Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

"I am become Canada, not very important to neighbors."

Yet wealthier, happier higher quality of life, all round better

More Mexico non?

[The Brain]

"I am become Canada, not very important to neighbors."

Yet wealthier, happier higher quality of life, all round better

More Mexico non?

All Americans think about is Mexico.

[Sheilbh]

"I am become Canada, not very important to neighbors."

The Brexiteer dream (or Australia).

Sheilbh: the Franco-British security relationship is distinct from the EU-British relationship, because of the unique status of the 2 nuclear neighbors that still have pretensions to traditional Great Power status with some (but not quite sufficient) resources to back it up.  French national interests in security cooperation with the UK are material, but they are not EU interests - it would be more accurate to say those interests are in tension with EU interests, or at least the goal of some in the union to for a more integrated security policy.

Agreed - but this is "the most geopolitical Commission" ever. It's declared aim is for Europe to start acting geopolitically as well and that means thinking about what the EU-British relationship looks like, because if they rely on Franco-British bilateral relations or NATO relations especially with CEE states, then it's not clear how the EU is acting.

But I think France wants to act through Europe, this hasn't worked so far. What was striking in the Turkish example was that a reponse had clearly been organised at a European level - so every European foreign ministry were releasing statements of support and solidarity within hours of each other. The UK didn't and actually took a few days. I think that was indicative of the sort of thing that could happen in the future. There won't be sanctions on Turkey as long as Merkel is in charge of Germany (just like there won't be real punishments for Fidesz), but if there were European sanctions at some stage it will require diplomatic work to get the UK to join, because it isn't a matter of discussing things informally at leader or civil servant level during a council meeting so everyone's in the same page. That forum disappears.

If Macron succeeds (and I have a lot of issues with him but I think he's right about Europe) and implements this vision of sort of expanding concentric circles: a Eurozone core driving integration, an EU/EFTA periphery and a formal security/foreign policy forum for dealing with the non-EU/EFTA powers (UK, Russia - but not Turkey ) then the issue might go away. But I think it's easy to underestimate the importance of those little connective daily meetings, contacts, coordination.

I would not be surprised if Commission grandees and EU country chancelleries are not au courant as to the precise thinking of the current Tory government (it's not clear such knowledge is deeply held among all even inside that government) but  as you point out the crude reality is that they don't need to be.  A UK outside the EU is important - because of proximity and the role of London, it is more important than say Canada or Australia - but not THAT much more important.  It is less important than the US or China, perhaps in certain senses of less weight than Russia.  Policy towards the UK matters, but probably less than internal headaches like Poland or Hungary.

Agreed. The UK is like Russia or Turkey - it's a well-armed, prickly near neighbour on the European frontier. We're less important because we're less likely to cause issues than those two but by mere virtue of being a well-armed prickly neighbour I think you want to know what the government's thinking

The same is not true of the UK which cannot ignore a great economic superpower on its doorstep.  It is a sign of the times that the Tory party, once a bastion of foreign policy realism, has fallen into the hands of people seemingly unable (or unwilling) to grasp the clear disparities in power.

Yes, but I think as a non-EU member we need to be current with but we can't really shape EU economic or regulatory policy so there is an extent of it'll be what it'll be. I also think unless it aligns with other UK policy interests (for example climate or anti-corruption) then the UK state shouldn't be lobbying for business interests (not least because working in tech, I'm not convinced that sort of state lobbying or US style lobbying works I think Brussels needs a different style).

Also the early signs on the current Tory party's foreign policy is it's not particularly realist. See the response to China on various issues, particularly Hong Kong, the very early sanctions on Belarus and, obviously, the ongoing confrontations with Russia. Plus the focus on climate where they've (again) increased the UK pledge on decarbonisation and spent a lot of time diplomatically with South Korea and Japan on their carbon commitments, plus the UK inviting South Korea, Australia and India to the next G7 we're hosting (Johnson's pushing the idea of a "D-10" or Democratic-10 largely to replace the G7 and include Korea, Australia and India permanently). It's not realist but I think when you put all that together you can start to see the bones of a foreign policy vision (certainly more than you could under Cameron or May) - there is a degree of coherence there. It's not what I expected, for example it's far less mercantile than I would have guessed and that may change over time. Again it feels quite Canadian.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally one other thing on the link between Thatcherism and Brexit now - I'd not thought of this but saw Gideon Rachman make this observation - that it increases the Tory willingness to embrace economic shock as a "remedy" to the economy.

And almost without severe shock therapy I think a number of Tories would query if you're actually reforming anything.

[Sheilbh]

I thought this piece by Rafael Behr was very good and gets stuff about Brexit and why the government cannot get ahead of the virus:

Boris Johnson has a habit of delaying tough choices. In a pandemic, it's lethal
Rafael Behr
The debate over Christmas Covid restrictions shows how the PM's procrastination has left Britain with only bad options
Tue 15 Dec 2020 16.09 GMT

Christmas can be a testing time for unhappy relationships and Boris Johnson's romance with science is already on the rocks. If the prime minister was a faithful lover of evidence he would not relax pandemic regulations for the festive season. If he only had eyes for the rate of coronavirus infections he would not have issued a special five-day licence for household mingling; not while the lines on the graphs are all pointing in the wrong direction.

The US experience since Thanksgiving shows how shuffling the population for a national holiday – moving people across regions and mixing up the generations – causes a surge in Covid cases. Ministers, under mounting political pressure, were hinting about revisions to the plan on Tuesday. Nervous government hands are reaching for the tightening screws.

But science never had an exclusive claim on Johnson's affections. He promised Britain respite after months of soul-numbing social quarantine. It was his seasonal gift to the nation and he hates the idea of taking it back. He also hates taking responsibility for his actions. Typically, the prime minister's preferred outcome involves two incompatible things: a simulation of normal Christmas and a health service that is not overwhelmed in January and February, which are its busiest months even in non-pandemic years. The government's message is characteristically confused – here is a special dispensation to do something you are strongly advised not to do.

Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, struggled to maintain that contorted posture in a televised coronavirus briefing earlier this week. Asked about Christmas, he described the "really narrow path" that the nation would be treading. He encouraged people to "go no further than they have to" in flexing temporary freedoms. The risk was great, he said, but that had to be balanced with "a strong sense from many people" that gatherings should be allowed. I got the strong sense that he was not one of those people.

It would not be Johnson's first divergence from cautious scientific counsel. The Sage advisory group recommended a "circuit-breaker" lockdown in late September, when it became clear that a second wave of infections was breaking over the country. It has since been reported that the prime minister had a separate conclave with a group of academics who were more sceptical of Covid virulence. He preferred the second opinion. It chimed with his distaste for restrictions on liberty and harmonised with the chancellor's plea to keep businesses open. It also avoided confrontation with Tory MPs who see lockdowns as barely diluted tyranny.

But the infection rate continued to climb. The facts were stubborn and Johnson yielded to them at the end of October, sending the nation back indoors. The prime minister had repeated his error from the start of the pandemic almost exactly. Confronted with a demand for urgent action, he hesitated. While every day of delay made a bad situation worse, he procrastinated. That has been the pattern in Britain's pandemic response – do the right thing after every effort has been expended on getting it wrong; tighten reluctantly; relax prematurely.

Such serial failure to learn from experience comes as no surprise to anyone who has dealt with Johnson in his public roles or his private life. He postpones necessary but unpalatable decisions, like a child pushing vegetables around a plate. He likes to be liked and hates direct confrontation. He has no qualm about betraying people behind their backs, but he has a horror of upsetting them to their faces. MPs come out of meetings with Johnson happy because he has agreed with them and unaware that he agreed with their rivals in a meeting earlier the same day.

A City Hall adviser once told me the story of a planning dispute over a multimillion-pound building project just outside London. It was not under the mayor's direct jurisdiction, but close enough to be relevant to the capital. The developers produced a letter of support for their cause from the mayor. Awkwardly, so did their opponents. Both missives had to be withdrawn.

The habit of feigning assent to curtail uncomfortable conversations breeds mistrust and disloyalty at the heart of government. (Why defend a policy today when there is every chance of a U-turn tomorrow?) Johnson's executive weakness transfers power to his gatekeepers – the advisers who get to decide who can see the boss and, crucially, who is the last one to see him before a decision is made. That encourages leaking – getting things into the public domain before the prime minister can change his mind.

Chronic equivocation was inconvenient in municipal government. In Downing Street, during a public health emergency, it is lethal. The decisions are rarely easy, but that is the job. Prime ministers should not have to waste valuable time on easy choices. A well-run administration should filter those out on junior desks lower down the chain of command. But Johnson's dysfunctional governing style escalates the difficulty of already hard choices. He likes the idea of following science more than the policies mandated by scientific rigour. He lurches between complacency and panic. He agrees with Rishi Sunak that the economy must stay open, but also with Matt Hancock that people must stay at home.

Johnson's technique for dealing with problems is to let them run out of control, building to a point of sufficient crisis that delay is no longer viable. That way the choice becomes perversely easier because there are fewer options left. Wait long enough and there might be only one.

That is how he has dealt with Brexit. He imagines that brinkmanship is a negotiating strategy to wring concessions out of Brussels, but in reality it is just a way to simplify the decision by eliminating options that needed time to develop. He lets procrastination do the heavy lifting. He can then tell himself (and his audience) that the final outcome, while not perfect, is the best available solution. And maybe it is. But only because it is so late in the day and all the better solutions have long since expired.

It is a chaotic way to run anything: leaving it all to the last minute, relying on a critical mass of external pressure to get motivated. As a way of governing in a pandemic it is disastrous because there is no slack time between deadlines. The moment to make the tough choices is always now. The rate at which good options decay is exponential. The virus thrives on indecision. Johnson's method is effective for one thing, though: it guarantees a sustained pitch of political drama, with the figure of the prime minister lit centre stage. It forces the nation to hang on his word, waiting for him to act, while the consequences of his inaction play out. That bathes him in an aura of power, but it is not leadership.

    Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

I would say this isn't entirely new. David Cameron was famously an "essay crisis" Prime Minister who would let issues fester until the last minute and then resolve them in one way or another - until that approach fucked up with the referendum. But this is the first PM since Major where I remember complaints of him just agreeing with the last person in the room. Although I'd slightly quibble on the circuit breaker because I remember stories at the time that Johnson and Cummings were very keen on a circuit breaker but the rest of the cabinet (except for Hancock) were more swayed by Sunak and the Treasury.

[The Larch]

Not Brexit related at all, but I'll take the liberty of using this thread as a general UK news one for a moment.  Besides, I couldn't come up with a descriptive enough title for a new thread.

So, it's about research being done by the National Trust about how part of their patrimony has been historically associated with slavery and colonialism, and how some Tories are not very happy about it, blaming on culture wars.

I've been unfairly targeted, says academic at heart of National Trust 'woke' row
Professor warns of 'political agenda' to discredit researchers exploring slavery links

The academic at the centre of an escalating row over the National Trust's efforts to explore links between its properties and colonialism has warned of a "political agenda" to "misrepresent, mischaracterise, malign and intimidate" those involved in the project.

Professor Corinne Fowler has drawn comparisons between the vilification of academics, including herself, and attacks by climate-crisis deniers on scientists warning about global heating. She suggested they were a product of social tension.

"We are living in times of upheaval, when life feels fragile and uncertain. In this fraught environment, it is easy to incite hatred or disdain by misrepresenting the work and motivations of academics and curators. It is also true that the levels of intolerance and hostilities towards outsiders and those we consider as the 'other' have risen in the past few years."

The Common Sense Group of more than 50 Tory MPs was angered by a 115-page interim report entitled Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links With Historic Slavery, commissioned by the trust and published in September.

Co-edited by Fowler, it highlighted that 93 trust properties, including Clandon Park in Surrey and Hare Hill in Cheshire, were linked to wealth from plantations and the slave trade, while others, such as Bateman's, Rudyard Kipling's home in Sussex, were important to understanding Britain's colonial history.

Many of the MPs and several rightwing historians and newspaper columnists took exception to the report's references to Winston Churchill's role in colonial administration and his opposition to Indian independence. The historian Andrew Roberts accused the trust of "wokery" and of "trying to imply a moral equivalence between colonialism and slavery".

The row was reignited last week when Fowler and several other academics working on another trust project, Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted, were accused of holding "biased" views about colonialism.

Fowler, a historian at the University of Leicester, and author of a new book, Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England's Colonial Connections, said attempts were being made "to misrepresent, mischaracterise, malign and intimidate academics in clear efforts to damage the professional reputations of people for evidence-based scholarship".

She added: "I think we should all be worried when academics are targeted in this way, when the evidence can't be disputed. Academics working in the humanities have begun to be personally targeted, perhaps in the way that climate scientists have been for some time now."

Colonial Countryside, a project funded by the Arts Council and the National Lottery, is investigating the African, Caribbean and Indian connections of 11 country houses the National Trust manages. Its team of nine historians works with 100 primary school children, who are encouraged to produce essays and fiction to be shared with live, print and digital audiences.

The project has been praised by historian David Olusoga and has been described by teachers of the pupils involved as a game-changer. More than 70 schools now teach Colonial Countryside material.

But some Tory MPs are uncomfortable with the focus on Britain's colonial past. Andrew Bridgen told the Times last week that the trust had been "overtaken by divisive Black Lives Matter supporters".

Andrew Murrison was also critical. "The National Trust's mission is clearly laid out in statute – to be clerk of works to a large wedge of our national treasures," he said in a parliamentary debate last month. "There is evidence, however, that in recent years the trust – frustrated no doubt with that simple custodial function – has been interpreting its remit more broadly. I submit that requires scrutiny."

Both the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, and Nigel Huddleston, parliamentary under-secretary for sport, heritage and tourism, have expressed reservations about the trust's direction.

Fowler suggested a "political agenda" was being pursued, part of a wider battle over how the history of colonialism should be studied. "There have been surprising attempts to distort historical research more generally – for example by calling colonialism 'a political term', not a historical one. It's unhelpful to inject such an emotional charge into studies that quite naturally engage with a long period of British colonial rule which inevitably shaped our collective past."

When Colonial Countryside started in 2018, the UK's Black Lives Matter movement was in its infancy. But since then it has become more vocal and visible. "The reporting around Black Lives Matter has brought the project to wider public attention," Fowler conceded.

"The historical figures we choose to honour is a complicated matter but, more broadly, there is no neutral position on racism. Certainly, it makes sense to understand the history we share with millions of people around the globe, to understand the countryside's black histories and to research the relationship, say, between rural poverty and the British empire. History explains why we are a multicultural society today."

Colonial Countryside is one of several attempts to understand Britain's slave trade past. University College London has run a project called Legacies of British Slave-Ownership, and English Heritage performed a similar exercise during the 2007 bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.

But neither met the opprobrium that has greeted the projects run by the National Trust, which is Britain's largest membership organisation, with 5.5 million supporters, and is celebrating its 125th anniversary.

"The countryside has turned out to be a particularly sensitive topic," Fowler acknowledged. "There is a perceived attack on Englishness, partly because country houses have in recent decades come to be seen as quintessentially local and British, especially English. Historical evidence presents a very different picture."

[Sheilbh]

So I think there's a lot, lot more going on with the National Trust that's led to this position. There's been a big shift around leadership over the last decade.

So about five years ago their CEO said that basically there "too much stuff" in NT properties which meant people had to "work fantastically hard, and we can make them work much less hard". In particular she flagged that people from BAME backgrounds or non-middle class people feel intimidated by there being "so much stuff" and are particularly put off by things like "old paintings". It is fundamentally a heritage charity. But they have in various properties removed huge chunks of their items and put them in storage - this goes from the furniture of the property to things like a Velazquez painting - again I think this is why people visit an NT property.

Her proposed solution was to remove lots of the stuff and replace it with TV screens with am dram level actors playing historical characters because this was more accessible (instead of, for example, labels explaining the "stuff" on their properties.

Some NT staff started showing their displeasure at the direction they were heading:


Part of the policy has been to change the way they present their (generally historic homes) from homes to more like museums. Anyway this was the direction of travel for about 5 years and there were ongoing arguments between curators and staff v leadership over this.

The NT then released their new 10 year strategy. As you'd expect for an organisation that shows less "stuff" the big point was they are making lots of curators redundant and all curators or experts would have to re-apply for their jobs (this applied to no-one at executive level). All of the curatorial roles were changed as well so they don't want period experts they just want curators in, for example, furniture or paintings which covers everything from the Medieval to the 20th century. I'd also point out that it's great to include more social and colonial history in NT properties - but to do that I think you need more experts, more curators not less.

In addition the goal of the strategy is to "dial down" its role as a "major national cultural institution". What this means is they've decided to close or drastically reduce the times small and medium properties are open, so they just keep the big ones (that are most profitable open regularly). The current plans are for this to focus on about 20 properties - again they don't need much expertise for that. Again from my view as an arts and heritage charity they should be using the profitable properties to subsidise access to the non-profitable ones (and I'd add that they are closing all but 20 properties for most of the year because this will be more "accessible" and produce a more "diverse" audience).

At every stage the leadership of the NT have used the language of diversity and accessibility to justify this which I think is, at best, a drift from what they're meant to do. And it's actually when you look at their documents just management consultant speak. My own suspicion is actually the leadership of the NT are uncomfortable with the sort of NT's objective and the NT's membership. My suspicion is that in 10 years we'll have very few NT properties open, most of them will be in the South or around London and instead of mainly making their money from members with annual subscriptions they will make their money from corporate events (which have grown in the last 5 years and are a lot easier to host if you don't have priceless "stuff" on display) - and every step of the way they'll use diversity and accessibility as the cover for their decisions. What, in my view, they're doing is moving from a cultural institution to an arts event space.

Having said that the whole culture war over this stuff is mostly fabricated and is nonsense - I think the NT is doing good stuff on this, for example this is from a current property. The audit is good but I'd just love to see one of these MPs read a current NT description and see which bit they object to:


But I think that culture war provides useful cover for both sides and I think both sides play up to it because it engages their "supporters" more than the core issues which, for me, are about 90s style arts management consultancy speak.

[The Brain]

In fairness it's the nude paintings that keep anyone awake at art museums, so I can see their point. But since it's about money they should just say so.

[alfred russel]

In addition the goal of the strategy is to "dial down" its role as a "major national cultural institution". What this means is they've decided to close or drastically reduce the times small and medium properties are open, so they just keep the big ones (that are most profitable open regularly). The current plans are for this to focus on about 20 properties - again they don't need much expertise for that. Again from my view as an arts and heritage charity they should be using the profitable properties to subsidise access to the non-profitable ones (and I'd add that they are closing all but 20 properties for most of the year because this will be more "accessible" and produce a more "diverse" audience).

If I was a consutant on this, my advice would be to close the non profitable properties. The adding funding could be use to secure adequate pay for higher management. The long term health of the National Trust is threatened if it can only attract hobbyists to top roles, and the pay must be reflective of the role of the institution in the country.

At the same time, holding top tier corporate events at the more prominent locations will establish contacts with leading citizens, which are needed as both sources of future funding and leadership. National Trust properties need to be serving in this role.

I would produce a hundred plus page document supporting this, with slightly customizable boiler plate language provided by my firm used throughout the report. I'd have international comparatives about successful similar initiatives in other countries. There would be a lot of background on the exemplary role played by the National Trust in the past, how it is currently falling short of its promise, and how it can return to glory in a new more modern and multicultural britain.

[mongers]

In addition the goal of the strategy is to "dial down" its role as a "major national cultural institution". What this means is they've decided to close or drastically reduce the times small and medium properties are open, so they just keep the big ones (that are most profitable open regularly). The current plans are for this to focus on about 20 properties - again they don't need much expertise for that. Again from my view as an arts and heritage charity they should be using the profitable properties to subsidise access to the non-profitable ones (and I'd add that they are closing all but 20 properties for most of the year because this will be more "accessible" and produce a more "diverse" audience).

If I was a consutant on this, my advice would be to close the non profitable properties. The adding funding could be use to secure adequate pay for higher management. The long term health of the National Trust is threatened if it can only attract hobbyists to top roles, and the pay must be reflective of the role of the institution in the country.

At the same time, holding top tier corporate events at the more prominent locations will establish contacts with leading citizens, which are needed as both sources of future funding and leadership. National Trust properties need to be serving in this role.

I would produce a hundred plus page document supporting this, with slightly customizable boiler plate language provided by my firm used throughout the report. I'd have international comparatives about successful similar initiatives in other countries. There would be a lot of background on the exemplary role played by the National Trust in the past, how it is currently falling short of its promise, and how it can return to glory in a new more modern and multicultural britain.

[mongers]

Seems the hard-line Brexiters are getting their Xmas wishes to Santa granted early, borders with Europe are being closed, but it's mainly them doing it and looks like the rest of the world is following suit.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm glad I stockpiled food.

[Zanza]

"Fog in the Channel, continent cut off."

[Josquius]

I wish this new covid strain had popped up a few months ago. This is an excellent dry run for a no deal brexit.... But with only a week to go that doesn't do much good.

Or hell. Just imagine all of this corona stuff had happened 5 years ago. A bit of a reality check would have done wonders for the referendum

[Sheilbh]

I wish this new covid strain had popped up a few months ago. This is an excellent dry run for a no deal brexit.... But with only a week to go that doesn't do much good.

Or hell. Just imagine all of this corona stuff had happened 5 years ago. A bit of a reality check would have done wonders for the referendum

Because if there's one thing that would have delivered a "Remain" result it's a new €750 billion European stimulus fund