The main winner of the coronavirus pandemic is of course the virus itself, which has multiplied throughout the world at speed, helped by rapid and plentiful international transport. Countries which have avoided large numbers of deaths are those which, like the cities and ports of old, erected effective quarantine barriers to prevent infected people from arriving. This option was available to Britain and Ireland, but was not taken. Instead of keeping out sick people, these (and most other countries) have instructed non-infected people to quarantine themselves in their own homes.
The two main human winners in the pandemic are firms which deliver food and goods to people’s homes and the pharmaceutical industry. The latter, allied with universities and research laboratories, have produced anti-viral vaccines with extraordinary despatch, and have reminded us of how vaccinations have prolonged lives over the last century.
In a medical emergency, governments turn to medical science, and thereby sideline the false prophets of the management consultancy industry. But there have been opportunities for outsourcing firms. In the UK, Deloitte’s and Serco received a Government contract of over ten billion pounds to run a service to test people for the virus and then trace their contacts. After months of confusion and delay, this now tests very large numbers of people, although only 40% of tests are confirmed within 24 hours, while the tracing element has probably had limited impact on the course of the pandemic.
Much more successful has been the vaccination programme in the UK, which has been run by the NHS. This is now vaccinating almost half a million people each weekday, and has built up rapidly from a start in December. From the point of view of the outsourcing companies, vaccination has been a lost opportunity. They could have been paid a further ten billion pounds to run a less effective operation (no doubt supported by a failed computer system provided by Fujitsu), followed by further management consultancy contracts to solve the mess when failure became embarrassing to Government.
There have also been wins in our knowledge of public affairs. Apart from the gains made by medical science, we have learnt that many universities in Britain are venal institutions, run for profit and caring little for their students (except as a source of income). In September 2020, universities encouraged their students to register and fill up the halls of residence, and then locked them in when infection rates rose. Some universities even ordered their academic staff to be on campus to provide the ‘vibrant atmosphere’ promised in every university prospectus. They could have instead encouraged students to work online from home where possible, leaving attendance on campus for the smaller (and hence safer) number who need to study in laboratories or on placement.
Finally, there have been winners in language. Apart from the word ‘pandemic’ and associated public health terminology, we have become familiar with the imported word ‘furlough’. This was used by the British Government for its scheme to pay people laid off work because of the lockdowns from March 2020 onwards. ‘Lockdown’ is itself a new arrival from the same time, as well as the phrase ‘social distancing’. The recommended gap for social distancing in the UK is two metres and not six feet, signifying the triumph of the metric system. The winning dreary cliché of the pandemic is ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’. This is used in almost every press briefing to offer the hope that mass vaccination will eventually end our current nightmare. The real hope should be that when this pandemic is finally past, we learn how to better manage the ones that will succeed it.
Wednesday, 27 January 2021
Coronavirus: the winners
Thursday, 21 January 2021
Old and vaccinated
On the 5th of January 2021, my wife and I were vaccinated against COVID-19. We were surprised to be invited because both of us are in Priority Group 4 (people between 70 and 75 years of age), and we therefore assumed that we would have to wait until all the people in England who are in Priority Groups 1 to 3 had received their vaccine. But that was not how it was organised. Instead, supplies of Pfizer vaccine seem to have been distributed to a limited number of locations, which vaccinated as many people as possible in the first four priority groups who were registered with the surrounding medical practices. The vaccine centre for our corner of Worcestershire is in the GP surgery at the nearby village of Ombersley. The process of vaccination was efficient. We waited for about two or three minutes, and then entered one of the treatment rooms in the clinic. We were met by a friendly team of two people who asked us to confirm our identity and whether we had any allergies. We were then given the injection, which was painless. We were told to wait for 15 minutes in the Practice waiting-room. The whole process took 20 minutes, with a new patient vaccinated every five minutes. There were several teams operating in parallel, so that several hundred people were vaccinated in Ombersley each day.
We have not yet had our second vaccination, and are by no means free of any risk of infection, but the odds of us getting COVID-19 are now much reduced. This seems such a obvious gain for minimum fuss that it is bewildering to learn that a substantial minority of people are hostile to vaccination. The most recent survey in the UK found that 76% would take the vaccine if advised by their GP or other health professional, while 8% were ‘very unlikely’ to do so. The rest were ‘unsure’. Those most unsure are those most at risk of contracting the illness, namely people from black and minority ethnic groups. But the ‘very unlikely’ group includes some who are hostile and alienated, believe that COVID-19 is a hoax (even to their last breath) or who do not see why they should suffer the inconvenience of wearing a mask merely to protect other people.
Surveys in the UK have found that older people are more willing than the young to accept vaccination. This may be because the old are less exposed to the Internet, which has become the greatest engine in our society for spreading conspiratorial beliefs. But I think a more important factor is that older people were raised in a time when infectious diseases were a part of everyday life. In my primary school years, I contracted measles, German measles (rubella), mumps and whooping cough. I remember as a child one day looking down at my chest and seeing with dismay the spread of the rash indicating rubella. There was no MMR vaccination then, and so pregnant women were at risk of contracting this illness and giving birth to children who were blind, deaf and with severe learning disability. For the rest of us, however, infectious diseases were commonplace and an expected part of childhood. It was widely believed that it was better to contract these illnesses as a child than in later life.
Quite different were tuberculosis and polio, both of which were widely feared during my childhood. There were still over 50,000 cases of TB notified in England and Wales each year in the 1940s. One of my uncles contracted the disease when serving in the Army in the Second World War. People with TB were often treated in isolation hospitals, many of which were located in the countryside. These were distinctive buildings, designed to enable patients to be separated into single rooms, linked by an open verandah. One of these buildings survives at Sunningdale, near where I live in Worcestershire, although the hospital has been converted into a small housing estate. The incidence of TB began to decline in the 1950s, with the widespread introduction of the BCG vaccine, but also because of better living conditions for the great bulk of the population.
Polio, unlike TB, was not a disease associated with poverty and seemed to strike adults and especially children at random. A child in my primary school (it was rumoured) had died from the illness. We were all aware of the many children crippled with withered limbs as a result of Polio. What made things worse was that the number of new cases of polio increased in England throughout the 1950s, arriving mainly in summer. This was reversed by the introduction of the Salk vaccine after 1955, named after Jonas Salk, who refused to patent his invention or profit from it, so that it could be distributed to as many people as possible.
COVID-19 resembles TB more than polio, in the sense that its cure will be a result of both scientific development and living circumstances. Also, like TB, COVID-19 will not disappear. It may cease to infect large numbers of people, but it will still be there and may require periodic re-vaccination. TB is still with us, and 4655 people were infected by the disease in England in 2018, with the highest rates among the poor and the homeless. Over 300 people a year die of TB. So we still need the vaccines against polio and TB, as well as the MMR and now the new COVID-19 vaccines to protect us.
Monday, 23 March 2020
My school days: Haslucks Green Primary School 1951-7
My first day at Haslucks Green Primary School was distressing. For a reason that is still unclear to me, the school year in 1951 began in the last week of August rather than the first week of September. My birthday is the 30th August, and so I was sent home, wearing my new school uniform, because I was too young to start school. I remember being very upset, and so a kindly neighbour, Mrs Wilcox, took me to Dudley Zoo for the day. I remember my excitement being on a diesel train rather than the usual boring steam trains. The old headmaster, who had inflicted this on me, soon retired and was replaced by a younger man, Mr Fox, who all the parents agreed was a great improvement.
When I did eventually begin a week later, I was the youngest child in the school, with some classmates a full year older than me. I remember being instructed how to sit cross-legged on the floor, but little else about two years in the infants’ classes. I did at some point have a starring role in the school nativity play as one of the three wise men. This required me to have my face blacked with charcoal since, by tradition, one of the three wise men was meant to be an African. Needless to say, we had no children in the school who looked remotely like an African.
Haslucks Green Primary School was a single-storey building with a large playground. It had not been built long, but was bursting at the seams when I attended. There had been a great increase in the number of children born just after the war, and the school’s catchment area was a rapidly-expanding suburb. Two large annexes had been built in the playground to accommodate four classes, and a new infants school was soon to open not far away.
After the two years in the infants’ classes, I moved to the first of four years in the junior classes. These were streamed by ability, and I was in the ‘A stream’. Classes were large by modern standards, and we sat two to a desk, in rows facing the teacher. Despite the size of each class, I do not remember any disobedience or misbehaviour. I remember the names of three of my teachers: Mr Baker in 2A, Mrs Evans in 3A and the formidable Mrs Alcott in 4A. We had one afternoon a week for sport, which usually meant football for the boys. This took place in a nearby park, to which we were led by our teachers in a long crocodile. I soon discovered, to my disappointment (and I suspect to the disappointment of my father) that I had no talent for sport. There were also school trips. The only one I remember was a trip to Bristol Zoo, though I am not sure how we got there or what we saw.
Classes each morning were interrupted by drinking milk. This was brought in bottles of a third of a pint in a crate by two milk monitors. The School did serve dinners at lunchtime, but I would always go home each day for a full meal. As I got older, I would walk this journey unaccompanied. There was little traffic on the roads and no fear of assault. What did frighten us was polio, which came each summer until a vaccine was developed in 1955. I think one boy in the School died from the disease, and I remember sensing my parents’ fear. Other infections were common, and I caught measles, mumps, German measles and whooping cough. We all knew the names of these infections and we were expected to catch them at some point in our childhood.
My other memory of primary school was of aeroplanes. In the early 1950s, the RAF was still a substantial force and many of the planes which served in the Second World War were still flying. I remember being in the playground and seeing Spitfires, Ansons and Meteors flying overhead. Our understanding of the world was dominated by the War, which had had a deep effect on our parents, but which they rarely discussed with us. The results of the War were all around. There were still bomb sites in the centre of Birmingham and the Bull Ring was dominated by the ruined Market Hall.
I have no unhappy memories of Primary School. I enjoyed learning and playing. However, this all got more serious after I passed the 11-plus exam and went to Grammar School in Birmingham.
When I did eventually begin a week later, I was the youngest child in the school, with some classmates a full year older than me. I remember being instructed how to sit cross-legged on the floor, but little else about two years in the infants’ classes. I did at some point have a starring role in the school nativity play as one of the three wise men. This required me to have my face blacked with charcoal since, by tradition, one of the three wise men was meant to be an African. Needless to say, we had no children in the school who looked remotely like an African.
Haslucks Green Primary School was a single-storey building with a large playground. It had not been built long, but was bursting at the seams when I attended. There had been a great increase in the number of children born just after the war, and the school’s catchment area was a rapidly-expanding suburb. Two large annexes had been built in the playground to accommodate four classes, and a new infants school was soon to open not far away.
After the two years in the infants’ classes, I moved to the first of four years in the junior classes. These were streamed by ability, and I was in the ‘A stream’. Classes were large by modern standards, and we sat two to a desk, in rows facing the teacher. Despite the size of each class, I do not remember any disobedience or misbehaviour. I remember the names of three of my teachers: Mr Baker in 2A, Mrs Evans in 3A and the formidable Mrs Alcott in 4A. We had one afternoon a week for sport, which usually meant football for the boys. This took place in a nearby park, to which we were led by our teachers in a long crocodile. I soon discovered, to my disappointment (and I suspect to the disappointment of my father) that I had no talent for sport. There were also school trips. The only one I remember was a trip to Bristol Zoo, though I am not sure how we got there or what we saw.
Classes each morning were interrupted by drinking milk. This was brought in bottles of a third of a pint in a crate by two milk monitors. The School did serve dinners at lunchtime, but I would always go home each day for a full meal. As I got older, I would walk this journey unaccompanied. There was little traffic on the roads and no fear of assault. What did frighten us was polio, which came each summer until a vaccine was developed in 1955. I think one boy in the School died from the disease, and I remember sensing my parents’ fear. Other infections were common, and I caught measles, mumps, German measles and whooping cough. We all knew the names of these infections and we were expected to catch them at some point in our childhood.
My other memory of primary school was of aeroplanes. In the early 1950s, the RAF was still a substantial force and many of the planes which served in the Second World War were still flying. I remember being in the playground and seeing Spitfires, Ansons and Meteors flying overhead. Our understanding of the world was dominated by the War, which had had a deep effect on our parents, but which they rarely discussed with us. The results of the War were all around. There were still bomb sites in the centre of Birmingham and the Bull Ring was dominated by the ruined Market Hall.
I have no unhappy memories of Primary School. I enjoyed learning and playing. However, this all got more serious after I passed the 11-plus exam and went to Grammar School in Birmingham.
Monday, 11 November 2019
They’re all the same
Many years ago, I was an active member of a political party. Being active mainly involved listening to speakers and debating resolutions at monthly meetings. More exciting were the elections campaigns, local and national. The most time-consuming task in elections was to identify those people most likely to vote for your candidate so that they could be encouraged to go out and vote on election day. Voters varied from friendly to hostile with many indifferent. Some would offer opinions of the parties or the candidates. But one group puzzled me - the people who told me that they never voted because the parties were ‘all the same’. This was puzzling because in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I was politically-active, the two main political parties were further apart than ever before (or since). It is only now, with hindsight, that I realise that for some of these voters the parties were indeed the same: neither was explicitly racist.
The racist undercurrent in British politics has indeed been under-represented, and only bursts into the open on infrequent occasions. In April 1968, the MP Enoch Powell made a much-publicised speech calling for an end to non-white immigration and the repatriation of minority ethnic groups, and opposing anti-discrimination laws. The speech included many of the themes common to racist organisations before and since. There were the scary (and almost certainly invented) tales of elderly white people threatened by black neighbours, the absurd idea that white people would be ‘swamped’, and the paranoid idea that black people secretly wished to dominate the country. To his credit, the Conservative Party leader, Edward Heath, sacked Powell from his post as Shadow Defence Secretary. But public opinion polls at the time showed that Powell’s views were widely-supported and there were several short strikes as well as marches to Parliament by thousands of London dockers and porters.
None of the main political parties since that time has explicitly endorsed racism and both the Conservatives and Labour have promoted black and minority ethnic politicians to cabinet rank. Anti-racist laws were strengthened and racist views essentially banned from the broadcast media. As a result, racism was driven underground. If you are white, other white people would express racist views to you in confidence with a sort of illicit glee. Racism and discrimination could be practised in similarly disguised manner in recruiting and promoting staff. Nevertheless, public opinion polls show a steady decline in racist views, perhaps as a result of an older generation being replaced. But this progress was reversed with the vote on leaving the European Union.
After the vote on our villages neighbourhood plan, I spent some time chatting to the polling clerks. They told me (without prompting) of their miserable experience at the EU referendum. Many voters had clearly never voted before and were paranoid about the vote. Some demanded to use a biro instead of a pencil “because the secret service will rub out our votes”. Some men insisted on directly supervising how their wives voted to make sure they voted to leave the EU. This group of undercover xenophobes, who had previously dropped out of voting ‘because they’re all the same’, had now found a cause.
The racist undercurrent in British politics has indeed been under-represented, and only bursts into the open on infrequent occasions. In April 1968, the MP Enoch Powell made a much-publicised speech calling for an end to non-white immigration and the repatriation of minority ethnic groups, and opposing anti-discrimination laws. The speech included many of the themes common to racist organisations before and since. There were the scary (and almost certainly invented) tales of elderly white people threatened by black neighbours, the absurd idea that white people would be ‘swamped’, and the paranoid idea that black people secretly wished to dominate the country. To his credit, the Conservative Party leader, Edward Heath, sacked Powell from his post as Shadow Defence Secretary. But public opinion polls at the time showed that Powell’s views were widely-supported and there were several short strikes as well as marches to Parliament by thousands of London dockers and porters.
None of the main political parties since that time has explicitly endorsed racism and both the Conservatives and Labour have promoted black and minority ethnic politicians to cabinet rank. Anti-racist laws were strengthened and racist views essentially banned from the broadcast media. As a result, racism was driven underground. If you are white, other white people would express racist views to you in confidence with a sort of illicit glee. Racism and discrimination could be practised in similarly disguised manner in recruiting and promoting staff. Nevertheless, public opinion polls show a steady decline in racist views, perhaps as a result of an older generation being replaced. But this progress was reversed with the vote on leaving the European Union.
After the vote on our villages neighbourhood plan, I spent some time chatting to the polling clerks. They told me (without prompting) of their miserable experience at the EU referendum. Many voters had clearly never voted before and were paranoid about the vote. Some demanded to use a biro instead of a pencil “because the secret service will rub out our votes”. Some men insisted on directly supervising how their wives voted to make sure they voted to leave the EU. This group of undercover xenophobes, who had previously dropped out of voting ‘because they’re all the same’, had now found a cause.
Monday, 7 October 2019
This month we’re loving
Supermarkets now all hand out free monthly magazines to their shoppers. These are usually glossy publications with recipes and promotions of particular products. The Co-op magazine is particularly good and the Marks and Spencers food magazine (‘What’s Fresh at M&S’) is particularly bad. I only noticed this because I rarely shop for food at M&S, but their August 2019 edition includes an article that intrigued me. This is headed:
‘This month we’re loving... Our celebrity tasting panel take their pick from our new summer-ready treats’.
The four celebrities are Emma Willis, Paddy McGuiness, Amanda Holden and Rochelle Humes. Each have supposedly selected a different M&S food product and include a sentence in its praise. For instance, Emma Willis says “I’m picking the Smoky Chorizo Slices, they really fill you up, they’re tasty and make you feel like you’re on holiday”.
This all invoked a volcano of cynicism within me. Can we believe that these four people take a break from their busy lives to gather and taste a range of food and wines before finally selecting their favourites? Did they actually compose the sentences in the praise of each product? Or is it more likely that they just attached their names to this advert drafted by an advertising agency in exchange for a fee plus a smidgen of the publicity needed to maintain a celebrity career? If my cynical views are correct, then there is a further question: why should anyone be influenced by what three presenters and an actress recommend? None have, as far as I know, claimed any expertise in the appreciation of food and wine. But I suspect that the marketing men know what they are doing. People are most likely to be influenced by those they admire, and the greatest admiration is for people who appear on television.
‘This month we’re loving... Our celebrity tasting panel take their pick from our new summer-ready treats’.
The four celebrities are Emma Willis, Paddy McGuiness, Amanda Holden and Rochelle Humes. Each have supposedly selected a different M&S food product and include a sentence in its praise. For instance, Emma Willis says “I’m picking the Smoky Chorizo Slices, they really fill you up, they’re tasty and make you feel like you’re on holiday”.
This all invoked a volcano of cynicism within me. Can we believe that these four people take a break from their busy lives to gather and taste a range of food and wines before finally selecting their favourites? Did they actually compose the sentences in the praise of each product? Or is it more likely that they just attached their names to this advert drafted by an advertising agency in exchange for a fee plus a smidgen of the publicity needed to maintain a celebrity career? If my cynical views are correct, then there is a further question: why should anyone be influenced by what three presenters and an actress recommend? None have, as far as I know, claimed any expertise in the appreciation of food and wine. But I suspect that the marketing men know what they are doing. People are most likely to be influenced by those they admire, and the greatest admiration is for people who appear on television.
Sunday, 6 October 2019
Hymns, ancient and modern and incomprehensible.
One of the more miserable features of my secondary schooling (apart from sport, the cadet force, Saturday morning attendance and the dreary lessons) was morning assembly. This followed the practice at that time of a broadly Christian service comprising the Lords Prayer, various other prayers, and a couple of hymns. It was all rounded off by an address by the headmaster about various school matters. These occasionally included warning and admonishments about behaviour in the showers after sports day. Since I left for home as soon as possible after compulsory sport and avoided the showers, I had no idea what he was warning us against.
I also had no idea what the various hymns were supposed to mean. There were a few that had good tunes that could be sung with enthusiasm (Jerusalem, He who would Valiant be, Oh God our help in Ages Past), but most were dreary affairs. Even worse, their words simply made no sense. One I particularly puzzled over was Teach me my God and King. I now learn from Wikipedia that it was based on a 17th Century poem called The Elixir, written by George Herbert. The most obscure verse was:
‘A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav'n espy.’
But this verse was hardly any better:
‘A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.’
Even the hymns with good tunes were obscure: Jerusalem seemed to aspire for a better society, which struck me as a good idea. He who Would Valiant Be suggested that we should aim to be pilgrims. What that could involve was unclear, although I understood this better a few years later when I read John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress. My incomprehension extended to Christian theology. I never understood the idea of the Holy Trinity and still do not.
This might of course indicate a failure on my part to comprehend abstract thought. Other people do not seem so handicapped. For several centuries, different factions of Christians argued over the precise nature of the Holy Trinity, as well as transubstantiation and justification by faith. These arguments have at times involved warfare, persecution, torture and execution. This willingness to consider slaughter to defend an abstract idea is not of course exclusive to Christianity or religion in general. In the 20th Century, millions have been led to their death in the name of such secular abstractions as ‘the nation’, ‘communism’, ‘democracy’ or ‘fascism’. The hymns and prayers of my schooldays now seem only a feeble protection against such evil.
I also had no idea what the various hymns were supposed to mean. There were a few that had good tunes that could be sung with enthusiasm (Jerusalem, He who would Valiant be, Oh God our help in Ages Past), but most were dreary affairs. Even worse, their words simply made no sense. One I particularly puzzled over was Teach me my God and King. I now learn from Wikipedia that it was based on a 17th Century poem called The Elixir, written by George Herbert. The most obscure verse was:
‘A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav'n espy.’
But this verse was hardly any better:
‘A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.’
Even the hymns with good tunes were obscure: Jerusalem seemed to aspire for a better society, which struck me as a good idea. He who Would Valiant Be suggested that we should aim to be pilgrims. What that could involve was unclear, although I understood this better a few years later when I read John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress. My incomprehension extended to Christian theology. I never understood the idea of the Holy Trinity and still do not.
This might of course indicate a failure on my part to comprehend abstract thought. Other people do not seem so handicapped. For several centuries, different factions of Christians argued over the precise nature of the Holy Trinity, as well as transubstantiation and justification by faith. These arguments have at times involved warfare, persecution, torture and execution. This willingness to consider slaughter to defend an abstract idea is not of course exclusive to Christianity or religion in general. In the 20th Century, millions have been led to their death in the name of such secular abstractions as ‘the nation’, ‘communism’, ‘democracy’ or ‘fascism’. The hymns and prayers of my schooldays now seem only a feeble protection against such evil.
Monday, 2 September 2019
It's a mad mad mad mad Brexit
The whole process of leaving the European Union (‘Brexit’) has sent British politics insane. Support for the two main political parties has fallen drastically, and a once-secure prime minister suffered an unprecedented series of defeats in the House of Commons on her main policy while only resigning after prolonged pressure from her own party. In the meantime, demands for Scottish independence have been strengthened, while both the Good Friday agreement in Ireland and the status of Gibraltar have been imperilled. This disaster is the outcome of a series of blunders unique in British politics:
1. David Cameron never intended to hold a referendum on leaving the EU. Hostility to the EU was for the Conservative Party always a pseudo-policy - one designed to win votes and please the party faithful but never to be implemented. David Cameron was the master tactician here. When competing for the Conservative Party leadership against David Davis, he posed as ‘anti-European’ by stating that he would take Conservative MEPs out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. This pointless exercise alienated the allies in the EU that he would need later. Faced by a growth in support for UKIP, Cameron’s next wheeze was to pledge a referendum on remaining in the EU into the Party manifesto for the general election of 2015. If, as he expected, the coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was returned, this commitment could be conveniently dropped as part of a new coalition agreement. But the collapse of support for the Liberal Democrats in the election resulted in a government exclusively of Conservatives, thereby forcing Cameron to honour his electoral commitment and hold the referendum.
2. Cameron expected to win the referendum but held it at the worst possible time to do so. Cameron probably faced the referendum with some confidence, having already won two (on the alternative vote and on Scottish independence). But the vote occurred at the worst possible moment for the Remain side, with a major refugee crisis following the Syrian War, and the over-bearing policies of the European Central Bank against Ireland, Greece and other countries using the Euro. The Remain campaign focussed on the practical advantages of free movement of trade and people within the EU and the economic disaster that would follow Brexit. These warnings probably had limited effect because the benefits of EU membership have become so much part of everyday life that they were taken for granted. For instance, many of the British emigrants to other EU countries who voted Leave were seemingly unaware that this would threaten their property rights and access to local healthcare. By contrast, the Leave campaign invented the threat of mass immigration following the non-existent possibility of Turkey’s admission to the EU, and stressed the possibility of redeploying the (much exaggerated) UK payments to the EU into the NHS. A major theme of the Leave campaign was that little else would change - Britain, according to Boris Johnson, could ‘have its cake and eat it’. Others emphasised that Britain would of course continue to enjoy tariff-free access to European markets.
3. Members of the Labour Party are heavily in favour or remaining in the EU, but the Labour Party is a major cause of the drift to a No-Deal Brexit. A key part in the failure of the Remain campaign was the lacklustre participation of the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour Party has been pro-EU since the late 1980s, but its left wing saw the EU as a means of entrenching neoliberal policies. Corbyn, as a follower of the late Tony Benn, espoused the same policies until his elevation to the Party’s leadership. He campaigned for Remain, but it was a low-energy campaign, which produced great anger among Labour Members of Parliament and an unsuccessful challenge for the Party leadership. Since then, the Labour Party has gradually shifted its official position towards a second referendum with Remain as an option. But in Parliament, Labour voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, thus guaranteeing its defeat and the eventual replacement of Theresa May by Boris Johnson.
4. Leaders of the Leave campaign did not expect to win. What Cameron did not anticipate was the defection of some of his keys lieutenants to the Leave side, especially Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. Neither had previously been particularly vocal in favour of leaving the EU, but they probably spotted an opportunity to win support among Conservative members for a potential leadership bid. Once the result was announced, and the Leave vote won, both looked utterly crestfallen. The unexpected nature of the result could be seen in the almost complete absence of any plans to negotiate with the EU. The ultimate symbol here is the single blank sheet of paper on the table in front of David Davis when he was supposed to be negotiating with the formidable EU team. The singleness of purpose of the EU side (comprising 27 separate sovereign states) contrasted with the disorganisation of the UK side, in which there was never any agreement within the government (let alone the Conservative Party) about the aims of negotiation.
5. The treaty to leave the EU failed in Parliament because it was opposed by those most ardently in favour of leaving. Theresa May began the process of leaving with only the most vacuous of objectives (‘Brexit means Brexit’ and ‘a red, white and blue Brexit’). After the responsible cabinet minister (David Davis again) failed to make progress, her office took over negotiations and reached a detailed withdrawal agreement that was then rejected by Parliament. This took place because the Conservative Members of Parliament who were most opposed to the EU voted with the Opposition parties against the withdrawal treaty. They could so in the expectation that the UK would then leave the EU in any case when the period set by invoking Article 50 expired. The rationale for opposing the withdrawal agreement was the so-called ‘Irish backstop’ - the name given to a provision in the withdrawal agreement that the UK would remain in the EU customs union until a solution is found in subsequent negotiations to prevent a ‘hard border’ between the UK and the Irish Republic. Opponents of the Irish Backstop veered between arguing that a hard border could be avoided by various unspecified technological solutions and simply not caring what happened to Ireland.
6. The main political party representing Northern Ireland in the UK Parliament schemed against the wishes of the majority of its population. After losing her majority in Parliament after the 2017 General Election, Theresa May came to a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party in exchange for a commitment to an additional £1 billion pounds of public funding for Northern Ireland. However, this deal did not include any corresponding commitment by the DUP to vote for a withdrawal agreement, which they subsequently opposed. Business in Northern Ireland fears the economic consequences of a customs barrier at the border, while the majority of the community in Northern Ireland fears the danger this would pose for the Good Friday Agreement and voted to Remain in the referendum. But the DUP would probably be happy with a wall around the Province. It resolves this conflict by expressing opposition to a hard border while voting to make it happen. The DUP is virtually the only voice for Northern Ireland in Westminister because the main Nationalist party, Sinn Fein, is in favour of Irish unity and refuses to attend a British Parliament. It thereby empowers its main opponents and ensures that a hard border will occur.
7. Those most in favour of a ‘hard Brexit’ admit that they will need to negotiate a treaty with the EU after leaving. William Rees-Mogg (a financial trader in the City of London who acts the role of a Victorian country gentleman) has spoken of the need to negotiate a treaty with the EU similar to that negotiated between the EU and Canada. If this follows other EU treaties, it would probably involve accepting EU product regulations and tariff-free trade (or a ‘customs union’ as it is usually termed). In any case, British firms wishing to export to the European Union will need to conform to EU product regulations. When the UK leaves the EU, this country will no longer have a say in the content of these regulations.
8. Those most ardently in favour of leaving the EU in all circumstances are also those most willing to sell the UK to the USA. The ardent patriotism espoused by Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party coincides with a close alignment with the extreme right in the USA and its President. The US ambassador to the UK has argued that any trade agreement between the UK and the USA would require the UK to accept debased US food standards and open the NHS to purchase by the rapacious American healthcare corporations. These proposals are supported by many of the most ardent supporters of Brexit, who form a squad of Quislings-in-waiting.
9. Members of Parliament supporting Remain or a negotiated withdrawal agreement have failed to agree on anything else. There were several opportunities during the dying days of Theresa May’ government to agree an alternative to her Withdrawal Agreement that did not involve leaving without any deal. All these were defeated. In early 2019, seven Labour and four Conservative Members of Parliament who supported Remain defected from their parties to create a new party called ‘Change UK’. Four months later, six of these split from the new party to be even more independent (although two have since joined the Liberal Democrats). The new leader of the Liberal Democrats (a former minister in Cameron’s coalition government who was hitherto famous for introducing a measure to charge employees for bringing cases against their employers) refused to work with Jeremy Corbyn, while the various defectors showed an unwillingness to work with anyone else.
How can we explain this insanity? A major factor is ignorance about the EU among politicians, the media and the public. The EU debate had been successfully sidelined as an issue in British politics until David Cameron revived the referendum as an election pledge. This meant that there was no tradition of debate and discussion beyond silly season news about supposed EU regulations (‘straight bananas’ etc). This meant that the public could easily be scared by outright lies, such as the supposed plan to merge the British armed forces into a European Army or the threat that 5 million Turks were about to ‘invade’ the UK.
It is probable, however, that for most of those voting for Brexit, leaving the EU was rational based on the information available to them. Public services under Cameron and May had been starved of cash, resulting in increased crime and homelessness, and the elimination of many local further education, library and youth services. It appeared to make good sense to divert the money the UK pays to the EU to support these services, while avoiding the fate of being ordered around by foreigners. Neither can people struggling to get a decent home and in marginal employment be expected to support unrestricted immigration with any enthusiasm.
But a minority of Leave supporters view the issue with far more passion, as a matter of national identity. They regard the EU as an oppressive alien force which threatens the British nation and which must be opposed even if this involves economic ruin. Opposition to the EU is thus the focus of a new kind of English ultra-nationalism, which, like all forms of nationalism, explains the problems people experience as the work of an external enemy. The EU has thus come to replace Jews, black people, Catholics, capitalists, communists and other devil-figures of the imagination. This focus on the EU as the unique impediment to British sovereignty is strange since the UK is a member of many other treaty organisations - in particular NATO. It was NATO membership, not membership of the EU, that resulted in British troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ultra-nationalists of this kind are unlikely to welcome any agreement with the EU, even after the UK leaves. This presents the current Conservative government with a difficult dilemma: leave the EU without any agreement and face the unpopularity resulting from the resulting shambles; or come to some sort of agreement and face the undying hostility of the ultra-nationalists who will split the Conservative vote in a general election. The next few weeks will reveal which of these outcomes will prevail.
1. David Cameron never intended to hold a referendum on leaving the EU. Hostility to the EU was for the Conservative Party always a pseudo-policy - one designed to win votes and please the party faithful but never to be implemented. David Cameron was the master tactician here. When competing for the Conservative Party leadership against David Davis, he posed as ‘anti-European’ by stating that he would take Conservative MEPs out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. This pointless exercise alienated the allies in the EU that he would need later. Faced by a growth in support for UKIP, Cameron’s next wheeze was to pledge a referendum on remaining in the EU into the Party manifesto for the general election of 2015. If, as he expected, the coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was returned, this commitment could be conveniently dropped as part of a new coalition agreement. But the collapse of support for the Liberal Democrats in the election resulted in a government exclusively of Conservatives, thereby forcing Cameron to honour his electoral commitment and hold the referendum.
2. Cameron expected to win the referendum but held it at the worst possible time to do so. Cameron probably faced the referendum with some confidence, having already won two (on the alternative vote and on Scottish independence). But the vote occurred at the worst possible moment for the Remain side, with a major refugee crisis following the Syrian War, and the over-bearing policies of the European Central Bank against Ireland, Greece and other countries using the Euro. The Remain campaign focussed on the practical advantages of free movement of trade and people within the EU and the economic disaster that would follow Brexit. These warnings probably had limited effect because the benefits of EU membership have become so much part of everyday life that they were taken for granted. For instance, many of the British emigrants to other EU countries who voted Leave were seemingly unaware that this would threaten their property rights and access to local healthcare. By contrast, the Leave campaign invented the threat of mass immigration following the non-existent possibility of Turkey’s admission to the EU, and stressed the possibility of redeploying the (much exaggerated) UK payments to the EU into the NHS. A major theme of the Leave campaign was that little else would change - Britain, according to Boris Johnson, could ‘have its cake and eat it’. Others emphasised that Britain would of course continue to enjoy tariff-free access to European markets.
3. Members of the Labour Party are heavily in favour or remaining in the EU, but the Labour Party is a major cause of the drift to a No-Deal Brexit. A key part in the failure of the Remain campaign was the lacklustre participation of the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour Party has been pro-EU since the late 1980s, but its left wing saw the EU as a means of entrenching neoliberal policies. Corbyn, as a follower of the late Tony Benn, espoused the same policies until his elevation to the Party’s leadership. He campaigned for Remain, but it was a low-energy campaign, which produced great anger among Labour Members of Parliament and an unsuccessful challenge for the Party leadership. Since then, the Labour Party has gradually shifted its official position towards a second referendum with Remain as an option. But in Parliament, Labour voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, thus guaranteeing its defeat and the eventual replacement of Theresa May by Boris Johnson.
4. Leaders of the Leave campaign did not expect to win. What Cameron did not anticipate was the defection of some of his keys lieutenants to the Leave side, especially Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. Neither had previously been particularly vocal in favour of leaving the EU, but they probably spotted an opportunity to win support among Conservative members for a potential leadership bid. Once the result was announced, and the Leave vote won, both looked utterly crestfallen. The unexpected nature of the result could be seen in the almost complete absence of any plans to negotiate with the EU. The ultimate symbol here is the single blank sheet of paper on the table in front of David Davis when he was supposed to be negotiating with the formidable EU team. The singleness of purpose of the EU side (comprising 27 separate sovereign states) contrasted with the disorganisation of the UK side, in which there was never any agreement within the government (let alone the Conservative Party) about the aims of negotiation.
5. The treaty to leave the EU failed in Parliament because it was opposed by those most ardently in favour of leaving. Theresa May began the process of leaving with only the most vacuous of objectives (‘Brexit means Brexit’ and ‘a red, white and blue Brexit’). After the responsible cabinet minister (David Davis again) failed to make progress, her office took over negotiations and reached a detailed withdrawal agreement that was then rejected by Parliament. This took place because the Conservative Members of Parliament who were most opposed to the EU voted with the Opposition parties against the withdrawal treaty. They could so in the expectation that the UK would then leave the EU in any case when the period set by invoking Article 50 expired. The rationale for opposing the withdrawal agreement was the so-called ‘Irish backstop’ - the name given to a provision in the withdrawal agreement that the UK would remain in the EU customs union until a solution is found in subsequent negotiations to prevent a ‘hard border’ between the UK and the Irish Republic. Opponents of the Irish Backstop veered between arguing that a hard border could be avoided by various unspecified technological solutions and simply not caring what happened to Ireland.
6. The main political party representing Northern Ireland in the UK Parliament schemed against the wishes of the majority of its population. After losing her majority in Parliament after the 2017 General Election, Theresa May came to a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party in exchange for a commitment to an additional £1 billion pounds of public funding for Northern Ireland. However, this deal did not include any corresponding commitment by the DUP to vote for a withdrawal agreement, which they subsequently opposed. Business in Northern Ireland fears the economic consequences of a customs barrier at the border, while the majority of the community in Northern Ireland fears the danger this would pose for the Good Friday Agreement and voted to Remain in the referendum. But the DUP would probably be happy with a wall around the Province. It resolves this conflict by expressing opposition to a hard border while voting to make it happen. The DUP is virtually the only voice for Northern Ireland in Westminister because the main Nationalist party, Sinn Fein, is in favour of Irish unity and refuses to attend a British Parliament. It thereby empowers its main opponents and ensures that a hard border will occur.
7. Those most in favour of a ‘hard Brexit’ admit that they will need to negotiate a treaty with the EU after leaving. William Rees-Mogg (a financial trader in the City of London who acts the role of a Victorian country gentleman) has spoken of the need to negotiate a treaty with the EU similar to that negotiated between the EU and Canada. If this follows other EU treaties, it would probably involve accepting EU product regulations and tariff-free trade (or a ‘customs union’ as it is usually termed). In any case, British firms wishing to export to the European Union will need to conform to EU product regulations. When the UK leaves the EU, this country will no longer have a say in the content of these regulations.
8. Those most ardently in favour of leaving the EU in all circumstances are also those most willing to sell the UK to the USA. The ardent patriotism espoused by Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party coincides with a close alignment with the extreme right in the USA and its President. The US ambassador to the UK has argued that any trade agreement between the UK and the USA would require the UK to accept debased US food standards and open the NHS to purchase by the rapacious American healthcare corporations. These proposals are supported by many of the most ardent supporters of Brexit, who form a squad of Quislings-in-waiting.
9. Members of Parliament supporting Remain or a negotiated withdrawal agreement have failed to agree on anything else. There were several opportunities during the dying days of Theresa May’ government to agree an alternative to her Withdrawal Agreement that did not involve leaving without any deal. All these were defeated. In early 2019, seven Labour and four Conservative Members of Parliament who supported Remain defected from their parties to create a new party called ‘Change UK’. Four months later, six of these split from the new party to be even more independent (although two have since joined the Liberal Democrats). The new leader of the Liberal Democrats (a former minister in Cameron’s coalition government who was hitherto famous for introducing a measure to charge employees for bringing cases against their employers) refused to work with Jeremy Corbyn, while the various defectors showed an unwillingness to work with anyone else.
How can we explain this insanity? A major factor is ignorance about the EU among politicians, the media and the public. The EU debate had been successfully sidelined as an issue in British politics until David Cameron revived the referendum as an election pledge. This meant that there was no tradition of debate and discussion beyond silly season news about supposed EU regulations (‘straight bananas’ etc). This meant that the public could easily be scared by outright lies, such as the supposed plan to merge the British armed forces into a European Army or the threat that 5 million Turks were about to ‘invade’ the UK.
It is probable, however, that for most of those voting for Brexit, leaving the EU was rational based on the information available to them. Public services under Cameron and May had been starved of cash, resulting in increased crime and homelessness, and the elimination of many local further education, library and youth services. It appeared to make good sense to divert the money the UK pays to the EU to support these services, while avoiding the fate of being ordered around by foreigners. Neither can people struggling to get a decent home and in marginal employment be expected to support unrestricted immigration with any enthusiasm.
But a minority of Leave supporters view the issue with far more passion, as a matter of national identity. They regard the EU as an oppressive alien force which threatens the British nation and which must be opposed even if this involves economic ruin. Opposition to the EU is thus the focus of a new kind of English ultra-nationalism, which, like all forms of nationalism, explains the problems people experience as the work of an external enemy. The EU has thus come to replace Jews, black people, Catholics, capitalists, communists and other devil-figures of the imagination. This focus on the EU as the unique impediment to British sovereignty is strange since the UK is a member of many other treaty organisations - in particular NATO. It was NATO membership, not membership of the EU, that resulted in British troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ultra-nationalists of this kind are unlikely to welcome any agreement with the EU, even after the UK leaves. This presents the current Conservative government with a difficult dilemma: leave the EU without any agreement and face the unpopularity resulting from the resulting shambles; or come to some sort of agreement and face the undying hostility of the ultra-nationalists who will split the Conservative vote in a general election. The next few weeks will reveal which of these outcomes will prevail.
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