Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

While I think Brexit is a mistake, I'm a bit reluctant to bang the drum too much about current issues with people adjusting to a new process - this would always cause friction, regardless of the agreement. It will be much more useful to look at the status 3, 6, 12 months from now to see if people start to adapt, or if major frictions remian.

Its true that the thinking brexiters are insisting that it'll take time to see the benefits. Even the zealots are saying this.
Though there's a huge amount of thought amongst the unthinking quitling followers that as soon as we left all their problems would be solved, we'd reduce red tape, etc.... These people don't have patience and their memories are short.

[PJL]

PM's spokesman says Johnson has "full confidence" in Gavin Williamson and noted that the PM thinks it's a very big brief and Williamson is "performing to the best of his ability", which is savage

So he'll be out or at least moved sideways at the next cabinet reshuffle then. Not surprised given his performance during the whole pandemic, I keep thinking that's he actually Chris Grayling in disguise.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is a cabinet selected purely for loyalty to brexit and the Great Johnson so you end up with a distinct lack of talent.

[Sheilbh]

Things in Scotland are getting interesting.

Joanna Cherry an SNP MP has said if there isn't a second indepdence referendum, then Scotland should look at how Ireland become indepdendent 1916-22 (ignoring the fact that led to a civil war precisely because Ireland didn't become "independent"), which suggests Joanna Cherry knows very, very little Irish history 1916-22 because that is not a model you should want to follow

But it highlights the growing row in the face of next year's Scottish election between "moderates" who only want a "legal" referendum and the hard-liners who support either an "illegal" referendum or unilateral declaration of independence.

Meanwhile there's the ongoing Salmond Inquiry. The background to this is Strugeon's predecessor was arrested and tried for allegations of sexual misconduct during his term as First Minister. He was acquitted on most counts (and one was found not proven). There's now an inquiry because of evidence that the investigation was politicised and used to target Salmond (although according to the civil servants' trade union the Scottish government reportedly has a "remarkably" higher figure of complaints by civil servants compared to Westminster or the other administrations). There's now an inquiry into who knew what within the SNP and the Scottish government - this is made particularly difficult for Nicola Sturgeon because her evidence contradicts her husband's (the CEO of the SNP) - and now Salmond has accused Sturgeon of lying and misleading the Scottish Parliament. The Inquiry's still ongoing but it is getting very, very messy for current ministers and the top of the SNP - Salmond is very clearly out to cause as much damage as he can because he feels that he's been targetted.

Edit: The whole Salmond story is getting astonishingly little coverage in the UK media - it's another example of how the press treat the Scottish government as if they were just another European country, sort of like the Belgian government, rather than part of our politics.

[The Brain]

What's with the name theme?

[Sheilbh]

What's with the name theme?

Fishing matters

[celedhring]

The Gibraltar deal has been published. It looks like a home run for Spain. Some key provisions:

- The future deal between UK and the EU will extend Schengen provisions to Gibraltar. The physical border between Spain and Gibraltar will be removed.
- Spain will be tasked with overseeing compliance with Schengen policies by Gibraltar, issue Schengen visas, and protect the external EU border. Gibraltar residence permits will only be valid for Gibraltar, Gibraltar has to align with EU's policies when granting residence permits.
- Joint Gibraltar border control between Spain and Gibraltar (includes the Gibraltar port and airport). Both countries have to approve any individual entering Gibraltar.
- During a transitional period (4 years), Spain will be assisted by Frontex in carrying out these controls. (This, I presume, will be to avoid seeing uniformed Spanish policemen making border controls, for a time)
- At the end of the transitional period, both parts can opt out of the whole deal.
- "Ad-hoc solution", to be negotiated, that will extend the benefits of EU's customs union to Gibraltar. To that effect Gibraltar will have to align with the EU in tax policy, standards, trade, etc...
- Dispute resolution system will be the same as the main Brexit deal

[The Minsky Moment]

Fits the pattern of defending perceived domestic English interests vigorously while letting everything else slip.

[The Minsky Moment]

What's with the name theme?

Dory Pike and Marlon Bass are plotting for their chance at power.

[Richard Hakluyt]

You guys have got me reading the Gibraltar Chronicle now 

https://www.chronicle.gi/give-the-treaty-a-chance/

I'm trying find out what they think about the deal.

[celedhring]

The only criticism I have seen from our side - outside of the "lock them up until we plant the flag" troglodites - is whether Gibraltar will drag their feet on their tax/trade alignment compromises, since the dispute resolution process will likely be very slow. But the opt-out clause is a decent safeguard.

[mongers]

The only criticism I have seen from our side - outside of the "lock them up until we plant the flag" troglodites - is whether Gibraltar will drag their feet on their tax/trade alignment compromises, since the dispute resolution process will likely be very slow. But the opt-out clause is a decent safeguard.

I would add it's not a zero sum game, either Spain or Gibraltar wins, the more it's dodgy tax haven status gets stomp on, the better for the wider world.

I think a lot of these British colonial or commonwealth tax havens need to be smashed, if the UK 'government' isn't willing to do it, then let other countries/institutions do it.  And it's often the case that the real local residents there don't much benefit from the tax arrangements.

[Sheilbh]

Just on the school meals point - I think this piece by Rafael Behr from yesterday on the challenges for Starmer. I think he's right about why it's difficult to be in opposition during a crisis like this, but more importantly I think he's totally right that Starmer doesn't yet have a story and isn't very good, from what I've seen, at building a story. It's a bit Ed Miliband and a bit lawyerly at this stage which may change - but the contrast with a smart campaign, like Rashford's is really clear:

Keir Starmer won't bring voters back to Labour with just a list of Tory failures
Rafael Behr
His speech this week itemising Boris Johnson's errors with Covid was indisputable. But it was also ignored
Tue 12 Jan 2021 17.00 GMT
Last modified on Tue 12 Jan 2021 18.55 GMT

Keir Starmer's job would be easier if he disagreed with Boris Johnson on the biggest problem facing the UK. But that problem is the pandemic. Both men oppose the virus, which in the grand scheme of things puts them on the same side.

There is room for partisan argument over methods and targets to contain the threat, but those are second-order issues, not the stuff from which a newish opposition leader can mould his public identity. Starmer must strike a tricky balance between complicity and opportunism. He must hold the Tories to account for their failures, but without sounding eager for the government to fail.

There is a limit to how much people want to hear from the opposition in a crisis. It is possible to believe that Johnson has bungled the pandemic, while not taking any lessons in how it should have been handled by Labour – a party whose application to govern has been rejected in the last four elections.

It doesn't help that Starmer is trying to unify a party that has no agreed explanation for those defeats and is uncertain how it should be speaking to the voters it has lost. There is consensus that change is needed, but not on what needs changing. Ardent remainers are not reconciled to Brexit. Admirers of Jeremy Corbyn believe he was misunderstood by voters and has now been mistreated by his successor. That makes a large combined portion of Labour's membership who think that the electorate is wrong and the party has nothing to apologise for. In Scotland there is the extra conundrum of trying to woo nationalist voters without supporting independence.

Johnson is reliably incompetent, but he is also resilient, and the current national trauma will not be much use as a campaign resource once it is over. Labour would be rightly despised if it tried robbing the graves of Covid victims for partisan spoils.

Starmer's difficulties were illustrated by a speech he gave on Monday, or rather it was illustrative of his problem that no one noticed the speech – a fully itemised account of Johnson's failings. There were some personal notes and one bland, off-the-shelf nugget of emotional uplift. ("A dark winter will give way to a brighter spring.") But mostly it sounded as if it had been composed on a spreadsheet. The tone was reminiscent of Ed Miliband, which is no accident. The former leader is the most experienced politician in Starmer's shadow cabinet and an influential voice in his ear.

The comparison is maybe unfair. Public opinion is already vastly more receptive to the idea of Starmer in No 10 than it ever was to Miliband. The common element is not a likeness but an absence. It is the lack of rudimentary storytelling. Starmer tells his audience what he thinks, but he does not invite us on a journey or paint a picture of the destination.

As leader, Miliband set out a controversial argument about structural failings of British capitalism – the inequalities it entrenches and the rapacious ethos that drives it. That account is now mainstream. It has seeped into the Johnson government's "levelling up" agenda. There are many reasons why Miliband lost to David Cameron in 2015, but a significant one was his failure to turn a complex analysis into simple reasons for voting Labour. When it became clear that the abstract ideas weren't working, party strategists tried to armour-plate their leader with retail policy. It was an approach satirised by David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama, as "vote Labour and win a microwave".

The same happened to Corbyn, but the offer was upgraded from a microwave to a luxury fitted kitchen. When the missing elements in a political offer are credibility and trust, the gap cannot be filled with free stuff. Starmer is now under pressure from demoralised Corbynites to identify how much of that stuff he would offer again, and how much he thinks should be discarded. He brought that challenge on himself in last year's Labour leadership contest, where he defended the thrust of the 2019 manifesto and criticised only its "policy overload".

There are things that frustrated supporters always demand of opposition leaders, many of them contradictory: be more pragmatic; be more idealistic; have a vision; be less ideological; attack the government louder; sound less angry; talk about values; talk about bread-and-butter issues.

Politicians do not need codified doctrines to break out of opposition. Ideally they would have guiding principles, but those are of limited use without the parables that explain them to a sceptical audience. This is not a matter of nifty slogans, nor is it a sop to goldfish attention spans in the digital age. For as long as people have used words for persuasion they have found success by arranging them into stories.

There is a certain leeriness of rhetorical simplification on the intellectual left, as if memorable imagery is tricksy and an argument is more compelling when set out to three decimal places. That aversion is intensified by contempt for Johnson's use of metaphor as a weapon of mass deception – the "oven-ready deal"; "the moon shot". Starmer could not match the prime minister's linguistic prestidigitations, nor should he want to. But he still needs a more colourful script.

For more than a decade, Labour's dominant message has been a litany of complaint about the Tories, supplemented at election time with a dense catalogue of policy. It is querulous, sometimes peevish. It comes across as resentful of the electorate for not being angry enough, or for being angry at all the wrong things.

It is probably unfair to expect Starmer to have achieved much more than he has done given the constraints of the job. It is an achievement not to have been written off as a tiresome irrelevance in the pandemic. He prosecutes government incompetence well, which is to be expected since he was director of public prosecution before he was an MP.

But that is not enough. A list of the government's failings is not a reason to support Labour. Starmer will one day have to narrate a journey to a better Britain, not just add columns to the spreadsheet of gloom.

• Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

[Sheilbh]

New ONS stats of population by country of birth which is kind of interesting surprising. The top 5 countries of migrants (i.e. not including British citizens born overseas):
Poland
Romania
India
Ireland
Italy ()

And in London:
Romania
Italy ()
India
Poland
Portugal

Really surprised by Italy. It definitely explains why the food got better - but I'd never have guessed.

[Josquius]

Where was Italy in the last set of stats?
Given the long history of Italians in the UK it seems likely they've always been fairly high, albeit maybe not top 5.