The UK and the EU – are we leaving or are we staying or what?

In a previous blog on this controversial topic published on November 10th, Holdenforth suggested that there were just three possible outcomes to the Brexit project, namely:

1. A UK  exit with the agreement of the EU – shall we describe this outcome as “A good deal exit”  or, more accurately, as a Brexit acceptable to Mrs May.

2. A no deal Brexit  – oh dear oh dear – please God, not this outcome.

3. The UK decides, somehow or other, to remain in the EU. Regular readers of Holdenforth  will know that this is the outcome recommended by and fervently hoped for by Holdenforth.

So – two weeks later and with much verbiage under the bridge – what is the likely outcome?

Are we to leave or are we to stay, and, if the former, with a deal or without a deal?

Where have we got to?   A few preamble points in no special order.

The easy bit: as of today there are just over 120 days to go.

Let us hope that the rapidly dwindling amount of time available will serve to concentrate the minds of the major players.

Just to remind ourselves – who exactly are the major players, who are the bit players and who are the onlookers?

Firstly, the major players. Here we have the UK government led, at least for the time being, by Mrs May, and the senior managers in the various EU institutions.

We also have a group currently lurking in the shadows – those in this group may be described as Potential Major Players and consists mainly of politicians who were thought to have had their day but are now thought by those in the know to be watching from the touchline and poised to intervene. The word is that this group includes Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Major, Michael Heseltine and, as of last week, Peter Lilley. Members are  by no means singing from the same hymn sheet, but all are thought to be pondering anxiously about the exact timing of their move onto the field of play. Move too soon and they risk a speedy return to oblivion. Move too late and, as Neville Chamberlain said of Hitler in a different context – they will have missed the bus, and, as with the early members,  they risk a speedy return to oblivion.

All the members of this group  could do worse than study the words of Brutus to Cassius (as set down by Shakespeare) ahead of the Battle of Philippi: 

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune:
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures”

The minor players are too numerous to list in full but they include:

• The official Opposition in Parliament as represented by the Shadow Cabinet.
• DUP MPs
• All other members of the House of Commons.
• The more influential parts of the national media
• Those driving  The Peoples’ Vote policy

Finally the spectators – the likes of you and me. As always we await the outcome, some of us anxious, some of us indifferent, and most of us weary of the interminably protracted cascade of  mendacity.

As I mentioned in my blog of November 10, the possible outcomes are as follows

 1. An agreed agreeable  exit. A good deal exit.

2. The no deal exit. The outcome if there is a failure to agree between the two parties.

3. The third possible outcome – the UK opts to stay in the EU.

I take it that no one seriously contests the Holdenforth assertion that any general election held before March 29, 2019  would be a single issue general election and we will refer to this development, should it occur, as a Brexel. 

*Mrs May showed commendable resilience and endurance when she met the House of Commons to explain the massive tome which purported to provide details about the minutiae of the agreement reached with Brussels.

*Her fellow MPs did not appear to be persuaded of her stance which was, in a nutshell, that hers was the only plausible outcome, fashioned, as it had been, to comply with the outcome of the referendum and of the need to be in the best interests of the British people. She appeared from the remote Headquarters of Holdenforth to have worn down some at least of her adversaries by sheer obduracy.

*It should be noted that a couple of her ministerial colleagues took the opportunity to make their excuses and vacate what they perceived to be a sinking ship – in the best traditions of the reporters on the old News of the World.

*The public has been given to understand that a group of 5 senior ministers are collectively considering their positions – sound timing on their part but hardly a ringing endorsement of their leader.

*Some suggest that Mr Rees-Mogg rather overestimated the strength of his position and is now nursing his wounds in the shadows, wishing that he had had the foresight to turn round to check if he had any followers. Holdenforth can help him on this point – he doesn’t. Indeed one of his constituents wrote to the Times to enquire about the procedure to trigger his deselection.

*A significant number of Tory MPs are rumoured to be making discrete enquiries about what possible ascents up the greasy pole of politics might be available to them should they opt to support this option or that candidate.

*To the outsiders such as you and me – these manoeuvrings resemble the circling of vultures, an accurate but unseemly description.  

(Just a thought:

“Openness and transparency are considered cardinal virtues. Yet Tory MPS have, since 1991, been permitted to demand a confidence vote in the leader in secrecy. This encourages deviousness and skulduggery.”
Lord  Lexden, Letter to The Times, November 19, 2018

Why should the UK voters trust the Tory party to deliver a democratic outcome to the Brexit fiasco given its transparent inability to organise its own affairs?)

 (Another thought:- 

Holdenforth sent the following letter to The Times – it did not make the cut.

To The Editor, The Times

Sir,

One worrying aspect – not the only one – about the frenzied Brexit negotiations between the UK team and the  EU team about a possible deal  is that both sides are working tirelessly against the clock to arrive at a mutually acceptable Brexit agreement, one which would be a lowest common denominator outcome designed to assuage the more raucous and belligerent of the various factions. 

It is a matter of considerable regret that the current EU arrangements arrived at after at several decades of patient discussion may be jettisoned and replaced by measures conjured up on the night shift by the exhausted teams from both sides.

The suggestion of Gordon Brown that the present arrangements be allowed to remain in force pending an enquiry by a Royal Commission has much to commend it. I would suggest that any such Royal Commission be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, our most experienced professional procrastinator. This action would allow the UK and the EU to settle down to a welcome Business as Usual basis in the intervening years.)                       

Back to the matters in hand.

A few observations from the lofty remoteness of Holdenforth HQ.

*Most MPs – from the Tory right across the spectrum to the Labour left – grasp that that Brexit has been, is and will be a national disaster.

*Most MPs defend their reluctance to express this view in public by timidly whispering that they respect the democratic verdict of the UK voters.

*Holdenforth has argued from the start that:

• Brexit is the shameful outcome of the cowardice of Mr Cameron and the mendacity of BoJo.
• There is a sound managerial precept – when you are in a hole, stop digging. 
• If  the UK does leave – with or without a deal – things will go from bad to worse, but rather more quickly in the event of a no deal exit.

* A gloomy feature of recent weeks has been the endless procession of political mediocrities from studio to studio as they seek to make the most of their moments in the spotlight.

* What can we expect of the Labour Party?  On present form – not much.

 “The Labour Party missed a great opportunity. From beginning to end it raised no distinctive voice… The Labour Party has too much reverence.”
This was Nye Bevan writing about the abdication farce in January, 1937.

This criticism would be equally valid in the context of the Brexit farce in 2018.

So – what happens next?

“Brexiteers have left the road without a map”
Lord Finkelstein in The Times, November 21

Lord Finkelstein used his column in Wednesday’s Times to make excoriating comments about:-

• Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Moggies.
• David Davis.
• Jeremy Corbyn.

As always with Lord Finkelstein his comments were infuriatingly reasonable to just about everyone apart possibly from those on the receiving end.

And yet – I detected a slight flaw in his reasoning. He rightly draws our attention to the wide range of possible developments in the coming weeks but at a critical point in his column he notes that “In a situation where there are many different possible outcomes…. “

It seems to Holdenforth that Lord Finkelstein is confusing the many different ways of arriving at a decision with the fact that there are – as noted – only three possible outcomes, and that the distinction between the route and the outcome is of considerable importance.

To repeat:- The only plausible outcomes are:-

1. A no deal Brexit

2. A Brexit secured via an agreement between HMG and the EU

3. Oh joy – a remain outcome. 

In our previous Brexit blog Holdenforth expressed the hope that the issue would be resolved via a General Election in which traditional party allegiances would be put on hold and replaced by two groups – the Remainers and the Leavers.

This outcome would allow the matter to be sent back to Parliament – where it belongs and from where it never have been allowed to leave – for a final decision.

It now appears that this outcome is unlikely and so Holdenforth will press for a second referendum.

So – in these swiftly changing times what does Holdenforth think will happen?

“Where do we go from here? I haven’t a clue.”
Richard Littlejohn, Daily Mail, November 20

If the legendary Littlejoin hasn’t a clue, what chance does Holdenforth have?

It is formidably difficult to predict what will happen, how it will happen, and even why it will happen in the next 5 months, given the sheer complexity of the factors involved.

However, Holdenforth remains confident that the UK will remain in the EU.

Conference Season in the Shadow of Brexit

Let us begin with the Brexit basics.

Most of the current members of the House of Commons would have voted to remain in the EU IF the referendum electorate had been confined to Members of Parliament rather than to the electorate as a whole.

The number of MPs in favour of remaining will have grown in the past two years as they have grasped the appalling consequences of their actions – or, rather, lack of actions.

Most current members of the House of Commons are clear that the guilty politicians mainly responsible for the Brexit fiasco are as follows:

• Cameron (for his stupidity in thinking that he could sub contract out one of his key responsibilities – that of decision making – to the electorate, an act of stupidity that cost him his political career).
• BoJo (the catalogue of his unedifying combination of treachery and vaulting ambition has been covered in nauseating detail – no further elaboration required).  Suffice it to say that even his dwindling band of supporters are nodding to the charge sheet against Boris – typical of these is that dealing with BoJo is like trying to grip an eel in a bucket of snot.
• Mrs May – for abandoning her lukewarm support for the Remain cause to jump ship and lead the Brexiteers solely to further her ambitions.

Nigel Farage was the main consistent advocate of Brexit. Like Caesar, he was constant as the northern star – and should not and will not be listed as one of the guilty.

Notes on the state of the parties with special reference to what might happen in the next few weeks as the conspirators from across the political spectrum gather

 The TUC Conference  

Time was when this Conference aroused as much interest as those of those of the major parties. However, the assault of Mrs Thatcher on their previously strong positions resulted in depleted memberships and gelded leaders.

On the plus side (from a Remain standpoint) some unions are arguing for a second referendum, a promising start to the season.

The Lib Dems

Not too much say about this tiny group. Sir Vince has been flying a few speculative kites but is thought by some to be too old to cope with the hard times that lie ahead.

On the plus side (again from a Remain standpoint) this is the only major party committed to a second referendum. Thanks for that, Vince.

 The Labour Party

“If 6 million Englishmen had had recently been killed in gas vans, I imagine I should feel insecure if I saw a joke a French comic paper about English women’s teeth sticking out… More rubbish is written about this subject (anti-Semitism) than any other I can think of…”
Letter from George Orwell to Julian Symons, 29 October, 1948

As usual Orwell gets quickly to the point. Holdenforth has been bemused by the furore over allegations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party since Mr Corbyn became leader. From my remote outpost, it seems that some in the Labour Party have been inept in their failure to focus attention on the disreputable actions of the government of Israel against the Palestinians. Some in the Labour Party have even managed to annoy those Jews in the UK that disagree with many of the policies and actions of the Israeli Government. 

Back to the matter in hand.

Holdenforth understands that there are two schools of thought in the many media columns about where Labour stands Brexit wise.

One school has it that Mr Corbyn had carried out a cunning Machiavellian review of the various options and is keeping his powder dry waiting for the main chance. The other school has it that Mr Corbyn resembles not just a swimmer out of his depth, but rather a non-swimmer floundering about and above the almost 7 miles deep Mariana trench.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

The Tory party – the current party of Government – or, if you prefer, the current management team.

Let’s keep this bit brief and to the point – as comprehensive a shambles as I have seen in my long lifetime – with leaders and ex leaders and would be leaders like BoJo and Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Gove all getting fearfully confused as they try to combine backstabbing with the full frontal kiss of Judas. A shabby, squalid farce but one not without its grim gallows appeal to those not directly affected.

 A word on one recent contributor to the UK political debate – Tony Blair.

I was briefly elated when I heard that Mr Blair had emerged from the sidelines to add his two pennyworth to the discussion. My elation was swiftly downgraded to gloom when Mr Blair devoted his comments to the denigration of Mr Corbyn, and even equated the prospect of a Corbyn premiership with that of a BoJo premiership. Worst of all he made only the most oblique of references to the subject that IS the politics of the UK until it is resolved one way or the other – Bremain or Brexit.

Holdenforth says – NOT a helpful intervention, TB! 

Let’s get down to business – What are the possible outcomes to the Bremain – Brexit conflict?

1. Brexit goes ahead – Britain leaves the EU at the end of March, 2019

This outcome is so appalling, so absurd that Holdenforth refuses to contemplate it. The UK voters will not be deceived a second time and certainly not now when advised by the Brexiteers to behave like lemmings and throw themselves over the cliff to drown in the briny below.

2. Remainers somehow force and win a second referendum.

This outcome would create even more confusion than that currently prevailing.

On the plus side it would be infinitely preferable to Option 1 and – an essential by product – would trigger a P45 for Mrs May. 

3. The preferred Holdenforth option.

Tory Remainers to force a Tory defeat in Parliament. Then the Remain party in the ensuing general election to win it.

The first act of the winner of the Brexit General Election – Brexel for short – to be a letter to Mr Tusk asking him to forget what has been happening – an outbreak of the high spirits so prevalent amongst ex public school boys in general and amongst Old Etonians in particular.

I have outlined the text of such a letter in a previous blog entry; a letter such as this should bring matters to a speedy, civilised and satisfactory conclusion. 

Please note: this approach spikes the guns of the Brexiteers because the stay or go decision is, by this outcome, returned to where it belongs: Parliament. We voters ought not to keep dogs and do our own barking.

I hope that the previous sentence does not annoy Mr McDonnell in the unlikely event that he ever reads it. He was not happy that one of his colleagues implored him to curb the activities of those in the Labour Party who were making life uncomfortable for those sitting members anxious for a quiet life, describing as dogs those annoying the persecuted MPs. It may be that Mr McDonnell does not share the widespread love of dogs in the UK.

“What happened?  What happened?  – I’m coming to that.”
WH Auden — The Witnesses

Let us put Auden’s question into a future setting.

What will happen? We’re coming to that.

In the EU

The various EU institutions, freed from the infuriating digression imposed by Brexit, can get down to tackling – not addressing – the formidable catalogue of problems in its various in-trays.

These include:

• Immigration.
• Sorting out the problems posed by free movement of peoples.
• The Trump problem – possibly the biggest problem of all.
• The need to put right the well documented problems within the EU institutions, notably the lack of democratic accountability.
• The environment.
• The problems in the Middle East that spill over into Europe.
• The need to reach an agreement with Russia regarding the various border tensions.

Note – on the plus side the Irish problem simply disappears.

In the UK

Freed from the interminable list of problems posed by Brexit, the newly-elected enlightened UK government can tackle the pressing difficulties posed by the Augean stable conditions that are so widespread across the UK: across Higher Education, Academy schools, the gambling sector, the money lenders, business fat cats, the railways, the BBC, the charity sector (I can feel another blog entry coming on).

The bad guys (and girls) are flourishing in each and every one of these sectors mainly because Mrs May has just one item on her agenda (Brexit) and she got this one badly wrong.

This lamentable state of affairs will continue until the new government (not led by Mrs May, who will by then have received her P45) sends in its short and sweet apology for its regrettable behaviour and gets down to the job it was elected to do: to serve the interests of the electorate  by curbing the baddies and dispensing with the services of senior managers recruited from  the Arthur Daley business school.

A poignant note on which to end – What about the Moggies and the BoJo groupies? What will happen to them?

Their collective fate will be that of a balloon with a slow puncture – the stale wind that comprises their sole political asset slowly disappears leaving the EU fresher and the UK a cleaner greener land.

 

 

The Prospects for Bremain

The choice between Bremain and Brexit is, by a wide margin, the most important issue to arise in the politics of the UK since 1945.

For we Remainers the issue is – how can the absurd Brexit fiasco be jettisoned so as to enable the UK to reverse the outcome of the 2016 referendum and return to the comparatively sound and sensible political, economic and social arrangements developed over tens of decades throughout the EU. 

I outlined in a recent missive the fiasco resulting from Mrs May’s Cabinet awayday in July, that ultimately resulted in the resignations of David Davis and – after a brief consideration – Boris Johnson.

Things proceeded to go from bad to worse for Mrs May, not least in the media reporting of events. The Daily Mail railed against “the 12 Tory turncoats” who voted against the Government on the Customs Union issue. We Bremainers see this group as the doughty dozen, those prepared to risk the consequences of voting against their own party in order to keep alive the aim of reversing the leave outcome of the June 2016 referendum.

Elsewhere, it was reported that May had ruled out a second Brexit referendum, while according to the Times, May’s concessions to Tory Brexiteers had angered the Remainer faction. Oh, and Saint Theresa had apparently threatened rebels with a General Election if they didn’t fall into line.

Predictably the Tory party was in disarray as her futile attempts to unite the warring factions simple infuriated all sections, the Brexiteers, the Remainers and the great majority in the middle avid for and denied a quiet life.

How about a cool calm appraisal of the possible outcomes of the Bremain – Brexit struggle?

On July 18, The Times did us all a service by listing the various possible outcomes together with its estimates of the probabilities for each one.

Heading the runners and riders, with an anticipated probability of 40%, is that EU leaders will accept Mrs May’s proposals. Joint second favourites in the field are No Deal (sired by Johnson out of Rees-Mogg) and Canadian-Style Trade Agreement (trainer: D Davis), both on 20%. Bringing up the rear in the betting we have Staying in the Single Market and Customs Union (10%) and No Brexit (10%).

Taking a closer look at these two outsiders, the former is delightfully vague and so may appeal to MPs who just want a quiet life – that is the great majority. With the latter, Holdenforth feels that we are getting somewhere, but the odds are not promising. The Brexiteers would be very peevish if the odds on this scenario were to shorten – but Holdenforth has no doubt that they will.

In terms of political scenarios, the Times also estimated the likelihood of Mrs May calling a second referendum at 50%. To Holdenforth, these odds seem unrealistic given Mrs May’s clear rejection of a second referendum. It asserted that the probability of the Prime Minister calling a General Election (in effect a Back me or sack me assertion) was 20% (to which Holdenforth says: bring it on). Lastly, it estimated that there was a 30% chance of a leadership election: this is reported as being increasingly likely as the great silent apathetic majority of Tory MPs grow weary of the strife and opt to break the deadlock.

This analysis was wonderfully confusing. My initial thought after reading it was – who would be a whip in these conditions?

Indeed, the Times identified no less than 14 groups, together with estimates of their respective strengths as measured in terms of support by MPs.

Within the Conservative party alone, while the PM and her supporters comprise the largest grouping (there are estimated to be around 100 in this conclave), you have a dizzying collection of other cabals with a spectrum of opinions on Brexit. The Hard Brexiteers (the Moggies), of whom there are estimated to be 40 or so; the Paramilitary Brexiteers (Peter Bone and his ilk), accounting for around 5 diehards; the Brexit delivery group (a dozen or so Tories who are fed up to the back teeth with Brexit and just want to get the bloody thing over and done with), the Soft Brexiteers (15 or so of the Remainer tendency but no quite so Remain that they want to reverse Brexit); the Second Referendum Gang (Justine Greening and a few chums), who are (vaguely) aligned with the No Brexit Club for a Second Referendum (40+  MPs who want a referendum on Mrs May’s final deal), the No Brexit lobby (a further 15 MPs who want Brexit consigned to the dustbin) and the Pro Brexit single marketeers (30+  MPs who want it both ways and are said be nervous – not surprising given the ambiguity at the heart of their position.

The steady inexorable descent into chaos

So we have confusion piled upon confusion. This confusion stems in part from the confusion within the Tory party and in part from the vigorous exchange of raucous slogans masquerading as logical arguments

Meanwhile, we observed the grisly spectacle that was The PM’s Grand Tour of selected EU capitals trawling for sympathy and even future allies from west to east and from north to south – and finding neither allies nor sympathy. She was notably unsuccessful in her attempt to persuade carefully targeted EU leaders to support her Chequers plan. She was given the bum’s rush – an unseemly phrase to denote the increasing likelihood of a no-deal outcome.

Holdenforth thoughts on the “what next?” prospects.

There is no chance of a second referendum under Mrs May or indeed under any other Tory leader – it would be more than their job would be worth.

Accordingly, Holdenforth believes that the only way to reverse the descent into chaos is for there to be a “clear the air” immediate General Election.

Question: what would be the features of this General Election, or, to be more succinct, Brexel 2?

Answer: It would be a repeat of the Brexel One held in June 2016, the one won – or lost – according to taste – by Mrs May. The election would be fought over the single issue of the UK membership of the EU. Hodenforth strongly favours this option because it would solve at a stroke the major political problem of our time. To use a medical metaphor – it would lance the Brexit boil. If, as seems increasingly likely, the voters opted on this occasion to remain in the EU, this outcome would silence the yapping of the Moggies about democratic legitimacy and it would also return the in-out decision to where it rightly belongs – to Parliament.

We voters don’t believe in keeping a dog and doing our own barking.

(A digression – just think of the splendid entertainment that awaits the electors as our principled parliamentary representatives scramble to establish secure futures for themselves in the electoral confusion.)

So, what next for the Bremainers? What political actions are required to put Brexit out of its misery?

Holdenforth suggests that a combination of the following will do the trick.

1. Mrs May to be forced out of No 10 by losing a vote of confidence in the Commons. There will be NO leadership challenge. It will have to be the old heave ho.

2. The ensuing general election will trigger a major regrouping of current fragile allegiances as the politicians struggling in the briny are obliged to head for HMS Bremain or for HMS Brexit.

3. The parliamentary Bremainers will come mainly from the Labour Party, but a Labour Party stiffened by the support of some key leaders from yesteryear.

4. The Brexiteers will come from the Tory party and they will be weakened by the support of the Moggies – liabilities all.

As Dr Johnson was recorded by Boswell as saying, “Depend upon it Sir- When a man knows that he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

I suspect that the exposure of current and would be parliamentarian to the harsh pre-Brexel conditions will be provide an effective test of the validity of Dr Johnsons observation and that the instinct for self-preservation will swing the quiet majority to the greater safety of the Bremain camp.

The Brexel 2 will be a re-run of the referendum in all but name. Bremain will be the only show in town.

The outcome will be that there will be majority in favour of the Remain cause as the voters belatedly grasp how they were conned the first time round.

After that?

No need at that point for any delay – just a brief note from HMG to the senior management of the EU to apologise for any little local problems triggered by Brexit fiasco.

Our application to invoke article 50 to be withdrawn and that as from now – it’s back to business as usual between a penitent UK and the EU.

A word from our conspiracy correspondent

Some innocent voters may have thought that our Parliamentarians are now relaxing by the sea and attempting to recharge their batteries as they try to put their mournful memories behind them.

Not so – August and September are the conspiracy months and the principal targets are Mrs May and Mr Corbyn.

The line ups are roughly as follows:-

In favour of toppling Mrs May – most Tory MPs. Sadly these conspirators are hampered by the absence of any plausible alternative.

In favour of toppling Mr Corbyn – most Labour MPs. This group of conspirators is hampered by the fact that there is a long list of contenders anxious to unseat Mr Corbyn. Sadly the snag here is that, just as most Labour MPs would like to hand Mr Corbyn his P45, so most Labour supporters would like to see the back of most of those urging him to stand down.

In recent days an amusing situation has developed within Labour as Tom Watson has striven to position himself as the authentic pure voice of the Labour party – this from one of the most odious members of the current House of Commons, a man who used parliamentary privilege to blacken the names of prominent political opponents without a shred of evidence then or since.

Truly we live in troubled times.

At the start of this blog I posed the question – what happens next?

Trying to make sense out of the Brexir chaos can be compared to trying to extract excrement from a rocking horse.

But rest assured: Holdenforth will stay on the case to the end, an end which we hope will be a decision to remain in the EU.

Image courtesy of Express newspapers

 

As I Please: Trains on Stop, Hutton in Hay and the Rees-Mogg Roubles

How not to run a railway

The Centre of Gravity of the discontented UK rail users has now moved from south to north. The discontent in the south was based on a number of failures on the part of the operators, ranging from an inability to operate signals and points, an inability to ensure that the required number of employees were on duty, an interminably protracted dispute with the Unions as to whether or not guards were essential to passenger security, and a ticket pricing structure that had only one clear feature – steadily rising prices.

For obvious reasons, the senior management of the various railway companies blamed the Unions for everything, thus neatly sidestepping the factors causing the lengthy catalogue of failures across the sector.

The outcome of said failures was a disagreeable combination of late trains, cancelled trains, crowded trains and expensive trains, all conspiring to add to the miseries of commuting.

Other problems have included the decisions by two major franchise holders to abandon ship –  sorry about the mixing of metaphors – thus leaving the hapless Mr Grayling no option other than to bring the two areas back into the public sector.

The most recent fiasco has been the introduction of new timetables which has triggered cocks up on a gargantuan scale. The most irritating feature here has been the gap between the information provided by the new time tables and what was actually happening – or not happening – on the tracks.

The late and great Mr Bradshaw must be turning in his grave at the inability of his successors to manage this simplest of tasks.

Just one other point before we move on. In the best traditions of this privatised monopoly there are no reports of any managers being required to walk the plank – another mixed metaphor – although the handing out of a few P45s to selected senior managers would undoubtedly help the situation.

In a recent (June 5) Daily Mail editorial, Paul Dacre (or one of his compliant team) fulminated about the situation:

“No end in sight to this appalling shambles… Could there be a more incompetent way to run a railroad… The list of excuses is endless. But we’ve heard them all before and they no longer wash…”

So far, so good.

Sadly, the denunciations are not followed by any suggestions about what should be done. Instead, the editorial lapses into a whining oh dear oh dear mode: “Mr Grayling needs to knock heads together and sort out this mess.”

How, exactly?

Holdenforth can and will do better than this. We will not leave matters in this melancholy setting.

You ask – what is our policy? What remedies do we advocate?

In no special order:

1. Put all the plans to bring in HS2 (High Speed 2) on hold for, say 5, years to allow time for the all-pervasive LS1 (Low Speed One) problems throughout the UK rail sector to be solved. It beggars belief that the advocates of HS 2 can still be heard clamouring for the money required to bring in HS2 – at least £56 billion at the last reckoning – to be poured into the flaky, shaky foundations of  shit and quicksand that comprise the UK Rail Network in 2018.
2. Carry out a ruthless cull of the band of senior managerial mediocrities now running the industry (who are, by the way, on far higher salaries, allowing for inflation, than their public sector predecessors) and replace them with competent people. Those replacements to be required to demonstrate their ability to manage signals and points and manning levels and the introduction of new time tables and  ticket pricing arrangements – I could go on but you get my drift.
3. HMG to accept that the UK privatized railway companies have provided an oasis of peace for the managerial refugees that would be unable to secure employment in any organisation that required its bosses to be able to perform.

I have every confidence that a few improvement along these lines – an appropriate metaphor on this occasion – would deliver a service capable of meeting the expectations of the most discerning of passengers.

A view of Brexit from Hay on Wye

The great Brexit debate simply refuses to make way for other news. On Bank Holiday Monday I attended a session at The Hay on Wye festival. The session was billed as a dialogue of sorts between Lord Adonis and Will Hutton. I had been expecting an agreeable, civilised discussion in which the pros – there are no cons – of remaining in the EU would be outlined and explained.

For a couple of reasons, the session did not turn out quite as I had anticipated.

Let’s get the easy bit out of the way. Adonis was excellent: always lucid, always plausible and mostly persuasive.

I was, however, surprised and slightly disappointed by the contribution of Will Hutton. This consisted of an interminable catalogue of raucous slogans bellowed out incoherently after the style of John Prescott.

This might have been acceptable to the converted – and a show of hands showed that over 95% of those present were committed Remainers – but it was decidedly not a speech to persuade the undecided.

I suspect that David Davis, seated prominently in the front row of the audience, was not particularly bothered by the ranting.

I have to confess that prior to attending the Adonis-Hutton show I had no clear impressions about what exactly Hutton stood for and what he had done.  I vaguely recalled that he had been a journalist and that he was and is the Principal of Hertford College, Oxford.

Later I looked him up online and was surprised to read that he and his wife had built up a large property portfolio in London and the Home counties, and that he had blotted his copybook in some way in his capacity as the Director of the Work Foundation.

This belated shedding of light on Hutton put a slightly different slant on his high decibel denunciations of the super-rich.

Some of the bombast bawled in Hay by Will Hutton put me in mind of the comment of King Lear – “I will do such things – what they are I know not!”

To be fair to Hutton, he told us that he had personally visited some of the areas that had voted for Brexit and that he understood the concerns of the locals. His tone here put me in mind of the comment of Edward the Eighth when visiting the distressed areas of South Wales in the 1930s – “something must be done.”

Quite so – but what exactly?

In between the Hutton slogans, Lord Adonis spoke of his enthusiasm about the case to reduce the voting age to 16 and about the case for the House of Commons to be relocated in the North of England. All good stuff but, as Mrs May has told us, Brexit will be a fact of life by the end of March, 2019.

The Hutton manifesto is all well and good and there will be those who accept that, if implemented, all will be for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

For its part, Holdenforth urges all Remainers, including Lord Adonis and Will Hutton, to park the froth in the long grass and concentrate on the one political task of campaigning to kick Brexit into the long grass.

An effective and simple campaign  to turn the Brexit engine round and get it running (on time, in the opposite direction) might just do the trick.

More Brexit News  —  the latest from the Soros camp

In a previous blog I warmly welcomed the emerging campaign led by George Soros to mobilise UK opinion to reverse Brexit.

Hear, hear, I wrote, well done George.

An article in The Times on May 30 quoted Soros as saying that the campaign for a second referendum would begin in the next few days, and that while “Ultimately it’s up to the British people to decide what they want to do… it would be better however if they came to a decision sooner rather than later.”

Later in the same piece reference was made to the age of George Soros – 87. Later still we were informed that “the Tory MP Jacob Rees -Mogg – aged 49 – said that he would be happy for there to be another EU referendum- just not for three decades.”

It may be that the disparity between the ages of the two men account for the preferred haste of Mr Soros and the preferred languid procrastination of the other.

As far as Holdenforth is concerned – on the need for speed we applaud the declared alacrity of Mr Soros.

There is, however, one aspect of the Soros campaign that troubles Holdenforth.

A Times article the following day, headlined ‘Soros campaign chief evokes Nazis in call for new EU vote’ noted that Lord Malloch Brown, the Soros campaign chief referred to, “said that Europe’s problems had a horrible habit of infecting us anyway.”

Holdenforth begs Soros and his team to keep things simple – we face enough problems without bringing the most turbulent and odious regime in my long lifetime into it.

And now for something completely different –  The murder and rapid resurrection  of  Mr  Arkady Babchenko 

I awoke on the morning of May 31 to be told that a 41 year old Russian journalist had been shot in the back and killed in Kiev.

Boris-“quick Draw” Johnson was predictably one of the first out of the blocks – he said that “Britain was appalled by the killing.”

Well – up to a point…

The appalled British had barely digested the news of the murder when who should turn up beaming at the cameras and bursting with good health but the very same Arkady Babchenko.

The official explanation by the Ukrainian authorities was that the murder had been staged to forestall a murder attempt by who else – the Russians. The official report explained that the idea behind the spoof execution came from the confrontation between Sherlock Holmes and the Napoleon of Crime, Professor Moriarty, at Reichenbach – both men died at the scene, Moriarty on a permanent basis, Holmes for only as long as it took to dawn on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that the Holmes mine was by no means exhausted.

There followed a brisk debate in the media. On the one side there were those who thought that the Ukrainian version was sound and that the life of a brave man committed to the goodie cause had been saved by this shrewd spoof execution.

The other side took the view that the plot, absurd from the start, had misfired and that those responsible had taken careful aim and shot themselves in their collective feet.

Holdenforth inclines to the latter explanation although we were and remain happy to note that Boris Johnson retains his well-earned reputation as the fastest cock up politician in the west.

More notes on Jacob Rees-Mogg.

There is simply no keeping JRM out of the news these days.

The main news topic is his leadership of some Brexit campaign group or other. He leads with commendable elegance and displays impressive if antiquated scholarship: his themes are the past greatness of  Britain and the need for a return to the good old days when Britain led and the rest of the world followed and the right sort of chaps guided the fortunes of the nation and the world.

Holdenforth was pleased to note that JRM has just acquired a substantial residence in the Westminster area, a residence roughly equivalent to No 10 Downing street in its proximity to Parliament and in its imposing grandeur.

However, Holdenforth was slightly perplexed by the following item on May 27.

Under the headline, ‘Mogg’s Moscow Millions’ the Mail on Sunday subheader teased us with  “Revealed : How the Brexiteer’s firm has poured a fortune into a string of Russian companies with links to the Kremlin, including two blacklisted by the US , but has invested next to nothing in – yes, you guessed it- Brexit Britain.” 

The article, written by Neil Craven in London and Will Stewart in Moscow, reports, more in sorrow than anger, that “[Rees-Mogg’s] investment firm has a stake in a string of Russian companies with links to the Kremlin… that the hard-line Brexiteer owns almost a fifth of Somerset Capital Management… that on behalf of its clients SCM has bought shares in two Russian firms blacklisted by the US”.

There is lots more, but you get the picture. JRM, wearing his SCM hat is not averse to putting profits before principles.

I should imagine that the wealthy clients who have placed their hard-earned readies into the care of JRM and of SCM are concerned primarily with the returns on their investments and are quite relaxed about the methods employed to secure the best possible outcomes.

Whatever next for JRM as he grapples with the problem of balancing his political goals with his professional financial goals?

Will he continue in aristocratic mode, the aloof elitist? Or might he downsize to Jake Mogg, the populist and follow the example of Lord Stansgate – the toff who downsized to Anthony Wedgwood Benn and then to Tony Benn, the people’s friend.

Holdenforth will be keeping a watchful eye on the JRM phenomenon.

The Brexit Gospel According to St Matthew Parris

“Tories are lying to the voters and themselves”
Headline above the Matthew Parris epistle to the readers of The Times, February 3, 2018

This Parris epistle is the text for the following Holdenforth blog.

The gist of the Parris column

Matthew Parris was in fiery, combative mood from start to finish. He began by wading into the mild polyphiloprogenitive Jacob Rees-Mogg, and proceeded to excoriate the Tory Brexiteers:

“With a complicit Prime Minister and a supine cabinet trailing in its wake Europhobia – this mutant gene in the conservative body politic now spreading its cancer through the whole government – is moving from idiocy to dishonesty…. Isn’t it now clear that the government doesn’t believe in what its doing, can’t even decide how to do it, hasn’t the guts to say so, and is trying to creep forward under cover of fog, wretchedly hoping something will turn up?”

Parris rounds off his tirade by comparing the morality of Mrs May as regards Brexit with that of Mr Eden over Suez and to that of Mr Blair over Iraq – in each case to the disadvantage of Mrs May – on the reasonable grounds that Eden and Blair believed in their respective policies.

His final two sentences sum up his position – “ A special kind of guilt attaches to the sane majority of the Conservative Party. It is written across their faces.”

In his epistle the normally urbane, rational Parris displayed the notorious bad temper of Dickens’ Dr Slammer  – “he would have added more but his indignation choked him.”

What then has happened to trigger his outburst against Jake Mogg, the Bertie Wooster of our time? Mr Mogg is portrayed as a cad  and/or a bounder – I am not sure where the one ends and the other begins. Such insults, such invective! The voters have grown accustomed to hear GOBO, the notorious pair of Gove and Johnson being so described – and deservedly so -in these terms, but not Mr Mogg.

Mr Michael Winner, had he still been with us, would have suggested that the blessed Matthew calm down. What has Holdenforth to say?

Notes on the Brexit war front as perceived from the fringe of the edge of the margin

In no special order:-

• The outbursts of Anna Soubry : A modern Tory – albeit a left wing Tory – version of La Passionara (the fiery anti fascist fighter in the Spanish civil war) had evidently had more than enough of the GOBO and Jacob Rees-Mogg when she urged the Tory Party to sling out the hard line Brexiteers. More turmoil in the ranks.
• The Chief EU negotiator, Michel (Aggro) Barnier is getting warmed up. As the Daily Mail noted on February 12, he “warned that the EU  could reject Theresa May‘s request for a transition period if substantial disagreements over its terms remain” and “has been accused of trying to take advantage of the UK by imposing a so called punishment clause that would allow the EU to sanction Britain at will until 2020”. Those on the EU side of the negotiating table are evidently running out of patience – and who could blame them? I suspect that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better – if indeed they ever do get better.
• Mr Soros  and his generous gesture in supplying that most useful of lubricants – cash – to the remain cause. The support of George Soros for the remain cause triggered an irate response from Paul Dacre ( I take it that the Mail editorial in question was him:  “obscenely wealthy ….. Made a fortune destabilising sterling ….. Using his hedge fund wealth – undermining elected government … unelected elite incarnate trying to impose their views on the majority of British voters”. You can‘t accuse the Mail of opacity – that is, telling it like it is.
• The verdict of the House of Lords. A clear victory here for the remain cause. Their Lordships and Ladyships turned out in force to attack the Brexiteers and support the remain cause. The atmosphere was civilised but the broad collective thrust was clear – they want to stay in the EU. There were a few discordant voices but that’s Lord Tebbit for you.
• Cabinet Unity on its approach to Brexit. Mrs May was adamant that the cabinet was united but it did not seem so from my remote observation point. At times it seemed as if Cabinet Meetings might as well have been  recorded given the rapidity with which the various disputants sought out and secured platforms to express views that were not easy to reconcile with the party line put out by various apologetic and confused spokespersons.
• Professor Anthony Grayling. Who he I hear you ask? Well, he is an academic philosopher and also a hirsute, crazed latter day John the Baptist bellowing in the wilderness to any one that will listen that Brexit is a gigantic fraud and that the UK should simply stay put in the EU.

Current Concerns of a Committed Remainer

It must be admitted that Holdenforth has been and remains uneasy about some of the support that has made its way into the ranks of the Remainers.

Holdenforth readers – I am confident that the number is more than one – will recall that in recent blogs I have argued passionately in favour of the Remain cause, but for those of you new to the blog, the gist of the Holdenforth case to remain in the EU can be summed up in a few bullet points:

• In recent decades the EU as an organisation had been doing a reasonable job.
• There had been steady progress in improving the effectiveness of the various branches of the EU, but there was and is much to be done to curb corruption and to improve the accountability.
• The political movement in the UK to withdraw from the EU had been led by politicians whose dislike of the EU and all that it represented was of long standing and commendably consistent – let us cite William Cash and Nigel Farage as examples from this group.
• All the main political parties with the exception of UKIP  were broadly supportive of staying within the UK. Brexit was and remains the raison d’etre of UKIP – as ex and current members will ruefully confirm.  

Prior to general election held in June, 2015 Mr Cameron, apprehensive about the possible future threat that might be posed by the would be leavers foolishly and unnecessarily committed the Tories to holding an in/out referendum should the Tories win the  election. Prior to making this foolish and unnecessary commitment Cameron would  have carefully assessed the views of those big hitters across the political spectrum , who would campaign for and who would campaign against. Bill Cash and the unelected Paul Dacre would campaign for Brexit and Ken Clarke would campaign against.

What Cameron did not expect was that Boris Johnson would not only campaign for Brexit, but that he would be the most effective of the Brexit campaigners. He would have based the former opinion on the fact that Johnson had never been known for his Brexit views, but he should also have remembered that the views and actions of Johnson were guided by just one fiercely held principle, namely that he, Johnson, would always act in the best interests of Johnson. 

In short – two fatal errors of judgement by Cameron.

• To commit to a referendum – no need – there was no need to do so.
• To rely on the most dishonest politician of our time to support the remain cause.

Following Cameron’s resignation in the wake of the Brexiteers’ victory in June 2016, there followed a confused interval in which Mr. Gove put the knife into Johnson, triggering the departure of Johnson from the battlefield.

A short time later Gove was given the bum’s rush by the Tories eligible to vote – oh joy – and finally Mrs May made her way through the confusing melee into No 10.

 A year later, and after much further confusion and an abysmal political performance by Mrs May, the outcome of the snap election was the loss of the Tory majority and the emergence of the DUP to prop up the shambles that now constitutes the Tory Party

At this point -and to borrow a phrase from Churchill – “ You ask – what is the policy of Holdenforth as regards Brexit?”

1. The policy of Holdenforth remains clear – to stay in the European Union.

2. How exactly does  Holdenforth think that this admirable aim might be achieved? 

This is where it all gets a bit tricky – just ask Mrs May.

Let us see if we can suggest how the situation might develop?

We will return to our text as supplied by the Blessed Matthew Parris on February 3 for inspiration.

• “They (the Government) know (most of them) that the referendum placed voters in an impossible position”  – but who placed them in that impossible position?
• “They know that narrowly the voters made a mistake” – you betcha
• “They know that our party is now acting against the interests of our country” – agreed  
• “ And nobody has the spine to say so” – not quite true – one or two heads have appeared above the parapet

One more quote from the Blessed Parris, this time above his column published a few days earlier, on January 27, 2018:

“ One well – aimed speech could topple Mrs  May”

A most promising suggestion – the Remainers from across the political spectrum should get in some vocal target practice to trigger the toppling of  Mrs May.

Where do we go from here?

“Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
Dr Johnson to Mr Boswell, 19 September, 1777.

Holdenforth sees only 3 possibilities.

1. Mrs May and her government stagger from crisis for the next 4 or so years. Not impossible but not very likely.

2. Mrs May loses a vote of confidence and this would trigger a general election. For this to happen just 10 Tories would be required to vote against. Quite a strong possibility. A slight variation on this option is that the DUP withdraws from the current support “arrangement” , something which could happen at any time given the volatility and unpredictability of politics in Northern Ireland. 

3. Around 50 or so Tory MPS would have to write to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee to request a leadership election. This is the second plausible possibility, especially given the shaky record of Mrs May in her brief but turbulent stay in Number 10.

A word on the mechanics of this last option.

To trigger a leadership election disaffected Tory MPS are required to write to Mr Graham Brady, the discrete Chairman of the 1922 Committee. It has been reported that Mr Brady never gives the slightest indication to anyone of the number of requests – if any – that lie in his potential explosive in-tray.

Doubtless actual and potential conspirators have some idea of who might join their movement but – a muttered word in the corridor is one thing – a signed letter delivered to Graham Brady is something altogether more positive and more traceable.

Which of our two plausible two options would have the greatest appeal to disaffected Tory MPS.

Quite simply the leadership challenge, even if successful, would solve nothing because the successful challenger would face the same formidable catalogue of problems.

This leaves the only realistic option of  lancing the boil as being for a sufficient number of brave MPs either to vote against or abstain on a vote of confidence to trigger a general election.

So:

• There are currently 314 Tory MPs in the Commons.
• 10 or so Tory votes to support the opposition would be enough to dislodge Mrs May.

To put the arithmetic slightly differently – just over 3% of the entire Tory membership in the Commons would be enough to do the trick.

Might we have enough Tory MPs with the required amount of intestinal fortitude and/or a private income and / or a job offer in their pocket?

Holdenforth asserts with confidence – Yes!

We urge the required 3% to follow the example of Henry V before Harfleur as he urged his followers to “imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise nature with hard favoured rage, and so on and so forth” by putting their heads above the parapet during and at the end of the confidence debate.

There would then be a repeat of the 2017 General Election – sorry about that, Brenda from Bristol – a single issue General Election which would be a second referendum in all but name.

Our legislators would then be required collectively to decide how to proceed and the voters would be entertained by the spectacle of the elastic consciences of the thousand or so candidates competing to be elected to the House of Commons being stretched to breaking point.

Mr Corbyn and the Labour Party

“In those days – the 1960’s or thereabouts – The Young Trotskyites in  Liverpool hated capitalism, they hated imperialism, but most of all they hated each other.”
Alexei Sayle

Will Mr Corbyn wake up, grasp what is happening, and ask the adherents of the late Leon Trotsky to butt out and allow him to develop a Brexit strategy that will attract rather than alienate the voters?

Holdenforth fears the worst if Mr Corbyn were merely to follow the advice of Mr Micawber and wait for something to turn up.

This passive policy lacks both vision and energy- it just won’t do. 

 “Either poverty must use democracy to destroy the power of property, or property in fear of poverty will destroy democracy”
Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debate, August 1647, quoted by Aneurin Bevan in “Why not trust the Tories”

Mr Corbyn has argued that “The Labour party should serve the many, not the few.” I hope that when the time comes – and it will come quite soon – he and his colleagues will realise that the case to serve the interests of the many against the interests of the few is much more powerful in the wider context of the EU than in the parochial context of the UK.

Go for it – JC!

For now – Holdenforth suggests an approach along the following lines.

The key policy elements of the remain camp to be:

• Persuade enough dissident Tory MPs to trigger the toppling of Mrs May.
• A intent to reverse the events of recent years and a wholehearted wish to get back to business as usual within the European Community.
• The subsequent general election / second referendum to be fought in a spirit that would combine a readiness to acknowledge  that the two main parties have made some appalling errors of judgement in the past few years – a point made powerfully by Matthew Parris – and a readiness to debate the issues rather than to swap slogans.

One last point.  Sadly the irate response from  Brenda from Bristol back in the spring of 2017 struck a chord across the country.  I sadly suspect that the perception of many voters about ALL politicians – from committed remainers through the apathetic middle to the committed leavers  – is that since politicians don’t worry about the voters why should the people worry about political matters – even when the key political issue is the future of the UK.

Many voters resemble apathetic observers of a mega spectacular acrimonious divorce.

 Image Courtesy of The Times