The United Kingdom in 2019

2019 will be remembered as the BREXIT tussle, where an unnecessarily weakened minority government, not surprisingly, lost control. Let’s re-cap.

In 2016 the then Prime Minister David Cameron, having failed to negotiate any meaningful changes for the UK, with the EU; bravely allowed a referendum on continuing membership of the EU. He campaigned to remain and lost, highlighting perhaps, how divorced from their constituents politicians can be. Mr Cameron did the honourable thing and resigned.

Theresa May replaced Mr Cameron as Prime Minister and immediately commenced the BREXIT process. She also called a General Election, in the process losing the existing workable majority; forming a minority government reliant on the Northern Irish DUP members (who were not keen on BREXIT). The politics were already very difficult, as a result of the referendum; Mrs May’s election failure effectively made governing and therefore BREXIT, untenable.

The UK’s political parties fractured in varying ways; the Conservatives were split between leave or remain, as were Labour, whilst the Liberal Democrats (together with the Scottish Nationalists) became the party for remain (more on this later). The Conservatives fought themselves, whilst Labour prevaricated.

It took the best part of 2019 for Mrs May to understand she had no support and resign. Sadly, she was a relatively competent Minister in the Home Office; however, not sufficiently competent to be Prime Minister. The subsequent party leadership election brought in Boris Johnson who had limited experience of government (a short stint as Foreign Minister, reported to have been somewhat shambolic with poor attention to detail?) and two terms as London Mayor. So, not the experience or expertise you would want in a potential Prime Minister. Not to mention his journalism (he apparently compared Mr Putin with Dobby from the Harry Potter stories); or his colourful personal life. There were more experienced and probably more competent candidates to lead the Conservative Party; however, Mr Johnson prevailed. As in work, you don’t always get the best person promoted to manage; likewise in politics.

Mr Johnson is a character and once elected, he slowly started to lift the very sour mood in the country by delivering, against all predictions, a revised Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, whilst being up-beat and positive.

Economists were near apoplectic at Mr Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement as it was forecast to be even more damaging than Mrs May’s. It’s worth remembering that economic forecasts beyond the next 12 months have ever widening error bars; so tend to be meaningless. In other words don’t waste energy fretting over such long term forecasts. Economics is often described as the Dismal Science, for these very reasons. When Economists have to address processes such as pollution (a hugely significant parameter as we’re now coming to understand; well some of us are), historically they have failed to estimate what it costs and conveniently lobbed the topic into a bin called “Externalities”. And then largely ignored it, as it’s too difficult to cope with. Wonderful.

If scientists and particularly Economists had properly addressed the issue of pollution the World would not be in its current position. Economics is actually totally holistic; however, the discipline is still not working in a holistic manner. Every action by humanity has a cost. Some costs are negligible but pollution, particularly burning of fossil fuels, plus the handling of plastic waste, are not; it’s huge, it always was and always will be. Economics has a lot to answer for.

Back to the UK. In late 2019, with Mr Johnson as Prime Minister but now with even less of a majority, having sacked a number of his own MPs for not supporting his programme, Parliament led by the Speaker John Bercow (now retired but continuing to be controversial) succeeded in preventing the Government passing the revised Withdrawal Agreement. Those MPs who disagreed with BREXIT (reportedly a majority in the House of Commons) used Parliamentary processes to in effect prevent the Government from governing. Interestingly this was presented as being democratic; however, what Parliament was actually doing was prevaricating, leading to the prevention of the Government implementing the mandate of the 2016 Referendum; hence they were un-democratic. I suspect many of these politicians still fail to understand they were out of order, even though subsequently, they have been significantly repudiated.

For example, one explanation for acting against the Government was that the MP’s own constituency voted not to leave the EU; so he would vote against any attempt to leave. I think this is a good illustration of the incomplete (incompetent?) understanding of politicians. Where a country-wide referendum has provided a clear result, which has been adopted by the Government, then no Member of Parliament has any right to prevent the Government implementing the result. Working to prevent the Government’s implementation is un-democratic. At worst an MP could abstain from supporting the implementation but, if part of the Government, support is mandatory, otherwise resignation. Mr Johnson sacked a number of his MPs for failing to understand this simple principle and rightly so.

It’s quite damming that Members of Parliament, in one of the oldest continuous democratic nations, don’t actually understand their responsibility with respect to implementing the result of a referendum! This includes very senior members of the House of Commons, who thought they knew better than 17 million odd voters. Some of these people still don’t understand their responsibilities.

And you wonder why politicians are held in such low esteem?

Having failed to pass his revised Withdrawal Agreement, due to undemocratic shenanigans by the Opposition, Mr Johnson called a General Election in early December 2019. This was risky but the only remaining constitutional way to unblock government.

The Labour Party proceeded to self-destruct on a platform of extreme socialism, nationalisation and a further referendum on EU membership. In 1983 the Labour Party’s 39 page (unsuccessful) election manifesto was described as “the longest suicide note in history”. The party’s 100+ page 2019 manifesto, now replaces the 1983 version.

The Liberal Democrats had been demolished at an earlier election because of their behaviour as the junior coalition partner in Mr Cameron’s Government. In 2019 they elected a new leader; a young woman representing a very marginal Scottish constituency. They decided to take their party into the December 2019 election on a platform of cancelling BREXIT together with, it has to be said, some other rather pragmatic policies addressing climate change, the NHS and welfare. This approach turned out to be disastrous and the leader, Jo Swinson, lost her constituency, her leadership role and the Lib-Dems largely went nowhere. As discussed earlier, the hugely un-democratic position they took really backfired; they should be renamed the Liberal Anti-Democrats with the slogan: “We’ll ignore your vote if we disagree with it”.

Mr Johnson secured a large majority, largely it seems because people wanted a government that could govern as well as implement the mandate from the 2016 EU referendum. You could say sense prevailed; democracy was reinstated and the surreptitious Remain campaign was dismembered. Labour alienated supporters who voted for BREXIT and everyone else who remembered their last disastrous attempts at National Socialism. Labour’s manifesto was a huge benefit to the Conservatives, as was the Lib Dem’s because of its undemocratic anti-BREXIT stance. So, Mr Johnson benefitted from two parties failing dismally and capitalised on disgruntled voters who were sick of the games being played by the Opposition and Parliament. After a dismal year of political mess in Parliament, in December 2019, the people sorted it out giving a very clear message on what the government needs to do.

Sadly, because of the drawn out process for BREXIT in 2019, politically very little else transpired in the UK.

What does 2020 hold? Increasingly difficult times for the Government. The costs associated with BREXIT will start to materialise in line with the negotiation of the trading arrangements, from 2021 onwards. Economists, Remainers and the media will continue berating the Government and over-stating the downsides. The Government now has to deliver the foundations for future prosperity; a simple sentence which I have only a little confidence this, or any other government; can actually implement. Competence is not something I attribute to modern day politics.

With respect to the EU, there should be no commitments about future UK tax policies or trading arrangements with other countries. If UK companies choose to trade with the EU then those companies will have to meet the EU’s requirements; it couldn’t be simpler. Likewise for EU companies wanting to trade with the UK; they will have to meet the UK’s requirements. There’s no rocket science. From 2021 onwards, the UK can use whatever fiscal, monetary or tax policies are deemed suitable or necessary for the country. Inevitably costs will likely rise in the UK, certainly in the near future; however, as business adapts to a global, as opposed to back-yard EU perspective, there’s scope for costs to reduce. In the meantime the Government has the option of borrowing at historically low rates and/or lowering the tax burden to help companies adapt, boost consumer spending whilst attracting foreign direct investment, which sounds like win-win… but not to your typical Economist, for some unexplained reason.

As you have possibly already guessed, my preference is for the fully independent UK where the country is self-contained and able to chart its own course, albeit with variably incompetent politicians who, fortunately are now fully accountable solely to us. I’d like to think that in 10 or 15 years’ time that Italy, France or The Netherlands will be looking at a resurgent UK and wishing they had the political will to leave the EU and forge their own way in the World. The small EU nations don’t really have this option; the costs are too high.

Mr Cummings – Special Advisor to the Prime Minister

Mr Cummings was instrumental in the organisation of the Vote Leave group ahead of the EU Referendum, assisted the Minister for Education for a while and became Special Advisor to Mr Johnson, currently residing in Downing Street. If you have time take a look at Mr Cummings’ blog: www.dominiccummings.com .

Having read a number of his blogs I get the impression of an academic doing some research, summarising a number of other peoples' work and suggesting their ideas would be useful for politicians and the civil service. It was difficult to read many of his blogs from start to finish; far too much detail, no executive summary, (generally) no concise, focussed conclusions or recommendations. And the material he presents is likely to be read by the people who are similarly academic and "already converted", or easily impressed. This a pity because British politics has sunk from a low level (with some competence, for example Mrs Thatcher could not have taken on the unions and won, without some government competence); to the current level of incompetence where huge sums of money are wasted.

Mr Cummings is correct, Westminster has to be improved and competence restored as soon as possible. However, don't be influenced by his long list of recommended geniuses; rocket science is not actually required. There is a danger that less smart people than Mr Cummings simply adopt all his (adopted) ideas; there weren't many original, i.e. Mr Cummings’ own ideas in his blogs. He needs to be challenged constantly because the biggest road-block is not what the best processes should be; it's making the change to a new system, as any decent manager well knows. Lastly, why is Mr Cummings rather coy on his time in Russia after graduating? Some of his colleagues allegedly refer to him as a Leninist. Remember Kim Philby.

Scotland

Scotland has apparently been in a nationalist mood for quite a while; starting after devolution in 1997, culminating in an independence referendum in 2014 at which Scots pragmatically decided to stay within the UK. At the next General Election in 2015, the previous Conservative/Lib Dem coalition was replaced by a Conservative government led by David Cameron, but very interestingly; having lost the independence referendum a year earlier, the SNP went from 6 to 56 MPs in Westminster! The Labour party lost most of their candidates to the SNP. Disillusionment with Labour had been building; however, for Scottish Nationalists to lose a referendum and then wipe out the Labour party in Scotland, is a large political success. The SNP also controls the devolved government in Edinburgh, which has increasing levers of power.

Between 2015 and the next General Election in 2017, the SNP got first-hand experience of devolved and national government. Their relatively poor governing performance in Scotland probably contributed to their weaker showing in the 2017 General Election. Not surprisingly people want their government to be effective, not just one-trick ponies focussed on (massively risky) independence at all cost.

The EU referendum invigorated the SNP because EU membership is central to their independence strategy. It is highly unlikely that approximately 5 million Scots would be able to sustain, let alone build a successful independent country from scratch. To illustrate this, Scotland’s notional GDP and debt have been and continue to be strained, confirming the current need for the Union in order to maintain Scotland’s economy. The SNP appear to want to swap the Union for the EU and in the process divorce itself from the 50 million people on the immediate door step. If you were an existing EU country, how would you feel if a new, small uneconomic country knocked at your door, effectively asking to be funded; having deliberately relinquished funding from Westminster? There must be a lot of Scots who haven’t fully appreciated what the SNP is pedalling, otherwise why would you continue to support a nationalist party? Particularly as the SNP’s performance in the devolved government, continues to be poor.

Every Scot should challenge the SNP to provide unequivocal, substantiated answers to questions like:

After independence, can you guarantee I will not be paying more (total) tax than before independence?
Can you guarantee my business will not be paying more (total) tax after independence?
Can you guarantee the Health Service will be better than before independence with no increased, or additional costs?
Can you guarantee the education system will be better than before independence with no increased, or additional costs?
What currency will Scotland have after independence?
What is the total financial cost to Scotland of setting up all the functions necessary to be independent?
On what economic basis do you consider an independent Scotland will be better for Scots and how long after independence will this occur?
Show me pessimistic, most-likely and optimistic government revenue, expenditure (in categories), debt and annual GDP per capita using historical data from 2015, assumed independence on 31 December 2020 and forecast through to 2030.

I’m pretty confident the economic basis for independence is lacking; the only slight possibility for economic success would be within the EU, replacing funds from Westminster with EU funds and almost certainly adopting the Euro.

If independence were to happen I suspect, initially a lot of Scottish residents would move into the UK, as would a lot of businesses, potentially further weakening the Scottish economy.

So why do the SNP have such large support in Scotland?

I can only speculate; Scotland has been historically miffed at being the junior partner in the UK; however, when you have approximately 5 million people, versus 55 million in the rest of the UK, the answer is blatantly clear.

Scotland has historically benefitted from higher UK government funding per person, than England. The question is, have Scotland’s politicians, (national, devolved and local) done a good job with the funds provided? The answer appears to be; not really. So, why would SNP politicians be any better than previous Scottish politicians? Simple answer; they won’t! But for ideological reasons they want you to believe there is nirvana by becoming independent. Be very, very wary of such unsubstantiated ideologies.

The current leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, regularly refers back to her past in Glasgow where social and economic conditions were poor. The key word is “were”. Scotland’s politicians struggled (like those elsewhere in the UK) to effect the transition from declining heavy industry. In the SNP narrative, Scotland’s problems are always caused by Westminster; not their own political (in)competence.

It’s time for Scotland’s politics to break with the 1980’s and move into the 21^st Century. Many Scots have achieved this, probably those who voted not to leave the UK in 2014. I suspect these people are still not seduced by the nationalists high risk ideology; however, these people appear not to be expressing their true beliefs at the ballot box. Why?

I hope that Scottish businesses have been laying the ground work to be able to continue interacting with the EU, plus the rest of the World and haven’t been distracted by the SNP’s banging of the independence drum. The challenge for all businesses is to adapt to the new status outside the EU, find additional markets and contain costs. Failing this, re-locate, and/or set-up in the markets of interest. Failure to adapt could mean going out of business.

The UK made a democratic choice to leave the EU. As a business you choose how to deal with it. Whinging won’t help. There’s no real rocket science involved.

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If you'd like to read more legacy blogs on climate change, the oil industry, UK and World politics, or just have insomnia, then browse through some of these:

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https://jeremydaines2019summary.blogspot.com/2020/02/there-was-such-wealth-of-material-in.html

17 February 2020 - This Blog

Review of the United Kingdom in 2019

https://jeremydaines2019uksummary.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-united-kingdom-in-2019.html

14 December 2019

The UK December 2019 General Election – Post Mortem Review

https://uk-dec19-election-review.blogspot.com/

7 September 2019

Letter to Jeremy Hunt MP, in September 2019, Regarding Anti-Democratic MPs, NOW INCLUDING Mrs Hunt's Response

https://anti-democratic-mps-letter-sep19.blogspot.com/2019/09/letter-to-jeremy-hunt-mp-in-september.html