Levelling The Gradient

by Les May

A COUPLE of weeks ago Kirsty Wark, the presenter of the BBC Two news and current affairs programme Newsnight, introduced an item which was supposed to deal with the question of discrimination in Britain using as an example the fact that there ‘weren’t many black CEOs’ (Chief Executive Officers). This intro told us little about whether there really is discrimination, and a lot about Wark’s priorities.

The assumption that you can lump all black, brown, Asian people together and label them BAME is a favourite modus operandi of armchair sociologists and media pundits.  This lazy approach to avoid thinking more deeply is akin to what has been called the ‘ecological fallacy’.  One example of this is the assumption that if one group is found to have, say a higher average income than another, then all members of the first group will have higher incomes than anyone in the second group. This is clearly nonsense.  Some individuals in the second group will be doing very nicely thank you and have incomes which are much higher than many of the people in either of the groups.   I have little doubt that Wark is significantly more wealthy than a very large number of white and non-white people alike.  She certainly has more power and influence.

By concentrating on single issues the questions raised by the huge inequalities in income, wealth, power and status we experience in the UK get ignored.  People like Wark give no sign of wanting to disturb the status quo and the hierarchies it fosters.  Without exploring the variation in income etc within BAME and white population we can never be sure that we are not mistaking differences caused by inequality as being caused by discrimination.

Is the observation, and at the moment it is just an observation, that people in the BAME population seem to be disproportionately affected by Covid 19 disease due to the factors which also disadvantage many of the white population, such as huge differences in income, wealth etc?  Asking this does not exclude the possibility that it results from discrimination, cultural norms or the prevalence of morbidities caused by so called ‘lifestyle’ factors such as diet and exercise, which in turn may themselves be a reflection of differences in wealth.

There is little appetite in the UK for recognising the effects of our very unequal society on the lives of our citizens, irrespective of their skin colour.  Even when studies to examine the impact of inequality are done, their findings are ignored. And it’s not just the Tories who are wilfully blind.  In February two of the candidates for the Labour leadership felt that a Jewish pressure group and a ‘trans’ pressure group needed their public support, but when the Marmot review which looked at differences in health outcomes appeared later in the month it had zero impact on the campaign.

The media gave prominence to only one finding; that ‘Female life expectancy declined in the most deprived 10 percent of neighbourhoods’ and ignored both the large disparity in life expectancy (LE) between people of higher and people of lower economic and social status, and that, irrespective of economic status women tend to live longer than men. (see page 18, Figure 2.4) reported in the review. (my emphasis).

http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/marmot-review-10-years-on/the-marmot-review-10-years-on-full-report.pdf

These disparities also exist with regard to the disability free life expectancy (DFLE), i.e. the number of years of life someone will have free from disability.  The review referred to these differences as forming a ‘social gradient’.

What the review showed was that in England, the difference in life expectancy at birth between the least deprived 10% of the population and the most deprived 10% was more than 9 years for men and more than 7 years for women.  Life expectancy at birth for men living in the most deprived areas in England was 74 years, compared with 83 years in the least deprived areas; the corresponding figures for women were 79 and 86 years in 2016-18. (see pages 15-17, figures 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3) in the review.

With regard to disabilities in later life the review said, ‘The social gradient in disability-free life expectancy is steeper than the gradient in life expectancy.  As a result, people living in areas with more disadvantage not only expect to live a shorter life, but also to spend more of that shorter life with a limiting long-term illness.’ (my emphasis)

The effect of ongoing and future rises in the age at which people become eligible to receive a state pension (SPA) will be felt most strongly by those of lower economic status (aka ‘the least well off’).  Only people in the least deprived 20—30% of areas will reach SPA before they can expect to develop a disability. Those in the more deprived areas will spend years with a disability before they reach SPA.

The Marmot review simply referred to ‘people’; not ‘black’ people, not ‘brown’ people, not ‘minority ethnic’ people, just people.  There seems to be no data on differences in life expectancy between these groups and ‘white’ people which are free of the influence of the socio-economic characteristics of the areas in which they live, i.e. the ‘social gradient’.

It is not unreasonable to assume that the differences in life expectancy (LE) and disability free life expectancy (DFLE), which show a clear gradient with socio-economic status, will be equally applicable to these groups also.   Getting a few more ‘black’, ‘brown’, ‘ethnic’ faces around boardroom tables will have no positive impact on the life chances of the people who happen to have the same skin colour.

We have heard a lot in recent weeks about ‘flattening the curve’.  When we know that there is a socio-economic gradient which means that women and men in affluent areas have a life expectancy at birth which is 7-9 years longer than those in poor areas, then I would suggest we direct our collective effort to ‘levelling the gradient’.

Obsessing over ‘race’, to the exclusion of all other considerations is a form of identity politics which allows people, who by any reasonable measure are privileged, to pose and be seen as, victims.   This comment is equally applicable to other forms of identity politics.   I would suggest that it is the inequalities in the UK of income, wealth and power which should be the main focus of attention for those of us who see ourselves as being ‘of the Left’ and not the politics of identity.  This would benefit far more people than a narrow focus on skin colour, sex, gender or preferred sexual partner.

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Derek Pattison on class & delusion

I THINK both Wallace and David Selbourne would do well to read Orwell's 'Politics and the English language'.  Much of what Wallace has written here along with the quotes from Selbourne, would be barely comprehensible to most people. It is pretentious academic verbiage that doesn't illuminate at all.

The cloth cap Tory or the Tory in clogs, is a well known archetype within the English working class and I meet them frequently. We've always known there were plenty of Tory voters who lived in council houses and why do you think the Irish socialist, Robert Tressell called his famous book the 'Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist'? You can't read Tressell's book without being fully aware that his socialist character, Owen, (Tressell himself), is largely contemptuous of many of his fellow workers for their political ignorance and apathy, their conservative outlook and the fact that they acquiesce, in their own exploitation. "They were the enemy" Tressell wrote, they not only "submitted like so many cattle to the existing state of things, but defended it, and opposed and ridiculed any suggestion to alter it."

It is often said of the book that you can identify many of the characters with people you know and that is perfectly true.  The same arguments that you find Tressell's working men having between themselves, you can still hear played out to this very day.

However, it would be a great mistake to tar all the working class with the same brush as middle-class academics, who write about them,are inclined to do. Anyone who has been involved in English left politics, will know, that most of the participants are middle-class university types, the sort who make up the bulk of the Labour Party membership today.

Yet, the people who most influenced me politically, were not academics like Dave Selbourne, who I knew as a student, but ordinary working-class people, like the anarchist copytaker, Jim Pinkerton, from Ashton-under-Lyne and the opera buff, Jack Macpherson, who lived in a council house with his wife Margaret, in Dukinfield. Both these men were representative of what I would call, the class conscious working-class, politically savvy, as well as highly cultured.

I think Brexit is a big mistake, for a variety of reasons, and though it seems to have politicised many working class people, who previously may have been indifferent or apathetic to politics and felt powerless, I suspect it will be economically damaging to many of the Brexiteers in the long run. Yet, one can't deny, that with Brexit, the worm has turned; the working-class voter has found a voice and far from feeling impotent and powerless as they used to do, they now know they have some influence and can make a difference. Now the genie is out of the bottle it might be difficult to put it back.

Will They Never Learn?

by Les May

SPEAKING at the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) hustings last Thursday Lisa Nandy is reported as describing anti-semitism as ‘a particular sort of racism’ and went on to say, ‘It’s a sort of racism that punches up not down, that argues that Jewish people are privileged and powerful, and because there are people on the left who believe that their job is to challenge privilege and power, therefore wrongly and disgracefully they argue that Jewish people are a legitimate target for racism’.

I doubt that Nandy can provide a single instance of what she claims. Is she saying that Labour supporter should not challenge privilege and power when it is exercised by people who happen to be Jewish?

She went on to say that if she became leader she would try to go further than accepting the IHRA definition of anti-Jewish hatred. This is some of what the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has to say about that definition;

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.

This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.

You can find the full text at the link below.

https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/first-ever-40-jewish-groups-worldwide-oppose-equating-antisemitism-with-criticism-of-israel/#english

In fairness to Nandy it seems that, just as she did, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Emily Thornberry also declared themselves to be Zionists, and Keir Starmer’s comments could be so construed. What is clear is that they meant that they believe that the state of Israel has a right to exist and I don’t think many Labour supporters would disagree. But whether Nandy’s pledge to go further than the IHRA definition of anti-Jewish hatred was altogether wise remains to be seen.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/15/we-must-define-antisemitism-to-fight-it-effectively

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/07/debunking-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-antisemitic

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The Working Class & Leftist Delusion

 by Andrew Wallace

LEFTISM gets itself into bogged down into certain delusional mythologies, one of which concerns the romanticisation of the working work, the heroic proletarian toilers and tillers of the earth,  preordained by Marxist gospel to act as the historical revolutionary agent to overthrow capitalism.  Marx had been pretty disparaging about peasants and 'rural idiocy', instead he and his fellow 19th century socialists felt that a newly emergent class of industrial labourers would shape up as the critical agents of modernity.

Alas some 140 years after Marx's death the working classes across the globe remain as distant from this pre-ordained enterprise as they ever were.  Indeed it seems quite the converse; the working class as hitherto constituted has played a most passive if indeed not reactionary role.

Leftist pretensions to scientific rigour can no longer disguise the romantic fallacy and cognitive bias of 'The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed'. As Bertrand Russell tartly observed 'Marx was the Wordsworth of the proletariat; its Freud is still to come."

David Selbourne has dissected this fallacious intellectual cul-de-sac as:

'prodigies of useless intellectual labour, whose largely metaphysical character is determined  by the metaphysical nature of the problems to which they seek a solution At the lowest political level, however masked by intellectual sophistication, they can descend to disappointed abuse of the working class for having failed to live up to middle-class socialist expectation. Theories, as we have seen, of 'consumerism', of the 'deferential' working class, of the 'long catalepsy' of the British working-class movement, of a class consciousness 'subordinate' in its very 'texture' to the 'hegemony of the bourgeois', all have silently inscribed within them the figure of a politically defective proletarian who is the obverse of the archetypally active class hero of socialist romance, first cousin to Dyden's noble savage.'

A truth which can still barely be alighted upon in progressive circles, 'socialism' is a not a product of the working class worldview, instead it is a quixotic interloper of sorts, a radical import of déclassé intellectuals who had reason to take issue with the corrosive workings and hardships of industrial capitalism. The wage labourers of course bore the brunt of the exploitative economics that coerced them to work in the most degrading of conditions and had active interests in agitating for improvements in their lot. However 'labourism' isn't 'socialism', whereby the former is to be realised in seeking redress to particular grievances and privations rather than the latter politically undefined and radical goal of usurping the settlement of the day.  Conservatism presented itself in the passivity of the general population and the consequent isolation and containment of dangerous radicals and agitators who threatened to bring anarchy to social order.

Marxism has had the unenviable task of confronting this conspicuous turd in a swimming pool with a battery of impressive rationalisations. Chief amongst these is the infamous idea of false consciousness which has been taken as an unfortunate slur on character in the same way ignorance as a descriptor is taken as an insult even though a concise definition isn't morally pejorative.

Marxists have also proved adept at accounting for a multitude of countervailing tendencies that militate against economic immiseration, such as the co-opting of 'bourgeois' sociology's 'embourgeoisment thesis' of middle class expansion, thereby muddying the waters of class conflict via a bought off 'aristocracy of labour'.

Leftist intellectuals then have erred in projecting a radical telos onto the working class arena, ignoring the utilitarian and individualistic basis to labour politics and the voluntarist and anti-statist ethos that marked these communities. They have also been oblivious to the deep structural incorporation of working class material resources into the capitalist system through mortgage and hire purchase.

However other sociologists have attempted to sidestep the theoretical travails of working class conservatism and the 'deviant' class voter by pointing out the not unsurprising reality of hegemony by way of the deep state ancien regime of a living museum pageantry (monarchy, parliament, church, armed forces, public schools, civil service, BBC) which naturally defaults us all to the dominant culture. Ironically this confinement to functionalist observation and impotent commentary rather nullifies Marx's famous 11th thesis on Feuerbach which implored for more action and less philosophical windbaggery!

It's the culture, stupid

The class voting sociology (Marxism ‘lite’) of the post war years is now having to contend with the other belated but uncontroversial driver of voting behaviour - culture!  As analysists are now recognising, voters are motivated by cultural issues which may not easily be subsumed within an economic paradigm and furthermore may actually be oppositional to the traditional material class interests.  Bourdieu's ideas on social and cultural capital have helped to redress the balance by giving due prominence to education and the cognitive repertoire that help to constitute social class in the modern era.

Many left revisionists had already discerned that traditional class based politics were becoming problematic with declining working class vote share from the 1960s onwards alongside a new counter cultural zeitgeist. With deindustrialisation poised to pulp much of manufacturing and decimate organised labour, Hobsbawm and Gorz wrote in unflinching terms of the likely recalibration of socialist politics. Gorz talked of moving away from class politics in favour of the 'new social movements'. This turn to identity and culture politics followed in the wake of disenchantment with the 'backward' working class. However such doubling down on the new politics exacerbated the cultural and intellectual chasm between the liberal campus radicals and the more socially conservative blue collar workers, leading to a further breakdown of the previous broad based social alliances between the classes.

Working class Hobbesian attitudes to the Welfare State

Fern Brady writing for The Guardian was taken aback by the distinctive authoritarian attitudes towards benefit claimants, particularly the unemployed and disabled.  Those without obvious physical markers of disability were often the target of an inglorious brutalism unveiled in her interviewees who amply demonstrated

(an) 'internalised...Thatcherite every-man-for-himself mentality, wanting benefits for themselves but resenting anyone else getting a handout...it went in a circle, anger constantly directed at other victims of the coalition government's Welfare Reform  Act instead of the politicians and policymakers responsible.'

Houtman et al drawing on Bourdieu’s work discerned the recourse to a 'deserving/undeserving' criteria in relationship to limited social capital and associated authoritarian attitudes which also were marked by penalising attitudes for 'out-groups' and fringe communities.

So ought we really to be surprised at this abundance of working class authoritarianism?  Again Selbourne is illuminative on precisely this point:

‘...any form of illiberalism in the human-as worker can come to be discounted or recycled as an aberration from the norm of a supposedly instinctive or class, predilection for progressive, fraternal and democratic solutions to social and economic problems. That history does not reveal the latter unequivocally, to put it mildly, is inconvenient. Indeed, illiberalism is as much an ideological choice of direction as any other and more explicable, in conditions of insecurity or fear of unemployment, than many’

In critically disabusing leftism of its ludicrous 'salt of the earth' workerism, it is not my intention to deny the very real and toxic nature of capitalism and I continue to desire even if without much hope that a saner politics emerge to reign in the excesses of our times.  However we need to face up to the increasing intellectual bankruptcy of the left.  We are now very much at the whims of the political right who continue to exploit the post liberal environment in their canny take on working class sensitivities.  'White van conservatism' and Boris's new 'Workers' Party' are set to run the show into the distant future.

I have drawn on the following essays/books/articles during the writing of this article:

• The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed, (1937) Bertrand Russell
• Against Socialist Illusion (1985), David Selbourne
• http://www.leninology.co.uk/2010/10/working-class-tory-is-something-to-be.html
• Working Class Conservatives: A Theory of Political Deviance (1967), Frank Parkin
• Social Class in the 21^st Century (2015), Mike Savage
• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/12/anti-welfare-rhetoric-families
• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9966722/Welfare-reform-Its-class-war-but-not-in-the-way-youd-expect.html
• Farewell to the Leftist Working Class (2008), Houtman, Achterberg & Derks
• The Forward March of Labour Halted? (1978) Eric Hobsbawm
• Farewell to the Working Class (1980), Andre Gorz
• National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy (2018), Matthew Goodwin

Falling-out leads to defection!

KATHLEEN Nickson, a Labour councillor for Balderstone & Kirkholt, on Rochdale Town Council, left the Labour Party and joined the local Liberal Democrats last week.

Party bulling was given as the reason for her departure.

She claimed:  'I simply could not go on working in an undemocratic party manner.  I was being told how to vote, being threatened and effectively blocked from being able to do my job as an elected member in the Labour Party.'

The Leader of Rochdale Labour Party, Cllr. Allen Brett, thanking Cllr. Nickson for her service, said:  'Her relationship with the [Labour?] Group executive was becoming increasingly untenable which was only ever going to end one way'.

It cannot have gone unnoticed that Cllr. Nickson lives up Newhey; an area where in an outburst only last year Cllr. Brett had threatened to withold funding from road repairs if he didn't get the election result he wanted.

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Squaring the Brexit Circle

by Les May

IN the 2016 referendum I voted that the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union (EU). I assumed that if a majority of people voted like I did the result would be honoured. Even though the outcome was not what I would have wished I believe that the result should be honoured and the UK should leave the EU in accordance with the expressed wish of the majority of the people who voted.

The ONLY question on the ballot paper was about the continued membership of the UK in the EU. There were NO questions about immigration, the European Court of Justice, the Common Fisheries Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy or indeed ANY of the myriad things which are claimed to have been an expression of ‘the will of the people’ by what former Tory politician Chris Patten has called the ‘Maoist Tendency’ of his party. Patten meant by this members of the European Research Group (ERG), one of two publicly funded services maintained for Conservative MPs. The public funding has been to the tune of more than a quarter of a million pounds since 2010.

Is it not remarkable that ‘the will of the people’ just happens to coincide with the wish list these MPs have drawn up and which they want to foist on the rest of us? They make their claims about knowing why people voted in 2016 because they think they have a right to shape the nature of the future relationship of the United Kingdom with the European Union. The outcome of the 2016 referendum DID NOT give them a mandate to do this because there were no questions about it on the ballot paper.

If you doubt what I said in the last paragraph you might like to note that the 116 Tory MPs who voted against Theresa May in last week’s leadership ballot did so because they did not like the nature of the future relationship with the European Union, NOT because she had declined to implement the outcome of the Referendum. Like one or two Labour politicians they have persistently conflated the question of being a member of the EU with the question of our future relationship with it. These questions need to be separated.

The Referendum told us how the first of these questions should be answered i.e. we should leave the EU. It did NOT tell us HOW the second question should be answered.

For the past two years the people who have monopolised discussion of the second question have been that same ‘Maoist Tendency’ of the Tory party. Theresa May’s policy throughout has been to produce a solution which would placate this group. And it’s not just May. Politicians on all sides have been behaving like rabbits trapped in the headlights of the ERG’s speeding car whilst Theresa May squawks ‘Brexit means Brexit’ from the roadside like a demented parrot, too paralysed to make a move towards outlining possible alternative models for our future relationship with the EU after we leave.

That there are alternatives is shown by the fact that parliament will not vote for the ERG’s ‘no deal’ scenario and the ERG will not support May’s present offering. Simply calling for a second referendum, as Tony Blair and Vince Cable have done, or saying ‘all options are on the table’, is a symptom of that paralysis not an example of leadership.

In case you think I am letting Corbyn off the hook here I should make it clear that a Labour government would face all the same problems which are the downside of leaving the EU. So called ‘Labour moderates’ like Chuka Umunna have vacillated between initially toying with alternative models for the UK’s future relationship with the EU and now supporting a ‘people’s vote’ which is a second referendum in all but name. The same criticism can be made of Conservative MP Anna Soubry.

What is needed is a solution which honours the result of the referendum, and which both honours our obligations under the British-Irish Agreement of 10 April 1998 with regard to Northern Ireland and minimises the disadvantages of not being a member of the EU. That means frictionless trade between Britain and the EU.

Should you be one of the people who think there will be no disadvantages I will mention that from 1 February 2019 Europe and Japan will be joined in a free trade area for goods and services covering 650 million people and one third of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). After we leave the EU we will no longer be part of it. Negotiating this deal took five years which may be a pointer to how long it will take a post EU Britain to do likewise.

Why I don’t want a second referendum

I agree with Theresa May that calling a second referendum would undermine our democracy. In my view it would fuel the rise of right wing populism based on the argument that an ‘elite’ had chosen to disregard the expressed view of a majority of the people who voted in the Referendum that we should leave the EU. Anna Soubry has already been subjected to this. I repeat that there was only ONE question on the ballot paper.

I voted Remain in the June 2016. I still believe that we would be better off remaining as members of the EU. I have that in common with the people who are calling for a second referendum whether they are calling it that or giving it the more grandiose title of ‘A People’s Vote’. But I think they are mistaken.

Blair, Cable, Ummuna, Soubry, et al, who all oppose the UK leaving the EU, seem to assume that a second referendum will produce a different result. I can see no reason to take this for granted. No one can be sure that it would not produce the same result again, possibly on a smaller turn out. What then?

Does anyone seriously think that voters will be better informed than last time? The draft Withdrawal Agreement being touted by Theresa May runs to more than five hundred pages. How many voters are going to read and understand it? For that matter how many MPs are going to spend their Christmas holidays reading it? Already the ERG has ‘helpfully’ condensed the 585 pages of the document into a handy seven (7) page guide! Again it seems that the ERG are going to try to monopolise HOW we leave the EU, not just whether we leave the EU.

Nor do I think that any consideration has been given to what question would appear on the ballot paper. Asking the same question as in 2016 simply looks like an attempt to gerrymander the ballot. It says ‘we’ll keep you voting until you come up with the right answer’. So how about if the question is ‘May’s deal or no deal’? That’s just as bad because it precludes any of the alternatives which I, and others, would find more acceptable than either option.

My biggest objection is to those MPs who want a ‘A People’s Vote’ because they do not think there is any outcome which a simple majority of MPs would vote for.

My answer to these MPs is, ‘You lot got us into this mess, so you can get us out of it. It’s your job to collectively explore the options which will both respect the vote to leave the EU and minimise the disadvantages of not being a member of the EU. Ensuring that the UK honours its obligations under the British-Irish Agreement of 1998 is a job for Parliament not for the voters. In other words show some leadership’.

Respecting the vote and minimising the disadvantages

The European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and the European Economic Area (EEA) are not synonymous, but they are linked. Both are outside the EU, both are trading partnerships and neither are ‘political projects’ demanding ever closer political integration.

Membership of EFTA would deliver four things on the ERG wish list; withdrawal from the EU, no common fisheries policy, no common cgricultural policy and the right to enter into bilateral third-country arrangements. EFTA does not issue legislation, nor does it establish a customs union.

Membership of EEA would additionally allow access to the Internal Market of the EU. Specifically excluded from the EEA relationship with the EU are: common agricultural and fisheries policies, customs union, common trade policy, common foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs, direct and indirect taxation and economic and monetary union. Joining would require a continued contribution to the EU, albeit a smaller one resulting in a saving of 12 to 25%, and acceptance of the free movement of goods, capital, services and labour. Norway thinks these are a price worth paying.

I repeat what I have said several times before. The ONLY question on the Referendum ballot paper was about whether we wished to remain in the EU. The EFTA/EEA option delivers not only leaving the EU but many of the other things on the ERG ‘wish list’ which are claimed to be ‘the will of the people’.

If indeed Labour’s policy is ‘If we cannot get a general election, Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote… ’ then the EFTA/EEA option has to be on that table. A customs union, which seems to be Corbyn’s preferred option would only cover goods not services.

What it does not deliver is an end to immigration. Some Labour MPs, e.g. Caroline Flint, are happy to set this demon loose, albeit indirectly. Flint was very careful in her choice of words, but it is clear that whoever posted her exchange with Anna Soubry on YouTube thought she meant immigration and immigrants. She should be warned that in my part of the world the word ‘immigrant’ is frequently taken to mean Pakistanis, many of whom have lived here all their lives.

Instead of asking for a re-run of the Referendum or ‘A People’s Vote’ the MPs who recognise that leaving the EU will bring with it significant disadvantages need to press for wide public discussion of the options open to us which both honour the expressed wish of those who voted to leave the EU and minimise the damage from doing so.

A good start would be to say loud and clear that Theresa May’s primary objective for the past two years has been to appease the ERG by acting as if the Referendum gave her a mandate to deliver all the things on their wish list even though they had never been voted upon.

At some time in the not too distant future Labour has to face the fact that whilst its policy of accepting the result of the Referendum but not committing itself to any definite proposals for the future has been shrewd, putting its faith in winning a vote of no confidence with seemingly no other alternatives being considered may be reckless given the time frame.

If Labour fails to win a no confidence vote and get a general election then I think the Corbyn project would be finished. If Labour wins it, then wins the election which follows and forms a government before 29 March, it will find itself presiding over a chaotic mess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Research_Group#Your_Right_to_Know_Dossier_18th_November_2018

https://www.britishirishcouncil.org/about/british-irish-agreement

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/police-protect-anna-soubry-as-brexit-yellow-vest-protesters-surround-her-and-shout-hitler-jibes-a4022286.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mppVchHyaiA

https://brexitcentral.com/erg-publish-right-know-case-governments-brexit-deal/

http://www.efta.int/About-EFTA/Frequently-asked-questions-EFTA-EEA-EFTA-membership-and-Brexit-328676

http://www.efta.int/eea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsPo2XhoM54