Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I don't disagree from a political perspective.

But I think path dependency matters and we can't just re-imagine our economy's strengths and it happens. I think, ultimately, the sort of lever we probably need to pull are industrial strategy, nationalisation, British preference in procurement etc - for political purpose. Not because it's necessary for national security or even necessarily good for the British economy as a whole but because it is good for the body politic. Obviously that is in breach of lots of international trade law, including the TCA with the EU which would be challenging.

How do Switzerland, Japan and others manage with such dense made in-nation sectors?

I do think we need to put a lot more focus on the benefits industries bring to communities as well as the overall economic gains they bring.
Like if there's a big factory churning out widgets in Wigan or wherever, this might not do anything for Britain on an international scale, we're never going to compete with China on widgets, but as long as we're not blowing billions on supporting it and it is keeping several thousands employed.... then its absolutely something to be encouraged.

Basically a "Why not do both", the city, education, etc.... and industry.

To be clear I think it's a bad idea - not so much the Iberian rid as Russian subs and a big wire from Morocco to Devon is a lot to protect. I think we're in a world that is less and less tolerant of the very efficient, the thin stretched networks whether that's supply chains or just-in-time or power infrastructure. We need to be thinking far more about resilience (which in my view also means, largely domestically and democratically controlled) and spare capacity..

Oh I was speaking Europe-wide rather than with a cable around to Britain. That does indeed seem quite out there. Though, surprisingly less so than many other projects- crazy you could lay a hundreds of miles cable across the sea but finding a place for a depot on land would be the issue.

We have the Norway cable which should bring a fair bit of green energy now- there should be room for more of those. Then there's the Icelink that gets talked about. But ultimately it does have to happen at home.
The big tidal ideas do sound quite tempting, though lots of iffy stuff about the environment with them. Though the one at the Wash will apparently help with revitalising wetlands....but also has the most fascists to deal with.
I dunno.

Maybe but I think the way grad recruitment/entry level recruitment works that may not be enough for the cohort that have come up in recent years.

My basic view on AI is perhaps a little pessimistic. I think it's either going to be transformative technology that will boost productivity, to the benefit of capital and at the expense of labour. It'll do to white collar jobs what the cotton mills did to the skilled working class of that era - or automation to some jobs in the last few decades. That'll have huge social and economic consequences that will need to be managed politically.

Or it's a massive misallocation of capital that could have been more productively used elsewhere. Markets will eventually realise that and we'll face a crash I think closer to 2008 than the dotcom bubble. Which will have huge social and economic consequences that will need to be managed politically

Yeah, the generation graduating now have suffered. Though I do think the graduate recruitment scheme thing is quite overrated and could really do with cutting down/opening up to people who have been out of uni a few years but did other things before going into their career.

I do long term feel quite pessimistic about AI. Afterall, after the .com bubble things did come back and this time it stuck.  But I don't think LLMs are the tech to eliminate white collar work. That will need something quite different and predicting these future-techs is always a risky game, so when the time will come I do not know.

I'm not so optimistic on any of this

You think Russia will pull through?

[garbon]

I'm not especially bothered about this government; they'll get quite a few thing right, eventually.

What gives you that impression?

Are you falling into the 'everything's gone to shit' trap?

I think there is a big gap between everything is shit and our current government is flailing with d ant evidence they will get "a few thing right".

[Gups]

There are lots of cables (called interconnectors) between the UK and Europe Jos. 3 with France, 2 with Ireland, one for each of Denmark, Norway, Netherlands. Quite a few more approved/under construction for the next few years.

[Josquius]

There are lots of cables (called interconnectors) between the UK and Europe Jos. 3 with France, 2 with Ireland, one for each of Denmark, Norway, Netherlands. Quite a few more approved/under construction for the next few years.

I'm not sure why you're saying this. This is known.

[Jacob]

I think as Ganz has suggested that the better argument is the Gramscian view. Civil society does not organically check government power or support democratic power - it is a site of political fights over power and political conflict. And that it is, arguably, in and through the conflict that you produce democratic politics.

Yeah I think this is right, with the one addendum that for it to produce democratic politics there's a requirement that the participants agree on a set of ground rules for how the conflict is fought.

[Gups]

There are lots of cables (called interconnectors) between the UK and Europe Jos. 3 with France, 2 with Ireland, one for each of Denmark, Norway, Netherlands. Quite a few more approved/under construction for the next few years.

I'm not sure why you're saying this. This is known.

It didn't appear to be known by you as you only referred to the Norway interconnector. That's all.

[Josquius]

Norway are the ones with a glut of renewables.

P

   Given the scale of the damage it has done to the United Kingdom's reputation, the hurdles it has placed on businesses, tourists and consumers, it can seem a little eccentric to note that Brexit has also been an utterly rotten deal for the Conservative party.

It brought the premiership of David Cameron to an abrupt end and took the frontline career of George Osborne, the Tories' most brilliant strategist, down with it. The reconfiguration of British politics and voting it helped to accelerate means that the party has lost, probably for ever, the electoral coalition that helped it to win in 2015 — smaller, yes, in terms of votes gained than those of 2017 or 2019, but one largely comprised of voters with a direct self-interest in economic dynamism and an appetite for tax cuts.

And far from sending Nigel Farage into retirement once and for all, as its advocates once claimed would be the case, Brexit has put him in a position from where he could become Britain's next prime minister — potentially relegating the Conservatives to minor party status in the process.

More damagingly still, Brexit destroyed the party's relationship with the chunk of the electorate that the Conservatives will always need if they are not only to win elections but to govern effectively: successful people in the middle of their careers.

Not everyone whose journey on the Eurostar used to end with a near-frictionless arrival at St Pancras feels an emotional connection to the European project. Nor does every small business owner who no longer trades with the continent experience a pang of regret when they are reminded that the UK is no longer in the single market. But they do all experience a sense of irritation at barriers to their pleasures or their profits having been erected against their will.

One reason the successive Tory administrations from 2016 to 2024 achieved so little beyond damage control is that they traded middle-aged voters who needed little from the state for older voters who require rather more. The struggling Conservative party is now essentially one that only appeals to wealthy retirees. The animating energy, purpose and drive for a viable centre-right has to come from people who wish to become wealthy retirees, not people who already are — in other words, people who, for the most part, think that Brexit was a bad idea.

An essential condition today for entry into the upper echelons of Conservative party politics is being willing to at least pretend that you think taking Britain out of the EU was a good idea. This is a never-ending lobotomy for the Tories. It's not that there aren't any brilliant, economically successful and working-age people who still support Brexit — there are. There just aren't as many of them as there are people who hold what, until relatively recently, we'd have called "Conservative" views on economics and public policy but who think Brexit was a bad idea and aren't willing to pretend otherwise.

If you remove the already large group of people who would make excellent Tory MPs but are doing perfectly well for themselves in jobs they enjoy, and then require the remainder to believe Brexit has turned out to be a good decision, or pretend they do, your talent pool becomes very shallow indeed. The Conservatives' current approach is a bit like saying you can only fully participate in the political life of the party as long as you don't own a television — sure, you will get some good people, but not very many.

We underrate how corrosive it is to the Tories' future that they've become a party where it is an open secret that a large number of MPs first elected in 2019 or later who now claim to be long-standing opponents of EU membership, were in fact horrified by Brexit. No party can have honest and serious conversations about policy trade-offs if acknowledging the truth as you see it becomes not just an optional extra, but an active barrier to advancement for the kind of successful people who used to be the bedrock of the Conservatives in both parliament and in the country.

The party's fortunes would not be immediately transformed were their leader, Kemi Badenoch, to say that she has realised that it is incoherent to kick off one speech by praising the importance of free trade and then, a few days later, celebrate wrenching the UK out of its nearest free trading zone. But what is undeniable is that if the Tory party wants to be once more in the 21st century the party it was in the 20th — a natural home for successful people — it must again become a place in which pro-Europeans are not only welcome but can hold high office. Without that, it will be for ever defined by past glories, and not future triumphs.

https://www.ft.com/content/a65fb9b9-a955-4a5d-80dd-bce014dc1cd2


It increasingly does seem the only path forward for the tories is to really embrace being the liberal party. Certainly competing with Farage for the right wing populist position isn't working for them.

[crazy canuck]

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

I still think you are very much wrong, or coming from a similarly Canadian-centric parliamentarian view.  The "non-confidence vote" only works if the members/backbenchers of the party in power think it is to their advantage/ambition to scuttle the current leader.  You would be hard-pressed to convince me that if we translated Trump/MAGA/GOP into a parliamentary system, that Trump would be under any kind of threat.  Sure, he might be more vulnerable in theory, but only marginally so.

Well, yes - I am coming very much from a Canadian Parliamentary tradition because that is the topic we are discussing.  And yes, obviously I am being hard pressed to convince you.  But I think that is mainly because you are not addressing the specific differences I have been identifying between our two systems of governance.

And even then...what stops a Prime Minister, with a loyal cabinet and administrative control of the police/security services from doing anything different than Trump is doing now?  What happens if a PM says "fuck your vote of no-confidence, I am not leaving power...try and stop me"...or "nope, no new general election is necessary just because we didn't pass a budget...we'll just keep going as we were"?  And has enough support, or I suppose, apathy, in the cabinet or other gears of power to stop it?

Clearly from a US perspective.  Our Prime Minister is not the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, nor does the Prime Minister direct, or have any authority over any police forces in Canada, whether federal (the RCMP) or provincial (and certainly not provincial). You have to have a better understanding of how Canadian Federalism works to know how off the wall this sort of suggestion is.  If you want to play out this sort of absurd scenario, it would be the forces of the provinces making a polite trip to Ottawa to explain the reality to a Trumpist PM that he has no such power. 

There are no really superior, real safeguards in a parliamentary system than in ours...other than the theoretical hope that the administration, security services/military, or other pillars of power (including the willingness of the people/society to engage in mass protest), will do the right thing and stop the wannabe-dictator at the top.

Actually, my argument all along is the opposite. Your system has obvious systemic flaws that make the rise of Trump possible.  Those same flaws do not exist in a Parliamentary system. I know it is hard for Americans, who had been told their whole lives, that they live in the very best country, with the very best system of government. But that claim was always contingent on assumptions that began to be inaccurate before the ink on the US constitution was dry. For example, the assumption that politician would act individually rather than in a party system.

These are the flaws of any democratic/republican system...and ours was always as subject to failure, just as Hungary was, or others.  They can all sink when those involved lose their ethics to ambition, nationalism, or some other anti-democratic drive.  Ultimately, "my system is better" doesn't get one very far if the other more important factors are crumbling around us.

I think that Americans are forced to this sort of generalization. Now that they know their system of government has deep flaws, it's natural to now think that everyone has those flaws.  And really, if you have to look to a country that was under communist rule for the better part of the 20th century, and then tried but failed to create a liberal democratic government in the 21st century, your argument has some holes.

Ultimately, unless the Americans address the flaws in their system of governance, they will continue to make Trumpist governance possible. Putting your head in the sand and repeating that everyone has the same problems is not the answer.

[crazy canuck]

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

Where are the checks and balances to which you refer? Sounds great in theory - it's in practice that it starts crumbling.  Take the US as the most recent tragic example.

Sure but no matter what system you build (and this is in reply to Sheilbh as well), anything beyond sheer physical coercion requires the consent of the ruled and the powerful to accept the rules.

First stop is the ones in power agreeing implicitly not to use their power to diminish other branches of power. If they try those other branches should push back before it is too late. Failing that, the electorate should step in to stop those efforts.

Obviously if all those steps fail then the system fails but this is not something you can remedy except by giving up and just going straight for your preferred form of autocracy.

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

A parlamentiary as opposed to presidential democracy is better no argument there, but just from my limited knowledge I can raise Hungary as a parlamentiary democracy that has failed. It even had a very modern two-rounds election system which was far superior to something like the British first past the post nonsense but once an actor like Orban got a constitutional majority it all went to hell.

Yeah, that addresses the other part of what makes a Parliamentary system work. It's not just the way the rules are drafted (again very much an American perspective) it's all the Parliamentary traditions that go with it.  In Canada we have drifted a bit toward the American legalistic model (as has the UK) and so I am not sure how strongly I can now make this argument as a generalization.  But I think a lot of MPs still view their primary allegiance to the riding that elected them.

And as I think about it, that is another strength of the Parliamentary system.  There is no national election for Prime Minister.  Politics is still intensely local.

I am outside what I know for sure now, but my impression is Orban took control gradually by changing the rules of the game.  In Canada that would be near impossible given our amending formula for constitutional change.  Another safeguard in our Federation (thank you Quebec ) Also, I think it is fair to say Hungarians were doing their best to figure it out as they went, rather than being able to fall back on deeply ingrained traditions.

[Tamas]

Also, I think it is fair to say Hungarians were doing their best to figure it out as they went, rather than being able to fall back on deeply ingrained traditions.

Not entirely. The population? Sure you are right, there was no real history of democracy and more importantly no strong middle class which seems like the backbone of it everywhere, and ultimately this is why it failed. But the constitution was written by scholars well-versed in international examples and history. Again, the system in place was quite advanced, it was not the case of "we have heard of this thing called democracy. Apparently everyone gets a vote. Let's try figure out how to make that work".

Maybe I am misunderstanding you but you seem to imply that if a democracy is designed well enough (like the Canadian one), it is foolproof. Which cannot be true. It may be more resilient than other similar systems, in the way that it requires a larger number of non-cooperative actors to fail, but there still must be a number at which it topples.

[crazy canuck]

Also, I think it is fair to say Hungarians were doing their best to figure it out as they went, rather than being able to fall back on deeply ingrained traditions.

Not entirely. The population? Sure you are right, there was no real history of democracy and more importantly no strong middle class which seems like the backbone of it everywhere, and ultimately this is why it failed. But the constitution was written by scholars well-versed in international examples and history. Again, the system in place was quite advanced, it was not the case of "we have heard of this thing called democracy. Apparently everyone gets a vote. Let's try figure out how to make that work".

Maybe I am misunderstanding you but you seem to imply that if a democracy is designed well enough (like the Canadian one), it is foolproof. Which cannot be true. It may be more resilient than other similar systems, in the way that it requires a larger number of non-cooperative actors to fail, but there still must be a number at which it topples.

I think we are saying the same thing. It isn't about the design (the rules on paper). The Soviet Union had one of the best constitutions in the world, on paper.  The point you made about the lack of a middle class is important.  Parliamentary democracy works, in large part, because the member of parliament owes allegiance first and foremost to their riding.  And the Prime Minister holds that office only because the majority of the members of parliament allow the Prime Minister to hold that office - not to mention the majority within the PM's own party.

I had not thought of it this way before, as I had simply assumed a middle class that votes.  But absent that I can see a Parliamentary system failing.  Thanks for that insight 

[Tamas]

Yeah we are saying the same thing

[Jacob]

Makes sense to me.

I'm definitely coming around to the notion that a functioning democracy is strongly linked to a robust middle class, as mentioned in the Trump thread.

[Sheilbh]

Jacob, no!