A Week in Politics...

Recent events have been so momentous that I am now moved

to put pen to paper, or at any rate finger to keyboard, to
unburden myself of my own long-simmering cogitations on the
matters in hand.
Harold Wilson once said that A week is a long time in politics.
The last week or so, as from Thursday, 23 rd June, seems to have
encompassed about twenty, thirty, forty years worth of events.
It is as if the film of politics has suddenly been speeded up. To
quote another politician, Lord Halifax, in the immediate
aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of September 1939
that precipitated the Nazi onslaught on Poland and Britains
consequent declaration of war on Germany, Every ism is now a
wasm. I have never known a week like it in British politics.
British membership of the EU which had seemed to be set in
concrete has been dissolved; the EU itself is in crisis as a result;
the PM has resigned and precipitated a leadership and, ipso
facto, a premiership contest; both major political parties are in
a state of turmoil with bitter recrimination and accusations of
treachery in one and near civil war in the other; the integrity of
the UK itself is again in question with Scotland threatening
another independence referendum and the Irish question
suddenly re-appearing on the agenda; the markets are going
haywire; and the economy is topsy-turvy. Oh yes, and we get
the long awaited Chilcot report next week just in case there is a
bit of a lull. Phew!
The Referendum
Where to start with all of this? Well, lets start with the result of
the referendum. It was obviously going to be a close run thing
but, and I speak as one who voted Leave (I may as well
declare my bias at the outset), I expected it to be about 52%48% for Remain. I was right about the percentages but wrong
about the direction. There is usually a swing back to the status
quo in the run-up to a vote of any sort we witnessed it with
the Scottish referendum a couple of years ago and anyway I

was always a bit sceptical about the polls which showed Leave
ahead at some points. Also, I had a feeling that Remainers were
slightly more likely to turn out to vote than Brexiteers across
the country. (The pollsters again have not exactly covered
themselves with glory.)
But it was evident from the very first couple of results in
Newcastle and Sunderland that Brexit could well be heading for
a surprise victory, with the former voting for Remain more
narrowly than was supposed and the latter voting for Brexit
more strongly than was supposed1. As I sat glued to the screen
from before midnight until six in the morning, frantically
switching channels between the BBC, Sky and ITV to gobble up
every morsel of information, it was increasingly evident that
Brexit was heading for an unlikely victory and that British
politics was never going to be the same again. A parade of
politicians and pundits were wheeled on and off as the night
progressed, many of them almost visibly stunned and trying to
explain away what was happening before our eyes.
It was also glaringly evident that there was a very marked
disparity between different parts of the country with, as
predicted, London, some of the other big cities and Scotland
voting strongly for Remain and the rest of the country in
between voting strongly Leave. This cut right across traditional
Labour/Con or working class/middle class divisions, with old
working class redoubts in the north and midlands joining hands
with very middle class southern towns and seaside resorts to
vote Leave and, seemingly, all classes of people in
cosmopolitan London and metropolitan England aligning
themselves with Scotland to vote Remain. Truly extraordinary.
If social class, income or party preference ceased to be good
predictors of voting intention it seemed that age, generation
1 On a psephological note I assume that the pollsters must have done surveys for the
broadcasting organisations in each local authority area to gauge the likely outcome so as
to have a baseline against which to measure the actual results, given that there is no
precedent to use to measure swing as would be the case in an election.

and level of education were much better indicators, with the

young and relatively young being preponderantly Remain and
the late middle-aged and elderly preponderantly Leave, and the
well-educated preponderantly Remain. This, I think, is
unprecedented in that age, per se, scarcely ever has a
significant effect on voting intention and views on political
questions, even those issues that disproportionately affect the
young or the old such as student loans or pensions. I feel that a
major reason for this is that the young and early middle-aged
cannot remember a time when Britain was not in the EU (or its
predecessor incarnation as the Common Market) and view
membership of the EU as part of the political furniture;
something which is scarcely worthy of mention let alone
contention and who are amazed that there are those who
should want to leave. The older voter, by contrast, can
remember all too well the time when we were not in Europe
and may in some cases still yearn for those days. This has led
to the rather silly suggestion in some quarters that the young
have been betrayed by the old who will not have to live so long
with the consequences of the decision, and the utterly daft idea
which I have heard mooted even by ordinarily sane and
intelligent people (such as a nincompoop on The Moral Maze
the other day) that those over a certain age should have been
denied the vote or had their vote count for less in some way. It
simply begs the question of whether in fact we, as a nation, will
be worse off in the long-term. I dont think so, but time will tell.
And anyway the franchise should of course be the same for the
referendum as for elections. Why on earth not. We all have to
live with the consequences of general elections as well as
referenda. Admittedly, elections are more easy to reverse but
their effects are still often very long-lasting.
Education, too, is clearly a factor in shaping opinion and there
is a very strong bias in favour of the EU within academia, the
media, the civil service, the professions and the bien pensant
classes generally. This has rather framed the debate with a
distinctly elitist feel to some of the arguments put forward on

the Remain side, portraying at least some (or even many)

Brexiteers as ill-educated, ignorant, geriatric provincials
incapable of understanding the benefits of EU membership and
the complexities of the argument. In its more virulent form
there is a tendency to characterise some in the Brexit camp as
reactionary, bigoted, xenophobic and racist. Will Self, for
example, has asserted that whilst not all Brexiteers are racist,
all racists are Brexiteers (almost certainly not true). Of course
there is a great deal of ill-informed and half-baked comment
thrown into the mix, on both sides, and doubtless some on the
wilder shores of the Brexit campaign deserve some or all of
these epithets, but I am far from persuaded that the average
Brexiteer is any less astute or erudite than the average
Remainer.

The Campaign
This brings me to the vexed subject of the campaign itself,
which I agree was generally conducted on a very low plane,
with the great TV debates often descending into shouting
matches and scarcely able to get much beyond the direly
predictable clichs trotted out with excruciating tedium. I feel
the campaign was very inferior to that of the 1975 referendum,
though it may be argued that the inferior quality of the debate
this time around is due, at least in part, to an inferior quality of
politician, right across the spectrum of opinion. I dont feel that
David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove,
Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage et al, are quite of the same calibre
as Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Roy Jenkins, Margaret Thatcher,
Enoch Powell, Michael Foot, Tony Benn etc. from 1975, though
maybe I am just an old curmudgeon.
This campaign was marked by a level of crass hyperbole,
mendacity and platitudinous thinking surely unrivalled in the
annals of British political discourse. It is as if we were debating
the structure of the calendar and one side absolutely insisted
that the week consisted of eight days to which their opponents

would respond that actually it is very definitely and

incontrovertibly only six days. The first lot would then say, that,
no, they had made a miscalculation and that really is was nine
days and the other lot would say, no, they too had been
understating their case and that it was emphatically only five
days.
To take a few oft-cited examples from both sides the Vote Leave
bunch repeatedly asserted that Turkeys accession to the EU
was both certain and imminent when it is surely nothing of the
kind (having been on the table in one form or another since
1959). David Cameron responded by saying that Turkey will not
be ready for membership until at least the year 3000, despite
his having given a speech only six years ago saying he was
fully behind speeding up their application. If Cameron told me
there were seven days in the week I would check my diary.
Then again we have the matter of budgetary contributions and
Vote Leaves mantra, emblazoned on their battle-bus, that our
weekly contribution is 350 million, omitting to mention that
that is a gross figure and that half comes back in a rebate and
much (but not all) of the other half comes back in one form or
another as regional aid and such like. The Remain side respond
by saying that actually we are probably making a net gain from
the EU when we are surely not. The Brexiteers argue a variety
of alternatives to EU membership, some saying that we could
somehow retain tariff-free access to the single market whilst
avoiding the free movement of labour; very obviously an
impossibility under EU rules as repeatedly underlined by
various EU bigwigs. George Osborne has told us that the
average household would be worse-off by 4,500 a year
outside the EU; in other words by between a fifth and a sixth.
An utterly preposterous suggestion even given a worst-case
scenario. I am surprised he didnt end up by saying that we
would all be begging on the streets and foraging in dustbins.
And on and on. I am reminded of the celebrated Monty Python
sketch where a group of old men talk about how hard their
childhoods were, each one trying to outdo the last, until the

final speaker announces that, as a lad, he lived in a cardboard

box in a swamp, had to work 25 hours a day, eight days a
week, had to walk hundreds of miles barefoot across broken
glass to get to work where he had to pay his boss rather than
the other way around, and was regularly murdered by his
father.
But enough of this tomfoolery. What happens now? I am far
from convinced that we actually will ever leave the EU. For a
kick-off there are plenty of siren voices among the Remainers
who suggest we should have a second referendum of some sort
and at some time, perhaps only to decide on what form our
departure should take, or maybe even to re-run the whole
thing, given that a lot of Brexiteers have apparently repented of
their sin in voting to leave or thought that they were really
voting on the Eurovision Song Contest. There is a lot of history
of countries voting against EU treaties only to be told to do it
again and get it right the second time, after a few cosmetic
changes to the treaties themselves. Admittedly this is a vote
against membership itself not against a treaty, and Jean-Claude
Juncker, president of the Commission, and others have been
adamant that there can be no back-tracking or a new deal.
Moreover the Tory leadership contenders are all saying that the
voters verdict must be respected etc and Leave must mean
Leave. But none of them seems too keen to actually invoke
Article 50 to commence Leave proceedings, and this could drag
on for ages. The disengagement process itself is expected to
take two years, or even three, and who knows what might
happen in that period of time.
It looks very likely, at the time of writing, that Theresa May, a
Remainer (albeit a very low key one), will win the leadership
and may appoint other leading Remainers to key posts
undermining Britains negotiating position. Who knows that we
might not end up with some sort of deal that, whilst ostensibly
freeing us from the EUs embrace, effectively gives us a form of
associate membership with qualified access to the single

market but a qualified acceptance of free movement and other

EU impositions; a sort of Norway minus.
The Constitution
This brings us on to the constitutional conundrums thrown up
by the whole EU/referendum imbroglio like sparks from carriage
wheels flying over stony ground. The referendum was
technically non-binding, though of course the government of
the day is bound, politically and ethically, to respect the
outcome. But theres the rub. The government will effectively
have changed in the intervening period between the voting and
the conclusion of the negotiations with the EU. Indeed, even
before the commencement of the negotiations, given that
Article 50 has yet to be invoked. There will be a new prime
minister within two and a half months, and although all the
leadership contenders have committed themselves to give
effect to the Leave verdict of the referendum we cannot know
how they will behave behind closed doors.
Also, it is argued by some constitutional experts that leaving
the EU would require Parliamentary approval in the form of the
repeal of the European Communities Act of 1972 that gave
effect to Britains accession, and surely some Parliamentary
votes would be involved somewhere along the line. There is a
very large majority for the EU in the present House of
Commons, taking all parties combined. Labour is
overwhelmingly pro-EU as is the SNP, the Liberal Democrats,
the various odds-and-sods and a majority, though not great, of
the Conservative Party. There is no reason why any of the
Opposition parties should feel themselves bound by the
referendum result given that they had had no part in its
pledging or calling, and may well have thought it wrong in
principle even to hold such a referendum. Would any anti-EU
legislation get through? And, if not, what then? It would
presumably trigger a general election (which is itself
problematic given the accursed Fixed Term Parliaments Act the
coalition drove through). And what might be the outcome of

that? Another pro-EU Commons probably, with a smaller or

possibly even greater EU majority than before?
Suppose, also, that one or more of the leadership contenders
had come from the backbenches rather than from within the
ranks of government. Would they have felt bound by the
referendum result given that they had had no part in the
pledging or calling of it? They may have stood on a referendum
platform at the last election but might personally have opposed
it to their constituents. More seriously, whichever candidate
wins the Tory leadership and premiership might decide to call a
snap election to obtain a renewed mandate, and might lose or
fail to obtain the mandate sought to take Britain out of the EU.
It is interesting that of the five contenders two are Remainers,
including the favourite, and so for all the talk of the new PM and
Cabinet having to be Brexit in composition or complexion it
might well not be. In place of Cameron, Osborne and Hammond
we might get not Johnson, Gove and Leadsom but May,
Osborne and Hammond! The more things change the more
they stay the same.
The Conservative Party
This brings us to the Conservative leadership contest. Michael
Goves assassination of Boris might come to look increasingly
stupid if it turns out that he would have been the only one
capable of beating May (assuming of course that Goves
purpose was to ensure a true Brexiteer is in Number 10). Gove
is way behind May in MPs nominations at the moment and it is
unclear if he will even get onto the ballot of members. There is
speculation that some of Mays supporters may be backing
Andrea Leadsom (currently second) specifically to deprive Gove
of sufficient support, confident that May will beat Leadsom
easily amongst the grassroots. Gove will anyway surely pay a
price for his perfidy, at least within the ranks of Conservative
MPs.
The whole business of Gove and Boris is assuming the
proportions of Shakespearian tragedy and the more one thinks

about it the more mysterious it becomes. I was stunned by

Boriss announcement, the more so coming as it did at the
peroration of a lengthy and involved speech. Quite a punchline.
Hitting hard by not hitting at all. Did Goves candidature really
fatally hole Johnsons bid below the waterline? If many of
Johnsons supporters were apparently flocking to Gove then
why does Gove have so few supporters now amongst MPs? Did
Johnson not have many to start with? Or was it the comments
that Gove made about Boriss lack of leadership qualities that
made Johnson feel he was fatally compromised? Or was it that
he never really wanted the leadership at all, astonishing as it
may seem to say that? There are those who argue that Boris
never thought he was going to win the Brexit campaign and
was only staking a claim to high office, though Cameron had
offered him that anyway to buy him off back in February. Did he
not relish the prospect of taking office to clear up the mess the
Remainers insist will be the fruits of Brexit, as Lord Heseltine
claims?
And what of Michael Gove? Why his last minute Damascene
conversion? It is typical of politicians to disavow any desire for
the premiership or for high office at all, but they do not usually
couple that with complete self abasement insisting they are
totally unfitted for office, as Gove has done. Most pundits took
Goves oft-stated claims at face value, and not out of navet
(they never for example took Michael Heseltines disavowals of
ambition seriously in the late 1980s). Was it a last minute
conversion or had he been planning it all along? It seems too
Machiavellian even for Gove, but how else can we explain it?
He had been working alongside Boris for weeks and even
months in the Brexit campaign and had seen him operate at
very close quarters. He must already have formed an opinion of
Boriss capabilities as a leader, and they can surely only have
been enhanced by the success of the campaign. There must be
a great deal of chicanery that has yet to come out, and we may
even have to wait for their memoirs to appear decades hence

before all is revealed (and probably not even then). This will be
meat for the historians for decades to come.
And as for Cameron! Like so much else in this drama the turn of
events is riven with irony and paradox. He spent much of his
political life posing as a eurosceptic, not very convincingly in
my view, but convincingly enough for much of the
commentariat. I always perceived him as euro-neutral rather
than eurosceptic. He tried to steer his party away from
euroscepticism ever since assuming the leadership but has
been dogged by it. He then took a gamble to try to buy off his
eurosceptic backbenchers and shoot the UKIP fox by promising
the referendum. He may well have calculated that he was not
going to win the 2015 election outright and that, as in the
period 2010-2015, he would be reliant on Liberal Democrat
support which would provide him with the pretext not to hold
the pledged referendum I want to but those blasted Europhile
Lib Dems in the Cabinet wont let me he was going to cry. It
would not be the first time a prime minister sought refuge from
the die-hards in his own party in the embrace of a coalition
partner. But he won and had to make good on his pledge, and
on other things he may not really have wanted to do.
But not to worry. With the whole weight of the establishment on
his side; big business, the banks, most of the Labour Party,
most of the trade unions, former PMs, the panjandrums of the
EU, the World Bank, the IMF, think tanks and research institutes
galore, showbiz celebrities, President Obama, Uncle Tom
Cobleigh and all he was sure to win. And then as the campaign
progressed it was not at all clear that he was going to win. More
and more artillery was wheeled into place to blast the
recalcitrant electorate into compliance; even museum pieces
like Sir John Major and Lord Heseltine were brought out of
storage. And still the easy victory he had anticipated seemed
unclear on the horizon. Then the day of reckoning. Hoist by his
own petard. And then the bitter recriminations. The sheepish
sojourn to Brussels and the humiliation at the hands of the EU
Council of Ministers. His treatment of Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs

was priceless. Not the usual pantomime stuff but words of

bitter scorn and a look of genuine and withering contempt at
the Labour leaders failure to prosecute the campaign more
enthusiastically on his behalf. Thus Cameron seems to be
evolving a strange new doctrine of Parliamentary democracy
whereby it is the function of the Opposition to support the
Government and to dig a prime minister out of a hole of his
own making, even when the Opposition never had any part in
the manufacture of that hole and had specifically advised
against it. Hubris and nemesis. He may now be remembered as
the Prime Minister who took Britain out of the EU and perhaps
precipitated the break-up of the institution itself, the very last
epitaph he would have written for himself given the choice.
The Labour Party
And that brings us to the Labour Party. What a farce! I am sure
there has never been a situation quite like this in Parliamentary
history (how many times have I said that in this essay). The
present position, however, is the almost inevitable culmination
of the decision made to throw open the election of a leader to
the wider membership (a decision made by all the parties at
different times), whatever form that may take. Inevitably the
occasion will eventually arise when the membership elects
someone unacceptable to the PLP. Something rather similar
occurred to the Conservative Party when Iain Duncan-Smith
was elected by the membership but was then eventually
despatched by the Conservative Parliamentary Party, though
Duncan-Smith almost certainly had more support amongst his
MPs than Corbyn currently has amongst his.
Of course that is why the party requires a candidate to secure a
basic minimum proportion of MP nominations, which Jeremy
Corbyn duly achieved, though only because some right-wing or
centrist MPs nominated him to widen the debate. But many of
these did not vote for him and subsequently regretted their
actions in nominating him. Essentially the skids have been
under Corbyn ever since his accession with a large part of the

Blairite right of the party simply refusing to accept his

leadership, and plotting to undermine him at every turn. Quite
a few existing shadow cabinet members refused to serve under
him from the outset, not even bothering to wait for his
invitation. But nonetheless he seemed able to cobble together
a reasonable coalition of MPs to form a shadow cabinet though
the stresses showed over the vote on the bombing of Syria.
However, it was really only a matter of time before there was a
serious move against him, and it might have occurred after the
local elections which were poor for an opposition party (though
not as poor as many liked to paint it) but the right stayed its
hand because of the looming referendum and the need, as they
saw it, to hold the party together to campaign for Remain.
Corbyn is a veteran of the internal party battles of the 70s and
80s and retained the anti-Europeanism of the hard left of those
times, always voting in the eurosceptic lobby. Yet he came out
for Remain when the referendum campaign got under way,
probably under pressure. Whilst he was in a minority, and
sometimes a small minority, within the PLP on several issues he
would have been in a tiny minority if he had come out for
Leave, and with almost the whole party campaigning for
Remain his position would have been utterly impossible. Even
his grassroots base centred on Momentum were
overwhelmingly pro-EU. He compromised, in effect, by
campaigning for Remain in a half-hearted way, pointing out the
negatives as well as the positives of the EU, in a way that most
of the party evidently found infuriating. It was even suggested
that he might actually have voted for Leave in the privacy of
the polling booth! Perhaps he calculated he would get the best
of both worlds this way, but he seems to have ended up with
the worst of both.
After the referendum was lost the party came down on him like
a ton of bricks for failing to invigorate the Labour vote and even
blamed him for the defeat of the whole Remain campaign. Yet
this was absurd. A large majority of Labour voters did vote
Remain, and it is very unlikely that a more whole-hearted effort

on his part would have made any difference. Those Labour

voters who were prepared to follow the party recommendation
did so, and the rest were never going to do so. But the Blairites
seized on this failure as just the opportunity they had been
craving to unseat Corbyn, aware that others on the left of the
party also took a dim view of Corbyns lacklustre campaign.
Mass resignations from the shadow cabinet ensued, which may
or may not have been co-ordinated, on the Sunday following
the referendum, together with a no-confidence motion which
was tabled by the PLP and passed by an extraordinary 172-40.
There were trenchant calls from all and sundry for him to go,
but he has been adamant up to this point that he will not resign
and if MPs want to unseat him they will have to issue a
challenge. He knows that given the level of support he still
enjoys among the grassroots he is likely to win another contest,
though some of his erstwhile support may have ebbed away for
a variety of reasons. A vexed question is whether, as
incumbent, he would automatically be entitled to be on the
ballot, given that it is very unlikely he would garner enough
nominations from MPs, but the consensus of legal opinion is
that he would be so entitled (only the Labour Party could
contrive to have rules so opaque for this very basic issue to be
in doubt).
The PLP has been very reluctant to produce a challenger to
come forward, though it seems both Angela Eagle and Owen
Smith have got the requisite number of nominations, largely
because they know that Corbyn would probably win again, so
there is at present a stand-off with continuing demands for his
resignation, even from David Cameron, while Corbyn seals
himself off and plods along, emboldened by his Praetorian
guard of John McDonnell and Seamas Milne. He still apparently
has the support of most of the big unions, though deputy leader
Tom Watson has quite openly been trying to wrestle them away
from him. It is a preposterous situation, and it is hard not to see
the only possible resolution as a split in the party, either before
or after a leadership contest. If Corbyn were to be victorious he

would still not command the support of the PLP. At present he

cannot even populate the Shadow Cabinet, with several posts
vacant and some people doubling up. New bodies have been
drafted in, but one resigned after only two days in the job a
new Parliamentary record! Paul Flynn has been sent to the
frontline, at 81 the oldest front-bencher since Gladstone! It has
got beyond a joke but there is yet no denouement in prospect.
Scotland
The SNP has long been seeking the excuse it needs to hold a
second independence referendum, ever since losing the first
one, and has long threatened that if the UK were to take
Scotland out of the EU against its will it would duly deliver.
Sure enough in the wake of the EU referendum Nicola Sturgeon
swung into action preparing the ground for it, and has also
been to see EU leaders to try to negotiate directly with them
over a Scottish application to join, even if Scotland were still
part of the UK. Unfortunately for her the EU will not play ball
with this one not least because several of them fear their own
separatist movements (e.g. Spain vis a vis Catalonia) and do
not want to give them any encouragement. Moreover, Sturgeon
will be very cautious about actually calling a referendum unless
she is sure she will win it, which is highly debatable at present
given that Scotland would have to join the Euro as all new
members are required, and the price of oil upon which the
Scottish economy is heavily dependent is low. A second
referendum defeat within a space of two to three years would
kill it off for the foreseeable future.
I am not at all impressed with the Scottish nationalist argument
anyway. They are still part of the UK, and, unlike any other part
of the UK, have actually voted expressly to remain part of it. As
such they have to accept the result of the nation as a whole
and be governed by it. London and some other big cities also
voted Remain but they are not demanding independence or
continued adherence to the EU (except for a humorous call for
London to be a city state). One might just as well ask what right

Scotland would have to keep Britain in if England and Wales

voted strongly out, as they did. Sturgeon pleads that there has
been a material change of circumstances but things change all
the time and if every such change provoked another
referendum there would never be an end to it. Moreover, she is
not constitutionally able to block Brexit as she has suggested,
so matters north of the border are hanging in the air as
elsewhere.
The European Union
What of the institution itself at the heart of the whole
imbroglio?
The EU has been crisis-ridden for several years now over the
euro and the migrant influx, and now Brexit had added to the
brew. Brexit will embolden other members to hold in-out
referenda, euroscepticism now sweeping the continent, and
there seems to be a real fear within the EU that the whole
project might be de-railed and even break-up. Polls show that
euroscepticism is even stronger in France than it is in Britain
and nationalist movements and anti-EU parties, on both left
and right, are on the march in several countries. However, I
doubt that the EU will disintegrate. Paradoxically the exit of
Britain may even produce another bout of integration as a
reflex defence. Though they are all expressing regret at the
departure of Britain there might be some who see it as a
blessing since we have so often been a drag anchor on their
projects, not in the euro and not in the Schengen area, always
reluctant Europeans.
Within the next few months Britain will surely invoke Article 50
of the Lisbon Treaty to trigger the exit negotiations, which can
take up to two years (or even three if extended). Exactly what
will then be negotiated is very unclear, since the Brexiteers
were divided amongst themselves about what future for Britain
they envisaged; the Norway option, the Canada option, the
Albanian option (!?), etc, etc. The main question seems to be
whether we can negotiate some sort of tariff-free access to the

single market perhaps in return for a concession regarding the

free movement of labour, but then it was opposition to free
movement that was the chief driver for people voting out. The
Brexiteers seem to think their ace card is that Europe exports
far more to us than we export to them, and that therefore the
imposition of reciprocal tariffs would not be to their advantage.
The other ace up their sleeve is the putative negotiation of
trade deals with the expanding economies in the third world (as
was) but it remains to be seen what that will yield in the long
term.
What is negotiated will also depend on who is doing the
negotiating, which depends on who the new Prime Minister is
and who is appointed as Minister for Brexit. At the time of
writing (8th July) the contest has been narrowed down to
Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom, thus guaranteeing us our
second female PM, with Michael Gove having been eliminated
probably paying the penalty for knifing Boris Johnson. May is
heavy favourite, being by far the more experienced with a
record six years under her belt as Home Secretary, but
Leadsom has the advantage of being a prominent Brexiteer,
and many party members being predominantly eurosceptic
might yet opt for her. If May wins perhaps Leadsom will be the
negotiator, and if Leadsom wins perhaps Gove. What ultimately
emerges may be a kind of soft Brexit.
Chilcot
Just when you thought it was safe to watch the current affairs
programmes again along comes the long-awaited Chilcot report
on the Iraq war (it is impossible not to affix the adjective longawaited given that it has taken seven years to plop weightily
onto the mat). In its very measured way it has delivered a
stinging indictment of Blair and his cabinet, the decision to go
to war, the quality and use of the intelligence, the process
whereby legality was established, the lack of preparation for
the occupation post-conflict, the failure to properly equip British
forces still using vehicles and equipment designed for other

earlier conflicts such as Northern Ireland, etc., etc. Never I

would imagine has a PM or government been so savaged by an
independent official enquiry. Blair held his own press
conference in the wake of Chilcot, repeating his mantra of selfjustification, that he was convinced it was right to get rid of
Saddam and that he would do the same again, and rejects any
charge of falsifying intelligence (which Chilcot acquits him of
anyway). But Blair now looks a haunted man, a ghost of his
former self. He may have felt the hand of history on his
shoulder but, with a motion to impeach him for misleading
Parliament now being moved by Alex Salmond and supported
by David Davis and probably Jeremy Corbyn, he may soon feel
the heavy hand of the law on his collar. It is unlikely that any of
this will lead anywhere vis a vis Blair, though there may be civil
actions for negligence against the Ministry of Defence by
bereaved families of slain service personnel.
Summary
Everything is so much up in the air that it is difficult to know
what things will look like when matters have settled again.
Having begun this essay by quoting one deceased politician let
me conclude by quoting another, to wit Enoch Powells oftrepeated axiom that all political lives end in failure.... It is a
cruel irony that Blair, for all his achievements in office and his
feat of winning three successive elections for Labour, will now
be remembered chiefly for the Iraq fiasco and Cameron in an
equally cruel irony as the man who caused Britain to crash out
of Europe and perhaps presaged the break-up of the United
Kingdom. In Camerons case the irony is even more poignant
given that he had long posed as a eurosceptic and then
apparently underwent a Damascene conversion to the benefits
of the EU, only to have the electors not unsurprisingly incline to
question his sincerity. The stage is strewn with corpses:
Cameron, Boris, Gove and now Leadsom (as I write) on the
Conservative side and, perhaps, Corbyn on the Labour side, not
to mention Nigel Farage who has yet again resigned as UKIP
leader. It now seems certain given Leadsoms withdrawal that

we will have May as new Tory leader and PM very shortly. What
sort of Brexit will she negotiate and will the Tory Party be united
under her, or will the cracks start to show again once
negotiations with Europe are under way? And Labour looks to
be heading for a split whatever now happens, with Angela
Eagle standing and Corbyn standing firm.
A week is a long time in politics and two and a half weeks (23 rd
June to 11th July) an eternity.

Neville Twitchell
11th July 2016