Limbo Politics in Britain

The United Kingdom is in a political limbo. There are several reasons for this; Brexit, the weakness of Theresa May and the lack of credible alternatives.

When the United Kingdom voted narrowly in 2016 to leave the European Union, we knew there would be a period of uncertainty. Once Article 50 was triggered there would be a two year period for negotiations on the deal, and then the UK's membership would be finished.

However, since then negotiations have not progressed very much, and neither side has really been able to gain anything like an advantage. Part of the problem is the impression given that the UK government hasn't really worked out what it wants. Prime Minister Theresa May has repeated, many times, that 'Brexit means Brexit' and that 'no deal is better than a bad deal.'

This has meant there is a lot of uncertainty over the future, and what sort of deal will emerge, if any. But whatever we end up with, it will take many years for the full impact of Brexit to unravel, and so some decisions will be on hold for some time.  

The problem is, that the government's, and Mrs. May's, negotiating position is severely weakened by the result of the general election, which instead of the expected large Conservative majority, resulted in a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives cobbling together a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party to be able to form a governing majority.

Mrs. May's position has been put in doubt by the result, and there is an appearance that at least one of her rivals, Boris Johnson, is manoeuvring himself into position and constantly undermining her by making comments related to Brexit.

Unfortunately for Mrs. May, her speech at the Conservative conference was somewhat hijacked by 'comedian' Simon Brodkin (which raised concerns about security) handing her a P45, which was followed by a series of coughing fits. While she handled these situations fairly deftly, it is the impression that is created that counts. Perception is everything, and these mishaps didn't create a air of confidence; not aided by letters falling off the board behind her as she spoke.

The message of her speech; energy prices, tuition fees which she wanted to get across are being buried by these events, and the news channels concentrate on the mishaps, rather than the positive message she tried to convey.

However, the Prime Minister does have a couple of things in her favour. Firstly, that none of those who would be considered rivals for her job; Boris Johnson, David Davis, Amber Rudd do not convince either. In fact, at least two of them would almost certainly be worse, and not enough is known about Amber Rudd to judge her abilities. Her very slim majority in Hastings does not help her cause if the position becomes vacant.

The second thing that favours her is the lack of alternatives from other parties. Jeremy Corbyn had a good election campaign, and the Labour Party bit into the Conservative vote enough to deny them a majority. There are various reasons for this; the paucity of the Tory campaign, the collapse of the Ukip vote and the failure of the Liberal Democrats to gain ground (despite ending up with four extra seats).

However, if Labour were unable to win against the worst Conservative campaign in living memory, and possibly any other for that matter, many question whether they can win next time. The party still has to show it can be trusted with the economy, even if you believe that to be an unfair perception, and it's still struggling to get that view countered.

The Conservatives, obviously, don't want to take that risk, and so will cling onto government (I'm reluctant to say power) for as long as possible, hoping that Labour's polling figures will fade over time.

Divisions within Labour still exist, although they put them aside, in the main, for the election campaign, and they may widen over time, especially as the election result, and various internal changes have strengthened Mr. Corbyn's grip on the party. He is entitled to do this, as he can claim that he did a lot better than expected, putting him in a position of strength.

Recent polling is still has the parties running very close, and so it appears the public does not really have that much confidence in either of them, but now we've returned to a two-party system, the alternatives, due in part to the electoral system, are very limited.

The Liberal Democrats failed to make any sort of breakthrough at the election. They gained four seats overall, but actually lost votes. Their leader at the time, Tim Farron, got embroiled in issues surrounding his personal beliefs, and eventually resigned because he couldn't reconcile those beliefs with being leader of the Liberal Democrats.

He has been succeeded by for Business Secretary Vince Cable, who is making all sorts of noises, but the Lab Democrats have a long way to go before they're a real voice again. They've tried to position themselves as the voice of the 48% that voted to remain in the European Union, but that has failed to gain ground.

Ukip's fall was the most spectacular, as their votes went to the Conservative and Labour parties, and they lost their single MP. They also lost their leader, Paul Nuttall, and have recently elected Henry Bolton to replace him. Ukip have tried to position themselves as the 'conscience of Brexit' and their future is dependent on how the negotiations go, and whether they start to regain some of their support.

So despite her weakened position, Mrs. May is safe for the time being. None of her potential rivals enthuses the electorate, the main opposition still does not persuade that they are ready for government. The economic future is very uncertain because negotiations with the EU have yet to progress sufficiently to see where the country will end up.

The DUP deal will enable the government to stay in place for at least two years, and by then a lot of things may have changed. New candidates for the top jobs in government will have emerged, some of whom may prove to have public appeal. Labour will continue to reshape itself, and could be in position to form a government if it wins the next election.

The UK in going to be in this limbo for some time, economically and politically, and there is no way of knowing which way things will go; only time will tell.





     

More questions than answers...........

To many Thursday's County Council election results were a 'game changer,' as the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), seemed to come from virtually nowhere to win 147 councillors a gain of 136 on the same elections in 2009.

These gains were mainly at the expense of the Conservatives who were down 335 seats, although they remain the largest party in County Councils by some margin, having more than twice as many as the Labour Party.

These elections featured another poor performance by the Liberal Democrats, who lost around a quarter of their councillors. The Conservatives also lost about 25%, but they started from a much higher base, and so were always likely to suffer considerable losses.

The coalition partners then for the first time since forming the government in 2010 both suffered substantial losses, but is this just mid-term blues, or a taste of things to come?

Perhaps if the Labour Party had many more gains we could have read more into the results, but despite a gaining a very good 291 councillors, all that has happened is that Labour are back to where they were in 2009.

There were typical to and fros on Friday as both Conservative and Labour spokespeople each claimed the other had done terribly, trading figures back and forth, and really just generating more heat than light.

As a Labour Party supporter, I was pleased with the results on Thursday, especially as we made gains in areas where the party of often has difficulty making headway, such as the Sussex coastal area, the midlands and the west country. In the long run this may turn out to be more significant than whether or not Labour performed as well as they should have.

However, the real story of the 2013 County Council elections was the performance of UKIP, and whether  it heralds a sea-change in British politics (or perhaps more accurately English as UKIP's presence elsewhere is muted), or a protest vote against all the main parties, with whom the public have become increasingly disillusioned.

But UKIP have a number of problems to overcome before they could be said to have made a real impact on the political scene. True they have had candidates elected to the European Parliament for some time, but have never made much progress, until now, on the domestic scene, and still have got nowhere near having an MP elected.

In 2009's elections for the European Parliament, UKIP came second in the national vote, and many pundits are expecting that next year, they could well come out on top. But, until they have an MP elected under the UKIP banner, being taken seriously will be a problem for them.

There have been many rumours over the last year or so that a number of Conservative MP's might defect to UKIP, the principle issue being David Cameron's unwillingness to call a referendum on membership of the European Union. For Mr Cameron this is a delicate issue, as he too has problems with the EU, how it is administered and how much it costs. However, he is in the end, as is the Chancellor George Osborne, in favour of continued membership provided he can get the concessions he wants. Unfortunately for him, a substantial proportion of his own membership in including those MP's, want out altogether.

But, although a defection would cause the Prime Minister some embarrassment, losing a minor backbencher or two isn't an issue, until UKIP start to get members of Parliament elected under its own banner, advocating a UKIP manifesto.

On the face of it UKIP do present the greatest threat to the Conservative Party, but they can also affect the other main parties. Although Labour did not actually lose any councillors to UKIP on Thursday, inevitably some Labour supporters, for a number of reasons chose to vote for them, and almost certainly it cost Labour wins.

The UKIP performance also, probably, skews the performance of the Conservative party, as it is its supporters who switched here in the main, and without UKIP, the Tories losses would have been many fewer.

I think it would be dangerous to write off the UKIP performance as a mere protest vote, because politics has changed substantially over the last few years. The expenses scandal and the financial crisis has lowered people's opinion of politicians more than ever, and it's hard for leaders to make an impact. trust has gone, and UKIP leader's, Nigel Farage, bluff, bloke down the pub strategy is currently paying dividends.

As the elections drew closer, UKIP's candidates came under greater scrutiny, although not yet their policies, and demonstrated that they too have been caught out by their success, and have yet to put in place a proper candidate programme. Although as the other parties will vouch, that is no guarantee that the odd embarrassment won't slip through.

The General Election is two years away, and a lot will happen between now and then which could have a significant impact. The performance of the economy will be key, and the answers that each of the parties comes up with to deal with those issues.

Will the coalition hold together as they increasingly diverge in their approach? Will the Labour Party be able to come up with policies and rhetoric that enables the public to trust them again? Will the Conservative reaction to the UKIP threat be to lurch to the right, to allay that? Will the Liberal Democrats look to position themselves where they can benefit whichever of Conservative or Labour is the biggest party in 2015? Will UKIP make the breakthrough into Parliament they desire, and need, and become a new force in politics?

There is one other issue that may yet have an effect, and that's the referendum on Scottish independence due in 2014, only eight months before the General Election. A yes vote would create problems, as independence itself would not become a fact until around March 2016.

Would Scotland still send MP's to the House, only to have them leave once independence became a fact? If they did, and there were enough Labour MP's (Conservatives currently being weaker in Scotland than elsewhere in Great Britain) to either make them the biggest party, or even give them a big majority?

Alternatively, the Conservatives could move from being the biggest party to becoming a majority one, having once again been in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Would they dump their junior partners, and form a new government on their own?

Anyway, having strayed off the point a bit here, what does the County Council elections of 2013 tell us about the British political scene?

Not much in the end, the main parties both did pretty much as expected, UKIP did better than expected, but now they have entered the mainstream they will come under greater scrutiny. But with two years to go until a General Election, and European Elections and a Scottish independence referendum in between, there are a lot more questions than answers at the moment, so making predictions is a fool's game.

A Hare-brained government!

"Friends are arguing about whether this is the worst government since 1945. It certainly seems so. Blair’s administration did the single worst thing by invading Iraq, and Eden’s got the worst comeuppance, after invading Suez. But there’s been none in my lifetime that so resembles a team about to drop into the Conference. You look around the field and the players are all kicking the mud rather than the ball. Can anyone name a minister who’s had a good game? Even the free-spirited ones like Vince Cable and Kenneth Clarke lost all their vim the minute they got red boxes. Gove, Lansley and Duncan-Smith call to mind George Santayana’s definition of a fanatic: someone who redoubles his efforts after forgetting his aim. Hague merely seems bored, as though his brief — the world — weren’t as interesting to him as an elliptical machine. The disparity between Cameron’s moral lectures to the young and the ugliness of his own tongue dismays even his supporters. Osborne and Cameron represent class interest pure and simple. ‘Does it help us?’ is the only question they ever ask. Their dishonest strategy of blaming Labour for everything the bankers did wrong ran out of gas five miles back down the road. It will be interesting to see what new PR wangle they come up with next to disguise the failure of their own analysis."

The above quote comes from the diary section of this week's edition of The Spectator. The magazine tends to be Conservative supporting, in the same way the New Stateman leans towards the Labour Party.

David Hare is a neutral political observer, having written satirically on all politics for many years. I do not know which way he votes, and his appearnace in The Spectator is not evidence that he is a Conservative, as it often has articles by those from the opposite camp.

However, that they have allowed such a blatant attack on the government could be seen that they are unhappy with much that is going on. Editor Fraser Nelson has described the Health and Social Care Bill as amongst the top ten worst bills of the past decade.

I will allow David Hare's words to speak for themselves, but just to wind up, this government has already developed a reputation for poor drafting of bills, and David Cameron himself is noted for lacking attention to detail.

As an article in The Independent on January 29th so amply demonstrated, when it was revealed that plans for a second coalition with the Liberal Democrats hasve been dumped and, "a new agreement has been abandoned because ministers realise running the country is harder than they had thought."

A senior cabinet minister said, ""We have realised that governing is more than just passing legislation. We really need to focus on ensuring they [the laws] work so we can go to voters with proof that we have made a difference."

So right from day one the Conservatives didn't know what they were doing, and the Liberal Democrats shell-shocked by finding themselves in a position of responsibility, were just unable to step up.

Protest! The song remains the same?

In London and Manchester yesterday, the 28th January there were large marches against the rise in tuition fees and the cuts the coalition government is imposing on Britain. These are just the latest in a series of protests and ther are many more to come. But! Are we seeing a new age of protest? Is there anything new about them? Will they have any effect?

The people have been protesting, and rebelling, against the forces of authority and oppression since ancient times. In Britain alone we learn of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381, the enclosure riots of the 16th century, the English Civil War, Peterloo, the Suffragettes, the Jarrow March, and the Poll Tax Riot to name but a few.

France had its revolution in the late 18th cnetury, followed swiftly by the Americans, then in the mid-19th century there were a series of uprisings especially in 1848. Other parts of the world have also experienced their own revolutions, and protests. So protesting is an essential element as people try to make themselves heard, and even overthrow their governments.

For the modern generation, the first experience, albeit second hand for most Britons, is the movement that swept away the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989. These tapped into a changing mood, and, with the exception of Romania, seem to have been largely peaceful. The revolution however, was only possible because the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had indicated that they would not intervene, if the people rose up against their imposed governments. South Africa's change was of a different nature, having built up over a long period of time, international sanctions playing a part, and the government eventually deciding on a peaceful handover themselves.

So the protests of the early 21st century are following a long tradition, but is there anything different about them in any significant respect? Technology is playing a big part, the ability to email, tweet and text to organise protests has enabled fairly rapid organisation, and relaying of information. This is then enhanced by using the internet and social networking sites such as facebook and twitter to keep people updated on events.

In 2008 Barack Obama's campaign made very good use of technology to organise, and now it is being used in Egypt as the people rise up to try and oust Mubarak who has been in charge for thirty years. The authorities fear of technological advances being used is such that they have cut off internet links, and blocked mobile networks. The Egyptian uprising is inspired by the forcing out of Tunisia's long-serving leader Ben Ali, and it has similarly inspired the same in Sudan.

Egypt and Sudan's are youth led, in a way reminiscent of Europe's 1848 movements (Young Turks,Young French etc.), and it is reported today that a group calling itself 'Youth for Change' is protesting in Khartoum. It seems that there is now a sweeping movement across the North African/Arabian border states, and it will be very interesting to see if other states such as Algeria and Libya get caught up.

In the wake of the financial crisis, nobody has escaped the effects, with Britain suffering especially badly of the major industrialised countries. There are many arguments as regards the reasons for this, which will be argued about for generations to come. However, what Britain does have is a government that believes drastic cuts are needed to pay off the deficit by 2014.

As a result a number of measures have been taken, which will come into effect over the coming years. There are two main areas affected by the government's policies, public services and universities (including further education), as well as a rise in VAT, which is regressive. many jobs are going to be lost in the near future, many in the public services, but private companies, especially those who work closely with the public sector, are also going to feel the pinch. The government is hoping the private sector will be able to fill the gap in services and employment, but unless the current downturn turns out to be a blip, that could well turn out to be a false premise.

The rise in tuition fees, and the abolition of the Educational Maintenance Allowance has caused the first stirrings, as students all over the country have marched against them. Although teachers, lecturers and parents have joined in as support, it is the youth who have been the drivers of these protests. The irony of the part played by university students, is that they will not be liable for the rises in tuition fees, but they feel as though they are playing a part on behalf of future students. Many of these are those currently in their first year of A level courses, who have had their maintenance allowance abolished, with nothing, as yet, to replace it. But this is what links these protests with those in Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan, that it is the next generation leading them, and not the forces of the past.

Public sector strikes could be the next move, but those who will be losing their jobs are now beginning to join with the young protesters to make their opinions known. and although the unions will play a part in organising these, it is new movements such as UK uncut, led by Aaron Peter's, that are the driving force.

As said technology has played a big part in the organising of these protests, and the ability of participants to quickly disperse information, means that we can all follow what is happening. There are many more protests planned over the coming months, as the unions and others join in, as the cuts begin in earnest.

We therefore come to our first question, are we seeing a new age of protest? The answer to that, in reality, is no. Protest has been an integral part of society in one form or another since the polis came into existence, and almost certainly long before then. Whatever the changes in organisation and information dispersal, they are the continuation of a long tradition when people feel they are being treated unfairly by government, whether that is true or just a perception. The cuts, and policies, are affecting people and they feel that this is the only way to make themselves heard.

The second question is there anything new about them? Again I have to say no, because as in many ways all the great revolutions, the current protest movements all over the world, are driven by a similar imperitive, the failure of the old politics. Whether it is the ancien regimes of France in 1789 and Britain in 1642 and 1776, apartheid in South Africa, Communism in Eastern Europe, or the political system in Britain western Europe, or North Africa and Arabia. It is this failure that is seen as the reasons behind the high unemployment and economic difficulties facing people all over the world, and their seeming unwillingness to deal with the root causes.

For many years now, certainly in Britain, political participation has been falling, and people have become more engaged through other mediums such as the green movement, or the National Trust, it is through civil society that people have expressed themselves. Turnout in General Elections has also fallen, as the electorate feel as though the parties, and their representatives do not actually really understand the issues they face in their lives.

The expenses scandal brought this to a head, as it seemed to confirm what many have believed for years, that politicians are only out for themselves. They also feel, with some justification, that those they elect to represent them in parliament, have very little real experience of ordinary life, with millionaires in government telling them "we're all sharing the pain," or leaders of other parties that have done little else but politics. There seem to be very few who have similar backgrounds to those that voted for them, and even fewer seeming to reach the upper echelons, then if they do, as with Alan Johnson, are dismissed as 'postie,' as though his having had what many would consider a real job, and makes it appear that the ordinary person in the street is considered less important, and that their experiences have nothing to tell the policiticians.

So we come to the most important question, will they have any effect? History already tells us the results of many past revolutions, whether successful or not. The Tunisian regime has fallen, and Egypt seems to be on the cusp of a new age, but both these country's rulers were long standing, and their positions were long regarded as undemocratic, as even when elections were held, they weren't regarded as free or fair. When the people rebelled, and decided that change was needed, they had a common target, as the regimes had lost the support and trust of the people, and the armies decided not to intervene on behalf of the authorities.

The protesters in Britain face a different set of problems, as the government is freely elected, and because the facility exists to punish them through the ballot box, a revolution of the sort in Tunisia (or even Britain in the 17th century) is highly unlikely. But that doesn't make the protests invaluable, or that they will not affect policy.

In 1990 the Poll Tax riots were not responsible alone for Margaret Thatcher's removal from office. They were an expression of great unhappiness with one element of government policy, but that was just representative of a government, and leader seen to have lost touch, and it became apparent that if Mrs. Thatcher remained in place the Conservatives would almost certainly lose the next election. Margaret Thatcher was therefore replaced by John Major nine months later, and the Conservatives managed to win the subsequent election in 1992.

The current protests are occurring very soon into the new government's term, and are going to get more frequent as economic pressures and policies combine to affect the people of Britain. The government is a coalition, and many in the junior partner, the Liberal Democrats, are less then happy about the policies the government is enacting. In the polls at the moment it is the Liberal Democrats taking the hit, and if they do very badly in May's local elections, pressure will be brought to bear on the party's MPs. There may even be calls in some quarters for them to withdraw from the coalition, though highly unlikely at this stage.

The Conservatives are not immune from this, and if the economic situation continues to worsen, the pressure to change direction will be immense. A poor performance by the Tories in May, especially if they are almost wiped out in the Scottish and Welsh elections, and David Cameron will come under internal pressure to make changes in policy. At the moment the government is resisting all calls to alter course, and lessen the impact of the cuts, saying they are necessary to restore faith in public finances. But if things do not begin to improve measurably for ordinary people quite quickly, then they could find themselves facing a similar situation to the government in 1990.

Overall then, the new wave of protests at home and abroad are nothing new, and even the reasons are very much the same. Unemployment, or fear of it, economic difficulties, leaders out of touch with the ordinary man and woman in the street, and that the politicians are only concerned with their own comforts.

The real difference is that new technology enables mass protest to be organised quickly, and that those all over the world can follow eventsw as they happen. The twenty-four hour media allows us to see the pictures, whilst we read the thoughts of those involved, and gain a wider understanding of what is happening.

So although the reasons for mass protests remain the same, it is the way they are organised that makes them different. The ability to cross boundaries, and to relay information, and therefore the authorities ability to control the dispersal of that information is restricted.

When I was on the December 9th protest in London, I was able to provide a running commentary on my phone, and today's events were relayed on twitter, and we were able to see instance photographs of protesters being pepper sprayed. At this moment I have twenty-four hour news on, and can watch the situation in Egypt unfold before my eyes.