Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The government had a late night and will be breathing a bleary eyed sigh of relief today after it managed to drive the second reading of its withdrawal bill through the Commons. It may prove a false dawn because many of its own backbenchers  are determined to curb the executive powers built in to this badly drafted piece of legislation and will do so during the committee stages, supported by all the opposition parties.

But while all eyes are on the Brexit drama many other problems are building up, among them the collapse of the consensus which has held together the 1% pay cap on public sector incomes. Today it was announced that the police and prison officers are to receive marginally better treatment. That is good news but with a further rise in the rate of inflation also announced today, it is going to become politically impossible to continue with a ridiculous policy for so long.

Like austerity, pay curbs and freezes are all well and good for short periods of crisis, but they cannot become the norm. They hit hardest those least able to bear the burden, yet upon whom society utterly depends. We could manage without footballers if we had to, but not without nurses, teachers and other critical public servants. Moreover if their incomes continuously lose purchasing power, the economy suffers and productivity falls.

Time for a re-think at the Treasury. Thinking has never been that institution’s strongest point. But it is never too late to change.

The government has issued a warning to MPs not to vote against the Repeal Bill, because that would lead to a chaotic Brexit and people did not vote for that. This is a ridiculous argument.

First of all people did not vote for anything like the reality of what Brexit is and means. They voted for leaving a club they were tired of because it was the source of unwanted immigration and if we left there would be loads of money to spend on the NHS. People would actually be better off and a new dawn of some mythical global Britain would lead to golden times. Many of the leading pedlars of this drivel are now ministers in a cabinet split on almost everything but its own survival at any price.

That price does not and must not include handing executive power to the government to amend, jettison or revise what will become current law after Brexit, without proper parliamentary scrutiny.   That is all. It would not have been difficult to draft this Bill to provide for parliamentary oversight and it was an error of judgement, one of many, not to do so. Opposition parties are right to oppose it. If it scrapes through on the back of the DUP’s votes bought at great cost and without scruple, it must be subject to the most vigorous programme of amendment as it struggles forward to the Statute Book.

The historical links of the Caribbean result in several  nations having ties with the islands, providing a ready source of aid in the current devastation caused by Irma. France and Holland assembled assets and personnel on the islands falling within their jurisdiction in advance of the storm, knowing full well the severity of the forecast.

But not the British. Oh dear me no. The government was far too busy arguing internally about Brexit to worry about external threats to British dependencies from hurricanes. So we were on familiar ground when a clip of a flustered May appeared on the news telling us that the government had acted swiftly to respond to the devastation when everybody knows this is plainly not the case. Moreover the tardy performance of HMG compares very badly to the timely action of the French and the Dutch.

We have been here before in the dreadful aftermath of Grenfell Tower. It underscores a fundamental lack of judgement and a chronic incompetence which infests May’s administration. The only thing we can be sure of is that there will be more of it. The excuse circulating that it is necessary to wait until the islands are flattened in order to assess what is needed is plainly ridiculous. The answer, as the authorities very well know and prepare for, is everything. It is the people giving the orders at the top who need shaming.

The government has a lot more challenges to contend with than who actually leads it. The Brexit negotiations are clearly not going well. There was a fundamental misunderstanding in the Leave camp about the way Europeans think and act and what their response would be. So when the EU negotiators step forward with an agreed strategy built into an agenda set down by the EU Council, supported by nine detailed and specific position papers, the Brexit Ministry, the Overseas Trade department and the Foreign Office were completely unprepared, not least because the government itself has no agreement within it about the objectives, beyond the mantra of carrying out the will of the people. But the will to do what?

The answer is obviously to leave the EU. But you cannot leave something which is part of you any more than you can leave your right leg. Britain has been part of the structure and its laws have been part of the legal code of the EU since its formation as the successor to the Common Market. So the process to be followed is to disentangle yourself from yourself. This is proving much more complicated than expected. Every time this hapless government steps forward with a plan there are howls of derision not just from the EU, or from Remain forces in Westminster, but also from almost every trade, academic, medical, scientific, industrial educational, professional and worker focused institution or pressure group.

Because this project will in the short, medium and perhaps even the long term, seriously damage the economic and social interests of our country at almost every level and at every turn. Like a gathering storm the currents of discontent, anger and impatience are beginning to stir. Mostly at the moment they are at the level of options. but soon they will rise up as hard consequences and brutal facts.  Then a new political verity will prevail. Brexit will be toxic and whichever political combination owns it will be doomed. The smart move for the Tories would be to ditch the troublesome DUP, face a vote of No Confidence and go down fighting. They would have lost the battle but could survive to win  the war. If they carry on clinging to office with the DUP, they look set to lose both.

Everyone knows what America thinks, even if the emphasis sometimes varies somewhat between Pentagon and White House. But China’s view is less well understood and it is China which  holds the key to the North Korea nuclear crisis. In fact China is as fed up as everybody else with its neighbour, but has a lot less influence over Pyongyang that we think on this issue. Put simply Kim Jon Un will allow nothing to halt his determination to secure his state from hostile action to effect regime change by the United States and its allies. So even if China were to halt all trade with North Korea, although the NK people might starve, the leadership would not and the military position would remain unchanged.

China does not want fighting on the Korean peninsular. It does not want a war which would leave South Korea victorious and ruling over a united Korea in the style of unified Germany. It does not want North Korea to collapse into a failed state Middle Eastern style, leading to a diaspora of refugees pouring across its borders. It wants to reduce the military involvement of the United States in the region, not increase it.

But Beijing certainly does not want a nuclear armed neighbour without any structural political system underpinning its government, which could be relied upon to restrain the current mercurial leader or any future hothead. China’s aim is peace between North and South and a demilitarized Korean peninsular. Few anywhere, even in America, can disagree with such an ambition. China needs to redouble its efforts to this end in a way that convinces Pyongyang of its determination to enable a fair settlement. America, while keeping up the military pressure to convince Kim Jon Un he cannot win any more than he already has and is now at the limit of his reach, must give China the chance to do that.

President Putin has said, correctly, that the NK’s would rather eat grass than give up their nuclear weapons. So trade sanctions of whatever sort are futile.  The latest threat to halt trade between the US and any country which trades with China is ill conceived and impossible to implement without major damage to US economic interests.

Most NK trade is with China, so to have any semblance of a threat that is not laughable to Pyongyang, the US embargo would have to apply to China. That would be a near disaster to the American airplane industry, American farmers, the info tech industries and more. It would be ignored by the UK, Germany, France and Russia, as well as dozens of other countries, who have trading ties with China. So it is a pointless proposal which will achieve no more than all its predecessor sanctions.

The plain fact is nothing and nobody will stop the North Koreans in their project to obtain nuclear military power, other than their destruction or through negotiations which somehow give them the security they want. Remember in order to get Khrushchev to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba, Kennedy had to pull US missiles out of Turkey. But he judged it a better option than oblivion.

The situation with North Korea has, over many decades, been allowed to get out of control. It is not the fault of the current generation of politicians but it is their call now. There are two options only. Talk or fight. We know what Kennedy chose. That is why we are still here.

North Korea is a mystery to most of the world. Controlled by one family via inheritance and through totalitarian methods, its internal politics is in the iron grip of whoever is the hereditary leader, who hold the powers of life and death over those he rules. The country is in a permanent state of war with South Korea, but this has been suspended by an armistice for 60 years. It is obsessed with not only having nuclear weapons, but by having the capacity to land them via missiles on the mainland of the United States. Only then will it feel safe from attack for the purposes of regime change. The problem is the rest of the world will not. In particular America.

The North Korean leadership has played its paucity of cards with a  frightening skill, outwitting several US administrations, to the point where its technical advances have confounded so called experts and brought it to the brink of achieving its nuclear and ballistic ambitions. It has also brought itself to the brink of war with the United States, and with it the consequent destruction not just of its own country but much of South Korea too. Japan may not escape collateral damage and the whole region would suffer an economic meltdown in the immediate aftermath. This would spill into the global economic system.

Clearly there must be a better way. Sanctions have no effect, although they are constantly in play, like the next drink being the route to abstinence in the befuddled mind of the chronic alcoholic. Sooner or later, through miscalculation or loss of patience war is now certain. Unless.

Unless the United States manages to convince North Korea that the next time it fires a rocket or tests a nuclear bomb it will be attacked and wiped out. If that message sinks home, as in Kennedy at Cuba, talks can deliver an outcome which works for both sides. But so long as the US allows itself to be pushed just a little further down the road of talk and no action, while Kim Jon Un follows one provocation upon another, the road to calamity remains open. The lesson of the Cold War was that in order to prevent it you have to be ready and willing to fight. At a moment’s notice. Loaded and locked was a statement then of fact, not as now, a rhetorical flourish.

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If it does not fall in line behind May, the answer is yes. The government may fall anyway because the scale of the problems building up in front of it is epic. It is disunited over both the way forward for Brexit and the economy. The Tory party behind it is split on principle on the fundamental issue of Brexit and what it means. The public services are crumbling. The economy is slowing while other parts of the world are growing.Wage growth is negative. And thus far ministers are making a horlicks of the Brexit negotiations, which seem to be going round in circles. There is the Great Repeal Bill by another name now coming before the Commons and a majority for the official proposals is in doubt. No government since Jim Callaghan has appeared so bogged down.

So to imagine that a challenge to May leading to a contest among members of the Tory party, while government grinds to a halt, can or will be allowed to happen is plain ridiculous. The plotters need to face the political facts.

Either May stays or they all go.

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