No Outsiders: on living together

I guess I can understand why some observers of the row over No Outsiders classes in Parkfield Community School, and now four others in Birmingham, might tell metroliberal gay men in London to calm down about it a bit. Mine is one of the luckiest gay generations in British history. I have the good fortune to live in one of the most socially liberal cities, and indeed countries, in the world. There are few better places to be out and gay. And today the House of Commons has voted by a landslide to approve guidance for compulsory, LGBT-inclusive Relationships and Sex Education in England.

Growing pains, growing gains

Of course, in relative terms Britain’s been one of the best places to be gay for a long time. But in absolute terms, it still amazes me how far and how fast things have come. I’m (just) young enough to have gained from most of the final legal barriers, and a vast array of social barriers, collapsing at the very beginning of what I thought (and my parents were kind enough to, mostly, tell me) was my adult life.

I left school in 2004, one year after Section 28 was repealed. To me, gay people didn’t seem to officially exist. Students definitely knew we existed, of course: many described us in glorious Anglo-Saxon technicolour. I do remember one time when a boy in my class was being taunted as a ‘queer’ and a teacher called it out on those grounds. (Mrs Beattie: thank you.) We once had a whole day dedicated to sex and relationships education (don’t ask me why we went that far). I don’t think anyone in authority used the words ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ once that day.

I want to emphasise I didn’t have that hard a time. In fact, I imagine my experience was better than that of many gay people my age — let alone the generations before. Sure, I got called ‘queer’ or ‘batty boy’ a few times. But I think that had more to do with being a bit too studious (and a bit too ‘not from here’ at first: I’d come back from six years in American schools) than any actual suspicion. I didn’t come out, but then in my generation people generally didn’t until they got to university.

Still, while it’s hard to distinguish the personal from the general, the shift in attitudes from around 2003 to 2006 seemed revolutionary to me. Civil partnerships felt like the state was saying society was basically on our side. As a second-year student, I remember walking through town holding hands with my then boyfriend. I glanced across the square and saw an elderly couple looking askance at us. I remembered it was 2006. I deliberately made eye contact; I held it. They looked away; I didn’t. I think things might well have gone differently five years earlier. By 2013, equal marriage felt like confirming something which had basically already happened.

Would a class acknowledging that gay and bi people existed have made a difference to me? Would I have cared had schools made a point of saying they were normal and welcomed? I’m pretty sure I would. When I was a teenager, I was stubborn enough to be in the minority and argue for gay rights. I wasn’t stubborn enough to say it was personal. I’d like it to be different for kids in future.

Spring forward, fall back?

I’m going on at length because I want to explain this is visceral for a lot of gay people. Our gains feel miraculous and fragile in equal measure. Even to people like me, who really didn’t have it that hard. Our legal and (growing) social equality are too recently won to take for granted. So I can’t see hundreds of people outside schools with placards bearing slogans like ‘say no to promoting of homosexuality and LGBT ways of life to our children’ without a shiver running down my spine.

To recap: parents have been protesting outside Birmingham schools over the No Outsiders programme. As the name suggests, it’s about promoting acceptance and inclusion of people whatever their background — including race, religion, disability and sexuality. The programme is age-appropriate — saying some children have two mums or two dads is hardly an anatomy lesson.

Nonetheless, hundreds of parents withdrew children from obligatory lessons. Protests with truly awful slogans and chants — things I hoped we were working to remove from playgrounds, let alone school gates — have sprung up. At the time of writing, five schools have suspended No Outsiders pending ‘open dialogue’. Some protestors also seem to have demanded that a head teacher resign. The parents are overwhelmingly Muslim, and they have made a point of saying object as Muslims. We should, though, note that hardline orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians have also appeared in support of the protests.

I was appalled, and a bit frightened, to watch Shabana Mahmood, a Labour MP, claim that people have legitimate and reasonable concerns that a programme which covers gay people’s mere existence is ‘age-inappropriate’. Acknowledging that we exist is no more age-inappropriate than same-sex couples picking up their children from school. It is fair and important to say that Ms Mahmood also condemned the homophobic protests. It is also disingenuous to claim the objections really stemmed from process.

We need to be frank about what the objections actually boil down to. Fatima Shah, one of the most publicly vocal parents at Parkfield School, says ‘children are being told it’s okay to be gay, yet 98 per cent of children at this school are Muslim.’ That is a homophobic objection. Elsewhere, she expressed her concerns that children would be taken out of school altogether. I share her concern, but it’s not some act of God. It’s an act of parents.

I don’t object to an open dialogue with parents. But I do want to know the principle of gay and bi equality won’t get thrown under a bus. If in the end it turns out a few hundred people with homophobic placards can force a latter-day Section 28 through, how secure should I, or any other gay or bi person, feel? Section 28 wasn’t so long ago. It existed for over half my life.

I’m pretty much at the bottom of the list of LGBT people affected, of course. What about gay parents at any of these schools? And how should LGBT Muslims feel if the liberal state won’t support them when it comes to education? The children whose parents oppose No Outsiders most are probably the ones who need it most. LGBT Muslims are often among the people most strongly opposed to conceding the point now. They also rightly point out that Muslim communities are not monoliths.

For me, this is a test. A clear homophobic demand has been made of the state — almost certainly not for the last time. The correct response to that demand is ‘No, and while we’re happy to talk, the law will be upheld — and if needs be, enforced.’ Will that be the response in the end? Is the equal worth of gay and bi people a core value in the public realm? Or is it up for grabs if people rail against it enough? Does the British state understand the difference between the rights of people and the merits of ideas well enough to face people down when they demand that religious conservatism be allowed to dictate what a school does and doesn’t teach?

Liberalism and pluralism

Today’s vote suggests it does. But the relative silence about recent events (where is the Education Secretary, apart from the odd distinctly wary statement?) might well suggest otherwise. This issue will play out again. If the state fails to stand firm, it will set a baleful precedent — for LGBT people and, in a different way, for all minorities.

At the moment, liberal social attitudes and support for cultural diversity and fairly open immigration tend to go hand in hand. But what happens if people who’ve gained most from social liberalism start to conclude that those two things don’t go hand in hand? What happens if some of them start to fear they’re directly opposed to each other?

This isn’t a pure hypothetical. At the risk of being misconstrued, it’s partly how politicians like Pim Fortuyn happen. British observers mostly know Pim Fortuyn as a populist, anti-immigration politician in the Netherlands who helped trigger an unpleasant shift in Dutch politics, and so he did. But he was also a gay man, loudly supportive of LGBT rights. He labelled immigration a threat to a freewheeling, socially liberal Dutch society. He came second in the Dutch elections of 2002. Dutch politics has never been the same since.

Populist and far right parties are referring to homophobia when attacking Muslims more and more often. Obviously people like Marine Le Pen (no friend of gay rights) are exploiting the issue. Obviously they want to demonise people who are, were or just look foreign, not protect gay people. But gay people, and otherwise socially liberal people, can and do vote for the populist and far right. In fact, some evidence suggests people who support LGBT rights but hold nativist views are more likely than nativist-minded people who don’t to vote for them. I’ve focused on LGBT issues here, but you could tell some very similar stories about women’s rights.

I am not arguing for pulling the drawbridge up or for turning against diversity. Quite the opposite — I want to defend all those things. But to defend liberal immigration and a society where people can rub along together, you need to uphold some basic liberal norms. You need to tell gay people the state will stand behind them, and mean it. You need to tell women the state will back them as equals.

You also need to be able to challenge prejudice from wherever it comes. That holds for minority communities who themselves face prejudice too. In this specific case, you need to be able to say that if 52% of British Muslims believe that homosexuality should be illegal, that indicates a problem. And we should never for a second say that can’t change, or erase liberal and gay/bi Muslims from the conversation. We shouldn’t ignore people like Fiyaz Mughal arguing for LGBT-inclusive education. Nor should it ever come at the expense of supporting Muslims facing hatred and violence. The horrifying attacks in Christchurch make the need for that grimly clear.

The same values make LGBT equality non-negotiable and the right to worship in peace sacred, in a secular as well as religious sense. Consistency matters. Liberal values matter. They should serve us all. But to serve anyone, they have to be upheld.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 27 March 2019.

Blame games

Prime Ministers rarely acquire nicknames like ‘the Maybot’ without reason. We’ve mocked Theresa May’s inability to engage on a human level. We’ve despaired at her refusal to engage meaningfully across party lines. We’ve derided the Political Declaration she’s come back with as an incoherent mess. And we’ve condemned her hectoring, lecturing tone.

The Prime Minister’s faults are legion. In fairness, she inherited a deeply divisive task with sky-high stakes and a divided, complicated, multinational state. But for most of her premiership, she spoke only to the hardliners in her own party. She’s presided over perhaps the worst failure of expectation management in postwar British political history. She set red lines she couldn’t defend, retreated without admitting it, harangued people without persuading them and confused truculence with principle.

Wednesday’s statement was in many ways a classic of its genre. The woman who coined ‘will of the people’ and ‘citizens of nowhere’ showed as little ability to reach out as ever. Her pitting the people against Parliament has been greatly exaggerated, but it’s not a framing any Prime Minister should deploy. More than that, she launched a broadside against the people she needed to persuade. It was worse than outrageous: it was stupid. It is no wonder she came as near as she was able (being Theresa May) to apologising the next day.

And yet, I can’t help feeling the outrage misses a fundamental point. Like it or not, Theresa May is right that Members of Parliament have a clear, crucial choice to make. She is also right that they are declining to make it. Their indecision carries a heavy cost. Uncomfortable though it may be to say so, our government’s (extensive) faults are getting too much of the blame and our legislators are getting too little.

It’s not good enough to bemoan an unenviable choice forced upon the legislature: the legislature voted to have it forced upon itself. MPs voted by 498 to 114 to authorise the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50. It was no secret that would start a two-year countdown. They still gave her that power without conditions and without constraint. Of course many of today’s angry MPs voted differently, but literally hundreds of representatives who voted to give the executive carte blanche are now throwing up their hands in horror because the executive took carte blanche.

Since then, MPs have periodically taken the opportunity to block things. They’ve often taken the chance to express their dislike of certain outcomes — pretty much every outcome at some point or another, in fact. But they have so far proven totally incapable of supporting anything themselves. They’ve also failed to take the reins themselves: presented with two opportunities to seize control of the legislative agenda from government, they buckled. Yes, the votes were whipped. If it’s as important as that and the executive is as outrageous as that, then break the Whip.

Why haven’t they? To a large extent, because they don’t really want to be responsible either. The truth is that denialist fantasy is just as prevalent in Westminster as in Whitehall — if not more so. By default, we have 19 days until we leave the European Union with no legal relationship in place. The package deal on the table includes a legally-binding Withdrawal Agreement, a non-binding Political Declaration, an interpretive Instrument relating to the Northern Ireland backstop and a Unilateral Declaration on the UK’s view on when and how it can leave it. The road to any negotiated Brexit — any negotiated Brexit at all — begins with a Withdrawal Agreement. Short of carving it into the French coastline so we can see it from Dover, I’m not sure how the EU could make it clearer they will not renegotiate that Agreement.

That means that MPs who say they want a deal but won’t vote for this one are either rejecting any deal without having the courage to say so or gambling with the cliff to change, essentially, a very solemn press release. The EU have been perfectly clear, furthermore, that the very solemn press release can be built upon and evolve if the UK’s red lines change. They’ve also made it clear that delaying Brexit eats into the transition period, so we’re not gaining any time at the other end of this process by dithering now.

To add insult to injury, the ideas being thrown around by MPs are often either a joke or too difficult to square in a matter of weeks. The ERG’s absurdist fantasies and daydreams of No Deal liberation have been eviscerated elsewhere, and as I never expected any better from the ERG I’ll take them as read here. But the official Labour position dances around every possible issue. It promises a customs union with a meaningful say in EU trade deals, which we know can’t happen much beyond some souped-up consultation. It makes a customs union in the Political Declaration a red line when the backstop in the actual Withdrawal Agreement mandates one in all but name. It calls for a strong relationship with the single market and fails to tell us what that means.

‘Norway Plus’ or ‘Common Market 2.0’ is more carefully considered than many alternative plans. But what is their plan for making sure EFTA members will back UK membership of EFTA together with a derogation from EFTA’s fundamental purpose as a free trade association? Why is a bespoke arrangement laden with special exceptions being promoted as something we could join by the summer? What happens if customs duties are never sorted out via technology? They say the backstop is unlikely to be used, so what’s the plan for free trade in agriculture and fisheries, VAT for goods and excise? They argue for an ultra-soft Brexit by saying we’d be far more robust in using our EEA rights than Norway. That’s inevitable given our size and political culture. I agree the EFTA EEA members seem willing to accept us in the EEA as a constructive member. Are they going to accept us as a pre-pledged cuckoo in the nest?

Meanwhile, far too many People’s Voters are trying to shoot everything else down to try to force their option through and gambling with the cliff just as much as May. Even if they’d win a referendum, which I doubt, they’ve given no thought that I can see to what happens after an inevitably narrow victory. Do they have anything to say about the impact on the EU itself? What about the operation of our politics? Why are some MPs who say No Deal would be a catastrophe hinting at putting it on the ballot? Many of the MPs involved originally said they believed the referendum result should be upheld and told their constituents so in 2017 — so what changed their minds? Why do they blur the lines between the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration when it suits them and shout about a ‘blind Brexit’ when it doesn’t?

At the time of writing, we’re in too advanced a state of governmental and parliamentary chaos to be sure about anything very much. It looks like we will at last get a series of indicative votes, in the hope of finding something Parliament is prepared to support. It looks like we will at last get a series of indicative votes, in the hope of finding something Parliament is prepared to support. But if we’re going to do that, we need an honest debate, and MPs show little sign of having one. It’s not good enough for the ERG to prattle on about a free trade agreement for the UK, not Great Britain, as if the EU’s demand for the backstop can somehow be waved away. It helps nothing but Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral prospects (and possibly not even those) for Labour to carry on pretending that its Brexit plan is radically different from the Tories’. It’s no good for people to argue for soft Brexits on the basis that we can be suitably disruptive if we feel we need to be and expect the EU not to react. It serves no one to sell a refusal to take ‘Leave’ for an answer as a democratic boon.

For me, the reaction of some MPs to Theresa May’s statement by saying they were now less likely to vote for the deal was the final straw. Fine: the Prime Minister is as sensitive as a tank and as consultative as Sir Humphrey Appleby. Perhaps we could focus more on the fact that our country is still on course to crash out of the European Union with no deal in 19 days. The idea that deciding to let that happen in a glorified fit of pique bolsters liberal democracy is an insult to our intelligence. And as a citizen, I have had enough.

MPs should spend more time proving Theresa May wrong and less time moaning about her domestic diplomacy. They can do that by engaging, seriously and urgently, with the choices before them. They can recognise that any deal requires this Withdrawal Agreement, and cooperate with the Government in getting a Withdrawal Agreement Bill passed. That buys more time while we debate any changes to the Political Declaration, if we really have to threaten the country with No Deal just to change a glorified press release. (If we must go through a second referendum, its coming into force can be dependent on the result.) MPs could even surprise me by actually following through on the result of an indicative vote in binding votes.

If they can do some of that, they just might give the rest of us some reason to take their collective amour propre more seriously. There was a time when I believed in politics and defended politicians’ profession. I am almost out of faith. Please, Parliament, give me some reason not to become just as cynical as everyone else.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 24 March 2019.

The Brexit Deal: avoiding the worst comes first

MPs should choose the dispiriting, but safer, course

Brexit’s endgame has been announced many times since 2016. Each announcement’s proved premature so far. The UK will wrestle with Brexit, in one form or another, for many years to come. But the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration signal a turning point. Accepting them — or not — is a frighteningly big choice.

I am grateful that I don’t have to make that choice. But were I an MP, I would with enormous regret vote with the Government on Tuesday.

Why reject a second referendum?

I still think I was right to vote and campaign for Remain. I think Brexit will have baleful consequences. And my country is abandoning a noble ideal. Still, I’m deeply sceptical of any second referendum. My opposition rests on electoral, democratic and strategic grounds.

Would it succeed?
Polls have shown a gradual drift towards Remain since 2016. Some suggest Remain could win as much as 55% of the vote. Most Britons think Brexit is going badly. Leavers themselves sell an ever less cheerful prospect for the future as the months go by.

Looking deeper, though, not that many Leavers or Remainers are changing their minds. The main driver of the shift seems to be people who didn’t vote in 2016 — especially young people. As a veteran of many campaigns, I generally believe young non-voters’ promise to vote when I see them on polling day.

I also think the optimists are ignoring how any campaign would unfold. The rumoured slogan for any Leave Mark II campaign — ‘Tell Them Again’ — would be very powerful. Frankly, I think ‘We Told You So’ would be crushed. I see no reason to believe warnings of the consequences would work this time when they didn’t in 2016. And Brussels has hardly endeared itself to British voters since then.

Finally, and with apologies to people who mean well, I don’t think Remainers have got any better at talking to swing voters or soft Leavers. Many seem worse — promising things no one will believe (EU-wide curbs on free movement), complaining about the 2016 vote (that bus, Russian money) or talking about Leave voters as if they’re stupid or bigoted (blue passports, maps covered in pink).

Would it be right?
Referendum re-runs aren’t inherently undemocratic. The rights and wrongs depend on national context and particular circumstances. And nothing can be wholly permanent in a democracy — though we do normally expect to implement democratic decisions before we reverse them.

But the UK context and the nature of the 2016 vote make a re-run uncomfortable at best. We’ve only had two UK-wide referendums. The AV referendum has of course been upheld. The EEC referendum wasn’t followed by another for 41 years. We tend to see referendums as rare, ‘rules of the game’ events. And we did tell people this result would be decisive in 2016. (I handed out the leaflets saying there’d be no going back myself.)

There comes a point at which Parliament can fairly draw a line. There’s no democratic duty to risk food or medicine shortages, or an electricity crisis in Northern Ireland. And the form of Brexit is squarely for Parliament to decide. But while politicians have no duty to rush to disaster, voters have a right to expect them to try to carry out their instructions competently.

Would it be good for our politics?
We should also ask ourselves what a second referendum could help do to our politics. I’m not playing the ‘there’ll be riots’ card: Remainers are right to disdain dodging a vote for fear of violence. But the ever-growing, polarising ferocity of our democratic culture worries me. A healthy liberal democracy depends on not pursuing every political fight to the finish. It relies on an understanding that losers as well as winners must consent.

That is one reason I regard the rise of the Brexiteers on one side and the Corbynistas on the other with such deep unease. But I have watched too much of the Remain movement take on some of the same characteristics. When some Remainers talk about the Biased Brexit Corporation and high-profile Remain figures blame foreign corporate interests for Remain-minded newspapers advocating compromise, it’s no longer just the fringes of left and right which have a problem.

I don’t want to see the UK become the US without the checks and balances. I believe we need to rediscover how to meet each other halfway. And I have no wish to be dragooned into a cultural cold war in the name of reversing a referendum result.

Would it be good for Europe?
Suppose a second referendum were won. Does anyone think the UK would suddenly become a comfortable member of the EU? Did 1975 turn the British into keen Europeans? I am well aware my country is eurosceptic at heart. It has been throughout the postwar era. Smarting in defeat, Remainers deride 2016’s risk-averse, bloodless campaign. I think we’d have lost by a far greater margin had voters not believed Brexit had risks attached.

The median British voter wants the economic benefits of the EU without the political institutions which make them possible. But the truth is that European integration is and always has been a profoundly political project. It grew out of most Europeans’ bitter experience of what nation-states could do. The British aren’t inherently better on that score, but they’ve mainly been luckier. As a result, while other countries saw a project which helped tame murderous antagonisms, entrench democracy after dictatorship or free them from the orbit of an overbearing neighbour, Britain never really could. I believe in the actual European political project. But I doubt more than 15% of my fellow citizens truly agree with me.

If we won a second referendum while fudging that fact — and we’d have to fudge to have any hope of winning — we’d just store up trouble for the future. How could a country which only voted to say in the EU in a second time because the alternative was too risky play a constructive part in its proceedings? How long would it be before a Conservative Prime Minister called a third referendum? Is any of that in the interests of Europe as a whole? Unless and until our people are prepared to accept that the EU is a profoundly political project and endorse it on that basis, British membership will be profoundly unstable.

If we end up in a position where the only alternative to a guaranteed No Deal Brexit is another referendum, then I agree we would have to pursue it. But it should be a genuine last resort.

Is the Withdrawal Agreement liveable?

If we reject trying to reverse the 2016 verdict, we need a Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. The Political Declaration is a glorified press release, designed to accommodate a range of possible outcomes for now. The Withdrawal Agreement is the legally binding and crucial thing — the key to avoiding a No Deal Brexit. It’s also abundantly clear that it’s the only Agreement on the table.

For me, the main question here is the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol — the so-called backstop. I am, frankly, indifferent to the section on financial liabilities: we were always going to have to pay, and the costs of No Deal would dwarf them anyway. I would like the Agreement to go further on citizens’ rights, both for UK citizens in the EU and EU nationals here — but it is incomparably better for both than No Deal.

A UK-wide backstop?
Theresa May made a customs border down the Irish Sea a red line. Her focus on customs (only the source of 30% or so of border checks) was always rather arbitrary. Still, the backstop now includes a shared customs territory covering the EU and the UK. The EU had significant concerns about including this, so it’s a genuine concession on their part.

The EU was probably most concerned to stop the UK undercutting EU members in any customs union. The new backstop therefore sets out level playing field commitments not to row back on good practice in taxation, environmental standards and labour and social standards. On state aid and competition, the UK would apply existing and future EU law. These are surprisingly limited requirements. That might be a mixed blessing for the centre-left, but then the line that the EU should be used to save the UK from itself was always democratically dodgy.

But within the single customs territory, ‘the customs territory of the EU’ includes Northern Ireland, and ‘the customs territory of the UK’ is code for ‘Great Britain’. Northern Ireland would have to apply the full Union Customs Code. The EU’s ultimate right to apply customs duties if it considers the UK in breach of its duties applies between Great Britain and the island of Ireland.

Northern Ireland would apply EU law on goods, VAT on goods, excise, agriculture and fisheries (but not the CAP or CFP) and wholesale electricity. In Great Britain, a UK authority would be responsible for state aid. In Northern Ireland, it would be the European Commission.

In short, the principle of different treatment for Northern Ireland has not meaningfully changed. Great Britain has just been allowed to form a customs union with the EU and Northern Ireland to soften it a bit.

The best of both worlds?
The EU and the UK say trade within the UK will be protected. While trade with Ireland is far more important for Northern Ireland than for anywhere else in the UK, Great Britain remains its main market. I can see how significantly reducing damage to trade with Ireland and minimally increasing barriers to trade with Great Britain might be economically better than none of the latter and a vast amount of the former. But that only holds if East/West barriers actually are minimal.

The EU and UK say they will be for two reasons. First, the protocol says it doesn’t stop the UK from ensuring unfettered market access to Great Britain. Second, it requires the EU and the UK to use best endeavours to facilitate trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That includes minimising checks at ports and airports in Northern Ireland.

The first point guarantees nothing in itself. The second depends on Great Britain not diverging very far and the EU making a good faith effort to minimise checks. In the short term, the impact on East/West trade probably would be minimal. But barring a very soft Brexit or a much firmer British commitment than usual to Northern Ireland, I can’t see how you’d avoid a ratchet effect — and that has economic consequences.

The backstop and the Northern Ireland settlement
I understand the fears evoked by new Border infrastructure on the island of Ireland. Avoiding physical reminders for Border communities is an enormous advantage of the backstop. The UK Government didn’t take the issue seriously and didn’t engage with the ambiguity in its own commitments in December 2017 until far too late.

The backstop avoids the Scylla of a hard land border poisoning relations with nationalists. But I fear we’ve sailed into the Charybdis of poisoning political unionism’s willingness to re-engage with Stormont. You can say the backstop in no way changes the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, and formally that’s true. But most of Northern Ireland’s trade and much of its economy would be governed by EU rules with no say at its neighbour’s behest, despite its membership of the UK.

The backstop is also designed to minimise any risk of any Northern Ireland Assembly or Executive influencing how it works. Most backstop-relevant EU rules will take automatic effect in Northern Ireland. The UK would only have to agree to new rules when they neither amend nor replace ones already in the backstop. Even there, there would be no domestic legislation — so the Assembly’s consent would be moot.

EU membership underpins much of Strand Two of the Good Friday Agreement (North/South cooperation). Together with security normalisation, it allowed a wholly open land border. But while Brexit risks that context, the backstop poses a different risk to the Northern Ireland settlement. The 1998 Agreement provided for a carefully defined North/South dimension which could grow by mutual agreement. This one would be enacted over unionists’ heads and is designed to make it near-impossible for them to influence. It partly rewrites the balance of the settlement in a deeply sensitive area.

Is the alternative worse and can we mitigate the backstop?
That said, a No Deal Brexit would be particularly disastrous in Northern Ireland. If the backstop could undermine the settlement there, the impact No Deal could have on that settlement should be self-evident. From a unionist perspective, No Deal’s effect on support for the Union should be taken very seriously. It also looks like most in Northern Ireland support a backstop over a harder Brexit.

For Great Britain, the backstop makes failure to agree on the final relationship in time for 2021 or 2023 less painful than it would otherwise be. It would protect parts of the economic relationship via the customs union. For Northern Ireland, that is also true. But the truth is that Brexit offers Northern Ireland no good options. The interaction between Dublin’s priorities (which I in no way dismiss), Brussels’ red lines (which I think have gone too far) and London’s inattention and incoherence (which are damning) has presented us with a particularly painful choice.

If it passes the Withdrawal Agreement, the UK can do three main things to reduce the impact of the backstop. It can press its case on minimising checks vigorously if and when the backstop comes into force. It can help that case, and reduce unionist concern over divergence, through sticking to EU rules in the areas covered by the backstop. Theresa May has said she would not expect Great Britain to diverge in those areas. In my view, the UK should do what it can to give that commitment legislative force, at least in the absence of devolved consent. (An Act could require ministers to introduce secondary legislation to align Great Britain with Northern Ireland in some areas. It might also include a declaratory section covering primary legislation, drawing on the Scotland Act 2016.) And finally, the softer the UK’s Brexit end state, the less impact the backstop will have.

Do we really have a choice?

If I thought a safe alternative to accepting the deal on the table existed, I’d argue for it. This current Deal probably points to a customs union, less alignment and market access than I want and some checks in the Irish Sea to which I object. Of course, any new Prime Minister will want to revisit the final relationship anyway. I’d like MPs to steer towards a softer Brexit than the Political Declaration suggests. But I’m under no illusions that that’s a sure thing.

But the Withdrawal Agreement is the priority now. The EU is not going to meaningfully renegotiate it. (Even some cosmetic renegotiation may well be a non-starter.) It might tweak the Political Declaration. But risking a disorderly Brexit to reword a solemn press release we’ll ask to redraft later on anyway strikes me as rather pointless.

The idea that Parliament can take No Deal off the table is dangerous complacency. Yes, Dominic Grieve has given MPs an easier way to say what they’d like to be done if they reject May’s Deal. But MPs’ machinations only matter in EU law if they serve to ratify a Withdrawal Agreement, seek to extend Article 50 or require its revocation. Only the third of those avoids the need for a Withdrawal Agreement. And it’s far from clear that a second referendum or any specific and achievable final relationship could command a majority among MPs.

It looks frighteningly plausible that all the factions in Parliament will continue to gamble that someone else will blink so they don’t have to. Some may even think they stand to benefit from No Deal. Tory hardliners welcome it. Some Corbynites think it might radicalise voters and let them go further in government. Scottish nationalists might hope it could carry them to independence.

Many who want a second referendum are happy to salt the earth for anything between No Deal and No Brexit. Doing that makes it very hard to keep just rejecting the Deal off the ballot in any second referendum. But we can’t afford to let No Deal happen. We have no time to prepare for it, insofar as we ever really could. There’s no societal consensus which could make the pain and the sacrifices politically tolerable. The short-term consequences would probably be somewhere between severely damaging and outright catastrophic. And the ultimate potential outcomes include a prolonged and dangerous geopolitical rupture, rapidly accepting the same terms or worse, or both.

Parliamentary brinkmanship is too much of a gamble for me now. I’ve had enough of gamblers in British politics. There is one sure route, and only one, to avoiding a true public policy disaster on 29 March 2019. Reluctantly, and with a very heavy heart as both a Remainer and a unionist, I think MPs should take it.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 10 December 2018.

Cashing in on discontent? National gripes, public finances and a fractured Union

Nations are as liable as humans to squabble over money, and the four countries of the United Kingdom are no exception. Arguing over GERS in Scotland is one example; moaning about Barnett in England is another. Part of our problem is that these things are hard to measure. Another is that, as ever with money, all sides have an axe to grind.

So inevitably, our press loves stories implying that one country or another has its hand in the till. The Times ran a particularly good example a couple of weeks ago. The central claim was as follows:

Government efforts to reduce the budget deficit since the financial crisis have been delivered almost exclusively by England, which is on track to balance its books this year, while the devolved administrations continue to borrow heavily, according to official figures.

This is deeply misleading. For a start, devolved administrations mostly don’t control how much revenue is raised in their areas. With major exceptions in Scotland and moderate exceptions in Wales and Northern Ireland (mostly recent), they’re funded by block grant. They have very limited borrowing powers. The Times’ ‘borrowing’ is really the gap between UK and devolved spending and revenue. That gap has been mostly controlled at UK level throughout this period.

Still, it’s true that the gap in England has narrowed much faster (a 92.2% drop) than it has in Scotland (3.1%), Wales (16.6%) and Northern Ireland (9.9%). So have the four countries been getting radically different spending settlements since 2009/10? The figures for total public spending show they haven’t.

Chart derived from Office for National Statistics ‘Country and regional public sector finances’ data.

England has actually had the highest percentage rise in public spending, at 11.2%. Scotland came in at 11.0%, Northern Ireland went up by 10.6% and Wales rose by 9.6%. Leaving aside whether that’s fair for reasons of population growth or relative need — and differing spending among the regions of England — this is not where our ‘England is paying off the deficit’ story comes from.

The story seems very different when we look at government receipts. Here we do see some major differences. England’s revenue growth (36.4%) is somewhat higher than Wales’ (30.5%), quite a bit higher than Northern Ireland’s (26.7.%) and over double Scotland’s (15.2%). What’s going on here? The first clue comes from which regions of England’s receipts are growing fastest.

Chart derived from Office for National Statistics ‘Country and regional public sector finances’ data.

The wider south east of England is, as you’d expect, way out in front. Wales isn’t out of step with most of England; only Scotland seems vastly out of kilter. So the story isn’t one of Westminster largesse flowing to the devolved nations at all. Instead, it’s one of UK growth being greatest in London and the south east, as it usually (and worryingly) is. To paint this as the former rather than the latter is strikingly unhelpful.

Some may wonder why Scotland is so far behind. It isn’t usually the worst performer in the UK by any means, so what’s happening here? But again, the answer is mostly pretty clear. These figures include a geographical share of North Sea revenue — Treasury gains from oil and gas — most of which is allocated to Scotland. And, famously, oil and gas prices have plummeted in recent years. Strip out the oil and Scotland’s growth looks much more normal. That’s especially true when you remember England’s population is growing faster.

Chart derived from Office for National Statistics ‘Country and regional public sector finances’ data.

So The Times’ story of England tightening its belt while the rest of the UK lives high on the hog makes no sense at all. Public spending has gone up by fairly similar amounts in the four countries, southeast England’s economy has grown the most, and Scotland’s tax take was hit hard by a collapse in oil and gas prices. And anyway, the other three countries’ fiscal envelopes were mostly set by Westminster.

Does this matter beyond due concern for fair reporting? I think so. Were I to single out one thing which could unravel the UK, I might well choose competitive grievance. PG Wodehouse’s unkind quote is often echoed for English audiences, in varying levels of poor taste. The SNP’s opponents in Scotland regularly accuse it of hunting for grievances — sometimes fairly, sometimes less so. But if we diagnose a grievance culture in Scotland, we’ll have to diagnose one in England too. It’s often aimed at Scotland, but also at the rest of the UK more generally.

This is a serious problem for the UK. A multinational Union needs give and take and general reasonableness to work well. That’s especially true for a Union made up of one very large nation and three much smaller ones. Constant diatribes about how hard done by England or Scotland (or Wales or Northern Ireland) are do nothing to help and much to hinder that process.

Since 2014, Scotland’s public debate has demanded much of the rest of the UK while paying relatively little attention to its views. England’s public debate, such as it is, always seems to reduce in moderation as it gains in prominence. Wales and Northern Ireland struggle to be heard, and the latter often attracts ill-concealed irritation when it cuts through. It may or may not prove sustainable: it definitely isn’t healthy.

Not all the UK’s gripes focus on cash, but quite enough do to be going on with. We could improve our public discourse by at least giving a fair picture of the sums. As it stands, unionists may well live to regret letting our four countries regard each other as burdens rather than partners.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 1 October 2018.

Brexit and a balanced backstop

Anyone who thought about Brexit should have known the border between the UK and Ireland would be a knotty and crucial issue to solve.

The common travel area allows British and Irish citizens to cross borders freely. We also share a customs union, regulatory framework and VAT/excise arrangements. These remove the need for sea or land border checks between the UK and Ireland. Brexit puts an end to the customs, regulatory, VAT and excise arrangements, with huge social, economic, political and constitutional implications. Ireland has made the land border its priority, and the EU26 back them to the hilt.

A combination of its red lines and hubris, Northern Ireland’s needs, Ireland’s strength of feeling and the EU27 position on the single market presents the UK with a huge problem. We have to have an agreement, and so we have to agree a backstop. But an economic border with Great Britain violates the spirit of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement at least as much as checks on the land border. I am not sure Brussels understands what undercutting unionists like that might mean. I’m not even sure Dublin (very much alive to nationalists’ concerns) fully grasps the implications. (And you don’t have to let London, which remains primarily responsible, off the hook to say so.)

The main practical elements of the border problem are:

  • the EU customs union
  • the EU VAT area
  • EU arrangements for excise duties
  • the EU acquis in goods — including agricultural and fisheries products, together with sanitary and phytosanitary rules (but not the CAP or CFP).

Is there any way to square the circle? Below I suggest a possible way through. I’m not saying it’s foolproof, or necessarily right. But it might help us pick our way through.

Customs, VAT and excise: the UK follows the EU

The first step would be to agree an all-UK customs union, as well as the UK adopting the EU’s rules on VAT and excise duties. These aren’t seen as part of the single market and so don’t breach the EU’s ‘four freedoms’ red line.

The EU doesn’t object to an EU-UK customs union in principle. The UK would need to accept the common external tariff for all goods and the full Union Customs Code. That’s fine: we’ve basically conceded it for backstop purposes anyway. The Commission claims Article 50 cannot extend it to Great Britain, but the EU would probably agree to it via some legal means.

The harder question is whether the EU27 would be willing to treat VAT and excise similarly. No non-EU state has secured this except Monaco (thanks to its special relationship with France). The role of the CJEU (note that the EFTA Court doesn’t deal with the acquis in VAT or excise) would need clear protection. But it doesn’t breach the EU’s position on the four freedoms.

Goods regulation, part one: Northern Ireland follows the EU, but what about Great Britain?

The toughest issue is regulatory alignment in goods. So far, the EU27 have said the single market cannot be cherry-picked for goods and the four freedoms cannot be split.

The first concern is that the UK could deregulate its services, produce goods more cheaply and then exploit its single market access. But this is essentially a question of getting ‘level playing field’ issues right. These are mainly state aid, employment, health and safety and environmental standards, and they can also be addressed in any backstop. Indeed, the Commission’s draft backstop does cover them for Northern Ireland.

That leaves the divisibility of the four freedoms. For the final deal, the UK hopes to end free movement of persons by forgoing free movement of services. Its position implies something similar for the backstop. In public, the EU27 have consistently rejected the idea. Whether, and to what extent, public pronouncements match private reality remains hotly disputed. In any event, banking on such a climbdown to square the backstop is quite the risk.

Goods regulation, part 2: Great Britain follows Northern Ireland, and checks are selective

Still, we might be able to pick our way through the Commission’s Northern Ireland-only backstop and the Government’s view that it should be UK-wide. The Commission says alignment between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is for the UK to deal with. Now, I think that’s pretty disingenuous in the context of a Northern Ireland-only backstop. Both sides need to agree that standards, customs, VAT and excise are similar enough to avoid border checks.

The Commission’s choice of words offers a possible clue. A couple of stories have suggested the UK is exploring whether ‘parallel marketability’ might help solve this problem. Parallel marketability has already entered the Brexit debate (for Scotland and Northern Ireland). It’s how Liechtenstein squares EEA membership with its customs union with Switzerland. Goods made to either EEA or Swiss standards can circulate there. Liechtenstein then has to take steps to keep goods which attract Swiss tariffs or don’t meet Swiss standards out of Switzerland.

This system works for a principality of 38,000 with one open border. (The Austrian border is checked.) Major divergence would probably test it to destruction if Northern Ireland accepted goods made to both EU and UK standards. There’s a land and a sea border, both politically fraught and one with a long tradition of smuggling. But if the whole UK forms a customs union with the EU and adopts EU rules for goods, VAT and excise, many concerns fall away. There would be no divergence in goods standards to monitor. The UK would apply the common external tariff, so tariff differences wouldn’t be an issue.

So if Great Britain aligns in full, could parallel marketability avoid systematic checks on the land and sea border? We would still have checks between Great Britain and the EU26. (Whether we’d have them between Great Britain and Ireland or between Northern Ireland and the EU26 is an open question.) The risk would now be one of principle, not practical impact.

Could we make it work?

The volume of trade between Great Britain and the EU26 would make major trade diversion via Northern Ireland fairly obvious. (That holds, to a lesser extent, for trade between Great Britain and Ireland.) The current draft protocol includes a specialised EU-UK committee to oversee it. In this model it could monitor reported traffic flows, receive reports from UK and EU/Irish authorities, and require action. Spot checks could be carried out within Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Ireland, and on a intelligence-led basis at ports and on land. VAT records could also help track some re-routing of goods.

Legally, the Commission claims Article 50 can be used for a Northern Ireland backstop, but not a UK-wide version. I think that’s dubious. EU-UK relations cover more than the contents of a backstop, so I don’t think it pre-empts the conversation about those relations. The idea that the EU’s Article 50 competence is geographically limited also seems weak. (The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement argument that Northern Ireland can be covered, but not the whole UK, rests on a one-sided assessment of that accord in my view.)

But the EU27 can’t be persuaded on the law, is there another option available? Could the backstop in the Withdrawal Agreement could include a commitment to amend it via Article 218? This is the legal basis the Commission cites for UK-wide elements. We could publish those amendments with the Withdrawal Agreement and ratify them during the transition.

Why should anyone do this?

For the UK, this option beats the current backstop. It addresses the Northern Ireland issue. We’ve already accepted a customs union for any fall-back arrangements, so we don’t lose much from a global trade point of view. In practice we’d adopt most EU goods standards anyway. Border checks would still exist for Great Britain unless a wider deal scraps them, but shared standards and no rules of origin helps business.

For the EU, this squares a tricky circle, delivers for Ireland and upholds its stated principles on the single market pending a wider deal. The UK aligning in goods, not services, works nicely for a union which is a net exporter of goods and a net importer of services vis-à-vis the UK, so long as level playing field rules are robust. The UK will be seen to pay a price. And it forestalls a regulatory competitor in goods, where the single market is most developed.

And overall?

We’d have a UK-wide backstop framed to fit the language of the Joint Report. The whole UK would align with the EU on customs, VAT and excise. Northern Ireland would align with the EU on goods. Great Britain would align with Northern Ireland on goods. And the EU27 would do the minimum required to avoid borders between Northern Ireland and either Great Britain or Ireland.

It’s not ideal for anyone. But the backstop is supposed to be a last-ditch solution. We’re seeking tolerable imperfection. This might fit the bill.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 6 September 2018.

Red lines

I should probably start this piece by apologising for writing it. There have been too many leaving Labour blogs already. But I’ve told many people to vote Labour over the past few years. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy fighting for decent Labour since 2015. I have many friends I’m leaving behind politically (though I hope not personally). I feel I owe them an explanation.

I understand the people who stay to try to fight. Anyone who thinks this is an easy choice hasn’t thought about it enough. You will get no attacks on people trying their best to hold back the hard left tide from me. But this is why I felt I had to draw a line.

Anti-Semitism

In Corbyn’s Labour, each new anti-Semitic incident follows a pattern. Despicable views and behaviours emerge. The alarm is raised. Corbyn supporters blame it on attempts to undermine the leadership. The leadership delays. Corbyn claims to oppose anti-Semitism — in delphic terms which avoid telling anyone to do anything about it. Incidents are dealt with reluctantly, kicked into the long grass or ignored altogether.

The left had a problem with anti-Semitism before Corbyn rose to prominence. The problem went beyond the hard left, too. But it was always strongest there, because the hard left has specific susceptibilities to anti-Semitism. Suspicion of capital lends itself to tropes about Jewish capital. Conspiracy easily shades into international conspiracy. If your politics are formed in an ‘anti-imperialist’ crucible with Israel as the ultimate enemy, people who hide their racism under an ‘anti-Zionist’ carapace will be willing and eager to stand beside you.

Corbyn comes from that world, and both he and his inner circle are deeply and personally culpable. This is a man who spent years in a Facebook group filled with vicious anti-Semitic rhetoric. This was a group he’d commented in, for which he’d organised events, whose organiser he knew personally: a group spewing hate he can’t possibly have failed to see. This month, we found out he suggested ‘the hand of Israel’ was behind terrorist attacks in Egypt in 2012. There was no evidence — just a shadow conspiracy speculation (‘theory’ is too grand a word) involving the world’s only Jewish state. And this week, we discovered this gem about ‘Zionists’: ‘having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, [they] don’t understand English irony’. I am a British Zionist. Corbyn was not talking about me.

Corbyn’s record proves he will at the very least live with anti-Semitism to promote ‘anti-imperialism’. Worse, he has repeatedly used anti-Semitic tropes himself. He will do nothing serious about anti-Semitism on the left: to do so would be to damn himself. It is no surprise that Chris Williamson’s sharing platforms with Assad apologists and belittling the anti-Semitism crisis merited a vague pledge of investigation, while Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin were threatened with disciplinary action for calling anti-Semitism out. It is frankly untenable even to think Margaret Hodge was incorrect.

A Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn will never tackle anti-Semitism, because to Jeremy Corbyn Jews are dispensable. I will not tell voters he’s a consistent anti-racist. I can’t even say I don’t believe he’s an anti-Semite. And a man who, so far as I can tell, most British Jews regard with disgust, anger and sometimes fear would be utterly unacceptable as prime minister.

Anti-Westernism

Commitment to your country’s security should be a political prerequisite for running it. Corbyn has worn his hostility to the West on his sleeve throughout his career. He opposed defending the Falklands in 1982. Falklanders didn’t want to submit to a military junta, but the UK had to be in the wrong. He opposed enlarging NATO after 1989. Eastern Europeans wanted to join the Atlantic world after decades of Soviet oppression, but NATO had to be in the wrong. He described the Russian invasion of Crimea as ‘not unprovoked’. Ukrainians wanted to move towards the EU, and the EU had to be in the wrong.

The man who called for NATO to be shut down in 2014 campaigned on a 2017 manifesto which supported NATO membership. But it’s a bad faith pledge he undermines at every turn. He has never once committed to defending NATO members under attack. Instead, he dodges the question. He thought the run-up to Donald Trump (a fellow NATO-sceptic) becoming US President was the moment to suggest demilitarising our allies in the Baltic (never mind their views on the topic). Corbynites might say this displays an admirable preference for exhausting peaceful avenues first. I suggest Vladimir Putin would say it meant NATO’s second military power was no longer committed to collective security.

This year, we had yet more proof that Corbyn’s first instinct remains to blame the West and excuse our enemies. People were murdered with chemical weapons in Salisbury. All the evidence pointed to Russian responsibility — Moscow didn’t even offer a plausible lie in response. Corbyn allowed Seumas Milne to imply that rogue elements in MI5 might be trying to blame Russia and raised the possibility of mafia involvement (despite experts’ view that this sort of chemical attack required state-level involvement). He only acknowledged the likelihood of Russian responsibility through gritted teeth. Most recently, on tougher sanctions against Russia he said: ‘We cannot just have a building up of tensions on both sides of the border.’ It seems responding to the murder of our citizens makes us the ones ‘building up … tensions’.

I do not believe a man who has hated the West all his life has had a Damascene conversion. Jeremy Corbyn’s promises on NATO aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. I believe in international solidarity quite as much as he claims to. But my international solidarity includes Estonia. I believe in a Europe whole and free. I oppose people who think imperialism is best opposed by consigning free democracies to some Russian sphere of influence.

I will not tell voters they should trust the Labour leader with the UK’s or the West’s security when the chips are down. Everything we know about him, and his circle, shows they cannot.

Anti-parliamentarism

Corbyn’s hostility to the West has deep roots on the hard left. So does his acolytes’ intolerance of dissent and their contempt for parliamentarians’ link to their voters.

Corbyn has a populist appeal I never foresaw. Still, the Corbynites’ democratic centralist understanding of the world doesn’t lead to a ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ approach to politics. It produces a politics of bullying, intimidation and heresy-hunting. MPs and Haringey councillors can attest to that. (So can I. I’ve been in the meetings.) It subverts MPs’ accountability to their constituents in the name of subordinating them to their local General Committee. It takes power away from voters and moves it to self-selecting activists.

John McDonnell exemplifies the hard left’s contempt for parliamentarism. This is a man who joked about lynching a (female) political opponent. This is a man who saw ‘students kicking the shit out of Millbank’ as a positive, exciting thing; a man who saw fit to give speeches about how ‘sometimes you feel like physical force — you feel like giving them a good slapping’. More recently, this is a man who wanted mass demonstrations to force early elections mere days after the last one.

Meanwhile, Seumas Milne was a ‘tankie’, deeply involved with the Communist Party of Great Britain — with a long history of minimising Stalinist crimes, of mourning the demise of the USSR and East Germany, of defending or equivocating over every odious regime so long as it hated the Americans. When the Council of Europe condemned the crimes of communism, Milne said: ‘For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialisation, mass education, job security and huge advances in social and gender equality.’

I do not believe that these people have changed their views after a lifetime of extremism. And I cannot stand behind them. I believe political power derives its legitimacy from our elected Parliament. I believe politicians have no business trying to rouse the streets to eject democratic governments. I believe in liberal constitutionalism and the rule of law. And I do not trust Corbyn, McDonnell or Milne to guard them. Their worldview is profoundly anti-parliamentary and would be dangerous if it ever controlled the state.

I cannot and will not go on doorsteps and pretend that a government with Jeremy Corbyn in 10 Downing Street, John McDonnell next door and Seumas Milne whispering in his ear would leave our democratic culture uncorroded. The fabric of our democracy already feels thinner than it did: a Corbyn Government would pull more threads out.

Standing by, not standing up

The decent left should be casting Corbynism out. Instead, Corbynism is being normalised. Like latter-day DDT, the levels of poison in our political bloodstream are building up as we swim along.

In a banal but crucial sense, it’s true that ‘centrists’ lack answers and complaining about Corbyn isn’t doing the job. Moderate politics is clearly failing to persuade people it can tackle their problems. Disliking Jeremy Corbyn, Jacob Rees-Mogg or Brexit does not make a programme for government. (Corbyn doesn’t have one either, but leave that aside.)

But the trope also shows how decent people can make the unconscionable unremarkable. Suppose centre-left politics is bloodless, soulless and visionless — technocracy plus tax credits. Do people who dislike Corbyn but think we’re complaining too much about him honestly believe enabling anti-Semitism is better? Are we even going to put them on the same moral plane?

People say that ‘we don’t like Jeremy’ isn’t enough. OK, it’s not a manifesto. But anti-Semitism alone should be enough to rule ‘Jeremy’ out. Much of the non-Corbynite left is forgetting that in the name of boxing clever. I want to reassert it.

Power and principle

People should think long and hard about the consequences of a hard left government. The UK has far fewer checks and balances than the US under Trump. We have no written constitution, veto-wielding second chamber or federalist constraints upon central government.

Only Labour MPs could prevent disaster if Corbyn won a majority. And having watched most of them kowtow most of the time since 8 June 2017, I am not sure they will resist his worst impulses. Anyway, backbenchers can’t make Corbyn’s word his bond on collective security: it would be too late by the time they acted. And the intimidatory style of politics — mob dressed up as movement — which characterises Corbynism could be much more dangerous with the state behind it.

So of course I don’t want Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister. Of course I don’t want Seumas Milne advising in Number 10 or John McDonnell at the Treasury. The idea sends shivers down my spine. It must not happen. I will not help to make it happen. And if it’s the price of getting rid of the Tories, it’s a price I cannot pay.

That leaves me no choice but to resign from the Labour Party. Someday, I hope there will once again be an anti-racist, internationalist, reliably constitutional social democratic party worth joining.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 24 August 2018.

Exciting vision or doctor’s mandate? The problem for the centre-left

I wasn’t at the Progress Conference on Saturday. I’d promised my friends (and myself) a broadly non-political weekend after the past couple of months. But it seems that at least parts of the Conference were in ‘tell hard truths to our own side’ mode. In particular, Stephen Bush’s speech has attracted much comment:

There’s clearly plenty of truth in this. It is indeed wearing to hear social democrats talking about being divisive as if that were the issue. Quite clearly it isn’t. The issue is that we dislike Corbynite politics and want something different. Some allowance needs to be made for moderates’ exhaustion from trying to hold the hard left off. But to return Labour to its mainstream tradition, you need to persuade and inspire people who currently like Corbyn. Alternatively, you need to get people in to outnumber them. And no, Labour moderates can’t easily shout about electability in our current state.

But I’d make two main points in return. First, the Corbynite left can cross lines social democrats can’t. I’m not calling for a naive form of ‘straight-talking, honest politics’. (Bush is quite right there. Note to self: stop doing it.) But it’s hard to counter an entire prospectus based on the pretence that middle-class corporatism equals redistribution, sums we know don’t add up and a foreign policy which sells parochialism as ‘peace’ once people have bought into it.

If people believe fantasies, they’ll always sound better than messy trade-offs. In that case, how do you pit realism against the big lie mode of politics and win? I’m sure a sufficiently charismatic and inspiring leader could do a great deal to address that. And no doubt much more can be done to frame the issues differently. It’s still a huge problem.

The second problem is the unappealing truth of where we find ourselves. The UK faces several crises which we need to address, with limited state bandwidth to devote to them. Fortunately for all of us, I have neither any prospect of becoming Prime Minister nor any desire to try. But were I in charge, I have a rough idea of what I’d prioritise.

I’d need to find a substantial amount of money just to keep core bits of the public realm from falling over. The NHS, social care, councils, welfare and the justice system desperately need cash. To be clear, the cash injection wouldn’t even be to make things (much) better: it’d mostly be to stop them from getting worse. As we’re talking tens of billions of pounds of current, not capital, spending (and we’d better have some room for manoeuvre to prop the economy up if Brexit goes disastrously wrong), this means broadly-based tax rises. By all means try to hit the very rich too. But there’s a reason social democratic paragons have higher VAT than we do, not just higher top rates of income tax.

I would, of course, try to minimise the damage from Brexit. This means delivering the softest version compatible with electoral acquiescence and political reality. Unfortunately, a Brexit with a severely constrained trade policy and free movement probably won’t stick. If that’s true, it gets worse. The least-worst Brexit is different in Great Britain and Northern Ireland — but the consequences of substantial differentiation between the two are unacceptable. And it may well be that neither of these least-worst options can be agreed. Whatever the result, the question is how much worse off we end up — not what we gain.

I’d also look to our east and west and conclude we as Europeans were dangerously exposed. We have a currently indifferent hegemon across the Atlantic and a dangerous revanchist at the other end of the North European Plain. Democratic Europe should be planning for a real security crisis in which Washington abandons it. It shows little sign of doing so. The UK is of course one of Europe’s best defence and security performers. That doesn’t make it anywhere near good enough, and the 2% of GDP floor has ceased to be high enough. Unfortunately, we are in no position to advise others on pan-European policy and expect to be listened to. But Europe needs to make a start. To get anywhere, the UK will need to commit serious additional resources of its own.

I am well aware both that climate change is rapidly reaching a tipping point, if it hasn’t already, and that the UK can do little on its own to turn things around. We’ve long since reached the point where we need to talk frankly about adaptation and mitigation. This includes our responsibilities to the wider world, most of which got much less than we did out of the emissions which created the crisis. By all means try to push the wider world towards keeping climate change in bounds. But don’t bet the mortgage on the wider world responding.

I’d look to bolster our institutions and our constitutional safeguards. When the extremes seem on the rise and more and more politicians seem happy to pull threads out of our liberal democratic fabric, this is now urgent. There are many possible ways to do this. We could have a stronger and more democratic second chamber, no longer vulnerable to prime ministerial packing or easy charges of illegitimacy. It could have a power of veto over amending certain key statutes. (Better yet, we might try to require a parliamentary super-majority of some sort to do so.) Ideally the Commons’ voting system would make it harder for one party to control it, if reform could pass a referendum. (It wouldn’t. I know better than to try to hold one now.) But frankly, even a reliable defence of the roles of the BBC and the judiciary would be a start.

And finally — the one potentially cheery thing on the list — I’d want to start doing something about the housing crisis. That might mean planning reform, dropping the ‘every sperm is sacred’ approach to every acre of the Green Belt (can we all please note the M25 is in the Green Belt and stop confusing it with AONBs, by the way?), major capital investment in housebuilding (a much better use for public money than renationalising water and creating public option energy companies), untying local authorities’ hands and a dash of statist ‘use it or lose it’ when it comes to land banking. We could even tie a land value tax (or a property tax of some kind) to providing ongoing revenue for housebuilding.

The problem is obvious. This is a daunting list, quite possibly more than any government can realistically manage in five years while keeping everything else ticking over. It’s also a pretty cheerless prospectus, with one significant but deeply divisive exception. (Let’s not kid ourselves that the voters are going to hear ‘property tax’ and think ‘a home for my kids’.) Essentially, it amounts to ‘stop things from falling over, implement a bad decision tolerably and try to protect ourselves in a dangerous world’. But right now, I honestly think a sensible government needs to play doctor more than visionary.

Clearly, Labour members and quite a few British voters want to be inspired. Unfortunately, damage limitation doesn’t have much of a heroic arc. I’m not sure the centre-left has often, if ever, managed to win a doctor’s mandate. And I’m not sure there’s an obvious way to square the circle. Can the centre-left make making the best of things sound hopeful?

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 8 May 2018.

Labour’s despairing dissenters

Anyone who’s tried to hold the political or moral line in Corbyn’s Labour knows the drill. Criticise Jeremy and you definitely get nowhere. Cite something Jeremy’s said to back your argument and you probably get nowhere. Draw a pragmatic line and the Corbynites call you unprincipled (except on Brexit, which is of course completely different). Draw a principled line and the Corbynites think you’re hiding a conspiracy under a moral carapace.

Much ink is spilled about how moderate Labour messed up its response to Corbynism. I’m sure that’s true in many ways. Yes: from moaning about McDonald’s to a premature leadership challenge, moderate Labour messed up on plenty of counts. Yes: moderate Labour should realised that Labour members wanted clear red water, at least in rhetoric. (It turns out they’re much less fussed about actual redistributive policy, but I digress.)

That’s all perfectly true. It’s also beside the point. Because people who think sorting all that would be enough for the median Labour member now are kidding themselves. It’s far, far worse than that.

If we’re honest with ourselves, today’s terrible poll just confirms what we already knew. Only 19% of Labour members could bring themselves to answer that their party faced a serious problem with anti-Semitism which needed urgent action without equivocation. 30% of members actually seem to believe that, even though the main representative body for British Jews has effectively declared Corbyn beyond the pale until things improve, Labour has serious no anti-Semitism problem and it’s all being hyped up to undermine him and/or stifle criticism of Israel.

Some cite the fact that 47% think it’s a genuine problem, but deliberately exaggerated to damage Labour or Corbyn (or, again, to stifle criticism of Israel), as comfort. Quite which bits of the problem anyone can seriously deem exaggerated is, frankly, hard to tell. But I suppose it’s less bad than outright denial. I suppose some people will be new to the issue and won’t have fully processed the scale of the crisis. I suppose some will have read ‘exaggerated’ as ‘leapt upon by others’ and not quite clocked what they’ve signed up to. (None of this excuses failing to see the age-old ‘shadowy conspiracies’ trope lurking in the middle option, but there we go.)

Even discounting generously, it’s a grim figure. And 61% think failing to even call for Christine Shawcroft to stand down from the NEC counts as handling the issue well. In short, a comfortable majority of Labour members seem OK with how this is being handled.

That is damning. It also places Labour dissenters in an impossible bind. When I stood in solidarity with British Jews on Monday, I hoped this horror might at least be a turning point, that more people who claimed to believe in equality might put it before loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn. For a few hours I even kidded myself it felt different this time. But if you’d asked me before last Sunday, I’d have said dissenters would make themselves more unpopular for speaking out. And now I’ve seen the poll, I’m not really surprised by the results.

Corbyn loyalists: if you think Labour dissenters are acting from calculation, put it from your mind. So far as I can see, talking about Labour’s moral crisis makes our internal position worse, not better. But so long as we stay, we have no choice. How can we keep our heads down and live with ourselves? We have to think about the long game. But we also have to look at ourselves in the mirror. (No, I don’t have a game plan. There was a time when I hoped someone cleverer, preferably with some actual influence, might have one.)

So, yes: when certain lines are crossed, some Labour dissenters stand up. This time they’ve exploded in rage because Corbyn’s personal enablement of anti-Semitism was exposed once too often. And it makes most members angry. And they dig in deeper. And the dissenters’ plight gets worse.

Short of leaving, what else can they do?

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 31 March 2018.

Consent and conciliation: Brexit and the Border

Given the ambiguity in December’s Joint Report between the UK and the EU, the UK’s reaction to the EU’s draft Withdrawal Agreement is unsurprising. Equally unsurprisingly, anger focused most on the protocol for Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The Irish Border is Brexit’s most fraught question. People can cross it without checks due to the Common Travel Area. Military checkpoints closed over time: the last came down in the last decade. Goods cross unchecked, thanks to a customs union and shared regulatory standards. And thanks to common EU systems, VAT and excise duties don’t need to be checked either. Brexit puts this at risk.

Border protocol

The protocol clarifies that the UK and Ireland can continue to make provision for the free movement of persons without checks. This is crucial: controlling travel between Ireland and Northern Ireland would prove unworkable. The symbolic and human implications of trying would be appalling. Checkpoints would likely become targets. In 1939–52, we had controls between Great Britain and the island of Ireland instead.

More contentiously, the protocol lists areas where Northern Ireland would apply EU law to avoid checks on goods or customs. The ‘common regulatory area’ would cover:

  • EU law on the free movement of goods
  • EU customs legislation, with Northern Ireland considered part of the EU’s customs territory
  • bans on restricting imports/exports, both upfront and by the back door
  • EU law on VAT and excise duties.

EU sanitary and phytosanitary rules and standards for agriculture and fisheries would apply. The same goes for wholesale electricity markets, much environmental protection, and state aid as it affects EU-Northern Ireland trade.

You can argue about whether every aspect of this protocol represents the ‘bare minimum’ to avoid a hard Border. Ukraine’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement provides a precedent for internal market treatment on the basis of ‘approximating’ legislation. (I suspect ‘approximation’ will look very much like ‘adoption’.) Other approaches which recognise the Court of Justice of the European Union’s jurisdiction could also be found.

Still, I can’t see how you avoid any border checks without regulatory alignment in goods, a full customs union and shared law on VAT and excise duties. And paragraph 49 of the Joint Report was wide-ranging:

The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements. … In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.

Both sides have defined a hard border to mean no physical infrastructure. I read this to mean UK, and not only Northern Ireland, alignment. And there are fundamental problems with a full economic border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Border economics

Obviously, the economics don’t explain why borders in these islands are so contentious. But Northern Ireland stands to lose more than most of the UK from Brexit. So we should scrutinise claims about the economics of the Border.

Northern Ireland’s exports are more EU-focused, and dramatically more Irish-focused, than Great Britain’s. 35% of its exports go to Ireland alone. But ‘exports’ don’t cover trade within the UK — and 59% of Northern Ireland’s external sales go to Great Britain.

Data: Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

That holds across the vast majority of sectors. For instance, 61% of Northern Ireland’s external sales are of manufactured goods, and mainly go to Great Britain.

Data: Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

Some reply that a sea or air crossing is inherently more onerous than a land one and so can better accommodate checks. This carries some weight. But economically, it’s hard to argue it makes up for the impact on nearly four times the sales. ‘You’ve got to cross water anyway’ doesn’t work for UK manufacturing trade with Germany. It can’t logically work for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland either.

There are some exceptions. No one sensible should break up the all-Ireland single electricity market or have different rail gauges on the island. But absent very compelling evidence, the economics of an regulatory and customs border in the Irish Sea don’t stack up.

The Belfast Agreement and the Border

More fundamentally, unionists’ case rests on the Belfast Agreement’s principle of consent. Many have argued that principle requires special status if a choice must be made. They claim border checks should reflect Northern Ireland’s Remain vote.

It’s superficially plausible, but I think it falls on reading the Agreement. The parties agreed to ‘recognise the legitimacy of whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland with regard to its status, whether they prefer to continue to support the Union with Great Britain or a sovereign united Ireland’.

Brexit makes it harder for nationalists to accommodate themselves to the UK. That’s one reason voting Leave was such a mistake. But the principle of consent clearly relates to the choice between the Union and a united Ireland. It cannot be cited in and of itself to argue for particular relationships with the EU.

Special arrangements for Northern Ireland don’t breach the principle of consent in a literal sense. And all sides accept Northern Ireland is unique. Other parts of the UK do not have the right to join another state guaranteed by international treaty. And the world’s most lopsided liberal democracy can hardly insist on total internal symmetry.

But there is a principled difference between more autonomy for Northern Ireland and differentiation aligning it with another state. That’s particularly true when Northern Ireland has no direct say in the arrangement. Being in the UK entails more than MPs at Westminster. Beyond a certain point, the spirit of the principle of consent must be given its due. I believe an state-like economic and regulatory border within the UK passes that point.

Precedents exist for excluding parts of the EU from its customs union, and indeed for excluding parts of EU member states from the EU itself. But Northern Ireland is neither small and uncontested nor distant and geographically isolated. It is reasonable and just for unionists to expect to remain meaningfully integrated into the economy of their state.

The Border is deeply sensitive for nationalists — London’s insensitivity on that point stands as an indictment. We should avoid forcing a choice on borders if we possibly can. But constitutional status, in spirit and letter, is just as sensitive for unionists. On this, the DUP is quite as firm as it claims. So is the UUP. Liberal unionists such as Sylvia Hermon expect alignment to be UK-wide.

The EU27 side is making a fundamental mistake if it thinks the Agreement means an unmarked border with Ireland trumps avoiding an economic border with Great Britain. Strand Two of the Agreement does indeed provide for a North-South dimension. But it’s carefully defined, far more so than in the Sunningdale Agreement which preceded it.

In fact, it’s crucially important and insufficiently understood that the Belfast Agreement is far clearer on constitutional status than Sunningdale. There are reasons for that. It is quite as dangerous to ignore unionists’ concerns on status as to dismiss nationalists’ fears about borders.

Consistency cuts both ways

On Brexit, I normally criticise our government for wishful thinking, denialism and contradictory commitments. And there’s plenty of fault to lay at London’s door. Casually dismissing the Border problem, blithely assuming Dublin would give ground and pretending technology could fix a fundamental policy problem stand testament to that. But the EU27 side’s position on the Border has contradictions too.

Paragraph 50 of the Joint Report is crucial:

In the absence of agreed solutions, as set out in the previous paragraph, the United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, unless, consistent with the 1998 Agreement, the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree that distinct arrangements are appropriate for Northern Ireland. In all circumstances, the United Kingdom will continue to ensure the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the United Kingdom internal market.

Barnier has said that how the UK delivers on paragraph 50 is a purely UK affair. That’s rather disingenuous. The EU has rightly pushed back on UK hints about turning a blind eye or exempting most businesses from customs controls — they’d create a smugglers’ paradise and break WTO law to boot. By the same token, the UK can’t turn a blind eye either.

So London can’t unilaterally prevent any barriers within the UK and deliver on paragraph 49. The EU and UK would have to extend arrangements to prevent barriers on the island of Ireland to Great Britain to do that. And having signed up to paragraph 50, the EU should surely allow it to be deliverable.

So the EU has a choice too, not just the UK. It’s currently saying something along Canadian lines (or perhaps a bit more like the now-abortive TTIP) is the only realistic option for Great Britain. Combined with the draft protocol, that clearly means an economic border in the Irish Sea — and a fallback option which doesn’t really deliver on the Joint Report.

Compromise works both ways

To be clear: I believe the UK Government is far more at fault in the Brexit negotiations than its EU counterparts. It has failed to make the effort to understand its partners — worse, it indulged in self-indulgent nationalist rhetoric at the price of alienating them. It has failed to prepare its people to face the gulf between Vote Leave’s fantasies and Brexit’s reality — May’s speech on Friday was a belated, partial start. And it has spent far too long effectively seeking to gain the economic benefits of the EU without the institutional obligations.

But the EU’s ‘Norway or Canada’ mantra (though it shouldn’t be taken wholly literally) carries its own problems. A balance of rights and obligations is fair and reasonable. A binary approach makes it politically impossible to solve the very question the EU labels a sine qua non. (And of course, ‘Norway’ wouldn’t solve the Border issue anyway.)

If the UK can move further towards realism and away from its needlessly hardline Brexit policy, and if the EU can define avoiding cherrypicking as a balance of rights and obligations and not a binary split, there might be a way to give everyone something. It would probably include something close to the Withdrawal Treaty protocol for the whole UK.

The UK might hope for more input into drawing up regulations, drawing on EEA precedents. It might ask for a little more room for regulatory manoeuvre. It would seek concessions on services, perhaps drawing on Ukraine in both cases. The EU could demand a substantial financial contribution. It could also expect a liberal and preferential UK migration policy short of free movement. And London would need to accept regulatory alignment as binding. (Kevin O’Rourke and Sam Lowe and John Springford have put forward very similar options.)

The UK could then say it had reduced economic disruption while curbing EEA movement; the EU would be able to say there was a real price for leaving; the UK and Ireland could remain borderless. From Great Britain’s perspective, I’ve tended to see an EEA-ish Brexit as the least-worst option, especially for services. However, Northern Ireland’s greater reliance on manufacturing and links with Ireland make it different. And given the stakes, I’d be willing to put Northern Ireland first.

I accept this is asking a lot of the EU. But I hope the EU might consider its origins as a peace project for our continent. And so I’d argue it, too, should prioritise protecting the peace project on these islands.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 4 March 2018.

Dear sensible Conservatives …

I’m not just writing this with liberal Conservatives or Conservatives who voted Remain in mind. I’m thinking about all of you who know that politics involves trade-offs, opposition matters in democracies and disagreement with the Government is not treason to the country.

Your views on the current Government vary. A few of you are quietly or openly miserable. Many see Theresa May as one of the sensibles at heart, trying to keep the diehards within the tent. Others think her Brexit policy is broadly tolerable. But I imagine you all look across the political divide, see what’s happened to moderate Labour and think it could be much worse for you internally — even as you fear losing to Corbynite Labour.

Labour pains (and possibly precedents)

It certainly could be much worse for you. I’m a Labour moderate: I know what ‘worse’ looks like. But in some ways, your situation feels like a much more extreme version of Labour’s 2011 or 2012. At the time, we had a leader whose basic priority was to keep Labour’s internal coalition more or less on board. We also had a groundswell of feeling in, around and sometimes in complicated opposition to (combined with a sense of ownership of) the Party. In our case it was driven by a mix of being in Opposition and the sheer scale of Government cuts to the most vulnerable. And we had a longstanding hard left element of the Party — a small one in Parliament and a larger one in the country.

The soft left and many who now identify as moderates liked lots about this state of affairs— not wholly unreasonably. Ed Miliband went on the March for the Alternative in 2011. New Labour was self-consciously disavowed — either as too centrist, or as an outdated response in new circumstances, or both. Labour started to sound more critical of business, less keen on markets in public services, less interventionist in foreign policy. All of which was well within the mainstream of politics, whether you agreed with it or not.

On the side, sources like Another Angry Voice became quite well-liked and read by much of the left. Owen Jones was read and shared with sympathy by many social democrats. They were clearly to the left of the leadership — how far wasn’t too clear to many at the time. Organisationally, the unions had been shifting left over years. CLPs were moving that way too, with an inevitable impact on candidate selection. It’s not surprising that the 2015 intake had a significantly larger share of genuinely Corbynite and would-be-Corbynite-if-we-could-get-away-with-it MPs than the rest of the PLP.

We also tend to forget that nasty incidents relating to anti-Semitism and foreign policy predate Corbyn’s leadership. Under Miliband, three Labour MPs saw fit to invite Raed Salah to the House of Commons — and of the three, only Jeremy Corbyn was on the hard left. During the Gaza offensive in 2014, a shadow minister cheered the fact that protesters forced a Sainsbury’s to close — and yes, she apologised, but how did we ever get there in the first place? When an MP’s language called a Jewish Ambassador to Israel’s loyalty to the UK into question, it took a week for Labour to get him to apologise.

Meanwhile, Miliband tended to nod to the left of the soft left in his rhetoric, even when policy remained pretty resolutely social democratic. By 2015, when Jeremy Corbyn borrowed the same rhetoric and most of the policies too, Andy Burnham and (to a lesser extent) Yvette Cooper found themselves struggling to tell Labour members why they shouldn’t vote for him apart from saying he couldn’t win an election. Liz Kendall was the only candidate who consistently said Corbyn was wrong on policy as well as tactics. And the moral case against Corbyn was only made by a very few. The rest is history. Whether social democratic Labour will ever reassert itself against left-populist and hard left Labour I don’t know. But our parlous state is obvious to all.

Conservatives and the nationalist right

I see parallels with the Conservatives and the nationalist right now. Theresa May is no liberal and in many ways she’s an anti-liberal — a true Home Secretary turned Prime Minister. But she isn’t a zealot at heart. And most of the Cabinet is trying to keep the zealots onside en route to a Brexit which I would deem moderately hard, but would probably include a lot more regulatory co-operation and alignment (UK rule-taking in disguise) than said zealots actually want. But in so doing, too many of the sensibles are aping their language and assumptions.

May herself did it repeatedly. Her attempt to portray differences of view as somehow threatening to the nation when she called this year’s election was a case in point. Somehow we had reached a point where political division in the House of Commons — in an adversarial assembly! — was supposed to be a problem. She drew on the language of conspiracism as well as the nationalist right in her absurd claim that the EU was trying to influence the UK election. Earlier, her ‘citizen of nowhere’ remarks played into the same sort of rhetoric and language.

Boris Johnson, whose patriotism is so all-consuming he probably decided whether to back Brexit solely on the basis of his own personal advancement, has played the same game. (I normally disapprove of blanket cynicism about politicians. However, every now and again the evidence requires exceptions to be made.) Our born-again patriot Foreign Secretary recently declared himself ‘troubled with the thought that people are beginning to have genuinely split allegiances’. One assumes his convictions are of recent origin as he only renounced US citizenship this February.

Even more recently, David Davis — also a Brexiteer, but probably more pragmatic than many of his fellows — wrote to demand Labour MEPs have the whip withdrawn for voting in favour of a European Parliament resolution. The relevant section ran as follows:

The European Parliament … is of the opinion that in the fourth round of negotiations sufficient progress has not yet been made on citizens’ rights, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the settlement of the United Kingdom’s financial obligations …

I think the UK national interest is served by recognising our weak negotiating hand and a) settling on citizens’ rights rapidly and in good faith, b) settling as much as possible on the Irish Border while pointing out that the extent of EU-UK divergence will dictate the nature of border management and c) agreeing the broad outline of a financial formula. As far as the money is concerned, getting a decent final relationship is worth virtually any amount. British MEPs also have a duty to their constituents’ interests as they see them (including, I might add, non-UK EEA nationals when it comes to citizens’ rights). They have every right to use their votes to nudge the UK Government towards reality as they see it.

You might disagree with me on the merits of that view. But it is not unpatriotic to hold it. It is not “acting against your country” to advocate it. The national interest is a contested thing, which is one reason we elect people with a responsibility to adjudicate upon it. To call on opposition parties to withdraw the whip for “voting against the national interest” is as toxic as it is disingenuous. It’s not all that far from “enemy of the people” as applied to judges. And “enemy of the people” wasn’t all that far from “traitor”.

This sort of rhetoric has made far deeper inroads into mainstream Conservatism than the hard left equivalent managed in mainstream Labour before autumn 2015. It’s a dangerous game to play. And if I can’t persuade you it’s wrong in principle, think on this: if you don’t want a total car crash in March 2019, at some point you will have to disappoint the people who actually believe this stuff.

You will have to compromise on the Brexit bill. Your deep and comprehensive free trade agreement will involve copying large parts of EU law in all but name. Even after any transition ends, the European Court of Justice will — though probably not directly — continue to have influence over law in the UK. You will probably find your two-year transition period isn’t long enough. You will discover that immigration can’t be cut to tens of thousands without damage you won’t be willing to tolerate.

Do you think the obsessives on the nationalist right will spare you when you try to bring them back to Earth? Philip Hammond was sympathetic to Brexit not that long ago. He backed Remain in the end, but he was distinctly eurosceptic. He is implementing a policy of leaving the single market and not forming a customs union. He still has Brexiteers baying for his blood now. What is it about the record of lifelong europhobic obsessives which makes some of you think they can ever be appeased? What happens when you have to tell them Utopia doesn’t come wrapped in a Union Jack?

So if I were you, I’d draw some lines in the sand sooner rather than later. I’d resist the temptation to define disagreement as unpatriotic. I’d remind myself that pragmatists can’t control zealots forever. I’d get ready to fight sensible, moderate conservatism’s corner. And I’d remember that if you co-opt the zealots’ language and instincts for too long, you’ll have nothing to defend yourself with if they come for you.

For the good of the country — though of course your zealots would deny my right to say such a thing — please learn from Labour’s social democrats. Given the chance, the hard left turned on us. Given the chance, the nationalist right can turn on you in turn.

This post was originally published on Medium.com on 28 October 2017.