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.
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