Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

There are two strikes now in process which are in the worst traditions of the union indiscipline which exploded in the 1970s and put Labour out of power for nearly twenty years. They are the Southern walkouts over who shuts the doors of the trains and the threatened shut down of Crown post offices in the midst of the Christmas posting rush.

Whatever impact upon the businesses brought to a halt by this utterly crass union muddle-headedness, that is as nothing to the suffering of ordinary people as a consequence of the resultant breakdown in public service. These are strikes against, not the supposedly errant companies, but the public whom they serve. They ruin people’s jobs because they cannot get to them, wreck people’s home lives because they cannot get back there. Children cry because their mum is not home to read the bedtime story and will cry because the present from Santa is not there under the tree.

I do not care about the supposed merits of the cases in dispute. Listening to the massacre of the train union official on this morning’s Today, it was clear that his union did not have one. The public have had enough of this, particularly across the London area and the south. Labour activists need to do something to rescue their mission because, believe me unless they do, they can kiss good-bye to the Corbyn revolution and any thought of power for a generation. The hopes and aspirations of the rising enlightenment will be sunk by the icy mass of public rejection of everything coming from the left, however good, wise or worthy. Thatcherism will be back.

There is no doubt that the challenge to Corbyn’s leadership resulting in his re-election on an even larger mandate, has done the party a very great deal of electoral harm. Because, while the party has the largest membership in Europe entirely because of the populist Corbyn and his sidekick John McDonald, it is plain for all to see that they do not lead a populist party in the Commons. So ordinary Labour voters are not voting for them. In by-elections, admittedly in seats where they are no hopers, they are doing very badly. Perversely their performance in the Commons has been robust, especially over the procedural arguments surrounding Brexit. Corbyn, although bullied by May, has become a good deal more incisive. His shadow ministers are performing well. Sir Keir Starmer is emerging as a star debater and a formidable media performer. But sadly that is not what motivates voters. They wait, impatient, frustrated and angry. Something has to give. It has. Populism is sweeping the democratic world.

Populism crosses social divides, class boundaries and party loyalties. It is loyal only unto itself. It can be harnessed as a great force, as Brexit and Trump have both demonstrated, but as Cameron and Clinton will attest, it also destroys. It has to be offered radical change, as everything to do with the status quo, the niceties of protocol and the processes of government it despises. Because the format of globalization which has evolved is one which bears down upon ordinary people and for the first time for a hundred and fifty years, has halted the rise in living standards and advances in prosperity.

In England there are three politicians who understand this. Boris Johnson, who rides roughshod over diplomatic convention to say it as people see it. Nigel Farage who has become some kind of hero at Trump Tower and, for the left,  Jeremy Corbyn. Boris knows if May falls on the tricky Brexit course, he will take over to rescue the Tory party and the people from whatever shambles then prevail. Nigel has ruled himself out of coming back, which means nothing. Jeremy is shackled by a parliamentary party living in the past. Had Corbyn walked out of the Labour party when it tried to dump him and used Momentum to start a radical left movement, he would by now be setting the pace, have 300,000 members and be en route to electoral success. But he is nothing if not loyal to the party he has spent a lifetime serving. Sadly the brutal truth is Labour came fourth in the most recent by-election and lost its deposit in the one before that.

The reason is that once again Labour has no narrative in the chaos of the current Brexit reality. Its economic policy is the same tired old stuff about borrowing more and taxing the rich, it is at odds with most of its heartland bedrock over immigration and all the rest of it is tinkering around here and there, very worthy, but in today’s politics, pretty worthless. What is needed is a radical programme to build 2 million new homes for affordable rent, spend up to a trillion on infrastructure renewal over five years with dynamic QE, bring the currency, interest rates and the money supply back under political control, introduce electoral and structural reform to modernize our democracy so that it is 21st century fit for purpose, abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected Senate, abolish the abused Corporation and Capital Gains taxes and replace them with an unavoidable turnover tax and capital transaction tax, find a way of funding the NHS and linked social care, so that its income rises with demand and is not capped, and sort out the schools and higher education so that it is good for everyone, not just the postcode lucky, the sharp elbowed and the well off.

Finally it must demonstrate a return to government responsibility for the management of taxpayer funded services and restore ministerial responsibility for the running of all public services. In simple terms dismantle the quango state and the contracting out of public services to private companies. If Labour does all that it will stand a very good chance of winning. But it must understand that the years of tinkering at the margin and dancing on the edge are over. Labour must be radical and bold. Or Labour will be beaten.

I wrote a dissertation about all this and published it in book form Turn Left To Power- A Road Map For Labour. This might be a good time to read it.

Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution, post Brexit, as globalization fails to bring improving prosperity to the majority and becomes the mainstream political challenge worldwide. From £1.99 

           Kindle or Paperback Amazon UK          

In a word, yes. Very many Brits are deeply uncomfortable with the somewhat slavish attitude to the Saudi State of the Establishment, which goes to great lengths to keep within pages of the Saudi good books. There is an economic advantage of doing so. Saudi Arabia is a major customer for British goods and services and especially armaments, for which they are our biggest customer. Many thousands of jobs would be at risk if they took offence, then took their business elsewhere.

On the other hand there are serious questions about human rights and gender equality which trouble almost everybody. Then there are these wars across the middle east, in which we are embroiled (but should not be) which go on seemingly without end. There is talk of war crimes, but in truth the whole thing is a crime and we are to some extent a part of it. The world is now tired of these quarrels, based on differing interpretations of the same faith. Christians have had their fair share of this over the centuries and know that resolution is easier said than done. Nevertheless it is time to do something. So said Boris. The balloon went up in Downing Street.

But Boris need not worry. The old style of murmuring behind closed doors over issues which impinge upon the lives of millions under the general veil of good diplomacy, is maybe past its sell by date. The incoming president of the United States conducts diplomacy via Twitter. This is a racy new way of talking directly to the people.. The Prime Minister In Waiting in the UK (Boris’s ambitions are not dimmed, simply postponed) knows that very well. That is what all these so called gaffes are about. Because everybody agrees that while this is not quite the right way to express these things, they are the right things and something should be done about them. And, as always, they agree with Boris. May knows that. Her life is now driven by two Bs. Brexit and Boris. She can manage the first but not it appears, the second.

It has been said, especially by this Blog, that the Euro cannot survive and that the EU itself is going to unravel. Neither is correct yet both are true within the definition of what was supposed to be. What is happening is that Europe is morphing into what it was set up to prevent. At some level this is good news, but there will be a lot of change. What will be avoided is a catastrophic collapse. Let me explain.

The pointers lie in the markets shrugging off both the No in Italy, once more without a government, and the potential threat to the Eurozone of Italian financial instability and the tottering nature of its banking system. The market has worked out that Italy no longer counts, because Europe has become part of a German economic empire. The euro is plainly not actually a shared currency; it is the German currency shared. This is not the fault of the Germans.

They have suffered and worked to build an industrial superpower, which joins fiscal discipline, economic management, technology, R&D, unity between management, workforce and stockholders, democratic government decentralized but with a strong centre, and a living standard which no other major country in the EU can match. They have accepted a million refugees but they have space and resources in the east which will be mobilized to provide jobs for the newcomers which will increase German GDP still further. In other words the Germans have been very successful, they will not compromise and threaten their own prosperity and neither of the other two major industrial powers in Europe, France and Italy, can keep up. And they do not want to, because they are culturally different in outlook, attitude and application. Above all they do not want to become like Germans.

The masses in both France and Italy have had enough. Their politicians are impotent to help them, their living standards are flat-lining, unemployment is terrible and among young people, exotic. At the very least both will have to leave the euro, because both must have a currency which reflects the facts of their own social and industrial landscape. In other words they both have to devalue. Others like Greece and Portugal may follow, or they may decide to struggle on through monastic austerity to meet German standards. They know Germany will not bend and it will depend upon the tolerance of their voters. After initial volatility, which is always near the surface as globalization adjusts, the markets will like all this because the mayhem will provide exceptional opportunities for profit in the revival which will follow.

It will fundamentally change the nature of the European Union. It will most likely be either smaller with France and Italy, perhaps Spain too, out, or more loosely joined, with a soft outer ring but a hard German core, including smaller mainly northern states willing to use German euros and thus be governed by German economic sovereignty. And then it gets really interesting. France and Italy will be headed for a significant industrial revival producing cars, fridges and even ships at lower cost than the Germans, which will restore their self esteem and standard of living. The euro will rise because it is no longer dragged back by the two weaker economies, and German competitiveness will be eroded. German growth will slow. German power will be curbed, but by the opposite strategy to the one designed for the purpose.

As for the UK? Already there is a serious question mark over the integrity of a referendum which offered a smooth and cost free Brexit, which we discover to be impossible. There is now the prospect of negotiations to establish a future relationship with an entity no longer there. All the more reason to look, not for the first time, to the New World, rather than the Old.

Yes.  In spite of what the opinions polls say (they do not have the methodology to deal with counter-intuitive cross party political trends) if there were a general election now, May would probably lose. This is not going to happen because, under the 2011 Act which provides for fixed term parliaments, there would have to be a two thirds majority in favour of dissolution; it is no longer in the hands of the prime minister. If May were somehow defeated on a vote of confidence, (some imbroglio over the Supreme Court?) the Queen would have to send for Corbyn and only when he was defeated, which might be easy, could parliament be dissolved. So when you hear commentators talk about a ‘snap election’ they are talking about something from the past. It is not possible now.

However if it were possible or somehow happened, a May loss would not mean a Corbyn win. It could mean a hung parliament with the Lib Dems back to about fifty seats, possibly up to a hundred, and UKIP with about a dozen. There would be no party with a majority, nor one able to form a majority on an agreed programme for government. But there would be two cross party majorities. The first would be either for a very soft Brexit or even to call the whole thing off. The second would be for an end to austerity. That rules the Tories out from even making the tea in any coalition even with UKIP support, so it would be likely to compose Labour, Lib Dems and Scot Nats.

The thinking behind this analysis goes like this. There have been two by-elections since Brexit (not including the constituency of the murdered Jo Cox). The Lib Dems came from the nadir of their 2015 massacre, to a close second in the first and they won the second. And the centre-piece of their political platform is that they are against Brexit and would try to reverse it. They would vote against Article 50 and demand a referendum on the final terms.  Leave won the referendum because Leavers had passion. Well now the passion is with Remain.

There is driving this revival of Remain energy a new factor, which never came up in the referendum. Everybody knows what the terms for remaining in the EU are, and being there is part of our lives and in many cases our jobs and our savings. But nobody is even vaguely able to articulate what Brexit means, the effect it will have, what the legal implications are and what the outcome will be. There is no agreement on what opportunities it actually brings, or what costs it entails.

It appears there will have to be compromise on either immigration or contributions or both, to stay in the single market. One part of Brexit cannot live with the first of those and the other part cannot live with the second.  There is no majority in parliament or in the country for hard Brexit. About a third of voters and the same proportion of Tory party would go for hard, but the remaining two thirds would not, whether it is a general election or another referendum. So the way forward is far from clear. Depending on the deal on offer it might even be blocked.

It is all made worse by chaos in the Cabinet, leaks to the media, asides from ministers conveying opposite Brexit positions and the emergence of a bossy side of May which is beginning to irritate. The complete failure of Hammond to seize the economic initiative and offer real prospects  for economic revival will prove a long term political disaster. The mounting financial crisis in public services, damaging the prisons, social care, mental health, the NHS, Child Protection and the railways (why does the government not end that Southern franchise and rescue the commuters whose lives are being made a misery?), is approaching a point that must surely lead public patience to snap. Perhaps the lesson of Richmond Park is that already has.

Next week all eyes will be on the Supreme Court.