After the dishonesty of the referendum campaign, the simplistic boasts of the negotiations about how easy securing Britain’s future would be, and the humiliating chaos of parliamentary proceedings on the Withdrawal Agreement, it is no wonder that the public and our businesses are in such despair at politicians.
Our politics has failed. There is a piece to be written about the way in which Brexit has highlighted and increased pressure on the failure of our democracy and its institutions, but this is not it.
At the time of writing there are just 400 hours until we are due to exit the European Union. If our politicians manage Thatcher levels of sleep – which are probably not the most useful preparation for what must be done over the next 16 days – that leaves just 333 hours in which to do the work. Those that see theological evils in the European Union can be reassured that we can’t even do the ‘Number of the Beast’ properly.
Politicians have dressed their failure with all sorts of unicorn promises about better deals (the ERG and Labour), blame for not getting behind the Prime Minister (Remainers, the ERG and the DUP), and consistent can-kicking (everyone). Each of these groups is flailing around and screaming louder and louder as the ratchet of the clock tightens and the scale of the political problems in taking a decision – any decision – becomes clear. Daniel Finkelstein’s article in the Times today demonstrates the political calculations for just the Conservative Party underlying decisions which should be about the national interest in this mess. Similar calculations apply to Labour and in different ways to all parties.
These challenges will form a fascinating and complicated Venn diagram for future students of political science to study. However, there is no time left for that pontification now. Having proved unsurprisingly so comprehensively incapable of translating a binary, advisory referendum into a complex and lasting solution that commands political support, and having destroyed public trust in our politics in the process, MPs have a very small window in which they can show leadership and re-establish any measure of trust.
Today’s Order Paper is depressing. The Prime Minister’s politically confusing motion states the legal reality of what happens if no deal occurs. The response of the senior, cross-party group of MPs, who cannot agree on a way forward, is to kick the can down the road yet again, tabling an amendment that simply takes no deal off the table and ignores that legal reality. And tomorrow the Commons will vote on a motion for an extension and almost certainly do so without agreeing on a way forward that offers clarity to the public or Brussels. Even now, MPs are pretending to the public that we can secure an extension to continue this torturous farce by simply passing a motion in the House of Commons.
It is time for MPs to be honest about the options – and there are only three that make any sense, the Prime Minister’s deal having been rejected by Parliament so completely on two occasions:
- A hard Brexit with no deal;
- A revocation of Article 50 and remaining;
- A further referendum on the terms of the Prime Minister’s deal or remaining.
It is no good Labour’s lamentable front bench wittering on about another deal. It is no good ERGers bombastically proclaiming there are better ways to negotiate Brexit.
Brussels has been clear: there is no room for further negotiation. None at all. The talking is done.
There is also no transition without a deal.
And there is no extension without a credible and decisive way forward.
Politicians have sold the public varying visions of Britain’s future on the basis of gross oversimplification, to protect their own political interests. They must now grasp the nettle of the consequences of their untruths, and show the public they understand the clear choices they face, however difficult they are to make.
Yes, it will be politically painful. Yes, it might have destructive consequences for our political institutions – our parliament, our electoral system, and our failing ‘broad church’ political parties – but that is the price politicians must pay for their comprehensive failure.
And that might just be a good thing.
Below is a pictorial representation of the number of seats that these percentages would translate into, using the 
Coalition: a moment in history and the reconsiderations of a tribalist #libdems #coalition
Posted in comment, conservative party, current affairs, election, history, labour party, liberal democrats, national, politics, tagged conservative party, general election, history, labour party, lib dems, politics, vote 2010 on May 23, 2010| 1 Comment »
The election was little more than two weeks ago, though, in truth, the astonishing developments of recent days make it feel like half a lifetime has passed.
This weekend is the first since before the start of the campaign that I have had a moment to catch breath and reflect on the incredible and exhausting roller-coaster of emotions that has carried me through the last few weeks. I am still struggling to get my head around a moment in history that has taken the party to which I have devoted most of my adult life from being the second party of opposition, fighting against media expectations of annihilation, through the incredible highs of Nick Clegg’s performances in the television debates, to the shock and dismay as we lost seats, and, finally, after careful and determined negotiations, on an extraordinary journey into government. Not at any moment had I envisaged the highs and lows of the last seventeen days, nor the conflict of emotion, loyalty and reason that has tested me and many, many party members.
As regular readers of my blog will know, I have never been backward in offering up frank criticisms of the Conservative Party. At the risk of offending “socialist” colleagues (I use the term advisedly these days), I have long mischievously regarded the Labour Party as merely a hundred-year anachronism that, hugely significant in its impact on the politics of the twentieth century, is merely the upstart younger brother of a progressive Liberal tradition that has a far longer and richer history as a counter-weight to the political and societal inhibitions of Conservatism. With that as my starting point, the idea of a coalition with the Conservative Party was never something I had entertained, instead attaching my instincts in terms of coalition in a balanced parliament situation to the romantic notion of a realignment of the left and a partnership with a Labour Party looking to rediscover its sense of purpose.
I use the term ‘romantic’ quite deliberately. That sense that Labour were the natural partner of the Liberal Democrats paid scant regard to the illiberal and authoritarian reality of thirteen years of Labour government, but owed more to my admiration for the integrity of leaders such as Paddy Ashdown and Menzies Campbell who sought the prize of a realignment of the left in order to usher in a new era of liberal reforms. That emotional detachment from political reality governed many of my initial reactions to the General Election result and the truly baffling parliamentary arithmetic delivered by a cynical, angry public to the political class.
Despite an illegal war (yes, it was illegal), huge incursions by the state into our private lives, the threat to traditional British rights such as trial by jury, repeated failure to deliver on reform of the Lords and our electoral system (even though these were manifesto promises), the running down of our rural communities and the ruin of our agricultural industry, the bankrupting of the nation’s finances, and complicity in the ruin of confidence in our Parliament, Labour somehow still felt a more appropriate partner for government. However, listing these abject failures, just as I did in the pause for thought that was created by Nick Clegg’s commitment to allow the party with the greatest mandate to seek to form a government first, forced me to recognise that the political instincts of the Labour Party, still nominally progressive, are as far from my own and my understanding of my party’s as are those of the Conservative Party. More importantly, from the point of view of attempting to come to terms with the political and economic reality of 2010, the Labour Party is exhausted and broken, uncertain of what it believes or what sort of party it should become.
By contrast, the Conservative Party revealed a confident capacity to subordinate expectation, objectives and tradition to the practical necessity of negotiating with its erstwhile political opponent – qualities that had clearly escaped the observations of many commentators who saw minority government as its only route to power. If I am being completely honest, they are qualities that had escaped me, also, my ready preference to hide behind (well-founded!) tribal prejudices proving that I did not know the party I had been campaigning against as well as I liked to believe.
The outcome, a Coalition Agreement and a Coalition Government which sees Liberal Democrats at every ministerial level, is a genuinely radical attempt to confront the challenges facing the country and, in its composition, demonstrates a commitment from both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party to making this arrangement work.
Knowing how many of my fellow party members share my instinct, I am proud at the way the Liberal Democrats both locally and nationally have responded to the challenge set by the electorate. That there was such considered acclaim for the agreement at the special conference convened to provide an opportunity for members to discuss the Coalition Agreement does not detract from the hard questions the party asked itself. We fully recognise that a new and tough challenge will be to promote ourselves as a party of government, making clear the very real impact that having Liberal Democrats in government will have on people’s lives.
Of course the proof of the pudding will be in its eating at the end of this Parliament and the extent to which the Coalition has delivered on its clear commitments. However, the ambition is tremendous and a high benchmark that has the potential to reconnect the public with politicians and provide a real opportunity to break open the old ways of doing things. The list on which this Coalition is determined to deliver includes things I never seriously believed I would see in the programme of a single government: fixed term parliaments to end the game-playing of sitting prime ministers; an opportunity for the country to decide on voting reform, jemmying the crowbar of preferential voting into our creaking and unrepresentative electoral system; reform of the House of Lords; an ambitious plan to green our economy; a Freedom Bill to roll back the powers of the state; huge investment in the schooling of the country’s poorest pupils; and the raising of the income tax threshold to help those on the lowest incomes.
Most of all, this Parliament provides a uniquely important opportunity for all those supporters of electoral reform: to demonstrate that pluralist politics can work and that the national interest is served by a strong and distinctly Liberal voice in government.
Despite the colourful, passionate and necessary rhetoric of the election, my own emerging understanding of this unprecedented situation is that coalition cannot be founded on our deeply-held prejudices as politicians, but instead has to be grounded in an objective assessment of how best to serve the national interest in all its iterations, however personally troubling the accompanying journey might be. I believe Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats and David Cameron’s Conservative Party have made just that assessment, setting aside instinctive and fundamental differences to establish a coincidence of interests to best serve a tired, cynical, yet hopeful public.
I wish them – us – every success.
And I look forward to pressing the case for Liberal Democrat achievements in Government against robust challenges from both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in five years’ time.
You can read the Coalition Agreement, approved by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party 11th May 2010, here:
You can read the Coalition’s Programme for Government, published 20th May 2010, here:
Share this:
Like this:
Read Full Post »