Tag: EU

BREXIT PLUS PLUS PLUS.

 

ADVANCE OF THE RIGHT.

The same anti establishment roar of anger that is taking Britain out of the EU has now landed us with President Trump.

The comparisons between the two seismic events are uncanny. Donald Trump in particular, and Nigel Farage to a lesser extent, broke the conventional rules and became “the bloke at the bar” to get past the elite and appeal to the “left behind”. The same tactics of flirting with racism and wild exaggeration were used by both men. Millions of Turks were due to settle in Britain according to Farage. Turkey is not even close to EU membership. Trump is pledged to deport two million illegal criminal immigrants. There are 178,000.

UKIP has indulged in endless infighting, Trump made lewd remarks about women. None of it mattered. Indeed the unseemly behaviour seems to add to the “authenticity” of Trump and Farage. The establishment right in the UK and America have been unable to handle the disruption. David Cameron was forced to concede a referendum which destroyed his career. Donald Trump, not a real Republican at all, managed to see off 15 rivals in the primaries.

And one more similarity, the polls. This is now the third time in 18 months they have got it wrong. Last year we were heading for a hung parliament, last June we were voting to Remain, last weekend Hillary Clinton was going to win the White House. The polls didn’t pick up shy Tories and enough pro Leavers. With Trump you had the classic candidate where people would hide their intention to vote for such a man.

RETREAT OF THE LEFT.

Hillary Clinton is the latest victim of the collapse of the centre left in European and American politics. They have no answer to the problems of the world where a refugee crisis is fuelled by terrorism and globalisation has left millions behind. Extremists want to polarise us and they are succeeding in a frightening way. Watch out for the German and French elections next year.

Clinton would have made a good President but had accumulated too much political baggage over three decades in the public eye. She never fully won over the Bernie Sanders radicals. She was sabotaged by the FBI over her emails and she couldn’t defy history. Only once since the Second World War has the White House been won by the same party three times on the run.

WHAT NOW ?

Trump has made a large number of dangerous promises. Will he actually build that wall on the Mexican border? It will be compared to the Berlin Wall and America will be shamed. Will be try and ban all Moslems? That will delight ISIS and violate the constitution. Will he repudiate the NATO pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all? Conscription is back in Lithuania. And will he tear up all those foreign trade treaties?

You can see where we’re going. In the UK and the US we’re pulling up the drawbridges, turning in on ourselves, allowing racists to feel a sense of legitimacy.

One final thought, The Donald will have the nuclear weapons codes. Dark times indeed.

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

IS THERE HOPE FOR A PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE?

 

 

END THE CENTRE LEFT SPLITS.

It is a dark time for people who believe in centre left politics, and it could get a whole lot darker.

Across Europe and America, the centre left is either out of political power or is under pressure from radical or authoritarian forces. The elderly crave for a world that has gone, the young are unemployed or running up debts from university or renting their accommodation. Forgive the generalisations. I know this is not true of everyone but I am trying to identify why the centre left is under pressure.

Some look to reactionary forces represented by UKIP in Britain, the Front National in France or The Donald in America. When people find that Brexit doesn’t deliver “yesterday”, the immigration crisis doesn’t go away or it proves impossible to expel 11 million illegals from the USA, what will they do? Give centre left politics another chance? That is unlikely. The anger levels already high (watch any Trump rally) will look for even more authoritarian solutions.

All the while this European and American anger is being goaded by terrorists who see the spiral of action and reaction working beautifully. That is why the sight of French police surrounding a Muslim lady wearing a burkini is so serious. That will be playing well in Raqqa.

The centre left is particularly in trouble in the UK. The Labour Party will be unelectable for a long time but the moderate MPs still show few signs of realising their predicament. Their continuing antagonism to Liberal Democrats and Greens seems absurd in the desperate situation they find themselves in.

However there is a shaft of light. This weekend sees the publication of a book with the title “The Alternative: Towards a New Progressive Politics”. Its editors are Liberal Democrat Chris Bowers, Green MP Caroline Lucas and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy. The two women are amongst the most able of their generation and the fact that they have come together to chart a possible way forward for progressive politics is a start.

It remains possible that the Brexit negotiations will not be concluded before 2020. It is essential that all the political forces who believe that we should stay in the EU are lined up to make the 2020 election, in effect, a second referendum. The SNP, Lib Dems, Greens and hopefully a New Democrats Party must ally together. It won’t be easy to do but the work should start at this autumn’s conferences.

TRUE OLYMPIC LEGACY

We all congratulate our athletes on their magnificent achievements in Rio. We must also congratulate Manchester on moving with characteristic speed to host the victory parade when the London mayor seemed uncertain.

But when the champagne corks have popped for the last time we need to look at the strategy that has developed of investing millions in elite athletes whilst neglecting school sport.

One of the most stupid things the Coalition government did in its early days was to scrap funding for the Schools Sports Partnerships which had the potential to do a great deal to foster participation and fitness for all.

We need to see resources put in at school and community level so there is less reliance on volunteers, more paid staff, more indoor facilities, an end to selling off playing fields for development and more time in the curriculum for physical education.

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

NORTHERN POWERHOUSE “MAY” BE DOOMED

 

The Northern Powerhouse had the perfect backer. George Osborne was Chancellor, the second most powerful person in the government. It was his project and he could make reluctant civil servants (they always are when it comes to devolution) do his bidding. Finally he represented a northern constituency.

The new Prime Minister has set up an economy and industrial strategy committee. It held its first meeting this week and the term Northern Powerhouse (NP) wasn’t mentioned apparently. This may be because Theresa May’s antipathy to Osborne is so great that she is indulging in a strategy that has been so debilitating for northern devolution down the years. I refer to the chop change with every passing minister, leave alone government. There is never the long term commitment to one plan to allow business to invest with any degree of certainty. There was a perfectly satisfactory structure of Regional Development Agencies in place but the Tories, with shameful silence form the Lib Dems, tore it all down.

All may not be lost however. It appears Mrs May wants to help all towns and cities in the North. There is a valid criticism that the NP was very city focused. The voting pattern in the EU referendum showed cities like Manchester and Liverpool backing Remain whereas suburban and rural communities voted Leave. They wrongly felt the EU was doing nothing for them but they may have concluded that about the NP as well.

Perhaps the economy and industrial strategy committee will recognise that the Northern Powerhouse needs to address the needs of all the people in the North East, Yorkshire and the North West and restore the organisations designed to achieve some urgent tasks.

They include improving people’s chances of owning a home (this week’s figures were shocking for the North),northern productivity, getting on with transport projects like HS3 east west rail connections and most of all raising our skills. A massive biomedical research centre, the Francis Crick Institute is opening this month…..in St Pancras London. We need the skills base to make it possible for such investments to be made north of the Trent. We have a huge advantage over London in terms of house prices, the quality of life and commuting costs. If only the NP could deliver the skill base.

The NP needs champions at the highest level. Andrew Percy doesn’t do it for me. He is the MP for Brigg and Goole so is (just) one of us but the new Northern Powerhouse Minister is even more unknown than his predecessor James Wharton. We must hope that Lord O’Neill of Gatley stays in the government working on the NP. He was angered about the Hinckley nuclear power station “pause”. Although nothing to do with the north, it seems George Osborne’s “golden age” of cooperation with the Chinese is over. The idea had been for substantial Chinese investment to help finance not just the Hinckley project but the NP too. If that commitment is lessened, Mr Percy will need to deal with the already existing criticism that the NP is all talk and no financial heft.

 

NORTHERN BUSINESS POST BREXIT

 

Business is faced with years of uncertainty following the Brexit vote but people are trying to make the best of a very bad job.

That was clear at a Downtown meeting in Manchester this week where our members and guests resolved to use the northern spirit of enterprise to seek out new opportunities if we are to be outside the EU.

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE.

Political uncertainty remains although I think Theresa May will be the next Prime Minister. However some members at the meeting felt that Andrea Leadsom’s claim to be the real Brexiteer will win her much support amongst the grass roots. The anti EU zealots are still alive and well in the Tory Party. They are suspicious that Theresa May, who was on the Remain side, will cave in to Brussels. Mrs May has countered that displaying a sense of humour that we all thought she completely lacked. Having been described by Ken Clarke as “a bloody difficult woman”, Mrs May remarked that the next person to think that would be the EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Brave talk but the negotiations are going to be hard and the darkening economic landscape is there for all to see.

Whoever the Tories choose, they are likely to be Prime Minister well into the 2020s having won the General Election against the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn. It looks as if the Labour moderates have failed to remove him. A week ago Wallasey MP Angela Eagle was poised to challenge. The pressure on Corbyn was at its maximum but she didn’t make her move. It may still come but in the past week Eagle has faced a left wing pro Corbyn revolt in her constituency and the leader strengthened his position in the wake of the Chilcot Inquiry. Corbyn reminded the nation of his opposition to the Iraq War whereas Tony Blair looked like a broken man.

Labour moderates need to realise the game is up. The Labour Party is now a socialist party. The political space just to the left of centre is waiting for them. In any case there will now be a ruthless process of deselection of moderate MPs mounted by the Corbyn supporting Momentum movement making them pay for their “treachery” to the leader.

THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK.

Against that political background there was agreement at the Downtown meeting that the next three years would be difficult. Not only would the UK’s relationship with the EU change but the EU itself might change. Tom Cannon from Liverpool University forecast the pound would be worth a dollar by Christmas as the American currency strengthened. He forecast big cities like Leeds and Liverpool would thrive in the post Brexit world but people in the communities that had voted most strongly to leave would suffer most from rising petrol and food prices.

Neil McInroy from the Centre For Local Economic Strategies felt that Chancellor George Osborne would go and the Northern Powerhouse, with which he is so closely associated, will slow or stop. It is difficult to see May (Maidenhead) or Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) having the same feel for the project as the man from Tatton.

Our own Chief Executive Frank McKenna said warnings from business, about how their bottom line costs would rise if we were out of the EU, had been drowned out by the noise of the politicians. He also feared extreme candidates could affect next year’s mayoral contests in Liverpool and Manchester.

So much uncertainty on the business and political front as Downtown’s business community looks to the future.