Putting all that unused preparation for Sky News into delivering the penultimate blog before the summer holidays, here are a few thoughts about the direction of Brexit politics over the coming months. After months of vague speculation, individuals and businesses should now be taking greater note of unfolding events as an unthinkable no deal scenario and the fall of the Government seem an increasing possibility:

• As Philip Johnston wrote in Wednesday’s Telegraph, Theresa May’s biggest mistake was articulating her red-lines which prohibited any flexibility on free movement of people and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. We could have been part of the European Free Trade Association a la Norway. This would have encompassed leaving the EU, we could have negotiated some freedom from the Schengen Agreement and at least taken control of our fisheries and agricultural policies. It would also have taken us out of the customs union allowing us to negotiate our own trade agreements. It could have been sold as a significant break from Europe and we could be home and dry by now. Hey ho. The damage of the ideologues has been done.
• We are now in a position where there is no Commons majority for Theresa May’s Chequers agreement and we haven’t even had the EU’s formal response yet. If she moves one way or the other to gain agreement, opponents are ready to pounce and unprincipled Labour will not come to her rescue. Why should they?
• The battle will come to a head in October when a final agreement on departure from the EU has to be discussed at a EU summit on 18th. There is a fall back summit on 13 December if there is still no agreement but things will be pretty desperate by then. A no deal scenario becomes more likely.
• What of Theresa May? She is safe until the Autumn (nobody wants her miserable job now) but if we are in a no deal scenario, she will be vulnerable to a desire for a new approach, from a new leader.
• If the Tories switch leader, with Theresa May departing unwillingly, there will almost certainly be a blood bath and a subsequent General Election. The EU would be forced to extend the transition period.
• A General Election just might well facilitate, through a party’s manifesto, a second referendum along the lines of Justine Greening’s proposal; preference voting on a new deal, a no deal or stay within the EU.

So the odds:

• TM as PM until the Autumn, assuming she wants it, 100%
• TM as PM beyond that to March 2019 70%
• TM as PM post March 2019 50%
• A GE in the next 12 months 40%
• A Labour Government (depending on the scale of bloodletting in the Tory Party) 40%
• A no deal scenario 20%
• A second referendum 30%
• Further damage to the UK’s international standing, its economy, to public life in general 100%.

Time for us all to go on holiday….

Appearing on Adam Boulton’s Sky News All Out Politics show this Wednesday (18th) reviewing the papers. The agenda could be anybody’s guess with the current pace of politics… Tune in! #alloutpolitics #insiderightpolitics

Don’t we love him…Rude, ignorant and brash but what a headline grabber! Insulting your host whilst being wined and dined is quite something. Wandering into Brexit without reading Theresa May’s proposals, praising Boris Johnson and looking forward to a meeting with the vile Putin more than one with his allies, has all been the roller coaster ride we expected.

But when we look back on this period of Trump, almost certainly likely to be 8 years as the Democrats drift to the Left and the US economy roars, it may well be with a degree of nostalgia. Trump is an economic nationalist but he has no process, no coherent philosophy and rarely prepares. He will not make the most of his time in office in terms of changing the world. His ability to shock will diminish and complacent liberal democrats will see him as a one off.

But we should be worried. Because what comes after Trump may be much worse. Read and watch the Steve Bannons of this world. Nationalist, isolationist, attacking even modest political correctness and increasingly organised, they are incubating a hatred of liberal democracy. They loathe those governments perceived to be ‘debasing citizenship’ and central banks that debase currencies. They advocate economic wars and work up many of the average voters with extreme and threatening language.

And the trend, as they say, is their friend. The AfD is flourishing in Germany, as is the far-right in Austria. Radical nationalists are making in-roads into Italian politics whilst populists seize the agenda across Eastern Europe. We have Putin and Brexit. In no particular order one could go on.

Economic nationalism is here to stay as the world order of global cooperation weakens. Liberal democrats seem unable or unwilling to oppose effectively, complacent as they are or simply bogged down with the frustrating minutiae of decent government.

Imagine if a successor to Trump had a plan, a philosophy to unite the forces of nationalist populism without caring about casualties along the way. Smart, organised and with clear convictions, such a leader could make a huge impact.

Many people believe the state of international politics is now direr than it has been for decades. But it could get worse. This may seem bleak but a more coherent, coordinated version of Trump could devastate liberal democracy for a generation.

In this context, an opposing, coordinated force of ‘muscular moderatism’ has never been more needed.

 

 

It is easy to miss the point of the EU as the UK enters the final chapter of its interminable, self-harming Brexit negotiations. Its point was hardly addressed either in the Brexit referendum when Project Fear superseded any real desire to make a positive case for Europe.

So let’s turn to Poland as a symbol of why the EU has, and will continue to be, so valuable to Europe’s development despite all the tensions embodied in the current migration crisis.

Populism’s unpleasant forces are felt everywhere from Russia to America via Turkey and Eastern Europe and there seems little that can be done about them since they are at least notionally founded on democratic structures.

Yet, with Poland, where the rise of the populist Law and Justice party (so much irony in the name…) is threatening judicial independence, the EU is making a stand. The Polish Government has just passed measures giving politicians greater powers over the judiciary. It will take control of the National Council of the Judiciary for example, allowing politicians rather than judges to appoint judges. Particularly contentious, it can force the retirement of Supreme Court judges, unless granted an extension by the President, unsurprisingly removing those disliked by the government. They are currently trying to remove Malgorzata Gersdorf, head of the Supreme Court, who has accused the government of seeking to ‘purge’ the judiciary. She is refusing to go.

The EU has had enough. Leaders of EU’s main political parties turned on the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, in the EU parliament accusing him of violating the rule of law with these reforms. The European Commission has opened a fresh legal case against Poland this week accusing the country of infringing EU law. This could end up in the European Court of Justice.

The EU had a huge role in ‘democratising’ Eastern Europe as it freed itself from the yoke of the USSR. It was responsible for the spread of democratic law in a part of Europe which could so easily have gone wrong. Hardly a widely understood debating point in the Brexit referendum but it is one of the reasons why those of us supporting Remain are so full of angst at leaving the EU.

As populism spreads to Slovakia and the Czech Republic to name but a few additional countries, threatening those hard fought democratic structures, all exploited equally by China and Russia, who else but the EU is in a position to notice, expose and now try and correct this drift.

What a loss the EU is to the UK and vice versa for so many reasons. Not least because of its role in holding the newer democracies of countries such as Poland to account. This is so important for the whole of Europe including the UK. Sadly, you are unlikely to ever read about it in the final, unthinking chapter of Brexit.