Tony Abbott's Brexit blather unpicked

Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia, well-known misogynist, homophobe and climate change denier, stuck his head over the parapet on Brexit and his Spectator article keeps doing the rounds online. It's tiresome and ridiculous so I thought I'd break it down. Just to be clear, to quote the hapless Theresa May, Tony's words are in black and my words are in red.

It’s pretty hard for Britain’s friends, here in Australia, to make sense of the mess that’s being made of Brexit. The referendum result was perhaps the biggest-ever vote of confidence in the United Kingdom, its past and its future. 

OK, Tony, I'll stop you there already. Sure, people in other countries are baffled by Brexit for a wide range of reasons but it's the bit about the vote being a vote of confidence in the past that is especially pitiful. It is about nostalgia for "good old days" that weren't that good at all - it is a hankering for a time when the UK was known as "the sick man of Europe", when manufacturing was in a terrible place, when GDP lagged dramatically behind those of Germany, France and Italy, and trade with European partners was constipated. But you know what reversed all those trends? Joining the EEC and then the EU!   

But the British establishment doesn’t seem to share that confidence and instead looks desperate to cut a deal, even if that means staying under the rule of Brussels. Looking at this from abroad, it’s baffling: the country that did the most to bring democracy into the modern world might yet throw away the chance to take charge of its own destiny.

Oh, please. Enough with the "British establishment" - the loudest pro-Brexit voices such as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg are the very definition of the establishment. It is a campaign that has largely been led by a moneyed elite who will be largely unaffected by a catastrophic Brexit, probably never expected the Leave vote to win and, as such, had no interest in taking responsibility for the outcome or doing the serious, intellectually and economically rigorous work required to not make Brexit the car crash we are now witnessing.

And the "under the rule of Brussels" rhetoric is Daily Express-in-bumper-sticker nonsense which ignores the fact that we have elected MEPs and the power of veto as EU members. Sadly, the work of MEPs has been pitifully under-reported over the years or deliberately mis-reported, particularly by Boris Johnson when he was play-acting at journalism as an EU correspondent. And when I say "mis-reported", I mean "made shit up".

Let’s get one thing straight: a negotiation that you’re not prepared to walk away from is not a negotiation — it’s surrender. It’s all give and no get. When David Cameron tried to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership, he was sent packing because Brussels judged (rightly) that he’d never actually back leaving. And since then, Brussels has made no real concessions to Theresa May because it judges (rightly, it seems) that she’s desperate for whatever deal she can get.

Let's get one thing straight, Tony - David Cameron was frequently terrible, but his negotiations with the EU as Prime Minister gave us the best deal of all EU members.

Here is a helpful list:

1. We have kept our currency. 

2. It was written into EU law that the UK was exempt from any documents referring to an "ever-closer union". 

3. Newly arrived EU citizens are banned from claiming jobseeker's allowance for three months and have to go home if they haven't found a job within six months. 

4. If EU workers lose a job through no fault of their own they are only entitled to jobseeker's allowance and housing benefit for six months. 

5. Access to benefits for newly arrived EU workers was limited for a period of up to four years from the commencement of employment. 

(Newsflash! By a long, long way, the old age pension makes up the biggest proportion of the UK's welfare bill, people born here are more likely to be on benefits than people who have arrived from the EU, and the proportion of people in work who still need welfare to get by keeps rising)

6. As we are outside the eurozone, the UK is not required to fund euro bailouts and will be reimbursed for central EU funds used to prop up the euro.

The EU’s palpable desire to punish Britain for leaving vindicates the Brexit project. Its position, now, is that there’s only one ‘deal’ on offer, whereby the UK retains all of the burdens of EU membership but with no say in setting the rules. The EU seems to think that Britain will go along with this because it’s terrified of no deal. Or, to put it another way, terrified of the prospect of its own independence.

Christ, here we go again with the EU "punishing" the UK for leaving. To enjoy full access to the single market and the benefits of the customs union, we have to abide by certain rules, such as freedom of movement. 

And the pitiful whining about how we will have "no say in setting the rules" needs to stop - if you voted to leave, you voted for the UK to have no MEPs, no representation in any EU institution, and therefore no say in the rules. But we will still have to trade with the EU post-Brexit - even Brexiters realise this - and to do so, our goods and services have to meet certain standards. It's just that we won't have any say in those standards but having no say is literally what you voted for when you wanted to render MEPs unemployed. 

But even after two years of fearmongering and vacillation, it’s not too late for robust leadership to deliver the Brexit that people voted for. It’s time for Britain to announce what it will do if the EU can’t make an acceptable offer by March 29 next year — and how it would handle no deal. 

Sit down, Tony. You're peddling myths again, starting with "if the EU can’t make an acceptable offer by March 29 next year". We're the ones who are leaving, the onus is on us to tell the EU what we want from this brave new post-Brexit world. If our demands are seen by the EU as giving the UK rights over and above EU members, why the hell would the EU say: "OK then, you can leave the EU while still retaining the benefits of membership with none of the responsibilities, you wacky kids!"?

Freed from EU rules, Britain would automatically revert to world trade, using rules agreed by the World Trade Organization. It works pretty well for Australia. So why on earth would it not work just as well for the world’s fifth-largest economy?

Another lie from Tony! But there has been so much utter tripe spouted about the giddy, giddy joy of trading under WTO rules that it comes as no surprise that Tony has glibly said "it works pretty well for Australia". Australia does not trade solely under WTO rules, which would be the default plan if we crash out with no deal. Australia has multiple free trade agreements including those with New Zealand, China, South Korea and the USA, and negotiations have started for an agreement with, you guessed it, the EU. 

The only country in the world that trades pretty much exclusively under WTO rules is Mauritania, a country most people struggle to find on a map (hint: it's in north-west Africa) and is frequently confused with the honeymooners' paradise of Mauritius (hint: the Mauritanian economy does not do well out of tourism, let alone tourism from honeymooners). Mauritania has an economy heavily reliant on agriculture, fisheries and iron ore. While a significant hydrocarbon discovery off its coast, which it shares with Senegal, has the potential to transform Mauritania, this project is still in the very early exploration stages. The Mauritanian economy, as it currently stands, is not one the UK should seek to emulate in a hurry.

In any case, Mauritania, while still being hamstrung by WTO rules, is part of the growing trend across Africa to form economic blocs of neighbouring countries, as well as being part of the African Union. So committed is Mauritania to having a seat at that particular table it hosted an African Union summit in June this year. The EU has been very busy in recent years signing Memoranda of Understanding with blocs across Africa - and these MoUs are a vast improvement on some of the terrible trading arrangements Europe has had with African countries in awful years gone by. The forming of blocs across Africa, as well as a strengthening of the African Union, is helping African trade enormously. Good Lord, it's almost as if forming close economic ties with your nearest geographical neighbours might be useful! Who'd've thunk it? 

A world trade Brexit lets Britain set its own rules. 

No, Tony, it means we will crash out with no deal, endure absolute bedlam across multiple industries and have to trade under the limitations of WTO rules until we get our shit together and sort out trade deals with the 50+ countries with which the EU has trade deals. Surely even you know, Tony, that trade deals aren't sorted out over a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge. They can take years and when we're not negotiating them with the support of our fellow EU members, it won't be as easy. And there is no point trying to make a start on these amazing deals before it's clear what our relationship with the EU will look like - that will influence what sort of hand we will have going into any trade deal negotiation.

It can say, right now, that it will not impose any tariff or quota on European produce and would recognise all EU product standards. That means no border controls for goods coming from Europe to Britain. You don’t need to negotiate this: just do it. If Europe knows what’s in its own best interests, it would fully reciprocate in order to maintain entirely free trade and full mutual recognition of standards right across Europe.

Sure, Tony, we can "just do it" but that won't make negotiating trade arrangements with the 50+ countries we already have deals with as part of the EU any easier. See my previous comment. And see my even earlier comment about how we still won't have any say in standards across Europe if we leave the EU. Bloody hell, I am repeating myself now. It's like dealing with a slow-witted child.

Next, the UK should declare that Europeans already living here should have the right to remain permanently — and, of course, become British citizens if they wish. This should be a unilateral offer. Again, you don’t need a deal. You don’t need Michel Barnier’s permission. If Europe knows what’s best for itself, it would likewise allow Britons to stay where they are.

Oh, Tony, Tony, Tony. This is so naive it's almost adorable. Yes, of course the government could simply guarantee the rights of all EU citizens currently in the UK to stay and become British citizens with those funky red, I mean, blue passports. But, given that the perception and quite possibly the reality is that plenty of people voted leave to reduce the number of Europeans living here, and given that the Conservative Party is still obsessed with pandering to anti-immigration elements, that is not what is actually going on. EU citizens will have to go through the bureaucracy of applying for settled status, if they have lived here for five years, and "pre-settled status" if they have been here for less than five years, at a cost of £65 per adult and £32.50 per child under 16.

Hurrah! More bureaucracy!   

Third, there should continue to be free movement of people from Europe into Britain — but with a few conditions. Only for work, not welfare. And with a foreign worker’s tax on the employer, to make sure anyone coming in would not be displacing British workers.

Tony, see my list above about the limitations of welfare for EU citizens before you start embarrassing yourself any further. 

As for a foreign workers' tax, how exactly will that be enforced? How will employers prove their European employees are not displacing British workers? What if they are forced to sack European workers and they can't find British workers to fill the positions? Will those companies be compensated or just taxed into oblivion? That doesn't sound conducive to economic growth. I thought you were a low-tax, limited government conservative, Tony, yet here you are proposing a new tax that would potentially damage businesses and create additional administration for an already stretched civil service.

Hurrah! More bureaucracy! And a fun new tax!

Fourth, no ‘divorce bill’ whatsoever should be paid to Brussels. The UK government would assume the EU’s property and liabilities in Britain, and the EU would assume Britain’s share of these in Europe. If Britain was getting its fair share, these would balance out; and if Britain wasn’t getting its fair share, it’s the EU that should be paying Britain.

Sigh... Here we go again with the "let's just bugger off into WTO wonderland without paying a penny" claptrap. The "divorce bill" is not a fine for leaving the EU - it is about meeting financial obligations in a responsible manner. If we leave without paying the bill like an indignant diner who is angry with the restaurant because they don't like the colour of the tiles in the loo, that will not help our international standing, particularly when it comes to negotiating future trade deals outside the EU. It's going to be hard enough to negotiate 50+ trade deals without the support of our fellow European negotiators without further diminishing our international standing by behaving like petulant toddlers.

Also, spoiler alert, Tony: Britain was getting its fair share from the EU and then some.

Finally, there’s no need on Britain’s part for a hard border with Ireland. Britain wouldn’t be imposing tariffs on European goods, so there’s no money to collect. The UK has exactly the same product standards as the Republic, so let’s not pretend you need to check for problems we all know don’t exist. Some changes may be needed but technology allows for smart borders: there was never any need for a Cold War-style Checkpoint Charlie. Irish citizens, of course, have the right to live and work in the UK in an agreement that long predates EU membership.

The hard border isn't just about tariffs or pre-EU agreements, Tony. It's about inspections of goods as they cross the border once the UK is out of the customs union. Once we are out of the EU, we are out of the customs union - again, this is literally what people voted for when they voted leave so I have no idea why any Brexiter is crying about this. Hell, it's almost as if some people had no idea what they were really voting for, and didn't realise we are facing the prospect of UK trucks held up at every border in the EU for inspection as they try to transport goods easily around the continent, even with "smart borders".

Oh, and there is the not-insignificant issue of a hard border risking reigniting the troubles in Northern Ireland. But don't just take my word for it. Click here to hear from a retired member of the Irish Defence Forces on the risks and woeful lack of preparation on the side of the republic. Combine this with moronic, dismissive rhetoric on Ireland from the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and equally poor preparation for a hard Brexit by the UK and it soon becomes clear that this isn't as simple as just bunging in a few cameras and scanners. 

Of course, the EU might not like this British leap for independence. It might hit out with tariffs and impose burdens on Britain as it does on the US — but WTO rules put a cap on any retaliatory action. The worst it can get? We’re talking levies of an average 4 or 5 per cent. Which would be more than offset by a post-Brexit devaluation of the pound (which would have the added bonus of making British goods more competitive everywhere).

Tony, levies of 4 or 5 per cent add up when we're talking about goods worth millions of pounds. As we face economic uncertainty and ongoing skyrocketing costs just to deal with the bureaucracy of Brexit, additional levies are not going to be helpful. As for the devaluation of the pound, we could always make like Germany and Sweden and ensure we manufacture high quality goods rather than relying on a tanking currency to help exports, but you've always loved simplistic, race-to-the-bottom ideas, haven't you, Tony?

UK officialdom assumes that a deal is vital, which is why so little thought has been put into how Britain might just walk away. Instead, officials have concocted lurid scenarios featuring runs on the pound, gridlock at ports, grounded aircraft, hoarding of medicines and flights of investment. It’s been the pre-referendum Project Fear campaign on steroids. And let’s not forget how employment, investment and economic growth ticked up after the referendum.

Tony, we haven't actually left yet. We still do not know what our relationship with the EU will look like with just 131 days to go until we leave the EU - sure, there was hyperbole about a Brexit armageddon but we won't know for sure how bad it will be until this ongoing saga is resolved. Under every credible economic model, the UK economy will shrink post-Brexit. It's just a matter of how bad the shrinkage will be, something a Prime Minister well-known for appearing in public wearing Speedos after swimming in cold water should know all about.

And the employment figures have been bolstered by the growth in zero-hours contracts, Tony. In Australia, this is known as the casualisation of the workforce - and, no matter what you call it, is is a trend that does work for some workers in certain circumstances but overall, it leads to economic uncertainty and limitations for so many others. 

But you were never one for workers' rights, were you, Tony? That may explain why you didn't weigh into the debate about whether EU workers drive down salaries in the UK - someone might just ask you about endorsing and enforcing a higher minimum wage to make low-skilled jobs more appealing to British workers, which is something which needs to happen at Westminster level, not at EU level, and might make you look a little bit socialist.

As a former prime minister of Australia and a lifelong friend of your country, I would say this: Britain has nothing to lose except the shackles that the EU imposes on it. After the courage shown by its citizens in the referendum, it would be a tragedy if political leaders go wobbly now. Britain’s future has always been global, rather than just with Europe. Like so many of Britain’s admirers, I want to see this great country seize this chance and make the most of it.

Give over, Tony. You're delirious.

Photography by Sittoula (a.k.a. Sitt) Sitlakone/Flickr

The power of women after the Great Election Debacle of 2017

First, the good news for the women of Britain after a thoroughly astounding election - a record 208 women are now MPs. Being a woman should not be a barrier to being elected to public office or indeed to being Prime Minister, and women are getting elected, across all parties, because they are good, not merely because they are women.

Hell, the two most powerful politicians in the country today are women - Theresa May, the Prime Minister, and Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Oh.

Bugger.

The two most powerful women in the country are terrible.

Theresa May is a principle-free flake with all the depth of a thimble, someone who merely impersonates a competent and moral leader, doing whatever she can to cling to power, even if it means throwing women under a bus to form a pastiche of a government with the DUP.

Arlene Foster cannot be accused of having no principles. It's just unfortunate that her principles include religious bigotry, homophobia, climate change denial, creationism and banning abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. It's Handmaid's Tale stuff made real.

In Northern Ireland, the 1967 Abortion Act has never applied. In 1945, the Infant Life (Preservation) Act, which allows abortions to save the life of the mother was extended to Northern Ireland, but abortions are not legal in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality. Just as abortion is illegal in the Republic of Ireland, all that Northern Ireland abortion laws achieve is to move abortions to other parts of the UK for women who can afford to go private - or harm women who are forced to carry to term because they have no other choice.

On top of that, it is impossible to ignore the links between the DUP and the Ulster Defence Association, including Foster's personal connections with a group responsible for hundreds of deaths in Northern Ireland.

Today, on Radio 4, Owen Paterson, the Conservative MP and former Northern Ireland secretary was ominous. In an interview with Radio 4, he tried to allay fears of an attack on gay rights under a Tory-DUP deal but suggested that issues such as reducing the time limit on abortion could be up for debate.

No. Just no. I don't care if you think a bill restricting abortion access probably wouldn't pass. We simply should not be having this argument in 2017, 50 years after it should have ceased to be an argument and remained a matter for women and their doctors.

How dare Owen Paterson, someone who will never need an abortion, even put the issue on the table as a suggestion. Pro-choice women of Britain will fight this and fight it loudly.

There are still plenty of MPs outside of the DUP, including Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, who are in favour of reducing the abortion time limit from 24 weeks. Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead, and Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, made an ill-fated attempt to restrict abortion access in 2011.

Theresa May should, if she claims to be a feminist, speak out today against using abortion rights as a bargaining chip to cling to power.

But she has not done that.

It is good to see that female politicians have spoken out already, including senior Conservatives. Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Ruth Davidson have all made it clear that they are not pleased with Theresa May's direction of travel.

Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has received "assurances" from Theresa May that an alliance with the DUP will not erode LGBT rights. Given Theresa May called an election after saying she wouldn't call an election, and ran an election campaign riddled with reverse ferrets, her assurances are not worth a pinch of pelican poo.

Davidson has also used her position of considerable influence - Scottish Conservative voters helped scrape Theresa May over the line on Thursday - to tell the Prime Minister to move away from her hardline approach to Brexit. Interestingly, this is not too far removed from the DUP's calls to ensure a soft border remains between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland post-Brexit and that Northern Ireland remains in the single market.

However, the DUP also campaigned in favour of leaving the EU, while 55.8% of voters in Northern Ireland voted to remain. The joyless, miserable, punitive DUP interpretation of God only knows what Arlene Foster and her cohorts were thinking when they campaigned for Brexit.

It does demonstrate that when people voted for Brexit, they did so with different ideas in their minds as to what a Britain outside the EU might look like.

And with Thursday's vote, I am pretty sure nobody, especially those who voted Conservative, voted with the thought of the possibility of an unsavoury alliance with the DUP foremost in their minds.

It is great to see women from all parties speaking out against Theresa May's desperation, incompetence and craven appeasement of the DUP. When May spoke in front of 10 Downing Street after the shock election results, she was arrogant, she lacked humility, and she was terrifyingly authoritarian.

In contrast, Ruth Davidson gave the speech the Prime Minister should have given - she was not arrogant in the face of a pyrrhic victory for the Tories. Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party, did not have a great election campaign or stellar results, but she also managed humility and reflection in her post-election speech.

If Theresa May survives this fiasco, it will be a political miracle. The likely outcome of her political demise is another man as Prime Minister. But after May replaced the ultimately catastrophic David Cameron, perhaps her big achievement is to demonstrate that a woman who is equally as incompetent as the man she replaced, can rise to the top of British politics.

Theresa May's rise and inevitable fall has not been a massive win for women. But the good news is that there are plenty of good women of all political stripes who will be bloody difficult for the right reasons.



Photography by Darren Johnson/IDJ Photography/Flickr

Before tonight's broadcast, after the awful events in Manchester

Tonight, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn will be interviewed separately by Jeremy Paxman on Sky News and Channel 4. The interviews will take place in front of a live studio audience and the party leaders will take questions.

Will tonight be the real turning point, one way or another, in this sorry excuse for an election campaign?

During the TV debate before last year's EU referendum, the turning point was Boris Johnson's barn-storming pro-Brexit speech. It was reckless, it was dishonest, and he probably didn't believe half of what he was saying, but it worked. When the massive cheer went up at the end of his disingenuous word salad, when he yelled: "INDEPENDENCE DAY!" like he was leading a feral pep rally, I got that sinking feeling that he'd convinced enough people to vote leave. As a militant and unrepentant remainer, I felt a bit ill when I woke up after four hours' sleep on 24 June 2016 and discovered I'd been proven right.

On Monday night, the election campaign was suspended in the wake of the hideous, vile murders of innocent people in Manchester. To take a day off campaigning was the right and respectful thing to do. However, as long as Theresa May upheld the suspension, a vacuum was created and this was filled with stupidity from across the board.

There were the inevitable false flag-obsessed conspiracy theories. People actually thought Theresa May somehow orchestrated the terror attack because Labour was creeping up in the polls. That is a thoroughly despicable accusation to make, especially without any evidence of any sort to back it up. I still think Theresa May is a terrible, incompetent Prime Minister who arrogantly thought she could run a seamless campaign, but I do not for a second believe she is behind the attack.

But her suspension of the campaign for more than a day caused this vicious nonsense to grow a life of its own.

That said, there should be a constructive, national conversation on whether police cuts, which started in 2010, and continued apace ever since, might contribute to terror attacks not being foiled or the spread of radicalisation. Theresa May needs to be pressed on this tonight by Jeremy Paxman.

When Theresa May announced that the terror threat was upgraded to "critical" and that we could expect to see more armed police officers as well as more soldiers on the streets of the UK, the election campaign was still suspended. This did not strike me as reassuring. It struck me as authoritarian. The sight of a spectre-like Mother Theresa commanding the podium to tell us what was best for us - and during a suspended campaign in which debate was therefore stifled - was chilling.

When the terror alert was dropped back from "critical" to "severe" just a few days later, the whole sorry situation became a dark farce.

It is not inappropriate to ask if police cuts are hampering anti-terror and anti-radicalisation efforts. When reports are emerging of British Muslims doing the right and patriotic thing by reporting their suspicions to the police, but then nothing is really done about it, it is proper that we examine whether we have enough police officers and whether resources are being deployed in the best way possible.

When Amber Rudd, the useless Home Secretary, was interviewed by Andrew Marr yesterday, she appeared to have no idea whether the Manchester murderer was on a watchlist.

And that brings me to the second form of idiocy that filled the void. Even before members of the Manchester murderer's family were arrested in connection with terror-related offences, there were calls for entire families of terrorists or suspected terrorists to be deported.

On Facebook, a post by Tam Khan, in which he pleads with his fellow Muslims to integrate in Britain, went viral. Overall, it was not an unreasonable post. His frustration with "uneducated" people who kill innocents is shared by any decent human being.

However, the call to deport not just the criminals but their families too was ridiculous. Aside from the obvious injustice of deporting people who have committed no crime because they happen to be related to some arsehole, the whole idea is unworkable and raises more questions than it answers. To what country would you deport people who were born here? Where would the "deport the whole family" policy end? Immediate family only? Cousins? People related by marriage? Innocent children? A senile grandparent? Wouldn't deporting entire families en masse simply lead to further resentment and radicalisation? What if a family member who was guilty of no crime was going to be sent back to a place where they'd be in danger? For example, what if a terrorist had a gay sibling and homosexuality was illegal in their country of origin?

Surely such a policy only serves to move problems elsewhere rather than solve them?

"But it'd be a deterrent to someone thinking of committing terrorism!" come the howls from the peanut gallery. No. It's not a deterrent. Does anyone seriously believe that someone so vile and twisted, someone who is prepared to not just kill children but to blow themselves up with a nail bomb, gives a damn about any family members they would leave behind?

There are now five-and-a-half hours to go before Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are grilled by Jeremy Paxman and audience members on live TV. I do not expect Paxman to give either party leader an easy ride and nor should he. I do not expect either party leader to come out with any truly courageous or effective solutions to any of the issues outlined in this blog post.

However, I would not be surprised if one of the leaders has their Boris Johnson TV moment this evening. It just remains to be seen which one it will be.




Photography by Matt Brown/Flickr

Sexist legsit for Brexit...

Women MEPs are concerned about the impact of Donald Trump bringing back the global gag rule.

The Daily Mail - at least for England and Wales - reduced Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon to their pins yesterday. Accompanying a rather leg-oriented front page picture, the eternally asinine Sarah "Don't you dare accuse me of feminism" Vine felt the need to write a piece about how the legs of the Prime Minister and Scotland's First Minister were their greatest weapons in their ongoing wrangling over Scottish independence and Brexit. A "light-hearted" take on it all, according to the Daily Mail. 

"Never mind Brexit, who won legs-it?" was emblazoned across the front page.

Nothing screams "serious journalism" like a line that is basically the world's creepiest Dad joke. 

It was just like the time the Mail reported on the peace agreement between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak back in 2000 and Sarah Vine wrote that hilarious piece about who had the firmest arse in the Middle East. Or her witty ode to Putin and Obama after their awkward handshake in Lima last year in which she declared each man's biceps would be used to forge a bold new relationship between their countries.

Except that never bloody happened. Instead, Sarah Vine wrote a parody-defying load of tripe for yesterday's paper, the journalistic equivalent of taking upskirt photos on a tube station escalator. She came across like a sex pest. Well played, sister!

The Daily Mail issued an explanation. It was just a joke and, anyway, we did loads of serious coverage on Brexit! Bags of it! The crazy feminists clearly need to lighten up! 

Except that every time female politicians are belittled, reduced to their body parts, when their legs or their tits or their clothes or their hair or their faces are the focus, not their policies or ideas, it makes it that little bit harder to encourage smart women to enter politics. And it makes it that little bit harder for women in general to be taken seriously.

The Mail's explanation also pointed out that they're an equal opportunity body snarker - they've also run photos of David Cameron looking a bit portly while on holiday, that sort of thing. Er, yeah. Two things, Dacre. Firstly, it's still gross to reduce male politicians to their body parts too. Secondly, even when the Mail runs such nonsense, it's not usually tied to the biggest political story of the week. The coverage when men do politics is far more respectful.

Of course, plenty of right-wing anti-feminist apologists piped up with their latest lame zinger. "Why are women angry about this when there is FGM and IS is making Yazidi girls and women sex slaves?". Er yeah. Two things, dickheads. Firstly, IT IS POSSIBLE TO CARE ABOUT MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME EVEN WITH OUR LITTLE LADY-BRAINS! Secondly, when you are the same people who would deny foreign aid to help stop FGM or to offer shelter, healthcare and employment training to Yazidi girls and women, you are monstrous hypocrites with zero right to tell women how to do feminism.

And when women are belittled out of putting themselves forward as leaders because of the constant sexist noise over which they must shout to be heard, there won't be as many women in positions of real power who are able to stand up for oppressed women everywhere.

In any case, the "Never mind Brexit, who won legs-it?" debacle, it really is a microcosm of the Daily Mail/Daily Express/Sun mentality on the issue of leaving the European Union. The one-liner encapsulates perfectly the simplistic Brexiter mentality, the one where self-serving con artists like Nigel Farage convince people that there is nothing to worry about, that the process of making trade deals and sifting through EU law will be a piece of cake. These people say without irony that it could all be sorted out in a month. These people are irresponsible idiots who make Britain a dumber place. 

Worse, it reflects the mentality of the right-leaning Brexiter of not wanting to take any actual responsibility for the whole shit-show - they do not want to acknowledge the inevitable problems it has caused and will cause and they do not want to do any of the tedious dirty work involved in ensuring leaving the EU doesn't reduce Britain to a joke nation.

Nope, these pathetic dinosaurs are the deluded fools who voted to leave because of some misguided notion that it was better in the good, old days, even though the good, old days were, frankly, a bit shit. But, hey, at least back then, we could all could openly ogle a woman's legs in peace without those feminazis getting upset, am I right...

Image: European Parliament/Flickr

A right royal Brexit mess

Reports emerged around Christmas that Queen Elizabeth II said she was in favour of Brexit but BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg did not report it at the time. This news story got lost in the speculation as to whether she was actually alive and not spending the festive season getting embalmed when she was meant to be at a church service.

In the meantime, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the Queen is indeed still alive, but there were some shrill voices screaming about BBC bias because Laura Kuenssberg did not report the story before the referendum. She did not report the story because she only had the one source and, for a story as potentially explosive as the Queen expressing a clear view on such a contentious issue, this was quite simply not enough to run it.

Without a second source, the story was on very shaky ground. Laura Kuenssberg followed good journalistic practice but she was still slagged off, particularly by those who favour leaving the EU. Brexiters were whining that she didn't report it because the BBC is pro-remain and if people knew the Queen supported Britain leaving the EU, that would tip the vote in favour of voting out.

For a pro-remain broadcaster, the BBC sure as hell gives Nigel Farage a lot of airplay... But I digress.

I trust every Brexiter who got a bit excited because the Queen might favour leaving the EU is a republican. After all, pesky "unelected" people seemed to be a cornerstone of every pro-leave argument and a post-Brexit republic would mean the unelected Queen would become a private citizen and vote like the rest of us can. Or she could run for office herself and her popularity and world view could be put to the test at the ballot box. And how about some House of Lords reform with an elected upper chamber while we're at it, eh? Wouldn't that be just lovely?

Of course the "unelected people in Brussels" argument is bunkum because we do vote for MEPs. But we are now in a post-fact, post-expert idiocracy.

And it is a post-responsibility idiocracy if low voter turnout in Britain for European elections is any indication. God forbid anyone take an interest in voting for those who represent us in Brussels. As a result, we ended up with gravy-train-riding UKIP MEPs not turning up for important votes despite these self-serving hypocrites telling us at every opportunity that they were our "eyes and ears in Brussels". It would seem our eyes and ears did not very often extend to being bums on seats.

In the meantime, MEPs from other parties did plenty of good work that was seldom reported in the British press and engagement with constituents by MEPs was poor. If the hounds of Article 50 are released, we won't get a chance to forge closer links with our MEPs or demand better media coverage of their work, or, I dunno, take some bloody responsibility and seek out information on what our MEPs are doing - it's actually not that hard to find if you have an internet connection and a functioning brain stem.

But back to the Queen...

If you're a monarchist Brexiter, is one of your pro-monarchy arguments that the Queen is above politics? If so, you might want to really think hard before getting too excited about a Brexit-loving monarch on the throne. If she did express a view on the referendum, she is clearly not apolitical so that's that pro-monarchy argument shot to pieces. If Laura Kuenssberg had a second source, it would certainly be in the public interest to report it.

Kuenssberg's source claimed the Queen said: "I don't see why we can't just get out. What's the problem?". Good Lord. The problem is that this is exactly the kind of ignorant, simplistic statement that helped a bullshit-ridden, cynical leave campaign win against a complacent remain campaign in the first place. If the Queen really said such a stupid thing, she is like millions of other people in this country who seem to think leaving the EU will be easy-peasy and that trade deals can be easily done over a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge.

Whatever the hell Theresa May meant by a "red, white and blue Brexit", one thing is clear. We are gearing up for another year of extreme levels of stupidity, possibly starting at Buckingham Palace. The other certainty is that Laura Kuenssberg will continue to be a responsible journalist but that won't stop elements of the left and the right criticising her without ever bothering to do a proper content analysis of her work.

2017: my expectations are very low indeed.





Photography by Maxwell Hamilton/Flickr

The simple conclusion from Brexit and Trump

As anyone who either didn't vote for Britain to leave the European Union, or didn't vote for President-Elect Donald Trump, or was not a fan of either one or both these notions tries to process what has happened in 2016, there is one very simple conclusion.

A lot of us are more conservative than we think, and people in general are, quite simply pretty damn conservative. These results are largely about inherent conservatism.

Of course, this should have become obvious during last year's poll-defying general election in Britain. The predicted knife-edge result in a David Cameron versus Ed Milliband contest turned into a pretty comfortable win for Cameron's Conservatives. The phenomenon of secret Tories was born, the people who could really only express their true beliefs in the privacy of the polling booth.

And then it happened again when Brexit triumphed. Secret Brexiters were also in our midst, people who again dared not mention their intention to put their cross in the "leave" box or even to tell this to a pollster, but did so when nobody was looking.

And then, just as Trump promised when he said his victory would be "Brexit plus plus plus", the polls turned out to be utter bunkum, and typing the words "President-Elect Donald Trump" still feels weird to many a journalist's fingers, my own included.

Of course, "conservative" is a broad term. There are social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, some people fit into both categories, others are one or the other. But, if we are going to be honest, there is an element of conservatism in a lot of us. 

It takes many forms. Some of them you may recognise in yourself, some you may not. This is the part of us that claims to be a feminist yet fervently checks the Daily Mail's sidebar of shame to mock a famous woman who has had the temerity to put on weight or wear an unflattering dress. This is the person who claims to be socially liberal but still makes fun of the guests on Jeremy Kyle. This is the old school, hard left trade union type who is also a fervent anti-abortionist. This is anyone who likes the security of a monogamous marriage. This is the eyeroll when one sees how much tax comes out of their salary and mutters to oneself that they hope everyone on benefits appreciates their hard-earned. This is the reason why TV programmes such as Benefits Street and Geordie Shore keep getting made. It is the maintaining of a sexist, racist, classist double standard that allows Trump, with his five children to three wives to run for president, but such a marital track record would have denied Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton the same opportunity. It is the part of us that thanks the troops for their service, gets their kids christened despite being agnostic at best, and judges people's sex lives.

And it is this inherent conservatism that leads people to say things like: "Give Trump/Brexit a chance. It might be OK, after all." and "We need to accept the result and move on." Even if they didn't vote for the winning outcome. But for everyone who tells the world to take a chill pill, to calm down, that everything will be fine, there are people fearful in the wake of both the EU referendum and the ascension of Donald Trump. The inherent conservatism that leads to glib calls for calm is almost always based in privilege, from the people who genuinely don't think the referendum or election result will adversely affect them in any way at all.

While there are certainly people from the black, Asian, Hispanic, LGBT and Muslim communities - oh, and women - who voted for Donald Trump, there are plenty of people from these communities who are fearful as to what the future holds. Based on Trump's awful rhetoric, these are not irrational fears. If any of these fears come true, such as mass deportations, travel bans for an entire religion despite it being made up of 72 sects, a rollback of reproductive rights, a daft wall, more inter-racial violence, a society where it is even harder to be take seriously as a sexual assault victim, and so on and so forth, will those who voted for Trump take responsibility? Equally, will everyone who voted Brexit take responsibility if everything truly does turn to shit after the hounds of Article 50 are released?

After all, personal responsibility is a popular principle among conservatives. Will the conservatives who voted for Trump or Brexit take responsibility if their desired utopia does not materialise? 

And it all makes a mockery of left versus right. The lines between the left and the right are now blurred but the inherent conservatism is still there.

The Trump vote was not, as much as Jeremy Corbyn would like to think so, a massive anti-globalist, anti-establishment wake-up call. Donald Trump, in sending jobs to China (and now his daughter, Ivanka, the only woman on his transition team, in sending jobs from China to the even cheaper workforces of Ethiopia) has benefited enormously from globalisation. Plenty of people, stereotypical establishment types, figured they'd do well under Trump and voted accordingly. Conversely, there was certainly an element of anti-globalisation feeling among many a Brexiter, from the hard left to the protectionist right as well. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn are all apologists for Putin's Russia, even though it is a profoundly undemocratic, anti-freedom regime. 

Disturbingly - and elements of the left and right are equally appalling here - there are calls for censorship of journalists and of all manner of media outlets, as well as stifling of peaceful protests. Like the post-Brexit slanging matches, there are gloating Trump voters taking the "we won, get over it" line, as if democracy begins and ends at the ballot box. These people don't want to be challenged by protesters or by the media. And there are plenty on the left these days who are also mad about censorship and won't rest until the BBC morphs into Pravda, Laura Kuenssberg is replaced by Naomi Klein, and the Morning Star is the only newspaper available.

And when you look at who voted for Trump, and realise that there are plenty of educated, wealthy people among them, and when you realise that large swathes of England and Wales voted to leave the EU, even in areas that have benefited enormously from EU membership, it is clear that generalisations about every person who voted in these directions are grossly unhelpful if there is to be constructive dialogue about any of these issues any time soon. 

But there is certainly an undercurrent of inherent conservatism out there and it tells me that a populist leftist movement won't necessarily win out on either side of the pond. 

Elections are won on the centre ground - or the perceived centre ground - in the UK. Right now, the Tories have convinced broad swathes of the electorate that they hold the middle ground. Hell, there are still people who think the NHS is perfectly safe under this government, despite another £700m of our money going to Virgin Care in Somerset while remaining free from the accountability of freedom of information requirements. Indeed, the NHS is a solid example of inherent conservatism again rearing its head. There is no shortage of people who claim to support the NHS but still blame immigrants if they cannot get a GP appointment, have no issue with unchecked outsourcing of health services to the private sector "as long as it remains free at the point of use" and would not bat an eyelid if services such as IVF, transgender healthcare, abortion and birth control, were not covered by the NHS. 

Meanwhile, it's not quite apples and oranges when you compare it all with the US - there would be a political home in America for many a British Conservative MP in the Democrats, for example. David Cameron, Anna Soubry and Justine Greening, for example, would not look out of place as US Democrats, and it is actually not too hard to imagine Hillary Clinton sitting on the green leather benches of Theresa May's Conservative government. On top of all this, I am unconvinced that an ageing, Jewish-often-perceived-as-atheist, self-proclaimed socialist, such as Bernie Sanders would win over enough of America to lead a government. 

None of this points to either Britain or the US crying out for a hard left alternative, as disappointing as many will find that conclusion. While there are certainly differences between British and American societies, both nations are, at heart, conservative. And this is what the opponents of Brexit and Donald Trump need to address if they are to make a real impact.


Picture by Chris/Flickr

An open letter to left-leaning Brexiters

Dear left-leaning Brexiters,

I understand why right-leaning Brexiters voted to leave the EU in May, even if I fundamentally disagree with them. But this letter is not for them. This letter is for the left-of-centre people - in many cases, the hardcore, far-left-let's-destroy-capitalism people - who voted to leave the EU.

What the everloving fuck were you hoping to achieve? What the everloving fuck did you think would happen if the majority actually did vote to leave the EU? Did you really think leaving the EU would amount to some sort of socialist victory? Why could you not see that it was a choice between two forms of capitalism? Are you really so dim as to believe that leaving the EU was going to herald some sort of workers' revolution?

"But this means we're free from TTIP!", I hear you whine.

TTIP has been killed, largely by France. France has been against TTIP from the get-go and in August, President Hollande stalled negotiations again. Couple this with growing opposition in Germany and Angela Merkel desperate to retain power, and there you have it - the two big hitters of the EU in no position to proceed.

But it isn't just French obstruction or a strong German protest movement that is halting TTIP. Labour and Green MEPs were doing excellent behind-the-scenes work to negotiate terms, going through TTIP with a fine toothed comb. Unfortunately, "behind-the-scenes" are the operative words here - nobody bothered to find out about what our MEPs were doing for us. And soon we will have no MEPs, no power of veto in Brussels, and we will be wide open to a US-UK trade deal, regardless of who wins the US election. If anyone thinks that will be a win for Britain, they're deluded.

"But I wanted to kick Cameron out!", I hear you moan.

Yeah, about that. How is that working out for you, dear lefties? When Cameron quit, the glee was palpable on the left, even though at the time, it seemed to herald an inevitable Boris Johnson move to 10 Downing Street. When that fell through, and Andrea Leadsom revealed herself to be awful and inept all at once, Theresa May became prime minister by default. And she is embracing hard Brexit and pandering to the hard right Brexiters like a long lost lover. So much for the safe pair of hands. It is more like a stampeding pair of jackboots at the moment.

And if you are Lexiter who claims to care about the NHS or scientific research or access to the latest medicines, please hang your head in shame. You are part of the problem, contributing to a vote that will probably end freedom of movement and further compound NHS staffing woes, could cost us our European Health Insurance Card for medical treatment in the EU, the risk of lost research funding as part of the EU, and missing out on being part of clinical trials as part of the harmonised approach to medicines regulation. And you have pretty well lost the right to berate Jeremy Hunt about his ridiculous plan to grow more British doctors, despite making the medical profession less attractive than it has ever been to bright students.

Feel free to wave placards about hospital closures and cuts if you like, it's allegedly a free country, but do know that your vote to leave the EU will make whatever we have left of our health system even more precarious. You are just as absurd as anyone who voted to leave the EU because they genuinely believed Boris' bus of bullshit with the stupid "£350 million for the NHS" claim.

Sorry, Lexiters, but you have dropped a bollock. You have helped the hard right usher in a new era of awful policy and there are plenty of aspects of the Theresa May-led hard Brexit that are appealing to a wide number of people. On top of this, we're left with a hapless opposition with which the hard left is enamoured, even though peak Corbyn has been reached with a stacked and skewed inflated membership. Sorry, but this does not actually reflect what the wider electorate is thinking or wants for Britain. Theresa May is currently on a mission to out-UKIP UKIP and it is working. She is being very careful to find just the right level of UKIP-ness for the electorate to tolerate to keep the Tories in power for a very long time.

For those who voted Brexit because they wanted a hard Brexit with no access to the common market and no freedom of movement, congratulations on getting what you signed up for on 23 June. For everyone else who voted out with a completely different idea of what Brexit might look like, you've made your bed and now we all must lie in it. And for those who voted Brexit because they genuinely thought it would result in some sort of socialist revolution, you are genuinely dangerous and stupid.

If I have offended anyone, I really don't care.

Yours sincerely,

Georgia Lewis, militant remain voter







Photography by threefishsleeping/Flickr

In which the Rant Mistress admits she made some terrible predictions...

In my last blog post, I recklessly made some predictions that expired like a pint of milk in the sun. In some cases, these predictions turned to crap in less than 24 hours. We have just witnessed one of the weirder weeks in British politics, a week where one could quite literally go to the toilet and return to find that something else had happened to dominate the news cycle, at least for an hour or so.

In the interests of accountability - something that appears to be anathema to our elected representatives - let me go over the predictions I made when I blogged six days ago.

1. I predicted that Boris Johnson would win the Conservative Party leadership race over Theresa May.

Hey, at least I was half-right. Theresa May is still in the running and I think she will be our next Prime Minister. Stephen Crabb, a man who believes you can pray away the gay and did not vote for marriage equality, has no business being the Prime Minister. Andrea Leadsom shouted a lot in the pre-referendum debate that, depressingly, clinched it for Vote Leave, largely thanks to Johnson's disingenuous "Independence Day" speech, but she does not command the same respect within the Conservative Party that May does.

Love her or loathe her, Theresa May's speech about why she should be the next Prime Minister was pitch-perfect. She was reasonable, she was calm, she dialled back on her awful record on human rights, she reminded people that she voted for marriage equality, she came across as competent, and she had a perfectly fair dig at Boris Johnson over his moronic purchase of secondhand German water cannon.

What I sure as hell didn't see coming, along with the rest of the country, was Michael Gove and his wife, Sarah Vine, outing themselves as Poundland Machiavellians.

Sarah Vine supposedly accidentally sent an email to a member of the public in which she is advising Gove on strategy in the leadership race. I am entirely unconvinced that this was an accident. It's a weird email fail, to accidentally send that particular email to a member of the public. It's not the same as the accidental "reply-all" when a hapless office employee inadvertently declares true love for a colleague to the entire company or lets the whole team know about an embarrassing medical appointment. Why was that email "accidentally" sent to the public and not some boring "don't forget to feed the cat" message? I am wearing my unconvinced face.

In any case, it meant we won't have Prime Minister Johnson any time soon. He is probably relieved. He wanted all the power and glory of being PM but none of the responsibility of leading post-referendum negotiations with the EU.

2. I predicted that Jeremy Corbyn is toast as leader of the Labour Party and Dan Jarvis will be the new leader.

Jeremy Corbyn is still the leader of the Labour Party, weathering storms this week that would probably bring down other party leaders. Dan Jarvis is nowhere to be seen. Angela Eagle came out as the challenger to Corbyn's leadership but now she has scurried back in her box. For now. There are campaigns across the whole Labour Party spectrum to shore up new members to ensure either a Corbyn win or a Corbyn downfall in any forthcoming leadership challenge. Whether the popularity of Corbyn within the party membership correlates with the popularity of Corbyn among the people he needs to attract to form a government is debatable.

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I'll make another prediction - Corbyn will survive a leadership challenge and the Labour Party will split. If the anti-Corbyn members join forces with the Scottish National Party and the Liberal-Democrats, there is a decent chance of an alternative centre-left political force in Britain, but that will require all three elements to be the bigger person and forgive the past.

3. I predicted a new general election before Christmas and advised Labour to stick with their new leader, even in the event of a loss to maintain party stability.

I am not game to predict when the next general election will be, Labour may well still be led by Jeremy Corbyn by Christmas and the state of the Labour Party by then is anyone's guess.

And with that, I think I will take myself off the computer and pour myself a large glass of wine. Who knows what predictions I'll make next...

Tories versus Labour: The battle of the imploding parties

As the wheels fall off the Conservative and Labour Party clown cars after the referendum, it is too close to call as to which of the two major parties will come out of this debacle stronger. Let's take a look at both teams, shall we?

In the blue corner...

The Conservatives have been caught with their pants down. Nobody seriously expected the Vote Leave campaign to actually succeed. Hell, there were people who voted for Brexit who are surprised that the thing they voted for actually happened.

As such, there is precisely no plan for what to do next. David Cameron should have called an emergency Cobra meeting and there should be an emergency sitting of parliament tomorrow but instead, Dave resigned and hasn't been seen since. What a leader! What a statesman! He looked distraught as he resigned with Samantha tearfully looking on but this is a crisis that he created himself.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, not only has his pants down but he has probably done a panic-poo in them too. Since the referendum, he hasn't been quite the public gloater everyone thought he'd be if Brexit happened. I'm pretty sure things didn't go according to plan.

For Johnson, a narrow Remain win would have served him well. He could still claim to speak for the "silent majority" and, knowing that David Cameron was going to step aside before the 2020 election, he could make his bid for leadership without being distracted by all that pesky work that needs to be done to extricate Britain from the EU. He shamelessly used the referendum campaign as the start of his leadership bid and was making promises about how Britain would be a land of unicorns for all if we voted to leave and even combing his hair once in a while. Of course, all his promises were smoke and mirrors because he never thought he'd need to come up with a plan to implement them.

Now the man, who as an incompetent mayor couldn't negotiate with tube drivers, is the favourite to be the next Prime Minister and thus, he's meant to lead the way as we negotiate with an entire continent that he has spent the last couple of months slagging off. That can only go well...

The other leadership contended is probably going to be Theresa May, the current Home Secretary. She was pro-remain, she certainly has more gravitas than Boris Johnson and she is largely seen as moderate and sensible. In April, she did call for Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights regardless of the referendum result but this is what passes for moderation in the modern Conservative Party. With that in mind, she may be keener to invoke Article 50, which is what the British government needs to do to kickstart divorce proceedings with the EU.

Johnson probably never planned to release the hounds of Article 50 and under his drunk-uncle-trying-to-walk-the-dog-after-Christmas-dinner guidance, he is bound to stall and faff and blunder about. This will only extend the uncertainty and instability and endear us less and less to the EU. Hey presto, we'll have a trade deal with the EU so pathetic, the British export market will be reduced to some obscure Welsh cheese and stuff left over from car boot sales.

In the hour, the BBC has reported that Johnson has said the UK will "intensify" cooperation with the EU (does the EU know this?) and said the 52%-48% result was "not entirely overwhelming". Jesus, Boris, don't bowl us over with your enthusiasm.

He also said that "the only change" will be to free Britain from the EU's "extraordinary and opaque" law (but doesn't seem to have specified which law) and says this "will not come in any great rush".

They are the words of a man who cannot be arsed to negotiate hard with the EU any time soon. Hell, nobody should be surprised if Johnson decides to outsource the negotiations to G4S after the stellar job they did with the 2012 Olympics security.

The one thing the Tories are good at, even when they are in utter disarray behind the scenes, is give the impression that everything is fine. Hence, as soon as the referendum results were in, 84 Conservative MPs, some Brexiters, some remainers, signed the "save Dave" letter. Dave decided to fall on his sword instead, but the letter, as cynical and self-serving as the signatories may have been, is a great way to tell the world they're not going to carve each other up with bitter factional in-fighting.

Which brings us to Labour.

In the red corner...

In the time that I've been writing this post, I've heard the news from the telly downstairs that yet another Labour cabinet minister has resigned from Jeremy Corbyn's front bench. Corbyn is refusing to step down as Opposition Leader and Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell has vowed to manage his campaign to keep his job.

On one hand, we have calls for Jeremy Corbyn to step down in the wake of the referendum results, blaming him for an unenthusiastic campaign for Remain. Given that his Euroscepticism is hardly a state secret, at every campaign event he looked like he'd rather be having root canal work, and with a BBC report that he may have deliberately sabotaged the campaign, this seems like a fair assessment. Of course, it can also be said that there was a lack of passion among many leading Labour Remainers, with the notable exceptions of London Mayor, Sadiq Khan and Ben Bradshaw, the MP for Exeter, but there was an overwhelming feeling that voters didn't really know what Labour stood for on the referendum.

And it is hard to ignore the numbers, as much as the most devoted Corbynistas try. In the referendum and in the local elections, Labour has lost Scotland. Labour took Scotland for granted for too long and the SNP swooped in. The local elections should have been a gift for Labour but the best that can be said about the results is that they were not as bad as they could have been. In a climate of economic austerity with an unpopular Tory government, that isn't enough.

The mandate for Corbyn's leadership is based largely on the new members of the Labour Party, those who paid their three quid to join up after Ed Miliband stepped down. But the problem is that most of these members don't live in the areas where Labour needs to regain ground. In January, the Guardian received internal Labour Party data which revealed that a disproportionate number of new members are city dwellers, many with high paying jobs.

The party is struggling to attract new members among the elderly, in rural areas, in deprived areas, and among the working class. These are the people the Labour Party needs to connect with if they are ever to form government again. And these are the groups who voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. The issue of immigration is the elephant in the room - Labour needs to have intelligent conversations without patronising people if they are going break through here. All the rise in Labour Party membership proves is that people who would probably vote Labour anyway, and are not struggling financially, can spare £3.

The Rant Mistress predicts...

I predict that out of a Boris Johnson-Theresa May leadership race, Boris will win it to become the next PM.

I predict that Jeremy Corbyn is toast as leader of the Labour Party. I suspect Dan Jarvis will be the new leader of the Labour Party.

I predict that in the inevitable general election that will happen before Christmas, the Tories will win but with a reduced majority. Therefore, it would be political suicide for Labour to ditch whomever their new leader will be. If they are to have a hope in 2020, they need to sail a steady ship, work really hard in Scotland and not be afraid of doing a deal with the SNP and possibly a resurgent Liberal Democrat party to form a coalition government.

And if nobody has invoked Article 50 by the time we have this year's next trip to the ballot box, the election will basically be a referendum do-over.

I'll check back on these tips and see just how wrong I was...










Photo by Alex Proimos

Waking up to Brexit Britain...

It was like that awkward moment when you wake up and realise you've shagged the office creep. You remember him at the party, saying things you wanted to hear, and you believed them, whether they were true or not. And then the alarm goes off on a new day, you look across the bed and there he is, in your bed, and you can't quite believe that you went there.

He may be the owner of a radioactively blonde barnet and a drooling leer. Or, possibly, he reeks of beer and fags and is gazing at you with a rictus grin. Either way, he is now refusing to leave and you start to worry that he may take up permanent residence at your flat.

This is how it felt to wake up to a Vote Leave win in the referendum.

And the pound crashed, and the FTSE crashed, wobbled back up again like a drunk kitten and flatlined, exactly as the experts predicted. They were the experts people ignored in favour of wanting a "victory for commonsense". Whatever the hell that means today.

Then Nigel Farage, fresh from despicably trying to claim victim status after Jo Cox was murdered, showed all the sensitivity of a hessian condom, by gloating that "we won it without a single bullet being fired". And then he shut the gate after the horse had bolted by helpfully telling us the pledge that a vote to leave would mean £350m a week for the NHS was "a mistake". Never mind that a cornerstone of the catastrophically dishonest leave campaign was that a Brexit would somehow mean a massive infusion of funds for healthcare.

Another cornerstone of the leave campaign was that "taking back control" of our borders and deciding who we let into the UK would relieve pressures on public services. Plenty of people called bullshit on this before the referendum - we will have to agree to freedom of movement to trade with the EU, same as Norway and Switzerland, and the Vienna Convention means there won't be an instant exodus of EU citizens - but this was ignored by every voter who cited immigration as their main concern.

Daniel Hannan, a Tory Eurosceptic MEP, has essentially told the "piss off, we're full" brigade to prepare to be disappointed. "All we're asking for is some control over roughly who comes in," he said this morning, watering down the tough border control rhetoric of the last few weeks.

In short, the British public has been sold a massive lemon with the leave campaign. The desire to ignore experts has been especially depressing. It is typical of an increasing race-to-the-bottom mentality that seems to be growing like a pitiful fungus. There is a disdain for the educated, as if getting an education and developing experience and expertise in a field is something on which to look down. Would these same anti-experts submit to a tailor for major surgery? After all, it's just a bit of cutting and stitching. Who needs years of medical training for that?

Educated people are being criticised for voting remain on the basis of analysing evidence and reading widely and considering a range of views. This apparently amounts to hatred of the working class. For some, voting with your heart rather than your head was a better methodology for the biggest political decision of our lifetimes.

Nigel Farage was arrogant enough to say that GDP doesn't matter if quality of life improves, except that the two concepts are connected. But nobody really challenged him on that or any of the nonsense he spouted during what was an appalling, unedifying campaign.

Areas of low immigration and high unemployment voted heavily to leave. The leave campaign was obsessed with the job-stealing ways of Polish car washers, as if they were all desperate to wash cars for a living, or somehow felt that in a free market economy, they would be unable to start their own car-washing business in competition. Never mind that there are so many educated EU citizens making amazing contributions to the country or that educated Brits work in professional jobs across Europe. Schrodinger's Immigrant was stealing all our jobs while claiming jobseekers' allowance.

Of course, there is also an element of jealousy, of tall poppy syndrome in regard to British people working in the EU. These are, by and large, the British people who have taken the time to learn other languages and, as a result, enjoy incredible professional opportunities. Like Australians, British people are often shamefully monolingual. But resenting those who have taken their language skills to Europe is simply pathetic.

And then there are the cries of "Sore loser!". With all due respect, grow up. This is not some kids' football game where a wailing six-year-old refuses to accept the offside rule. This is extremely bloody serious and the implications deserve serious discussion and analysis. If we are to come out of this unnecessarily divisive period of British political history equipped with the information and a credible plan to minimise the inevitable hit the economy will take, we need to break it down, to work out how we can find a way to move forward and prosper.

How will we make up the shortfall from losing EU funding and a possibly reduced tax and consumer-spending base? There will be job losses? Do we have a plan to create more jobs? Will the welfare state be an effective safety net in the meantime? What will the role of the public and private sectors be in this vague new world in which we now live? What will our trade relationship with the EU look like? These are all serious economic questions that need to be discussed as a matter of urgency and constructive solutions need to be found.

We also need to discuss racism. Not every Brexiter is a racist. There are people I am proud to call friends and family who voted out. But it is naive to say that racism didn't motivate some voters. We need to be prepared to look into that grim underbelly of British society and deal with the bile and hatred before it eats society alive.

All this because David Cameron was scared of losing voters to UKIP in the last general election.

The campaign turned into Boris Johnson's personal crusade to become Prime Minister. His speeches, while generally bollocks if anyone bothered to analyse them, were carefully designed to set him up as looking more statesmanlike. He made promises he had no business making about what post-Brexit Britain will look like. Right now, he is not the party leader, he is merely the Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Bad luck if any of his constituents want a surgery any time soon. Pish tosh! He is way too busy for such trifles of democracy!

I genuinely thought I'd wake up this morning with a sense of relief, with the realisation that the country didn't metaphorically shag the office creep. I was hoping we would have thought better of being seduced by one-liners and lame Facebook memes and outright lies about everything from Turkey to how laws are made, and decided to give the creep the number of a taxi company instead.

Thanks, Dave. You bet the house on this referendum and the whole debacle has been a lesson in unintended consequences that defies parody. Next time you want to pander to UKIP, meet Nigel down the pub, buy him a few pints and give him a light. After all, you have plenty in common. You are both the establishment that in no way has been defeated.







Photo by Davide D'Amico