Political, Constiutional and democratic crisis

The UK is in crisis there I have said it.

Everyone knows it but most people are not talking about it. It’s not a crisis you will see when you walk down the street. You’ll not notice it if you don’t turn on the TV or radio or read newspaper. Most people are happily going with their lives – living, laughing and loving and that is a good thing.

It’s a crisis of politics and democracy and it appears to be getting worse.

Nearly three years ago 52% of the voting population voted to leave the European Union (EU). The decision wasn’t taken lightly and was not based on some false prospectus. You will hear people obsessively talking about ‘that’ bus or even Boris Johnson, but most people never saw or even heard from Johnson.

The leave campaign has been accused of everything under the sun from Russian involvement through to illegal data use though to date no evidence has stuck. It has been found guilty of spending violations this is true, but the total volume was small, and questions and cases are still outstanding. Similar concerns about the remain campaign have stayed safely uninvestigated.

   

What we do know is that Remain spent £19,309,588 versus Leave’s £13,332,569 so approximately 1/3 more. Further to this in contravention to established norms the government sent a leaflet to each home in the nation explaining why they were recommending a Remain vote. So, any idea that a marginal overspend by Leave swung the election is both ridiculous and without merit.

What it does prove is that a lot of people wanted change and Remain had nothing to offer.

These are the facts. 

Since the surprise win by Leave in the referendum we have had 3 years of deepening crisis brought about by the institutions which underpin our democracy failing in their duties. We have all observed the slow deterioration which is now accelerating. Each one has failed in different way to live up to their obligations.

So let’s look at them.

The Executive

The government is now widely accepted to be a shambolic. Certainly, in my lifetime of 38 years I can’t think of one which is worse. This makes the Major years seem a paragon of good governance.

The actual primary fault with the negotiations that landed us with May’s horrific deal is that she and Hammond clearly don't agree with Brexit. This has become more and more obvious from various media appearances and comments. 

These are people who came up with the slogan 'Brexit mean Brexit' a kind of circular argument which meant absolutely nothing to anyone, nor could it offend anyone. I mean a testament of spin over substance which has been a common issue with UK politics since the New Labour years. 

One must only watch or listen to Teresa Mays painful interview with Iain Dale on LBC to see how bereft from belief in the idea of Brexit she is. She couldn't even bring herself to state she would vote leave if asked again (Link). 

I mean at some level kudos for the honestly but from another what the hell are you doing in the job if you don't believe in it and can't annunciate a vision for the future. You are supposed to be the leader of the country at a time of massive national change - hardly Churchillian. 

This lack of belief was reflected in the deal which would have retained pretty much all the economic status quo via a customs union and on-going regulatory alignment which given time I am sure would have been used to try and bounce the UK back into the EU.

Hence why the Northern Irish (NI) backstop was signed which was obvious to everyone would skew the later negotiations.

‘We have no choice’ would have and has become the refrain.

This hope to change as little as possible meant that rather than taking a logical view of any negotiations which was to plan for a WTO outcome whilst hoping to achieve better meant that Hammond has refused to release no deal budget in a timely fashion to departments.

To date the public doesn’t know where we are with preparations and therefore are not able to make educated decisions. I am confident this is a deliberate effort as if we did then the demands for no deal would be louder. Certainly, several ministers whom have resigned have repeated claims that No deal preparations are much more advanced that the public are being told.

Beyond that collective cabinet responsibility has utterly broken down with ministers especially remain supporting ones now freelancing government policy in an effort to bounce both government and parliament into decisions.

The actual cabinet if the media is believed lost confidence in May months ago and yet no one seems to have the courage to do their duty and tell her to go.

House of Commons (HoC)

It is worth noting that 75% of HoC campaigned for remain and that 80% of the MP’s are from the Labour and the Conservative parties - all of whom got elected on clear manifestos stating that they supported the UK leaving the EU.

This is not even 2 years ago.

Since then many of them could not wait to start trying to unpick or just ignore that pledge and undo Brexit. Their efforts can be seen in the press, foreign trips and even voting patterns in the Commons. You only have to look over the last few weeks how many have voted for 2^nd referendums, revocation, extensions etc – the list goes on in effort to do anything except actually leave.

Look at the MP’s whom have pushed through various wrecking bills along the way Grieve, Letwin, Cooper – all from Labour or the Conservatives and all attempting to derail Brexit. These aren’t MP’s who want to deliver Brexit but stop it in its tracks – Grieve has even admitted it on TV – and all elected on manifestos which clearly stated they supported leaving.

False advertising anyone?

  

Watching MP’s in the media making claims about customs unions and frictionless trade has demonstrated their deceitfulness or sheer laziness. For the most part I think many of them don’t understand the difference between regulatory alignment or customs unions or what that means at the border. Pitiful if true that after three years MP’s haven’t bothered to educate themselves on these basic facts and demonstrates professional incompetence of the first order. 

  

Apparently between indicative votes one and two after they had already voted on a custom union MP’s had trade experts come into explain what they were (Link). They actually voted on an option that they clearly didn’t understand. You literally could not make this stuff up.

Look at Ken Clarke on Politics Live getting taken to pieces by Andrew Neil over a custom union. He clearly didn’t understand what the difference between ‘the’ or ‘a’ customs union was. Being charitable to Clarke he at least let the cat out of the bag when he mentioned that the UK would still be one of the big three in the EU – thanks Ken at least you told us what the plan was (Link).

This laziness or duplicity is on display when you hear the regular complaint from MP’s about it being a blind Brexit – whatever the hell is that?

In three years have none of the MP’s even bothered to read Article 50 or even understand EU law. Article 50 is blind by design – it’s a walk off the plank. So EU law doesn’t allow for the negotiation of any deal before exit.

Stupid! 

Agreed but that is the nature of the beast.

So, to sit there and complain about it whilst demanding the government presents a final deal demonstrates absolute ignorance or a level of mendacity that would make a banker red faced.

At a more personal level one of the most damning aspects of the current crop of MP’s is their absolute failure to hold the Speaker to account before for his failures in the chamber (more later) but actually more importantly over bullying claims made against him by multiple members of staff (Link).

It is an indictment of a political class whom have tossed aside any sense of right and wrong that they would allow him to continue after such claims because it is politically convenient.

People’s lives have been ruined – shame on them.

House of Lords (HoL)

The House of Lords from the beginning made its view very clear. You can watch videos on YouTube of Lord after Lord standing up and stating that what they were trying to do was stop Brexit.

The supposedly independent and normally apolitical chamber decided that it was not content for elected MP’s to have a say but that they should also even though they are unelected and without democratic mandate.

Apparently, this means more than 17.4 million voters in the country.

You can begin to see the outcome of some of these in the mess we have now. The meaningful vote that has currently locked up parliament was an amendment passed by the Lords as part of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) bill because they wanted to stop Brexit. Well they have so I would imagine many are laughing into their pillows.

But there are plenty other examples from the fight over the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. I have listed a few of their pet projects here:

• Amendment 1: A proposal requiring ministers to report on the Government's efforts to negotiate a continued customs union between the EU and the UK was passed by 348 to 225 – a majority of 123
• Amendment 15: One of the few pieces of EU Law the bill proposed to repeal, rather than transpose into UK Law, was the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, but an amendment to keep the Charter part of UK Law after Exit was passed by 316 to 245, majority 71
• Amendment 49: A proposal that means parliament must approve the withdrawal agreement and transitional measures in an act of parliament, before the European parliament has debated and voted on this, and also gives the Commons the power to decide the next steps for the government if the deal is rejected (dubbed the 'meaningful vote') was passed by 335 to 244 – a majority of 91
• Amendment 51: A proposed change giving parliament a say on future negotiations on the UK's future relationship with the EU was passed by 270 to 233 – a majority of 37
• Amendment 88: The Lords voted in favour of inserting a new clause regarding the continuation of North-South co-operation and the prevention of new border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, 309 votes to 242 – a majority of 67
• Amendment 93: A proposal to allow the Government to replicate any EU law in domestic law and to continue to participate in EU agencies (such as European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom)) after Brexit was passed by 298 to 227 – a majority of 71
• Amendment 95: A proposal to remove the exit day of 29 March 2019 from the face of the Bill was passed by 311 to 233 – a majority of 78
• Amendment 110A: A proposal to mandate the Government to negotiate continued membership of the European Economic Area was passed by 245 to 218 – a majority of 27

(Source)

This is a small snapshot of what they have been up since Brexit started. I mean I thought the Lords were there to refine legislation and not attempt to write government policy – but what do I know.

More recently the trade bill which passed only last month had once again – you guessed it a custom union attached! (Link)

The House of Lords has acted from the beginning as a remain redoubt backing up those in the House of Commons who want to stop Brexit. You see this process in action with the Cooper-Letwin amendment which passed by 1 vote in the HoC last week. It is now being pushed through the HoL with the timely support of the vast majority and at a speed that would embarrass North Korea.

To be sure there are leave supporting members and as seen in the last few days they do their best to also make a difference in favor of Brexit but they are outnumbered by a chamber which is probably 80% remain (Link).

Parties

Both major parties are failing.

They are now so riven by anger, hatred and mistrust towards each other let alone the other parties they can barely function. The Conservative party is the most obvious as for the last three years since the referendum it has had the pressures of governing with a split party. What is becoming more obvious as time goes by is that the Labour is also as split if not more.

You have seen MP’s from both sides freelancing from their manifestos or in the case of ‘The Independent Group’ just leaving and setting up a new one which is completely counter to what they were elected on.

Just look at what has happened since the indicative votes and meaningful vote 3.

You have had Tories and Labour MP’s voting for custom unions, freedom of movement, revoking Article 50, staying in the single market etc. All of which goes against one, other or both of their manifestos. The actual parties are doing nothing even if MP's vote against a whip as they are more concerned about splitting the parties even further.  

The latest wheeze by May to create some of sort of unity government / voting block– is covering off everything from a second referendum to a customs union to staying in the single market in all but name – and that is the party leadership.

Manifestos are no longer a way to hold a party to account but are simply a piece of paper that is produced at election time which can then be safely ignored. There is zero accountability between what they promise and what they are going to deliver.

A key plank of democratic accountability to the wider electorate has gone up in smoke.

At a deeper level the parties are now cutting the connection between local constituency parties and their MP’s by overriding deselection efforts. The idea that as a member of a political party you might hold your candidate to account and if they fail get rid of them is less and less possible.

About the only thing that unites all MP’s is a hatred of those who try and deselect them. Twitter lit up with MP’s complaining about efforts to remove Grieve.

Never a word on why people might be angry.

Speaker of the House of Commons

The Speaker over the last three years has slowly traded any pretense of impartiality towards the government and country’s flagship policy.

This started out with him deciding to put a ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ sticker in his car and has progressed to constitutional vandalism of the first order.

His efforts really kicked up a notch when he met with Dominic Grieve ‘secretly’ in his private chambers and then shortly after selected the Grieve amendment against his own clerks’ advice. This decision was apparently so off piste that they asked for a written order. When asked to publish the advice of the clerks the Speaker of course refused – no conspiracy there.

Of course, remain MP’s cheered him on whilst many in the country sat in confusion that the Speaker was apparently just making rules up on the hoof.

He later effectively conceded that he had gone against precedent by saying that precedent should sometimes be ignored, since otherwise “manifestly nothing .. would ever change”. When pointed out that due to the way the UK constitution works it meant the Speaker could do what they wanted in future Bercow looked rather sick and then tried to find some excuses.

Shortly after this Bercow decided to block Meaningful vote 3 on May’s ghastly deal since it had been presented previously – remember that you will like this.

Moving forward from there Bercow then deliberately informed the HoC how it could take control of parliamentary time from the government which led to the Letwin amendment which led to Prime Minister Letwin’s moment in the sun which was the indicative votes.

Indicative Votes (1) results

·       No Deal - AYES: 160 NOES: 400

·       Common Market 2.0 - AYES: 188   NOES: 283

·       EFTA/EEA - AYES: 65   NOES: 377

·       Customs Union - AYES: 264   NOES: 272

·       Labour Plan - AYES: 237   NOES: 307

·       Revoke Article 50 to prevent No Deal - AYES: 184   NOES: 293

·       Second Referendum - AYES: 268   NOES: 295

·       Contingent Preferential Arrangements - AYES: 139   NOES: 422

Indicative votes (2) results

·       Customs union - AYES: 273   NOES: 276

·       “Common market 2.0” - AYES: 261   NOES: 282

·       Second Referendum - AYES: 280   NOES: 292

·       Parliamentary supremacy - AYES: 191   NOES: 292

In the first vote parliament rejected all of the options and therefore based on Speakers own position none should have been brought back again. But that didn't stop him and by the second round he was just picking stuff that he knew would impact Brexit. The customs union and 2^nd referendum had been rejected – in fact the 2^nd referendum has been rejected four times in two weeks but then the Speaker really doesn’t really care about his or anyone else's rules, he just wants to stop Brexit.  

To say that Speaker impartiality is dead would be an understatement. I can’t find anyone except headbangers who think he is acting with any probity towards his constitutional role.

Media

The medias performance before and since the referendum have been a painful experience to watch as they have descended into Brexit derangement syndrome. Their vain efforts to act impartially have slowly descended into a biased mess.

It started out reasonably well with the referendum. Claims were questioned though perhaps not at the level I would have liked. Efforts to remain above the fray and report factually were for the most part successful.

Then the result came in and the media started failing very quickly.

The media jumped at any chance to question the veracity of the vote and also impugn the motivates of leave voters. They, politicians and academia went to town with the referendum tropes we are all know and love.

• The referendum was close
• People really didn’t understand what they were voting for
• Leave supporters were driven by racism or xenophobia

I have covered off the first two in a separate blog.

The idea that leave voters were nasty racists is both wrong and a pitiful effort to tar 52% of the voting population because the liberal class inc politicians didn’t agree with them. It’s a form of sociological othering with the clear effort to make leave voters seem like less.

The fact that these points were not questioned by the media but in many cases boosted is a disgrace and should shame the profession.  

Moving beyond that the media has seemed to run on a near daily occurrence horror stories of what would happen in a no deal Brexit. Stories to terrify the population into changing their minds were printed and broadcast with such regularity there was almost an Orwellian joy to it. I have listed some of the finer examples just below.

• Asteroids strikes (Link)
• Cheese shortages (Link)
• Toilet roll shortages (Link)
• Britain to become a safe haven for pedophiles (Link)
• Planes grounded (Link)
• No medicine (Link)
• Marmite shortages (Link)
• Sperm shortages (Link)
• Fish and chip shortages (Link)

All printed and broadcast with minimum or no critical analysis and doing nothing but trying to scare people even more. It was like anyone could make something up and send it to the media and say ‘Look print this it’s a horror story about Brexit’.

Tony Benn once wrote:

“I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.”

It appears that the media decided to become a mouth piece of the establishment and status quo and try and do both. 

Fortunately the opposite appears to have has happened, and more and more people don’t believe the ever more ridiculous stories - good.

The economic reports have been even more surreal and had even less analysis. GDP predictions have been reported with absolute abandon. Literally any one has been able to generate an economic report and if it was negative the media would pick it up and run it. None of them seem to read the reports or question the assumptions like how they expected to predict GDP growth accurately 15 years into the future. 

To give some understanding of how useless economic forecasts are barely 5 months ago Germany predicted GDP growth of 1.8% for 2019 but barely 3 months into the year they have been slashed that to just 1% and in my view will come in even lower (Link).

I mean to accurately predict global GDP 15 years into the future from 1998 you would have needed to predict all of these and plenty of others:

1. Dot com bubble
2. 911
3. Iraq war
4. Oil price spike
5. Great recession
6. Banking crisis
7. Eurozone crisis
8. China’s debt bubble

Let me check through the internet for which Nostradamus managed it – no one.

But sure 15 years.

The actual figures were also badly explained GDP to be X lower. My god the economy will contract but then you realise that it actually means the economy will be X smaller after growth than if Brexit had not happened.

Big difference but never explained.

Absolutely shocking behavior and demonstrating political bias but more than a broken business model requiring ever more click bait headlines.  

Bank of England

The BOE shamefully under Mark Carney has become another causality in our list of failed institutions. Carney appointed as a rock star by George Osborne is the beating heart of the establishment after spending 13 years at Goldman Sachs before going off to work in the Canadian government and finally central bank.

I mean clearly a man who wants to see the status quo change.

His efforts as Governor of the Bank of Canada were stellar. He helped blow the largest credit bubble in the nation’s history pushing house prices up to the stratosphere. Leaving there he then hoped across the pond to the UK where he proceeded to do the same.

Kudos – at least no one can be surprised.

He appears to have got confused though between a central banker and politician. At what one assumes have been the Treasury's request the BOE has jumped in with various dire warnings to scare MP’s and public alike into submission during Brexit.

In 2016 he conveniently demonstrated his politicisaton when he decided to release his recession riven forecasts the day after Osborne had gone full Armageddon for the population’s consumption. His and the Treasury's forecasts for Brexit were predictably useless (Remember 15 years) as the UK sailed though with barely a murmur.

By 2017 he had eaten humble pie and admitted that he was completely and utterly wrong but didn’t ever really apologise (Link). 

Why would he these people never do.

In late 2018 as May’s Brexit deal was finalised Carney decided that he had to re-warn everyone of the threat of no deal Brexit (Link). I am not a cynic and so I am quite certain that he was not asked to do this by Hammond in the Treasury.

To say that his forecasts were a farce is to be kind.

The BOE decided to go full end of the world on the population with a depression bigger than 2008, house price collapses, sterling collapses, surging interest rates etc etc. I mean no one could quite explain why any of this would happen or why the government or the Bank of England wouldn’t do anything to stop it – but my God the media lapped it up.

It got so bad that even remain supporting economists like Andrew Sentence formally a rate setter at the BOE and Paul Krugamn whom received his Nobel prize in economics on trade roundly rubbished the forecasts (Link). The rest of the economic internet just ended up laughing in all honesty.

Then just recently as the country again debated what to do up popped up Carney (Link) to warn that we might leave without a deal. Thanks for the hint I think that is what parliament was debating but he had to have his time in the sun.

Conclusion

So where does this leave us – in deep shit.

We are in a position where the link between elector and elected is breaking down. Manifestos no longer provide a thread to hold MP’s or parties to account as they no longer pay them any attention. The actual political class has turned inward and when the public attempts to hold any of them accountable via deselection efforts they form a shield wall against popular anger.

In my view you are beginning to see this same response in the Brexit negotiations. Both parties trying to agree a deal which doesn’t deliver Brexit but as it is both parties doing it the electorate due to our first-past-the-post voting system will have limited places to go.

A cross party shield war against any Brexit fallout.

This will likely work in the short term as they continue to win elections but longer term it will be catastrophic for our democracy. The only two outcomes that are likely from this are massive voter disengagement or even more voters moving to the extremes to get politicians to listen to them. The UK had already experienced this with UKIP pre referendum and this could accelerate – a complete atomisation of the political centre.

This process is happening because politicians and the established elite have set themselves against the referendum. They have over the three years decided that they will use all our institutions to simply try and stop Brexit. The rage they are responding to is simply a response to their actions.

These efforts have taken a lump hammer to our constitution which works on precedent and established order. What should scare people the most is that this behavior has been accepted by a largely complicit media which has never challenged whether it is democratically legitimate. It has horrible echoes of the recent and historical past.

George Orwell wrote:

 “Intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history, etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side.”

He was as normal eerily prescient in his writing.

With the increase in use of the judicial system in an effort to win political points you have all the signs that the UK is taking a turn towards US levels of democratic polarisation.

We can certainly say is that it doesn’t bode well for the long term stability of the system. Why would anyone have trust in our democracy where nearly every institution has shown itself to be failing or debatebadly. No wonder so many trust in politics and politicians is collapsing right now.

People are not stupid, and they are not blind – they see what has been done, how the system has been abused and the contempt the establishment has for them and they feel disgusted and betrayed.

Quote from Twitter 

“It's a sham and I don't accept their authority anymore. They are making up the rules to suit themselves.”

So what comes next?

I don’t know and anyone who thinks they do is lying. I don’t think that our constitutional settlement or voting system will hold much longer but beyond that I don’t think whatever happens things will go back to where they were as people have seen too much. 

People have been educated and repulsed by what they have seen - good time to wake.