We’re in a strange kind of limbo period in which the UK has left the EU, and the Transition Period has started, and yet the crucial talks about future terms have not yet begun and won’t do so until March. That gives the impression that nothing much is happening with Brexit for, as Luke McGee of CNN observes, the government is “eerily quiet on the single most important issue facing the United Kingdom in 2020”. And what little is being said has largely been drowned out by the cabinet reshuffle, HS2 and other stories.
An eloquent silence
Yet that silence, in its own way, gives and is intended to give a message. I wrote in my previous post about Boris Johnson’s childish refusal to use the word Brexit any more, a stance confirmed by the now former Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom in a visit to Sunderland this week. “That was something that happened”, she rather peculiarly said when asked, rather as if, to use a comparison I’ve made before, Brexit had been an embarrassing episode at last year’s office party. It must have been rather deflating for the Sunderland voters, many of whom may have wanted to celebrate that which they are no longer supposed to mention.
But, of course, there is a very serious side to this. Invoking Orwell, both Jonathan Lis and Ian Dunt have recently written articles about how a wholesale revision of language is underway which is expressly designed to prevent scrutiny and accountability. Whatever may or may not happen now is to be decoupled from Brexit. It is hardly a new political technique, but it is being deployed with a rapidity, ruthlessness and shamelessness that is chilling.
And yet this is developing into the latest of the many paradoxes that Brexit has created. For at the same time as attempting to relegate Brexit to distant memory, the government is also claiming all kinds of benefits from “having left the EU”. Thus Health Secretary Matt Hancock explained this week that it would allow Britain to train or re-train many new medical staff (the Daily Express, where his article was published, was rather off-message in its headline by invoking the B-word).
It was not explained how the EU had prevented this, nor whether it would compensate for the exodus of EU staff from the NHS. But the ‘now we’ve left the EU’ formulation doesn’t require any causal link to be claimed. If Brexit is something that ‘has happened’, well, this announcement is something which is ‘now happening’. If readers fill in the blanks and ascribe it to Brexit – or headline writers do it for them - that’s a matter for them.
“Traders’ wines and olive oils …”
More complex was this week’s announcement of a consultation exercise about the establishment of free ports (the policy itself is not new and was announced last August). These are areas, not necessarily on the coast, where normal tax, customs checks and trade tariff rules are suspended so goods can be imported, stored, processed or worked on, and then re-exported or sold in the domestic market (at which point any relevant tariffs would apply).
Free ports have long been claimed by Johnson and many Brexit ideologues on the free market right as one of the great prizes of Brexit. The government’s consultation document suggests as much. It begins with some airy guff about how “in the Ancient World, Greek and Roman ships - piled high with traders’ wines and olive oils – found safe harbour in the Free Port of Delos” (p.5). That language is cringe-making but it is not accidental, being all of a piece with the cod history of so much Brexiter rhetoric, as if cutters bearing spices rather than container ships bearing crankshafts were at stake, and Brexit was a remake of The Onedin Line.
There is more in this woeful vein, but then it gets to the point. Free ports (or freeports, as the document has it) are all about “the opportunities that leaving the EU brings” (p.8). The clear suggestion is that the EU prohibits free ports. That turns out not to be true. They exist in the EU and existed in the UK until 2012, at which point the UK allowed the relevant UK legislation to lapse.
This led to much adverse comment on social media that the government was lying but matters are more complex than that. The language being used is very slippery – including that of the incoming Chancellor Rishi Sunak - which makes it hard to hold on to what exactly is being claimed. But whilst free ports are allowed by the EU, they are circumscribed by EU Law as to how they can operate, including by state aid regulations (because, for example, certain sorts of tax incentives would amount to subsidies) and it was this, arguably, that led to the UK’s decision not to continue with them.
Beneath the rhetoric
So from that point of view the government is being half-truthful in suggesting that post-Brexit British free ports could be different from those within the EU (although they would not be a complete free-for-all in that WTO rules, so loved by Brexiters, create some restrictions). But nested within that are some other issues. The obvious one is that it reveals that what is really at issue here is not free ports per se but whether or not Britain agrees to the Level Playing Field (LPF, including state aid rules) which would prevent this divergence from EU free port regulations.
Since agreeing to LPF is one of the (this week hardening) EU red lines for doing a trade deal, it’s not unduly cynical to think that if the negotiations founder for that reason, one justification the government will give for not making a deal is that it will preclude these supposedly wonderful British free ports, especially as according to the consultation document free ports are to be a “cornerstone” of the government’s national ‘levelling up’ policy and, thus, the delivery of ‘the people’s priorities’.
That’s questionable because according to Sussex University’s highly respected UK Trade Policy Observatory the economic case for free ports is debatable anyway, and numerous criticisms of their role in lowering labour standards and promoting tax evasion and money laundering have been made. And where there are examples of successful free ports they do not really translate to the British context (£). Moreover, the government proposals are actually a hybrid of various kinds of policy, including regional regeneration which is not seen as a rationale for free ports even by their advocates, and enterprise zones which exist anyway.
I’ve focused on the free ports example because it has been current this week, and because it may come to have an importance in its own right, but also because it is illustrative of the tangle of language which has the effect, and probably the intention, of bamboozling people. Hence the half-true implication that this is new freedom for Britain, and the disguised truth that what is new about it is not having to adhere to regulatory restrictions which, if explained, many might prefer to keep, and the tendentious claims for the benefits.
That itself is consonant with the way, as argued in my previous post, that the government remains within Brexit campaign mode. For it is very much like the linguistic chicanery of ‘Turkey is joining the EU’, defended on the grounds that it was true that, in principle, there was an ongoing process for Turkish accession whilst carrying the untrue implication that accession was an accomplished and imminent fact. Likewise, the “let’s spend” £350M a week on the NHS slogan was defended on the basis that this was merely a ‘suggestion’ for what could happen.
Fortunately, the English love a queue
However, in one respect at least the government did start talking about the practical realities of Brexit – though it was not generally reported as the headline story it should have been - and it turns out that these are not so liberating after all.
As with free ports, it was dressed up in bracing terms – the Border Delivery Group, no less – beneath which lay the stark truth that as of next January there will be border checks on goods coming into Great Britain* from the EU, whether or not there is a trade deal, as well as tariffs charged if there is no trade deal. There were promises of ‘smart border’ arrangements by 2025, but that’s a long way off, most experts think them unlikely to be ready that soon and, anyway, they do not mean an end to customs formalities.
At one level, such border controls have been the obvious implication of Brexit ever since it was decided that this meant the hard Brexit of a trade deal or the even harder one of no trade deal at all. Yet that reality had been obscured by all the gaslighting about lack of checks on the Swiss border, the endless promises of ‘frictionless trade’ continuing and fanciful claims of ‘alternative arrangements’ to deliver this (most often with reference to the erstwhile Irish land border but, by extension, to be used at all EU-UK borders).
Everyone who knew anything about it knew that this was nonsense but, extraordinarily, this week was the first time that any high-profile official announcement of the reality of border checks in the UK was made. In the preparation for a no-deal Brexit, the plan had been that, whilst it was accepted that there would be EU tariffs and checks on UK exports to the EU, there would be almost none on goods moving from the EU to the UK.
That was always a strange idea anyway (giving EU exporters a huge advantage over UK exporters), but was intended as a temporary measure, at least in the first instance**, born of a recognition that there was insufficient time to build the necessary customs infrastructure in the UK. For similar reasons, no-deal planning had waived or reduced many of the normal border formalities but with this week’s announcement these, too, will now be put in place by the end of December.
It remains an open question whether the ten months or so until then will be sufficient and, if not, there are likely to be serious queues at the main ports (‘unfree ports’, perhaps). But, more importantly in the long-run, it spells out the very clear fact that Brexit is going to put an end to businesses running EU-UK just-in-time supply chains, as well as adding substantially to the costs of other businesses which trade across the new border.
Conceivably, it is intended as a negotiating ploy designed to make ‘German car makers’ and the like realize the consequences of there being no trade deal (if so, Brexiters have learned nothing). But it looks more like an acceptance that the no trade deal scenario is increasingly likely and, in any case, that there is no trade deal which can re-create the frictionless trade of single market and customs union membership. Zero tariffs does not mean zero checks and zero customs formalities – all of which mean friction and also mean increased business costs.
On the other hand, if there is no trade deal and import tariffs apply, an obvious question to ask is what tariff rates Britain will be applying. Alas, there is no answer to that since it also emerged this week that it has not yet been decided (£). This is a peculiar situation for a nation seeking, and desperately needing, to make trade deals not just with the EU but around the world. After all, how can such negotiation proceed if the other party does not know the terms that would apply without a deal being struck?
That is part of a more general picture of lack of preparedness which is one reason why leading American officials to say that a trade deal with the UK is now a lower priority for the US than one with the EU. We’re no longer ‘first in the queue’ apparently. That may explain why Brexiter MPs like Iain Duncan Smith are spearheading opposition to the government’s use of Huawei – perhaps they have belatedly realised that the realities of international trade talks entail power plays that make a mockery of their windy rhetoric about ‘taking back control’.
Bait and switch
Businesses now have a greater sense of what the government intends to inflict on their trade with the EU and, to some extent, that at least has the benefit of increased clarity. But they have warned, again, what this will mean for product availability and prices. That will have no cut-through with either the government or much of the public, of course, having already been discounted as Project Fear. The calculation appears to be that there is no political price to be paid for having spent years promising sunny uplands and then delivering dank swamps. Such a bait and switch is the oldest technique in the conman’s repertoire, but it does risk the wrath of disgruntled punters.
Much will depend upon exactly what damage occurs and how quickly, and whether enough people make the connections. Will they, for example, remember cases such as the boss of Norton, the British motorbike firm that went into receivership this week citing Brexit as one reason, saying in 2018 that Britain “would thrive outside the EU” and urging the government to get Brexit done? Or, if they face shortages and price increases because of border delays and costs, will they recall the warnings that were dismissed as Project Fear?
More generally, will enough people remember that Michael Gove, who made the announcement of the new border controls this week, was the same person who in 2016 sold them the bogus Vote Leave campaign line that there “is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey … after we vote to leave we will remain in the zone”?
The depressing thing is that they probably won’t, the more so if the government is successful in persuading people that Brexit was something ‘that happened’, rather than something that is happening, and which both in principle and in form the Prime Minister and other leading ministers made happen.
This is why it is important – especially in the media - to keep challenging the linguistic contortions, and to keep comparing the promises with the outcomes. For although it may seem that both rationality and honesty have now disappeared from our politics that is not inevitable, and will only become so if we all drop the attempt to keep them present.
*The arrangements for Northern Ireland will, of course, be different. How these will work remains unclear and appears to have experts baffled.
**I say ‘in the first instance’ because, whilst the plans were indeed billed as ‘temporary’, on the wilder fringes of Brexit debate there are some influential figures who do propose the unilateral abolition of (all) import tariffs by the UK. Apart from the devastation this would cause British manufacturing and agriculture, such an approach would, of course, make negotiating trade deals with other countries rather difficult. For (whilst trade deals aren’t just about tariffs) why should they remove tariffs on UK goods if the UK has already removed tariffs on theirs?
Showing posts with label Jonathan Lis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Lis. Show all posts
Friday, 14 February 2020
Friday, 6 December 2019
Decision time
As the
election campaign enters its final days my
warning at the outset that, despite this being an election defined
by Brexit, there would be no
substantive discussion of Brexit has come true.
Labour have failed to fill out what their ‘sensible Brexit’ would look like, especially as regards the single market. But at least they are being clear in offering voters the choice, if and when the time comes, of whether they want this Brexit or not - even if they are not engaging seriously with the timetable for such a referendum. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have said little beyond their ‘get Brexit done’ slogan, apart from Johnson’s usual blustering non sequiturs.
Difficult choices deferred
Even so, within that bluster can be seen the outlines of some of the real and difficult choices which, if he is elected, Johnson would immediately face over Brexit. The most obvious and widely discussed example is the insistence that no extension will be sought to the transition period. Beyond that, a piece by Denis Staunton, the London Editor of The Irish Times, argues that statements made by Johnson in relation to a possible future US trade deal, to the abandonment of EU state aid and public procurement rules, and to post-Brexit UK-EU arbitration mechanisms could all significantly affect the options open to him if he wins the election.
In particular, Staunton argues, Johnson is setting up a scenario in which the UK is too distantly aligned with the EU to achieve decent terms of trade with them, whilst – partly because of the promises he has made about the NHS, and agriculture and food standards –being too closely aligned to the EU to achieve a meaningful, or any, trade deal with the US.
Underlying causes
This observation grows from one of the central contradictions of Brexit. Sold to voters by a largely nationalist and protectionist campaign, it was immediately re-described after the Referendum as an endorsement of globalism and trade liberalization. Hence the shift from a referendum campaign dominated by immigration policy to a post-referendum debate dominated by trade policy, which had been only peripheral before. Unsurprisingly, for the purposes of this election campaign in which he hopes to rebuild the leave alliance and, in particular, woo Labour leave voters, Johnson has reprised the nationalist and protectionist message, including anti-immigration sentiment.
Beyond these immediate political issues lies the strategic incoherence of the entire Brexit project. In a world characterised by two, or arguably three, regulatory super blocs (US, EU and, arguably,China
With that comes a political reality of having to obey rules and follow policies made outside of national parliaments - either by multilateral engagement or simply by force majeure in consequence of isolation - rendering the entire ‘regaining sovereignty’ or ‘taking back control’ argument redundant. By leaving the EU,Britain
will have less rather than more control over its regulation and policy choices,
and will be poorer and less influential into the bargain. It’s a definitional
lose-lose made inevitable by a world characterised not so much by globalization
as by economic
and political regionalization.
These complex strategic realities and trade-offs that Brexit entails are precisely what should have been discussed by its advocates (and critics) as the central theme of this election. Instead, as Matt Ross explained in detail in an excellent analysis on Global Governance Forum this week, Johnson is set to reprise all of the problems and mistakes that have dogged the Brexit process to date (many of which will be familiar to regular readers of this blog).
The post-truth election
Of course, it’s very likely that Johnson did not fully understand the implications of the things he said. And, even if he did, it’s hardly inconceivable that he will backtrack on them if he wins the election, dumping promises made about protecting British industries and public services. For the most depressing thing about this campaign is the extent to which we have seen the full (though perhaps still not yet final) flowering of the post-truth politics that characterised the Referendum.
That is very different from the traditional, and rather lazy, refrain that ‘all politicians lie’. Rather, it is a politics in which the truth does not matter, or even – and perhaps more accurately - that there is no truth to be told and no way of telling what the truth is anyway. In a punchy assessment in the New York Times, Peter Geoghegan and Mary Fitzgerald itemise some of the ways that has characterised the campaign. For example, after the Conservatives were found to have created a supposed ‘fact checker’ Twitter account, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, opined that voters “don’t give a toss” about what happens online.
More insidiously, when asked about the fake fact-checker in a Channel 4 News interview, Michael Gove attacked the interviewer for asking ideologically loaded questions and, even, refused to look at the evidence of its existence on the reporter’s laptop on the grounds that it might have been doctored. So ‘fake news’ is defended on the basis that the accusation is itself fake news, creating a dizzying spiral in which no one knows what to believe and, perhaps, concludes that they might as well believe whatever they want to believe. And who’s to say that your belief is better than my belief – except an elitist?
Depressing and despicable as these and many similar incidents have been, they do contain at least a glimmer of hope. For, of course, many voters do ‘give a toss’ about what is said on line. If they did not, then why bother with on line political campaigning at all? And they do care about facts and some attempt at objectivity. If they did not, then why pretend to be an objective fact-checker? And they do see ideological loaded-ness in reporting as problematic. If they did not, then why use the accusation (unfounded as it was) as an attack line against reporters?
That’s not to say that politics could ever be simply about ‘the facts’, absent of interpretation and judgement. Indeed, where facts are not disputed they do not generally form part of normal politics, whilst much of what normal politics consists of is a contestation over securing widespread acceptance of facts and designing policy accordingly. But that only works if there is some shared commitment to evidence, logic, and rules of argument. It’s this which is under attack in post-truth politics.
Voting matters
Even in this world, democracy can still be a powerful force. Whatever manipulations may occur, people still have agency, and have the capacity to make their own choices based on evidence, logic and argument. Voting still matters, and the right to vote should not be cynically dismissed – as those denied it, such as EU nationals in UK elections, can attest. Despite – perhaps because of – the squalid and dishonest campaign for this election, people have a responsibility to use that vote. Not voting, however attractive some find it, does not evade that responsibility since it also has an impact on the outcome.
But in many constituencies the British first-past-the-post electoral system makes it hard to make your vote count. This election is likely to see tactical voting and party-switching on an unprecedented scale, not least because of the way that Brexit cuts across party allegiances. And because of the anticipated closeness of the outcome, these decisions will matter. However, the very volatility of opinion polls and the complex local variations make it difficult for individual voters to make tactical voting decisions (£).
In my previous post I highlighted Jon Worth’s tactical voting information site. Since then, he has refined it to create a short video for every single seat in which tactical voting can make a difference to the outcome of Brexit. For those who want to keep open the possibility of preventing Brexit, it provides a well-informed steer as to how to vote. Another useful site is VoteSmart2019. These sites cannot entirely solve all of the indeterminacies caused by voter volatility but are certainly a helpful guide, especially if used in conjunction with new polling data as it emerges and local conversations with other voters.
Dilemmas for tactical voters
Whatever the difficulties of assessing how to vote tactically, for voters who want to prevent Brexit there is no excuse for refusing to do so because ‘the LibDems supported Austerity’ or because ‘Labour supported the Iraq War’. If you want to stop Brexit, then, to be brutal, those things, important as they are in their own right, are not relevant to doing so. Even intense concern about and opposition to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, which is understandably creating anguish for some potential tactical voters, can arguably, as suggested by Jonathan Lis, be combined with voting Labour.
Whilst that is a genuinely agonizing dilemma, those remain voters – perhaps especially habitual Tory and LibDem voters – whose fear is that a Corbyn administration would be too economically extreme face a less difficult choice. For they should recognize that the only realistic alternative to a Johnson majority government is a Corbyn minority government. There is no realistic prospect of Labour having a majority. So Corbyn would be highly constrained in what he could do. Yes, some increased public services spending – which will also happen under a Tory government – and taxation but nothing very radical.
That may or may not be a good thing but, as always on this blog, I am only concerned with the implications for Brexit. And with LibDem and SNP support what a minority Labour government would be both able and obliged to deliver is another referendum and, with it, the chance – only the chance, but the only chance – of remaining in the EU. No other realistic combination of events does this.
The other side of that coin is that whereas a minority Labour government would be highly constrained, a majority Tory government would be a very different beast from any that we have seen in the past. Every Tory MP elected will have pledged to an immediate Brexit and to no extension of the transition period, even if there is no trade deal in place. Compared with the last parliament, the more liberally and independently minded will have gone, whether those who left by choice or those who lost the party whip. They include, don’t forget, the deeply Eurosceptic Philip Hammond, and not just the veteran Europhile Ken Clarke.
So the next Tory benches are going to be far more extreme than, even, those of the Thatcher years, and not just in relation to Brexit. Voters who may for decades have been unhesitatingly Tory should note that Michael Heseltine now advocates voting LibDem. Neither he nor Ken Clarke (who, despite his latter-day cuddly image, was also a central figure in Thatcher’s governments, and the architect of the NHS internal market) are really ‘centrists’, but the rapid shift of the Tory Party has made them strangers to it.
If it is no longer even the party of Thatcher, still less is it that of Macmillan, Heath or Major. It is certainly very different to any previous Tory Party in its unsympathetic, even disdainful, attitude to business (£). So whilst voting tactically will only mean a constrained minority Labour administration, the alternative is an unconstrained Tory majority government in the grip of its own extremism.
A test for remainers’ commitment
Throughout these election period blogs, I’ve been using a formulation along the lines of ‘those voters for whom remain is their primary or sole objective’. Ultimately, the question of tactical voting by remainers and, therefore, very possibly the election outcome will come down to the extent to which they do indeed prioritise remain in that way. If they do, it will cut through party loyalties and habits and all other misgivings and concerns.
That will be testing for those whose commitment to remain is relatively weak, or weaker than it has been, compared with other concerns. It will actually be even more testing for the most passionate and committed remainers. For some, perhaps many, of them, there is a strong temptation to ‘purity’ which could lead them to voting, probably, LibDem in seats where a tactical vote for Labour would be more likely to defeat the Conservative candidate.
Such voters may consider Labour not to be a ‘true remain’ party, may recall the dithering and ambiguity of Labour over Brexit, and may consider that Corbyn, himself, is ideologically pro-Brexit. All of which may be fair comment and may provide a rationalisation for the comfort of staying true to a party which is unequivocally anti-Brexit. That will be their choice, but it will be a choice with an undeniable consequence. That consequence will be to make the slim chance of avoiding Brexit slimmer still.
A decisive moment
This time next week I will be writing my next blog post. If it is discussing the fact that Brexit is now a certainty the responsibility for that will lie in part with remain voters who valued something else – remainer purity, party loyalty or simply another political consideration – more than they did the possibility of avoiding Brexit.
Of course if that is the outcome there will be many who are responsible for it, well beyond remain (non-)tactical voters. Most obviously it will have been caused by those who genuinely want Brexit, or a Tory government, or both – which is perfectly reasonable, though they will be surprised at the Brexit they get – including any tactical voting decisions made by Brexit Party supporters. But there is another group of voters who out of boredom or ignorance are apparently simply content to accept the lies they have been told and to ignore the lack of proper discussion of what Brexit will entail, petulantly insisting that they ‘just want it done’.
Perhaps if, as happened with the Referendum, enough people of such a mind-set vote in this election to endorse Brexit then they will get what is due to them. For, as H.L. Mencken – a deeply anti-Semitic and generally rather vile character, by the way – in his oft-used quotation had it, “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard”.
Labour have failed to fill out what their ‘sensible Brexit’ would look like, especially as regards the single market. But at least they are being clear in offering voters the choice, if and when the time comes, of whether they want this Brexit or not - even if they are not engaging seriously with the timetable for such a referendum. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have said little beyond their ‘get Brexit done’ slogan, apart from Johnson’s usual blustering non sequiturs.
Difficult choices deferred
Even so, within that bluster can be seen the outlines of some of the real and difficult choices which, if he is elected, Johnson would immediately face over Brexit. The most obvious and widely discussed example is the insistence that no extension will be sought to the transition period. Beyond that, a piece by Denis Staunton, the London Editor of The Irish Times, argues that statements made by Johnson in relation to a possible future US trade deal, to the abandonment of EU state aid and public procurement rules, and to post-Brexit UK-EU arbitration mechanisms could all significantly affect the options open to him if he wins the election.
In particular, Staunton argues, Johnson is setting up a scenario in which the UK is too distantly aligned with the EU to achieve decent terms of trade with them, whilst – partly because of the promises he has made about the NHS, and agriculture and food standards –being too closely aligned to the EU to achieve a meaningful, or any, trade deal with the US.
Underlying causes
This observation grows from one of the central contradictions of Brexit. Sold to voters by a largely nationalist and protectionist campaign, it was immediately re-described after the Referendum as an endorsement of globalism and trade liberalization. Hence the shift from a referendum campaign dominated by immigration policy to a post-referendum debate dominated by trade policy, which had been only peripheral before. Unsurprisingly, for the purposes of this election campaign in which he hopes to rebuild the leave alliance and, in particular, woo Labour leave voters, Johnson has reprised the nationalist and protectionist message, including anti-immigration sentiment.
Beyond these immediate political issues lies the strategic incoherence of the entire Brexit project. In a world characterised by two, or arguably three, regulatory super blocs (US, EU and, arguably,
With that comes a political reality of having to obey rules and follow policies made outside of national parliaments - either by multilateral engagement or simply by force majeure in consequence of isolation - rendering the entire ‘regaining sovereignty’ or ‘taking back control’ argument redundant. By leaving the EU,
These complex strategic realities and trade-offs that Brexit entails are precisely what should have been discussed by its advocates (and critics) as the central theme of this election. Instead, as Matt Ross explained in detail in an excellent analysis on Global Governance Forum this week, Johnson is set to reprise all of the problems and mistakes that have dogged the Brexit process to date (many of which will be familiar to regular readers of this blog).
The post-truth election
Of course, it’s very likely that Johnson did not fully understand the implications of the things he said. And, even if he did, it’s hardly inconceivable that he will backtrack on them if he wins the election, dumping promises made about protecting British industries and public services. For the most depressing thing about this campaign is the extent to which we have seen the full (though perhaps still not yet final) flowering of the post-truth politics that characterised the Referendum.
That is very different from the traditional, and rather lazy, refrain that ‘all politicians lie’. Rather, it is a politics in which the truth does not matter, or even – and perhaps more accurately - that there is no truth to be told and no way of telling what the truth is anyway. In a punchy assessment in the New York Times, Peter Geoghegan and Mary Fitzgerald itemise some of the ways that has characterised the campaign. For example, after the Conservatives were found to have created a supposed ‘fact checker’ Twitter account, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, opined that voters “don’t give a toss” about what happens online.
More insidiously, when asked about the fake fact-checker in a Channel 4 News interview, Michael Gove attacked the interviewer for asking ideologically loaded questions and, even, refused to look at the evidence of its existence on the reporter’s laptop on the grounds that it might have been doctored. So ‘fake news’ is defended on the basis that the accusation is itself fake news, creating a dizzying spiral in which no one knows what to believe and, perhaps, concludes that they might as well believe whatever they want to believe. And who’s to say that your belief is better than my belief – except an elitist?
Depressing and despicable as these and many similar incidents have been, they do contain at least a glimmer of hope. For, of course, many voters do ‘give a toss’ about what is said on line. If they did not, then why bother with on line political campaigning at all? And they do care about facts and some attempt at objectivity. If they did not, then why pretend to be an objective fact-checker? And they do see ideological loaded-ness in reporting as problematic. If they did not, then why use the accusation (unfounded as it was) as an attack line against reporters?
That’s not to say that politics could ever be simply about ‘the facts’, absent of interpretation and judgement. Indeed, where facts are not disputed they do not generally form part of normal politics, whilst much of what normal politics consists of is a contestation over securing widespread acceptance of facts and designing policy accordingly. But that only works if there is some shared commitment to evidence, logic, and rules of argument. It’s this which is under attack in post-truth politics.
Voting matters
Even in this world, democracy can still be a powerful force. Whatever manipulations may occur, people still have agency, and have the capacity to make their own choices based on evidence, logic and argument. Voting still matters, and the right to vote should not be cynically dismissed – as those denied it, such as EU nationals in UK elections, can attest. Despite – perhaps because of – the squalid and dishonest campaign for this election, people have a responsibility to use that vote. Not voting, however attractive some find it, does not evade that responsibility since it also has an impact on the outcome.
But in many constituencies the British first-past-the-post electoral system makes it hard to make your vote count. This election is likely to see tactical voting and party-switching on an unprecedented scale, not least because of the way that Brexit cuts across party allegiances. And because of the anticipated closeness of the outcome, these decisions will matter. However, the very volatility of opinion polls and the complex local variations make it difficult for individual voters to make tactical voting decisions (£).
In my previous post I highlighted Jon Worth’s tactical voting information site. Since then, he has refined it to create a short video for every single seat in which tactical voting can make a difference to the outcome of Brexit. For those who want to keep open the possibility of preventing Brexit, it provides a well-informed steer as to how to vote. Another useful site is VoteSmart2019. These sites cannot entirely solve all of the indeterminacies caused by voter volatility but are certainly a helpful guide, especially if used in conjunction with new polling data as it emerges and local conversations with other voters.
Dilemmas for tactical voters
Whatever the difficulties of assessing how to vote tactically, for voters who want to prevent Brexit there is no excuse for refusing to do so because ‘the LibDems supported Austerity’ or because ‘Labour supported the Iraq War’. If you want to stop Brexit, then, to be brutal, those things, important as they are in their own right, are not relevant to doing so. Even intense concern about and opposition to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, which is understandably creating anguish for some potential tactical voters, can arguably, as suggested by Jonathan Lis, be combined with voting Labour.
Whilst that is a genuinely agonizing dilemma, those remain voters – perhaps especially habitual Tory and LibDem voters – whose fear is that a Corbyn administration would be too economically extreme face a less difficult choice. For they should recognize that the only realistic alternative to a Johnson majority government is a Corbyn minority government. There is no realistic prospect of Labour having a majority. So Corbyn would be highly constrained in what he could do. Yes, some increased public services spending – which will also happen under a Tory government – and taxation but nothing very radical.
That may or may not be a good thing but, as always on this blog, I am only concerned with the implications for Brexit. And with LibDem and SNP support what a minority Labour government would be both able and obliged to deliver is another referendum and, with it, the chance – only the chance, but the only chance – of remaining in the EU. No other realistic combination of events does this.
The other side of that coin is that whereas a minority Labour government would be highly constrained, a majority Tory government would be a very different beast from any that we have seen in the past. Every Tory MP elected will have pledged to an immediate Brexit and to no extension of the transition period, even if there is no trade deal in place. Compared with the last parliament, the more liberally and independently minded will have gone, whether those who left by choice or those who lost the party whip. They include, don’t forget, the deeply Eurosceptic Philip Hammond, and not just the veteran Europhile Ken Clarke.
So the next Tory benches are going to be far more extreme than, even, those of the Thatcher years, and not just in relation to Brexit. Voters who may for decades have been unhesitatingly Tory should note that Michael Heseltine now advocates voting LibDem. Neither he nor Ken Clarke (who, despite his latter-day cuddly image, was also a central figure in Thatcher’s governments, and the architect of the NHS internal market) are really ‘centrists’, but the rapid shift of the Tory Party has made them strangers to it.
If it is no longer even the party of Thatcher, still less is it that of Macmillan, Heath or Major. It is certainly very different to any previous Tory Party in its unsympathetic, even disdainful, attitude to business (£). So whilst voting tactically will only mean a constrained minority Labour administration, the alternative is an unconstrained Tory majority government in the grip of its own extremism.
A test for remainers’ commitment
Throughout these election period blogs, I’ve been using a formulation along the lines of ‘those voters for whom remain is their primary or sole objective’. Ultimately, the question of tactical voting by remainers and, therefore, very possibly the election outcome will come down to the extent to which they do indeed prioritise remain in that way. If they do, it will cut through party loyalties and habits and all other misgivings and concerns.
That will be testing for those whose commitment to remain is relatively weak, or weaker than it has been, compared with other concerns. It will actually be even more testing for the most passionate and committed remainers. For some, perhaps many, of them, there is a strong temptation to ‘purity’ which could lead them to voting, probably, LibDem in seats where a tactical vote for Labour would be more likely to defeat the Conservative candidate.
Such voters may consider Labour not to be a ‘true remain’ party, may recall the dithering and ambiguity of Labour over Brexit, and may consider that Corbyn, himself, is ideologically pro-Brexit. All of which may be fair comment and may provide a rationalisation for the comfort of staying true to a party which is unequivocally anti-Brexit. That will be their choice, but it will be a choice with an undeniable consequence. That consequence will be to make the slim chance of avoiding Brexit slimmer still.
A decisive moment
This time next week I will be writing my next blog post. If it is discussing the fact that Brexit is now a certainty the responsibility for that will lie in part with remain voters who valued something else – remainer purity, party loyalty or simply another political consideration – more than they did the possibility of avoiding Brexit.
Of course if that is the outcome there will be many who are responsible for it, well beyond remain (non-)tactical voters. Most obviously it will have been caused by those who genuinely want Brexit, or a Tory government, or both – which is perfectly reasonable, though they will be surprised at the Brexit they get – including any tactical voting decisions made by Brexit Party supporters. But there is another group of voters who out of boredom or ignorance are apparently simply content to accept the lies they have been told and to ignore the lack of proper discussion of what Brexit will entail, petulantly insisting that they ‘just want it done’.
Perhaps if, as happened with the Referendum, enough people of such a mind-set vote in this election to endorse Brexit then they will get what is due to them. For, as H.L. Mencken – a deeply anti-Semitic and generally rather vile character, by the way – in his oft-used quotation had it, “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard”.
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