Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Grey Fox]

Always so insane to me how the South Korea/Canada deals are even considered.

Europe is not the #1 trade partner of SK or Canada.

[Sheilbh]

Well yes. Referenda are stupid and shouldn't happen.
But if they are to happen, and they are, there should be clear rules and guidelines about acceptable practice.
If it wasn't for the referendum giving parliament a "Do anything as long as its leaving the EU" excuse theres no way they would have done what they did.

I just disagree I think referendums are essential for the big issues around how we are governed and when you reach a point that I think you need consent of the governed for a change to be legitimate: joining or leaving the EU, independence (or union with another state), joining or leaving the Euro, changing the voting system, devolution or getting rid of devolved powers.

I think the technical implementation is and should be left to elected politicians, but the core of the decision is for voters. I don't think the referendum gave parliament an excuse but an instruction to leave the EU - and I think that a lot of the issues after that is because the governed gave an instruction to their representatives that those representatives overwhelmingly disagreed with.

On top of that I think the 2017 election is key in the issues and problems of implementing that decision because I think it radicalised/polarised every bit of parliament: Corbynites thought they were one more push from victory, hard-core remainers saw a route to not just soft Brexit but stopping Brexit, hard-core leavers felt there was a real possibility that no Brexit might happen.

No.
As said actual EU membership is overrated in importance.
What we had was the UK on e.g. level 8 European integration- Norway and Switzerland on 7 and 6 are in a far more similar situation to this than Canada all the way down on level 1.
The referendum basically gave the government carte blanche for moving things to the right however much they wanted when all many wanted was to go a notch or two down. Indeed many of the same politicians wanting to go all the way to 1 were making promises about how great 6 is.
Though the question of membership puts a handy label on things, allowing them to phrase "Do you want to downgrade" in a voter-friendly way, it didn't actually mean much and served only to mislead.

Member state or not is the key issue in relation to the EU. There are alternatives-ish of different approaches from outside the EU but the key is are you in the club or not - just look at Hungary or Poland v a country that's outside the EU.

It wasn't just the referendum either - it was the referendum plus two elections (including the best Tory result since 1987) and a hung parliament which should have produced a compromise. It was a failure of MPs that they didn't deliver that. I think also people have a way of getting the result they want regardless of the electoral system and I think 2017 did that. People didn't really knkow what they watned and returned an inconclusive result/hung parliament - that should have created a compromise solution. The failure of MPs to then craft a compromise that had enough support in the Commons and was plausible for the EU is what led to where we are now. Part of that is the radicalising/polarising effect I think of that result because it was so unexpected v the start of the 2017 campaign. So instead of a hung parliament tempering expectations and creating the view that they needed to compromise I think all sides felt that absolute victory/defeat was within grasp - and ultimately only one side could win.

Also if the phrase was "do you want a downgrade the relationship with the EU" it would have had 75-80% support Because I think your point cuts both ways - there were lots of people who didn't really like the EU who voted Remain because they didn't want to fully Leave/risk it.

Always so insane to me how the South Korea/Canada deals are even considered.

Europe is not the #1 trade partner of SK or Canada.

Not just an option - but basically the model for the UK-EU TCA now.

[Josquius]

I just disagree I think referendums are essential for the big issues around how we are governed and when you reach a point that I think you need consent of the governed for a change to be legitimate: joining or leaving the EU, independence (or union with another state), joining or leaving the Euro, changing the voting system, devolution or getting rid of devolved powers.

A system built on referenda is fine.
A system built on elected representatives is fine.
Hoisting a referendum onto a population that is used to representative democracy isn't fine. People aren't used to this. They will take the referendum as an excuse to stick their fingers up at the government by doing exactly what the worst aspects of that government want. They will vote based on tribalism and picking sides rather than by examining the pros and cons.
On a issue like brexit in particular a referendum was an absolutely bloody awful idea. How much of the population did we really expect to have a clue about the finer details of customs borders and international trade?

I think the technical implementation is and should be left to elected politicians, but the core of the decision is for voters. I don't think the referendum gave parliament an excuse but an instruction to leave the EU - and I think that a lot of the issues after that is because the governed gave an instruction to their representatives

An instruction that was basically meaningless and opened the door to extremists as shown by the mess that followed.

that those representatives overwhelmingly disagreed with.

Hence the point of representative democracy really.
Its not Jim the mechanic's job to have a clue about how the EU massively cuts down on the need for 28 different standards for banana quality. If his local MP wants his car fixed then Jim's the man but when it comes to having a full staff on hand to understand the intricate details of law and international treaties, leave it to the MP. Its how civilization works.

Member state or not is the key issue in relation to the EU. There are alternatives-ish of different approaches from outside the EU but the key is are you in the club or not - just look at Hungary or Poland v a country that's outside the EU.

Look at the pre-brexit UK compared to Norway compared to Poland. Which of these is the odd one out?
Even recognising the differences between EU members and not quite EU members, the gap here is very small and insignificant compared to the broader gap between both groups and say Canada.

It wasn't just the referendum either - it was the referendum plus two elections (including the best Tory result since 1987) and a hung parliament which should have produced a compromise. It was a failure of MPs that they didn't deliver that. I think also people have a way of getting the result they want regardless of the electoral system and I think 2017 did that. People didn't really knkow what they watned and returned an inconclusive result/hung parliament - that should have created a compromise solution. The failure of MPs to then craft a compromise that had enough support in the Commons and was plausible for the EU is what led to where we are now. Part of that is the radicalising/polarising effect I think of that result because it was so unexpected v the start of the 2017 campaign. So instead of a hung parliament tempering expectations and creating the view that they needed to compromise I think all sides felt that absolute victory/defeat was within grasp - and ultimately only one side could win.

Yes. Its a shame really that May was the one who became leader.
I wonder whether with a moderate brexiter in charge we might not have had someone who was desperate to prove their brexit credentials and so didn't go straight in for hard brexit.
48-52 on anything is as close to 50/50 as you're likely to get, going all in for the most extreme 48 option is just wrong on every level.

Also if the phrase was "do you want a downgrade the relationship with the EU" it would have had 75-80% support Because I think your point cuts both ways - there were lots of people who didn't really like the EU who voted Remain because they didn't want to fully Leave/risk it.

And this would be fine.
If we were clearly voting for a Swiss-like situation then voting leave wouldn't be the sociopathic shithead/naiive ingenue option that it was, it would be a valid choice with pros and cons.

Also on the other hand you'd perhaps get some people like the PR people in the AV referendum who insist its not full fact sticking the finger up at Europe and pushing ourselves off into the Atlantic brexit they want thus is invalid and shouldn't be voted for.

[Jacob]

I agree with this. It was parliament that decided what Brexit would be and they whiffed it.

I don't think they whiffed it. I think they played the political hand they had to get as close as possible to the result they wanted.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think they whiffed it. I think they played the political hand they had to get as close as possible to the result they wanted.

I think in 2017-19 when there was a hung parliament they whiffed it - especially because the "dea"/approach that won the most support was basically a customs union (which May's deal was clearly aiming for) but they couldn't get that passed. The consequence is the 2019 election happened and Johnson won an 80 seat majority.

[Sheilbh]

A system built on referenda is fine.
A system built on elected representatives is fine.
Hoisting a referendum onto a population that is used to representative democracy isn't fine. People aren't used to this. They will take the referendum as an excuse to stick their fingers up at the government by doing exactly what the worst aspects of that government want. They will vote based on tribalism and picking sides rather than by examining the pros and cons.

Including regional and national referendums we've had about 10 referendums in the UK since 1997. I think they're now part of our politics and I don't think people just use them to protest vote (the Lib Dems continue to exist), they know how they work and I think they vote for what they want.

The interesting thing is that on the big issues like Brexit or Scottish independence turnout shoots up as people who don't engage with the Westminster/Holyrood democracy do turn out in referendums. I don't think that's because they want to stick their fingers up, I think it's because they feel that what they say in a referendum matters in a way that what they say in representative democracy mediated through parties doesn't.

On a issue like brexit in particular a referendum was an absolutely bloody awful idea. How much of the population did we really expect to have a clue about the finer details of customs borders and international trade?

But as you point out. That wasn't the question - that stuff was settled by politicians and elections afterwards. But the remain campaign certainly talked about it.

Hence the point of representative democracy really.
Its not Jim the mechanic's job to have a clue about how the EU massively cuts down on the need for 28 different standards for banana quality. If his local MP wants his car fixed then Jim's the man but when it comes to having a full staff on hand to understand the intricate details of law and international treaties, leave it to the MP. Its how civilization works.

I'm reading a really interesting book called Ruling the Void at the minute on Western, particularly European politics. The author died in 2011 while writing it so we, sadly, don't have his take on what happened after, though I think he would have not been surprised. I think this comment/attitude is part of the problem.

Look at the pre-brexit UK compared to Norway compared to Poland. Which of these is the odd one out?
Even recognising the differences between EU members and not quite EU members, the gap here is very small and insignificant compared to the broader gap between both groups and say Canada.

Norway - it doesn't sit in the Council, it doesn't appoint Commissioners, it doesn't assume the Presidency at any point, it doesn't have MEPs.

Member of not is really fundamental.

And this would be fine.
If we were clearly voting for a Swiss-like situation then voting leave wouldn't be the sociopathic shithead/naiive ingenue option that it was, it would be a valid choice with pros and cons.

But how would that be clear from something like "should we downgrade our relations with the EU" - that is less clear and more carte blanche than leaving. Separately this gets into unicorn/cherry-picking territory. The EU was pretty clear all the way through that they weren't keen on a Swiss-style solution for a variety of reasons. So there's a very real chance you're going to the people with one option that isn't possible politically for the EU to agree.

It's like setting out your post-EU plans as part of the Article 50 process. It depends on what both sides can agree in negotiations within broad parameters.

Separately - re. the Millenium Dome I fully expected a million think pieces to launch on its roof being torn apart in a storm as a metaphor for the end of the long 1990s/the neo-liberal consensus/the Blairite settlement etc. But a columnist's already just tweeted it out

Laura McInerney
@miss_mcinerney
Nooooooo. My beloved Millennium Dome. 😥
Ugh. The last vestige of the optimistic 90s is truly destroyed. What a bleak symbol of our times.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/02/18/sto

[Sheilbh]

I know I keep going on about it, but it's still incredible to me that Sinn Fein are topping the polls in the south of Ireland. Just today their youth wing posting the following memorial (Google translated from the Irish):

Anniversary of 1996, Volunteer Ed O'Brien died in London. O'Brien came from County Wexford, a county with a proud republican tradition. He gave his life for Irish freedom.

As young republicans, we remember him today.

He died when the 2kg semtex he was carrying onto the 171 bus in London (a bus I get quite regularly) blew up before he'd planted it.

According to Wiki when the police searched his address after his death they found 15 kg of semtex, 20 timers, four detonators, one bomb already built, a revolver and ammo.

Sinn Fein are, inevitably, part of politics in the north and, because of power sharing, a necessary part of any government.

But there had historically always been a rejection of them in the south because they were the were the political wing of terrorists who killed more civilians in the north than any other armed group. Also because they broadly didn't accept the legitimace of Dail Eirean either because it impliedly accepted partition - so during the 80s and 90s they never won more than 3% of the vote, they're now at 25% and polling at 35%.

It's unsettling to see them likely to win the next Irish election and possibly lead the government given as a party they still have links to the paramilitary side (I think UK and Irish security services have both said they think Sinn Fein is not a normal democratic party and still takes instructions/are overseen by the Army Council) and are memorialising people who were trying to kill civilians in my lifetime just 25 years ago. I suppose there's lots of firewalls breaking down in western politics and this is just another. But still

[Razgovory]

The queen has covid.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting piece on the NYT's Trojan Horse podcast - from what I've heard these are not the only serious concerns/worries reporters have about this podcast.

Given the NYT's issues with Caliphate and that one of the hosts of this is Brian Reed who also did S-Town, which even at the time felt wrong, I'm not sure we're fully there on ethics around podcast journalism:

The Trojan Horse Affair: how Serial podcast got it so wrong
Sonia Sodha
A major series blaming Islamophobia for the 2014 Birmingham schools controversy is one-sided and risks opening old wounds
Sun 20 Feb 2022 08.00 GMT

Serial is one of the most downloaded podcasts in the world. Its first season, a true-crime whodunnit that became an instant hit had me hooked on its release eight years ago. So I was excited to tune into its new offering with the New York Times, The Trojan Horse Affair, an eight-part series that promises to tell the real story of the anonymous letter sent to Birmingham city council in 2013, that alleged a plot to take over and run local state schools according to strict Islamist principles.

But this latest series skewers the art of narrative journalism Serial is widely considered to have pioneered. Long-form podcasts have more blockbuster potential than straight-up reporting, but are laced with danger: the temptation to cherry-pick facts in service of a gripping story.

The Trojan Horse Affair presents a one-sided account that minimises child protection concerns, misogyny and homophobia in order to exonerate the podcast's hero, a man called Tahir Alam. In doing so, it breaches the standards the public have the right to expect of journalists, with cruel consequences for those it uses and abuses along the way.

What happened in Birmingham in 2014 is a story of two parts. Part one involves the anonymous letter that was quickly established as a hoax, and how it got caught up in an intra-Whitehall fight between the then-education and home secretaries, Michael Gove and Theresa May. Gove held it up as evidence that violent extremism was blossoming unchecked by the Home Office; May claimed the issues later uncovered were a product of Gove's academy reforms, which removed schools from the oversight of local councils and put them in the hands of privately run trusts.

Part two is the story of what was subsequently uncovered by several Ofsted reports, an Education Funding Agency review, two separate inquiries by the Department for Education and Birmingham council, and multiple court judgments. There was no organised plot. But according to these bodies, a small cluster of Birmingham schools, including three run by an academy trust chaired by Alam, suffered from a range of issues: poor governance, including a lack of child protection safeguards; people in leadership positions who espoused or failed to challenge extremist views; cultures in which homophobia and misogyny, including from teachers, were allowed to flourish and young people were encouraged to become intolerant of diversity. At one school, pupils were taught creationism as science and, in one sex education lesson, that a woman cannot refuse her husband sex. Teachers made homophobic comments on a shared Whatsapp group; one referred to gay people as "animals" and "satanic". At the same school, speakers with extremist views were invited to address assemblies.

Alam, the most prominent of the small group of socially conservative men identified as being at the heart of the affair, has fought back, alleging the various bodies that made these findings were driven by Islamophobia. He is right that the way some in government and the media seemed to obsess about finding violent extremism where there was none was deeply unsavoury. The letter was indeed used as justification to drive controversial reforms in counter-terrorism policy.

But his claim that multiple agencies and individuals exaggerated their findings for nefarious reasons has been dismissed as conspiracy thinking by the courts. (Alam told me, "not a single actual child protection or safeguarding issue has been cited in any of the reports ".)

That has not stopped Serial's presenter duo running with a similar story. One half of it, a Muslim journalist from Birmingham called Hamza Syed is explicit about his mission from the beginning: he wants to prove his suspicion that a female Muslim headteacher wrote the Trojan letter for her own parochial reasons, because he thinks it would show "everything that comes after doesn't matter".

The podcasters resolutely fail in this, but that doesn't stop them accusing her of playing "racist judo" by faking resignation letters from Muslim members of her staff, a claim dismissed as false by an employment tribunal judge. They doorstep her at work to try to get her to talk, even though by that point she has seen a letter from Syed declaring he thinks she is lying.

Syed and his American co-presenter Brian Reed also try to discredit the findings about what went on in the schools Alam was responsible for, including the misogyny and homophobia they tellingly lump into a "grab bag of Islam-adjacent allegations". Reed secured an interview with two whistleblowers independently assessed as "credible" and "fair". They understood it would be a general conversation about their experiences. Instead, Reed and Syed subjected them to a seven-hour interrogation on their testimony that they have described in a complaint to the New York Times as "torture", leaving them feeling "beaten into submission, held hostage in our own home".

Even though Reed and Syed later concede the accuracy of the female whistleblowers' account – that pupils were taught that wives cannot refuse their husbands sex – the journalists use three sources to try to undermine other aspects of the women's testimony. But they fail to reveal pertinent information about the sources which raises serious questions about their credibility. And the whistleblowers are named in the podcast, even though they had understood they would be contributing anonymously.

Next, Reed and Syed head to the offices of Humanists UK, which acted as liaison for these whistleblowers. They question Richy Thompson, a director, on how Humanists UK verified the whistleblower accounts before publishing them on its website. Thompson had no forewarning of the forensic questions about events that happened years ago, and was hazy on detail in the interview, but the Observer has seen correspondence in which he made clear to the presenters before the podcast aired that the Humanists independently corroborated the whistleblower accounts with other sources before publication. Yet the presenters allege they published the claims without checking them.

The impression listeners are left with is that both the whistleblowers and the Humanists were motivated by Islamophobia, and so we should ignore what they have to say. Never mind the fact that the several inquiries into Trojan Horse draw on a multitude of other whistleblowers, including Muslim women. (The Humanists have also exposed the teaching of creationism in orthodox Jewish schools and issues with sex education in Catholic schools .)

This grossly understates the risks children were exposed to, with real consequences. One teacher implicated in the sex education lesson was later convicted for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl he referred to as his "wife".

Powerful men and institutions are adept at throwing around accusations of racism or anti-faith bigotry to undermine the credibility of people speaking up about child protection: see the treatment of those who tried to flag child sexual abuse in the Catholic church, or the Rotherham inquiry's finding that nervousness about cultural sensitivities impeded the exposure of child sexual abuse by predominantly Asian grooming gangs. The kindest interpretation here is that Syed and Reed are reporting a story about child protection without knowing the first thing about it. How else to make sense of their indignation that the government wheeled out no child witnesses in the relevant teacher disciplinary hearings?

Another thing Syed and Reed appear to have little understanding of is the personal costs involved in whistleblowing. A DfE official who visited one of the schools said she had never seen so many distressed, frightened and crying members of staff. A female Muslim whistleblower told me about the abuse and intimidation she has faced as a result of speaking out. Shaista Gohir, chair of the Birmingham-based Muslim Women's Network UK, was approached by Muslim females from these schools and articulated their concerns at the time. It led to people threatening to harm her children.

The silencing of Asian women trying to call out the sexism of certain Asian men is a common theme that comes up when I write about these issues. "The issue is not just how Muslims are treated by other people, but how Muslim women and girls are being treated by men in their own community," Gohir told me. "Being accused of stoking up Islamophobia is the price I pay for raising concerns about child safeguarding and misogyny."

The idea that conservative men like Tahir Alam represent British Islam is plain wrong: surveys show the majority of British Muslims reject the ultra-conservative form of Islam that was found to be influencing these non-faith state schools. Conflating the defence of Alam with the defence of Islam does no one any favours. Syed's apparent determination to make the facts fit his precooked narrative is paired with Reed's meditations on race, which seem to use Syed's experience of racism to excuse his questionable approach to journalism: the soft bigotry of low expectations.

The New York Times/Serial told the Observer that it had considered complaints received from the whistleblowers and Richy Thompson and had concluded the podcast fairly and accurately represented the contents of their interviews and that Hamza and Syed have produced "the most comprehensive account to date of a matter of huge national importance and debate".

Ultimately, one false narrative – that there was a problem of violent extremism in these schools – is never improved by another: that beyond Islamophobia there was nothing much to see here at all.

As journalists, our work has real-world consequences beyond the entertainment value of a gripping story. By all accounts, these communities have been healing and the schools recovering, but the people I spoke to fear this podcast series will reopen old wounds and sow new divisions. The New York Times owes them an apology.

[Sheilbh]

The cabinet meeting to approve lifting the last remaining covid restrictions has been delayed.

This was very unusual in that ministers had started to arrive for the meeting when, apparently, ten minutes before it was due to start they were told it would be pushed back to later today. It led to much speculation of whether it was because of news about the Queen's health or something to do with Ukraine.

As it turned out apparently it was that Sunak and Javid were in the middle of a huge row over funding for the health department (the Treasury denies Health are asking for money saying that "DHSC are absolutely not asking for additional funding, they want to reprioritise within existing budget"). The latest from Laura Kuenssberg is that they were, in fact, asking for more money (I can't imagine many departments go to the Treasury asking to "reprioritise" - cut - their budgets or that it every causes any resistance from them if they do):

Laura Kuenssberg
@bbclaurak
I'm told..
-Dept of Health asked No 11 for more than 5bn extra last week to maintain more free testing, eg testing of NHS staff even if they didn't have symptoms
-By Sat, DH  demand down to 3bn but warned of cuts elsewhere if no more £££
-By Sunday, DH demand down to 1.8bn...
But seems talks btw DH and Treasury now settled with no extra cash, plan seems instead to move money around within exsiting Dept of Health budget - no new time agreed yet for Cabinet tho

The really striking thing about this, I think, is that it demonstrates how weak Johnson is now. It is not normal for cabinet meetings to be pushed because two cabinet ministers are having their own meeting and row. My sense is that when a PM is weak and each cabinet minister is broadly far less dependent on him (i.e. it's not clear to me that Johnson could sack Javid or Sunak and survive), then the PM needs to be pretty astute and close in managing the cabinet. Nothing in Johnson's career suggests he has the sort of skills to pull that off I can't see him managing the cabinet, spotting which issues are going to explode and defusing them in advance etc.

I saw one journalist note that there were stories last week suggesting the government seemed a bit more competent and, perhaps, Johnson's new structure/hiring in Number 10 was starting to work - so maybe that would help him survive after all. They then added that last week was half-term and lots of people in government were just on holiday

Edit: Oh and separately because it's been a huge issue in Scottish politics - possibly the biggest example of cakeism I've ever seen.

The SNP have set out some ideas on pensions policy post-independence. Scotland doesn't really have a clear budget in the way that Federal states do because of the way devolution works, but it is clear they are running what would be a massive deficit. The independent analysis has been that independence would probably result in about a 25% cut to pensions - this is one of the reasons I think you are more likely to support the union as you get older because you rely more on the big centrally funded state spending like pensions, pensioners benefits and the NHS.

The SNP policy is that they wouldn't need to cut pensions, in fact they wouldn't need to pay for pensions for existing pensioners because the rest of the UK would continue to pay for them. The argument is that as those pensions accrued in the UK, the UK would pay for them just like it does for pensioners who move overseas. Obviously that is absolute nonsense. Their point is that everyone in Scotland who is paying into the current system as a "right" to a UK pension even if Scotland leaves the UK.

Everyone now has a private pension, but we don't have pots of our state pension that "accrue" in that way - it's paid out of current taxation. If Scotland leaves the UK it's not contributing to current taxation and rUK is not going to be paying for ongoing public services in Scotland - that's the point of independence, or to put it another way funds generated across the UK being spent across the UK is the upside of shared citizenship.

But the SNP are really digging in on this point - though it is an absolute fantasy.

[Tamas]

I think the real reason is that with Ukraine dominating news and people's minds there is no need to throw another bone to distract from partygate. :p

This premature cancellation of the pandemic will make much more PR sense when the government need to wrestle discourse away from partygate again.

[Sheilbh]

I think the real reason is that with Ukraine dominating news and people's minds there is no need to throw another bone to distract from partygate. :p

It's being held this afternoon instead

This premature cancellation of the pandemic will make much more PR sense when the government need to wrestle discourse away from partygate again.

I'm not sure it is premature - lots of European countries are cancelling or unwinding their covid measures. From what I understand that generally is starting on 1 March for many countries - so around about the same time. The only measure that's left is whether you should be legally required to self-isolate if you test positive - everything else has already gone and we're not seeing a rise in case numbers.

I basically think this piece is right - since it was published about a week ago deaths have continued to fall and the 7 day rolling average is now down to about 140 a day (from 200 a day this time last week) and there's no uptick at the minute in case numbers or hospitalisations. Though I agree with the other caveats/recommendations in this piece:

Covid rules: Boris Johnson is right to end the restrictions on our lives, but for the wrong reasons
Has the time come to lift the final pandemic limits on our lives? i's award-winning new science writer Tom Chivers believes it has – as long as we prepare for the unexpected
By Tom Chivers
February 15, 2022 7:00 am(Updated 11:41 am)

By the end of this month, we may be living in a strange, unfamiliar world: one in which we could test positive for Covid, think "huh," and then go to the shops. As long as the "encouraging" trends continue, Boris Johnson told the Commons last week, then all existing restrictions – including the legal requirement to self-isolate – will be lifted by the end of February.

A lot of people are angry about that, and most of the British public think it's a bad idea, with 75 per cent saying the restriction requirements should continue.

There's also a perception that Johnson, weakened by scandals, is trying to appease his backbenchers, many of whom want Covid restrictions to end and life to get back to normal.

But the question is, if not now, when? What would we be waiting for? Johnson may be doing it for the wrong reasons, and his decision may be unpopular. But he may be right to do it.

It's not enough, though, to just lift restrictions: we need to be clever about it. So here's what we should be doing...

A new era of living with Covid

The pandemic is not over. We will be living with its consequences for years – possibly decades – to come. But this is as good as it is going to get for the foreseeable future. If we're ever going to go back to something like pre-pandemic life, it might as well be now.

That might sound insensitive, or even reckless. Even now, every day, around 200 people are dying within 28 days of a positive Covid test; some of them would have died of something else, now that testing is so widespread that millions of people are swabbing their nostrils every week, but most would not.

But it's worth putting that number into context. First, it's the result of the Omicron wave which hit us in December and early January. At one point, we reached an average of 200,000 new cases a day, three times as many as last January's peak. Despite that enormous wave, the number of deaths never reached anywhere near the levels in the darkest periods of 2020 and early 2021.

That's partly because Omicron is less deadly, but it's mainly because of vaccination: 91 per cent of the population aged 12 and over have had at least one dose of a vaccine, and 65 per cent have had three. 

Second, the number of deaths is coming down. Crucially, at the moment, fewer people are dying than normally do at this time in an average year, even including Covid deaths. That's probably partly because so many of the most vulnerable died in the last two waves, but nonetheless, we are no longer in the grip of a crisis.

As good as it gets

"We're in a phase, now, where triple-vaccinated people with normal immune systems can stop worrying, from a personal point of view," says Dr Rupert Beale, head of the Cell Biology of Infection lab at the Crick Institute. "The situation is vastly different, now that we have an extensively vaccinated population, and a circulating variant that's much less pathogenic."

When we went into lockdown in March 2020 and last winter, we did so, essentially, to push problems into the future: to stop people dying in the short term, until we had a long-term solution. That solution – mainly in the form of vaccines, but also new treatments – has since arrived. 

They're not perfect, and Covid is still circulating, but they have suppressed many of the bad outcomes. Unless there is some remarkable new technological breakthrough, this is probably as good as it's going to get for the foreseeable future.

And, to be clear, restrictions are not without cost. At the moment, a lot of the damage caused by Covid is the result of our response to it. Children miss school, not because they are ill, but because they have to isolate for several days after a positive test when they have no symptoms. 

Through that and lockdown, children have missed months of school, and it's been a "disaster", says Dr Sunil Bhopal, a paediatrician and public health specialist at the University of Newcastle. He says the price has been not just learning loss but "exacerbated inequalities in learning loss; mental health and emotional wellbeing. Referrals to children's mental health services skyrocketed. Abuse went under the radar."

Adults have suffered too. Services and shops have been running short-staffed or unable to open; people have missed work, holidays, parties, weddings and funerals, despite being perfectly well.

It would be reasonable to argue that this should continue forever, that isolation following a positive test is something we should require indefinitely. Some people do argue that, and add that we should do the same for other diseases, such as the flu or gastroenteritis, once we have cheap at-home testing for them. 

But those of us who think that we should try to return to normal life should either decide to do it now, or explain what it is we're waiting for.

Letting people's lives go back to normal is not the same as acting as though the pandemic is over. We need to monitor the situation, and be clear about what would make us change course. 

What's more, Covid is still spreading around the world, and new variants could arise. Even if they don't, we need to be ready for the next pandemic. 

Rethink testing

Testing has been important for helping people isolate, to slow the spread of the disease. But it's also been important for monitoring the spread of the disease: for telling us when and where it is spreading, and warning us of coming waves. 

The standard testing regime is useful for that, but not ideal. "If our objective is to track variants, there are better ways of doing that than PCR-testing everyone with mild symptoms," says Professor Adam Kucharski, a mathematical epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Luckily, the UK also does randomised population testing, carried out by the Office for National Statistics in the same way as an opinion poll. Thousands of people are randomly selected and asked to provide samples, which are then used to give a statistical estimate of how many people have the virus, and which variants are circulating.

This allows a relatively real-time look at how the disease is spreading and where, meaning that when the next variant comes along, which it probably will, we will have good monitoring of it. Preposterously, it is rumoured that the infection survey will be shut down in April, That decision must be reversed, and funding extended. If anything, the survey should – and could, easily – be expanded to monitor the spread of other diseases.

But monitoring is no use if it doesn't have a purpose. If we do lift all restrictions, then we need to have clear criteria for what it would take to reinstate them. 

"Is it that we don't want hospitals overwhelmed?" asks Kucharski. "What are we and what aren't we willing to put up with?" The Government needs to be explicit about what would make us change direction.

We should also keep a close eye on what's happening in those countries, such as Denmark, which lifted restrictions ahead of us. And we should continue to make rapid at-home lateral flow tests available cheaply, so people can test themselves and make their own decisions about whether it's safe to go out. (We should also start doing that with tests for other diseases.) Beale adds that we need to make it clear how we will protect vulnerable groups. "What mitigations are in place for high-risk settings, hospitals, for people with abnormal immunity? What's our availability of antiviral drugs? If we clearly lay that out, people might be a bit more on board with [ending restrictions]."

Test and vaccinate the world

The most likely reason why we'd have to reinstate restrictions is a new variant. But the next one probably won't arise in the UK, and nowhere else is as good at monitoring as we are. 

"As far as I know," says Rob Blackie, a strategist who advises biotech companies, "the only country that does random infection surveys is Britain. In the poor half of the world there's just not enough testing capacity – and we have no idea what's going on."

He points out that for much of 2020 and 2021, people were saying there were very few infections in Africa, but in fact they just weren't being tested. A recent study found that about 70 per cent of Malawians had Covid antibodies in their blood, evidence of prior infection. 

Britain can and should be a global leader in providing survey testing support. Our ONS infection survey model can be exported globally. The annual cost of the survey in the UK is £390m – peanuts, compared to the multitrillion-pound cost of the pandemic itself. It would be far cheaper to provide similar services in developing countries. It would be a huge net benefit to the world, a huge diplomatic win for the UK and might even pay for itself in terms of reduced risk. It could also be repurposed for future pandemics.

As for vaccines, at the moment each dose costs on average around £20. It varies by country and by vaccine, but that's the ballpark figure. That adds up quickly. Triple-vaccinating 60 million Britons, for instance, will have cost £3bn to £4bn just for the vaccines themselves. 

But that expense is worth it, because the cost of someone getting Covid is far greater, through loss of work and healthcare costs. A study by Taiwanese researchers, published in July, found that each dollar invested in vaccines returned between $13 and $28 in benefits, and others find similar results.

The trouble is, as Blackie points out, poorer countries often can't afford that sort of upfront cost. "Philanthropic organisations have filled the gap," he says, "but if you want to boost the whole world every year, that's maybe $200bn a year."

So we need to get the cost of vaccines down. The way to do that is to build and buy more. Blackie suggests that a new mRNA vaccine factory costs around £150m, which matches other reported estimates. That sounds like a lot, but the economist Michael Kremer estimates that at its height, the pandemic was costing the world $500bn (about £370bn) a month, or the cost of more than 2,000 vaccine factories. 

Even seven or eight big vaccine factories, placed around the world, would be enough to produce billions of doses in short order. That would increase supply and bring costs down to manageable levels, as well as getting us ready for the next pandemic. 

In non-pandemic years, the factories could produce mRNA cancer therapies and other drugs, or they could just stand ready. Keeping them on standby would cost a few million pounds a year, peanuts compared to the cost of another pandemic.

It's worth noting too that, at the moment, China is the world's largest supplier of vaccines to the developing world. It is doing this not just with Covid vaccines but others, and is using it as a form of soft-power diplomacy, building the influence of the Chinese Communist Party. 

Britain could do the same, at very reasonable cost. The Government likes to talk about "punching above our weight" internationally, and this would be a good way to do that. 

Tread carefully, but go forward

It is not obviously the case that ending restrictions is the right decision. Maybe the next variant will be even milder than Omicron, and it may turn out in hindsight that we could have avoided a lot of pain if we had waited for it. 

Or, as Kucharski points out, maybe there will be some amazing breakthrough in vaccines or therapies which will render Covid entirely harmless. 

"If you asked people two years ago about the prospect of a vaccine, people would have been sceptical. You have to be aware of the possibility of innovation," he says.

On the other hand, it's also possible that keeping restrictions in place would make things worse: if immunity wanes, as it seems to, then allowing the disease to circulate will help keep our immunity up, alongside a programme of boosters. And maybe the next variant will be more deadly, and keeping restrictions in place would mean we're less immune, so we get hit harder by it.

And the general point is that pushing our problems into the future, with isolation and other restrictions, is expensive. That cost was worth it in March 2020, because the price of not doing so was so huge. 

But it's far from clear whether that is true now. "Our ability to push infections into the future is getting more disruptive and expensive," says Kucharski, "and the benefits are getting lower because we have more protection."

The time has come to lift restrictions. But we need to do it cleverly: establish systems for reinstating those restrictions, keep closely monitoring, and – most importantly – help the rest of the world get to where we are. Boris Johnson has made the right decision, even if he has made it for the wrong reasons.

[garbon]

I agree 100% garbon, but I take whatever fall of Johnson I can get.

Oh for sure get him out - even if it won't improve much as we are on to the next Tory.

I just issue with the CC/Sheilbh line that this somehow paints the UK in a positive light. It is embarassing that this might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

So I was wrong. More embarassing is how we did all that and now are just letting him continue on. To remain in power, you just need to be obstinate.

[Syt]

Daily Wail: "Got Covid? No excuse to call in sick!"

[Tamas]