British Politics Guide

[alice]

To what extent would the members of the ZBB agree with the proposition that the United Kingdom is now entering a (probably terminal) state of senile dementia? We have a Government which is seemingly incapable of governing, an Opposition which seems unwilling to oppose, and fanatics driving the political agenda who seem to want an Irish border which simultaneously exists and does not exist.

[Salmoneus]

[note: I thought I'd posted a reply on the poisoned chalice thing, but it's mysteriously disappeared (again!). I'll opine on that in a moment]

alice: I'm not sure "senile dementia" has a consensus meaning in a political sense. I think the situation of the UK is certainly not "terminal" - we're a country of 66 million people with a functioning economy and democracy, we're not just going to disappear.


The political mess we're in has parallels around the world, and its particular instantiation here is the result of a number of different processes happening at once...

1. The decline of parties. Parties used to be huge, mass-membership things. Over recent decades, their membership has collapsed, due to things like the internet and the increasingly fluidity of society. In the UK, the Labour Party has partly combatted that recently - though it remains to be seen how many people stay around once Corbyn goes. Are they really Labour Party supporters, or just Corbyn fans? Anyway, it's a problem facing almost all parties, and it makes the system more fluid, as people lack the tribal loyalty they used to have. Social mobility has helped/harmed in this way too - the old 'my dad was a miner who voted labour, I'm a miner who votes labour' thing.

2. Volksparteiisation. In response in part to the above, parties have moved from having explicitly sectional interests to being mass 'volksparteien', 'catch-all' parties designed to appeal to as many voters as possible. That's involved having to abandon any things, like principles, that might offend the median voter.

3. The victory of the right. The old left-right axis of competition has weakened, largely because left-wing parties have surrendered en masse, in pursuit of the median voter. The result has not just been the acceptance of the Thatcherite consensus, but the illegitimisation of the left-flank of the debate, and the continual drift to the right. In 2017, Corbyn was advocating a return to the tax-and-spend levels of the Conservative government of David Cameron five years earlier - and even that was regarded as tantamount to communism by most of the country. The debate has shifted from 'cut government' vs 'enlarge government' to 'cut government' vs 'don't cut government again just yet'.

4. The failure of the centre-left and the reawakening of the far left. As a result of the above, it's very difficult for the centre-left to compete, as they're now just the right-wing lite: once their "you hate the right-wing party and you don't hate us, don't worry we won't change the policies" approach was tried, and people forgot how much they hated the right-wing party, the centre-left no longer had much appeal. Hence, it couldn't win elections. And since the centre-left couldn't win elections anymore, there was no reason for the far left to support it any longer. So the centre-left has been hollowed out and the far left has increased in strength, leaving a sizeable gap in the middle. And, since the far left no longer has an intelligentsia, and no longer has its deep traditional ties to an ideological trade union movement, a lot of the far left doesn't actually know what being far left entails - their passion is not matched by a detailed and coherent policy programme.

5. The failure of one axis and the rise of others. Since the centre-left has abandoned the left-right axis of competition (leaving the centre-right free to occasionally steal left-wing policies) and the far left is incoherent and isolated from the rest of the spectrum, the strength of the left-right axis has weakened dramatically. Since it is harder to distinguish oneself on that axis now, other axes become important too. Two major forces have been developing for decades: postmaterialism and postindustrialism. These two forces are orthogonal to the traditional axis, so they cut across parties, creating disunity within parties, and encouraging the rise of minority parties. More recently, this axis has been coalescing with the nationalist-internationalist axis, further deepening the divide. What's more, nationalism is an inherently divisive ideology - in that nationalists don't automatically agree with one another. So nationalism has helped turn regions against the centre.

6. These changes may be brought to the front by the failure of the political system, but they reflect a crisis in society. Specifically, it is now an open question: does a poor, perhaps foreign-born, liberal, cosmopolitan Londoner have more in common with a rich, liberal cosmopolitan Londoner, or with a poor, usually white and 'native', traditionalist populist nationalist from, say, Newcastle? And does the poor nationalist from Newcastle have more in common with the poor cosmopolitan from London, or with the rich nationalist from Hampshire?

7. These bigger concerns have been crystalised by two specific political questions in the UK: the status of Britain within Europe, and the status of Scotland within Britain. In Scotland, the SNP has won not because most people agree with it, but because the SNP has led its followers to see elections as founded on the scotland-england axis, allying local nationalists (both left and right) and local internationalists (both left and right) behind a single party, whereas the other parties continue to fight on the old left-right axis and have been unable to unify to meet the new threat. In the UK, there is the particular issue that the FPTP/SP electoral system encourages earthquakes: the system preserves the status quo as long as possible and then collapses. Whereas a PR system allows for more continual, but more gradual, change. In theory. In Westminster, meanwhile, the existing party system so far survives, but both parties are torn in two by the Brexit question. Which is not aligned with the class cleavage. The Brexit vote was determined not by class (i.e. left-right competition) but by something we might describe as degree of contact with foreigners - the cosmopolitans, with immediate access to migrants or to international (i.e. online) media (by which I don't mean German TV, but talking to Germans, Americans, Chinese, etc, on the internet) voted Remain, while those living a long way from London and with little interest in the internet voted Leave, by and large. My parents live in a constituency that's overwhelmingly Tory and their neighbouring constituency is overwhelmingly Tory too - but their constituency was overwhelmingly Leave, and the neighbouring constituency was overwhelmingly Remain. In the same way, for example, Sajid Javid, perhaps the most right-wing man in the cabinet, is seen as the saviour of 'moderates' - because right now, Brexit and its underlying cleavages are more important than class and economic policy.

8. Idiots. We have in the UK, unfortunately, an unusually (though I'm sure not uniquely) stupid collection of politicians at present. Both main parties have been struggling under the weight of sheer idiocy, as the unique electoral and policy challenges we face are being negotiated by people who lack the imagination, integrity, or even just political instincts to cope with them. As a result, both main parties have been inflicting unnecessary self-harm - Labour basically tried to commit suicide at one point. Meanwhile, UKIP succesfully HAVE committed suicide.

9. The election. The 2017 election, partly as a result of the above (the collapse of the party system weakens both main parties, and the idiocy of the Tories led to history's worst election campaign, which the idiocy of Labour left them unable to capitalise on) and partly by coincidence, put us in an unusual and inherently unstable position, which has made it impossible to deal with any pressing or substantial problems.



On that last point: the Brexit Deal problem is, any deal has to satisfy three criteria simultaneously:
- it has to be acceptable to the EU
- it has to be acceptable to the government
- it has to be acceptable to Parliament

Now, any one of those three would be a challenge. When you try to meet the first two of these simultaneously, that challenge becomes greater. When you add in a weak Prime Minister, the second criterion becomes 'it has to be acceptable to the governing party', and that makes the challenge almost insurpassable. But when you then add in that the government doesn't command a majority in Parliament, that means you have to deal with the third criterion as well. And that threefold challenge appears to be impossible.

Ironically, the only thing that may save May, and the country, is the weakness of Labour's own discipline: to compensate for May's cabinet defying her, apparently some of the Labour cabinet are planning to defy Corbyn to support May. [aside from ideological issues around Brexit, the fact that May is from the left of her party and Corbyn is from the left of his party means that many Labour MPs have more in common politically with May than they do with Corbyn...]



In the larger time-frame, one of three things must happen to resolve this crisis: either the new axes of competition must be quashed by the old (which Corbyn is trying to do); or the parties must reorder themselves to meet the new axes; or new parties must arise that match the new axes.

[Raphael]

Interesting analysis, Salmoneus, but I think it suffers a bit from your apparent conviction that economic policy is the "proper" measure for what is right-wing and what is left-wing in politics and every other possible axis is a deviation from the way things ought to be.

If you look at the history, you'll find that when the terms "left" and "right" first became common in politics in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the distinction was mainly about attitudes towards tradition and traditional authorities. If you supported tradition and traditional authorities, you were right-wing; if you were sceptical about or hostile towards tradition and traditional authorities, you were left-wing (which makes the modern alliance between some Western leftists and non-Western traditionalists pretty weird, but I digress). Economics only got into the mix when leftists started to discover that the rich were (now) a part of the traditional power structure.

Related to that is your position that the centre-left parties and politicians of recent decades had no principles, stood for nothing, and were basically conservatives anyway. That makes some (limited) sense if you focus on economic policy, but quickly falls apart if you view it through a "tradition vs challenging tradition" lens. For instance, in Britain, I don't think John Major's Conservatives would have abolished hereditary peers, banned fox hunting, and introduced devolution for Scotland and Wales.

[mèþru]

This is especially important for people like me, who find non-economic issues more important. I don't put much stock in labeling "left", "right", socialist, etc. The stated positions are more useful than debatable tags that no one can even agree on what they mean

[Salmoneus]

Interesting analysis, Salmoneus, but I think it suffers a bit from your apparent conviction that economic policy is the "proper" measure for what is right-wing and what is left-wing in politics and every other possible axis is a deviation from the way things ought to be.

Hi, yes, that's because that's what the words 'left' and 'right' mean in political science.

If you look at the history, you'll find that when the terms "left" and "right" first became common in politics in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the distinction was mainly about attitudes towards tradition and traditional authorities.

Mh-hmm. Again, I actually have a degree in this, so no, "if I look at the history", I won't "find that" anything, I've actually spent three years looking at the history in discussion with people who have spent decades looking at the history. It's kind of like me saying on this board "you know, if you look at the linguisticology, you'll find out that 'y' can sometimes be a vowel!" Meanwhile: many words mean something different now than they meant in 1790.

Related to that is your position that the centre-left parties and politicians of recent decades had no principles, stood for nothing, and were basically conservatives anyway. That makes some (limited) sense if you focus on economic policy, but quickly falls apart if you view it through a "tradition vs challenging tradition" lens. For instance, in Britain, I don't think John Major's Conservatives would have abolished hereditary peers, banned fox hunting, and introduced devolution for Scotland and Wales.

OK. I know I've explained this to you before without success, but let's try again. In fact, let's make a post on it...

[but here I'll just note that both devolution and constitutional reform were legacy commitments, which the government quickly lost interest in, hence why they never actually DID abolish hereditary peers... and that within a few years all three parties were making manifesto commitments to do so, though no party yet has]

[Raphael]

Ok, Salmoneus, you've succesfully let of steam. Now, feel free to proceed to providing some actual arguments.

[Salmoneus]

What do we mean by 'left' and 'right'? Well...

Political space

Let us imagine a number of politicians. These politicians "compete" with one another for the votes of the public - but how can the public distinguish them? Because they have "positions". A position implies a "space", which in turn has "dimensions" - anything that can distinguish one politician from another intersubjectively is a dimension. Now, in general, voters' preferences among politicians are well-behaved, so it is in general possible to speak of the voter themselves having a position in political space: the voter prefers politicians depending on how close they are to the voter's own position. [nb: theoretically if the politician is also a voter, their positions qua politician and qua voter need not be the same - they might be hypocrites].

Saliency of dimensions

Now, we can imagine politicians and voters in, as it were, a state of nature, sprinkled evenly throughout an infinitely-dimensioned space, and voters just vote for whoever is nearest them. Imagine, as it were, each voter surrounded by concentric preference-spheres, and whoever comes closest to the bullseye win. However, this is not actually what happens, because each voter cares more about certain dimensions. You might, for instance, really care what a politician thinks about the death penalty, but not care very much about their opinion on spaghetti. Nearness to your execution-position is therefore more important to you than nearness to your spaghetti-position. Your 'concentric preference sphere' is therefore, as it were, squashed - not a uniform sphere, but an ovoid, with some dimensions (like spaghetti) stretched and others (like hanging) constricted.

Competition

Politicians are able to change many of their positions. As a result, rather than being like plants - stuck in place, hoping for sunlight - they are more like animals, able to move to areas of better hunting. Each politician will try to find a niche for themselves sufficient to enable their election. In pursuing a voter, a politician cares most about the dimensions that are salient to that voter. In other words, if you tell a politician you care about the death penalty, they will take care (all else being equal) to try to appeal to your opinions on the death penalty - if you're the only voter, they'll try to agree with you on it. Whereas on spaghetti, the politician who knows you don't care much about the issue will not feel under much pressure to conform to your opinion. Politicians will thus cluster tightly around the voter on their salient issues, while being more widely dispersed on the low-saliency issues. Now, there is more than one voter in most political systems. But the voters tend to be clustered in median, consensus positions. We can thus think of, as it were, an orb of voters with a politicial centre of gravity in the middle. In this scenario, politicians would position themselves around the orb. But because of saliency, their positioning doesn't match the orb. But the orb is not quite symmetrical, because on some dimensions the voters cluster more tightly together - there's a consensus - and on others there is not. Now, on an issue that's salient, but voters are tightly clustered, politicians will all tend to agree - "should murder be illegal?" for instance, is a high-salience, high-consensus question. And on issues that are low-saliency, but where voters are not tightly clustered, politicians will disagree widely, but this is of little importance ("what is your favourite colour?" for instance, is a dimension where there are many positions, but few people care deeply). What matters is therefore the dimensions where voters tend not to all agree, but where many voters at least give the issue a high salience. Along these dimensions, the orb is, as it were, stretched out into an ovoid.
Now, empirically, these 'important' dimensions correspond to 'social cleavages' - things that divide society into two different groups in a way that people care about. Note: these cleavages don't actually have to create distinct groups - there can be plenty of people left in the centre. But they stretch out society in a particular dimension.

Parties

In a 'perfect' electoral ecosystem, each politician would compete individually. But instead, actual electoral systems favour those politicians who can work together. They form associations, political parties, and, like voters, they try to associate with those closest to them. Now, if there is one party, everyone is in it. But if there are two parties, they will, as it were, split the orb in two - one half Yellow, one half Purple, let's say. In a perfectly distributed space, that split would essentially be random. But where the voters have been pulled into an asymmetrical set of positions by social cleavages, mathematically the centres-of-gravity of the two parties will be influenced heavily by the position of important cleavages. If there is only one cleavage, one party will occupy one side and the other party will occupy the other; where there are other cleavages, it gets a bit more complicated, but the same principle applies. And because politicians benefit from being close to the centre of gravity of their own party, the politicians will become more tightly clustered near those centres than the voters are.

An Axis of Competition

If we imagine the politicians of each party grouping together in blobs, we can then draw a line passing through the centre of gravity of each blob. This is our 'axis of competition'. Whichever party appeals most to the voter in the middle of the line wins the election (more or less). If a party wants to extend their appeal, extending it along that axis toward the middle of that axis is the way that will get them the largest increase in voters.

Now of course, there can be more than two parties; and each party in turn acts like a multitude of parties competing against one another. So there can be additional, secondary axes of competition. However, all electoral and constitutional systems act to prioritise one axis over others, and indeed societies tend to be set up that way as well. So there is one primary axis, and a series of secondary ones. The number of formal parties depends on the electoral system; Duverger's Law limits the number of major parties in a long-term equilibrium in a simple plurality system to two (except where there is extreme geographical correlation on a dimension). However, even in a multi-party system, the parties will tend to cluster more or less tightly around a single primary axis of competition.

How many secondary axes can there be? It turns out empirically and mathematically, the answer is the number of prominent social cleavages, but the most likely number of major parties is the number of cleavages plus one if not limited by Duverger's Law. [so, two cleavages tends to mean three parties competing in a mostly two-dimensional space].

The Axes of Competition compared to objective issue-based axes

The primary axis of competition is NOT equivalent to a specific issue. Because opinions on issues are influenced by social cleavages, the axis of competition will tend to cluster near issues that themselves cluster around the cleavage - but these issues are not necessarily conceptually or ideologically related. What's more, because the actual axes of competition reflect not just the most prominent cleavages, but all social differences, they will not perfectly line up with any one cleavage - they will be skewed off-kilter by lesser cleavages (particularly under Duverger's Law).

So, although we can define relatively objectively a political competition space with a small number of salient issue-based dimensions, and we do this to enable comparison over time and space, at any given moment the actual axis (or axes) of competition are line running through that space at an angle to the axes of our graph. The line will tend to wobble over time. Also, we need to make sure our graph is plotting useful dimensions at all - for instance, charts of the french fourth republic typically use clericalism as their y-axis, but this would make no sense in the modern UK.

Left and Right

So, every country has different axes of competition; but they all tend to be highly informed by the most salient cleavages in society. In almost all societies in modern history, that cleavage has been class: miners and mine-owners have tended to vote very differently, so parties have had to concentrate on getting the votes of either one or the other. The relatively objective dimension that typically best captures that cleavage politicaly can be described as the answer to a question something like "to what extent should the State interfer to ensure the redistribution of wealth from the capital-owning class to others?" Of course, this question actuall contains a whole multitude of more complex questions (what wealth, redistribute how, interfere how, redistribute to whom, etc). But on the social level as a whole, this captures well the primary division between voters. Or, empirically, historically, has done in most places at most times. This is what we call the left-right axis. But this is certainly not immutable! For instance, if we'd had robust democracy in the 13th century, the primary dimension in politics would have been something like "to what extent should temporal powers be subordinate to the spiritual power of the Pope?" - whereas in England in 1550, it might have been just "who are condemned irrevocably and without exception to eternal damnation - Catholics or Protestants?"

But crucially, and here is Raphael's misunderstanding, saying that the primary dimension is left-right does NOT mean that the local primary axis of competition is perfectly aligned with that dimension. The axis will be skewed into other dimensions too, but less tightly. So, for instance, John Major's tories were primarily defined by their view that state interference in the economy should be minimal; but that wasn't the only aspect of their party. They also distinguished themselves on homosexuality (ban it!) and non-human inhabitants of the countryside (kill them!). However, these were secondary - you could be a Tory without hating gay people and foxes, but you couldn't be a Tory if you wanted to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy. Indeed, most Tories didn't really care about gay people or foxes, and some actively liked them. But on average they were more against these things than Labour were, so the axis of competition tilted in that direction. The answer to those questions correlated with position on the primary dimension - the stronger the correlation, the more the answer was a key part of party identity and hence of electoral competition, while where the correlation was weak, it was not so important to party identity, and hence was less made a focus of competition.

And, confusingly, within the context of a given time and space, we call the end of the axis of competition that is furthest to the left 'the left' and the end closest to the right 'the right', even though the actual axis of competition never actually perfectly lines up with the theoretical issue dimension of left/right.


And now?

What is happening now, however, is that dimensions that were formerly given a low salience AND that do NOT correlate well, at present, with the left/right axis, have become salient. How hardline a brexiteer or a remainer you are does not say much about how left-wing you are.

Hence, one of three things must occur:
- the local axis of competition must swivel to incorporate the new dimension. That is, most likely, local "right-wing" will be redefined to include hardline brexit views, and local "left-wing" will be redefined to include pro-EU views. [this will be tricky, as the current leader of the right-wing party is pro-eu, and the leader of the left-wing party is anti-eu]. The next generation of politicians will cluster differently around the new axis. This may occur through reform of the existing parties (not so clustered) or the development of new ones.

- or the electoral system must change to allow more parties, in which case the brexit dimension could be a viable secondary axis (for instance, by having a 'right wing party', a 'left wing party', and a 'remainer' party that is generally centrist (but also lacking coherence).

- or the issue must decrease in saliency again so that the status quo can be resumed.



Raphael: since you've never had anything other than personal vitriol, and certainly never the shred of an informed or even rationally-argued position, I shall endeavour to avoid engaging with your trolling in future.

[MacAnDàil]

I disagree with Sal's description of the rise of the SNP. Even among hardline SNP voters, a Scotland-England axis is not a priority. The rise of the SNP came about partly due to the fall of other parties, notably the Scottish Socialist Party, after Tommy Sheridan's scandal, and the Lib Dems, after their surprise participation in the ConDem coalition. The ex-voters of both shifted party to the SNP, because it is among the closest parties in terms of policies. The support for independence came after, during the independence referendum.

It is also relevant that a significant part of the Scottish electorate, and the most volatile in their vote-changing, is a somewhat radical left. This group supported Labour up until some point under New Labour, when they shifted to SSP and Green. When the SSP collapsed, they mostly turned to the SNP. And, in more recent times, they have turned more to wards the Greens and Labour, the latter since Corbyn's election.

As for the description of 'left' and 'right', Wittgenstein's 'family resemblances' is surely relevant in that they are both concepts with prototypes?

[chris_notts]

Sal: I'm not convinced tha that May is pro-EU. It's true that she backed remain in the referendum, but not very enthusiastically. The submarine was pretty much absent from the campaign. And afterwards, she pretty much capitulated immediately to the hard-line views of the ERG, and adopted a set of red-lines and demands that made an accomodation with the EU almost impossible.

It's true she sees the benefits of access to the single market, but she also wants no contributions to the budget, no freedom of movement, no ECJ jurisdiction, freedom from the Common Commercial Policy so we can negotiate our own trade deals, and so on. While it's debateable that some of these were to firm up her position in the party, it's beyond doubt that she's a personally committed hard-liner on immigration and a little Englander who dislikes "citizens of nowhere".

How can someone be described as pro-something if they only want the benefits under an unrealistic, unattainable unicorns and ponies hypothetical scenario?

[Raphael]

chris_notts: One possible interpretation is that May was pro-EU until June 23th, 2016, and then, as they say, adjusted her sails.

[alice]

Lots of cleavage, eh Sal? Seriously, posts like yours are why I said the new ZBB needs you. I learn something new every time.

As for senile dementia, I was of course speaking metaphorically. I wonder what someone from, say, 1950 (when the Conservatives had a majority share of the vote in Scotland) would make of the political situation in the UK today.

[mèþru]

I'd say Corbyn is the same; he was a Leaver until he became leader of the opposition.

Also I told Raphael to stop with this behavoir. He said he'll try. You also are sometimes mean in similar ways, so I think you can't take claim to much better. I think both of you have made excellent contributions and shouldn't ignore or deride each other.

[chris_notts]

I'd say Corbyn is the same; he was a Leaver until he became leader of the opposition.

Agreed. But Sal claimed that May was pro-EU leading an anti-EU party, and Corbyn was anti-EU leading a pro-EU party. I agree more or less about Corbyn, but I don't see how May could be said to be pro-EU. She's pro a version of the EU, the version which might sign her amazing post-Brexit plan, which doesn't exist and never will.

[Salmoneus]

I'd say Corbyn is the same; he was a Leaver until he became leader of the opposition.

Agreed. But Sal claimed that May was pro-EU leading an anti-EU party, and Corbyn was anti-EU leading a pro-EU party. I agree more or less about Corbyn, but I don't see how May could be said to be pro-EU. She's pro a version of the EU, the version which might sign her amazing post-Brexit plan, which doesn't exist and never will.

Good to have you back, Chris.

I agree that May isn't pro-EU in the sense that, say, Ken Clarke was pro-EU (and, to be fair, Corbyn isn't exactly anti-EU in the sense that, say, Nigel Farage was anti-EU). But she's certainly on the pro-EU flank within the Tory party, and more pro-EU than Corbyn is. She is in theory in favour of Europe, and actually in practice she's in favour of lots of Europe too. Her favoured option would be Remain, and her second-favourite option is Leave-but-Remain-in-as-much-as-possible. Although I certainly don't think she's ardent on the question, and I agree that in general she's a nationalist. [Ironically, she's much more of a nationalist that Boris Johnson has ever been...]

Indeed, I'd say she's not a million miles away from a more genteel Trump. [and, like Trump, though for different reasons (political weakness on her part, apathy and credulity on his), her own political instincts have ended up captured by the same hardliners she started out by running against...]


MacAnDáil: I agree that, as it were, the second phase of the SNP's rise, when they went from being a fringe, single-issue party to being the biggest party in the scottish parliament, is not due to the independence question. However, the third phase of their rise, when they went from having 6 seats in Westminster to having 56 seats - all but two of the seats in Scotland - was due to the reorientation of competition around Scottish nationalism. Between 2010 and the announcement of the referendum, they were on around 30%. They then leapt up, and in the six months prior to the referendum they were between 35% and 40%. A month after the referendum, they were suddenly over 50%. That two-stage leap from 20% to 30%. Something like half of all Scottish Tory voters and a third of all Scottish Labour voters switched to the SNP in a space of about three months - the three months when the referendum happened.
It's true, though, that they haven't managed to consolidate that - the Tories have soared back in Scotland, perhaps in part because the SNP have positioned themselves as part of a left-wing 'alliance' in Westminster, which has perhaps forced right-wingers in Scotland to see them as just another left-wing party. [or maybe Scottish people just adore Theresa May...]

[Frislander]

I can see why Theresa May would have good reason to like the EU, especially while she was home secretary (*cough* European Arrest Warrant *cough*), but in other respects she also has good reasons to dislike the EU, because it effectively prevented her from achieving the immigration targets the party had set as part of the manifesto, which she clearly wanted to reach but couldn't.

[Salmoneus]

It didn't, though. Taking, for example, 2013-2014, there were 560,000 immigrants, of whom only 214,000 were from the EU (there were also 317,000 emigrants). It's true that the Tories couldn't actually have met their target without cutting EU migration - but that's disingenuous, because they were free to cut the other half of migration and they didn't in the slightest.

It's like if you spend £1,000 a month, and you say you want to cut it to under £100 a month, but don't actually cut your spending in the slightest, and then say 'oh, but council tax is over £100, so because of the government it's impossible for me to meet my expenditure-cutting target, so it's all the government's fault!". Yes, you've set a target slightly beyond what the government will let you achieve - but you've also made no effort to even move toward that target through all the things you CAN control!

Not that they should have been determined to cut migration anyway. But it's a toxic myth that they created, that helped drive Brexit:
A: we're being flooded by swarms of uneducated, murderous foreigners!
B: we're doing everything we can to stop this!
C: but the EU won't let us stop migration completely!
D: so it's all the EU's fault!

When in fact, not only was A never true, but B wasn't true either, and while it was true that the EU hypothetically WOULD have prevented migration from reaching Tory targets, that never actually happened, because they never actually came even vaguely close to the point where that would matter.


The real problems with cutting migration were that a) there were a bunch of refugees we were required under national and international law to accept; and b) the remaining immigrants were either high-skilled workers our corporations were demanding be let in to work for them, or else were the doctors and nurses who were absolutely essential to the operation of the NHS. The government always put the pressing practical economic costs of shutting out those migrants ahead of the abstract ideological cost of people being angry about the existence of foreigners. And rather than address that dilemma openly, they blamed it all on the EU.

[chris_notts]

Good to have you back, Chris.

Thanks! I've been conlanging a bit again and thought I'd drop in.

I agree that May isn't pro-EU in the sense that, say, Ken Clarke was pro-EU (and, to be fair, Corbyn isn't exactly anti-EU in the sense that, say, Nigel Farage was anti-EU). But she's certainly on the pro-EU flank within the Tory party, and more pro-EU than Corbyn is. She is in theory in favour of Europe, and actually in practice she's in favour of lots of Europe too. Her favoured option would be Remain, and her second-favourite option is Leave-but-Remain-in-as-much-as-possible. Although I certainly don't think she's ardent on the question, and I agree that in general she's a nationalist. [Ironically, she's much more of a nationalist that Boris Johnson has ever been...]

Indeed, I'd say she's not a million miles away from a more genteel Trump. [and, like Trump, though for different reasons (political weakness on her part, apathy and credulity on his), her own political instincts have ended up captured by the same hardliners she started out by running against...]

Perhaps you're right. I agree she does see some benefits in maintaining a good relationship with the EU, unlike the Moggites. The problem is that she persists in either not seeing the EU for what it is (thus the non-starter proposals, repeated attempts to bypass Barnier and subvert the process she signed up to, ...) or more cynically she knows what she's doing and is either capitulating to the loons or trying to back them into a corner. Either she's deluded, or she's playing games with the future of the country and our relationship with our closest allies. With friends like May, who needs enemies?

[chris_notts]

The real problems with cutting migration were that a) there were a bunch of refugees we were required under national and international law to accept;

Slightly off-topic, but I can't help feeling recently that treaty obligations to refugees aren't long for this world. They were widely accepted when there weren't that many refugees, but more and more countries at best pay lip service, and increases in numbers due to wars such as Syria have created a big political pushback. If we fail, as I expect, to solve the climate change problem, then will Europe willingly accept millions of refugees when swatches of the Middle East and Africa either become uninhabitable or suffer from reductions in agricultural productivity and famine? Or will the drawbridge be raised and the walls manned to keep out the poor desperate masses?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating abandoning a large percentage of humanity, I just think that solidarity is easy when it doesn't cost much and easy to abandon when there are actually people in need.

[Salmoneus]

Good to have you back, Chris.

Thanks! I've been conlanging a bit again and thought I'd drop in.

I agree that May isn't pro-EU in the sense that, say, Ken Clarke was pro-EU (and, to be fair, Corbyn isn't exactly anti-EU in the sense that, say, Nigel Farage was anti-EU). But she's certainly on the pro-EU flank within the Tory party, and more pro-EU than Corbyn is. She is in theory in favour of Europe, and actually in practice she's in favour of lots of Europe too. Her favoured option would be Remain, and her second-favourite option is Leave-but-Remain-in-as-much-as-possible. Although I certainly don't think she's ardent on the question, and I agree that in general she's a nationalist. [Ironically, she's much more of a nationalist that Boris Johnson has ever been...]

Indeed, I'd say she's not a million miles away from a more genteel Trump. [and, like Trump, though for different reasons (political weakness on her part, apathy and credulity on his), her own political instincts have ended up captured by the same hardliners she started out by running against...]

Perhaps you're right. I agree she does see some benefits in maintaining a good relationship with the EU, unlike the Moggites. The problem is that she persists in either not seeing the EU for what it is (thus the non-starter proposals, repeated attempts to bypass Barnier and subvert the process she signed up to, ...) or more cynically she knows what she's doing and is either capitulating to the loons or trying to back them into a corner. Either she's deluded, or she's playing games with the future of the country and our relationship with our closest allies. With friends like May, who needs enemies?

To be charitable to May for once, I think she is trying to solve an impossible paradox. Which is that her party probably won't let her adopt a Norway model... and Parliament probably won't let her adopt a Canada model. So - whether to save the country or to save herself, or both - she's been trying to persuade everyone to agree to something between Norway and Canada... the problem being that the EU won't let her adopt that. Like I say, it's three mutually incompatible requirements...


And the problem is, ultimately, the catastrophic 2017 election. I was reading today about the counts people have been doing of Tories. They reckon there's probably only about 7 fanatical ERGers, who won't compromise at all. There's maybe another 60 who are varying degrees of pushing for hard brexit but could theoretically maybe be whipped in line. But the problem is, May has a majority of 1, even including the DUP. Normally, a normal, strong Prime Minister could pick a line, whip everyone reasonable into line, and ignore the half a dozen or a dozen who refuse to go along. But now, even the slightest defection can bring down the government - and because those other 60 (apparently something like 10-20 hardliners and another 20 or so softer supporters) know that she can't overcome the half-dozen fanatics, they're under no pressure to agree either.

[Which is why May ought to have resigned as soon as she lost the election, because she's been in an untenable position ever since.]


On that untenability, btw: the DUP have now said that although they won't explicitly vote to end the government, they will refuse to support any part of May's domestic policy agenda until she obeys their instructions on Brexit (previously they were just threatening the budget).

May, for her part, is now rumoured to have backed down AGAIN from the deal she'd effectively struck with the EU at the weekend. As a result, she's now expected not to be sacked this week anymore... but also as a result, we'll go through the same crisis again in a month. And when she backs down to save her job then, it'll be the same the month after that...


One cabinet minister has commented off the record: "I'm sick and tired of this shitshow. We don't even deserve to run the country."

[Salmoneus]

The real problems with cutting migration were that a) there were a bunch of refugees we were required under national and international law to accept;

Slightly off-topic, but I can't help feeling recently that treaty obligations to refugees aren't long for this world. They were widely accepted when there weren't that many refugees, but more and more countries at best pay lip service, and increases in numbers due to wars such as Syria have created a big political pushback. If we fail, as I expect, to solve the climate change problem, then will Europe willingly accept millions of refugees when swatches of the Middle East and Africa either become uninhabitable or suffer from reductions in agricultural productivity and famine? Or will the drawbridge be raised and the walls manned to keep out the poor desperate masses?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating abandoning a large percentage of humanity, I just think that solidarity is easy when it doesn't cost much and easy to abandon when there are actually people in need.

It's worth noting, the number seeking refuge in the UK is a bit over 1/3rd the number of the early 2000s. In the US, it's only a little lower than 15 years ago, but it's only 1/4 the number it was in the early 1980s. Worldwide, asylum claims peaked in the 1990s (although admittedly there has been a secondary spike caused by Syria and ISIS). As the world becomes safer and more harmonious - there are now fewer wars and fewer dictators - asylum seekers should become less a problem, not more.

Economic migration caused by declining crop yields or rising sea levels will not qualify as asylum seekers, legally speaking. Although of course it is possible that some future calamity, like extreme climate change, could provoke more wars and unrest at some point in the distant future.