Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[PJL]

]

Tyr's transformation from social/class warrior to a member of the comfortably off middle-class is complete.

This is the distinction between a working class tribalist (/fascist) and a socialist

Specifically trying to hurt the middle class as the goal in itself is dumb.

So Communists are fascists now? How is that different than the Nazis are socialist memes perpetuated by the right?

[Josquius]

]

Tyr's transformation from social/class warrior to a member of the comfortably off middle-class is complete.

This is the distinction between a working class tribalist (/fascist) and a socialist

Specifically trying to hurt the middle class as the goal in itself is dumb.

So Communists are fascists now? How is that different than the Nazis are socialist memes perpetuated by the right?

Communists are not part of this dichotomy. They're not really relevant in modern Britain.

Even with communists however I've never heard of hurting the middle class being an end goal in and of itself.

[PJL]

]

Tyr's transformation from social/class warrior to a member of the comfortably off middle-class is complete.

This is the distinction between a working class tribalist (/fascist) and a socialist

Specifically trying to hurt the middle class as the goal in itself is dumb.

So Communists are fascists now? How is that different than the Nazis are socialist memes perpetuated by the right?

Communists are not part of this dichotomy. They're not really relevant in modern Britain.

Even with communists however I've never heard of hurting the middle class being an end goal in and of itself.

Maybe not as an end goal, but hurting the middle class was certainly an intermediary goal for the Communists. Not for nothing were there endless diatribes about the bourgeois made by them.

[Josquius]

Maybe not as an end goal, but hurting the middle class was certainly an intermediary goal for the Communists. Not for nothing were there endless diatribes about the bourgeois made by them.

.
Not even. A side effect mostly. And those who do see hurting people better off than them as a goal... Well there you've the red-brown loop at work. I have come across this sort on rare occasion. Though really they just struck me as confused edgelords looking to shock more than anything.

As again it's rare to come across a communist. They're just not a thing in modern British politics. Even most of our far left tend not to be communists.

[Sheilbh]

British Trots are definitely a thing on the far left: Socialist Workers Party pressent at every demonstration with all their front organisations (Stand Up To Racism, Stop the War etc), the remnants of Militant are still around, as are remnants of the Workers Revolutionary Party. All of them hate each other and have a habit of splitting over tactics - entryism, front organisations, industrial politics. Most of their public documents are normally entirely in line with a soft left position, what they say in private is a different matter - for example from Militant member, and Labour candidate in the 80s, Pat Wall - who was very good at the media and seeming moderate:

We will face bloodshed. We will face the possibility of civil war and the terrible death and destructions and bloodshed that would mean.

Peter Taafe (de facto leader while Militant ran Liverpool) said it would depend on the attitude of the institutions, if "they concede to the politically organised expression of the masses, everything will be satisfactory. If they oppose the masses, the masses will use violence. It is legitimate."

They are absolutely from a revolutionary tradition. Not all people who go to them or have a sign think like that, for example the SWP is especially fond of setting up front organisations like Stop the War which many on the left may join and support but that is absolutely run by party cadres. But the core activist parts of those movements absolutely do, and they do lots of political screening (and education) before you get to join that part of the party. And they are very good at working organisational bureaucracy. It's why it's really important to have a very clear firewall between the revolutionary left and the parliamentary left. The importance of that firewall is one of the key differences between the hard and soft left in Labour.

It was one of the issues with Corbyn. He chaired the Stop the War coalition from 2011 (so during Syria and the first invasion of Ukraine with predictable positions: "NATO OUT!") and was involved before that - so was close to SWP figures but he comes from the hard left "no enemies to the left" wing of the Labour left.

Another example is Andrew Murray who was a senior political advisor to Corbyn (and also was and still is chief of staff in Unite - incidentally, my union) he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (basically the pro-USSR/Soviet directed party) from 1976 until he got a job in the office of the Labour leader in 2015. He was also, incidentally, banned from Ukraine for pro-Russian activism. When Corbyn's time as leader ended, he lost his job with the party, left it and re-joined the CPGB. He was, incidentally, a close friend of Seumas Milne, Corbyn's comms director and former opinion editor in the Guardian.

There is a revolutionary far left tradition in British politics - we don't really have any organised Eurocommunists that I'm aware of though. I feel like they just write for the New Left Review side. They don't have much success in electoral politics (except in Liverpool City Council), but that's not their strategy (again they come from a vanguard tradition). They work through entrism, front organisations and union politics and there are communist (Trot and orthodox Marxist-Leninist) figures who are senior in unions, the media and in the Labour Party in recent years. They're not vastly powerful, but they're always trying to break into positions of influence in one way or another. Again I think that's why it is important for the left to have a strong firewall on its left flank. Not everyone is an ally just because they want to nationalise public transport.

Of course the other successful communist group in British politics is arguably the culture war-ring, libertarian-ish, troll-ish right There's the Revolutionary Communist Party who were Trots and oriented around the Living Marxism magazine. They ended up disbanding (though some query if they're still somewhat organised), and have since run "contrarian" magazines like Spiked. They also seem to have some involvement in Unherd, one of their ex-members was head of Boris Johnson's policy unit in Downing Street and three went on to be Brexit Party MEPs (one of whom is now in the Lords).

It's all a little conspiratorial as, as I say, there's no formal party or magazine to organise but a lot of them seem still very focused on similar issues: "demonisation" of the "white working class", broadly sympathy with Russia, consistently anti-war in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya etc (Living Marxism denied the genocide in Bosnia), lots on the "right to offend" and also a move from being anti-CCTV, smoking bans etc to now panicking about "bio-politics" post-covid. I don't think they're still a party, but I think they're definitely a school that's influencing the populist right in the UK. I always wonder if they're maybe a bit more like the neo-cons in the US who often did genuinely start as Trots but moved right in the 60s and 70s to positions of power and influence across the GOP and conservative movement in the 2000s?

[Sheilbh]

Great example of why planning reform is going to be incredibly challenging for Labour in terms of political capital.

I basically sympathise with the government's proposed change on nutrient neutrality. In many ways it's a classic example of something that gets blamed on the EU (including by the government) but isn't really. It was an EU regulation that the UK then gold plated.

And the Tories then appointed a long standing Friends of the Earth activist and former Green party parliamentary candidate to head Natural England (have to be honest - if I was a Conservative minister I would simply not appoint Friends of the Earth activists to run quangos ), which has a statutory right to comment on big planning applications. Natural England wrote to about 75 councils saying their proposed local plans for housing and commercial development because there was a risk it could cause nitrogen and phosphate polllution in special areas for conservation (of which there are about 650 in the UK). One of the arguments the government is making is that commercial development is only responsible for 5% of nitrogen and phosphates being released, the vast majority are from farming - and in any event there is already a legal obligation for new developments to have filtration systems to not reduce any nitrogen or phosphates by 2030 and blocking new developments in 75 councils is disproportionate (and contributing to the housig crisis).

Anyway - back to why planning reform will be challenging (and a bit of the hobbyist point from the Economist). This is the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' Twitter account tomorrow. They have 1.2 million members which is more than all political parties together and the third largest non-union membership organisation in the country (after the National Trust and English Heritage, who also have views on building):

RSPB England 🌍
@RSPBEngland
LIARS!

@RishiSunak @michaelgove @theresecoffey you said you wouldn't weaken environmental protections.

And yet that's just what you are doing.

You lie, and you lie, and you lie again.

And we've had enough. 🧵

Yesterday your Government announced the first reversal in environmental legislation for decades.
And all the while you have pretended to be a Government that cares about nature.

It's now very patently clear that you do not.
Here's a record of just some of your lies on the environment ...

It goes on:
https://twitter.com/RSPBEngland/status/1696845799383003180?s=20

Also probably one on why I'm dubious that the Tories have wildly undermined independent institutions by politicising them (although appointinng a former Green parliamentary candidate doesn't seem to be seen as "political"), or are insufficiently challenged. I just think, sadly, people in Britain care more about not building things, airlifting animals from Kabul and trying to stop the termination of an alpaca than, say, Brexit

Reminded once again that in the 2017 election when the country was divided over Brexit and Labour did surprisingly well with a strong left manifesto denying May a majority, the most popular, most engaged with Labour ad on social media was an attack ad about May's proposal for a free vote on legalising fox hunting againn

Good luck to Labour on planning reform though....

Edit: Incidentally I think tthis is going to be an increasing tension between social goals (everyone can live in a home and there's a functioning housing market accessible to average earners) and environmental goals (building the infrastructure we need for transition to an electrified world) v conservation. I suspect that what we need to do to reach net zero is not going to be compatible with more traditional conservationist environmentalism and that's going to become a dividing line as 2050 approaches.

[crazy canuck]

Sheilbh, the views you have expressed regarding police independence are quite different from the way they are understood in Canada. I did some reading in the academic literature, and I discovered the reason why that is.

It turns out there have been a number of legislative changes in the UK since the heyday of the principle of police independence developed in the UK common law.

In Canada, we more closely follow the principle developed in that UK jurisprudence.

Interestingly, the principle is largely unknown in the US and completely unknown in civil law jurisdictions.

[crazy canuck]

And helpfully there is an article in today's Globe which provides a description of one of the shameful episodes of political interference that helped shape our views of the importance of police independence.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/519974dc5e28f762a87fb14c1570523f4fb873adfcfcb945043907ccc3c41650/QX4JIMOWQ5AF3GYN6RWZBB6RJY/

[Josquius]

Planning reform is something Labour needs to stay very very quiet about then do anyway once in power.

[Sheilbh]

And helpfully there is an article in today's Globe which provides a description of one of the shameful episodes of political interference that helped shape our views of the importance of police independence.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/519974dc5e28f762a87fb14c1570523f4fb873adfcfcb945043907ccc3c41650/QX4JIMOWQ5AF3GYN6RWZBB6RJY/

Interesting, thanks - although from the Met's spy cops - which included having spies in the Young Liberals - that you don't need political interference for that sort of thing There is apparently very little evidence about what exactly that young cop was looking for - but it overlaps with Jeremy Thorpe so quite possibly investigating his plot to murder his lover? Or more troublingly, his anti-aparthid stance?

This is the full list - some defensible, others less so. The Wilson government (otherwise liberalising on home affairs) authorised the creation of units in Special Branch, but this is what Special Branch always did going back to the Fenians and anarchists. I think it's always a risk of police duties around public order and counter-terrorism/counter-extremism (which are also necessary):
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2018/oct/15/uk-political-groups-spied-on-undercover-police-list

So far I think there's not been much reporting that the politicians were involved. The scandal here has been more about spy cops faking relationships with women based on a lie (and whether that constitutes rape or sexual assault of some kind) and also using the names of deceased children to create fake identities (like in Day of the Jackal). In classic British style there's a judge led public inqury with 250 core participants that's been running for 11 years, covering three modules that has yet to publish even its interim report (though I believe it's expected this year) The scandal will be meticulously recounted in the deathly prose of a retired judge, many lessons will be learned and it'll all be swept under the carpet.

I think it gets to the tension which I think is particularly key in policing of balancing operational independence so their investigations and ensuring their operational decisions are not subject to political interference, with accountability to the public and elected officials for their behaviour and performance. And I don't know that there is an answer - it seems to me you see both extremes in the US (which always tends to have both extremes of anything ). For example, it seems to me that some police forces in the US (or the FBI historically - I'm just reading the new biography of J Edgar Hoover so its on my mind) are too independent. They seem like separate political actors at this point able to resist public discontent and anger from elected politicians at how they police black and other communities, and almsot like they're appealing to their own base. Yet in other ways, like some appointments or direct elections they're very politicised.

[crazy canuck]

I think it gets to the tension which I think is particularly key in policing of balancing operational independence so their investigations and ensuring their operational decisions are not subject to political interference, with accountability to the public and elected officials for their behaviour and performance. And I don't know that there is an answer - it seems to me you see both extremes in the US (which always tends to have both extremes of anything ). For example, it seems to me that some police forces in the US (or the FBI historically - I'm just reading the new biography of J Edgar Hoover so its on my mind) are too independent. They seem like separate political actors at this point able to resist public discontent and anger from elected politicians at how they police black and other communities, and almsot like they're appealing to their own base. Yet in other ways, like some appointments or direct elections they're very politicised.

Here is a good paper exploring that tension.

https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3230058

[Sheilbh]

Interesting - I think on the UK they focus a bit too much on Police and Crime Commissioners, in England and Wales. I think it's generally accepted that whole idea has been a failure. They've merged their elections with local authority elections but turnout is incredibly low so I don't even think they fulfil the democratic accountability point particularly well.

In some areas where the metro-mayor's region is the same as a police force, they have the powers of the PCC which I think makes a lot of sense (and I'd be inclined to re-shape constabularies to make that the norm). It's also worth flagging that some of the ambiguities are possibly less ambiguous than he thinks because in lots of the statute it just refers to "local police authority" - so there's about sixty years of experience etc on what "reasonable provision" of information means (although I'm not sure that is ambiguous from a public law perspective). The PCCs changed their powers slightly because it basically moved some of the Home Secretary's responsibilities to them (more on the strategic direction side) but it also hived up the accountability responsibility of police authorities which used to be a committee of (I think 10) councillors from the relevant local authorities and (I think 9) lay members.

Arguably in the UK the interesting thing is there are multiple approaches. So May in England and Wales created PCCs as directly elected positions which are now increasingly merging with other devolution settlements like the metro-mayors. Scotland went in absolutely the opposite direction where the SNP abolished all the difference constabularies and created a single Police Scotland, and the Chief Constable is directly accountable to the Justice and Home Affairs Secretary and the Scottish Parliament. That's not been uncontroversial - particularly with rural communities who say they're being neglected and everything is focused on the Central Belt.

Then in Northern Ireland for obvious reasons there are very significant sensitivities over political control and accountability of the police. So in the Northern Ireland Executive policing, probation etc were still answerable to Westminster until the St Andrews Agreement in 2007, there is now a Minister for Justice in the executive but so far that position has only been held by politicians from the (non-sectarian) Alliance Party or (non-sectarian) independents. But they have very limited powers over the police. The PSNI is primarily answerable to the Policing Board which is a bit like the the old police authorities in England and Wales with a split of political members and independent members. So 10 members of the legislative assemblies (broken down in a similar way as power sharing) and 9 lay members. The lay members always hold the chair and are apply to and are appointed by the Minister - looking at the current ones all the type of great and good people who sit on multiple boards of trustees etc as you'd expect. In general it seems to work and have some credibility with all communities - although, like Stormont, there is always a risk that one of the parties withdraws which would cause a crisis.

[Gups]

Planning reform is something Labour needs to stay very very quiet about then do anyway once in power.

I disagree (and so does Labour it seems).

1. Labour need to show that it intends to do something. It's decided it won't raise taxes significantly and that it won't borrow more. It's only choice is therefore to grow the economy to allow for increased expenditure. Planning reform has been identified as a means of securing growth and Labour need to show that it has a plan.

2. It will be difficult to get legislation through the Lords without a mandate created by a manifesto committment.

3. People generally aren't opposed to new housing, but may be to specific schemes. Any policy changes will obviously be at the national level. The most popular national(ish) policy is the green belt and Starmer has already said that will be re-evaluated (rightly so).

4.  To the extent that there is in principle opposition to planing reform aimed at increasing house building, it is concentrated in constinuencies which are not winnable for Labour in any event.

[Sheilbh]

I agree. It's the right thing to do and I think it is an important (and cheap) way of increasing growth. But it's going to require a lot of political capital there will be a lot of opposition, including in the Lords. That means it absolutely needs to be in the manifesto so Labour has a mandate for it and if necessary can force it through the Lords. I think the same probably goes for their devolution "take back control" legislation, because again I think there will be lots of vested interests so you need it in the manifesto.

I really like Lisa Nandy and she's behind both of those and I think it's striking that she hasn't opposed the government's change on nutrient neutrality, a bit like Yvette Cooper hasn't actually opposed setting targets for the police to investigate every crime with a reasonable line of inquiry. And I think it's important that at a time when Starmer is walking back previous commitments and, in my view, is trying to start narrowing his message ahead of the election that he has doubled down on planning reform by explicitly saying they'll review the green belt. Now they don't need to set out a massively detailed policy paper in their manifesto butI think they need to be clear about what they want to do or it will get stuck.

Separately I wonder if Labour's position is going to be a bit better than expected without necessarily doing anything - obviously politically it's better for them for that to be underplayed. Jonn Elledge recently had an article I agreed with that things will shift around politics more than we expect simply if Labour take office. The press will pivot, but also, for example, Reeves will be able to set her own fiscal rules. I understand there's also plans to change the way the Treasury measures capital spending etc which will have an impact.

Also I think there may be more money available than expected as the Tories have increased and pencilled in tax increases, they've also frozen lots of thresholds so there's fiscal drag and pay settlements are bigger than expected by the BofE which means the impact of fiscal drag looks like it'll be bigger than expected. Tax as a proportion of GDP was at about 33% for most of the 90s to about 2020, but just through measures the Tories have already announced it's currently projected to get up to about 38%. That's a big difference between 2022-3 and 2025-6, without Labour having to do anything. I think combining that tax rise with falling inflation (although the UK looks like the Western economy that most has a proper wage-price spiral going on ) and the unwinding of measures to limit the impact of the energy shock from Russia means I slightly supsect that Reeves will obviously be saying "it's even worse than we expected" but may have more room for manoeuvre than expected.

[Gups]

I've had recent experience of helping half dozen Lords opposing elements of the current planning Bill (the Levelling Up and Regenration Bill) for which the Tories certainly don't have a mandate. While progress has been slow and teh debates pretty long, the Government has pretty much got its way on everything so I think opposition in the Lords to this kind of stuff is not a massive factor.