EU Referendum


Brexit: insults


16/06/2017




If we followed the Muppet book of political influence, in order to make an impact on the current debate, we should calmly and diplomatically present our case, suggesting the changes we would like to see, and then sit back and hope that the powers that be will kindly listen to us and respond positively.

Back in the real world, it doesn't really matter how calm and considered we are. In fact, the more emollient our presentation, the less likely it is that any notice will be taken of it. Politics is about pain – the more pain we create, the greater is the chance of creating some disturbance, if nothing else.

The chances of achieving change are, in any case, remote. Politicians at the peaks of their careers, having attained cabinet rank, themselves report how difficult it is to achieve even modest change. I remember Margaret Beckett once (perhaps not the best of examples) saying that a new minister should limit themselves to perhaps one or two things if they were to hope of any success.

On the other hand, the siren voices who tell us to conform, to be polite and well-mannered, are part of the system of suppression and control, holding out the prospect of influence in exchange for obedience and abstinence. If we are "good boys" and promise not to rock the boat, we might get to decide the colour of the office stapler for the junior under-secretary.

Given a system that is so resistant to change, therefore, there is actually no premium in committing to conformity, or in making the effort to be polite to – or about - those in power. If you obey all the rules, you are ignored. If to make a lot of noise, and make your own rules, you'll probably be ignored as well. But there is a very slight possibility that they'll listen to you, if for no other reason than to find out how best to shut you up.

On balance, therefore, unless you are at the centre of power and in command of the levers, the greater advantage goes to the noisemaker – the attention-seeker and the non-conformist. That may be unfair, but it’s the way the system has developed in this country and throughout the developed world. The meek do not inherit the earth.

That said, if the chances are that your efforts are set to achieve absolutely nothing in the short-term, and there is entertainment to be had in poking the stick through the bars, one might just as well get as much sport from an activity as possible, be it mockery or something stronger.

Into that category leaps the Financial Times and a report headed: "A path that would avoid Brexit calamity" – the newspaper's idea of what we should be doing to secure a stable relationship with the EU, and an economically viable Brexit.

On this blog and elsewhere over the years, I've received much advice on how to respond to such pieces – most often along the same lines as the counsel on how to behave with government. In effect, we should be calm, polite and measured.

What those who proffer advice rarely take into account, though, is the fact that so much of the material to which we are reacting is of such poor quality that it is an insult to our intelligence – lazy, ill-considered and generally unhelpful to the cause. Unless one is of a particularly Christian demeanour, prepared to turn the other cheek, one is minded to respond to insult with insult - especially if one is to be ignored.

In fact, being ignored is the insult. This blog has for many years been the premier, independent anti-EU blog, and few will dispute that the quality of research is high, with a wide range of issues covered, to a depth seldom seen elsewhere. Yet, quite deliberately, it is ignored by the legacy media.

In this, we are by no means alone and there are several reasons why this should be so. An important one is a general antipathy, bordering on paranoia, to the independent blogosphere. In the middle of the first decade of this century, when it looked as if the British political blogosphere was about to follow in the steps of the US pioneers and take off, a failing legacy media, lacking in confidence, took fright.

Unable to compete on immediacy and quality of comment, it did everything it could to undermine independent bloggers – partly by setting up competing platforms and (mainly) by refusing to acknowledge our presence. Largely, this succeeded. Unlike the heady days towards the end of the decade, the blog movement is a mere shadow of its former self.

The expansion of social media (Facebook and Twitter) hasn't helped either. Perversely, I've found that promoting the blog through these avenues has met with very limited success. Yet, when I abandoned Twitter, the hit rate soared.

As to the legacy media, there is something of the chicken and egg question here. Some say that if we were gentler, more emollient and positive in our approach, we would not be shunned in the way that we are. But, on the other hand, the reason we are not gentler, more emollient and positive is precisely because the legacy media has a general policy of ignoring independent political blogs.

They are happy to steal our stuff when it suits them – but since they steal from each other, we can hardly take any great exception to that. The greater insult is exactly as posited – the way we are consciously excluded from the debate. But when you look at the quality of the debate, you can immediately see why they are so anxious to avoid exposure to the competition.

This brings us back to the dire piece in the Financial Times which is offering as a means of avoiding a Brexit calamity, a "British reset". After Mrs May's disastrous election, it says, the government does not have the numbers to legislate for a clean break. Nor does it have the time or administrative capacity to negotiate a bespoke arrangement.

The answer, therefore – or so it tells us - is a two-stage process. "In the first", it says, "lasting perhaps five years beyond 2019, Britain would remain in the customs union and the Single Market through an arrangement within the European Economic Area - similar though not identical to that enjoyed by Norway".

At this point, one simply groans. Where to start? First, if the UK is going to stay in the EEA, what about the need to join Efta? Don't the four Efta states have to be consulted and their approval gained? And is it wise to take this for granted?

Secondly, as we have wearily pointed out, the UK cannot stay in the EU's customs union and leave the EU. Staying in definitely does mean staying in the EU. But, a country cannot stay in the EU and join Efta - the two are wholly incompatible. And , in the ordinary way of things, unless we join Efta when we leave the EU, we can't stay in the EEA.

Then there is the issue with the timescale. Although not as complex as negotiating a free trade agreement from scratch, shoehorning the UK into the Efta side of the EEA Agreement would need some pretty substantial adjustments to the Agreement on the back of intensive and time-consuming negotiations. Are the three Efta states and the EEAS really going to commit the resource to something that is only going to last five years, benefitting just the UK?

Furthermore, that pre-supposes that the UK stays on board for that long as the FT suggests that there should be a break clause, requiring two year's notice, if either side wants to quit. But then, given that the EEA Agreement already has a one-year notice clause, why should it be extended to two?

Altogether, this concept, as presented, is wholly impracticable. And since its main if not only purpose is to allow the UK enough time to negotiate a "permanent association pact, embracing security and foreign policy as well as trade", why not just agree a time extension to the Article 50 process? That way we stay as part of the customs union, the Single Market and the EEA – until we're ready to leave.

The FT then goes on to discuss the notional pros and cons for this arrangement, but the whole concept is so absurd that we should not bother with it. One just has to observe that the FT simply hasn't thought this through. Yet, if we delivered such shoddy work, we would be a laughing stock – or worse. The legacy media, however, is free to insult the intelligence of its readers, and still feels entitled to respect (and money).

As much to the point, if the authors actually read EUReferendum.com – which they can do without a paywall or charge – they would not make such basic mistakes (assuming that they understood what they were reading and acted on it). Yet, by word and deed they assume a superiority over us – yet another implied insult.

Another of these arrogant, self-important know-it-alls is David Owen - as in Lord Owen. He would have us leave the EU in 2019 yet stay in the EEA until 2022 – a mere three years. Yet Lord Owen relies on the highly tendentious Yarrow thesis arguing that we could stay in the EEA without being members of either the EU or Efta. This is an intriguing thesis, but one which is wholly untested.

Yarrow himself argues that it is not necessary for the UK to be a member of Efta to be able to participate in or rely on the supporting institutions of the EEA/Efta pillar, although he concedes that it would require the development of cooperative arrangements with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.  

The point here is where would we go if these other countries refused to entertain cooperative arrangements? What would happen if the EEA members as a whole refused to accept the continued participation of the UK, and invoked Article 62 of the Vienna Convention? What then if, as a collective, they all withdrew from the Agreement (then to set up an identical organisation without the UK).

Nothing of this is rehearsed by Lord Owen, in his documentation or his website yet the man blithely assumes the EU and Efta members would allow the UK to use (or abuse) the process as a transition to allow the completion of an EU-UK trade agreement. The proper course of action would be to seek an extension to the Article 50 negotiation period.

Basically, though, this is the option Ambrose Evans Pritchard would have us adopt, despite its incoherence, in  preference to Flexcit, which he doubtless hasn't read – although he probably hasn't read Owen's work either.

The same goes for Daniel Finkelstein in The Times who prefers the prestige of Lord Owen and his shambolic plan to the carefully thought-out practicalities of Flexcit, He then airily suggests that Mrs May should announce that we intend to remain members of the EEA while we carry on negotiations after leaving the EU – as if it was that simple.

This cavalier disregard for the realities of Brexit is an insult to everyone exposed to it. The journalists promoting such shoddy work insult those who have made the effort to produce something which has a chance of working. And in not realising that deeds can have the same effect as words, these unspeakable people are causing offence without even being aware of what they are doing.