Sea Change

There is a madness to politics right now in North America, the UK and some parts of Western Europe. Trump ratchets up the racist rhetoric and hatred in the US. And it increasingly seems as if the lunatics haven’t just taken over one asylum, but are on the brink of securing tenure in multiple institutions and setting up a chain. Indeed, that’s the stated intention of far-right activists. Steve Bannon, for instance, has spent a great deal of time on his European operation and clearly hoped for a more decisive impact across the EU in the Parliamentary elections in May. Although things may not be moving at the speed some right-wingers hope for, the elevation of Boris Johnson next week – barring an extremely unexpected twist in the Tory leadership contest – sets the UK careering towards a no-deal Brexit and a lurch to the right. A new Westminster election may be on the cards and it will be the most unpredictable in modern history. Anything could potentially happen if half the ...

A recent retweet of mine managed to clock up 45,000 impressions and a fair bit of online commentary. I'd spotted and circulated a post from Laura Smith, the Member of Parliament for Crewe & Nantwich, who was telling us about a 'people-powered mass meeting' just held in her constituency. Embedded in Smith's tweet was an image of the gathering. Last night's people-powered mass meeting proved that we all share a common vision for our local community and for a fairer society. Lots of campaign ideas to rebuild Crewe & Nantwich #ByTheMany @IanLaveryMP pic.twitter.com/yaJ4ipwdm7 — Laura Smith MP (@LauraSmithMP) June 26, 2019 The picture showed maybe 60 or 70 people standing with their arms aloft and fists clenched, as if gripped by a revolutionary fervour. The filter on the shot gives it a slightly retro feel and one might easily be looking at a contingent of Republicans determined to defend Barcelona from the fascist onslaught in January 1939. But ...

There are two battles being fought in the Tory Party right now. The first is the obvious one, which is over the Conservatives’ stance on the UK’s exit from the EU. With Farage riding high in the polls, the dynamic is clearly towards the election of a hard Brexiter, who is prepared to countenance a no-deal departure. That’s why it’s hard to see anything other than a Boris premiership, despite the Old Etonian’s obvious unsuitability for the role. Other candidates – Dominic Raab and Esther McVey, for example – have vowed to be just as tough with Brussels. We then see a spectrum of opinion and rhetoric, which stretches all the way to the fairly sensible, if skeletal, figure of Rory Stewart, who is presumed to have little chance among the Tory faithful. The other battle, in many ways, is the more interesting one. It’s over the long-term future of British conservatism beyond Brexit. This debate is understandably somewhat lost amid the current sense of intrigue and crisis, b...

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Remain campaign has economic sense, political reality and moral righteousness on its side. Sadly, this won’t stop it from losing its protracted battle to prevent the UK leaving the EU. In fact, I would go as far as to say that its tactical ineptness and catastrophic misreading of politics mean that it probably deserves to lose. Take the most recent hullabaloo over Boris Johnson and the perplexing decision by a district judge that he must appear in court over the claims he made during the referendum campaign. Even setting aside the legal rights and wrongs – it’s hard to imagine any precedent for ‘misconduct’ actually being extended to include campaign sloganising – the celebrations among Remainers are completely premature and misplaced. If I were a hard Brexiter, I would love the court case. It would confirm all my narrative about the political and legal system doing everything in its power to obstruct the ‘will of the people’. It is ...

We all grew up with the adage that we must careful what we wish for. Before we know it, we’ll find it’s actually happening. And here we are with the European Elections on 23 rd May. Secretly – and latterly not-so-secretly – Remainers longed for the idea of deferring the Brexit withdrawal date. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, they imagined, if May were unable to force us to quit the EU at the end of March and we would continue as full members of the club? Just think of the egg on the Prime Minister’s face as she was forced to concede that elections to the European Parliament would have to go ahead after all. Well, May will have egg on her face after 23 rd May. But so will everyone else, apart from Nigel Farage. Numerically, the anti-Brexit voters in the population are pretty strong, but who are they supposed to back? The revived ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ Liberal Democrats, perhaps? The newly-formed Change UK? Maybe they think the Greens are a good option? Or does nationalist l...

There’s an impressive encampment of climate change protestors in the Marble Arch area of London. They’ve blocked the entrances to Oxford Street, Edgware Road and Park Lane, so are causing a fair amount of disruption to London traffic, as they intended. It would be churlish to point out that pollution levels are rising in surrounding streets. That’s temporary, where as the climate disaster is likely to be very permanent. As I walked among the dozens of tents this morning, where people had spent the night, I was reminded of my teenage years in the 1980s demonstrating against nuclear weapons. In the height of the Cold War, when Reagan and Thatcher faced off against the Soviet Union, they appeared to represent the ultimate existential threat. I remember camping out on Clapham Common in 1985 and using it as a base for demos and protests in a week of action. The Leader of Lambeth Council, ‘Red’ Ted Knight, paid us a visit. At the time, if you’d asked me why I spent more time ...

There really was no need for the government to reduce the threshold at which high blood pressure gets treated . Corbyn’s supporters are registering 160/100 right now, as their project starts its inexorable – and inevitable – downward spiral. Long gone are the days when the hard left used to dine out on Jez’s improbable 40% showing in the 2017 general election. The latest YouGov poll has the Tories on 40, while the remodelled Momentum-run Labour Party languishes on 31. Even the faithful are beginning to realise the game is up. If there ever were an opportunity for the veteran socialist to slip into Downing Street, the window has now closed. And as the decline continues, you can expect recrimination, denunciation and howling exasperation. How did the Corbynites find themselves in this position? Of course, there’s no one answer. Like many movements, they are divided between purists and pragmatists. Although Corbyn and McDonnell share much the same ideology, the former...