The Brextremists now just sound pathetic. Some of them are preparing their betrayal narrative already, just one day into the Johnson regime. Steve Baker, offered his old job back, turned it down saying he did not want to repeat the exercise in powerlessness he had suffered under Theresa May. The Brextremist case amounts to, “Look, Theresa May, when it came to it, did not have the bottle to pull the trigger. Now, just consider Johnson's hard right Brexit Cabinet. Its obvious, isn't it, that we really do mean it, Mr. Barnier. So, if you do not give us what we want, then, this time, we really will pull the trigger and blow our brains out!”
What a pathetic bunch of no-hopers. Its obvious that they do not have clue 1 when it comes to negotiating. Who would be surprised. To the extent any of them do have experience in negotiating in business it is from the employers side of the table, against workers. In other words, it is from the perspective of someone who, from the start, has the whip hand, and who really can just walk away from any talks, waiting to starve workers back to work. That is not the position they are in here. On the contrary, they are in the position more usually reserved for workers, of being in a weak position. It is the EU, with its $14 trillion economy, here, that has the whip hand, as against the UK's $2 trillion, and declining, economy.
But, even in terms of two businesses negotiating between themselves, the Tories line that No Deal is better than a bad deal makes no sense. If you are, say, a pottery manufacturer, and you have made several tens of thousands of pieces of pottery, on which you have spent several millions of pounds of capital, you need to get your money back, hopefully with a profit. Suppose, you have spent £10 million. You go to retailers, and say we want to negotiate with you for the sale of this pottery, our price is £11 million. The retailers come back and say, “Sorry, we are only prepared to pay you £9 million.”
According to the Brextremists, the response should be, “That's preposterous, because we have spent £10 million, and you are not even covering our costs. Rather than sell to you for £9 million, we will have no deal, and simply smash up all of the crockery.”
But, such a response is clearly idiotic. Getting £9 million, when you have spent £10 million is clearly a very bad deal, and you could not continue in business on that basis, but, nevertheless, this bad deal is clearly better than no deal, because, at least you get £9 million to cover some of your costs, which means you could stay in business, for now, whereas throwing a tantrum, and walking away, means you get nothing, and have to head for the dole.
The truth is that, however much the UK may bluff and bluster, the EU knows that the UK is not going to decide to blow its brains out via a No Deal Brexit, any more under Boris Johnson than it would under Theresa May. One suspects that Steve Baker, and the Spartans also know that, which is why he has turned down the job, why the other Spartans are demanding not just that the Withdrawal Agreement be scrapped, but that the payment of the €39 billion (€6 billion of which has already been paid, anyway, since March, so its only €33 billion) and that the EU, straight away, give Britain a Canada Style Free Trade Agreement. In other words, they know Johnson will fail, and they are preparing their own betrayal narrative.
The EU knows that Johnson will not push through a No Deal Brexit by October 31st, because to do so is tantamount to blowing Britain's brains out. True, the EU would prefer Britain didn't do that, but to continue the analogy, that is because, no one wants to be standing close by when someone does blow their brains out. Its unpleasant to watch, and you might get some of the grey matter splattered on to you in the process. But, the EU would soon recover from the trauma of watching a near neighbour commit suicide, and it would soon clean off its clothes, and get on with its life. For Britain, not so much. So, in terms of a negotiation, here, the fact that the EU would prefer not to watch the UK commit hari kiri, is not going to make it concede to UK blackmail to avoid it.
Moreover, the EU knows that were Johnson to actually be proceeding to a No Deal, and even assuming that parliament was unable to prevent him doing so, long before it could happen, the Pound would collapse, UK financial markets would go into turmoil, UK Bond yields would soar, pushing up interest rates, causing UK property prices to crash, which would immediately hit the paper wealth of all those elderly, Tory homeowners that make up the large majority of the Brexit vote. Even if Johnson soldiered on through all that, like a latter day General Haig, or like Churchill at Gallipoli, sending thousands of troops senselessly to their deaths, the EU knows that the reality of the chaos following such a No Deal Brexit would be such as to cause the government to fall, for the Tories to be destroyed as a party, and for Britain to have to quickly petition for re-admittance to the EU on whatever terms it could secure.
Johnson, himself, when he was given the information by the Civil Service of the estimation of civil unrest that will follow a No Deal crash out, is reported to have visibly blanched. Its no wonder that he is proposing to quickly put an extra 20,000 cops on the streets, because the civil unrest and strife that will follow Brexit, will require them, and all the other trappings of a strong state to suppress it.
Johnson is clearly preparing for a General Election. That is the other main reason for him appointing such a hard right Cabinet bunch of sycophants. His strategists have been hard at work on the interweb sussing out different lines of messaging, which has all the hallmarks of the old Cambridge Analytica network swinging into operation. Its yet to be seen how much the Putin-Trump axis will be contributing to the effort, in one way or another, but its another reason why that axis' direct line into Britain via the Brexit company, will be kept at arms length by the Tories, so as to be able to have plausible deniability, when the facts come out.
Johnson will need to call the General Election before October 31st. He could not go into an election having not implemented Brexit. But, he clearly can go into a General Election arguing that he is calling it so as to implement Brexit on time, and so as to overcome parliamentary opposition to his plans. That is what I expected Theresa May to do in February, whilst Labour was still thoroughly at sea with its policy of support for Brexit, and haemorrhaging votes to the Liberals and nationalists. Johnson must rationally calculate that Labour's position is still obscure and confused, and has lost a large chunk of its support to the Liberals and Greens. Its yet to be seen whether Labour's glacial move towards calling for another referendum is much too little, much too late for it to have any credibility so as to win those votes back.
But, the truth is that the position of both Labour and the Liberals in relation to another referendum is itself confused and idiotic. Questioned by Clive Lewis the other day, Liberal Leader Jo Swinson said that the Liberals would fight an election on the basis of holding another referendum. That is basically the position that Labour also now holds. But, asked what the Liberals would do if the referendum again came out for Leave, she confirmed that they would still oppose Brexit. And, of course, that is the right thing to do, because Brexit is a reactionary policy. However, if you believe its a reactionary policy, why would any party then argue for a referendum. Its idiotic to campaign for a vote on something, that you confirm in advance you are going to ignore!
And, the fact is that with a Johnson government in office, it is even more idiotic. The reason that Bonapartist regimes love plebiscites is that it gives them every opportunity to get the result they desire. They have all of the propaganda channels at their disposal. Moreover, in a plebiscite, those who seek to mobilise the mass do so on the basis that they can appeal to all of those who are really peripheral to society, who generally avoid involvement in the political process. The fanatics who are obsessed with immigration, with a return of the death penalty, and other such issues, know that in a General Election, those issues will be peripheral, as the majority of voters vote for parties based on more central issues of jobs and so on. In a referendum, the question is about these single issues on which the fanatics have a bee in their bonnet, which means that they can be mobilised.
Johnson will campaign over the Summer, in preparation for an election in September. In the intervening period, Tory associations will begin removing some of the Remainer Tory MP's ahead of that election. Johnson will wait until late August or early September, before making a sham attempt at negotiations with Brussels, so that he can come back to say that Brussels is immovable, and in order to prevent parliamentary obstruction, he is seeking a clear majority in an election. On that timescale, if he gets a majority, he will then go to Brussels, and ask for a delay – which he dare not do before an election – but, he will do so on the basis of arguing for a Managed No Deal, of an extension of some of the temporary side deals already put in place to lessen the chaos of a crash out, and in the context of negotiating a Canada Style Free Trade Agreement. If he fails to get a majority, he can then blame whoever takes over for failing to implement Brexit, and so the betrayal narrative remains in place.
The idea of a Canada Style Free Trade Agreement, which some of the Spartans are already touting as an alternative to the Withdrawal Agreement shows they really do not understand, or understand but are prepared to massage the truth. They continually state that Donald Tusk offered Britain such a deal in 2018. What they fail to mention is that he did so within the context still of reaching a Withdrawal Agreement. The Withdrawal Agreement still needs to address the question of Britain's €39 billion debt to the EU, of the question of EU Citizen's Rights, and of the Northern Ireland Border. The EU has made clear that without any resolution of these issues, no free trade deal can even begin to be negotiated.
The fact that the Brexiters think that such a free trade deal resolves the issue of the Irish border shows they do not understand the nature of that problem. Its not about different customs regimes, but about the Single Market, and common standards, rules and regulations. The Canada FTA does not resolve those issues, because Canada is not in the single market, which is precisely why Canadian goods do not pass unchecked into the EU, i.e. there remains a border between the EU and Canada. A free trade agreement between the UK and the EU will not remove the requirement for a border, or for goods to be checked as they cross that border, including the border in Ireland.
The EU, has obviously refused, so far, to say that they would erect a border in Ireland, because they want to ensure that Britain takes responsibility for any such border resulting from Brexit. They have firmly put the ball in the UK's court to come up with some alternative to such a border, as required by the Good Friday Agreement. But, it is obvious that if the UK were to press ahead with Brexit, then the EU will have to erect a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, so as to protect the EU Single Market. That will undoubtedly be damaging to the Irish Republic, but it will be crucifying to the small Northern Ireland statelet. The economic disaster, and chaos will cause immense pressure for the problem to be resolved, which could only be done by drawing Northern Ireland into a United Ireland. According to recent polling, 63% of Tories are prepared to see that happen in order to push through Brexit, but Johnson could only push ahead with that, if he gets a large enough Tory majority that he no longer depends on the DUP.
Johnson has no way out. He cannot get a revised deal from the EU. He cannot push ahead with No Deal by 31st October, without it leading to disaster. He can only call an election having attempted to win back the Brexiter votes from Farage's Brexit company, in the hope that with a divided opposition, he can win a majority based on a core vote strategy, in the same way they won the 2016 referendum. So, it is really down to Labour. If Labour comes out decisively on the basis of stopping Brexit and revoking Article 50, it can win back the votes it lost to the Liberals, Greens and nationalists. It can win a majority on that basis. But, it must also quickly ditch the reactionary 26 nationalist Labour MP's that signed the letter, and have suggested they will line up with the Tories to push through Brexit.
But, in order to win, Labour cannot proceed on a Liberal/Blair-right agenda either. Corbyn should have moved against the Blair-rights three years ago. Labour members need to deselect the Blair-rights and soft lefts, select progressive socialist internationalist candidates, committed to revoking Article 50, pursuing a radical social democratic agenda in Britain, and across Europe, for free movement, for an end to austerity, the introduction of industrial democracy, the levelling up, and equalisation of benefits, for a shorter working week and life, for a massive programme of infrastructure investment, particularly in the economically depressed towns and regions. In that way, Labour can show workers in the deprived areas that the solution to their problems is not Brexit or economic nationalism, but is international socialism, and workers solidarity. Our aim, as Lenin put it, is not national self-government, but workers' self-government.
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