Culture wars in the Festival of Brexit

Interesting signs of some tension (short lived) in npb ideology with G Hinsliff's piece about a forthcoming 'Brexit Festival'.Here's the issue:

I’d rather chew my arm off than celebrate Brexit itself, but something more interesting is going on beneath the surface of a project that this week unlocked another £29m of government money and has quietly made a point of hiring freelancers during a horrendously bleak year for the arts.

[The chief creative officer's] plans]published this month suggests something a bit like Hull’s efforts but on a much bigger scale; mixing up the arts, science, tech and culture into a wild melee of creative grassroots projects popping up all over the country, aimed at creating feelgood moments and unexpectedly illuminating collaborations....shortlisted hopefuls range from dance troupes and performance poets to an NHS project uncovering the reasons for poor health outcomes among deprived children in Bradford and a black activists’ collective from Staffordshire.

Can't wait. More recyclable statues celebrating trans people from ethnic minorities as infant schoolchildren condemn us for imperialism and dump beach rubbish in the streets, while unemployed Drama students dressed as Barnier and Farage throw gold stars at each other, and idiots dressed in red robes chant Ode to Joy.

Never miss a chance for some State funding is still the motto for all those who Want To Open Our Eyes Through Art. You can still rely on standard-less cultural relativism to guarantee the cash. It's clearly a kind of smug reminder that it is business as usual for the luvvie wing of the npb, especially as:

since the arts and those working in them tend to skew liberal, it’s harder for artistic celebrations of Britishness not to end up following suit....I’d be frankly amazed if most had voted to leave..

But why should that stop them from taking the money?

Perhaps I am too cyncial. Hinsliff sees it as the 'efforts of well-intentioned people to dig through the rubble and find some grounds for hope'.

Graun left with same old finger-wagging

J Freedland in the Graun has mixed feelings as the year winds down. Issues are revealingly connected in a new petit bourgeois (journo faction) worldview 

in electing Biden and rejecting Donald Trump, Americans are moving to undo the great error they made in 2016. I envy that – because we are still stuck with ours.... even an agreed exit will ravage our economy more deeply than the pandemic, which itself has shaken us to the core. [a paper from an LSE person says] Covid-19 reduces future UK GDP by 2.1%, in present value terms, but Brexit shrinks it by nearly twice as much: 3.7%. And that’s if we get a deal (the figure rises to 5.7% without one).

So it was still all a mistake. Perhaps we should still shut up and get on with it? Freedland will not let any dogs lie;

Johnson’s win was on the promise of an “oven-ready” deal that simply needed a thumbs-up from the voters. And yet here we are, almost a year later, with no agreement. The Brexit that won ratification last December was sold on a false prospectus, bogusly claiming a degree of resolution that was not there.  [And] in the depth of a winter wave of the virus, with most of the country in various degrees of lockdown and with businesses ailing and overwhelmed – is the very worst time to be forcing a radical overhaul of supply chains and trading arrangements with our nearest neighbours.

Good old Operation Fear rides again:

supplies of crucial medicines, including any new vaccine against the coronavirus, could be disrupted by Brexit,...The country’s food supply is “imperilled” too, according to Bloomberg

 What should Labour do?

Abstention [on no deal or a thin deal] has obvious drawbacks. It looks like the very Brexit fence-sitting that cost Labour so dear a year ago...yet to vote with Boris Johnson is to dip Labour’s fingers in the Brexit blood...

That leaves only moral politics:

First, Brexit was always a terrible idea, but it’s lunacy now, and he [Starmer] need not carry its taint. Second, he is the leader of the opposition – and if anything cries out to be opposed, it is this.

Let's oppose illness and sin while we are there.

One puzzling bit too, another dilemma for Labour:

And let’s not forget: the most immediate elections are in Scotland, where a Boris-backing Brexit vote will not exactly boost Labour’s chances.

 A Boris-backing Brexit vote --in Scotland?

In the real world, it is almost the opposite case. Corona has altered things so much that a specific effect of Brexit will be hard to assess. Economic modelling must be even more flimsy because no-one knows what will happen with the virus and rhe economic reset that will follow. Certainly, the virus has permitted substantial State spending of an unprecedented kind -- so much of it is being fed through cronies, of course. Staying in the EU seems irrelavant except that we would have to obey their spending limits and follow thier economic reset.

 

The Graun still cannot miss a chance to say they were right, they still have the moral high ground, so they can still lecture us, and they would do something different -- principled and symbolic opoosition. That's the most important kind of politics!

Marx's 18th Brumaire revisited

G Monbiot is getting better with grasping the fundamental of marxism. He is probably due for the chop from the Graujn as a result, although they normally just bully feminists out of a job (like S Moore, forced to resign after calling for a pogrom of transpeople, or Islington equivalent -- check here). 

Some of Moore's copy is informative about Graun journalism:

if she ever included a line “about female experience belonging to people with female bodies, and the significance of this, it is always subbed out”...It is disappeared. Somehow, this very idea is being blocked, not explicitly, but it certainly isn’t being published. My editors say things like: ‘It didn’t really add to the argument’, or it is a ‘distraction’ from the argument.”...Moore claimed she was instead encouraged to write about lifestyle subjects [with] ...the cult of righteousness that the Guardian embodies,”

I note that amomng the signatories complaining about Moore was a certain 'Shraddha Pande , Agile Scrum Master, Digital IK, Software Developer', one of many web polishers and marketing folk. And one 'Senior Applicaitons [sic] Analyst'. Several didn't seem to have jobs at all.

Here is Monbiot taking risks himself with some good old stuff

Brexit stems from a civil war in capitalism – we are all just collateral damage

There must be a desperate need for an explanation because Brexit is so irrational, of course. Let's try one-- but just for this particular case.

it is worth repeating the big question: why are we doing this to ourselves? I believe the answer is that Brexit is the outcome of a civil war within capitalism.

Then it gets a bit homemade, but still OK:

There are two dominant forms of capitalist enterprise. The first could be described as housetrained capitalism. It seeks an accommodation with the administrative state, and benefits from stability, predictability and the regulations that exclude dirtier and rougher competitors. It can coexist with a tame and feeble form of democracy....The second could be described as warlord capitalism. This sees all restraints on accumulation – including taxes, regulations and the public ownership of essential services – as illegitimate. Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of profit-making. Its justifying ideology was formulated by Friedrich Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty and by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged....These books sweep away social complexity and other people’s interests. They fetishise something they call “liberty”, which turns out to mean total freedom for plutocrats, at society’s expense.

Hayek was a founding father of EU neo-liberalism, of course, even if their bureaucrats exceed their brief now and then.

Brexit represents an astonishing opportunity for warlord capitalism. It is a chance not just to rip up specific rules, which it overtly aims to do, but also to tear down the uneasy truce between capitalism and democracy under which public protections in general are created and enforced....Johnson’s government will seek to use a no-deal or thin-deal Brexit to destroy at least some of the constraints on the most brutal forms of capitalism.

Housetrained capitalists are horrified by Brexit. [and old soc dem liberals]... Without regulatory constraints, the warlords would wipe them out. Like other august institutions of capital, the Confederation of British Industry warned that leaving Europe would cause a major economic shock.

At least he identifies a house-trained capitalist element in Remain, actual interests as well as sentimental politics.

Turning to the politico/ideological:

I see Nigel Farage and similar blowhards as little more than smoke bombs, creating a camouflaging cloud of xenophobia and culture wars. The persistent trick of modern politics – that appears to fool us repeatedly – is to disguise economic and political interests as cultural movements

The old Graun myth that Farage started culture wars. And no comment on the smoke bombs and camouflage in all that Graub crap about the unnatural nature of borders, the 4 freedoms, European identity, cosmpolitan tolerance, Project Fear or the cultural onslaught on Leavers. All the hilariously hypocritical 'borrowed languages.

Only this:

This, perhaps, was the remain campaign’s greatest failure. It largely refrained from calling out the oligarchs whose money helped to persuade us to leave the EU. Any such charge would have rebounded on a campaign funded by the likes of David Sainsbury, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs....In terms of funding, this was a battle between competing elites. So the remainers, fatally compromised by the money they had taken, instead became locked in a culture war they were bound to lose, confronting xenophobia with bromides about the benefits of integration. They failed to strike at the heart of the matter.

Well it would have been horribly revelatory if they had discussed class politics, of course, having to identify themselves as agents of domestic capital and an imaginary modern Britain with a stable class settlement, accepted social inequalities, a nice old comfortable England with a Waitrose on every corner, cheap strawberries, au pairs and migrating birds.

 

 

 

 

 

One last warning through the medium of art

A last gasp from arty luvvies in the GRaun. Irresistible stuff as ever.

 

First this

Cultural organisations in the UK could face a two-year artistic hiatus triggered by Brexit in which they become more inward looking and less international, according to a report on the consequences of leaving the EU....The Arts After Brexit study by the University of Manchester predicts that UK cultural organisations will be less likely to commission European artists due to uncertainty over any Brexit deal and possible Covid-19 restrictions.

There's even this old chestnut:

The report also predicted that Brexit-voting towns in England would take the hardest arts hit once Britain leaves Europe, with millions in cultural funding from the EU no longer flowing to regional institutions.

Regional control over funding not the European elite -- the horror! Great art like this will no longer be funded:

 

A dancer performs Into The Mountain, produced and commissioned by the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, one of the UK beneficiaries of Creative Europe funding last year. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The Graun links to this piece from 2019 to remind us what we have lost:

Marina Abramović, Elmgreen & Dragset and Bernard-Henri Lévy are just some of the big names involved in United Artists for Europe. Here’s why they’re taking a stand

Bernard Levy wanted to puff his play -- sorry, try to warn us just one last time:

I will vote for Macron and, were I British, I would vote for the Liberal Democrats since they are the only party fighting to remain – I will be in Britain to give a special performance of my one-man play, Last Exit Before Brexit (now Looking For Europe)...One thing I will talk about in my play is the Irish Question. Achieving peace in Ireland has been the greatest achievement of the EU...Nigel Farage will know soon enough what kind of world he desires. It will be one of unemployment for you, of insularity, a little England, a corpse...The Italians invented fascism nearly 100 year ago, the Spanish lived under it for many years, France and Germany were destroyed by it. Now? You may well experience it.

Abramovic says:

Camus said: “If there is any man who has no right to solitude, it is the artist. Art cannot be a monologue.” I like this. I don’t care for the idea of a solipsistic artist alone in nature, or depressed and drinking himself to death...we have to fight against this nightmare of Brexit. You really have a problem Britain, my God!...I am an artist who believes in changing the world. I have chosen a piece to be auctioned for the United Artists of Europe initiative....I am an artist who believes in changing the world. I have chosen a piece to be auctioned for the United Artists of Europe initiative.

Hang on a minute...auction? Elmgree and Dragset [who they?] offered practical help:

Why is there an EU flag on our Anger Management punchbag? Because it would be ideal if Brexit backers could take out some of their anger on something other than a whole nation. They should each have a punchbag and go crazy on it at home. Then afterwards, they might be more balanced and nuanced in political debates.... It was a campaign based on lies influenced by years of this scapegoating.

 

Right now, one of the Tory government’s arguments for backing Brexit is that they want more deregulation, which means being able to import chemical-infested food from the US and getting rid of regulations that protect human rights and labour conditions.

You as a citizen – artist or not – [big of them to let us take part!] have an obligation to be engaged because the outcome will shape generations to come. We think artworks have a role in the Brexit debate because they speak in a different language, one that can hit you where a politician’s words or a newspaper article cannot.

 A certain R. Arad writes:

I was born in Tel Aviv, but I live and work in Europe. I don’t like nationalities. I like cities and people. I don’t like borders – and Brexit is all about borders....I love it when my students return from working in Europe all fired up with new ideas. This won’t happen if they find it more difficult to travel.

Another one imagining there will be a large (fire)wall round the UK when we leave. And how novel -- an Israeli who doesn't like borders! I bet he's popular back home.

For this auction, I chose to donate a chair. It’s not just a chair but a sculpture, a negative impression of an invisible sitter, an everyman. The sitter could be Twiggy or Pavarotti. It’s named after my friend Antony Gormley, but spelled differently: Rod Gomli. When no one’s sitting on it, it just tilts up and points at the sky. I’ll miss it when it’s gone. But it will free some space in the studio, a negative of its presence.

It will be a very black day for the Arts when we leave...

'Prime knowledge' as confusing news is resolved by strong moral commentary

 A new form of journalism seems to be on offer today. Journalists seem prepared to ask people what they think about Brexit, and even, if necessary discard some myths and hopes:

Boris Johnson remains the “hardest in the room” in his unwillingness to budge to secure a Brexit deal, government insiders said this weekend, amid warnings that just days remain to finalise an agreement....the departure of Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s senior adviser, and Lee Cain, his communications chief, would not change the fact that Johnson himself remained determined and hard to read....“The prime minister is always the hardest in the room on Brexit – more so than perhaps other ministers and advisers,” said a senior Whitehall source.

There seem to be no splits to rely upon, imminent revolts or pillow pressure from C Symonds

this is one issue where the cabinet is completely united – like no other policy,” said a person familiar with the deliberations. “[After the election], the prime minister has a lot of political capital on this.”

As usual, Lord Farage (for soon it must surely be) seems to have a presence if only 'in being';

there are also huge political pressures on Johnson, with some fearing that any sign of Brexit compromise will create yet another opening for Nigel Farage and his new Reform UK party. 

A 'donor' is cited and credited with complex if not contradictory views:

“It’s the end of the fellowship. The fact is [Cummings and Cain] are leaving before the end, which tells you they’re not going to get the deal that they want. Boris is now in a hard place, as he wants to deal at any price.”...

Rather unllike the earlier estimate then. And after that:

The donor added: “I would walk away [from Brexit talks]. There isn’t a lot to lose from doing that, given the deal on offer is essentially only for the traded goods sector. It does nothing for our large services sector anyway.”

Downing Street denies the departures mean a Brexit deal, and compromise with the EU, are now more likely.

In the absence of strong politico/moral commitment, the reporter seems rather confused about how things fit together -- now at least. He was pretty pro Remain before? So we turn to the editorial:

[D Cummings'] tenures at Vote Leave and then in Johnson’s No 10 have seen some hail him as a strategic genius: they point to the EU referendum win and Johnson’s 80-seat majority. What this narrative fails to take into account is that liberally borrowing from the populism playbook – by making misleading promises to voters and capitalising on people’s legitimate concerns by deploying racist dogwhistles while having no constructive solutions to offer – makes winning so much easier, particularly in the face of an unappealing opposition....Cummings will always be associated with electoral deceit and implicit racism.

This is lovely. Culture warriors condemning culture wars now they have lost:

In government, Cummings has helped Johnson spearhead a toxic culture war: ministers briefing that the government would invest in “wave machines” to capsize more boats in the Channel [source? Why not a magic ray gun?], even as desperate asylum seekers, including children, drowned in its freezing waters; picking fights with anti-racism campaigners in the wake of George Floyd’s murder; virtue-signalling [!] against “political correctness” by waging war on the BBC over Last Night at the Proms [where culture warriors and virtue-signallers had tried to stop people singing Rule Britannia, it will be recalled. The link to the item is still worth following]

it may be tempting to view Cummings’ departure in the broader context of a return to civility in politics, just a week after Joe Biden so decisively [sic] beat Donald Trump, there is no cause for optimism yet. Johnson has already revealed his true character as a charlatan, devoid of principle, happy to say what it takes to win.

Thank God for the old certainties to cut through all the puzzling and worrying uncertainty. We have here the  classic narrative of 'prime knowledge', characteristic of televangelism -- all is dark, all is uncertain in the 'news' , but one light shines through in the 'comments'.

 

Cummings to leave -- UK capitulation imminent

Some neat stitching today in the Guardian, linking together Brexit, Boris, Dominic Cummings and several other folk devils. I think this was in the 'news' section, not 'comment' ,although the Grun hardly bothers with the distinction these days

A standoff in the Brexit negotiations has been blamed on the factional infighting in Downing Street, as Dominic Cummings confirmed he will leave the government by Christmas...

A very familiar defensive smear

Manfred Weber, the leader of the largest party in the European parliament and a political ally of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, lamented the “chaotic situation” at the heart of No 10....We can also see this as a quite chaotic situation where we don’t have an idea what is really the line in Great Britain.

A hint of realpolitk:

Weber said: “There are fair questions we are asking … If you want to change in the future, with your [petty and misguided] background of sovereignty, your subsidies, regulations [unknown to the EC]  then we must have an option an opportunity to react to stop to limit your access to our market [stuff the consumers and their 'freedoms'] …So don’t tell us we should be ready for compromise.

The Graun gives a little space to the UK version

The [UK] official added: “I guess the reason the EU feel the need to say these sorts of things is that they are starting to realise that we meant it when we said there were fundamental principles from which we couldn’t move. We need to see some realism and creativity from their side if we are to bridge the significant gaps that remain.”

However, fearless and objective reporting can confirm an important part of the EC story, followed by a balanced conventional denial, but from a deeply flawed person:

Downing Street has been in chaos ...Cummings dismissed as “comical” claims that a dispute over how to manage the final phase of the Brexit negotiation was to blame for the recent crisis in Downing Street.

Meanwhile, the Guardian fills in some helpful background:

There have been concerns raised in the past by EU officials and diplomats that the prime minister was being “held captive” by former Vote Leave campaign members...One senior EU diplomat said Cummings’ planned departure offered hope that the UK government’s resistance to agreement with the EU on a future domestic subsidy regime might slacken...“His flawed concept of state aid has held the negotiation hostage,” the diplomat said. Cummings has championed the UK’s future ability to subsidise the tech industry as a major Brexit dividend.

And there is always time for an indication of how amiable and sophisticated M Barnier is, perhaps by implicit contrast with the surly Cummings:

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, tweeted a picture of himself on a London football pitch on Thursday, citing the logjam over standards and subsidies...He tweeted: “Short break from intense negotiations in London. Went looking for level playing fields … ”

Meanwhile, el GRun's depictions of itself, reproduced in an appeal for money at the foot of every column on the website, looks increasingly desperate and delusional:

We believe everyone deserves access to information that’s grounded in science and truth, and analysis rooted in authority and integrity. That’s why we made a different choice: to keep our reporting open for all readers, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. This means more people can be better informed, united, and inspired to take meaningful action....In these perilous times, an independent, truth-seeking global news organisation like the Guardian is essential...Every contribution, however big or small, makes a real difference for our future.

 

Smug culture warriors finally feel safe

A typically insightful piece by A. Hirsch today in teh Graun on the legacy of British colonialism and how this will screw up the special relationship. It makes out current US politicians to be haunted by a semi-repressed past which will swamp [sic] their judgment.That's ethnic minorties for you -- resentful and superstitious. Check the psychological processes invoked in this:

With Donald Trump gone, Brexit Britain will be very lonely on the world stage

Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris is said to “hate” Johnson for claiming Obama held a grudge against Britain because of his “part-Kenyan” heritage. [Surely there are far better reasons to hate him?]... The prime minister’s comments have not aged well.... “shared cultural values”...whenever deployed by Britain, is almost always code for: “We colonised you once, and how well you’ve done from it.”...[really? Nothing to do with world wars? Cold War?]... victims of British colonial abuse in Ireland have, through a twist of fate, lent their ancestral memory [Celtic superstition now] to the new US president....[K. Harris's] grandfather worked for the British colonial government in India, where he strived for independence from the white supremacist ideology of the British empire.The power behind this empire earlier pioneered the enslavement of Africans that led Harris’s father, Donald Harris, to be born in Jamaica. [Very far reaching, imperialism -- it even impregnates women].

To be picky, slavery was well established before, but not an organised slave trade. That required capitalism.

There's an echo of one of her own failed recent cultural campaigns:

Tories pumped with pride from this same history – gloriously bragging in song that “Britons never shall be slaves” – are unlikely to find its seductive power holds much sway within the incoming US administration. The government ignored British ethnic minorities [one or two Twitterers] when we offered the truth of our own lineages [superstition again] to counter this propaganda.

It would have been a real victory if Hirsch and the others had stopped the song being sung at the Proms -- racism and imperialism would have collapsed immediately!

 And a bit of selective recent history in this:

Polling data shows that without minority-ethnic voters, many of whom had to overcome deliberate and systemic attempts to suppress their participation – the nation’s constitutional and political integrity would have endured a further four years of Trump’s wrecking ball.

Which ignores Trump's increased vote among some ethnic minorities -- but let's keep it simple -- those were clearly dupes of imperialist white supremacist ideology or Latinxs. 

Turbine blades pile up at the border in the Solent

A last hurrah (if only) for Graun Remainers as the clock ticks down (© M Barnier) 

First R 'Brexit broke my heart' Behr with impeccably tortuous Graun logic to cheer himself up. Hope alternates with despair as the poor chap muses on:

Time is running out [fancy that!] to complete the free-trade deal that might enact those compromises. Even with a deal there is a shock coming when transitional arrangements expire on 1 January. The shock is double if negotiations collapse.  

There is a straw to clutch:

Through incompetence and supercilious neglect, Johnson has alienated so many of his MPs that even an 80-seat majority is no cushion against Commons defeat. 

But the cad might turn that to his advantage -- or not:

That vulnerability could tempt him to embrace an almighty row with Brussels...But that path looks less attractive in light of Donald Trump’s defeat in the US presidential election

So let's wobble a bit longer between hope and despair:

Much of the transatlantic partnership happens on the level of security policy, mediated by agencies and institutions that carry on regardless of personalities in the White House and Downing Street.Still, there is an immediate problem in the dim view Biden takes of Johnson’s disregard for international law, as advertised in a bill repudiating the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. ...Washington would take Dublin’s side as the underdog, being bullied by Britain turned rogue.

If only European sophistication could save us:

But there is also a risk that the EU side reads too much into Trump’s defeat [as P Toynbee does, below?] and, presuming a chastened, friendless Britain has no room left for manoeuvre, fails to choreograph some face-saving concession for Johnson.

It's not liberal confusion and indecision or EC bloody-mindedness, though, it is Johnson's

That leaves Britain without any meaningful policy for a future relationship with the rest of Europe. Expressing one would require some admission of diplomatic and economic gravity, and denial of those forces is too fundamental to Eurosceptic mythology. That will not change, regardless of whether the current negotiations result in compromise or collapse in acrimony. There are two very different speeches forming in Johnson’s mind right now. Neither of them contains the truth.

Ah yes -- the truth. But that no longer seems so obvious to R Behr, except as a residue, having eliminated all the Johnson policies, like a Grauniad Sherlock Holmes.

 

Not so much quiet despair as continuing denial from the legendary P Toynbee:

[after] a monumental [!] rebellion from its own side  [in the Lords] ...with Donald Trump the loser – for now, a spent force. Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Rishi Sunak, Dominic Cummings, Nigel Farage and their Brexiter band now look like abandoned passengers on a flimsy life-raft cut loose from a sinking mothership.... If the old monster []R Murdoch] turns towards Labour as he did in 1996 (only once Tony Blair’s imminent victory was certain), the failure of Brexit will be one reason why.

Biden says “Ireland will be written on my soul” when he dies. [He meant it as total support, most sincerely, of course. He's not one of those compromising politicians trying to get votes]. He was a key player in the peace process: inviting Gerry Adams to the US, against British wishes, proved to be a pivotal point in the IRA turning away from violence [not successful UK military infiltration of the IRA then?]  Reneging on the Northern Ireland protocol now would make the UK a pariah.'''So it won’t happen. There will be a deal

Sweet reason will finally prevail and Toynbee will be chaired through the streets

The coming humiliation will be eye-watering: the unresolved questions go right to the heart of Brexit itself. Disagreements over fisheries may be fixed with a five-year transition, but the other issues are fundamental. Irate Brexiters are right to protest that there’s no point in giving up our EU place if signing a trade deal means obeying their food, environment, work and animal welfare standards. No point at all. Ditto, why submit ourselves to their refereeing courts ensuring a level playing field for business subsidies without a voice in those rules? Why indeed....The killer for the Tories will be if a widespread view takes hold that their Brexit was a terrible error.

To add to the terrible list of delayed Italian trousers and Polish wine glasses (this blog passim):

Portsmouth’s leader, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, tells me his anxieties. His council owns the thriving port, which imports 65% of Britain’s bananas, 9,000 racehorses and turbine blades from the Isle of Wight, and sees hundreds of lorries a day. But there’s only room for 15 trucks between the motorway and the dock, and the government has warned him that up to 70% of companies aren’t ready. “We know 50% don’t speak English, so explaining is hard.”

This is a total nightmare. What on earth will we do after those punishing delays for turbine blades and racehorses? Why did we not halt trading until all foreign lorry drivers spoke English? Why is there no-one in Portsmouth who can speak a foreign language? Who knew we imported so many racehorses anyway? Since when has the Isle of Wight been a major entrepot, a kind of Singapore of the Channel?  Is there to be a trade barrier in the Solent?

We should be told before it is too late so we can vote the right way in a referendum?

Remainingfolk joy as Biden influences Brexit

 Remainerfolk have hoped for this for a while, and now the Observer crystallises their hopes:

Boris Johnson will be under even greater pressure to strike a Brexit deal with Brussels when Joe Biden enters the White House, senior Tories and diplomats said on Saturday, amid fears that a no-deal outcome could seriously threaten relations with a new Democratic administration....Pro-EU Tories and diplomats are concerned that a no-deal outcome would cause early and serious tension between London and Washington and put the special relationship at risk [ha!] , given Biden’s stated opposition to Brexit, support for European integration and support for the Good Friday Agreement....Biden, who has Irish ancestry, has made it clear that there will be no agreement on a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal if a no-deal outcome threatens the Good Friday agreement that he holds dear.

The issues are the same old:

Barnier has told diplomats that the “gap” on fishing is big regarding quota [who wrote this stuff?]  and that “access to the 6-12 mile fishing zone” remains a sticking point for France and Ireland, who point to their fishing fleets operating in those stretch [sic] of seas for centuries.

 

In Brussels, the greatest concern is the lack of progress on the issues of standards and domestic subsidies, or state aid...The EU has proposed high-level principles on state subsidies to which both sides would agree. The UK would also establish an independent competition authority and there would be a dispute settlement mechanism with both sides able to take swift retaliatory action during an arbitration period if there was a clear breach of the rules...Downing Street has suggested, however, that the threshold for unilateral action needs to be a clear impact on trade from a subsidy rather than a mere risk.

'Principles' versus pragmatism -- that old difference again. One side supports neo-lib policy which hands over practical decisions to lawyers endlessly arguing what principles are involved, while smuggling in a conern to defend 'market forces'. The other wants the ability for politicians to take practical decisions.Neither approach is exactly democratic, but the second gets closer and this is a struggle over small steps in the right direction.

 

Cock-up or conspiracy as Jan 1st looms

 A thin day with other news so dominant -- Trump and covid. Nevertheless, still space for s horribly familiar story in the Graun today

The National Audit Office (NAO) said crucial IT systems have yet to be tested and transit areas for lorries are not ready as the government attempts to prepare new border controls for the end of the Brexit transition period. The planned controls, which had already been rated “high risk”, have been further hampered by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report released today.

Officials have still not taken the steps required to ensure there were enough customs agents, auditors said, while civil contingency plans to maintain the supply of medicines and acquire extra freight capacity away from the main Channel crossings have been difficult to enact due to Covid-19.

According to the government’s latest “reasonable worst case planning assumptions”, between 40% and 70% of lorries travelling between the EU and the UK may still not be ready for the new border controls. Ministers have already warned hauliers they could face queues of up to 7,000 lorries at the main Channel crossings.

The NAO said while arrangements were being developed to minimise delays, these depended on new technology and would require the engagement of both trades and hauliers

A UK government spokesperson said: “We are making significant preparations to prepare for the guaranteed changes at the end of the transition period – including investing £705m to ensure the right border infrastructure, staffing and technology is in place, providing £84m in grants to boost the customs intermediaries sector, and implementing border controls in stages so traders have sufficient time to prepare.

“With fewer than two months to go, it’s vital that businesses and citizens prepare too. That’s why we’re intensifying our engagement with businesses and running a major public information campaign.”

Looks like a classic conjunction of covid and brexit, government incompetence and business inefficiency -- and residual Remainer lobbying to get last-minute concessions or claim they told us so. The story of the whole event really.

 

 

Farage rides again, and emotion is met with reason (and scorn)

So says the Guardian's correpondent Z Williams. I've missed her. I think that she has finally recovered from all the humiliation -- Brexit, Trump, Boris, Corbyn -- and has once more found a worthy target, in good old reliable N Farage.I think the liberal press has missed him so he is being reintroduced as a useful scapegoat for things like opposing illegal immigration and for flirting with a new party -- Reform. 

Williams might have realized she needs a personal target for her distancing wrath and contempt. So the first step is to reverse the old Guradin view of Farage as just a total prat and loser who can now safely be ignored:

There's no point railing against Farage. You have to present an alternative

A mixture of reason and scorn didn’t defeat the Brexit party, and it won’t with Reform UK either

Williams first met him when he was that essential media standby, a harmless dissenter, a token of "balance"

[He] was considered clubbable, easy on the ear, a reliable and likable controversialist, and maintained a media presence on that basis.

If only he had stayed that way! However, she, like everyone else in her circle underestimated him and

how far he would go to harness any underlying rage he perceived, and how well-grounded his perception was.

How to explain his prominence? First this:

So even though there is no obvious logical connection between opposing Brussels and rejecting lockdown to quell a virus – the aim of his new Reform UK party – there is an emotional one.

Then, immediately below, this:

It was remarked by allies of Farage last month that he had identified a section of 2019 Conservative voters, perhaps even a third of them, who were already dissatisfied on three counts. These are described by Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator as “an apparent failure to stand up for British history and culture; opposition among libertarian-inclined people to lockdown measures and the continuing chaotic immigration system”.

A hint of actual interests in there, then as well as just the emotional? Of course, these views can only ever be based on emotion for Gardinaistas. Even so, there are hints of a class  closure process, but it is rapidly qualified to fit the usual Graun worldview. A "mixture of reason and scorn" is to follow:

The more they are held in contempt by reasonable opinion, the more legitimate their rage against the elites. It’s a jiu-jitsu move which, again, makes total emotional sense.

It makes good political sense too, and Williams has helped out again by lecturing us. But there are limits, for goodness sake, and even the BBC has let her down:

cruelty, once it finds its political expression, cannot be fought on its own terms. If you get to the point where a five-year-old and an eight-year-old can drown in the English Channel, and a vigilante vowing to patrol the seas for migrants – for clarity: not to help them, but to hinder – is represented on BBC news as a voice of salt-of-the-earth Brits, the infinite preciousness of every human life is not going to cut it in this debate.

I love all that infinite preciousness hypocrisy. Five and eight year olds can die on a daily basis elsewhere, but only those that get on the news and help with our cultural politics are infinitely precious. what a pity there are no photos of small corpses or weeping relatives. No doubt the people smugglers are motivated entirely by a similar lofty morality, and have never shown any cruelty. 

There is something other than sentimental moralising to finish:

The consequence of underestimating Nigel Farage originally has been a mad compensatory scramble to understand him and his movement, recognise the grievance, represent its concerns, pay due respect to its authenticity...It is in the nature of reasonable, adult discourse to seek common ground and build on it. But consensus is not what the Farage spirit seeks. As soon as you’ve found it, he’ll be haring off to the next demand, that all EU citizens be sent home, or that gunboats line the Channel, or whatever fresh hell it might be.

We saw lots of that reasonable adult discourse in the Graun in recent years of course. Some of it is recorded in this blog. We have another example here in Williams' calm rational discussion of illegal immigration and the lockdown, ended with a silly sneering sentence,neither calm nor rational.

The job of vanquishing Farage, this time, is neither in hand-wringing about his callousness [as she has just done], nor in celebrating [how about justifying?]  a lockdown that nobody is looking forward to, but in building a plan for what comes next... The Conservatives, as a party of vision or direction, are a spent force [that's handy, given their Parliamentary majority]  they will be buffeted by whichever wind is the strongest.

We have to vanquish Farage personally. Let's explore his character flaws again! Let's attribute all sorts of motives and plans to him! If only we could find somone to allege he had molested them or was indiscreet in a tweet!

Meanwhile, the only alternative is -- Keir Starmer? Binning Corbyn was necessary after all? Let's get the right sort of chap this time. The new petite bourgeoisie (journo faction) are back doing what they love: building, organizing (serving on committees), consolidating their worldviews (recycling the old truths), and claiming a privilege in doing so.