Legatum, Brexit, and the privatisation of the British government

It's common knowledge that "think tanks" play a part in forming government policy, but how large a part wasn't clear until recently.

There was a time when "think tanks" were seen as a useful method of exploring ideas and "out of the box" thinking. This was when they were still in their relative infancy (such as forty or fifty years ago), and their influence was slight. As they were, by their nature, peripheral bodies, they could easily be ignored. Think tanks were a "safe space" to explore unconventional ideas, where they would do no harm if they were shown to be mistaken. The lessons that were learned were learned in private and behind closed doors.
It could be said this changed when one think tank in particular, the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), began to seriously influence the thinking of the Conservative leader, Margaret Thatcher. Its thinking then went on guide large areas of her government's policy. It was not that the IEA controlled government policy, but Thatcher's thinking and its thinking overlapped to a large degree. The problem was that these ideas became self-reinforcing, and this thinking also led to massive structural change of Britain. Some of its "Libertarian" ideas were put into practice on the British population, in the form of deregulating and privatising large sections of the economy, as well as guiding some changes to social policy.

As "think tanks" are essentially used as vehicles of political agendas, its important to recognise that these institutions are, almost by definition, working to undermine the democratic process. At the very least, we can say that "think tanks" act to manipulate the political process in a way that in opaque and beyond the public eye. Whereas at one time they were seen as useful "intellectual laboratories" for political nerds, these days they have turned into an industry in their own right, thanks to the support of wealthy donors.
Where the likes of the IEA began, others have followed over the years. There is now a plethora of "think tanks" that seem to have some form of influence on the Conservative Party and its government; perhaps the most influential, thanks to Brexit, is the Legatum Institute.

An excellent analysis of this "think tank" looks into the people involved, their backgrounds, and their motivations. The government seems to have given this "think tank" the role of doing large areas of the government's thinking on Brexit for it. In large areas of policy regarding Brexit, the government seems to have deferred judgement to the Legatum Institute. In a sense, we can call this the "privatisation of government": in this case, it is government policy itself that looks to have been privatised.


A logical conclusion?

This is a logical conclusion of the "Libertarian" school of thinking that came from Thatcherism. After privatising industries and services, it then led to the selling-off of government services themselves. The IEA had a large influence behind the scenes as it mirrored Thatcher's own thinking, thus reinforcing her own prejudices. By the time David Cameron came to power, there was a "second wind" of Libertarian thinking: under the auspices of the austerity program, there were further roll-outs of contracts for government services to the private sector.
Here we see how any event is used as an excuse to further advance the Libertarian agenda. Back in the '70s, it was used as the answer to the economic problems of the times. By the '80s, they had successfully changed the structure of the economy through deregulation, which ultimately led to the financial crisis of 2008; the answer to this (self-inflicted) problem was even more of the same agenda, now under the excuse of "austerity".
The "Brexit Agenda" was yet another furthering of the same cause: by freeing Britain of the "shackles" of the EU, it would solve the problem of "austerity". All the money that was wasted on the EU could be re-channeled to Britain. The use of the "Brexit Agenda" to dominate the political narrative was even more brazen than its earlier Libertarian incarnations, as it came about through the use of an outside force (UKIP) that didn't even have any serious representation in parliament. In earlier times, events were used as an excuse to further their agenda; nowadays, the events themselves are brazenly manipulated to further their agenda, regardless of how this demeans the democratic process. Brexit didn't come about through a "popular uprising", but through the insidious seeping of an agenda into the political mainstream.

The Legatum Institute fits into this "agenda" neatly, as it espouses the same aim using the same fallacies: that the EU was the cause of Britain's problems, and deregulation from the EU's constraints would allow Britain to thrive. Of course, this narrative all suits the agenda of those espousing the narrative: the agenda, as some of its advocates have argued, is to turn Britain into an economy like Singapore's.

The situation we are at is where the agenda that serves a narrow segment of society also serves to "privatize" government itself: with the ultimate aim being where the private sector can effectively make government policy, beyond the public eye and without proper transparency. While this idea is nothing new, as "lobbying" has been a part of politics for an eternity, its logical conclusion is the "Brexit Agenda": where the private sector runs the government, in the manner of a hierarchical company where Britain's citizens are its "worker bees".

Where a properly-functional democracy is meant to fit into this, is unclear.

Theresa May's Florence Speech and UK Brexit strategy: An abusive relationship, or a wrecking-ball?

The author had a "lightbulb" moment when thinking about a suitable analogy that sums up the psychology behind Brexit and where it comes from.
Britain has been in the EU for over forty years, during which time its relationship with Europe has been about promoting what can most kindly be described as "British exceptionalism": finding ways to have "opt-outs" on EU policy and strategy, with what can also be described as a "having a cake and eating it" approach. This led to Britain opting out of Schengen, the "Social Chapter", and the Euro, to name just three major examples. By the time  This finally led to Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, deciding the best way for his party to resolve its psychological "culture wars" over Europe was for the country to have a referendum about it. And now that Britain voted to leave, the government's strategy seems to be to continue this psychology of "having its cake and eating it".


Britain's "mid-life crisis"

The analogy that came to my mind was this: the mid-life crisis.
Britain is like the long-married husband with the wife and two kids that suddenly, when he reaches middle-age, decided he needs "freedom".
Britain's "exceptional" relationship with the EU has been like the over-bearing husband that is continually bridling against his loyal wife's wishes for them to spend more quality time together, rather than him going to the pub with his mates every other night. His relationship with his children (read as Britain's relationship with EU citizens) at turns fluctuates from loving to resentful. Agreed, his wife can seem too smothering at times (EU regulations!), but she also provides a stability to the man's innately unsettled psyche.
Until, suddenly, the man declares he needs "freedom", and walks out on his wife and children, leaving the question of their combined financial commitments hanging in the air. Will the man continue to contribute to the mortgage? Unclear. Will the man agree to take care of the kids? Unclear. The husband, after then walking out, incredibly claims his wife ought to helping him to sort out the mess he's caused, because "this affects all of the family"; implying the kids's future is at stake, so his wife ought to be as accommodating as possible. In other words, using emotional blackmail to get what he wants. The husband, after all this, still claims to "deep down" love his wife, and wants to have a close and cordial relationship with her; he simply wants his "freedom" to play the field and no longer be tied to their marriage. Yet he still wants her to do everything he asks.

This, at heart, feels a good an analogy for Britain's relationship with the EU. Britain has been the "abusive husband" of the EU; now Britain wants out of the relationship, but, as Theresa May's speech implies, thinks that it is the long-suffering wife (The EU) who should still bend to her husband's (Britain's) abusive demands even after separation. This is government policy masking a psychological "mid-life crisis" of Britain's identity. There is no reason for - and plenty of reasons against - the EU submitting to these demands. Nobody with an ounce of self-respect would do so; indeed, Michel Barnier has already said as much. For the EU to agree to such demands would be to break EU law and its own principles. Yet this is what the British government expects the EU to do.


An abusive relationship

After fifteen months of government dithering and chaos over its Brexit strategy, Boris Johnson preempted May's advertised Florence speech strategy by publishing his own. This then led to the hastily-arranged cabinet meeting the day before the speech, seemingly to try and find some kind of middle ground between the Brexit hard-liners and the moderates, led by Hammond.
So the Florence speech is, by definition, some kind of fudge. It was always bound to be, as Brexit was always about doing what was best for the Conservative Party, rather than what was best for Britain. Cameron's own career was defined and destroyed by that same pathology. In the same way that the EU referendum was just a strategy to keep the party united, the same goes for May's Brexit strategy. It was never about Britain's relationship with Europe; it was about the best interests of the Conservative Party. It might seem odd to understand Britain's biggest foreign policy challenge since the Second World War as an act of Tory navel-gazing, but that's the reality. This Tory navel-gazing, and the myopic misunderstanding of the EU's stance, also explains why the negotiations are more likely to fail than succeed (more on that later).
As we now know, May has managed to (on paper) find a strategy that seems to appease both sides, the moderates and the "Hard Brexiteers": the offer of a two-year transition where things remained pretty much the same, except for formally leaving the EU, followed by a Brexit that leaves the UK outside the single market and customs union, in what appears to be the "hardest" Brexit possible.
Except that this all forgets the details, and the questions over the details are what will prompt a thousand and one questions from the EU. Because May has said, like in the "abusive husband" analogy, that she wants some kind of "bespoke" relationship, unlike anything the EU has currently with a non-member. The UK wants to acts like the "mid-life crisis" husband that wants a divorce, but still wants to share the same house as his ex-wife, able to bring home whoever he likes, and expects to not have to pay towards their shared financial obligations once legally divorced. And expects his ex-wife to help think up "creative" solutions to the many obvious practical problems this entails.

So this is the form of "abusive relationship" that Britain's government hopes to achieve with the EU: one where the EU does all the hard lifting to get the divorce terms the divorcee wants - a divorce that Britain instigated because it demanded its "freedom".


A wrecking-ball strategy?

The negotiation process has been referred to as "stalled", and the strategy that May put out offered no real solutions to the causes of the "stall" - over money, citizens rights and Ireland. In some ways, they represent a "Gordian knot" of epic proportions; no doubt part of the reason the exit terms were written the way they were in the Lisbon Treaty, because no-one would want to leave under such terms. The "Gordian knot" appearance to the negotiations was also written in as part of the terms in the Lisbon Treaty; the EU is simply following its own manual, as previously set out. But before the referendum, the "Brexiteers" were blithely dismissive of such issues, and never mentioned Ireland's complex situation at all.

For all of Theresa May's words in Florence, and how she thinks this strategy offers a fine compromise for Britain, this is irrelevant if the EU simply says "no". And there's plenty of reasons to think they will. This is a negotiation, not simply about Britain saying "this is what we will do". If it expects to be able to do that, then Britain will leave the EU in 2019 with no deal at all, and no transition.
Firstly, this strategy offers no solutions to, for example, Ireland. Britain expects the EU to help to come up with a solution. In fact (and this is where it gets really hilarious) the EU did offer a solution: for Northern Ireland to stay separately in the single market. But the DUP would oppose anything that suggested a difference from the rest of the UK, and because the government needs DUP support to stay in power, the government must say no. This is another example of the "Gordian knot".
Apart from the unresolved questions over other payments (not those that May mentioned), is the sticky issue of citizens' rights. We should remember that in order for negotiations to continue to the next stage (to discuss the future "bespoke" trade relationship), these three issues must first be adequately resolved. And the clock is ticking, as the EU likes to remind Britain. In reality, the more time there is stuck on these three issues, the less time there is to talk about trade. But as Ireland's future trade status is also tied in with its citizens' rights, here we have yet another "Gordian knot": you can't really discuss one without the resolving other, and vice versa.

The clock is still ticking. According to the EU, it would take six months to ratify these terms (more on that in a moment), so the cut-off date to conclude negotiations is in around a year's time. First of all, Britain is expecting the EU to agree to some kind of as-yet unspecified "bespoke" deal in whatever time they have left before this time next year, once they have somehow resolved the three issues mentioned earlier. Britain has offered no solutions to at least one of the three issues (Ireland), and the other two are unclear.
Assuming that - somehow - the complex "bespoke" deal Britain calls for is agreed by this time next year, and the EU is - unbelievably - fine with this, we then have ratification. And this is where it might get really interesting, because all 27 countries have to agree, including the EU parliament. Individual countries could then, quite legitimately, raise all kinds of concerns. Indeed, some already have. Apart from Ireland, there is Spain, who may well wish to raise all kinds of hell with Gibraltar. So it's quite possible that any deal would be vetoed at some point in the ratification process. The word "clusterfuck" comes to mind.

Theresa May's call for a transition might be useful, but this does nothing for the negotiations. A two-year transition does not mean we will have two more years to negotiate our future trade deal. Whatever deal Britain wants must be agreed with the EU by this time next year, or there will be no transition at all, and no deal at all. Any potential extension to negotiations could only be agreed after a consultation, which would require the agreement of all concerned parties. Again, this seems like cloud cuckoo thinking if Britain thinks this is likely.
Theresa May also persisted with the idea that "no deal was better than a bad deal". This implies that the British government seems to think they have the upper hand. She would be willing to leave in 2019 without agreeing terms if she didn't like what the EU offered in return, and thus (it is implied) "call their bluff". But this has the logic the wrong way around. The EU has the upper hand in the negotiations, as it can simply turn down any proposal that doesn't fit to its wishes. It is up to Britain to provide a deal agreeable with the EU, not vice versa. After invoking Article 40, Britain had a two-year time frame to a make a deal with the EU. But Britain seems intent on looking for a deal that the EU would find it impossible to accept. So at this rate, the failure of the talks in the short time frame given seems guaranteed.
Besides, the UK government seems to have put in its excuses early: by asking for the EU's flexibility and creativity over Britain's impossible demands, the government can then blame the EU's "intransigence" over a failure of the talks. But as mentioned earlier, the whole "Europe debate" in the Conservative Party was always about managing how things were at home: as long as the British electorate could be fooled into thinking everything was all Europe's fault, then any problems that occurred post-Brexit would never fall at the government's door.

This is what has this writer thinking that the more intelligent "Brexiteers" have already figured all this out: any "bespoke" deal is practically impossible in the time frame given by the Lisbon Treaty. They are putting forward a negotiation strategy that they know will fail as they want Britain to leave the EU in 2019 with no deal. They want a "Hard Brexit" as soon as possible, and are happy to use a "wrecking-ball" negotiation strategy to get it. May's Florence speech said very little of substance beyond meaningless platitudes. What little substance there was said nothing that was not already known or could not have been easily guessed. On the details, there was almost nothing. On the final status, there was nothing but an unfathomable "Gordian knot" that would set up more negotiation problems for the future, on top of the lack of solutions for the current problems still unresolved.

The odd thing is that some Brexit supporters are currently panicking that Theresa May has "sold out" with her Florence speech. Some have called her position "surrender", or even compared it to "appeasement" by Neville Chamberlain. This is hyperbolic nonsense. On the contrary; while the offering of a transition period pacifies the moderates, in reality the overall strategy seems to make a "Hard Brexit" in 2019 all the more likely, given the complexities of the situation as explained above. If there is any "appeasement" on May's part, it is towards those that favour a "Hard Brexit". And if the "Brexiteers" are incensed by even the thought of a transitional phase, then their pernicious influence on the government will surely ensure that the negotiations fail. And they are bound to provide further caveats and conditions to their support for any EU deal between now and the end of the negotiations, putting Britain's government in an even more impossible position.

What are the "Brexiteers" worried about? Their "Brexit Agenda" seems well on track. It's everyone else that needs to worry.

Brexit, British identity and English Nationalism: a short history

The author was reading an excellent article about the "Gordian Knot" of the Irish Question and Brexit, and how the issue of Northern Ireland became lost in the EU referendum last year. This article also reminds us that Brexit was, at its heart, about English nationalism.

As I've said elsewhere, the reasons for Brexit are complex and multi-faceted, but one undeniable factor is the emotional and insidious draw of English nationalism. Part of this is due to the idiosyncratic nature of Britain and its history. By its nature, Britain is a multi-national state, yet dominated by England's size and much larger population.


A history of "Britishness"

The term "Britain" only really became to have proper political meaning when James I of Scotland became joint ruler of England and Scotland at the turn of the 17th century, uniting "Britain" under one crown for the first real time, and with a shared flag,  the "Union Jack". While England had dominated Britain and the Isles through its political might, Scotland (in alliance with France) had always resisted. British identity became something more formal under James I, even if Scotland formally retained its independence from England for another hundred years. The Civil War in the middle of the 17th century was as much a "British Civil War", as it affected all nations of the land with waves of anarchy and uprisings.
Britain's status became formalised with the legal union of Scotland with England in 1707; but unlike how Wales had been conquered by England centuries earlier, Scotland's union with England was consensual - a treaty more like a "contract between nations". It was only after an economic crisis that Scotland decided to submit powers to Westminster for equal access to its economic might, seeing in this "contract" its own self-interest.

This formal union coincided with the beginning of the Golden Age of Britain's colonial expansion. With Scotland now tied in with England, both kingdoms enjoyed the fruits of Empire; from Colonial North America to the burgeoning interests developing in India. Scotland began to thrive from this new relationship, and from an English point of view it began to feel the case that England was Britain and Britain was England. The terms seem to become interchangeable. North of the border, this sense of "Britishness" overcoming national identity became so strong that some Scots even referred to themselves as "North British" and their homeland as "North Britain".
In this way, "Britishness" came to be tied inextricably with the British Empire; and as England was its power base, English identity became merged with that of the British Empire, and English self-esteem became sub-consciously tied with the fate of the British Empire.

From the British Empire's point of view, its peak of power was arguably at the end of the Nineteenth Century; implicitly, this was also the peak of British (and thus English) self-esteem. Up to this point, after the trauma of losing the rump of Colonial North America, Britain had thrived, going from one success to another: settling Canada and Australasia, making India its "jewel in the crown" of its Empire, and later on expanding into Africa in the 1880s. Meanwhile, Britain had punctuated this with smaller strategic prizes, from Malta to Cyprus and Suez to Aden.
From the end of the Nineteenth Century, however, there would only be a series of events that would gradually punctuate its decline. This began with the Boer War which, while ending ultimately in victory, was a precursor to the kind of troubles that lay ahead. How close this came home (literally) was shown with the "Easter Rising" in 1916, in the middle of the First World War. When this led to Irish independence several years later, it was a sign that "Britishness" and the integrity of the British Empire was much more fragile than its English advocates thought. It was a combination of arrogance, intransigence and complacency on behalf of some English nationalists that had fuelled the Irish crisis: a mood that would punctuate the rest of the British Empire's life, contributing to its loss of most of its colonies little more than forty years after Irish independence.
Gaining the Middle East "mandates" for the British Empire was a pyrrhic victory, for Britain was incapable of ruling them effectively. This was a trend that spread across all its colonies after the First World War, in India most of all. Once the colonies began to be lost to the Anti-Colonial movement after the Second World War, the question for Britain became: what next?


"What next?"

Like some other European powers, Britain held on to some of its colonies into the 1970s (and a few - such as Belize - into the 1980s). What remains today - officially called the "British Overseas Territory" - is the last shadow of the Empire. This has resulted in a few idiosyncratic entities, such as a segment of Cyprus remaining British for military purposes. Gibraltar is another legacy of England's earlier foraying into European politics.
The "what next?" question was answered, as we know, by Europe. In the same way that Scotland joined England through a combination of political expediency and financial self-interest, Britain joined the EEC for similar reasons. In short, it was a way to make money, with the minimum of trade-offs.

At the same time that Britain was joining the EEC, Scottish nationalism was on the rise north of the border. Again, this was partly about money and self-interest: oil discovered in Scottish waters in the North Sea. The chance for Scotland and Wales to gain some autonomy was lost at the end of the 1970s, and for a time Scottish nationalism seemed little more than a temporary fad tied with gaining control of Scotland's oil. The moment passed with the the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher's administration, as English reactionaries in the governing Conservative Party killed the idea of devolution and any possible risk of ceding control away from London.
As the government in London centralised authority further in the 1980s, Thatcher also bridled at the realisation that the deal to join the EEC was beginning to involve granting more powers to Brussels. This was the time when "Euroscepticism" began to become a real force within the Conservative Party. This movement was also indistinguishable from what some would nowadays recognise as "English Nationalism".


Euroscepticism or "English Nationalism"?

The term "English Nationalism" is problematic as it was for so long associated with the far right and hate groups. The term began its gradual "rehabilitiation" by the onset of the 1990s, when the "Eurosceptics" that had initially lost their focus with the forced resignation of their idol, Margaret Thatcher, only to quickly rediscover their sense of purpose with their opposition to the Maastricht Treaty. Apart from the "bastards" that were causing Thatcher's (more moderate) successor, John Major such worry in parliament, Maastricht's effect was to create UKIP.
UKIP have also been called the "English Nationalist Party", and with good reason. While the party itself might not think of itself as intrinsically Anglo-centric or innately nationalistic, its support base certainly is. UKIP's support base has always been at by far its strongest in the English shires and parts of the deindustrialised North of England.

UKIP's rise, and the more general rise of English Nationalism in the last twenty years, can be lined up with several historical "punctuation marks". UKIP first came on the radar in the 1999 European Elections, gaining more than 6% of the vote and its first three MEPs. Tellingly, this coincided with the devolution process by the Labour government in the Scotland and Wales (whose nationalist parties also gained MEPs). In the European Elections five years later, UKIP's MEP representation had leaped to 11. By this point, devolution in Scotland and Wales was a fact of life, and there was another important point: a number of East European countries had joined the EU not long before, and their people were give open access to live and work in Britain. Added to this the financial crisis of 2008, and "English Nationalism" was given even more fuel to add to its fire. In the 2009 European elections, UKIP had gained more MEPs, and even the BNP - an avowed Fascist party - had a presence in Brussels. In this way, "English Nationalism" had become almost a fashionable form of protest in some parts of the country.

From this point onward, the story is familiar: the issue went mainstream after the combined factors of the lingering effects of the financial crisis and the (seemingly highly-visible) increase of European immigration. On the back of this, UKIP became the largest British party in the European Parliament in 2014. The unofficial "English Nationalist Party" had taken control of the agenda, and we know the result of that: Britain is leaving the EU.
UKIP started out a little more than a single-issue party; a fringe group that acted as a maverick entity of the "Eurosceptic" element of the Conservative Party. Over time, their agenda evolved and crystallised into something more structured. While this was a chaotic process, the end result was a Libertarian agenda that sees Thatcherism taken to its logical conclusion. The "English Nationalist" aspect of the agenda seems to have been a by-product of the nature of its support base; while this might be shared by only some of those in the hierarchy, all of those at the top can see its ultimate use as a platform.
All the talk of leaving the EU in order to restore connections with former colonies is innately nationalistic in tone, as it harks back to a time when England, though Britain, controlled a quarter of the globe. Seen in another light, even when part of the EU, it seems that many people saw it merely as another projection of Britain's footprint abroad. The EU acted as a psychological substitute for the Empire; using the continent as an excuse for cheaper holidays and sunshine. Psychologically, it was treated as no different from going to Australia, except that it was only a hop across the Channel. This less about engagement with Europe as a cultural trashing of it. After years of this arrogant attitude becoming ingrained within a segment of the population, it's difficult to be nationalistic without being Anti-European. So we can call the EU referendum result also a victory for English Nationalism, as well as a result of English Nationalism.

While there is a lot of talk of reshaping Britain to make it more equitable, the actions so far are all autocratic and centralising in nature: about the government (i.e. London) acting as the sole arbiter of Britain's fate, with little sign of dialogue with Scotland or Wales (let alone the thoughts of England's regions).
The schizophrenic part to this is (as mentioned the initial linked article at the start) London is probably is the least nationalistic and least Euro-sceptic part of the UK; the government's agenda is that of "England-outside-London". Put like this, the "Brexit government" feels like an occupying power in the capital. It would be more fitting if they moved the "capital" back to Winchester, say, to have a "real" Anglo-Saxon hub; or one of the "Brexit bastions", such as Peterborough.

Such talk is as fantastical as it is nonsensical, but it is little more than what we've come to expect from the people running the government, or those that have the government's ear. But such talk is what you get when you let nationalism set the agenda.

Brexit psychology and Theresa May's government: The lunatics running the asylum

An article recently published by Boris Johnson lays out a "ten point plan" for Brexit. Timed for the weekend before Theresa May's heavily-advertised speech in Florence, it provides a large insight into the thinking of one of Brexit's main campaigners.
The timing of this "plan" being presented has been criticized by some as the prelude to a leadership bid. The Tory conference being also just around the corner adds to this suggestion. However, the consensus view in the party is that May will stay in place as a "caretaker" until Brexit is achieved in March 2019, so that she is clear to leave that summer. The idea that there is an imminent danger of a leadership challenge seems fanciful, given that May is doing the job that few others want at present. Even Boris' well-known ambitions can't have become so deluded to think there is an appetite for a change of leadership in the near future.
The publication of this "plan" might more realistically be borne out of personal and strategic frustration: from the abject lack of clarity that has come from the government on its Brexit policy and strategy, as well as the side-lining of Boris' role in government. The fact that the "plan" hasn't been rapidly shot down by Downing Street also implies that it may well be privately endorsed by Theresa May herself, or at least tolerated. May's position on Brexit is much closer to her Foreign Secretary's than her Chancellor's, for example. The Prime Minister is neither a strong speaker nor a famed writer: it may be an attempt by Boris at seizing hold of the strategic reins, and prevent more muddle. The florid words of the Foreign Secretary are, in his own way, imposing order after months of "organised chaos", more likely a lucid antidote to the disparate, unfocused nature of the government's Brexit strategy.

The "ten point plan"

In a sense, the presentation of this "plan" does provide some clarity to the government's position. Unfortunately, it also clarifies the perception that the people running the government have no idea what they are talking about.

The "plan" is a masterclass in fantastical thinking, misdirection and deceit. Harking back to some of the "blue sky thinking" that we found during the referendum campaign, we see the "£350 million to the NHS" claim re-heated for the first real time since the referendum.
This reference in itself is an disingenuous as the rest of the "plan", for Johnson then immediately equivocates by saying "if would be a fine thing if a lot of that money went to the NHS, provided we use that cash injection to modernise and use new technology". The use of indeterminate language ("it would be a fine thing if....") is as close to saying the famed £350 million claim is just a vague idea, that is subject to the conditions being right (with the excuses at the ready when they never are). This is followed by two equivocations: that only "a lot of the money" would be given to the NHS, and then it would only be used to "modernise" the system; this is often code for that often-hated term, "reform". So, in other words, the idea is that the fabled money may well be used to privatise the NHS even further.

The fantastical thinking runs through many of the plan's points: from not paying for access to the single market, claiming that the door wouldn't be slammed on immigrants, tax reform, free trade deals with the former Commonwealth, to investment in infrastructure. None of these ideas are remotely realistic in the way they are explained. The EU has already explained how the rules on the single market work: it's up to the UK to follow them. If they don't, it's the UK's problem to sort out their own mess. It's clear that immigrants will face a hostile environment from the government, as has been demonstrated time and time again, in spite of words to the contrary.
Talk about tax reform is simply a red herring; the EU has never prevented this before, in the same way that talk of the "tampon tax" is ridiculous. These are things that the UK had always been able to change itself; it simply never had the will, and blaming the EU is just dishonest. Likewise, talk of preventing homes from being sold to foreigners is another example: the homes in question are bought by wealthy Chinese, Arabs and Russians, not Europeans. And talk of free trade deals with the Commonwealth is fantastical as well as dishonest: any deals that are made are likely to be highly-complex and time-consuming, with no guarantee at all that they would be on better terms that Britain already had while part of the EU. This also taps into an emotional nostalgia for the bygone times of the British Empire.

This "ten point plan" looks almost indistinguishable from what UKIP proposed in the 2015 election. So we in actuality have a government carrying out UKIP policy: what can also be called the "Brexit Agenda".


The lunatics running the asylum

The "Brexit Agenda" is headed by Theresa May, though she is really acting as just the spokesperson and enabler for the rest of the "Brexiteers" in government; the main channel for their energies. Due to the disparate and often contradictory ideas found among leading "Brexiteers", May (and the Downing Street office) seem to have played the often fruitless role of "mediator", trying to bring together their many chaotic ideas into some kind of coherent message. The "ten point plan" can be seen as a way to provide an attempt to gain the initiative. For practical (if not ideological) purposes, these people can be broadly split into two main camps of influence: foreign and domestic.

The main personalities effectively running the "Brexit Agenda" in foreign policy are the "quad" of the Foreign Secretary (Johnson), the Brexit Secretary (Davis), the International Trade Secretary (Fox), and the International Development Secretary (Patel); there are other minor "Brexiteer" ministers at these departments, but these four are the ones that matter.
The foreign policy "triumvirate" of  Boris Johnson (Foreign), David Davis (Brexit) and Liam Fox (International Trade) seems a bizarre psycho-drama all of its own. The set-up itself was, of course, Theresa May's invention. Using Brexit as an excuse, she created two new departments, and thus siphoned off some of the roles formerly given to the powerful FCO to these two other departments. By then giving these three roles to three of the most vocal "Brexiteers", it appeared that she was playing a clever strategic game - "You Broke It, You Own It". However, if that was indeed the intention (which was never really proven), it hasn't worked.
If anything, the "triumvirate" (who could be more unkindly called "The Three Stooges") have had more influence on the Prime Minister than vice versa. Assuming her intention was a strategic ploy, by effectively handing over Brexit to the "Brexiteers", she made the same kind of mistake that Von Papen made in 1933 in making Hitler Chancellor of Germany - it handed over the initiative, which they would never get back. However, this "strategic ploy" argument seems to have been disproven by May's stance since then: for it became increasingly clear from after the Tory Party conference last year that, if anything, May is a solid supporter of the "Brexit Agenda", and not its hostage at all. In this sense, while there may have been an element of strategy to placing these three personalities in charge of Brexit, it may only have been for the narrow political purpose of firming her own position as leader. As we have already mentioned, it has been clear ever since that May has struggled to keep control of the various whims and obsessions that some of the "Brexiteers" indulge; hence her scheduled Florence speech and now Boris' own preemptive retort.

The "triumvirate psycho-drama" reads a lot like some of the famous rivalries that have gone on in the dysfunctional governments that pepper world history. Governments are collections of individuals, and when those individuals have their own dysfunctional traits, the result in government is dysfunction and chaos.
While this is no means a comparison (!), reading accounts of Hitler's government reads like a exemplar in collective dysfunction and institutional chaos. His own personal office, for example, had several aides whose roles were (deliberately) poorly-defined, which thus led to petty arguments with potentially very dark outcomes, given the dangerously-unpredictable nature of the government. Aside from its sociopathic ideology, the government of Nazi Germany was littered with characters that were both as colourful as they were sadistic, as insane as they were incompetent, as lazy as they were mercurial. As a government of psychological misfits, they were the benchmark for craziness.

At a more mundane level, Britain's foreign policy seems to be ran with a level of dysfunction and chaos never before seen in modern times. May's division of powers, and the choice of who those powers have been given to, seems to have created a "perfect storm". With the governing styles of the three foreign policy heads vacillating between recklessness, incompetence, arrogance and intransigence, it is no wonder that no-one is clear what government policy is from one day to the next. It is also no wonder that no-one outside of government, both in Britain and abroad, can make any sense of the government's strategy.

Apart from foreign policy, the "Brexit Agenda" also has its campaigners at several "domestic" portfolios.
In no particular order, these include Michael Gove (DEFRA), Michael Fallon (Defence), Sajid Javid (Local Government), Chris Grayling (Transport), and Andrea Leadsome (Leader Of The House Of Commons). These are arguably the most influential "Brexiteers" outside of the foreign policy remit.
Most recently, Leadsome revealed the anti-democratic forces behind the "Brexit Agenda" with her comments in parliament, and the government's plan to take autocratic control over EU legislation, and effectively bypassing parliament. Like many of the "Brexiteers", she is ambitious and authoritarian in nature, in many ways like Theresa May herself, but with less of a strategic brain. Chris Grayling, who has been called Theresa May's "right hand man", has a long history of reactionary authoritarianism with his role as Justice Minister, and seems a kindred spirit to the kind of petty-minded thinking that May herself possessed as Home Secretary.
Michael Gove's role as a "Brexiteer" is well-known. Of those on the domestic side of the policy, Gove's status as the "thinker-in-chief" seems well-established, after his long and controversial role implementing "reforms" when Education Secretary.
Michael Fallon and Sajid Javid's roles as "Brexiteers" seem a little more ambiguous, as they were not advocates for leaving the EU during the referendum campaign, either staying quietly loyal to Cameron, or not entirely clear in their allegiances. However, since then, their allegiances have firmly shifted to pursuing the "Brexit Agenda"; like May herself, they seem to have undergone a strange conversion to the faith, with a fanaticism that at times exceeds even the purists. And besides, the "Brexit Agenda", as said in my previous article, is about far more than just "Brexit": it is a social agenda that seeks to create a kind of "Libertarian dystopia" that rolls back the state to a puny size, not seen since before the Great Depression. Many of the Rand-supporting Libertarians in the Conservative Party are also Brexit supporters for that same reason: it helps to achieve their aim.

The author once said that David Cameron's government appeared to be the most incompetent in living memory. It is now clear that Theresa May's government have far exceeded that measure. With the "Brexit Agenda" now the guiding principle that seems to lead almost every aspect of policy, rationalism has gone out of the window. The moderates in the Conservative Party and in government, led by the Chancellor, have been side-lined, with their concerns dismissed. They are in government, but only for cosmetic purposes. Likewise, with parliament; it is there, but only for cosmetic purposes.

Brexit has achieved a momentum all of its own, snowballing over all other areas of government, and over all other concerns: it is the unspoken "revolution" that has consumed the country, with its most ardent supporters acting as if on a heaven-sent mission, ordained by the popular will.

The "Brexit Agenda": Immigration, the economy and the "small state"

A reminder of what Brexit really means for Britain is demonstrated in an article looking at the sharp rise in immigrant deportations.  The intent by Theresa May to create a "really hostile environment" for illegal migrants has now spilled over to mean all migrants, including those from the EU. Another article highlights how this "really hostile environment" has now seeped through to employers and landlords, with some jumping the gun on the issue (or, looking at it more charitably, creating certainty for themselves on the issue when there is none from the government). The facile response from the government to this alarming trend tells us how, deep down, many of them see this as a "win-win" situation.

While whose that voted to leave the EU may applaud this, it would also be useful to think about what it means to prospective foreign workers. Simply, they will be strongly discouraged from wanting to come.

Again, those that voted to leave the EU may applaud this too: more jobs for British workers, supposedly. So let's look at the "Brexit Agenda", and what the "Brexiteers" ultimately aim to achieve.

In my last article we looked at what is happening to British politics: in truth, the hijacking of the political agenda by a small group of extremists. We looked at "how"; now, let's look at "why".

Turning back the clock

In the previous article, I mentioned EFTA, which Britain joined in 1961, about ten years before we joined the then EEC. With the government making clear its intent to leave the EFTA as well, we can literally say that the government wishes to turn back the clock on Britain's relations with Europe; more exactly, we can say it wants Britain's trading relationship to be as it was during the days of the 1950s, when Britain had the Empire.

Since winning the referendum last year, the hard-line "Brexiteers" (perhaps better called "Brextremists") have done everything they can to take the lead on setting the agenda, not only on the terms of "Brexit" itself, but also trying to seep their ideology into other facets of political discourse. This was why what is happening could be called a kind of "soft coup" or "coup by stealth". This can be especially seen in how they have been keen to press on with their agenda in spite of the government losing its majority since the June election. In spite of being a small faction of a party without a majority in parliament, they are acting as though they have untrammeled power and a huge popular mandate.

But back to the main point. What do they want to achieve?

By turning back the clock on Britain's relations with Europe (and by implication of this new immigration regime, the world), it is about "British jobs for British workers". On the face of it, it is a harmless-sounding (even laudable) idea, until you look into the detail of what that really means.

Britain's job market is currently already running at close to "natural" levels of full employment, which, obviously, includes British workers. In other words, there is no problem with British workers finding a job. And if that is true, then it can't be true that immigrants are taking away jobs from British workers.

So this straightaway destroys the fallacy of foreign migrants taking away jobs from natives. And if this is the case, then what is the point of making it much more difficult for foreigners to live and work in Britain?

If there is no real economic case for this agenda, then it must be something else. And here we are in danger of "over-intellectualizing" a fundamentally-unintellectual agenda. Brexit was never really about economics; it couldn't be, when almost everybody who understood the economics couldn't understand the logic of leaving the EU. Brexit was about power.

One of the main reasons for leaving the EU was to "take back control". While this was said to mean returning powers from Brussels to the Westminster parliament, as mentioned in my previous article, it is clear that it is really about a government power grab. And again, this is a "power grab" by a faction of the governing party that supports UKIP's agenda. 

So while this faction is doing its best to gain quasi-autocratic control over vast areas of law previously ran by the EU, their agenda on immigration is really a red herring. Whether or not this faction really believe in their own rhetoric about immigration being the bane of the British worker's life is hard to tell. If they do believe it, then it is a sign that they are dangerously deluded; if they don't, then then are truly callous in their attitude to the fate of the British economy. The evidence points to it being a mixture of the two, with some "Brextremists" being bonkers in their "vision" for Britain, while others are simply sociopathic in their outlook. Theresa May seems to exhibit a little of both.

In this way, it becomes clear that "taking back control" was really about the "Brextremists" taking autocratic control of Britain. They were horrified of the idea that the EU could dictate law to the UK, regardless of the fact that those laws were designed to improve many aspects of life in the UK, as the UK was part of the EU. While the EU, as in any huge bureaucracy, has its problems, the benefits for most people clearly out-weigh the drawbacks. The problem for the "Brextremists" was about feeling powerless. As with any Populist movement, Brexit was driven on the idea of the "losers" of the current status quo rising up against a distant, uncaring elite. However, we have seen how this lie can be used by the real, home-grown elite that supports a return to to earlier age when they ruled the country in a much more autocratic fashion. The "Brextremists" of today are simply using time-honored strategies to turn the clock back to a time they look back on with wistful nostalgia: the Britain of the British Empire, before its disintegration, when the establishment ruled with an invisible hand.
Put in this context, the idea of turning Britain into a place hostile to immigrants may then serve a double purpose. First of all, it gives the "losers" who voted for Brexit a real sense of there being an identifiable change to the make-up of the country; of the country becoming more visibly "British". In this way, it makes them feel as though their vote truly "made a difference", and thus cements their connection (i.e. loyalty) to their "Brexiteer" rulers. This manipulative use of "culture war" then gives greater leeway for them to take their agenda to its conclusion (see below). 

If the economy thrives or fails as a result of this strategy is not a real concern for this "Brexit elite". In any case, they wouldn't be the ones that suffered. As we have already seen, some that voted for Brexit believe that an economic downturn is a price worth paying if they "take back control" (regardless of how horribly deluded they are in this). This mentality of "groupthink" makes it even easier for the "Brextremists" to charge ahead with their autocratic agenda.
Those that do suffer from any self-inflicted economic mess will be given the sinister, outside forces of "Europe" to blame. Like with the dog-whistle use of immigration, the scapegoating of "foreign powers" that don't want to see Britain succeed would be the next part of the plan. As with the earlier example of employers nowadays that are "jumping the gun" on immigration, this is a "win-win" situation for those in charge. This is simply another version of the strategy of "divide and rule". 

"A bonfire of red tape"

The other main reason given for leaving the EU was due to the stranglehold that European "red tape" was apparently having on business. Regardless of the fact that few people who supported Brexit could actually point to any particular regulations they found so onerous, the "red tape" was there to improve the conditions of life in Britain, as a member of the EU. Of course, some of the regulations led to absurdities, but the vast majority left people's lives better, such as through safer products they used or safer living and working conditions. 

The "Brextremists" resented these regulations as they reduced the amount of power they had. Using accusations of the "nanny state" is as old as the hills, and this loss of power to the EU ties in with the theme of "taking back control" that we looked at earlier. Again, the motivation of the "Brexit Agenda" is to have fewer controls on business, giving them greater powers to exploit their workers and reduce costs (such as by relaxing safety standards). In this way, "Brexit Britain" will more closely resemble the working conditions found in developing countries, with things like" Zero Hour Contracts" becoming ever more commonplace, and more and more companies compelling their workforce into being an army of the self-employed. Likewise, this "race to the bottom" would result in fewer protections for workers, leading to more and more unstable social conditions. 

This is the vision of the "small state", as the "Brextremists" see it: a kind of Libertarian dystopia. Apart from the "reforms" they would like to see to working conditions, there is the vision they have of the welfare system (and have already partially implemented thanks to Iain Duncan Smith). This is making "welfare" seem more like a punishment than a human right, where the individual is devalued and dehumanized at every opportunity, and a callous system that finds any small reason to withdraw its support, leaving them to fend for themselves. As the government only has respect for money and success, it follows that this philosophy makes the poor and the vulnerable feel like social failures. This is a system of "Social Darwinism" that punishes those on the lowest rungs of society, regardless of the reason. The government isn't there to help the weak, but to make them suffer for their weakness. The same strategy has already been applied to other areas of policy, such as immigration and the settling of the government's own subjects.

Is the ultimate aim here the destruction of social fabric of civilised society? Like with their vision for the economy post-Brexit, it is either bonkers or callously-brutal. It is like they literally do not care, and are so off-the-wall they cannot see how mad their ideas really are. Taken to its logical conclusion, such policies would result in chronic deprivation among the working class, like hasn't been seen since before the Great Depression. And with deprivation and gross inequality comes social breakdown and crime, providing the "Brexiteer" elite with yet another set of scapegoats to use.
But as we have already seen, their "Brexit Agenda" seems to be the restoration of the socio-economic order of Britain prior to 1945, regardless of its effect on society. It about the destruction of the "post-war settlement" for good; a "Counter-Reformation" of the establishment against the welfare state, masquerading as a social revolution.

Brexit is simply the way they seek to achieve it.

Brexit: A Very British Coup, and how UKIP subverted democracy

It's now clear in which direction British politics is heading.

Several months ago I wrote about the rightward direction that the government under Theresa May seemed to be heading in. Now that the Brexit negotiations are in full swing, and parliament has returned from summer break to discuss its implications, it's ever clearer that we don't really have a Conservative government in power: we have a UKIP government, under another name.

The Home Office leak of its immigration plans, timed to coincide with parliament's return to session, looked to all intents and purposes identical to UKIP's immigration plans for an Australian-style points system. In some ways, it looked even more draconian, in the way that bio-metric technology would be used to keep a track on EU immigrants and the restrictions placed on the duration of their stay.

Apart from immigration policy, it's also clear that the repatriation of powers in the "Repeal Bill" is meant to act as a way to radically increase autocratic power to the government, away from parliament, so it can unilaterally change the law. There's a reason these are called "Henry VIII powers": because no government since then has succeeded in circumventing parliament in such a way. Charles I tried; Oliver Cromwell succeeded, for a time. These are not good comparisons the government should be wanting to be compared to, and it should be sending chills down the spines of our sitting MPs.
But for many on the government benches, it doesn't. Why?


A Very British Coup

What we are witnessing is the emasculation of parliament.

Apart from the intent contained inside the "Repeal Bill", the government are also seeking to subvert the committee process that is used to amend (i.e. improve) parliamentary legislation. By doing this, it again seeking to silence opposition to its own interpretation of the law, making passage through parliament nothing more than a "rubber stamp".
To be fair, there are plenty of Conservative MPs who are as appalled at the government's "power grab" as on the opposition side. In the same manner, there are a number of Conservative MPs who are appalled at the government's Brexit plan, which, again, seems indistinguishable from UKIP's original plan. If those Conservative MPs actually voted with their conscience, they could easily prevent the government from carrying out its "power grab" into the realm of quasi-authoritarianism. Similarly, those MPs could easily deny the government a majority in parliament to carry out its plan for a "Hard Brexit" that would see Britain cut off from all free trade with Europe. But those MPs seem to be emasculated; more like sheep than parliamentarians.

The reason for this is simple, and appalling: fear.

A small clique of hard-line MPs - who represent less than 15% of the party's cohort - demand the most extreme form of exit from the EU. This would mean leaving the free market and customs union on Day One of Brexit, in March 2019, without any kind of meaningful transition period. The Brexit Secretary, David Davis, seems to agree (well, maybe - his idea seems to change from day to day). Apart from the maddening incoherence of this point of view, is the fact that this outcome was not what the referendum was about. The UK voted to leave the EU; the vote said nothing about EFTA, for example, which the UK has been in since 1961, long before Britain joined the then EEC. The Brexit Secretary seems to be acting of his own accord, deciding what Britain's relationship with Europe will be, without any regard to parliament's point of view, or indeed, those of the actual electorate. The only points of view whose his seem to coincide with are the hard-line clique mentioned earlier.
While there is a "debate" in parliament about the government's policy, the government's strategy of dealing with parliament is a) to avoid answering any questions at all, b) imply that they "the government knows best", c) to suggest that opposing the government is to betray "the will of the people". This is the language of authoritarianism. There is no meaningful "debate" on Brexit in parliament at all, for the government seems to have no intention of paying any attention to it. It is just "going through the motions", turning parliament into a toothless talking shop.
What makes this all even worse is that those hard-line MPs (who now have the ear of the government) have even less of legitimate platform for their agenda than before the general election. Before the election, Theresa May said she had called it in order to strengthen her hand in the negotiations. The implication was that the larger the mandate she received, the freer she would be to carry-out a "Hard Brexit". As we know, the opposite happened: she is still in government, but only thanks to the DUP. The rational conclusion to reach from the election was that those who wanted a "Hard Brexit" lost. And yet they are the ones still dictating policy. Counter-intuitively, it is thanks to the government's precarious position in parliament that allows these hard-liners to blackmail the moderates into silence. In the same way that the DUP were able to demand a ransom from the government as its price for power, the party's hard-liners are able to do the same over Brexit.

Those Conservative MPs concerned about this process have been emasculated by fear. While a hard-line cohort of MPs seem able to dictate government policy, those concerned by this subversive take-over have been silenced into submission by the even greater fear stoked from the thought of losing an election to Jeremy Corbyn. In other words, the party's moderate MPs really are being held hostage: by the fear of losing power, they are ready to hand the fate of the nation over to extremists.
In a "First-Past-The-Post" electoral system, an "extremist" government was meant to be virtually impossible. It looks like some of them have found a way. And now, using authoritarian tactics, we are on the cusp of a quasi-autocratic government.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
What happened in Germany in 1932 is held as a warning to all of us. It's also worth remembering that the reason Hitler gained power was thanks to a "deal" with the mainstream Conservatives. It was the threat of Communism that had helped to focus minds in the Conservatives to do a deal with the Nazis: rather Hitler than the hammer and sickle. He was technically meant to be the junior partner in a coalition: although he was Chancellor, he was meant to be held in check by his deputy, the mainstream Conservative, Von Pappen; mainstream Conservatives also held the vast majority of government posts. But very quickly, it was the tail that was wagging the dog.
The same cowardly mindset seems to in today's "moderates" in the Conservative Party.


How To Subvert Democracy

Let's remember how we got here.

Currently, UKIP are polling around five per cent in the polls; not much more than they were in 2010. And yet, as we have seen, the Conservative government is now carrying out wholesale UKIP policy. Why?

As it is the threat of losing power that is keeping "moderate" Tory MPs subservient to the "hard-line" agenda today, it was Cameron's worry of losing power that made him cave in to demands for an EU referendum.
This is how extremists are able to control the agenda in a "First Past The Post" electoral system: by blackmailing the governing party into backing extremism.  A handful of hard-liners thus make the fear of conceding power to the opposition greater than the fear of conceding the agenda to extremism. David Cameron began the precedent;  Theresa May has taken it one stage further.

As Cameron's 2010 government was a coalition, it left him in a precarious position. With UKIP rising in the polls, and a cohort of his own MPs sharing that party's Euroscepticism, Cameron thought he was being clever to try and deal with the issue by promising a referendum. But the reason for this decision was one borne from weakness and cowardice: thanks to not winning the 2010 election outright, it gave a disproportionate power to the "hard-liners" in his own party. This was one reason why the 2010-15 parliament was one of the most rebellious for decades.
He could have stood up to the "hard-liners" in his party, by "calling their bluff" (such as telling them if they didn't like the Conservatives' pro-EU policy, they were free to join UKIP). As it happens, two of them did just that, but that was eighteen months after after Cameron's "Bloomberg Speech" in which he promised an EU referendum if his party won the next election. They left the party after Cameron had already partly caved-in on their agenda.
So by not standing up to the "hard-liners" in the Conservative Party to begin with, he allowed them to set the agenda on Europe. And in the end, this cost him his job. The fear of losing the next election (by shedding support to UKIP) made him cave-in to their agenda, and thus once the sharks smelled blood, they went after him to finish off the job. The irony here is that the referendum was probably never really meant to have happened even after Cameron had made the promise, because he wasn't expecting his party to win the election in 2015 outright. As it was assumed another hung parliament would be the most likely result again, it was equally assumed the referendum idea would be dropped in the post-election talks with the pro-European Liberal Democrats. That "plan" went down the toilet when the Conservatives won a majority, forcing Cameron into carrying out the promised referendum - one which he never expected to lose. Such things can happen when you try to be too clever by half; like with Von Pappen's plan to "tame" Hitler by making him Chancellor.

Even before Theresa May decided to implement the UKIP agenda, that party had already cost one Prime Minister his job. Now we see that she saw a cynical opportunity to destroy UKIP by becoming UKIP. Except that you don't destroy an ideology by implementing it under a different name. There were signs of her nationalistic and authoritarian leanings when she was Home Secretary; now it is clear that her own personal inclinations are much closer to the "hard-liners" in the party than the "moderates".

For those in UKIP this must be a bitter-sweet moment: in their moment of triumph, a government is implementing entire swathes of their agenda, and the party isn't even in power. All they had to do was scare the Prime Minister a bit.

For more on the "Brexit Agenda", and what it means for Britain, look at the following article.

Anti-Semitism, and a history of the "International Jewish Conspiracy"

From the USA to the UK, it seems that Anti-Semitism is on the rise (again) in the developed world. Evidence points towards the truism that while not all Donald Trump supporters are Nazis, all Nazis are Trump supporters; and equally, while not all Brexit supporters are Nazis, all Nazis are Brexit supporters.

The history of Anti-Semitism is a long one, and for the purposes of this article, I'll restrict things to the last hundred-and-fifty years or so, as this is when the idea of a "Jewish World Conspiracy" first really came into general parlance.


"A Jewish plot to take over the world"

In a way, it was Marx's misfortune that the founder of Communism was also a Jew, for this has ever since coloured how people (both its supporters and its detractors) saw it: Communism was seen as attractive to some of Jewish extraction (in Russia in particular) precisely because it was international and anti-establishment in its outlook and aims, and offered a political haven from persecution. It is also true that when the successful Bolsheviks took power in Russia, they did include a disproportionate number of Jews. Thus this fed into the belief that Communism was a Jewish plot to take over the world. This was certainly Tsar Nicholas II's point of view when he was forced from power, and was so insidious in enveloping much of political thought across the developed world during and after the First World War, and up to the present day (more on that later).

The odd aspect of this is that Marx himself had ambiguous feelings about his own Jewish heritage, and this then fueled the belief amongst some Anti-Semites at the time that Marx himself saw Capitalism as a kind of "Jewish Conspiracy", and that he was somehow fighting against Jewish domination of Capitalism. How this also squared with the understanding that Communism was also a "Jewish Conspiracy", is hard to understand.

The two main "centres" of Anti-Semitism by the second half of the Nineteenth century were Russia and Germany. Jews had been persecuted for centuries in Russia, being send to live in the "Pale" in the 18th century, and by the late Nineteenth century were trying to flee abroad to places like the USA. In Russia, this period also saw an unprecedented rise in political violence, which culminated in the anarchy of 1905. As an absolutist, deeply religious state, the Russian Empire was deeply paranoid of "Godless" Communism, which was then exacerbated by the document "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion", a forgery by a fanatical Russian priest, which tied the anarchy in Russia with a Jewish conspiracy.
In Germany, Anti-Semitism had become almost "fashionable" in the social circles of the upper class and in the arts (such as Richard Wagner), which spread to the paranoia of its emperor, Wilhelm II. It's unclear where exactly this stereotype of the "corrupting Jew" (earlier seen in Grimm's fairly tales) came from, but the fact that Marx's ideas were initially influenced by the 1848 Year Of Revolutions may have been a factor. Again, the fact that Marx himself was German may have sent alarm bells ringing in some people's minds.
Like in Russia, much of Europe held the long belief that as Jews were "stateless" and "heathens", they were therefore deeply suspect in their allegiances (if they had any). The social and political tumult of 1848 had long-lasting effects on many parts of Europe. While many of the revolutions failed, the fact remained that the major European powers (Britain excluded) rolled on through a series of wars and upheaval for the next twenty-odd years, culminating in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Not long after this, in 1877-78, there were the wars between Russia and the Ottomans that led to Eastern Europe's boundaries being radically redrawn. And behind all this was the growing paranoia against a "Jewish Conspiracy". So by the time of the Bolshevik Revolution forty years later, and the end of the war in Germany a year after that, blaming the Jews had become a very convenient scapegoat.

Through all of this, its impossible to omit the rise in the influence of Zionism, an idea that largely came from East European (i.e. Russian) Jews who longed for a permanent homeland. With the re-drawing of the Middle Eastern map at the end of the First World War, Britain took control of the former Ottoman territory of Palestine, and the "Balfour Agreement" allowed Jews from Europe to settle in Palestine. The fact that the Jewish population was heavily outnumbered by local Arabs seemed a minor detail. Britain was used to ruling its colonies by "divide and rule", like in its "crown jewel", India.

The Bolshevik Revolution, and the immediate threat of Communism spreading across Europe and the developed world, led to a spike in anti-Semitism infecting political discourse. In Germany alone, political violence spiked dramatically in the years after the war: the short-lived "Munich Soviet" of 1919 eventually led to violence from the other end of the political spectrum; the infamous "Munich putsch" of 1923, which Hitler took part in. In these few years, political assassination became the norm, such as the assassination of Germany's foreign minister, the Jew, Walter Rathenau. A Bolshevik government, ran by Jews, was seen as the main threat to the world order, and thus every Jew became seen as a threat to the world order.
This would have remained a fringe obsession in the developed world, but for the Great Depression. In Germany, the views of the Nazis that were once considered outlandish paranoia were held by many as established fact. When the world was so unstable, it made sense that there must be some complex reason for why it was happening. It couldn't simply be due to simple human greed and arrogance; there had to be a more sinister motive - some kind of Jewish conspiracy. And if some sacrifices had to be made to re-establish order, then it was worth it.
As in Germany in the late Nineteenth century, in the years after the Wall Street Crash, this Anti-Semitic view became common in social circles across the developed world, including in the USA and Britain. Fascism was seen as a "necessary evil" to combat the threat of Communism, which seemed all the more possible after economic chaos of the Great Depression. Besides, it could be argued, not all Fascists were Anti-Semitic; Mussolini wasn't, for instance. These "apologists" argued that fascists were "good people with a few bad ideas", rather than the opposite. We all know how that ended for Europe's Jews.

Anti-Semitism in the Arab world, meanwhile, had long been a part of life, but on the whole the two communities had got on pretty well. The change of rulers in the Middle East, from the Muslim Ottoman dynasty to the Christian British and French "mandates" after the end of the First World War, had caused them to re-think their perspective, which led to the rise of the "Muslim Brotherhood" in Egypt and elsewhere. By the 1930s and the rise of Fascism in Germany as well as already in Italy, Muslim leaders in the Middle East were getting tired with Britain's perceived preferential treatment towards the Jews (regardless of the more complex reality), and began to fraternize with Fascists. This Anti-Semitic connection between Islamic Extremism and the politics of Fascism lives on to this day.


New neighbours, more problems

The end of World War Two began to see a different form of Anti-Semitism coalescing. The Second World War led to the defeat of Fascism in Germany and Italy (Spain's, with its own form of Fascism, lived on to the 1970s). The aftermath of the Second World War also resulted in the implosion of Britain's control over the Middle East, with Palestine's Arabs being evicted and the territory turned into Israel, the Jewish people's first homeland for two thousand years.
For the Arabs of the Middle East, the shock of the Jews being able to carve out a state from the Palestinians was comparable to that which Europe's elite felt with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The Second World War had destroyed the poison of Anti-Semitism in Europe (for a couple of generations, at least), but had inadvertently replanted it in the Middle East with the creation of Israel.

As Bolshevism had become a convenient Jewish "hate figure" in the developed world after the First World War, Israel became a convenient Jewish "hate figure" in the Middle East after the Second World War. This quickly became apparent with the rise to power of Colonel Nasser in Egypt in 1953. Coming to power as part of a cabal that had overthrown the pro-British (and thus, by implication, pro-Israel) King Faruk, Nasser quickly established his credentials with the Arab "street".
Israel's war of independence in 1948 was known simply as "the disaster" to the Arabs. Nasser quickly established himself as the moral leader of the Arab world, and sought to create a united Arab front against the Jewish homeland, by 1967 pushing for combined Arab war to "drive the Jews into the sea". The Six Day War of that year was an Israeli "preventative war" that quickly gathered its own momentum and exceeded their own wildest expectations in massively expanding their territory at their Arab neighbours' expense.
This second Arab humiliation, followed by the failure of the surprise Yom Kippur War of 1973, simply left a gaping hole in Arab self-esteem. The answer was Political Islam and Islamic extremism, which both grew in scope from the 1970s onward, turning the earlier Anti-Semitism of the likes of the "Muslim Brotherhood" into an even more dangerous sort of beast. Like with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Islamic Revolution in Iran was followed by other attempts at uprisings elsewhere: an attempt to take control of Mecca, and the assassination of Egypt's leader, Sadat, by a Muslim radical, due to his policy of peace towards Israel. Using Israel and its support from the "Great Satan", the USA, Arab leaders have sown the belief that world government is controlled from the Jewish homeland.

Since the founding of Israel, we have seen the politics of the Middle East become consumed by Anti-Semitism. Used as a cynical weapon by both secular and Muslim leaders alike, in the modern day, it has become a staple: a "self-evident fact" that doesn't even need to be supported by evidence.
It is the cynical "feeding the crocodile" of Anti-Semitism that has also led to the growth of extremism in the Middle East, and the "Nazis Of The Middle East", ISIS. But now that the genie has been let out of the bottle, no-one knows how to put it back. While they may finally be on the verge of defeat on the battlefield, in the battle of the mind, they are an ever-evolving and tenacious enemy.


"Re-branding" Anti-Semitism

In the USA, the onset of the Cold War quickly led to Anti-Semitic paranoia of Communist infiltration of the highest levels of society. Encouraged by Joseph McCarthy and supported by the head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, its most infamous case was against the Rosenbergs. As it became an all-consuming obsession for the best part of a decade, it was only truly cauterised by the fall from grace of McCarthy himself and the gradual marginalisation of J Edgar Hoover, who still had an insidious influence on domestic affairs up until his death in 1972.

While the Anti-Semitic hysteria bound up with the "Red Threat" receded, and the USA eventually became a strong supporter of Israel, Anti-Semitism in the developed world, and in Europe in particular, began to be associated with anti-Imperialism. The Soviet Union had already took advantage of this, and struck out into the Middle East. While before the Second World War being linked with the "Jewish Conspiracy", by the 1950s it began to court the Arab powers' campaign against Israel.
Stalin himself had played a large part in gradually purging the Communist Party of its "Jewish" elements, the last act of this being the "Doctor's Plot" in the last years before his death in 1953. In this way, while Anti-Semitism had been an obsession of Fascism's up to the Second World War, after this it increasingly became one of the extreme left's, supported by the Soviet Union under the banner of "anti-Imperialism". This explains how the Anti-Semitism of the Arabs (supported by both secularist governments and Islamists) became to be so strongly associated with the European Leftism: the link was the Soviet Union. Again, this Anti-Semitic link between Arab nationalism, Islamic Radicalism, and radical Leftism, continues to this day; a legacy of the USSR.

We have seen that even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia still did what it could to maintain its influence in the Middle East, with the common thread of Anti-Semitism. Inside Russia itself, while some of the most powerful "oligarchs" are Jewish, others have been forced into exile if they have been able to escape prison. Since the rule of Russia under Putin, a culture of nativism, nationalism and crude Anti-Semitism has been encouraged, even if not officially endorsed. This explains why so many Russian Jews emigrated to Israel as soon as they could (and radicalising the make-up of Israeli society in the process).
Russia's influence in the Middle East, thanks to the common thread of Anti-Semitism, is now a given. Russia has courted the favour of Iran since the end of the Cold War, thanks to their "common enemy", the USA, and by extension, Israel. This influence in the Middle East has only grown since the Arab Spring; while the initial beneficiary of the "Arab Spring" looked to be Turkey, in the longer-run, this "Great Game Of The Middle East" has turned out better for Russia. While having little obvious historical heritage in the region, unlike Turkey, Russia has played its hand much more cleverly, being on the side of Iran and Syria, and understanding the fluid and fickle nature of the forces that brought about the "Arab Spring". Its Cold War ties served as a good enough bond of trust to its allies, who now look as if they have weathered the worst of the storm.

Coming Full Circle

The modern-day version of the "International Jewish Conspiracy" is meant to be that of the "Imperialist forces" arranged against Muslims, the forces supporting Israel and its "Capitalist stooges" in Washington and elsewhere. This also explains how the EU, in being seen as a supporter of Israel (however easily it is to qualify or debunk that assertion), is part of the conspiracy, and thus considered a legitimate (and "soft") target for Islamic extremists. In a different manner, this linking of Israel with the USA and the EU suits the agenda of Russia, in creating a false equivalence between the growing violence of Islamic extremism and the growth of decadent "Jewish" values in the West.

Those decadent "Jewish" values are what was mentioned earlier: that Jews were seen as "stateless", and "Godless" i.e. people of the world, and thus a threat to national cultures. For the obsession with Israel is only one side to this. In the same way that the Great Depression created the conditions necessary for Anti-Semitism to become prevalent in the developed world, the Financial Crisis helped to create the conditions for its revival in the those same, highly-developed societies. The only reason we didn't have a second Depression in 2008 was that the banks were bailed out. In the same way that a scapegoat was needed for the greed and arrogance that caused the Wall Street Crash, the same is true today. "Globalisation", and its agenda of internationalism, is now seen by the Anti-Semites as the same "Jewish Conspiracy" that was once used when talking about Bolshevism. A hundred years ago people talked darkly of the Federal Reserve; now they talk darkly of Goldman Sachs.

Populism's rhetorical link with Fascism stretches from over a hundred years ago to the present day: it has always been about "country" values versus "city" values, and this is where the link to Anti-Semitism comes in. The Jews were seen as stateless nomads who therefore would thrive in city life, and thus do their best to promote Capitalist values. In this way, returning to "traditional values" is as much about fleeing the "corruption" of the city and all that is "bourgeois". It is a flight from Industrialisation.
The rise in Anti-Semitism in today's society comes from the same re-emergence of "nativist" values in the West; a softening of the Fascist rhetoric of the past, but with the same cultural implications. Theresa May, Britain's Prime Minister, at her party's conference last year, decried "people of the world" who have no national allegiance, and thus are a threat to cultural values. This is the same kind of rhetoric that was used decades earlier against the Jews: it is "Fascism by other means". This is what Brexit represents: a modern reincarnation of nationalist values in Britain. It is for this reason why the strongly Eurosceptic elements of Britain's media lambasted the "EUSSR"; implying it was some kind of quasi-Communist plot, seeing it (like Russia) as a "decadent" organisation that was somehow against "national values". While in Britain and the USA the rhetoric is often more Islamophobic in nature that Anti-Semitic, that simply depends on who you are talking to.
The Anti-Semitism that exists in the developed world today, in an evolution of the term, is often meant by its advocates in an "ironic" sense, so they claim. In this way, the Anti-Semitism of the far-right - with its roots in Fascism - has "plausible deniability", in spite of its earnest hatefulness; meanwhile the Anti-Semitism of the far-left - with its roots in Anti-Imperialism - can be excused as "over-exuberance" coming from a well-meaning intent.  

This is what Britain, the USA, Russia and Turkey all have in common in a different kind of way: their leaders are in hock to the same forces of discord, feeding the same crocodile.