14 June 2018
Diary of a Corbynista
Nobody Panic
by Don Urquhart
7 June
One of Theresa May’s factoids in PMQ’s was the assertion that there were now fewer than ever impoverished children in working families. I prefer to get my facts from a reliable source.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation today published a report calling for a redesign of the social security system.
They found that more than one and a half million people (1,550,000) were in destitution at some point in 2017, including 365,000 children.
People in this situation will find the Prime Minister’s talking up of the achievements of her “balanced” economic strategy somewhat hollow.
https://www.jrf.org.uk/press/over-one-and-a-half-million-people-were-destitute-uk-2017
8 June
It’s not often that I agree with the Foreign Secretary. At a meeting with Conservative Way Forward he said:
Unless you have the guts to go for the independent policy, you’re never going to get the economic benefits of Brexit. You’ll never get the political benefits of Brexit.
You are either in the EU or you’re not. All of the discussion of customs partnerships, alignment of regulations and the like will just make for confusion.
Just as the 2016 referendum was the result of Cameron’s need to outflank UKIP, so are the tortuous negotiations borne of May’s need to hold her party together.
The Foreign Secretary also quite clearly articulated the fears of many, adopting a Corporal Jones stance:
You’ve got to face the fact there may now be a meltdown. OK? I don’t want anybody to panic during the meltdown. No panic. Pro bono publico, no bloody panic.
Not exactly reassuring!
9 June
On Tuesday the EU Withdrawal Bill comes back to the Commons. There are many proposed amendments, chief of which in my view is the confirmation that the final deal must be endorsed by a meaningful parliamentary vote. In December the Commons voted for this and now the government wants to reverse the decision. Here’s how Bob Neill, Tory MP for Bromley and Chislehurst explained in December why he wants a meaningful vote:
In February and last night, I have voted for Parliament to have a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal. That does not stop Brexit, it certainly doesn’t halt or hinder it, and it does not undermine the Prime Minister’s negotiating hand. It simply enshrines in law what the Government has promised MPs already – a meaningful vote on the terms of our departure, just like the European Parliament will have. That will allow us to fully and properly scrutinise this process, as good Parliamentarians should do.
I hope that Bob and his colleagues stick to their guns.
10 June
When Government spokespeople come under pressure on Brexit one of their ploys is to criticise the opposition’s approach as fragmented and illogical. It is true that Labour’s policy would not make any sense were they in power but it is also a fact that they are not and that it is the Tory government’s responsibility to conduct Brexit negotiations. When the Tories retreat into rubbishing Labour it is because they cannot win the argument by simply presenting what they are trying to achieve. And that is because they do not know what they are trying to achieve. The Prime Minister has called another away day in July for her war cabinet in the hope that they will agree something.
The landscape might change this week if she can achieve the reversal of Dominic Grieve’s “meaningful vote” amendment. For then she has carte blanche to negotiate without regard to the views of MP’s. For the EU they will have more confidence that she can deliver what she promises and there has to be a fighting chance of agreement being reached including those areas where the agreement is simply to kick the issue down the road, the Irish border being the most obvious.
Labour’s strategy has to be to look for a chance to bring the government down. The “meaningful vote” in the autumn has been looking the most promising but if that goes away, Jeremy must rely on Tory MP’s being ready to put principles before party and the Blairites putting party before personal ambition. Neither of these is likely to happen so I think we will be stuck with one of the half-baked solutions being mulled over by the war cabinet.
11 June
I am reading Andrew O’Hagan’s Grenfell article in the London Review of Books. One month before the fire last year this Diary averred:
Labour will address rogue landlords…. Gavin Barwell (the Housing Minister at the time) warns that this will cause rents to go up. So there you have it – if you want people to have decent, safe housing they will have to pay too much for it.
The villain of the piece in my view is a government that accepts responsibility for nothing. Look at Chris Grayling’s pathetic attempts to blame all and sundry for the rail farrago. Like Jeremy Hunt on Health he characterises the failings of his government as acts of God. Anyone hoping for better from Sajid Javid in the Home Office should read O’Hagan’s reporting of the new Home Secretary’s intervention in Grenfell where PR clearly trumped effective disaster management.
12 June
Workers walk five miles each day, only to turn up at the factory gates to be told there is no work for them.
Workers forced to sleep in the canteen of the factory because they have to travel 15 to 20 miles to get there.
This is not The Road to Wigan Pier or an exposé of third world conditions; it is the life of agency workers on zero hours contracts in today’s Britain as outlined by delegates at the conference of the Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union (BFAWU).
As far as I can see The Morning Star is the only national newspaper interested.
13 June
I count myself as a relatively nerdy follower of all things political and will often relax in front of BBC Parliament. So yesterday I was surprised to spot a new face (to me) on the government front bench and quite surprisingly operating as the key defender of the government against the Lords amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill. His name is Robert Buckland and he is Solicitor General. He was arguing with the formidable Dominic Grieve and had the gall to say that he would have to go away and think about Grieve’s latest compromise proposal on the “meaningful vote” amendment. This didn’t work but at any event the Lords amendment was voted down. We don’t have smoke-filled rooms these days but in some location or other the Prime Minister made unspecified concessions to an unknown number of Tory MP’s and successfully deterred them from voting against the government. Already Buckland, Davis and others are explaining that the concessions were not substantial while Dominic Grieve and his pals are muttering darkly about the consequences of Mrs May not living up to her promises.
She retains her tenuous grip on power but this has required, as with any matter of substance related to Brexit, deferral of any agreement.
