reason for the popularity of liberal undemocracy is a belief in a greater good of public policy that is above politics and ideology. This is optimised by the reliance of Western governments on technocratic institutions, such as the European Commision or the Bank of England. These institutions were either created or given their independence to prevent politics and public opinion from influencing certain economic policy decisions. They work by moving key decisions away from parliaments - which respond to the will of the public through elections - to non-government institutions that are supposed to persue a non-ideological greater good of public policy. In short, they focus on “what works” rather than what people want, and as such they are fundamentally undemocratic.

There were good reasons for these institutions to be set up in the way that they were, as they stop politicians from making bad decisions that are politically convenient. However, they have their flaws as well, which were exposed in 2008 when the rule of "what works" in terms of economic policy stopped working. Our technocratic institutions did not save us from the banking crisis and biggest recession since the Second World War, despite having their independence.

What works stopped working because these institutions were free from politics, but no one is free from ideology. Technocratic institutions pursued what works, but no one asked the question who does it work for? It turns out that the who was large banks and finance companies, which focused on short-term profits. Our technocratic institutions were supposed to focus on the long-term health of the economy, but they failed to do so and we all suffered in the Great Recession.

The people running technocratic institutions (usually cut from the same upper crust of society that most politicians come from) are not free from ideology or prejudice. They may be independent from the daily cut-and-thrust of politics, but their decisions will still be influenced by how they see the world. Our technocratic institutions believed in free market economics so blindly that they did not foresee the banking crisis they were supposed to prevent. They were so wedded to this ideology that they saw no problem in turning over the fate of our economy to banks and finance companies that focus only on the short term and then to ignore the long-term consequences of this.

Technocratic institutions suffer from institutional rigidity and can be slow to change. This is one explanation why they did not act to prevent the baking crisis despite the warning signs. During the boom years of the 2000s they could not allow any other point of view beyond their own faith in neoliberalism. Due to their independence, there was no way to ensure that different opinions were heard in the meeting rooms of the technocratic institutions where all the important decision about our economy were made. We trusted them and they failed. This is the fundamental flaw of technocratic institutions.

If these technocratic institutions had been more accountable, then there was a chance that we could have seen their failure before it was too late. The lesson from years of liberal democracy is that accountability can only be through democracy and our institutions are stronger when they are more democratic. Parliament has it flaws as well, but it is responsive to change and more transparent than separate technocratic institutions.

The idea of liberal undemocracy is spreading because of decisions like Brexit and the second fear about democracy: the rule of the stupid over the smart. Voting to leave the EU was the wrong decision, but the voters were not divided between smart or stupid, there were plenty of smart or stupid people on both sides. The divisions in the referendum were between young/old, graduates/non-graduates, town/country and how we view the changes to the country of the last 40 years. No one should be denied a vote because they are old or from rural areas the country, which is essentially the argument of “stupid people voted for Brexit so stupid people should not allowed to vote”.

Liberal undemocracy is fundamentally not compatible with left-wing politics, because it appeals to a fundamental mistrust of the people. Liberal undemocracy involves taking decisions away from people because they cannot be trusted to make them and giving them instead to people who are supposed to be above politics to look after the greater good. In reality, these people pursue a narrow interest and are as ideologically-driven as anyyone else. On the left we need to believe that the people can make good decisions and not that decisions should be taken away from them.

The EU referendum result was a bad result, but we should not dismiss democracy because of it. We need to resist liberal undemocracy, because our institutions are stronger when they are more accountable through democracy. On the left, we need to recognise that liberal undemocracy is not the way to fight the other big threat to liberal democracy, which is illiberal democracy. More on that in the next post.

Bank of England picture taken by Martin Pettitt and used under creative commons.

2016: the year everything stopped making sense

In 2015 there were lots of surprises, but at the end of the year everything made sense. David Cameron had won an unexpected majority for the Tories, but the reasons for his victory were typical of past elections: the voters preferred Cameron as a lead and thought that Labour were weak on the economy. No one predicted that Jeremy Corbyn could be leader of the Labour Party when he declared his intention to run for the position, but his victory makes sense when you remember that the other candidate’s statements on welfare, spending and immigration were far to the right of what the average Labour Party member is comfortable with. 2015 made sense when viewed through our traditional lens for examining politics.

All that changed in 2016. It is as if our ability to understand the titanic shifts occurring in politics is itself breaking down.

This year saw surprise victories for Brexit and Donald Trump, as well as growing support for right wing nationalist populism all over the Western world. Despite the conventional left and right opposing these movements, and the combined weight of our civil institutes and media thrown against them, they succeeded by engaging in a different political debate that is completely parallel to the one being had by established politics. Cameron wanted to talk about the economy, but Nigel Farage was talking about borders. Hillary Clinton wanted to talk about experienced leadership, but Trump wanted to talk about crooked politicians.

Brexit was not a left wing or a right wing issue. The leaders of government and opposition were united in opposing it and are now united in supporting it. The supporters of Brexit and Remain are drawn from both safe Tory and Labour seats. People now politically identify more strongly with their referendum vote than any particular political party. This is an earthquake that has shaken up the way we have been doing politics since 1989 (perhaps since 1945).

British Politics is profoundly different after the referendum result. There is now a new political spectrum divided between nativists and globalists with both sides drawing support from both the main right and left wing parties. This is nothing short of a profound reordering of politics.

The same process is happening in America. The victory of Trump has shown that the most electorally successful position in the old way of doing politics (being socially and economically liberal) does not work when confronted with populism. The way of doing politics that has gone unchallenged in Britain and America since the days of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton is now dead. Seeing the world through their political prism no longer allows us to make sense of it.

The unusual victories of Brexit and Trump were driven by many factors, but a key one is the way that we consume our news today. Two points emerged this year: firstly, that many of us get most of our news from a social media bubble that feeds back opinions that we are likely to agree with and excludes ones that we are likely to disagree with. This has distorted our perception of politics and how widely accepted our opinions are. It has allowed ideas and positions to go completely unchallenged and preventing voters from interrogating their own opinions.

The second issue is that many people are consuming some degree of fake news. Stories that are completely untrue and would not see the light of day in a media landscape that was dominated by a few well established brands that respected the ethics of journalism. The complacency and narrow mindedness of some established media companies is partly to blame for this. However, responsibility also lies with ourselves as media consumers.

We are too willing to only read articles that we agree with and ignore articles that we disagree with. This is what has allowed us to be lied to at an industrial scale. We need to break out of our filter bubble and find some way of telling what is a lie from what is truth in a media landscape where both appear equally valid and where we are driven to the one that most suits our own bias.

Much like climate change, the solution to this problem does not require a technological fix, but for people to behave better and to be more open minded. How do we encourage people to avoid confirmation bias, to be open to new ideas and to challenge their own assumptions? Most people, it turns out, would prefer to be lied to than to challenge their own world view. In our current way of doing politics we accept news from the sources that we like or that broadly share our political opinions. In the world of fake news this leaves us open to being lied to and exploited.

The undisputed king of the fake news and media relativism is Vladimir Putin, a man who has extended his reach across the world this year, maybe as far as the White House. Politicians of the left and the right are united in the belief that something needs to be done about this tyrant and threat to democracy. However no-one knows what to do beyond the use of strong words.

In the old politics sunlight was the best disinfectant. It was sunlight that showed the BNP to be the incompetent thugs that they were, but how do we do use facts to bring down a man who shifts perceptions of reality itself? How do we argue with someone who exists in a murky world where every piece of information is equal regardless of how extreme or spurious it is? How do we present a better alternative to someone who insists that all government is equally flawed? Putin challenges even the fundamental idea of what a fact is. We cannot defeat him with conventional politics.

Putin’s biggest accomplishment this year has been saving Bashar Al Assad’s oppressive Syrian regime and successfully crushing the uprising against him. In the process hundreds, perhaps thousands of civilians have been killed. The suffering the people of Aleppo, meted out indiscriminately by these cruel despots, must move every human being. However, the West cannot do anything about it. The world is too complex, too unstable and too frightening - so we are paralysed by inaction. This is not the world of the 2000s; America and Britain cannot throw their weight around and hope this effects a smooth transition to a better, freer world. We do not understand the complexities of the geopolitics in the 2010s enough to stop something as awful mass slaughter.

Our entire way of understanding the world has stopped working. The current toolbox we use to understand politics is not sufficient to explain the new political system that we live under. This has led to those with painfully simple messages to cut through the confusion to great effect: “take back control”, “make America great again”. The answer is not to become simpler, but to find a way to navigate these new complexities.

In 2016 the soft left ran out of things to say that explain the world to voters. Between Hillary Clinton and Owen Smith, people simply do not believe in the old way of doing social democracy anymore. Corbyn offers something different, which is welcome, but I do not feel that his analysis of the political challenges of the early 21st century are complex enough or radical enough to be up to the task of inspiring large numbers of people to support a left wing political movement.

Let 2017 be a year of new ideas. Not 80s throwbacks, or 90s throwbacks, or insultingly simple answers to complex questions. Let 2017 be a year of brand new exciting ideas, deep thought about the world we now find ourselves in and an openness to re-examine the assumptions of the past. The left needs a vision of the future because the future is frightening. It needs to be new and it needs be radical, perhaps more radical than we have ever been before. I know we can do it if we find a way to remixing our thinking so that we can make sense of 2017.

Donald Trump picture taken by Gage Skidmore and used under creative commons.