Sleaze And Dynamic Alternatives. by Les May

MY Dad was born in Walsden, which is hardly deepest Yorkshire, and moved west at the age of two to spend all his life in Lancashire. But he liked to parade his ‘Yorkshireness’ by quoting what he claimed was the county motto of I’ tha’ dos owt’ for nowt, do it fo’ thi’ sen. Not exactly an ennobling aspiration, but a reminder that when anyone hands favours in cash or kind to a politician or their party, something is expected in return.

Boris Johnson may be telling the truth that he (eventually) paid for his change of décor, but if it is found that he initially approached someone else to foot the bill, there will be a quest to find out what favours Johnson bestowed in return. And irrespective of what emerges the aura of sleaze will envelope Johnson for the rest of his time in public life.

But even if those ‘favours’ turn out to be on an epic scale, will it be enough to tarnish the Tories enough to lead to the start of that long slide in public distrust which led to the demise of the John Major government’s support and his election defeat in 1997?

Speaking on Saturday’s BBC programme, Dateline London, the political commentator Steve Richards pointed out that in 1997 there was what he called a ‘dynamic alternative’ to Major and the Tories in the shape of Tony Blair.

Given what we now know about Blair it is easy to forget the enthusiasm and hope with which Labour people greeted his becoming Prime Minister with a huge mandate for change in the shape of his parliamentary majority. Whether you like Blair or not, Richard’s analysis is spot on.

So ultimately whether Johnson’s present little difficulties represent the beginning of the end for the Tories may depend on one thing; ‘Is Labour under Keir Starmer a dynamic alternative?’ Answers on a postage stamp please.

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Unpalatable Truths About The Slave Trade

by Les May

WHATEVER the courts finally decide, to many people the slow death of George Floyd under the knee of a policeman was murder and we should not lose sight of this as different groups compete with each other to use his death to foster their own agenda.

A few evenings ago a news programme carried an item in which the interviewee complained that although Tony Blair had expressed his regret about the transatlantic slave trade he had not ‘apologised’.  Now it has never occurred to me to ask Queen Elizabeth to apologise on behalf of her family for presiding over a system which kept my people in serfdom for some 400 years, nor that I should demand the stained glass windows which depict these monarchs in Rochdale Town Hall should be taken down, but I’ll let that pass.  The interviewee blamed this on Blair’s ‘white privilege’ seemingly blind to the fact that he is enjoying the privilege of living in a First World country with all the benefits that brings.

But there was more to this than an exercise in gesture politics.  What the interviewee seemed to be trying to do was resolve the question of what we should do with the statues of slave traders and the like, by capturing the narrative and presenting what is in effect a sanitised version of the transatlantic slave trade suited to modern prejudices.

This was a business enterprise and the transport of 12 million Africans across the Atlantic into slavery was just one part of it.  As it came to full development in the 18^th century it worked like this.  Metal goods made in Birmingham and cloth made in Lancashire were taken to Africa and traded for slaves. Slaves were transported across the Atlantic and traded for sugar in the Caribbean.   In turn this was transported back across the Atlantic to ports like Bristol and Liverpool which grew wealthy on the proceeds.  Then of course the cycle started up all over again.

So where did the 12 million slaves come from? Europeans had only a tiny foothold around the coasts of Africa and relied upon local rulers to provide the slaves, which they were more than happy to do in exchange for the manufactured goods they desired.  There was also a trans Saharan trade which supplied black slaves to North African countries.  The fact that African’s themselves were participants in enslaving fellow Africans is one of the unpalatable things we need to understand, and perhaps remind people of, when thinking about how we should respond to the demands that statues should be removed from our towns.   It should certainly be a part of the narrative surrounding the trans Atlantic slave trade in which Britain played a part.

What is not part of the agenda for these competing groups who seem so eager to rake over the coals of the past is the fact and the reality of modern day slavery. The estimates of the number of people in some form of slavery now are some two to three times higher than the 12 million or so Africans transported across the Atlantic over a period of about 120-150 years.

Anyone looking at the maps of modern day slavery will immediately become aware of the fact that it is not confined to countries inhabited by Europeans or by people of European descent.  The top ten countries for slavery are, China, DRC, India, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines and Russia. But that does not mean it is absent from First World countries.   It has been suggested that more than 10,000 people are enslaved in the UK today.

Like the trans Atlantic slave trade of the late 17^th to mid 19^th century modern slavery is a business.  A Guardian article suggests it generates more than £100 billion in profits each year.  What should disturb us all is that in many cases the products produced by modern slaves are bought by us.  The supply chains which produce our clothes and our high tech goods are unlikely to be free of the taint of slavery. Which of course means that many of the people tipping statues into the nearest dock will, like you and I, be beneficiaries of modern day slavery.

The unpalatable truths are that fellow Africans were quite happy to supply captives to European slave traders during the period of the trans Atlantic slave trade and that slavery has not gone away, it is still with us.  But we have a choice; we can obsess about the past or we can work to eliminate it in the present.  The first of these will give us a warm glow of self satisfaction; the second will be a hard slog and require us all to examine our consciences about why we are able to buy some imported goods so cheaply.

If you care to follow the link to what has been called the ‘Arab Slave Trade’, you may wonder as I do, whether the term BAME, which is frequently used to imply some community of interest amongst the groups included in the acronym owes a great deal to wishful thinking.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/25/modern-slavery-trafficking-persons-one-in-200

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/opinion/modern-slavery-grows.html

https://www.syracuse.com/news/2011/04 vendor_abused_mexican_workers.html

https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-north-korea-forced-labor-20161006-snap-story.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

Typing the search terms ‘economist modern slavery’ will lead to a wealth of detail about global supply chains and their links to slavery.

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An Election? For What? (Take 2.)

by Les May

I DOUBT that Tony Blair needed to warn Jeremy Corbyn about the ‘elephant trap’ that Boris Johnson was busy digging for Labour by calling for an early general election.

It’s a pity that he did not have a word with Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi who yesterday decided to dig his own trap so that he could fall into it himself.

This gentleman decided to attack Johnson for making ‘derogatory and racist remarks’ about the Muslim women and ask when he was going to order an inquiry into Islamophobia in the Tory party.

This of course went down well with the MPs on the Labour benches, but its a dangerous path to go down. As they have already shown the people who shout about anti-semitism in the Labour party have bigger, much bigger, guns, and more recruits than Labour will ever be able to muster to make much headway with claims of Islamophobia in the Tory party. 

 

Perhaps it would be a good idea to fight any election on Labour’s traditional ground of delivering economic and social justice, and not be diverted into arguments about identity politics.

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Culture, Coffee and Socialism

by Les May

I HAVE voted Labour all my life.  The reason is simple. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s I benefited directly from two things the 1945 Labour Government put in place; the NHS and the 1949 National Assistance Act which kept our family out of poverty when my father was hospitalised more or less permanently. It was policies like these and not headline grabbing policies like Public Ownership which had the biggest impact on peoples lives. What a Labour government had to do in 1945 was obvious and it did it.

But in my lifetime the Tories have re-invented themselves at least three times. The rejection of Churchill in the 1945 election was so complete that they had to accept and work with the changes Labour had made. The result was Butskellism, perhaps more properly called ‘The Post War Consensus’ (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war_consensus ).

Then we had hard nosed Thatcherism which amongst other things saw unemployment as a useful policy lever and was a mix of economic and social conservatism. Remember her enthusiasm for Clause 28

(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28 .

The result was that the Tories became ‘The Nasty Party’. By sleight of hand David Cameron tried to shake off this tag with a mix of social liberalism, same sex marriage, and economic conservatism in the form of austerity and attacks on the poorest groups in society.

Labour’s attempt at re-invention gave us the Blair years. Now the search is on for how to re-invent Labour yet again. But things are more complicated now. There are those of us who see the Labour project as one of promoting economic and social justice, and there are those, I’m not one of them, who see being ‘of the Left’ as fighting, usual vicarious, battles against racism, sexism, homophobia, (add in your favourite -isms or -phobias here). If, like many newspaper columnists, you are of the latter persuasion remember how Cameron managed to hide the vicious policies of George Osborn behind a veneer of social liberalism.

I’ve told you where I stand but if you want to feel part of shaping Labour’s ‘soul’ and live in the area, you might like to visit ‘Seriously Red’, at Bury’s Socialist Cafe ‘Ground Up’. It’s hosted by Bury Momentum with Bury South Socialists, 7-9pm every third Tuesday of the month and promises debates, campaigns, culture and coffee.

You’ll find Ground Up at 8 Market Street, Bury, just opposite the Peel Monument.

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Squaring the Brexit Circle: Whither Corbyn?

by Les May

THERE is a saying that ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there’.   With less than eleven weeks before we are scheduled to leave the European Union (EU) I don’t think that any of the major players, the European Research Group (ERG), Theresa May, those campaigning for a second referendum, the MP(s) trying to rescind the 29 March date or the Labour party, have any clear idea where they want to end up or how they are going to get there.  Having a wish list isn’t the same as knowing how you are going to achieve it.

For the people who take the same line as the ERG leaving the EU is an end in itself.  As if by magic the problem of the Irish border will vanish.  The transition to conducting trade with other countries under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules will be seamless.  Bi-lateral trade deals with other countries will follow as surely as night follows day. We take a tough stance with the EU and the other 27 countries will be begging us to trade with them.  All these things may indeed come to pass, but I would like to see the plan of how they are to be brought about. Until I do I’ll accept the conclusion reached by Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and Michael Heseltine that for those politicians who think that leaving the EU is an end in itself it ‘would provide the pretext they have always wanted for their programme of extensive labour market deregulation and corporation tax cuts.’

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/17/we-need-another-eu-referendum-tony-blair-nick-clegg-michael-heseltine

For two and a half years Theresa May has parroted her mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’. At no time has she given any sign that she was willing to listen to anyone who had concerns about where we would end up following our leaving the EU. She’s got deal, but it’s really a fudge so that she can say she ‘delivered Brexit’.  I don’t think she has any clear idea of where the UK will be in two years time or a plan for getting there.   The Irish border problem is not simply going to vanish.  With a few days to go before the crucial vote in Parliament we hear that she is scurrying round trying to get union leaders to pressure Labour MPs to vote for her deal.  And what has she to offer in return?  A reversal of the traditional Tory policy of ‘union bashing? I think not.

The individuals who seem to have thought least about where they want to end up are those calling for a second referendum.  I have already written that I believe such a move would undermine faith in parliamentary democracy. Parliament voted for the referendum in June 2016 with the result to be decided by a simple majority.  This produced a vote in favour of waving the EU, but not an overwhelming one.   For parliament to use this as a pretext for calling a second referendum with perhaps different rules seems to me improper. I voted to remain in the EU, but I would struggle to square my conscience with even casting a vote in a second referendum.

But just in case I find a way to salve my conscience, I keep reminding myself that I can see absolutely no evidence that the result would be any different than last time. Although there’s a lot of noise coming from politicians it does not seem to figure in everyday conversations. In the absence of evidence either way it’s an evens bet that the result will be the same. Then what? We are back at square one, perhaps with a bolstered and empowered ERG, and facing even more pressure for dropping out of the EU immediately with the consequences noted above. That’s an awful lot to risk on another throw of the dice.

The former Attorney General Dominic Grieve is the MP behind the idea that the 29 March date should be struck from previous legislation if Theresa May’s ‘deal’ fails to be passed by MPs.  As it stands this idea has a lot of merit.  There isn’t time to pass all the legislation which must be passed before we can leave the EU. It would also give time to produce a clear plan of where we want to get to in relations with the EU and the rest of the world, and how to get there.  Where I disagree with Grieve is his call for a second referendum which I think has no merit whatsoever.

Labour’s position on the EU is clearer than many people give credit.  In a long debate on the impact on security of leaving the EU the shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said that in the 2016 referendum Labour campaigned on ‘remain and reform’ and in the 2017 election on honouring the result of the referendum whilst being ‘committed to a jobs-first Brexit that will not harm our economy’. But of course that is a wish list, not a roadmap of how it is to be achieved.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-01-11/debates/DBEB14BC-9AE7-4965-9DC9-3C5B273B8CE7/EuropeanUnion%28Withdrawal%29Act#contribution-C160BB51-9221-403E-B323-7178361A3D0B

If as is anticipated Theresa May fails to get a majority for her ‘deal’ and Labour tables a vote of ‘No Confidence’ which fails immediately or in the later vote to be held within 14 days, then if Labour really is committed to ‘jobs-first Brexit that will not harm our economy’ it is going to have to come up with concrete proposals about how it is going to get to that desirable situation.  Simply saying it will renegotiate the present deal is to repeat Theresa May’s mistake of not involving MPs representing the wide spectrum of views about the EU which exists in the present Parliament.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/14/section/2/enacted

Views on the EU, and on leaving it, are so polarised that no way forward is going to satisfy everyone.  There is no perfect solution which will honour the referendum vote, get us out of the Common Fisheries Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy, give us the benefits of the single market, block immigration from the EU, cease payments to the EU and resolve the issue of the Irish border, all in one neat package.  It is time for MPs to tell the public that this is the case and that some compromises will have to be made. I’d like to think that Corbyn is the man to do this, but I’m not holding my breath.

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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