UK voters suffer Brexit 'bregret'

A NEW poll to mark the third anniversary at the end of January 2023 of the UK leaving the EU has suggested most voters think voting for Brexit in the 2016 referendum was now a mistake. The term coined by observers to describe the change of heart is 'Bregret'.

The survey by Unherd and Focaldata asked voters across England, Scotland and Wales whether ‘Britain was wrong to leave the EU’ and in all but three of 632 constituencies, more people now agree than disagree.

As it happens, the three constituencies that are still in favour of having left – Boston & Skegness, South Holland & the Deepings, and Louth & Horncastle – are all in Lincolnshire, England’s second largest county which sprawls around the Wash.

In his recent book ‘Edge of England’ on this enigmatic area, author Derek Turner dubbed Lincolnshire ‘England’s forgotten county’. It was perhaps something of a prophetic insight and, having reviewed it for Central Bylines, it seems to me there are undoubtedly some answers lurking within its pages as to why this should be so.

Despite holding on to the number one anti-Europe spot though, the number of people in Boston & Skegness follows the survey’s national trend. Those expressing faith in Brexit have fallen from 75 percent at the time of the referendum in 2016 to 41 percent now, just four percentage points above those agreeing Britain was wrong to leave the EU.

In the past, one could say that by and large the UK was properly governed and MPs in the main were public servants. Indeed, leaving the EU was hardly in the minds of the British general public until it was elevated to the top of the political agenda by Prime Minister of the day, David Cameron at the beginning of 2016, for party political reasons.

In one way, it was a politically-naive way to silence a small but increasingly vocal anti-Europe brigade on the fringes of the Conservative party and in UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party).

But it was also a handy smokescreen for those with vested interests who felt threatened by a soon-to-be-introduced EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive to control offshore tax havens, including questionable tax dealings by either those holding power or those wealthy enough to influence it. 

That would certainly would help explain a lot of things because at present many MPs, though not all, particularly those serving in the current cabinet and government, look like they are there to best their own personal influence and financial self-reward.

As the UK marks the third anniversary of having left the EU, it is not Brexit per se that has done the real damage but the incompetence and ignorance of politician after jingoistic politician who have proclaimed much but delivered nothing.

Figures released today (31 January) reveal the UK is the only leading economy likely to fall into recession this year, and this even behind Russia! The IMF forecasts that the UK economy will shrink 0.6 percent in 2023 as it is weighed down by the disadvantages of having left the European single market, combined with a toxic mix of sky high energy prices, rising mortgages and higher taxes.

It all adds up to a very bleak forecast for a vacuous government without a long term plan that pinned its hopes on ‘recovery’ and it leaves Rishi Sunak, the country’s third Tory prime minister in a year, mired in the sleaze and the false rhetoric of his predecessors, particularly Boris Johnson.

In the real world away from the Palace of Westminster, one business person after another describes Brexit and the form it has taken as an unmitigated disaster for the country.

One of them, entrepreneur and business leader Deborah Meaden, who regularly features on the TV programme ‘Dragon’s Den’, says: “Brexit is definitely a factor in 99 percent of businesses that I talk to. They are suffering, they’re bewildered.”

In the 2016 vote, Brexiteers got what they wanted. But despite the extensive promises, it hasn’t heralded a new dawn or a new age of prosperity for the country. Instead Brexit is costing the UK economy a million pounds per hour; it means the UK has around £20 billion a year less available for public spending; and it has lost around 330,000 workers from the UK economy.

After more than a dozen years of Conservative-controlled majority government, the country and its economy is in very poor shape. Promises are never going to be delivered, and the lies about the benefits of Brexit told during the referendum campaign and repeated ad nauseam since, only add to the image of deceitfulness at the very heart of this hard Brexit government.

Meanwhile, the government is preparing later this year to delete thousands of laws that largely benefit the ordinary people of this country, including the right to compensation for delayed trains or flights, the right to paid annual leave, equal pay and bank holidays, parental leave and pay and pension protection when a company goes bust.

These things won’t affect the super-wealthy but they will affect everyone else. Is it really what people voted for back in 2016? Probably not, given the results of the poll discussed at the beginning of this piece.

As the latest figures show, decline for the UK is now very real and continued Brexit denial will no longer cut it. Perhaps a corner is being turned at last as people finally realise what has been foisted on them?

Brexit doesn’t necessarily need to be undone wholesale but the country does need to rejoin the single market and customs union as soon as possible.

Such a dramatic reset to the country’s political direction and agenda might only be delivered in one of two ways – a General Strike that brings down the current government, or an unscheduled General Election after a vote of no confidence in which enough MPs decide to put the country and its future first for once. 

What is certain, however, is that the UK urgently, urgently needs mature, proper politicians who will put the interests of the people they represent first and, in doing so, pave the way for the country to rebuild and prosper.

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Editor's note: this article is an amended version of an opinion piece written for and published by Central Bylines. 

 

 

 

Breaking the Brexit taboo

FAR from blazing a path to new heights the British economy is well and truly in the doldrums with little sign of a fair wind whipping up to fan things back into life. Like Earth's climate it is on the edge of an avoidable catastrophe.

According to Will Hutton, economic journalist and commentator, the current British economic debate is therefore all the more bewildering, marooned as it is in a discourse in which one of the pivotal economic facts of 2022 is largely ignored.

Writing in The Observer newspaper (3 July 2022), he says the Chancellor and Governor of the Bank of England talk about the dangers of inflation, of the risk of a wage price spiral and the need for pay restraint – but never about the escalating sterling crisis and what lies behind it.

“But Brexit is not going away and it cannot be avoided,” he asserts, while reminding us that last week we learned that in the first three months of 2022 Britain’s current account deficit was the worst since records began in 1955.

It stood at a stunning 8.3 percent of GDP – the kind of deficit recorded by “banana republics before they collapse into slump, banking crises and hyperinflation”.

Hutton says the figures are so “terrifyingly bad” that even a shaken Office for National Statistics cautions that it is uncertain about the quality of its own data. 

“But the core reality cannot be dodged and revisions will impact only at the margins rather than reverse the story: real export volumes over the period are down 4.4 percent and import volumes up a gigantic 10.4 percent.”

Apologists point to exploding energy costs, statistical vagaries, the ongoing distortions of Covid, weak world markets and supply chain effects - all of which are playing their part.

“But what cannot be mentioned is Brexit and the obvious depressive impact it is having on UK exports and inward investment flows,” he writes.

"Britain is entering dangerous territory – the economy is falling into recession, investment is flat, while inflation, high across the industrialised world because of the fallout from the war in Ukraine, is highest in the UK largely because of the weak pound, which has no support from any quarter.

"The refusal of the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, even to acknowledge what is happening and why is beginning to be a source of lack of market confidence in itself.

“Without full access to the EU single market and customs union – the UK’s largest market – there is no possibility of an export recovery, nor a recovery in inward investment, nor a lifting of economic confidence,” says Hutton.

“As the Bank of America warns, Britain faces an existential sterling crisis, made worse because of the refusal of the government and many economic commentators to look the truth in the eye.”

Hutton cites the 1976 sterling crisis, triggered by the conviction of the foreign exchange markets that already very high inflation was certain to get out of hand, as an eerie parallel.

"There was nothing to prop up a falling pound, given the current account deficit was running at what seemed an unimaginable four precent of GDP – half today’s deficit," he says.

But one of the big differences between now and the 1970s is that back then the UK was embedded in a network of strong trading relationships. Having recently joined the Common Market, it could trade its way back to international creditworthiness with North Sea oil about to reinforce the impetus.

Hutton believes that Britain needs to be in the single market and customs union to have any prospect of price stability and growth. “It needs to be within the political architecture of Europe for its own security, given the dark menace of Russia,” he says.

“The British economic and political ship is foundering, damaged by the rock of Brexit; its captains need to be called out for their errant seamanship. A fundamental change of course is an imperative. The future political stars in both the Labour and Conservative parties are those with the courage to say so.”

Hutton also derided the Labour opposition for its “vows of silence”, a situation which Sir Keir Starmer began to remedy this week in the first of several speeches outlining future Labour policies.

Starmer’s Brexit 'policy' - essentially to “Make Brexit Work” by being more cooperative and less antagonistic towards Europe - is hardly brave or inspiring but it reflects a harsh political reality.

With a lawyer’s forensic mind, he knows the remotest hint about rejoining the single market or customs union would be a huge gift to the Tories and their right-wing media clients, who’d love nothing more than to fight the next election on Brexit once again.

The hard Brexit tide maybe turning in the minds of the public but, much to the chagrin of many ‘remainers’, Starmer has to play it cool for now at least.

Editor’s note: Will Hutton is a British journalist and was formerly editor-in-chief for The Observer, for which he now writes a regular column. He co-chairs the Purposeful Company, and is the president-designate of the Academy of Social Sciences. The full article, on which this commentary is based, is on this link
 

All the Prime Minister's Men

 

AS the UK’s political turmoil of December overflowed into January and continued unabated in February the contrast between UK prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and leader of the opposition Sir Kier Starmer could not have been more stark.

On a rare trip into central London last week, it was amplified as I loitered outside the Houses of Parliament sipping a coffee from Neros just as the beleaguered prime minister was attempting to phrase his latest non-apology for “Party Gate”.

This time it was his response to the publication of an advance, short-form version of the infamous Sue Gray report into Downing Street parties during lockdown, and his response included the seemingly pre-meditated 'Jimmy Savile slur' against Starmer.

In any setting other than the UK Parliament, where historic gentlemanly privileges are still supposed to prevail, it would likely have amounted to a serious and legally actionable slander.

By all accounts, and from wall-to-wall TV coverage later, Johnson's was yet another painful performance for the head of any country, let alone one that also purports to be a "global leader".

Standing outside at the time I could almost hear the baying, the shouting, the laughing, and the utter disdain for MP’s in the House and for the public at large.

Less than a week later, events proved that this British Prime Minister does not routinely accept that he has ever done anything wrong and has no intention of ever really sorry at all.

His Savile comment was also a prime example of the so-called ‘dead cat’ tactic - in this case throwing out an outrageous smear in order to get everyone talking about that, and probably also knowing that some of it would ultimately stick.

And all this drama came hard on the heels of the second anniversary of Brexit when the government released its “Benefits of Brexit” document (which, unsurprisingly, struggled to string together any kind of list of advantages).

Shortly before heading back to the hotel, I was accosted on College Green which is just across from the Houses of Parliament. Thankfully not by a baying mob but by a “GB News” crew asking if I would do a piece to camera.

Am I a fan of GB News? Definutely not! It's mega-wealthy backers give it an unhealthy right wing editorial bias. But I agree and thought they might as well have it with both barrels.

So I stared into the camera and told them in no uncertain terms that Johnson was incapable of changing and, as a result, was probably toxic as both leader of the Tory party and the UK.

I described his vacuous “apology” as pathetic and rounded off the short interview with a resolute call for Johnson to resign. Not sure that it got broadcast but at least I said it.

Like everyone, over the years I have watched many movies, some more meaningful to my life at a particular the time than others.

One such film, back in the late 1970s, was the 'All The President’s Men' - the story of the Watergate cover up which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

The drama of inside story by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein proved the catalyst for my own journalistic career.

As reflected in the title of this blogpost, one can only hope that ultimately the lies and coverups of Johnson will be not only bring about his downfall but also those of his hand-picked cabinet and government ministers.

But, in terms of film endings, another that I still revere from back in the day is the scene at the end of the original 'Planet of the Apes'.

As the camera panned out on a washed up beach, the last human survivor (played by Charlton Heston) and his partner glance up to see the ruined Statue of Liberty before him and utters the film's closing, poignant words: “You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

Now, as the picture heading this post illustrates, some clever graphics person has re-purposed a still from the film that neatly transfers this to the immense damage Johnson and his Brexit cabal are doing to the UK, both in plain sight and behind closed doors.

And I thank my journalist colleague Rob Coppinger for the paraphrase for this version of the film's ending: “We finally did it! Brexit, you maniacs! You went hard Brexit! God damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

Cabinet shuffle

Gulf News

 

THE international stock of UK prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is becoming diminished by the week and taking with it the last shreds of moral and political authority that Britain once had.

In all the political conflicts of pandemic mis-management and Brexit elitism, it seems that, in the mind of the British PM, what matters most is the pursuit of power. He has always been single-minded to this end and does all he can to resist constraints on that power.

Johnson, who is widely regarded by those who know or have worked with him, to have the attention span of a nat, is not interested in policy, let alone policy detail. He waivers constantly, in tune with nothing more than the shifting wind of opinion, and has no convictions about things that really matter such as Brexit, climate change, levelling up, culture wars or tackling poverty.

Apart from himself, all he cares about is how policy plays with the Tory Party, its supporters and the voters, many of whom he has hoodwinked into thinking he is something much more than he is.

All this helps to explain some of the sackings in this week’s cabinet reshuffle, because ministers whose stock has fallen with the venerable Party become vulnerable, regardless of their abilities.

The prime duty of Johnson’s replacements this week is hardly to deliver a particular agenda, but to keep themselves, and the Party, popular in readiness for the next election.

At the risk of re-stating what is now becoming patently obvious, the key things driving the Johnson government are riches for the already super wealthy, Party and Tory donor management, all aligned with increasing control of Parliament, the courts and the media.

From Johnson’s myopic perspective the cabinet reshuffle was intended to portray energy (working tirelessly, getting on with the job) and renewal. But, in the real world, all that happened was the removal of the least popular members of his team, which was also a non-damaging way to shift people who should have been sacked for incompetence and breaking rules long ago.

It was also a way for Johnson to ensure he is surrounded by an increasingly sycophantic protection ring.

This then folks is the guy that is leading the UK to a populist, ideological disaster, a nightmare world that will make a few dangerous people very wealthy and all too powerful.

Democratic betrayal

TO coin a phrase, the British government seems to be at “sixes and sevens”, an English idiom used to describe a condition of confusion or disarray. In one way this is probably a fair description but look deeper and many of the government’s actions under the leadership of Boris Johnson on both Covid and Brexit have distinctly worrying undertones.

Let’s clear up one thing first. To date the UK’s vaccine roll out, albeit so far mostly single doses, under the auspices of the NHS has been a very welcome success story.

And this is not, as Johnson and members of his cabinet have repeatedly and disingenuously claimed, been made possible because of Brexit, a narrative designed to polarise further division between the UK and EU.

If vaccines are a success story and offer a ray of hope in these troubled times, the same cannot be said for the government’s abject and, at times corrupt, handling of the Covid pandemic crisis over its first year.

Johnson’s “policies” and decisions have lead to one of the worst per capita death rates of any country in the world and the worst performing economy during the pandemic of any G7 country.

The Resolution Foundation think tank reported this week that delaying the winter lockdown caused up to 27,000 extra deaths in England, and it accused the government of a “huge mistake” which should be central to any public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.

In its assessment of the past year, the Foundation says delaying the start of the latest lockdown until January - despite hard evidence of fast-rising cases before Christmas - led to around a fifth of all fatalities caused by the virus. It believes these could have been avoided if restrictions had been put in place in early December, as had been recommended

While it praised the vaccination programme and financial support for firms and workers, the Foundation said the same mistakes on lockdowns were repeated “three tragic times” - in March, September and December 2020 - precipitating longer and more onerous lockdowns.

In the spring of 2021, as we look back on a year of turmoil and sadness, one could be forgiven for thinking that memories are short and we have not only forgotten that we have been in this before but forgotten too how we got here. This is the UK’s third national lockdown and both of its forerunners were promised to be the last.

One also can’t help thinking that the Government is somewhat over-reliant on vaccines solving the crisis, with Johnson offering no insight, for example, into how he plans to make vitally needed improvements to his national Test & Trace system, which we learnt last week is now costing a staggering £37 billion.

This is Monopoly money on a mega scale and is a sum that seems almost impossible to justify whichever way you look at it, particularly when other countries have developed efficient and successful Test & Trace systems for a fraction of the cost.

And despite the government insisting on calling it “NHS Track & Trace” - another less than casual piece of deliberate mis-speak - the system is not led by healthcare staff but is run by Dido Harding, friend of health secretary Matt Hancock and wife of Tory MP John Penrose, through the private firm Serco which, according to its recent financial results, is doing very nicely thank you.

If Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown for this spring feels a little too premature and date-driven then perhaps it is. Based on 2020 we should remain wary. After all, he has already proved to be the popularist master of raising expectations unrealistically and over-promising.

Of course, in such tumultuous times, people do need something to look forward to. But it should not be at the mercy of a government which never learns from its mistakes, either deliberately or through serial incompetence.

Ultimately, the un-vaccinated should not be going to nightclubs in June, only for us all to return to national lockdown at the end of carefree summer. In the end, the only thing worse than hope is raising false hope.
       
Against this backdrop are on-going and increasingly transparent and dishonest attempts to bury the corpse of a failing Brexit in the cemetery of Covid.               

During his tenure the prime minister has repeatedly lied to Parliament, to the Queen and her citizens, bent the rules, broken international law and broken the ministerial code on multiple occasions. The British government is overtly corrupt and it goes back on its word. Can it be trusted on anything it says, does or signs?

So far it has seemed that when Johnson and his government break the law at home they largely get away with it. But when international law is broken (especially when it reneges on an agreement like the Northern Ireland Protocol which was only recently negotiated, signed and hailed as a great triumph), we should not be surprised when the EU and countries like the US react adversely.

And all this after a month in which the government was keen to cover its dirty Brexit tricks by almost any means possible, not the least of which was buying editorial space in mainstream newspapers to run a number of disingenuous pro-Brexit news stories.

These actions do mean, however, that the government is becoming sensitive to the growing realisation that in reality Brexit is proving as damaging to the economy, if not more so, that the much derided “Project Fear” tried to warn back in 2016.

Such developments may only elicit a resigned shrug from the general population, especially given the more immediate impacts of Covid, but it is suggestive that Brexiters are aware their propaganda battle is being quickly eroded.

It is perhaps in this context that the government’s astonishingly dishonest Brexit ‘advertising’ campaign of recent weeks can be better understood.

On many levels it was designed to hoodwink the unsuspecting public because the campaign primarily consisted of placing paid-for stories in newspapers, including the Independent, the Daily Mail, The Sun, the Evening Standard and the Metro, along with hundreds of local newspapers.

To all intents and purposes they appeared to be legitimate news stories and it was necessary to look very carefully to see that these were billed as written ‘in association with the UK government’ or as ‘sponsored articles’.

At one level it is almost laughable but on another it does suggest a certain amount of desperation on the part of the government to create and promote dubious ‘good news’ narratives about Brexit.

The ground is clearly being prepared for a trade war with the EU, which shows that many in governance are ideologically determined to permanently toxify UK-EU relations, however badly that affects the country and its international reputation.

In some ways, the entire Brexit and Covid stories both come down to a gluttonous insatiability - a type of privileged greed, gestated by the right-wing and aligned with the inability of the British political class to impose any dietary restrictions on itself, and thus making way for an increasingly regime-like governance.

Caption: The Downing Street "briefing room" commissioned by Boris Johnson at a price tag to the taxpayer of £2.6 million. It looks like a standard hotel conference room along with cheap chairs, so one wonders why it cost so much? Note the 'Henry' vacuum cleaner on the right-hand side.

Space Oddity

 

 

THE fact that the European Union (EU) is consolidating its space programmes under a new agency that is being given an expanded mandate is not particularly good news for the UK space industry - at least as long as the current Johnson government remains in power.

As has already been proven with the Brexit end-of-transition negotiations, anything with EU in the title has been like a red rag to the Tory right, which has used its disproportionate influence to persuade the prime minister cut off as many ties with Europe as possible, beneficial or not.

There are many examples, including the ERASMUS student scheme and perhaps even Galileo itself, the European satellite navigation system in which the UK has played such a significant role.

The politically skewered view that the UK could just go ahead and build its own multi-billion pound replacement to Galileo was, in reality, just more jingoistic hot air to serve the “sovereignty above all else” headlines.

Like so many post-Brexit negotiating decisions, the loss of high-level access to the navigation satellite  system was a politically driven position - a government, huffing and puffing to leave and failing to consider rationally what was the country’s best interest.

The UK's final big industrial contribution to the EU's Galileo sat-nav system was delivered before Christmas after Guildford-based Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) shipped the last of the navigation payloads, which are described as  the "brains" of the spacecraft generating the signals the Galileo network sends down to Earth.

Britain’s "third country" status now means UK companies can no longer be involved in the hi-tech end as they once were because Galileo is regarded by the EU as a security programme and only firms in its 27 member states or those with separate agreements can take on sensitive work.

Of course, like many things with Brexit, it didn’t have to be like this. Norway, for example, which is not an EU member, negotiated itself an agreement giving access to Galileo’s high-level signals and the ability to supply sensitive hi-tech instruments.

A savvy UK government, not driven by political ideologies, could easily have achieved the same had it wanted to rather than erect another trade barrier, this time in “space”, of its own choosing.

So, given the UK’s somewhat intransigent and often seemingly ill-thought out positions of late, the EU’s consolidation of its space programmes may not be to Britain’s long term advantage.
                        
The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA), which  acts as the technical and procurement agent for the EU's space projects, will be renamed the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUASP).

As such, it will also take on managing the use of the Copernicus Earth observation satellite system and oversee new initiatives in satellite communications named GOVSATCOM and space situational awareness (SSA).

The Prague-based agency will continue to manage use of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Systems (EGNOS) and Galileo satellite navigation programmes.

According to a European Commission (EC) press release last week, EUASP “will increasingly support the exploitation and market uptake of EU space activities, and play a bigger role in ensuring the security of all the components of the programme.”

EU Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, praised the reorganisation of the union’s space programmes. “Europe is the second space power in the world. But the global race is on,” he said. 

“With this agreement, we now have the means to develop our leadership in space by consolidating our flagships – Galileo and Copernicus – and exploring new initiatives that will enhance Europe’s resilience, notably in secure connectivity.”

The EU has a seven-year space budget of €13.2 billion ($16 billion) up to 2027 and most of these funds will be focused on operating and expanding the Copernicus and Galileo satellite systems. The European Space Agency (ESA), of which the UK remains a part, oversees technical aspects and development of the spacecraft.

EUASP will also oversee the new European GOVSATCOM that is designed to provide reliable, secure and cost-effective satellite communications for the EU and its member state governments.

In addition, the agency will be instructed to manage a new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme designed to help prevent collisions of objects in Earth orbit and uncontrolled reentries from this increasingly over-crowded environment. The programme will also focus on monitoring space weather and near Earth objects.

So, despite remaining part of ESA, which at least for the time being will give the UK an on-going role in the Copernicus programme, it remains to be seen what effect the EU’s increasing involvement in the organisation of European space programmes will have.

Allied with the UK’s irrational desire to cut off as many ties with the EU as possible, will it ultimately be to the detriment of UK involvement and leadership of this hi-tech and lucrative industry?

Over the coming months, and years, such matters will go much deeper than the “temporary” disruptions and difficulties that are now becoming more and more evident by the day for firms and traders at UK borders.

The term 'Long Covid' has become increasingly familiar as the Covid-19 pandemic has progressed. Sadly, if previously vibrant and successful UK industries suffer the very practical fallout of misplaced political ideology and British exceptionalism, it may not be long before 'Long Brexit' becomes a thing too. 

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Editor's note: thanks to Prof Chris Grey for the acknowledgement and mention in his Brexit & Beyond blog on 22 January 2021, and the suggestion that the term Long Brexit has better parity with Long Covid by dropping the hyphen.

Selling England by the Pound

Pictures paint a thousand words - coincidence or a divine warning?

WHILE the appalling Covid-19 figures in the UK, the latest nationwide lock down and vaccine rollout dominate mainstream news, the tragedy of post-Brexit Britain unfolds like some secondary subplot in a long drawn out dystopian soap opera.

Ironically, the intense media focus on the handling of Covid-19 in the UK is proving useful ‘cover’ for the damage being inflicted day-by-day to the economic fabric of the country now it is fully out of the EU. But that may only last for so long now.

Post-Brexit Britain's early days of going solo have already been characterised by lost business, extra costs, delays, unexpected tariffs and additional paperwork for many. So, far at least, no one seems to be trumpeting any tangible new freedoms or benefits.

Add the latest events in Washington, however, into the mix and we suddenly throw a more intense and critical spotlight on the UK's doomsday scenario of Covid-19 and Brexit under the leadership of an increasingly corrupt government.

President-elect Joe Biden has described Boris Johnson as "a physical & emotional clone of Donald Trump" whilst Trump himself described Johnson as “Britain’s Trump”. In return Johnson, a fine judge of character, suggested that Trump was a suitable candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize.

It has to be said, however, that Johnson and co are by no means as open or obvious about their self-serving motives as Trump has been. Instead they work insidiously in the background, stealing the UK’s democracy bit by bit.

For example, lying and glossing over truths by government ministers is now pretty much a normal thing. Johnson prorogued Parliament illegally and is in the process of changing electoral boundaries to give themselves more seats.

And the list goes on. They are reducing the power of judicial review to prevent challenge to their power. They selected candidates to Parliament who swore ‘loyalty’. They are packing the Lords. And they have taken enormous executive powers to themselves in recent bills that bypass Parliament entirely.

Make no mistake, the Johnson government is authoritarian to the core and its members want ever more of that authority. Whatever it may say in public, underneath this ruling class does not appear to believe in or respect parliamentary democracy.

Yet, we are constantly informed via trite PR statements about Johnson 'levelling up', trying his hardest or caring for the poorest, or whatever the latest propaganda phrase might be - all parroted by favourable media which normalise the corruption by failing to call out the lies.

It's all much more insidious than Trump ever was because at least everyone knew more or less what Trump was about. In contrast Johnson is still largely portrayed as a sort of posh but innocent buffoon who is really quite harmless. This is definitely not the case.

And the difference now between the US and UK? The US withstood attempts to close it's parliament down and will now curtail Trump's powers. But in September 2019, when Boris Johnson closed the British parliament down illegally, the right-wing mainstream press supported him to the extent that he eventually got re-elected.
                                       
So, what happened in the United States is a reminder of the risks we all face when the norms of liberal democracy are eroded.

It is interesting, for example, to note that in 2016 Vote Leave in the UK and Trump in the US had in common some of the same financial backers and media supporters.

And, only quite recently, Tory councillors and politicians were instructed to use “Trumpian methods” to promote their politics, further undermining an already subverted democracy and defining an allegiance to the Trump way of doing things.

In the UK, we have also ignored at our peril the irrefutable proof that Vote Leave broke the law during the referendum. Our political system and mainstream media were just too broken to hold them to account. Instead, we gave them more power.

It all kind of makes that much hailed Brexit slogan of “taking back control” a bit trite and disingenuous, doesn’t it? Unless, of course, you are the one in control.

Digital identity

THE car park at the Great Northern Hotel just opposite Peterborough railway station on the East Coast mainline is normally packed to the rafters with fancy cars and 4x4s, left each day by commuters who chose to park here because it is closer to the station entrance. In normal times this extended parking lot is a money spinner for the hotel owners.

Today, on a fine late September morning in 2020 during the midst of the Covid-19 global pandemic, it is barely a quarter full and I have the choice of a any number of prime parking spots immediately adjacent to the hotel itself.

The railway station itself is also unusually quiet, just a couple of black cabs wait in the ranks and there seems to be only a handful of commuters and day trippers. None of the normal hustle and bustle.

My East Coast train is one of the latest Azuma models, sleek and lightweight, cutting the non-stop journey time to London Kings Cross to around 40 minutes on a fast run. This morning there are only two other passengers in the first class carriage, another rarity.

Heading from Peterborough towards Huntingdon, the countryside is generally flat and largely uninteresting with a few gently rolling hills, if you could even call them that, on the distant horizon. Pockets of trees, a lonesome church standing on a mound not far from the track like some spiritual railway sentry, and small farmsteads scattered around seemingly at random punctuate the view.

I am on my way to the Estonian Embassy in London to collect my personal e-Residency digital ID card which has been waiting for me since the beginning of March shortly before the initial Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and national lockdown kicked in.

From Kings Cross station the embassy is a walk of up about an hour so I’d already dismissed this option as my intention was not to spend too long in the capital city on this time. I didn’t fancy the tube train either in the pandemic situation so I stepped across the road to the iconic St Pancras Hotel, used the facilities there and hopped into a waiting taxi at the main entrance.

The roads were busy but still unusually quiet for London and the cab driver told me his fare takings was eighty percent down on what he would normally expect for the time of year. As a result we arrived outside the embassy in Queens Gate Terrace in seemingly next to no time.

There was time to kill before my appointment slot so I walked down past the attractive and well-kept Georgian buildings to the end of the street, and then up and down the short high street of Gloucester Road South a couple of times looking for a cafe in which to have a coffee.

Jakobs, a small Mediterranean-style cafe called just off Queens Gate Terrace, looked perfect for my short pit stop. A little rustic but all the more endearing for that, it looked to be owned by a second generation Greek family making a steady living, at least in normal times.

There were several small round wooden tables on the pavement edge outside and though there was a little sun around I decided to step inside. It was casual bistro style, with a long glass fronted counter to the right leading through to the back.

At the end of the counter the passageway opened into a square room, populated with assorted dining tables and chairs, and in one corner a battered old upright piano. It was quite dark but homely and friendly.

The walls were adorned with old family photos and other personal treasures, some of them distinctly religious. There was what looked like a picture of Jesus on the side wall leading to some steep steps down to the basement, and on the end of the counter was a faded photo frame containing the printed out words of the Lord’s prayer.

Behind this middle room and through a wide archway was another more open space. A sloping, glazed roof made the area light and welcoming, and gave it the feel of a conservatory. The walls were rough plastered, some exposed to the brick and a mixture of paint colours.

There were bench seats on three sides, each with a small dark-wood table set with a knife and fork wrapped in a white serviette. The place was immediately endearing and friendly, and it seemed like I has stepped back to a different age. Though, of course, there was the obligatory wifi connection.

Thirty minutes later it was raining when I walked back to the Estonian Embassy. Outside a ‘payments and documents’ sign indicated I should descend an outside staircase to a basement office, so down I went. Impressively, the door swung open automatically before I had chance to work out what to do.

I stepped inside and walked along a short corridor with a natural wildlife scene depicted in a giant mural along the wall. A smartly dressed receptionist with long, blond hair sat behind a desk and perspex screen like a bank teller, and was wearing thin safety gloves, the sort a doctor might put on to examine something personal and intimate. It was a sign of the times.

I sat down and handed over my passport and she efficiently retrieved a small packet from a grey office filing cabinet behind. Accompanying paperwork was passed to me and I had to sign a receipt. We laughed a little as I hesitated with the date, suddenly distracted by the unexpected sound of birdsong which was playing the background from an unseen speaker.

Estonia, a former Soviet Republic on the edge of the Baltic Sea, is now the most advanced digital society in the world. Estonians use their digital ID cards to access all government services, including health, as well as many private ones.

The e-Residency card for non-nationals is an electronic form of identification allowing the holder to log into online services in Estonia such as government portals and online banks. And whilst it does not give  the right of physical residence in Estonia its business benefits are attracting people from across the world in many fields.

It can also be used to legally sign documents electronically within the EU and as an online identification in all EU countries and it offers the chance for non-residents to run and operate an EU based, online business.

After the final day of 2020, now rapidly approaching, my own British passport will become significantly devalued, removing many benefits, including the previously unrestricted right to live, work and study in across Europe.

For those in the UK, working and doing business in the EU and wanting to continue as a freelance like myself, the Estonian e-Residency scheme is an imaginative and small step in the right direction. 

Brexit's wretched betrayal

A SPEECH given yesterday by Sir John Major, the UK prime minister from 1990 to 1997, is one that every journalist, TV host and political pundit should be obliged to watch from beginning to end. And, for that matter, anyone else who is interested in the country's post-Brexit trajectory.

In a pre-recorded lecture at Middle Temple, London, he told viewers that Brexit may prove "even more brutal than expected" due to the UK's own negotiating "failures".

He stated that the UK's "inflexibility" and "threats" towards the EU would make future trade "less profitable". And he warned of the "corrosive" impact to the UK's reputation of a proposed new law giving ministers the power to over-ride aspects of the Brexit agreement.

It came on the same day that the House of Lords rejected parts of the government’s controversial Internal Market Bill. Peers removed a series of clauses which would give the UK the right to disregard obligations in the EU Withdrawal Agreement in relation to Northern Ireland, defeating the government twice by huge margins.

Sir John, an outspoken critic of the UK's exit from the EU, described the Bill as a “slippery slope down which no democratic government should ever travel" and he urged Parliament to resist measures which he said threatened essential liberties and could place ministers above the law.

"This action is unprecedented in all our history - and for good reason. It has damaged our reputation around the world," he said. "Lawyers everywhere are incredulous that the UK - often seen as the very cradle of the rule of law - could give themselves the power to break the law."

Sir John stated he was not optimistic about the prospects for trade talks between the UK and EU, which resumed in London on Monday, saying the UK was not being "frank" about the possible outcomes when the UK leaves the single market and customs union at the end of the post-Brexit transition period.

The government  has said it is hopeful of securing a comprehensive deal modelled on the EU's arrangement with Canada but Sir John said it was "disingenuous" of ministers to pretend they were not seeking far deeper commitments in key areas, such as energy and aviation.

He said he feared, as a result, the process would end up with either no deal or a "flimsy and bare-bones" agreement that created new trade barriers and would be a "wretched betrayal" of the promises made to British voters during the 2016 referendum.

"These costs and complexities are the certain legacy of Brexit," he stated. "This is as a result of our negotiating failure - and it is a failure.

"Because of our bombast, our blustering, our threats and our inflexibility - our trade will be less profitable, our Treasury poorer, our jobs fewer, and our future less prosperous.

“It now seems that on 1 January next year, Brexit may be even more brutal than anyone expected," he added.

 To listen to Sir John Major’s speech in full click here: ‘The State we Are In’

Under cover of Covid

DATES and events are beginning to converge for the UK like some perfect storm on a doomsday calendar. The end of the new national lockdown, being implemented across England from this Thursday (4 November), will nominally take us to within 30 days of the end of the EU transition period.

And if the lockdown has to be extended, either nationally or regionally, not only is it going to bump straight into Christmas but then swiftly follows 31 December, the day that the UK goes rogue from Europe.

It means the UK is likely to be in the midst of two major crisis at the same time, at least one of them wholly self-inflicted and still, potentially, postponable.

Twelve months ago who would have prophesied, or even dare imagine, that the country would be living simultaneously in the first and second episodes of some wild dystopian trilogy? 

That Britons would, throughout 2020, have had their civil liberties severely restricted, that pubs would be unable to serve a pint, and that people would be forbidden from visiting their families or loved ones.

At the same time the impending conflagration of the ending Brexit transition period does not seem to bother the current prime minister and his team, at least in public. Or is it that a government can, perhaps quite reasonably, only concentrate on one major thing at once?

More likely, its appointees and associates are all still hedging their Brexit hedge fund bets and, come January, whatever the Covid-state-of-the-nation, are looking forward to divvying out some lucrative financial rewards.

The Lighthouse Keeper has been viewing events and this unfortunate convergence of dates with increasing alarm and disdain for some time from a favourite cliff top perch on England’s North Norfolk coast.

It looks out over the grey North Sea and, on clear days, it almost seems possible to see the low-lying coast of the Netherlands, hardly sunlit uplands in a physical sense but nevertheless beginning to look quite enticing from this side of the Brexit divide.

Of course, whichever way you view it, the country is in something of a pandemic-driven economic crisis already and, by all accounts, preparations for leaving the EU are also seriously behind the curve, which means a bumpy ride for many come the New Year.

The fact that the Covid-19 crisis has also been handled in a somewhat lackadaisical and reactive way by the Johnson-led government hardly bodes well for the enormous, long-term complexities of post-EU Britain.

Only this morning, on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme, Prof Andrew Hayward, a member of the government’s SAGE science advisory group, said: "We can't turn back the clock but if we had chosen a two-week circuit breaker in mid-September we would definitely have saved thousands of lives.

“And we would clearly have inflicted substantially less damage on our economy than the proposed four-week lock down will now do."

Ministers will say that there are other costs to lockdown that they were weighing up, which is very true and too often forgotten. But by making a late U-turn, it becomes much harder to make that point, as now those costs are being borne anyway, with none of the benefits of acting earlier.

Are we repeating the same inexcusable mistakes elsewhere and will we, come the start of January, be saying just the same about a botched and ill-planned Brexit departure?

If only we had used the time to prepare wisely. If only we could turn the clock back. If only we had strategic leadership with the country's best interests at heart.

Despite the government's current narrative, Brexit isn't really the story of getting a trade deal with the EU. It's the story of discarding one. And not just any old trade deal. The country is discarding single market and customs union membership, part of the most advanced trade deal anywhere on Earth.

To put the tricky situation in further context, I turn to the latest article by Prof Chris Grey and the conclusion of this blog is a precis of what he published on Friday (30 October) soon after returning from a half-term trip to Germany.

“Drive down any motorway today and you see the unavoidable message of the government’s increasingly panicky campaign - ‘time is running out’. Brexit is no longer mentioned, for we are not supposed to recall that what were to have been the ‘sunny uplands’ turn out to be a quagmire of paperwork, expense and inconvenience," he writes. 

"In Kent on the way to Dover there is more visible evidence of the future - huge construction works for  the giant lorry parks that will be needed post-transition.

None of the difficulties, as everyone should know by now, will be avoided by an EU-UK trade deal, although they will be worsened without a deal. The outcome remains opaque. 

Tony Connelly, a journalist for the Irish TV channel RTE, reports that one reason the outcome of negotiations remains unknowable is Johnson’s almost pathological aversion to making the necessary choices.

One suggestion is that he will await the outcome of this week’s US Presidential election before deciding which way to jump. It may be a plausible enough theory of Johnson’s decision-making process, if only because it is so inane.

Economically, of course, even the best US trade deal will not come close to compensating for the damage of there being no deal with the EU.

A tiny foretaste of just how dishonest the spin will become came in the government’s triumphant announcement that, as a result of a trade deal it has just signed with Japan, soy sauce will be cheaper from 1 January as it will attract a zero tariff.

Even that turned out to be a lie of a strange and complex sort. Soy sauce currently has no tariff charged anyway because of the EU-Japan trade deal which the UK is leaving, so the deal with Japan doesn’t make it cheaper it just stops it getting more expensive by virtue of trading on WTO terms."

Its all very nonsensical and misleading, just like the Alice in Wonderland politics the Lighthouse Keeper wrote about in Johnson’s land of fake believe back in 2019. 

Prof Grey goes on: "Moving from Brexiter PR back into the real world what we find are new reports of impending labour shortages once transition ends in fields ranging from agriculture to dentistry, of regulatory uncertainty in industries from aerospace to chemicals, and of ongoing difficulties in the recruitment of trained customs staff.

Many of these stories are, as they have been for years, under the public radar, appearing in the business pages of newspapers or in the specialist media of particular industries.

There is more public awareness when the Brexit effects on holiday-makers are reported, as with last weekend’s outrage at the ‘petty EU’ for ‘threatening’ British tourists with longer passport queues from next year.

It’s a story that encapsulates so much of the Brexiter mindset. That this was likely to be an effect of Brexit is not a new idea, but they dismissed it in the past as Project Fear. Then, when it threatens to become a reality, they treat it as a form of punishment as if, whilst leaving the EU, Britain ought to retain the rights it had as a member.

As the years have gone on, this mindset seems to have become so ingrained that there is no way of reasoning with it: all the adverse effects of Brexit are either denied (they won’t happen, it’s just scaremongering), ignored (they aren’t happening), displaced (they are happening but it’s not because of Brexit) or disowned (they shouldn’t happen, it’s only because the EU is punishing us).

Much that is familiar to everyday life in Britain is being ripped up by force majeure and few of us have alive today have experienced anything like it. But, still, Britain pushes on with the one, supposedly inviolable, immutable policy of Brexit.

It is a policy of such folly that the government no longer dares mention it by name and which even its most enthusiastic proponents have ceased to try to justify in any serious way. The Brexit Emperor lacks not just clothes now but skin and flesh too.

Yet even now – hugely difficult as it would be – it wouldn’t be totally impossible, given the extraordinary circumstances for the UK, to at least try to find some route to extending the transition,  rather than to just parrot that ‘time is running out’.

It seems feasible that, if the UK was open to such an idea, the EU would be at least willing to explore how to make it work, if only because of the worsening Covid-19 situation in many of its member states too.

The likelihood that this won’t happen, however, is down solely to the warthog stubbornness of a small group of fanatical Brexiters, still fighting the battle to leave that they have already won, and totally indifferent to its costs.

So, in Brexit trade terms we blunder on. Prisoners of a series of past decisions that we do not have the wit or the will to revisit, and of a small but powerful group of ideologues we are either too cowardly or too weak to face down. It is worse than folly. It is insanity.” 

The Lighthouse Keeper couldn’t agree more. 

To read Prof Chris Grey’s full post click here: “Beyond folly”.

Beam me up, Scotty!

A FAILED post-Bexit attempt to establish the groundwork for a British standalone equivalent to the US global positioning system (GPS) or Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system has cost taxpayers £64 million without succeeding in its aim.

Official figures released this week reveal the UK’s replacement navigation satellite programme lasted just 18 months and was finally closed down in September after ministers abandoned the attempt to create a go-it-alone British system.

I understand the UK Space Agency (UKSA), which is headquartered in Swindon, took out a six-year lease on premium offices in Victoria, central London, to accommodate staff working on the project.

Many UK space experts, as well as the main opposition party, accused government ministers of embarking on a “hare-brained scheme” which was almost certainly doomed to failure. Most space projects of any size or depth these days are part of an international cooperative effort.

In an attempt to justify the expenditure, the government says it “learned lessons” which would enable it to pursue “newer, more innovative ideas”, whatever that might mean.

The announcement follows a decision earlier this summer by business secretary Alok Sharma, who acted against warnings from senior civil servants when he authorised a £400 million government investment in the bankrupt satellite firm OneWeb.

It is widely believed the prime minister’s controversial special advisor Dominic Cummings was behind the bid, which came out of the blue and took many analysts by surprise.
                           
The multi-satellite constellation proposed by OneWeb, which has a manufacturing base in Florida, is designed to provide global internet services. The tiny satellites have no capability to provide navigation signals.

Since the purchase was confirmed, officials have refused to publish an estimate of how much the investment is likely to cost the public in the long run, although UKSA has admitted that more funding will be needed to keep the business alive.

Data released this week show that the total cost of the scrapped satellite navigation programme was £64.2 million, out of an original budget estimate of £90 million.

Labour’s shadow science minister Chi Onwurah said: “These U-turns and mistakes have cost many tens of millions of taxpayer money that could have been better spent elsewhere.

“The government’s recklessness and incompetence with something as vital for UK jobs and prosperity as the space sector is totally unacceptable, and even more so when ministers avoid scrutiny about the enormous cost attached.”

The British government continues to insist that the work which went into an independent satellite navigation system has not gone to waste because it will inform plans for a scheme using the private sector to build a new network of satellites.

In July 2019, Boris Johnson, speaking from Dowining Street in one of his first speech’s since on becoming prime minister, said: “Let’s get going now on our own position navigation and timing satellite and Earth observation systems – UK assets orbiting in space with all the long-term strategic and commercial benefits for this country.”

His pledge came after his predecessor Theresa May had made a failed attempt to keep Britain in Galileo, the EU’s satellite navigation programme, which had already seen an investment of £1.2 billion of UK taxpayers’ money.

Announcing the launch of the UK Global Navigation Satellite System, seen at the time as a political manoeuvre to put pressure on Europe, May said: “This will ensure the UK’s safety post-Brexit, using the expertise of our world-leading space and security sectors to do so. Today’s investment marks an exciting time for the sector, and for the UK, and I can’t wait to see what we can achieve.”

But, like so many things associated with Brexit, the promises and false expectations bare no resemblance to the real world.

By the time the scheme was officially wound up last month, it had reached no definitive conclusions on how to move ahead and Britain seemed no closer to developing its own home-grown version of GPS.

In more government blatherskite, ministers are adamant that, combined with the investment in OneWeb, there is a realistic prospect of the UK “leading the way on satellite technology” in the future by using a decentralised approach which draws on the private sector as well as the state.

Basic navigation services from Europe’s Galileo, in which UK firms have played a major role to date, are available for all. But use of the encrypted Public Regulated Service (PRS) is designed for government-authorised users – such as the military, fire brigades and the police – and is restricted to those inside the EU.

As part of its separation from Europe, the UK governments of both May and Johnson have refused, on largely ideological grounds, to countenance any kind of agreement that would give Britain full access to Galileo services.

Back in March 2018, in an article published in The New European newspaper, I predicted  that “stormy waters lay ahead for any organisation or business linked to Europe”.

“The knock-on effects of Brexit for one of the UK’s most buoyant and future-looking industries and the thousands of people it employs couldn’t be more profound,” I suggested.

In June this year, when I wrote about the UK government’s OneWeb bid, I declared it had all the hallmarks and parallels to the triumphant exceptionalism of the hugely expensive and, so far, still failed UK government plan during the Covid-19 crisis to go it alone and develop its own “world beating” Track & Trace App and system.

Four months later there is little evidence anywhere to dispel that point of view. We all know the Track & Trace system has cost a staggering £12 billion and yet, incredibly, is still not working efficiently enough to make a significant difference.

The lack of post-Brexit direction and strategy from the UK government is apparent almost everywhere you look today - including the country’s vibrant space industry. A government prone to blather and shooting from the hip is not a recipe for success in a business that relies more than most on international partnerships and long-term strategic vision.
 

Game of chicken

ON the face of it, an announcement this week by the new boss of supermarket chain Waitrose that his stores will never sell chlorinated chicken is a welcome intervention for the much hailed trade talks between the UK and US in the wake of Brexit.

James Bailey, writing in store's weekend magazine, pointed out that a million people have signed a National Farmers Union (NFU) petition calling for laws to prevent future trade deals leading to food imports that would currently be illegal to produce in the UK.

"We will never sell any Waitrose product that does not meet our own high standards," asserts Bailey. “Any regression from the standards we have pioneered for the last 30 years would be an unacceptable backwards step,” he says.

The British government’s negotiating team as well as Boris Johnson himself have already made promises that a lowering of such standards is not up negotiation. But a track record of capitulations and broken promises does not inspire confidence. Nor do some of the back room manoeuvres currently taking place to change legislation.

Last week in the independent Byline Times newspaper the freelance investigative journalist David Hencke reported on a new analysis from the House of Lords that charts an extensive and worrying power grab by the British prime minister and his government.

The Lighthouse Keeper draws it to the attention of readers because it is important for more people to be aware that the Boris Johnson government is surreptitiously using Brexit legislation and the cover of Covid-19 to hand itself significant new ‘Henry VIII’ powers that will allow it to rule over large parts of this country's affairs by decree.

Or, to put it another way more politically controversial way, the Conservative party, under its right-wing and increasingly authoritarian leadership, is now on course to dismantle Britain’s accountable parliamentary democracy step by sordid step.
   
To be fair, it was all in the small print of the Conservative Party’s manifesto for the December 2019 election. I referred briefly to the inherent dangers posed by page 48 of the manifesto in my pre-election blog “Johnson’s land of fake believe”. This highlighted extract illustrated below more ably illustrates what I was getting at.

So let’s put it in context. By far the most successful and memorable slogan pummelled into the British sub-conscious by the pro-Brexit campaigners and Vote Leave was, “Taking back control”. Three emotive words that cleverly annexed the EU from whatever good it may have done in the minds of voters but in reality had more sinister undertones.

Those in supporting Brexit viewed the narrative quite simply - taking away powers from the unelected European Commissioners in Brussels and giving them back to the British people. It was all about the sovereignty of the British Parliament to make laws solely for the British people.

Well, as Hencke revels in his article, a report from the House of Lords - so far pretty much ignored by all of the main stream media - suggests we are all about to discover something altogether different has been taking place.

It turns out that the little known House of Lords ‘Constitution Committee’ has done a forensic job examining every bit of legislation passed and going through Parliament to change the law after Brexit became a reality on 1 January 2020.

These are not just better known laws like the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 but new Acts of Parliament covering agriculture, money laundering, immigration, trade, taxation, reciprocal health agreements and even the granting of road haulage licences.

“What this comprehensive analysis reveals,” writes Hencke, “is that far from Parliament getting new freedoms to introduce new laws for the British people, powers are being transferred from the European Commission to government ministers and indirectly to government advisers like Dominic Cummings.”

What is happening is that perceived rule from Brussels - so widely but incorrectly promulgated by Brexit supporters - is being replaced by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove with a very real ‘rule by decree’.

It’s encapsulated by the phrase “Henry VIII” or, in more arcane phraseology, “statutory instruments”. Essentially, these are orders allowing ministers to change the law by decree - either putting down an order which Parliament has just 90 minutes to debate or a negative order that, if MPs don’t spot it, is already law unless Parliament can retrospectively overturn it.

According to Hencke, what the peers have discovered is that new bills are littered with these draconian powers - more than three dozen in the agriculture bill alone - giving huge discretion to introduce not only rule by decree but the ability to introduce new criminal offences with unlimited fines.

“One extraordinary power, governing export and import duties, bestows on ministers huge powers - including one to change the law by ‘public notice’ avoiding informing Parliament at all. This brings us back to Tudor times when all Henry VIII had to do was to pin up a notice ordering the dissolution of the monasteries” says Hencke.

We are getting into some detail here and once might be inclined to ask, does this really matter? After all, wasn’t Boris Johnson elected on a popular vote as a chum and friend of the ordinary people?

But take the Agriculture Bill as an example. It will govern new rules and regulations if, as the US appears to be demanding in trade negotiations, the country becomes bound to import chlorinated chicken and has to amend its food labelling laws.

The Bill, in its initial form, gave ministers a Henry VIII power to change the law for the marketing of food, including what is displayed on the label on supermarket shelves.

So, if the Waitrose supermarket follows what James Bailey says it will do and refuses to sell imported chlorinated chicken, a government minister could technically change the law by decree making the actions illegal. And if Waitrose disobeyed the order it could face unlimited financial penalties.

“The Bill has since been modified a bit but MPs and peers ought to be careful that powers don’t sneak in by the back door,” advises Hencke.

And there is more. A according to peers, another more obscure Act also gives huge powers to ministers.

Their report stated: “The Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill involves a massive transfer of power from the House of Commons to Ministers of the Crown. Ministers are given well over 150 separate powers to make tax law for individuals and businesses. These laws made by Ministers will run to thousands of pages. The Treasury’s delegated powers memorandum, which sets out in detail all these law-making powers, alone runs to 174 pages.”

Hencke says peers were incandescent about ministers being given new powers in some circumstances to override by government decree laws passed by the Scottish Parliament as well as to interfere in already adopted EU case law so that decisions can be taken by tribunals and lower courts.

The report said: “The granting of broad ministerial powers in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 to determine which courts may depart from CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) case law and to give interpretive direction in relation to the meaning of retained EU law was - and remains - inappropriate.

“Each of these powers should remain the preserve of primary legislation. There is a significant risk that the use of this ministerial power could undermine legal certainty and exacerbate the existing difficulties for the courts when dealing with retained EU law.”

Hencke, like many others, surmises that the government is using the Covid-19 crisis as cover to introduce major changes to Britain’s unwritten constitution in order to bypass Parliament. But he doesn’t blame lobby colleagues for missing this kind of detail. “The 24/7 news agenda hardly gives them time to study a detailed House of Lords report,” he says.

All this could mean, Hencke says, that a truly post-Brexit Parliament headed by Johnson with Cummings pulling the strings, may not need to sit as often as now, just meeting occasionally to scrutinise the latest ministerial decree.

Like many others, Hencke doesn’t believe this is what the average person voting for Brexit envisaged at all. And The Lighthouse Keeper agrees.

“I don’t think the majority of people in this country want to live in a society where ministers and Downing Street have overwhelming powers to create new criminal offences by decree without being properly scrutinised by Parliament,” he concludes.

One may argue that it was clear from the outset of Johnson’s tenure as prime minister that the UK was in grave danger of losing by stealth its democratic safeguards. Were his early attempts to close parliament last October, and so walk away from scrutiny, the infant days of a de facto dictatorship?

To read David Hencke’s original article click here - Byline Times

If leaving me is easy

THROUGH the lens of the global Covid-19 pandemic the uncertainty delivered by the EU referendum exactly four years ago today (17 June 2016) now seems to be growing worse by the day. And, for a government determined to follow its Brexit ideology at all costs, an unexpected virus has been the perfect smokescreen.

Back in 2016, promises proffered by the Vote Leave campaign won the day, albeit by the slimmest of margins. Those promises, however, have not only failed to materialise but have largely been exposed as a cache of blatant lies.

Despite the severest of economic storms generated by the coronavirus pandemic, it would seem that the British government, under the leadership of Boris Johnson, is happy to pursue either of two suicidal options - the most basic of severance arrangements with the EU or no deal at all.

With a final deadline for agreement all but ignored, Britain as a country stands on a precipice and is in grave danger of being driven into a black hole by manipulative and evil forces. Anyone who understands the physics of black holes will know there is no return from such a cosmic catastrophe.

Four years ago the PR spin and slogans of Vote Leave were carefully created to tap into a public mood of general dissatisfaction.

Blaming just about everything that was wrong with the country on a beleaguered EU worked well and one of the most dishonest and manipulative campaigns in political history, which also broke so many rules and regulations in the process, won the day.

In reality, extreme wealth and greed were the poisonous roots of a long-festering anti-EU drive. Much of this stemmed from the long anticipated ‘Anti Tax Avoidance Directive’ designed to ensure mega companies and billionaires pay a fair share of tax in their country of residence or operation, rather than be able to shift it to tax havens.

Surely this was a logical and sensible piece of legislation? But when this new directive was finally approved by 27 of the then 28 EU nations, it was the UK that abstained.

Since 2016, the real Brexit has gradually unfolded scene by scene, a tragedy of self-inflicted deprivation - the loss of rights, freedoms and privileges; the loss of standards and ethics; the loss of opportunity, jobs and prosperity; the loss of relationships, reputation and influence; the loss of dignity, humanity and diversity.

In complete opposite to the trite referendum campaign slogan “taking back control”, it has already heralded the loss of many of the country’s fundamental democracies and international respect and influence.

And, according to a Bloomberg Economics analysis, Brexit is on course to cost the UK more than its combined total of payments to the European Union budget over the past 47 years.

Four years on, as we look back with hindsight, one cannot fail to be struck by the transformation of politics and society. The Johnson government continues to put its pure Brexit ideology before the good of the country.

Now it hails a liberated UK. But if further chaos ensues from the start of next year when the transition period ends you can be sure the narrative will shift, probably to blame Covid-19 and the EU at the same time. To date Brexit has changed everything and served up nothing.

Happy EU referendum anniversary everyone!

Blunderbuss government

STORM clouds gather in the background as the UK government continues to blunder its way through the coronavirus pandemic in a manner than seems bizarrely incompetent at best and sinisterly corrupt at worst. 

If it continues on this track Boris Johnson and his entourage will have pretty much crucified the country and its economy by the end of the year.

The current hapless and increasingly desperate situation is eloquently summed up by an editorial in The Guardian newspaper yesterday (15 March). For the record it is reproduced in full below, and there is a link at the end to the original article.

"When the story of the coronavirus pandemic is written, the verdict on Boris Johnson’s government is likely to be damning. Mr Johnson has made mistake after mistake, for which the country has paid a very high price. The prime minister is right in a sense that he presides over a “world-beating” performance: with 64,000 excess deaths, that is one excess death for every 1,000 people, the UK has recorded the largest global spike in deaths compared with the average yearly death toll; and the country will suffer the deepest depression of any developed economy.

Such a claim can be made because there’s no need to wait until all the facts are known. The gaffes are hiding in plain sight. Britain does not require the crisis to subside to analyse the country’s performance. The distinctive British response to this global challenge is one of missed opportunities and dismal misjudgments.

The UK went into lockdown too late, a decision that the former government modeller Neil Ferguson thinks has cost tens of thousands of lives – because the higher the coronavirus infection rate when restrictions were imposed, the higher the death rate. Then the country shut down its testing regime too soon, leaving it unable to track the speed and spread of the virus. During February and March, opportunities to suppress the spread of infection by introducing travel restrictions and quarantine requirements were missed, allowing the infection to be brought into the UK on at least 1,300 occasions.

Entering the lockdown late cost lives, and leaving it early risks more needless deaths. Britain is opening up before dropping its alert level, because the will to hold out evaporated when Mr Johnson did not sack his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, for breaching lockdown rules. Sacrifice could be borne as long as it was felt to be fair.

What Britain is dealing with is a government that has blundered, and continues to blunder. Which cabinet minister is responsible for the official guidance that instructed hospitals to discharge the elderly to care homes when testing and personal protective equipment was non-existent? Who has signed off on the policy to hand over contracts to private companies without competitive tendering or even a cursory check on whether they are up to the job? Which minister decided that local authorities who regularly manage outbreaks of meningitis and sexually transmitted diseases were not needed for the delayed test-and-trace system?

These are the reflexes of unthinking Conservative politicians, who view trade unions, local government leaders and professional bodies as powerful interest groups and influential lobbies to be thwarted, not listened to. In reality, most were attempting to help the government out of a hole by asking it to stop digging. What Covid-19 has revealed is who really makes society work and the value of public servants prepared to put their lives on the line. What the government does with that knowledge will tell the public about the true nature of those that govern it. It is an insult that foreign NHS staff and carers are still being charged for using the health service, despite the prime minister’s pledge to scrap these fees.

The buck stops at Downing Street, which was responsible for the discredited policy of herd immunity and the late introduction of the lockdown. The quickest way back to normality is by controlling the spread of the virus. The prime minister must recognise that mistakes were made and learn from them. The questions of what happened, why did it happen and what can be done to prevent this from happening again need to be answered. It is bizarre that Mr Johnson has precipitately announced a race review, one condescendingly aimed at ending a sense of victimisation, before confirming a public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic. There will be real trouble if the prime minister refuses a reckoning with the truth."

Editorial, The Guardian, 15 June 2020

Lockdown lunacy

THE Covid-19 pandemic has been the ultimate test for any government. And by just about any measure you care to use the UK government has spectacularly failed - practically, strategically and morally.

Let’s be under no illusion. The lockdown easing announcements of this week have not come about because the time or the conditions are right.

Sadly, in the 24 hours up to Thursday (28 May), 256 more people across the UK died. Johnson says that meets his test for easing the lockdown.

But compare that to a country like South Korea where 269 people have died during the whole of the pandemic.

In other countries where lockdown measures are being eased the daily death tolls are being measured in tens not hundreds still.

For comparison, coronavirus deaths yesterday across Europe on Friday (29 May): Spain 2, Italy 87, Germany 24, France 52, Turkey  28, Belgium  42, Sweden 84, Portugal 14, Ireland 6, Poland 13, Romania 13, Hungary 8, the Netherlands 28 - and the UK 324.

In addition, given that the estimates for daily new coronavirus cases in England are approx 8-9000 a day and the ‘R’ rate in many places is hovering only just below one, it feels like the mistakes of early March are in danger of being repeated.

Let's be in no doubt. Lockdown measures in England are being eased now because popular headlines are needed to buy Johnson credit and time.

In this context, it is essential to understand Johnson and his government don't really give a stuff about the British people.

We're in the middle of a pandemic but there's only one real item on their agenda - to leave the EU transition period on 31 December without an EU trade deal.

Next week, when parliament returns, only 50 MPs will be allowed in the chamber. The old way of voting has stopped and the remote access system suspended but no new way of voting has been decided.

Conveniently, it means the opposition’s job will be that much harder and the government’s power that much greater.

This is what “taking back control” looks like and it should matter to us all. At a UK-wide level, the House of Commons is the only democratically-elected institution in the country and if nearly 600 of our MPs are shut out of Parliament, democracy is effectively partially suspended.

Then, at yesterday’s daily press briefing the prime minister told journalists what questions they may and may not ask, and told his medical advisers which questions they may and may not answer. Dictatorship is creeping in.

And, of course, the Cummings episode of the past week makes a mockery of the populist claim of an anti-elitist government looking out for the good of the public at large.

The idea that a country, battered by a pandemic, should be led into the calamity of an EU no deal in just six months' time - or even just to the shocks of moving from single market membership to a limited trade agreement - is seriously crazy.

Coronavirus is already reshaping the political landscape. For any honest government, it should also be reshaping the arguments for an EU transition period extension which has to be decided on by mid-June.

Johnson and the Brexiters would love to pull things back to the heady ‘will of the people’ days. But, to coin an over-used phrase this week by you know who, the people have “moved on”.

Almost everyday the British prime minister is exposed as being completely out of his depth in almost every respect, heading a government which looks exhausted, incompetent and bereft of common sense.

As Chris Grey, Professor of Organisation Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, says: "It is seemingly intent on acting only in the interests of a small faction of fanatical nihilists.

"To drag the country towards an even greater disaster at the end of the year on the back of political ideology becomes more grotesque by the day in every conceivable way -  democratically, intellectually, economically and morally."

Further reading:
The truth about Dominic Cummings 
Not moving on, not going away