Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Read the Guardian article on the police inspectorate's annual report on the state of policing - was a struck by this line:

We found that many forces were struggling to perform adequately in our question areas on responding to the public, investigating crime and protecting vulnerable people.

[Syt]

 

[crazy canuck]

At least he didn't include sitting on the bench

[Josquius]

John Elledge is a journalist who is usually right (ie I agree with him).
Here again.
https://jonn.substack.com/p/a-nation-is-a-shared-illusion-so

A nation is a shared illusion – so a government has the power to change it

Sep 10, 2025

A slightly surprising fact: nationalism doesn't really become a huge force in European life until the invention of the railways. Older nations existed, of course – I'm sitting in one, right now. But they were far from the only way of structuring politics or society, and people did not automatically recognise those removed from them by hundreds of miles and weeks of travel as kin simply because they spoke related dialects and were periodically trampled by the same rulers. How can you have a political movement based on shared group identity when there is, functionally, no group?

The railways changed all that. Journeys that would previously have taken over a week could now be done in a matter of hours: that made it easier for governments to project power, which created shared political interests. It also created mass media, by allowing timely and widespread distribution of newspapers, which in turn helped standardise dialects into a common language and created a national sense of culture. I'm oversimplifying wildly, of course; but nations are composed not just of institutions, but of shared illusions. You need mass communications to create what Benedict Anderson called "Imagined Communities".

All of which is a very long way round of saying the state of the nation is not just a matter of objective reality, but one of what we all think is happening. We all have some contact with public services and some sense of the economy, and those things do matter. But so do the conversations we have with friends and family and the long-lost acquaintances we added on social media before we'd noticed they were racists. And so do the signals we receive from the media. If a nation is an imagined community, a national crisis can be a scattering of real phenomena bound together by shared illusions.

In most ways, the fact politics floats free from actually existing reality is depressing. Last year, net migration halved, albeit from the record highs it hit in 2022 and 2023, and most of it is entirely legal. (In 2024 – the worst year of the small boats "crisis" to date – it accounted for all of 9% of net migration to Britain.) Yet a YouGov poll this morning found that immigration has just become voters' most important issue for the first time since Brexit, nonetheless: the numbers barely matter. Almost no one will have knowingly encountered someone who illegally entered the country, let alone seen them actually arrive on the beach at Dover. They just think there's a crisis because other people keep telling them there is.

But this presents an opportunity, too – because a clever government would understand it didn't need to solve the "crisis" but merely stifle the story. That is obviously easier for some politicians that others: when Steve Bannon talked about "flooding the zone with shit" or (one for the history fans here) Karl Rove used to laugh at the "reality-based community", it is striking that they were both

a) American, and

b) on the side of politics whose views corporate media is often delighted to accept, no matter how unhinged.

But it still raises the question of why the Starmer government has apparently no interest in using its extensive power to set the agenda. Why is it not flooding the zone with announcements about literally anything else it is doing? (It is, though you wouldn't know it, doing quite a lot of things, some of them even left-wing.) Why is it still using a social media site full of Nazis and owned by a man who has vowed to destroy it, when it could use its convening power to decentralise X from British political life?

Why, come to that – given that TV news has long been regulated in this country in a way the newspapers are not – is it not tasking Ofcom to look into the more questionable editorial choices of a TV station providing a rolling news platform for the party it's decided is its main opponent? (A lot of media enthusiasm for Reform comes from the same source as a lot of voter enthusiasm for Reform – that is, the Tories are dead and the right has to go somewhere; GB News, whose presenters include multiple senior Reform politicians, is an entirely different thing.)

Why is the government making no effort to change our shared illusion?

I'm not imagining this would be easy: it would obviously be extremely hard. But the Starmer government has spent a year now telling voters they are right to think immigration is the critical issue, and small boats the worst problem of all. And – in a manner both predictable and predicted – voters received this not as a sign ministers understood their very real concerns, but as one that immigration was the critical issue and they should thus look to the party with the strictest plans to reduce it.

Rebuilding the nation's sense of its own condition may be difficult. Predicting the results of a strategy that runs "Nigel is right – vote for us to stop him"? That is all too easy

[Admiral Yi]

I tune out when I get to corporate media.

[Sheilbh]

I think this Lord Mandelson story is going to get a lot worse.

It sounds like there's more to come - and he's already laying the ground for it. We've had the "my best pal" birthday note and now "your friends love you" email after the 2008 Epstein charges, also suggesting he push for early release.

And it's a real nightmare for the government because I feel like there's more to come, but they can't just fire him because that would contain implicit criticism of Trump which is not great given his role. I feel like a resignation on grounds of health or similar might be helpful.

But I also think it'll be a fairly fruitful ground for attack. Especially given the first photos and details of his friendship with Epstein were printed by the FT two years ago (so before Starmer fired the previous ambassador who, by all accounts, was very good in order to appoint Mandelson) - but also because his response to Badenoch's line of attack was so poor. All he could really say was that all the normal processes were followed and he wouldn't be releasing any other details because of procedure. I think there is a really unhealthy "this must be fine because process was followed and if process is followed it couldn't possibly lead to a bad outcome" trend on the liberal/left in British politics. I think a big part was obviously the (catastrophic) siren lure of framing their politics as fighting "populism". But I also can't help but wonder if it's because they either come from professions where they recommend new processes (think tanks) or where they manage them and not where they have to actually deal with them or experience the outcomes.

[garbon]

The bit that they released so far nearly seemed to suggest Mandelsom had been infatuated with Epstein.

[Josquius]

I dunno.
Unlike with trump who, come on, underage girls served on a plate? No way he wasn't there. He's a known sex pest.
I do have trouble imagining Mandleson having anything to do with sex 

[Sheilbh]

The bit that they released so far nearly seemed to suggest Mandelsom had been infatuated with Epstein.

Yeah and the 2008 letter doesn't look good either. It seems almost as if Mandelson was sort of offering strategic comms/PR advice to Epstein after his first sentencing.

I also see in the Times that apparently a 2002 memo from Mandelson to Blair recommending that he have a meeting with Epstein was not released as part of the normal release of docs to the National Archives after 20 years. Apparently the civil service blocked it on the grounds that it could harm US-UK relations (I assume because it would embarrass Trump). I suspect there'll be a fair bit of pressure/interest from the press on that.

And Mandelson - spin doctor to the end - has tried to get ahead of the story by giving an interview to the Sun where he says there are more embarrassing stories to come. So I don't think we've seen the end of it.

Unlike with trump who, come on, underage girls served on a plate? No way he wasn't there. He's a known sex pest.

Yeah but I think you look at Mandelson's career and he likes proximity to power (and money) and I think Epstein definitely offered that.

I mean remember when Gordon Brown brought him back into government. The Tories immediately went on the attack about him holidaying on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska's yacht - which Mandelson turned round by briefing that George Osborne was also there and asking Deripaska for donations. (Deripaska incidentally now sanctioned everywhere).

It's the risk with Mandelson - and I thought his appointment had worked out and was vastly better than David Miliband () who was apparently the other candidate. Every job he's done whether it's Labour spin, in the Cabinet, in the European Commission he is very, very good - but there is always something going on just off-stage ready to explode at any moment.

Edit: I'd add I actually thought the scandal that might blow up for Mandelson was something to do with his lobbying for the Chinese government after his time on the Commission. It is the thing with him - even if I think some of his resigning matters have been overblown - there does always seem to be something and often multiple things.

[Sheilbh]

As I say think this is going to get a lot worse. Just as a sign of what's coming - Bloomberg have more than 100 emails. The letter I was mentioning was actually an email. I think all of these - in terms of his career are from when he was Commissioner for Trade (but as I say there is apparently a 2002 memo which is way earlier).

October 2005:

When are you going to the island at Xmas? I am having trouble getting air tickets to St Barts and was wondering about going via US, NY or Miami (but this may be difficult because of availability of BA airmiles).

What are your plans and do I fit in to them?

x

February 2008 - so a few months before the plea deal:

Reminder. You are fighting back so you need strategy, strategy, strategy.
Remember the Art of War.

So June 2008 after Epstein's plea deal:

I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened.

I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain. You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can... everything can be turned into an opportunity and that you will come through it and be stronger for it.

The whole thing has been years of torture and now you have to show the world how big a person you are, and how strong.

Your friends stay with you and love you.

As I say - ever the spinner and strategy, strategy, strategy it - Bloomberg apparently provided Mandelson with a letter a about this with a series of questions. He didn't respond but did an interview with the Sun which includes several of these emails without time or date stamps.

[Tamas]

As I say think this is going to get a lot worse. Just as a sign of what's coming - Bloomberg have more than 100 emails. The letter I was mentioning was actually an email. I think all of these - in terms of his career are from when he was Commissioner for Trade (but as I say there is apparently a 2002 memo which is way earlier).

October 2005:

When are you going to the island at Xmas? I am having trouble getting air tickets to St Barts and was wondering about going via US, NY or Miami (but this may be difficult because of availability of BA airmiles).

What are your plans and do I fit in to them?

x

February 2008 - so a few months before the plea deal:

Reminder. You are fighting back so you need strategy, strategy, strategy.
Remember the Art of War.

So June 2008 after Epstein's plea deal:

I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened.

I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain. You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can... everything can be turned into an opportunity and that you will come through it and be stronger for it.

The whole thing has been years of torture and now you have to show the world how big a person you are, and how strong.

Your friends stay with you and love you.

As I say - ever the spinner and strategy, strategy, strategy it - Bloomberg apparently provided Mandelson with a letter a about this with a series of questions. He didn't respond but did an interview with the Sun which includes several of these emails without time or date stamps.

I think I am going to throw up. Who is this spineless toad and why Starmer isn't just kicking him to the curb while he can with minimal damage?

[Sheilbh]

One of the key figures in New Labour - he was crucially in modernising the party and first big spin doctor (later joined by Alastair Campbell), then Tony Blair's fixer. He was in the cabinet twice under Blair and was very much a target for Brown in those internecine struggles. Both times he had to resign in scandal - once over a dodgy mortgage and another time over lobbying for some friends to get their citizenship (though I think in one case once all the facts came out he hadn't really done anything wrong but it looked bad).

Then EU Trade Commissioner, before Brown brought him back during the crisis as Deputy PM and Business Secretary.

And in all those jobs he was really, really good - he's an incredibly effective operator and competent minister (and Commissioner). But there's always a scandal.

Then he founded a lobbying firm which had a lot of Chinese clients in particular. I've mentioned that Starmer had a weirdly high number of ex-New Labour aides - a lot of them worked for Mandelson at some point for that firm.

By all accounts, until now, doing a good job in DC as Lord Schmooze of Georgetown. Challenge for Starmer (which is caused by his own decision to appoint him - as some of this had already appeared in the FT) is that politically the answer is obvious: fire him. Strategically (to nick a word) tough to fire an ambassador over a scandal that also implicates the host head of state without that appearing an implicit rebuke.

But I can't see how he can stay - and he's been forced to resign in scandal enough times to probably know it better than anyone.

Edit: Also as Starmer has said - the correct process was followed, so no-one's really responsible or had an element of judgement

[Gups]

Mandelson will go. Just a question of when.

Another example of just how bad Starmer's political judgement is and how little he seems to be learning on the job.

[Sheilbh]

Also by all accounts the previous ambassador (a career diplomat) was very good: she worked really well with Biden's team and Trump's plus good relationships with key figures in Congress and very good at public diplomacy.

I can't help but feel that she was only removed by Starmer because she was associated with the previous regime (which was a bit of a baby and bathwater situation) and, possibly, to create a sinecure for a more "political" ambassador/Labour grandee like Mandelson or Miliband.

[garbon]

Bye to Mandelson.

I see poor Thorns once again has insufficient support.