Why the Tories should gamble on Kemi Badenoch

There's only one candidate for prime minister with the guts to dismantle the self-loathing culture of identity politics that is destroying Britain. She's uniquely qualified to take on the challenge because she's a black woman raised in Nigeria who studied for her A-levels while working in McDonald's. 

And she may succeed because, in addition to a passion for knocking heads together, she has a startlingly clear understanding of how our politics and culture are poisoning each other in a left-liberal suicide pact.

9 July 2022, 8:54pm   

Damian Thompson   The Spectator

As soon as I read Kemi Badenoch's article in this morning’s Times, I thought: this is a risk worth taking. The last gamble didn't pay off, but then Boris Johnson was always too distracted and self-absorbed to assemble his maverick ideas into a political philosophy. Cameron and May, meanwhile, were almost completely subservient to ‘the Blob’.

Badenoch, not coincidentally, was a minister under the man who coined that term: Michael Gove, the most successful reforming secretary of state for decades. But, unlike him, she ticks boxes that leave liberal power-brokers squirming over the etiquette of criticising her. It's an agonising dilemma, because make no mistake about it: this charismatic, streetwise and rhetorically merciless black woman is out to get them.

In her article today, she articulates a patriotic, free-market political philosophy that addresses the specific malignancies of the 21st century (in which, born in 1980, she has now lived most of her life). Government has become 'a piggy bank for pressure groups', she writes, with the vehemence of a former equalities minister who was subjected to their entitled lamentations. As she puts it, ‘the fiercest proclaimers of "social justice" usually believe in the power of the government over the people, in the power of the bureaucrat over the individual, and have a distrust of people making their own decisions in the economic sphere just as much as the social.’

What Badenoch doesn't say is that since 2010 her own Tory colleagues have worn out their knees genuflecting to these pressure groups. But she knows it: hence her reference to the Online Safety Bill, which she describes as ‘legislating for hurt feelings’. This plain talking, the like of which we haven't really heard since Thatcher, will resonate powerfully with a broadly liberal and overwhelmingly anti-racist British public that is sick of being lectured by halo-polishing elitists obsessed with race, sexuality and claiming expenses.

As I say, electing Kemi Badenoch would be a gamble. But, on the basis of what I've heard so far, I reckon it could pay off spectacularly.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-tories-should-gamble-on-kemi-badenoch

The MP demanding a new approach to China

The MP demanding a new approach to China

We’re running out of time to prevent a Beijing-dominated world, says Neil O’Brien

From The Spectator magazine issue: 

16 May 2020 (10 months old)

Katy Balls & James Forsyth

Six years ago, Neil O’Brien was working for George Osborne when the then chancellor was enthusing about a ‘new golden era’ in Sino-British relations. But now O’Brien, who became the Conservative MP for Harborough in 2017, is one of the founders of the new China Research Group, a group of Tory MPs who are pushing for the government to take a tougher line with Beijing. His best-case scenario is one where the UK and its allies ‘manage to restrain some of the worst behaviours of the Chinese government’.

O’Brien’s change of heart sums up the shift in Tory thinking on China. The party has moved away from pushing for the UK to be China’s best friend in the West, and now regards the Chinese Communist party as a dangerous power that must be checked.

When we discuss the matter with O’Brien by Zoom, he says that his thinking has changed because the ‘facts on the ground about China have also changed’ since the time when David Cameron and Osborne were busy deepening ties, as exemplified by Osborne’s controversial decision to push through the China--funded Hinkley Point nuclear energy project. O’Brien’s analysis is that ‘China has clearly fallen off the path of economic opening’ and ‘is still doing all of the things they promised they wouldn’t do when they joined the WTO [World Trade Organisation]. Massive state subsidies; huge extraction of intellectual property in lots of different ways, be that industrial espionage or joint ventures in which people’s technology is forced over; huge state-owned enterprises, massive state banks pumping out lots of soft loans. Basically, you name it, they are doing it.’
‘China is still doing all of the things they promised they wouldn’t do when they joined the WTO’

O’Brien, who is 41, was described by one colleague as the Conservative party’s ‘most unlikely rebel’, and his involvement with this new venture shows how Sino-scepticism is now a mainstream opinion among Tories. Even before Covid-19, concerns over the direction in which President Xi’s China is heading had been bubbling away for some time. In March, 38 Tory MPs rebelled over the Prime Minister’s decision to allow the Chinese company Huawei to help build the UK’s 5G network. But while these were MPs known for being outspoken or who had little chance of promotion, the China Research Group is made up of party loyalists tipped for ministerial office in this parliament, such as Dehenna Davison, Andrew Bowie and former Boris Johnson aide Anthony Browne. Their involvement shows that there is no longer a sense that being critical of China is a fringe view or a bar to advancement.

O’Brien worries that, even putting aside the security risks, the current economic relationship with China will only serve to stamp out innovation in the West. ‘Why should you invest heavily in risky R&D at a firm in the West if everything you invest in is just going to get ripped off by a firm in China and used against you?’ he asks. ‘They are playing a zero-sum game that is negative for us.’

Now that parliament is working online in lockdown, the group has been making do with meetings via the video app Jitsi. While it’s early days, he hopes that they can learn from a very influential Tory group which has dominated the headlines in recent years: the European Research Group. ‘The ERG had been around since about 1993 trying to create a debate in the UK about the EU when there wasn’t really much of a debate — every-one was on the same side,’ O’Brien says. ‘It took a long time to get from the Bruges speech to the 2016 vote. There’s no particular read-across from the European debate to the debate about how to cope with Beijing, but that kind of sense of trying to build up a stronger understanding and a more lively debate about the issues, I think is analogous.’


On Huawei, he backed the government the last time around — he has never voted against it since he became an MP. While he thinks a more general reset on the UK’s relationship with China is required, he says it is ‘too early to say’ which lobby he will walk through come this summer’s vote on the matter.

His stance on the company can’t exactly be described as positive, though. ‘When Huawei helped track down the members of the Ugandan opposition using their mobile phone data and spied on their communications, I think that is an example of where things can have a diplomatic and geo--strategic implication as well as a commercial one, and so yes, it is very hard to make those kinds of distinctions in an economy that is in truth not really a market economy,’ he says. ‘It’s one where the government is making a lot of the key decisions, and the political system that we thought would maybe wither in the 1990s has actually just taken more control over the situation.’

Coronavirus means that for many MPs, concerns about China’s communist regime can no longer be put to one side. ‘You don’t need to exaggerate anything about it to see that the country’s authoritarian system is creating a problem in recognising the truth at an early stage,’ he says of reports that the Chinese government kept information on the virus to itself. ‘I mean everybody who watched [the TV miniseries] Chernobyl will see a parallel there.’ He believes it would be ‘reasonable’ to conduct an inter-national inquiry. Asked whether he thinks the UK would be in a different situation if China had been franker from the beginning, he replies: ‘Yes, I think we probably would be.’

An approach which means the UK does not have to rely on China for essential products will be key for the future. This will be an area in which research can be expected. ‘The US is having this conversation, doing a lot more and always doing more than us, the Japanese and the Europeans are doing more, and we need to get with the programme on all of this stuff.’ As for the American approach to China, O’Brien says that no matter who wins the US election in November, in the future Washington will be even more reluctant to work collaboratively with the Chinese state — or with countries that side with it. ‘I think a lot of what the US is going to do is going to put us on the spot, and other countries too, in that way,’ he says. ‘That will absolutely not stop after Trump, because below the kind of headline Biden-vs-Trump, kind of biffing each other, there is a very strong bi-partisan consensus in Washington now, with both sides of the Senate and every government agency.’

So with the UK government’s approach to China under more scrutiny, will the Prime Minister be willing to listen? ‘I’ve never had a conversation about it with him so I honestly don’t know,’ he says. ‘It’s not like it was a big thing in the leadership contest or anything, so people are not currently sure what his view on it is.’

O’Brien is convinced that Britain, and the democratic world more broadly, have only limited time left to prevent a Beijing-dominated world. He warns that they ‘have been wiping the floor with us economically, by means fair and unfair, and you can see why they are confident they’re going to win — and we need to do some things to change course so that doesn’t happen’.

WRITTEN BYKaty Balls & James Forsyth

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-mp-demanding-a-new-approach-to-china

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Gavin Mortimer

Is Macron losing control of France?

The real reason Nicola Sturgeon is campaigning against Brexit

Nicola Sturgeon, who claimed this week that ‘Scotland is rich enough, strong enough and big enough’ to take its place ‘among the proud, independent nations of the world’, is a slippery fish.

Toby Young

19 October 2019  (an old posting on Scotland's fight for independence)

9:00 AM

Nicola Sturgeon, who claimed this week that ‘Scotland is rich enough, strong enough and big enough’ to take its place ‘among the proud, independent nations of the world’, is a slippery fish. She claims the case for Scottish independence will be strengthened by the UK’s departure from the European Union and yet she campaigned for Remain during the referendum and has done what she can to obstruct Brexit since. For instance, the 35 SNP MPs voted against Theresa May’s withdrawal bill three times. If they’d voted for it on the third occasion, it would have passed.

Does Sturgeon feel obliged to oppose Brexit because she’s convinced it will eventually happen and when it does she wants to be able to claim it’s a union-ending catastrophe she tried to prevent? That’s a slightly odd position for her to take, given that ending the union is her number one priority. I suspect she’d prefer the UK to be in the EU when the next Scottish independence referendum takes place — assuming there’ll be another — because she recognises that leaving will actually weaken the SNP’s case.

The critical thing to bear in mind is that if the SNP wins an indy ref after we’ve left, Scotland will have to apply for membership of the EU. In 2014, Alex Salmond claimed that if Scotland voted ‘Yes’, it could remain in the EU. And one reason he made that argument is that he recognised the weakness of the nationhood case if a ‘Yes’ vote meant leaving the EU as well. Why? In part because there’s a risk Spain might veto any application by Scotland to rejoin, as it wants to discourage Catalans from agitating for independence.

If an independent Scotland is un-able to join the EU, that would put the Scottish government in a difficult spot, given the country’s sizable annual deficit. Scotland’s deficit is higher than the UK average — an estimated 7 per cent of GDP, as opposed to the UK’s 2 per cent. It’s not hard to work out why. In 2018-19, Scottish public spending was 13.6 per cent higher per head than the UK average and revenue collected was 2.6 per cent lower. Scotland accounts for about a tenth of the UK’s population and a tenth of its economic output — but more than half of the increase in total annual government borrowing in cash terms.

How could the Scottish government possibly sustain that level of expenditure in the absence of the UK subsidy (about £10 billion a year)? It would have to go, tam o’ shanter in hand, to the bond market, but with the size of Scotland’s deficit, as well as the share of the UK’s debt it would inherit, the interest rates would be far more onerous than those currently available to the UK. Bankruptcy would soon follow. Would the IMF come to Scotland’s rescue, as it came to the UK’s in 1976? Maybe, but only at the cost of a huge reduction in spending on public services such as education, already a complete basket case under the SNP’s stewardship.

But let’s suppose the Spanish government waives its objection to Scotland joining. That wouldn’t exactly save the day. For starters, there would be the small matter of the hard border with the rest of the UK, not something conducive to trade with Scotland’s largest export market.

Then there’s the fact that Scotland would have to adopt the euro and become part of Schengen, both of which are non-negotiables for any new member states. But crucially, Scotland’s annual deficit of 7 per cent of GDP puts it over the 3 per cent threshold that automatically triggers the EU’s ‘excessive deficit procedure’, i.e. the EU would insist on an eye-watering austerity programme as a condition of joining.

And if the people of Scotland want to know what that would involve, I’m sure plenty of Greeks would be happy to tell them. (Youth unemployment of 40 per cent? Not sure that will go down well in Glasgow.) It would make the levels of austerity imposed by George Osborne and Philip Hammond — which the SNP ceaselessly complained about — look like a mosquito bite compared to full-blown malaria.

So that is the reason Nicola Sturgeon desperately wants to thwart Brexit. She knows that the case for independence would completely collapse in the event of the UK leaving the EU with Scotland in tow. From which it follows that if you want to save the union, you should be straining ever sinew to make sure Britain leaves on 31 October.

Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/the-real-reason-nicola-sturgeon-is-campaigning-against-brexit/

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Macron lacks Boris’s Napoleonic flair

I'd rather have lucky generals than good ones’, Napoleon - or Eisenhower - was supposed to have said, ‘they win battles’.

John Keiger
3 March 2020, 10:33pm

Emmanuel Macron is a good general, but not a lucky one. Since he stood for the presidential election in May 2017, he has demonstrated strategic ability in identifying the reforms France needs to modernise its economy. He has conducted those reforms with considerable courage in the face of strong opposition overhauling outdated labour laws, unemployment benefits, restrictive practices in the national railway system and now he is tackling the over-generous pension system.

And his strategy is beginning to show positive results for the French economy. 2019's GDP at 1.2 per cent is higher than Germany’s, job creation is up from 188,000 in 2018 to 260,000 in September 2019. Unemployment is down to 7.9 per cent in mainland France, its lowest level for 11 years. New company creations have hit 815,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019, 36 per cent up on the same period in 2017. Disposable income is up 2 per cent while foreign investors are more positive than a few years ago, according to the latest Ipsos poll. Of course, Macron’s predecessor, Francois Hollande, has been quick to take the credit for some of these results. But Macron has driven the reforms further and wider than Hollande.

And yet last month, the editorial of the centre-right weekly magazine Le Point headlined: ‘There is something broken in Macron’s kingdom’. Its star political editor joked: ‘In a contest of the unlucky, Mr Macron would win all the prizes’. Economic news is good, he added, but everything is against Macron: a stubborn and absurd ‘hatred’ of a sizeable part of the French people, forthcoming municipal elections that look like they'll be a disaster and the incompetence of his footsoldiers in his En Marche party. His popularity has sunk to the grim levels of his predecessor in the 20 per cent range. Last week, rumours swirled when an off-the-cuff remark to a teenager hinted he might not stand for re-election in 2022.

How does one explain this disjuncture between Macron the good general and Macron the unlucky? Macron by his meteoric rise to the presidency has been extremely fortunate. But for all its imagination, drive and courage, his presidential life is ultra-rational, leaving nothing to chance, being programmed and planned since 2017. Incapable of seizing the moment or benefitting from serendipity, as might a Thatcher, a Blair and above all a Boris Johnson, he grinds on into gilets jaunes riots and widespread public sector strikes accumulating not just distrust or dislike, but ‘hatred’ from a large body of opinion.

Some contend, however, that luck has shone on his presidency through the absence of a coherent opposition to the right or left of him. But that is a double-edged sword. Parliament’s weakness is considered a reason for French citizens taking so readily to the streets or to direct action. Similarly, low trade union membership in France can explain the radical nature of union demands pushed by a forceful militant grassroots base, eager for direct results that the leadership dare not ignore.

Judging Macron by more tangible political characteristics than mere luck, it is fair to say that he fails in two critical aspects of political leadership. First, in terms of presentation. Impressive as he is at large set-piece geo-strategic speeches or moving amongst world leaders, he still has the unfortunate knack of squandering benefits with a snide throw-away quip to an ordinary member of the public that goes viral. His public persona cloys to that of a heartless technocratic ex-banker, ‘le président des riches’.

Second, clever as he is, he still suffers from political intuition deficit. Macron demonstrates no political nous, instinct, gut-feel that would allow him to cash in on a serendipitous moment, à la Boris Johnson. Or if he attempts an improvisation he chooses the wrong moment. 

Take his decision last week: as France became the second most coronavirus affected country in Europe, he calculated that this would provide cover to bury bad news. Against a foreground of French pandemic fears, the government announced that Macron’s unpopular pension legislation would be pushed through the National Assembly this week by a constitutional wheeze that denies further parliamentary discussion. This has worsened an already damaged political and public atmosphere. The bad news grabbed the headlines and roiled every corner of French civil society, from political parties to trades union and public opinion, sparking new strikes. 

Added to that two more defections from his own party, taking the total to some 20. With local elections less than two weeks away, including the crucial Paris mayoralty, this is a serious strategic error that makes his absence of luck appear more like incompetence.

Unlucky general that Macron might be, he is good enough to win his pension battle, given the size of his parliamentary battalions. On he will move to his next campaign, probably reforming the civil service. In thinking of Emmanuel Macron’s generalship, one cannot but help think of Boris Johnson’s. The ying and yang of political leadership, with Boris in the role of the Flashmanly lucky soldier. But Macron will soldier on winning campaigns, albeit a scorched earth policy for France. For all his success in battle, a question mark hangs over Macron’s ability to win the all-important war of 2022?

Prof John Keiger is a specialist of French history and former Research Director in the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge

https://beta.spectator.co.uk/article/macron-lacks-boris-s-napoleonic-flair

Scotland must reckon with the euro

While many celebrate the new decade today, or sleep off their celebrations from last night, others will look back at what is now the 21st anniversary of the launch of Europe’s common currency, which not only ushered in the official currency of the European Union, but also established shared monetary policy for the bloc through the European Central Bank.

Kate Andrews

1 January 2020

7:06 PM

The euro was not a particularly prominent feature of the Brexit debate, as the UK was one of two member states legally exempted from its adoption (though it may not have been exempted in future from financial responsibility for EU bailouts, had the UK voted to remain in 2016).

But as some already begin to talk about rejoining the European Union – and as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon calls for a second referendum on Scottish independence, offering to apply to re-join the EU as an sovereign state if a vote to leave is upheld – the euro, and the role it could play in the UK’s future, remains worryingly relevant.

While the UK and Denmark managed to secure a full opt-out from the euro currency, very successful economies like Sweden have not. And while Scotland may be used to the benefits it has secured under the umbrella of the UK, it’s by no means clear they would maintain them in new negotiations with the EU.

Because for all the praise issued by European leaders about the euro, its flaws and vulnerabilities as a common currency – especially for smaller states – remain stark.

The last president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi described the currency in 2018 as ‘a logical and necessary consequence of the single market.’ While access to tariff-free, borderless trade has no doubt been a huge economic benefit to those with access to the single market (a major reason why the UK needs to strike a free trade deal with the EU, to maintain the seamless flow of goods and services) it is not the case that the common currency has equally provided or protected countries across the economic bloc.

Some unfairly jump to blame the euro for all of the eurozone’s financial woes, but there’s no doubt that smaller countries have struggled under central planning that has angled towards the needs of the big players. Youth unemployment in Spain and other southern European countries, the most recent recession in Italy, and the debt crises epitomised by Greece have all been felt harder by their respective citizens because of the strict monetary policies of the ECB.

The inability of countries like Greece to devalue their currency and lower their costs to boost exports and attract tourism, business and investment created impossible circumstances and unnecessary pain, and prolonged the economic downturn for a country that could have turned its economy around more successfully under a less restrictive regime.

It is not under the euro’s first decade of relative stability and growth that Scotland would be applying to rejoin the EU, but a decade defined by significantly more tension and controversial monetary policy, which may not complement Scotland’s current financial position.

The combination of Scotland’s reliance on redistribution from the rest of the UK and its deficit problem make it an economic gamble for the EU to take on. Scotland should also be concerned that if it eventually adopts the euro as a condition of re-joining the EU, that it will be treated (and suffer a similar fate) as other smaller players, whose financial standing means they haven’t been considered as important historically as their larger counterparts.

Similar to membership of the European Union, signing up to the euro has liberal and illiberal angles to it. But given Scotland’s size, negotiating possibilities and current financial situation, it should be reflecting seriously on the euro’s 21st anniversary about the consequences of placing its economic and monetary future in the hands of Germany and France.

Scotland’s winning party may feel that Westminster shouldn’t be making these decisions, but lessons from Southern Europe indicates that handing those decisions to other countries may not fit with their principles of independence and autonomy either. While Scotland’s leader would like to frame the debate as control being held in Westminster vs Scotland, it may well pan out to be a debate between currency control being managed by the Bank of England vs the European Central Bank.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/scotland-must-reckon-with-the-euro/

Boris should threaten to back Corbyn’s ridiculous Brexit plan

The decline of the Liberal Democrats continues to give Labour a boost and rattle Tory nerves. 

Stephen Daisley

7 December 2019

3:53 PM

Middle class Remainers who dislike Jeremy Corbyn are nonetheless deciding that he is their last best chance to thwart Brexit. Electing an anti-Semitic government so you don’t need to show a passport at Paris Charles de Gaulle is quite the ethical choice but there you go. It’s also a pretty big gamble. We know that Corbyn is a Brexiteer who believes freedom of movement drives down workers’ wages because he has told us as much. Voting for him to stop a hard Brexit isn’t so much holding your nose as poking your own eye, but Remainers know Labour backbenchers will hold him to his promises on a second referendum. Right?

The Tories have to determine whether continuity Remain’s Corbyn drift is enough to cost them a significant number of seats, which, at this stage, is any seats. If they deem the threat to be real, they need to stem the Remainer-to-Corbyn flow. They don’t have to convince them to vote Conservative — hardly likely with this demographic — but they do have to make sure they don’t vote Labour. Make way for a dead cat, because the Tories need to make a Labour vote appear futile for Remainers while riling the other side with tales of Labour’s dastardly plot to betray the 2016 Leave vote.

Dead cat? High-stakes dead cat? In 1992, Australian Labor prime minister Paul Keating had an election looming and was trailing Liberal leader John Hewson in the polls. Keating, a master strategist, grasped the two paradoxes that would frame the contest: 1. Australians preferred Keating’s social democratic policies to Hewson’s Thatcherite prescriptions but they also much favoured Hewson’s collegial style to Keating’s personal aggression. And 2. voters hated Hewson’s proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) but believed they could elect him safe in the knowledge that Labor would vote it down in the Senate.

Keating decided to get brutal with the electorate and dropped a GST grenade into his next parliamentary exchange with Hewson, warning the Liberal leader (and, more to the point, the voters): ‘In the unlikely event of [the Liberals] becoming a government, the Labor Party would not obstruct the passage of the GST legislation in the Senate. I want it made totally clear that a vote for Hewson is a vote for the GST’.

The opposition burst into jubilation and the benches behind Keating lowered their heads grimly. Both sides were as one: he had just handed the election to Hewson. In fact, Keating would pull off an unexpected victory following a campaign in which Hewson’s GST was exposed as ill-conceived and applicable to almost everything, from bin bags to birthday cakes. Voters dreaded the costly chaos it was poised to unleash on their everyday lives, but Keating was steadfast: vote Hewson and we’ll pass his GST.

Threatening the voters with the other bloke’s policies is a fantastically Australian approach to electioneering but, in the end, it worked. Is there a lesson in this for Boris? Remain diehards don’t necessarily like Corbyn but are prepared to vote for him to stop Brexit. So why not tear up their tactical voting cards right in front of them? Boris could emulate Keating by announcing that, if Labour ends up in power on Thursday, the Conservative Party will set aside party politics to get Brexit done. If Prime Minister Corbyn followed his own instincts and negotiated a new deal with Brussels that took the UK out of the single market and ended freedom of movement, Tory MPs would vote for it. Corbyn would not need to put his deal to the country in a confirmatory referendum, with the risk of rejection and the damage that would do to his authority.

If he could guarantee the government payroll vote and the backbench loyalists, Boris would provide the rest of the numbers to pass it. Corbyn would have secured a withdrawal agreement, honoured the referendum result and succeeded where two Tory prime ministers had failed. Without the time-consuming and political-capital sapping distraction of another referendum, Corbyn would have demonstrated leadership and would be able to move on to his transformative economic and social agenda.

This strategy would hardly be without risk for the Tories. But their voters hate the idea of a second referendum and would back a Keating gambit purely for the delightful James O’Brien on-air meltdown it would inspire. The Tories would continue to campaign for their version of Brexit (e.g. customs union withdrawal) and promise that a future Tory government would act accordingly. If we can end freedom of movement from opposition, their spin for Brexiteers would run, imagine what we’ll able to do when we’re back in government.

A Keating gambit would dash the hopes of Remainers preparing to put Corbyn in Number 10. It would tell them that a vote for him is a vote for his version of Brexit; that once in power he will be free to pursue the end to free movement that he truly believes in; that Remainer Labour MPs will not be able to stop him because hundreds of Tories will support his deal; and that there will be no referendum with the option to Remain. Go on, the Tories would be saying to this demographic, vote Corbyn, and we’ll help him force through the hardest possible Brexit — until we get back in, that is.

Elections aren’t just about winning voters over. They’re also about recognising those voters you can’t win over and demoralising them, convincing them that their vote can’t change anything and may as well be wasted or not cast at all. Middle class Remainers won’t vote Tory but as long as they don’t vote Labour, that’s just as good for Boris Johnson. Threatening the voters with an ultimatum is high stakes but it’s also high yield. It worked for Paul Keating, and it could work for Boris too.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/12/boris-should-threaten-to-back-corbyns-ridiculous-brexit-plan/

The real reason Nicola Sturgeon is campaigning against Brexit

Nicola Sturgeon, who claimed this week that ‘Scotland is rich enough, strong enough and big enough’ to take its place ‘among the proud, independent nations of the world’, is a slippery fish.

Toby Young

19 October 2019

9:00 AM

Nicola Sturgeon, who claimed this week that ‘Scotland is rich enough, strong enough and big enough’ to take its place ‘among the proud, independent nations of the world’, is a slippery fish. She claims the case for Scottish independence will be strengthened by the UK’s departure from the European Union and yet she campaigned for Remain during the referendum and has done what she can to obstruct Brexit since. For instance, the 35 SNP MPs voted against Theresa May’s withdrawal bill three times. If they’d voted for it on the third occasion, it would have passed.

Does Sturgeon feel obliged to oppose Brexit because she’s convinced it will eventually happen and when it does she wants to be able to claim it’s a union-ending catastrophe she tried to prevent? That’s a slightly odd position for her to take, given that ending the union is her number one priority. I suspect she’d prefer the UK to be in the EU when the next Scottish independence referendum takes place — assuming there’ll be another — because she recognises that leaving will actually weaken the SNP’s case.

The critical thing to bear in mind is that if the SNP wins an indy ref after we’ve left, Scotland will have to apply for membership of the EU. In 2014, Alex Salmond claimed that if Scotland voted ‘Yes’, it could remain in the EU. And one reason he made that argument is that he recognised the weakness of the nationhood case if a ‘Yes’ vote meant leaving the EU as well. Why? In part because there’s a risk Spain might veto any application by Scotland to rejoin, as it wants to discourage Catalans from agitating for independence.

If an independent Scotland is un-able to join the EU, that would put the Scottish government in a difficult spot, given the country’s sizable annual deficit. Scotland’s deficit is higher than the UK average — an estimated 7 per cent of GDP, as opposed to the UK’s 2 per cent. It’s not hard to work out why. In 2018-19, Scottish public spending was 13.6 per cent higher per head than the UK average and revenue collected was 2.6 per cent lower. Scotland accounts for about a tenth of the UK’s population and a tenth of its economic output — but more than half of the increase in total annual government borrowing in cash terms.

How could the Scottish government possibly sustain that level of expenditure in the absence of the UK subsidy (about £10 billion a year)? It would have to go, tam o’ shanter in hand, to the bond market, but with the size of Scotland’s deficit, as well as the share of the UK’s debt it would inherit, the interest rates would be far more onerous than those currently available to the UK. Bankruptcy would soon follow. Would the IMF come to Scotland’s rescue, as it came to the UK’s in 1976? Maybe, but only at the cost of a huge reduction in spending on public services such as education, already a complete basket case under the SNP’s stewardship.

But let’s suppose the Spanish government waives its objection to Scotland joining. That wouldn’t exactly save the day. For starters, there would be the small matter of the hard border with the rest of the UK, not something conducive to trade with Scotland’s largest export market.

Then there’s the fact that Scotland would have to adopt the euro and become part of Schengen, both of which are non-negotiables for any new member states. But crucially, Scotland’s annual deficit of 7 per cent of GDP puts it over the 3 per cent threshold that automatically triggers the EU’s ‘excessive deficit procedure’, i.e. the EU would insist on an eye-watering austerity programme as a condition of joining.

And if the people of Scotland want to know what that would involve, I’m sure plenty of Greeks would be happy to tell them. (Youth unemployment of 40 per cent? Not sure that will go down well in Glasgow.) It would make the levels of austerity imposed by George Osborne and Philip Hammond — which the SNP ceaselessly complained about — look like a mosquito bite compared to full-blown malaria.

So that is the reason Nicola Sturgeon desperately wants to thwart Brexit. She knows that the case for independence would completely collapse in the event of the UK leaving the EU with Scotland in tow. From which it follows that if you want to save the union, you should be straining ever sinew to make sure Britain leaves on 31 October.

Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/the-real-reason-nicola-sturgeon-is-campaigning-against-brexit/

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The vindication of Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy

The Brexit deal agreed with the EU is a spectacular vindication of the Prime Minister’s approach: to go back to Brussels with the genuine prospect

The Spectator   19 October 2019

The Brexit deal agreed with the EU is a spectacular vindication of the Prime Minister’s approach: to go back to Brussels with the genuine prospect that Britain would leave with no deal on 31 October. The EU started off by saying it would never reopen the withdrawal agreement, but with a no-deal Brexit back in prospect, compromise — and thus a deal — has been possible. And yes, parliament has said it would force the Prime Minister to ask for an extension of EU membership; but No. 10 said it would find a way to not do so. It seems that this was enough to focus minds in Brussels.

Boris Johnson’s deal is the opposite to that struck by Theresa May in that the more you look at it, the better it seems. Legally, we would leave the European Union at the end of this month. There follows a transition period: 14 months, rather than 21 months (ie, until the end of next year). Thereafter, the UK would have control over its borders, its waters, its farms and more. You can search in vain in the pages of the agreement for hidden nasties. There had been talk that France wanted access to British fish: there is no such concession. There are others, but not new ones. We continue to pay quite a lot of money, but the sum goes down quickly and we should save at least £70 billion over the next decade. Money that could be put to better use redressing the effects of a globalisation that has made London too powerful relative to the rest of the country.

The biggest concession, on our part, is that Northern Ireland can stay in an all-Ireland economy and would follow EU regulations on agriculture and industrial goods. But it also stays part of the UK Customs Union, meaning a two-border system with the UK/Northern Ireland regulatory border fairly lightly patrolled. Crucially, it can opt out of the all-Ireland system by means a simple majority vote in Stormont. So the backstop has gone: the Prime Minister has executed the “backstop-ectomy” that he promised. Democratic control stays in the UK, albeit under our devolved system. There is no unionist veto on the Stormont vote, to the dismay of the DUP. But to agree to Belfast’s control took a big concession from Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, who deserves credit in moving so quickly in the end. The deal was made possible by genuine and significant compromise, from all sides.

The question this weekend is whether Westminster can now bring itself to compromise. If the EU says it will not grant an extension, this will force MPs to choose: its deal, or the supposed no-deal chaos that opposition parties say they would oppose at all costs. It is now relatively easy for the EU to call their bluff. But if it does not do so, it will be a very close vote for the government – especially given that is 40 seats short of a majority.

It has become a commonplace to say that history will not treat someone or other kindly, but in Johnson’s case history could scarcely be any less sympathetic than many of his critics already have been. He has been dismissed as a fraud and a joke; and even his success in Brussels will be dressed up as something forced upon him by rebels.

Yes, he has made his fair share of mistakes. The prorogation of parliament backfired badly, and No. 10 did not imagine that Labour would refuse his call for a general election. But a more elegant solution was never available. He always had an easy riposte to his critics: what would they have him do? What course of action is more likely to settle this amicably? He could hardly resign and invite Jeremy Corbyn to lead a caretaker government — passing No. 10 to a man he claims is a danger to national security and supremely unfit for the office. If the House of Commons votes for a second referendum, that would likely lead to another Brexit victory and take us back to where we are now. To push through Theresa May’s deal for a fourth time would have been impossible with the MPs ranged against it. But to go for a modified version of that deal — as he ended up doing — was the most sensible compromise. Perhaps the only sensible compromise.

Even if it works — and until MPs back the deal, it remains an agonisingly big ‘if’ — an electoral benefit is not guaranteed. As Churchill found to his cost in 1945, the British do not tend to view elections as a chance to reward a government for past achievements — they will be looking ahead to see how a Johnson government might use a Commons majority.

We gained an insight into this through this week’s Queen’s Speech: it’s a pitch for the Labour Leave constituencies, with emphasis placed on health spending, school spending and controlling crime. We can expect him to take the George Osborne approach to tax cuts: in favour of them in theory, but never quite finding the right moment to implement them. With an election approaching, the Tories will promise more spending — and more debt to pay for it. As the coming budget will likely attest, austerity is over.

But what the electorate deserve to know above all else is: how is Boris Johnson going to make use of the trade and legislative freedoms for which he campaigned in the EU referendum? Without a coherent vision for this, Brexit will have been a waste of time. The Conservatives should not be shy. They should unashamedly seek to break the protectionist shackles which have held back the EU when trading with the rest of the world. Theresa May’s government was marked by a failure to explain what Brexit is for. Johnson rightly mocked her for it. But we could be hearing a lot more about his idea.

The coming general election will provide a greater contrast between the social and economic policies of the two main parties than has been seen since 1983. It will decide what sort of country post-Brexit Britain is to become: interventionist, large government, with a return to union power; or economically liberal, championing the rights of people and communities to make their own decisions. If the Conservatives become the Brexit party with nothing much to say beyond Brexit, then they are doomed.

When Boris Johnson declared that he would leave the EU by 31 October, it was seen as an impossibly ambitious goal. Now, it looks likely. All he has to do now is win Saturday’s vote, win a parliamentary majority, keep the union together, stave off recession and agree a second Brexit deal when this one expires at the end of next year. The Prime Minister has always thought of himself as being blessed with good luck. This week’s events will vindicate his suspicion. But he’ll need plenty more luck before his high-wire act is over.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/the-vindication-of-boris-johnsons-brexit-strategy/

Spectator: Five ways in which Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal is better than Theresa May’s

Boris Johnson managed to defy his critics today and reach a Brexit deal with the European Union.

Steerpike

17 October 2019

5:48 PM

The new agreement updates the Northern Ireland protocol of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration, which deals with the future relationship. But while the rest of the deal appears to be unchanged, Boris has succeeded in winning some key concessions from the EU.

Here are five reasons why Boris’s deal is better than May’s:

1. The backstop is gone

Firstly, the backstop that Theresa May negotiated with the EU has been replaced by a new Northern Ireland Protocol and the UK-wide Customs Union in the backstop has been removed completely. Northern Ireland will remain in the UK’s customs territory, which means its people will be able to benefit from any trade deals brokered by the UK after the transition period ends. The territorial sovereignty of the UK is kept intact and the country will have one common external tariff with the rest of the world (although goods coming into NI destined for the EU will pay the EU’s external tariff).

The downside for Northern Ireland is that the region will have to remain, as before, inside the EU’s regulatory orbit for goods, to allow its border with the Republic of Ireland to remain open. Northern Ireland will remain aligned with the EU, and some checks may take place for goods travelling between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

But…

2. Northern Ireland can leave if it wants

In Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, the UK and Northern Ireland could only break away from the backstop as long as the EU agreed on alternative arrangements. As the EU would have no incentive to do this, May’s agreement essentially meant that the UK and NI would either have to remain inside the Single Market and Customs Union, or risk being trapped in the backstop forever.

In Boris Johnson’s deal, if Northern Ireland wants to leave the arrangement set out above, it can do so with a vote in the Stormont Assembly held every four years.  The future of Northern Ireland will now be decided in Belfast, not Brussels. The DUP would not have a veto over this process, which explains its disappointment at the deal.

3. Free trade deals can start on New Year’s Day 2021

Under Boris Johnson’s agreement, the UK will be able to formally begin negotiating trade deals with the rest of the world as soon as the agreement is ratified by parliament. Until now, the uncertainty of the UK’s exit date from the EU has made genuine negotiations with most countries impossible.

But once Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement is passed, the UK will formally be able to conclude trade talks with the rest of the world. If the UK begins negotiating with the United States in earnest, a Free Trade Deal could be completed as soon as 1 January 2021, when the transition period of the deal ends.

4. Goodbye to the ‘level-playing field’ commitments

Binding commitments for the whole UK to maintain “minimum standards” in the areas of social and environmental policy, tax, competition and state aid have been removed from the withdrawal agreement  This is the so-called ‘level playing field,’ a phrase the EU uses to extend its regulatory power over nation states. Whether the UK has to obey these rules or not will instead be decided in the next stage of Brexit talks (negotiations on the “future relationship”), giving the UK greater leverage in the next stage of the talks. This will not, of course, mean a lowering of any standards: the Tory agenda now is about raising standards higher still: new UK laws can replace the old EU ones to underline this point.

5. The UK still takes control of its money, borders and laws

The UK will have left the EU by 31 October 2019. And as soon as the transition period ends, the country will take control of its money, borders and laws. Yes, there’s £33 billion of divorce payments – but we will take back control of the £13 billion a year that we send to the EU, saving at least £70 billion net over the next decade. The UK will have the ability to control its own borders, and if it wishes, end the free movement of people with the European Union, and replace it with its own immigration policy that prioritises and encourages high-skilled people to come and live and work in the UK. This would happen in January 2021.

Now that the backstop has been removed, it also appears that ECJ’s jurisdiction has been massively reduced. The ECJ will still have jurisdiction over EU citizen’s rights for a time-limited period, and over disputes that relate to an interpretation of EU law in the WA. Northern Ireland will also be subject to some ECJ jurisdiction as long as it remains aligned to the EU. But once we leave, the UK will be free to set its own laws, in its own parliament, with its own elected representatives voting on legislation.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/five-reasons-why-boris-johnsons-brexit-deal-is-better-than-theresa-mays/

Would no-deal Brexit be a disaster? Probably not – and here’s why

The government is better prepared than it has let on

Anthony Browne

14 July 2019

7:00 AM

How bad would a no-deal Brexit really be? This is now perhaps the most important question in politics, and the one provoking greatest disagreement. The answer will help decide whether parliament allows Brexit to happen, and whether Tory MPs bring down their own government. If they think calamity would follow, patriotic rebels might risk a general election to stop the Tories. But what if it would not be so bad? And is there any way of finding out?

Almost everyone accepts it will cause problems, but views range from manageable to ‘national suicide’. It is difficult to predict complex events without historic precedent, but there are other reasons for the divergent views. The first is that there is not a single ‘no deal’, but a whole spectrum. Leaving the EU with no deal (and no preparation) would indeed be ‘crashing out’. But leaving with no deal in, say, 2022, with government and business having prepared meticulously for three years, would be less dramatic. It is a moving target: given the preparations, no-deal Brexit now would be less damaging than a year ago.

Then there is the ‘millennium bug effect’. Before 2000, computer companies had an incentive to talk up the problem of everyone’s systems crashing when dates moved from 12/12/99 to 1/1/00. No one could tell for sure how bad it would be, the media loved an apocalyptic story and we had warnings of aircraft falling out of the sky. But despite the frenzy about the end of days, nothing happened. With no-deal Brexit, there are groups, including those wanting to block Brexit, who have an incentive to talk up problems and a media hungry for bad news.

The government has given conflicting signals about no deal, with parts of it sounding the alarm. ‘It was definitely deliberate to keep all the no-deal planning invisible,’ one former Brexit minister told me. It means the government is better prepared than is recognised — a source of irritation for the planners, who are never given credit for their success. A frustrated civil servant wrote anonymously in the Daily Telegraph in December: ‘Very detailed plans have been proposed, assessed, analysed to death and … are now being executed.’

So what are the preparations? Last year the French ports of Calais and Boulogne weren’t ready, leading to predictions of the M20 becoming a lorry park, and shortages of food and drugs. But Calais has now stepped up the number of checkpoints, employed 700 customs staff, and bought scanners which check lorries as they drive past. The president of the Port Boulogne Calais has said ‘there will not be any delay’ in a no-deal Brexit. This will disappoint Dutch ports, which have been gearing up to take business from France.

On the UK side, government has rolled out two computer systems to cope with new customs controls. It has set up an inland clearing site for lorries in Milton Keynes, to keep them away from ports. Major supermarkets have reassured ministers they have diversified supplies enough that food will remain on the shelves. Despite the concern about car manufacturing, one of Britain’s best-known car companies has told government it can cope. In an act of belts and braces, NHS stockpiling ensures that even if the border preparations failed, patients still get drugs. Drugs companies tell me they have two years’ of supplies. ‘The scare stories about food and drugs are completely unjustified,’ one planner told me.

When I was chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, I convened the meetings of industry leaders in the wake of the referendum to decide how to respond. The only responsible position for a major industry is to hope for the best and plan for the worst. We wanted a transition deal, but banks — reluctant to put their fate in the hands of politicians — prepared for no deal. A no-deal Brexit at the time of the referendum would have been a major threat to financial stability, but three years later the international banks have the legal structures, people and capital in place. They can carry on business whether Brexit comes with a deal or without.

It cost banks billions for no immediate benefit, which understandably annoys them, but they are prepared. But they have the cash for such contingency plans: smaller companies don’t and haven’t bothered preparing for no deal. Only about 40 per cent of exporters that need to register for an export number have done so. With more political clarity, that will change quickly.

The EU has been preparing, most noticeably to ensure that haulage, aviation and visa-free tourism can continue. But many preparations have been kept quiet. To be able to export food to the EU, the UK needs recognition as a third-country supplier. The Commission quietly told the UK that in a no-deal Brexit it would immediately give that recognition if the UK stays aligned to EU standards for nine months.

There is then the issue of tariffs with the EU — about 4 per cent on average. They would clearly be bad for trade. But on average they are less than the depreciation of sterling, so exporters would still be more competitive than they were before the referendum. And there are solutions for badly hit sectors. The agricultural sector most potentially affected by Brexit is sheep farming, with 30 per cent of our lamb exported to Europe. But even if the EU imposes 40 per cent tariffs, the government will introduce a compensation scheme  to offset it, costing £100 million a year.

That brings us to the £39 billion. No one can agree on how much the UK needs to pay to meet its legal commitments, but it is clearly less than £20 billion. This gives huge fiscal headroom to provide short-term relief. It can also provide a powerful incentive for the EU to agree to tariff-free trade.

The change of leader means the politics of no deal will change. If it’s Boris Johnson, then I suspect (having once advised him) that he’ll press ahead and demand full preparations from the offset. This would strengthen his negotiating position, and reassure voters and MPs, by highlighting how prepared the UK is. Senior civil servants are already planning to switch from Project Fear to Project Reassurance. Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, who previously sounded the alarm, said recently the public sector was ‘in pretty good shape’. Business groups should carry on pushing for problems to be tackled, but focus more on helping members prepare.

None of this means that no-deal Brexit will be without turbulence. I supported a deal and still do, but no deal could happen. And if it does?

The preparations show that the former governor of the Bank of England, Lord Mervyn King, was right when he said recently that MPs had ‘lost the plot’ when talking about ‘national suicide’. In an age of uncertainty, that is good to know.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/07/would-no-deal-brexit-be-a-disaster-probably-not-and-heres-why/