Category Archives: Politics

Britain, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

Brexit: The last chance to restore trust

BREXIT BRITAIN

HAROLD WILSON once said a week was a long time in politics. In the present political climate, weeks must feel like eternities. Brexit has changed people’s views as the debate has raged on. For some, who were once moderate party members, have turned into hardened rebels; others who initially supported the Government’s approach now have real concerns about its direction.

Yet, the key conversation we should be having – one that has really been absent for too long – is what the next 15 or 20 years will look like; what we should actually do now, beyond the platitudinous slush, to ensure that the children of today and tomorrow can have a better life than us.

Deep down, our politicians must know that there is something amiss in the body politic of today. Populations are restless. People feel left out and ignored. The traditional levers to improve the world are malfunctioning – there is slower growth, foreign policy chaos and domestic budget stricture. The status quo appears brittle and worn. Where is the clarity about what to replace it with? The world is turning, and, for many, it appears to be turning away from them.

Underneath that sense of foreboding are two existential issues. The first is technology. In the lifetime of those born in the 1960s have seen the advent of the home computer, the internet and the mobile phone. Millions of jobs have been created by a medium that was invisible a generation ago and which, most likely, will have changed beyond recognition by the next.

Yet, even in normal times, politicians’ answer to technology is to either ignore it or grandstand on it. Take the tech giants and their questionable data practices. The elite have gone to town on them in recent months. CEOs have been chastened. Companies run warm adverts saying things like ‘we’ve changed’ without proper public consideration of what, over the long-term, we all need to change to.

The country’s focus on Brexit has meant we’ve missed the underlying, hard questions. Are they platforms or publishers? Are they monopolists or innovators? How do individual nation states regulate cross-border activity? The amount of time that politicians spend in legislatures debating the philosophical, economic and social impacts of artificial intelligence, big data and the loss of privacy is inversely proportional to their coming impacts.

There are many in parliament who are evangelical about technology and its ability to change lives. But surely, we have to ready citizens to take advantage of those opportunities through skills, flexibility and attitude. It is inevitable that there are huge potential changes coming, ones which will reshape our economy and our labour market. If these issues are not properly talked about, by preparing people to deal with them, we will be storing up tremendous problems for the future. We have to do much better.

This can all be reasonably predicted because it has happened before. The European Economic Community that Britain joined in 1973 was a very different beast to the EU we have part of since its expansion. Few people expected then that an economic union would also become a political one. Nor were most people aware or able to predict how fundamentally globalisation would reshape our economy and our communities. A lack of public consultation that forced through such massive changes had achieved a bipartisan consensus in Westminster. And it is this which brings us to the second existential issue for British politics: trust.

Those citizens who have borne the brunt of these radical changes feel ignored and patronised. Their security has been undermined and their way of life transformed. The years since the financial crash have been especially hard for many – to say nothing of the toxic cacophony of expenses scandals, dodgy dossiers, spin and the obscuring of hard choices. It seems to many that the system is now not only untrustworthy but also fundamentally rotten.

Against that backdrop, Brexit was an opportunity to restore that trust with a large section of society. By granting the referendum, our political class seemed to have recognised the need for a new democratic input – for some kind of check from the people of Britain on the consensus MPs had established. “The Government will implement what you decide,” said the booklet that dropped through every household letterbox, and many millions of voters believed it. Their decision was close but clear: Britain must leave the EU. The definition of that result was politically distilled, and the departure from the single market and the customs union has been cemented. In the general election of 2017, 85 per cent of people agreed.

Distrust and disengagement have now been replaced by curiosity. People hesitantly dared to hope that the political class was actually going to do something they requested.

Then along came Chequers. At a stroke, that emerging engagement with politics was dashed. Government spin proclaims that we are taking back control. The reality is that we are ceding it, at least on trade, in perpetuity. The document is a clever, legalistic, splitting-the-difference tome; the product of a process driven by a civil service never fully reconciled to leaving and, ultimately, not wanting to grasp the nettle.

Whatever we may think about the referendum, and whatever our own personal views on Chequers are, the key measure is one of trust. Does this proposal properly embody the decision of the British people in 2016? How is it sold to the disengaged or the exasperated? And, when this offer is salami-sliced away into irrelevance by the EU, what should the British people be told? That we gave it our best effort but came up short? That Brussels was right? That our political masters know best?

If Brexit directly leads to the jobs of truck drivers and call-centre workers being automated away without consultation or compensation, politicians here will not be forgiven. And if, after years of globalisation and European integration, MPs do not honour the pledge on which they hung their entire credibility, and implement the orders they had been given, politicians will lose the trust of the electorate for a generation.

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Britain, European Union, Government, Ireland, Politics

Johnson says No 10 hasn’t even tried to solve Irish issue

BREXIT: IRISH BORDER

BORIS JOHNSON has ignited a fresh Brexit row after claiming Theresa May has “not even tried” to solve the Irish border problem.

The former Foreign Secretary said elements in the Government had “ingeniously manipulated” the issue to keep Britain locked closely to the EU and “stop a proper Brexit”.

But supporters of the prime minister said there were “no new ideas” in Mr Johnson’s latest intervention.

Earlier this week, Mr Johnson wrote in his Daily Telegraph column that the Irish border problem was “fixable”, adding: “The scandal is not that we have failed, but that we have not even tried.”

In a scathing attack on Mrs May’s Chequers plan, he branded it a “fix” that will lead to victory for the EU and said that in the negotiations the UK was “lying flat on the canvas”.

He added the Irish government had initially offered pragmatic solutions to the issue, only to withdraw them when the British Government showed no interest. Those in favour of the Chequers plan say that a simple trade deal could not resolve the problems around the Irish border.

A source close to No. 10, said: “The basic premise of the Brexiteers is that there is a free trade deal on the table we can just pick up.

“There is, but it is a Great Britain only deal – we would be walking off the pitch in Northern Ireland. It would mean Northern Ireland staying in the customs union, a customs border down the Irish Sea and a step towards the break-up of the UK. It is not acceptable.”

Brexiteers argue that a Canada-style free trade deal is achievable and that with the right pressure, the EU would accept a technological solution on the Irish border.

Responding to the row, the source insists the country needs “serious leadership with a serious plan” which the prime minister is providing.

The spokesperson added: “The Government’s Brexit White Paper was ‘the only credible and negotiable plan which has been put forward’.”

Boris Johnson resigned from the Government following the Chequers agreement.

ANALYSIS

The 310-mile border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been one of the most intractable issues in the Brexit negotiations. There are more than 300 crossing points across which goods and people can move freely. But one of the crunch and unresolved issues is what will happen after Brexit, when Northern Ireland – along with the rest of the UK – leaves the EU.

Relatively, there is little trade that exchanges between the north and south of Ireland. Brexiteers point out that trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic makes up 5 per cent of the province’s economy. The figure the other way is just 1.6 per cent.

However, Northern Ireland and the Republic’s trading relationship with Great Britain is much more significant. Trade with Great Britain is some 21 per cent of Northern Irish GDP, and around 12 per cent of all Irish exports go to the UK mainland.

In short, the problem to resolve is how to preserve an open border with different customs regimes and regulations for goods either side of the line. All sides appear to agree there must be no “hard” border – meaning physical barriers and border guards. These were dismantled as part of the peace process and secured by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Northern Ireland’s chief constable has said that any “significant physical infrastructure” would become a target for dissident Republicans.

 

THE EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier says Northern Ireland must stay in the customs union and single market to preserve the open border with the Republic and remove the need for any customs or regulatory checks. The EU has also said that there should be a customs and regulatory border at sea ports on either side of the Irish Sea.

Theresa May finds such a “sea border” unacceptable and this would be a symbolic sign of division between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The prime minister has also been adamant this would be a threat to the “constitutional integrity” of the UK and says, “no UK prime minister could ever agree to it”. Northern Ireland would become – to a large extent – an annexe of the EU, following EU rules. To Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party – on which Mrs May relies for her Commons majority – this is a non-starter.

Mrs May’s answer to the impasse is Chequers. This proposes to keep the whole of the UK in the single market for goods, which deals directly with the problem of different regulatory standards. On customs, she proposes a “facilitated customs arrangement”, with a common customs border. Importers would pay different tariffs demanding on where goods were destined, and that the UK would collect tariffs for the EU. In theory, this would allow the UK to negotiate trade deals with third countries and by cutting tariffs.

 

BORIS JOHNSON insists that the Northern Ireland issue has been “ingeniously manipulated” both by Brussels and No 10 “so as to keep Britain effectively in the customs union and single market”. The Irish border problem is “flexible”, he argues.

Mr Johnson also believes there is a technological solution and that no hard border is necessary. Checks would take place in warehouses or away from the border. There are only 50 large companies that trade across the border, and small traders would be exempted entirely. Other Brexiteers point to highly automated ports such as Felixstowe as providing the likely solutions. The former Foreign Secretary said the Irish government began working on these answers, but the UK Government was “not really interested”.

 

SOME in Ireland have argued a technological solution is possible, including former Irish prime ministers Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny. The tone, though, has changed under Leo Varadkar, who took office in June last year. Since then the Irish have been in lock step with Mr Barnie, and the border has become the central issue of the Brexit talks.

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Britain, Defence, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

The EU is reducing Britain’s defence contribution to a Brexit bargaining chip

BREXIT

Intro: Brussels is threatening to limit our role in a series of programmes and ban UK firms from bidding for contracts. Given the importance of Britain to continental security, this beggars belief

TERROR incidents provide us with a stark reminder of how we remain in the cross hairs of a diverse spectrum of threats by those who challenge our values and wish us harm. It is therefore essential we remain resilient, unified and fully prepared to respond.

The evolving character of conflict, which now extends to terrorism, cyber-attacks, energy manipulation, cash disruption, information warfare and election interference, collectively reflects the constant, aggressive, sub-Article 5 challenges we now face. To compound matters, we are witnessing the start of long-term shifts in the balance of power away from Europe to regions less supportive of the global order we helped to create.

Changes in demographics and technology present further challenges. Africa, soon to be the home to a quarter of the human race, is creating just one fifth of the jobs it needs to fill. In ungoverned spaces, this is a perfect recruitment ground for radicalism. Extreme global weather patterns bring the dangerous consequences of rising sea levels and crop failures are progressively leading to large-scale migratory movements.

5G, the next generation of cellular technology, heralds almost unthinkable implications for digital innovation that will transform all our lives. It will also revolutionise the art of conflict, such as swarm drone warfare. Whichever state (or states) harness 5G first is likely to claim the prize in data ownership and the commensurate leap in defence capabilities. China is in the lead.

The world is changing, and fast. However, none of these challenges is insurmountable and we can be in the driving seat. They require understanding, international leadership and teamwork. It is therefore disconcerting that Britain’s military, intelligence and policing contribution to European security could be drawn into the never-ending vortex of Brexit tit-for-tat. Let the Brexit talks continue apace – but European security should be unconditional.

For those who have said “let us just focus on Nato” must recognise its precise remit. Nato provides hard power, a collective defence based around Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. Security wise, working with the EU provides political and diplomatic leverage (for example, through sanctions) and agencies such as Europol that coordinates national policing and intelligence to help share live data on hostile and illegal activity.

To truly leverage our collective abilities, for the UK cannot deal with all these challenges alone, we must respect the structures through which our collective security is exercised, in tandem with our European partners.

The quid pro quo is a recognition of Britain’s considerable offering. We are Europe’s most formidable defence power, with the largest military budget, with privileged access to the US and one of only two European states possessing “full spectrum” military capabilities, including a nuclear deterrent. Britain has proved its willingness to step forward as a force for good when other nations hesitate. Our overseas aid budget, again the largest in Europe, provides capacity to engage post-conflict or to bring stability or thwart a future conflict.

Alongside our soft and hard power is genuine expertise. Our response to the Novichok attack in Salisbury is a striking example. Thanks to our world-class intelligence services, we not only exposed the agent and its origins but provided compelling evidence to convince more than 20 nations to expel Russian diplomats.

And so it beggars belief that Britain’s ability to contribute to European defence could be reduced to a bargaining chip on the Brexit negotiation table with a threat of limiting our participation in a series of programmes and prohibiting UK businesses from bidding for contracts.

The Galileo positioning navigation project has become the totemic example. Britain pioneered this project and, with our military providing a quarter of Europe’s total defence force, we will arguably utilise its functionality more than any other nation. Yet we are to be demoted to “observer status”. We may now be obliged to go it alone and to build our own system. The Russians must find this all extremely amusing.

. See also The Galileo satellite project

It is only with a united voice that we can influence global events. Look at our hesitation over Syria. Keeping pace with global challenges and evolving threats will require even greater collaboration, not less. We should revisit the security partnership across Europe and not use our pre-eminent military expertise as a pawn in negotiations. Brexit or no Brexit, Britain should be unconditionally committed to the security of Europe – and so should the EU.

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