May Blown On The Wind

At the general election, Theresa May proclaimed her credentials as a “strong and stable leader”. In fact, everything we have seen in the last year, shows her to be anything but. She is probably the weakest Prime Minister we have had in at least a century. Its said of Donald Trump that his ideas are simply a restatement of whatever the last person who spoke to him had said. Theresa May is similar in that her statements are merely a reflection of whatever political pressure she has last responded to. Like a snowflake or a piece of may blossom, she is tossed this way and that by the latest gust of political wind. It means she is continually led into contradicting herself, rather like the Stalinists have always been led to do, as they zig-zag from one position to another, because their politics is based on short-term practical politics, rather than any ideological principle, or theoretical clarity of understanding. And, like the Stalinists, May is then led to contort herself in trying to insist that these contradictory statements and positions are all fully consistent, and that “nothing has changed, nothing has changed.” No wonder the Tories seek the same kind of authoritarian approach, and minimisation of democracy that the Stalinists, and National Bolshevism relies upon.

The latest manifestation was May's speech on Brexit yesterday, in parliament. Looking at her meanderings over the last week or so, we have the following merry dance, as she was buffeted this way and that. Firstly, having spent a year and a half under accommodating the Brextremist fantasies that Britain was still some global colonial power, to whom Johnny foreigner would come running desperate to do a deal, May found that reality was somewhat different. Looking down from the precipice, and seeing the cliff edge of a no deal Brexit, as the EU showed no sign of changing its position to hang on to Britain, May realised that despite her repeated assertions, “No deal, certainly is much worse than a bad deal.” 

Having based their negotiating stance on the delusion that Britain would be given everything it wanted, and so there was no need even for David Davis to be very bright, or to even put any effort into preparing his brief for the negotiations, of for the government to do any impact assessments of the effect of Brexit on the British economy, or for the government to even have any worked out plan of what their end goal after Brexit might be, the fact that the EU gave Britain nothing, left May needing to prevent a complete collapse, which was looking likely by early next year. So, facing this pressure from the EU, she was blown in the direction of obliterating all of her previous red lines. Rees-Mogg was wrong in saying those red lines were looking a bit pink; they had been completely erased!

But, the weakness of May's leadership was then reflected by the fact that even the 12 members of the DUP, could blow hard enough to cause May to be dashed off in a different direction. The wind coming from the EU prevented her from going back in that direction, but now blown, off course by the DUP, she was forced to move even deeper into the territory beyond her previous red lines. Having already effectively committed to keeping Northern Ireland in the Customs Union and Single Market, and to thereby accepting the role of the ECJ, she was now forced to commit to keeping the whole of the UK in the Customs Union and Single Market, so as not to have any regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain. Her only fig leaf, was to dress this up, for the benefit of the Brextremist wing of her party, as being a commitment to “regulatory alignment” rather than what it actually is, which is de facto continued membership of the Customs Union and Single Market.

But, like the conspirators bearing knives under their cloaks, standing behind Julius Caesar, May found that her MP's, even as they were praising her, were already tearing apart the deal she had done, and blowing her in yet another direction. The Brextremists began to claim that “regulatory alignment” meant “regulatory divergence”, and the freedom for Britain to determine its own regulations divergent from those of the EU. The public face of Brextremism, David Davis, said that the deal May had done, was effectively not worth the paper it was written on, Gove said it and any subsequent deal arrived at in Stage 2 could be ripped up, by a future government, and so on. Its quite clear that for the Brextremists in May's government no deal has been done, and any thought that Britain has committed to paying its debts in the Brexit Bill, that the rights of EU citizens have been protected, or that Britain will align its regulations with the EU so as to avoid the need for a border in Ireland, is entirely misplaced. You might think, therefore, that May would need to quickly slap down such treachery, because otherwise there is no basis for there to be any Stage 2 negotiations after all. The Brextremists, who desire a no deal Brexit, might welcome that, but surely May does not.

But, May is so weak, that whatever she thinks, she was again forced to change course, yet again, once this gust of wind from the Brextremists blew in her direction. May had the possibility of slapping down the DUP and and the Brextremists, by relying on the votes of Labour and the SNP, but that would have meant opening up the potential of a civil war inside her party, and the destruction of the Tories in the longer-term. So, instead she did yet another volte-face, and herself reneged on all of the commitments she had given to the EU just days before. She accepted more or less in toto the claim by Davis that the deal was not worth the paper it was written on, that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed", and consequently that if the EU did not give Britain the trade deal it was demanding in Stage 2, the promise to honour its debts by paying the Brexit Bill, the guarantees to EU citizens in Britain, and the commitment to regulatory alignment so as to avoid the need for an Irish border would all be reneged upon! The rest of the EU, seeing this capitulation to Brextremism must surely conclude, when they meet on Thursday, that the deal is off, because they, like the British electors, have been lied to by May and the Brextremists.

May has tried to claim that in the deal she signed last week, the role of the ECJ is only in relation to Citizens Rights, and is limited to eight years. But, its clear that if there is to be “regulatory alignment” the role of the ECJ has to be much wider than that. In fact, if “regulatory alignment” is defined as “regulatory equivalence” or “regulatory divergence”, as the Brextremists want the role of the ECJ is even more necessary. With regulatory alignment, where the UK simply accepts and applies EU regulations, the role of the ECJ is minimal, and all that is required is to ensure that these regulations are actually being applied. But, if, as the Brextremists seek, there is merely “regulatory equivalence”, or “divergence”, whereby Britain is free to develop its own regulations on the basis only that the regulations strive for the same outcomes, who is to determine that that is the case? There necessarily has to be some body that examines UK regulations and compares them with EU regulations to confirm that they do indeed seek to achieve the same outcomes, rather than divergent outcomes, and the EU, as a $14 trillion economy that the UK needs to trade with, will undoubtedly insist that that body is the ECJ. Given that these regulations on a whole series of existing and new goods and services are changing all the time, Britain would find itself tied up in protracted, and expensive hearings in the ECJ, on all these issues, and would find being able to sell into the EU near impossible, even if there was a free trade deal, like that with Canada.

And, again, as I set out last week, the idea that a free trade deal is the same as being inside a Customs Union, or Single market, is another deception that the May and the Brextremists are attempting to put over on the electorate. May needs to avoid a border in Ireland, and has committed to that requirement. But, the only way to have no border is to have the Irish republic and the North of Ireland in a Customs Union and Single Market. That means they have the same set of regulations on all goods and services. That is quite distinct from having a free trade deal, such as that established between Canada and the EU – CETA – which Davis has touted as being the basis of a CETA plus plus plus agreement between Britain and the EU. What Davis and the Brextremists fail to say is that free trade between Canada and the EU covers only a limited number of goods, and does not cover services, but more importantly, it does not do away with either the border around the EU, or the border around Canada.

Indeed, Canada and the US have a free trade deal – NAFTA – but there is still a border between Canada and the US, and goods and services going in both directions continue to be checked as they cross that border, just as goods and services going to and from the EU and Canada continue to be checked at their respective borders. So, even if a comprehensive free trade deal is reached in the Stage 2 talks between Britain and the EU, that does not remove the need for a border in Ireland. The only way that can happen is if both Britain and the EU are within a Customs Union. And, indeed that was the basis that the deal last week was arrived at. It is what the Irish and the EU thought Britain had recognised and signed up to. Now, May blown by a Brextremist wind from her backbenches, and from the DUP, has dashed off in quite a different and divergent direction!

If I were an EU negotiator, or an EU Minister attending the Council of Ministers on Thursday, I would tell May to go back and try again, because it is quite clear that she is trying to take them all for fools, as she seeks to accommodate the Brextremists. The EU should be more than used to dealing with the duplicitous nature of perfidious Albion. For centuries, Britain tried to protect its own global interests by acting as a spoke in the wheel of European integration. Its role within the EU has continued to be determined by that imperative, although, in the last 70 years, it has also done that in conjunction with aligning itself with the global interests of the US, and thereby acting as an agent of US imperialism within the EU.

In fact, Brexit and the election of Trump have acted to strengthen the EU. There are, in fact, many reasons why other EU states would welcome Britain leaving, precisely because of its retarding role on EU development. Following Brexit, there has been an increasing trend towards forging an ever more perfect union within the EU, and Britain's absence from the corridors of power will facilitate that development. It will enable the EU to develop far more quickly, and thereby completely overhaul the relatively declining British economy, and its equally diminishing global status. It is precisely the kind of development that Churchill sought to avoid in WWII, that Britain sought to avoid in WWI, and that they sought to avoid in the Napoleonic Wars. If Britain is led, as indeed it must, unless it is to rapidly descend into the third and fourth ranks of global states, to apply for re-entry into the EU, it will find itself much diminished in power, stripped of its opt-outs, and rebates etc.

Similarly, Trump's election has had some perversely beneficial consequences. His comments about NATO have made clear that the EU itself should withdraw from a military alliance whose real purpose is to back up the global strategic interests of US imperialism. The EU could use its resources much more effectively to provide for its own European defence and security, and an EU state would certainly want to do so. Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, whilst failing to simultaneously recognise East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, at least blows away the hypocrisy of US diplomacy over the last 40 years about support for a two-state solution, and indeed blows the fantasy of any such two-state solution out of the water along with it. It means that any progressive solution in the Middle East now rests upon the construction of secular democratic states, including a federal secular democratic state of Israel and Palestine, in which the rights of both Jews and Arabs are protected, and that, as with the EU, the longer-term solution is sought within a Federal United States of the Middle East and North Africa.

In fact, the EU was working towards such a development prior to 2011, as it gradually drew the economies of MENA into its orbit. The role of the US has been wholly destructive of that strategy, as has been its strategy of fermenting turmoil on the EU's Eastern border, by its incessant expansion of NATO, and the positioning of its military forces along the Russian border. The EU would have every reason to oppose these manoeuvres by the US, in the EU's backyard, if it controlled its own defence. So, the EU has every reason to take a hard stance against Britain.

Moreover, they should simply examine May's actions over the last year, and recognise that her weakness leads he to be blown in whatever way the latest political wind blows her. The EU, with its 500 million people, and its $14 trillion economy, can act as a mighty hurricane, against tiny Britain. There is no reason why it will not do so.