Madness and self-destruction

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It was sometime during the 1970s that the late Harri Webb regaled a group of us with a tale of visiting a local newsagent to buy a felt pen. The newsagent told him that they didn’t have any Japanese-made pens, only “cheap British copies”. “And that,” said Harri, “was the day that I knew the British Empire was finished”. In more practical political terms, the Empire died slowly over a few decades between the end of the second world war and the early 1980s, with the bulk of former possessions disappearing during the 1960s and 70s. The attitudes underpinning imperialism have, though, taken a lot longer to die, but as the end approaches the death throes are moving from pathos to farce.

Clinging on to strange symbols such as medals of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire with its five different grades of membership of an institution which to all intents and purposes ceased to exist half a century ago could simply be chalked down as quaint, if a little eccentric. Building useless boats as part of a pretension to be the same global colossus which conquered so much of the world a few centuries ago is rather pathetic, although those same delusions of grandeur can turn positively dangerous when the world king decides to start threatening China with an aircraft-free aircraft carrier, or to deliberately provoke Russia by sailing a warship into disputed waters, complete with pre-installed BBC reporter to report on events.

But it’s hard to avoid the word farce when we turn to some of the more recent attempts to shore up the remaining parts of the English Empire loser to home. Plastering union flags on everything in sight, encouraging school children to sing songs extolling the virtues of a model of Britain which has rightly been consigned to history, and campaigning for the government to provide a portrait of Mrs Windsor to hang in every home – these are more signs of desperation than a serious attempt to encourage unity. It’s as if they seriously believe that the imposition of visible symbols will awaken some sort of innate Britishness, one much more monocultural and deferential, which lurks somewhere within us all and simply needs to be drawn out. Backing it up with repeated attempts to brush away any idea that there can be more than one nation in these islands looks more likely to have the opposite effect to that intended, accentuating division rather than unity by trying to impose one single view of what it means to be British.

The old saying is that “those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”, and madness is an appropriate description of current government behaviour. But perhaps the earliest formulation of the same sentiment, by Sophocles (an ancient Greek who will certainly be familiar to Johnson), runs more like "evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction". Genuinely believing that what they are doing is a very good idea rather than a very bad one is certainly a possible explanation for their bizarre approach. It’s still a form of madness, though – and it doesn’t get them out of being led to their own destruction either.

Offering impossible options

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Nation.Cymru reported on two related stories a few days apart, from different parts of the political spectrum: an interview by Mark Drakeford from Saturday, and an article penned by David Melding from yesterday. They make some very similar points. Mark Drakeford claims that “…the Labour Party’s message of a strong Wales in a United Kingdom still represents where people in Wales want to be”, whilst David Melding says, “… we can have the best of both worlds – a confident Wales in a strong UK”. Much as a long term independentista such as myself might prefer to believe otherwise, I suspect that they’re both right – the sentiment that they both express probably does represent current majority opinion in Wales. And I’m happy to accept that they both believe that a strong Wales in a strong UK is an outcome worth striving for, and that both of them are sincere in trying to promote that outcome.

The problem is, though, that they’re both hopelessly out of step with their own parties on the issue. Whilst Drakeford may be expressing the opinion of a majority of his party’s MSs, and possibly even grass roots members, Welsh Labour MPs are a different kettle of fish. And as for English Labour MPs – well, Lisa Nandy and her views on dealing with independence movements are probably closer to the majority Labour view than Drakeford. As for Melding, he doesn’t even have any significant elements of the Welsh branch of the English Conservative and Unionist Party on board with his views, let alone the central party leadership.

The consequence is that both are offering and promoting something in Wales which they know they cannot deliver. In the case of Labour, delivering Drakeford’s vision depends on firstly convincing the leadership of English Labour that it needs to embrace the concept, and then that Labour needs to win a majority in England to implement it. It’s a tough call as to which of those is the most improbable. As for the Tories, there’s simply no conceivable route towards anything remotely resembling Melding’s vision. Johnson’s response – which is clearly backed throughout his party, in Wales as in England – is to stamp union flags on everything, overrule Welsh and Scottish opinion as democratically expressed by elections, and tell the Welsh and Scots to shut up. Drakeford and Melding are both trying to swim against the tide in their own parties.

The fact that they are probably expressing majority opinion in Wales is neither here nor there: that opinion simply doesn’t count where it matters. As we saw with Brexit, voting for unicorns doesn’t magic them into existence. No matter how sincere this particular pair of unionists might be, and no matter how accurately they might be representing current opinion, they are offering an utterly false prospectus. As a result of the intransigence of their fellow unionists much more than the campaigning of independentistas, the reality is that there are only two choices actually open to Wales to day: independence or subsummation. Trying to tell the people of Wales that they don’t have to make that choice is doing us no favours.

A tale of two halves

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There were two stories yesterday which go to the very heart of the position of the UK government in relation to the future of the UK. The first was this one, in which the UK Cabinet Secretary is reported as saying that the government has put preventing the breakup of the UK “at the forefront of policy making in Whitehall”. And the second was this one, covering the problems with the trade deal with Australia, in which the International Trade Secretary is determined to push through terms which could seriously damage agriculture, and which would at the same time, other ministers fear, boost the cause of Welsh and Scottish independence. She obviously didn’t get the Cabinet Secretary's memo, because joined-up thinking this is most definitely not. The disregard for Wales and Scotland in relation to the trade deal serves only to demonstrate why a government determined to preserve the union would indeed need to put the issue at the very heart of its thinking. It also demonstrates that claiming to have done so is just another bit of meaningless verbiage from the UK’s liar-in-chief.

And talking of Johnson, it seems that nobody involved in the trade deal yet knows which way he will jump. That unsurprising fact (how could they know when the man himself almost certainly doesn’t) does have the advantage of proving that the claim of the Cabinet Secretary that Boris Johnson will be “front and centre” in trying to save the union is accurate; but in typical civil service fashion, it’s incomplete. What he really meant to say is that Johnson will be front, centre, back, left, right, up and down all at the same time. All over the place, in fact, in accordance with his usual approach.

 

Job creation for flag attendants?

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The attempts by the UK Government to explain and justify the permanent flying of the union flag from all UK government buildings display that particular lack of joined-up thinking which has become the norm for a government led by a man who seems almost proud of his lack of attention to detail or truth. To say nothing of that sense of exceptionalism which is typical of English nationalism.

In what looks like a blatant attempt to rewrite history (but may simply be complete ignorance – I tend to prefer the cock-up theory of history over conspiracy as a rule), the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said, “The Union flag is the National Flag of the United Kingdom, and it is so called because it embodies the emblems of the constituent nations united under one Sovereign – the Kingdoms of England and Wales, of Scotland, and of Northern Ireland”. Whether there was ever a “Kingdom of England and Wales” is an interesting point for debate, but it certainly glosses over the way that England and Wales became united; and the implicit claim that being a single kingdom makes it a single nation is, shall we say, somewhat provocative. The act of union which combined Wales and England did not unite two kingdoms in the same way that the union with Scotland did but rather, in the words of the Act itself, “henceforth and forever annexed and incorporated”, Wales into England. But if the idea of a “Kingdom of England and Wales” looks to be a fanciful interpretation of history, the “Kingdom of Northern Ireland” is simply an outright invention on the part of the Culture Secretary (an oxymoron of a title if ever there was one) to try and place that bit of Ireland which the UK held on to after Irish independence on to some sort of equal footing with Scotland on the one hand and EnglandandWales on the other.

However, whether Northern Ireland enjoys the same status as the other two ‘kingdoms’ or not is irrelevant in this case because the new rule about flying flags doesn’t apply in that particular ‘kingdom’. The union between it and the other two ‘kingdoms’ is to be stressed and reinforced (“a proud reminder of our history and the ties that bind us”, as the Culture Secretary put it) by excluding it from the rule. Given the potency of flags and symbols in the north of Ireland, it’s a sound pragmatic decision, but exempting one of the three ‘kingdoms’ from a rule intended to bind and unify looks like a government going out of its way to emphasise difference rather than similarity. And it is a strange irony that the staunchest unionists in the whole of the UK, those living in Northern Ireland, are going to be the people most upset by the approach. Upsetting the staunchest unionists even more than independentistas whilst promoting the union is quite an achievement to pull off.

The potency of flags in one part of the UK also underlines the problem that the UK government is busily creating for itself in Scotland and Wales. If the imposition of the union flag as a permanent feature on all government buildings in one part of the UK arouses such strong feelings in that large section of the population which doesn’t identify with the UK that the government doesn’t dare even to do it, what makes them think that those in Wales and Scotland who also increasingly no longer identify with the UK will react in completely the opposite way and feel a sudden surge of pride in the union flag? It’s a very curious assumption to make. Perhaps it’s just a job creation scheme for flagpole security guards.

They really are serious about flags

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Another week bring us another hare-brained scheme to protect the union. This week’s is all about flags, or, more specifically about enforcing the display of one flag and subordinating all others to it. Apparently, the government has briefed the Mail on Sunday that enhancing the visibility of the union flag would help mitigate against the break-up of the UK, so they are planning to issue new guidance that the flag must be shown on all government buildings all year round. And, so as not to offend the Welsh or the Scots, they propose to allow the Dragon and the Saltire to be flown from the same flagpoles in a subordinate position below the union flag.

The words which immediately spring to mind are those of the tennis player, John McEnroe, but apparently they are indeed completely serious. It seems not even to have crossed their minds that giving the Dragon and the Saltire an obviously inferior status might be more likely to reinforce a sense of resentment and be a reminder of historical subjugation rather than joyful unity, nor that the union flag is often seen (incorrectly, I know, but flags and logic don’t always go together) as a representation of England rather than of the UK. Trying to impose a sense of unity by using a symbol which is increasingly seen as belonging to ‘them’ rather than ‘us’ instead of addressing the substance and the need for change turns their ‘precious union’ into something which manages to look superficial in the extreme.

Still, we should be grateful. It’s good of them to go out of their way, on such a regular basis, to remind us that the single most fundamental problem with the union is the unionists. Their lack of understanding and empathy does more to destroy that which they claim to hold most dear than anything which independentistas are capable of doing.

 

Sardines and independence

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There was a story yesterday which neatly illustrated the gap between the  scale of reform which is required if the unionists want to stand any chance at all of the UK surviving as a state and the reform which the English nationalists currently running the country are intellectually, ideologically, and emotionally capable of considering. According to the Telegraph, Jacob Rees-Mogg is proposing that, for two weeks every three years, the entire House of Commons (all 650 members) should cram itself into the debating chamber of the Senedd (designed for 60 members) to hold its debates. Although Cardiff is the home of Doctor Who, it was almost disappointing to discover that Jake is not depending on the Tardis-like qualities of the Senedd, which really isn’t bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Apparently, the lack of space is not a problem because the 650 MPs are accustomed to debating in a chamber which can only hold around 427 people – they just remain standing during debates. Some might argue that there’s a difference between fitting 650 people into a space for two-thirds that number and fitting the same number into a space holding less than one-tenth of that number, but fortunately Jake’s school never taught him about this new-fangled concept called fractions. They probably hadn’t invented fire regulations either.

The master plan behind this scheme, it seems, is that holding two weeks’ worth of debates in Cardiff will bring parliament closer to the people, and demonstrate a commitment to the Union. Since the period proposed for this spectacle is the two weeks after the summer recess and before the break for party conferences, a period during which parliament traditionally debates little of great importance, the probability is that at least half of them wouldn’t turn up, which might go some way to solving the capacity problem. I struggle, though, to think of anything less likely to convince me of the value of the Union than only half the membership of the House of Commons bothering to travel to Cardiff to stand like sardines in a small room holding a debate about something inconsequential. I’m obviously not gifted with Jake’s immense perspicacity on that. Sadly for Jake, I suspect that I’m far from alone in that respect.

Demonstrating close-up the reality of how parliament works is the sort of revolutionary idea which might sound better coming from opponents of the Union rather than its supposed supporters, but if Jake wants to do the job for us, who am I to disagree? A parliament without enough seats for all its members is something which would embarrass most modern democracies, but for Jake and his pals, it’s a source of great pride. It does rather illustrate the point made by our own First Minister this week when he described the UK Government as a “recruiting sergeant” for Welsh and Scottish independence. It isn’t just the UK Government, though – it’s the whole of the UK structure and processes which are not fit for purpose in the twenty-first century but which are incapable of reforming themselves, because they’re proud of being hopelessly outdated and see it as a strength rather than a weakness. And despite Drakeford’s own ability to see the need for change, what he still seems unable to see or understand is that the English Labour Party is part of the problem, not the solution.

Is there a case for the union? 7: Not without change

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After ruling out all the usual arguments, what is left for the unionists to deploy? If I wanted to make an argument for the continuation of the UK which might appeal to those currently inclined to support independence, on what would I try to base it? It’s not a pointless question, and it’s one to which some of the more thoughtful unionists, like David Melding AS, have given a great deal of consideration. The problem, though, which they seem to struggle to accept, is that they are fringe elements within their parties and within unionism in general, in recognising that the union must change if it is to survive. That’s simply not the way that the people actually in charge of the unionist parties and the UK as a whole see things. As Martin Kettle pointed out in this article in the Guardian this morning, people like Johnson see only one way of running the union, and that is the centre imposing its will on the rest. My own starting point would be to look at the deficiencies of the way the union operates today and at what could be done to make it work better:

·        Making a serious attempt at social solidarity is fundamental: not just vague waffle and spin about ‘levelling up’, but a serious attempt to spread wealth more evenly, starting from the basis that all citizens should benefit from a country’s economic success, rather than some having to beg for crumbs. It requires a recognition that massive inequality is incompatible with maintaining cohesion, and a recognition that the concentration of wealth in one small corner is damaging.

·        Developing a more inclusive way of regarding history and culture, one which recognises that the UK is not a homogeneous whole, but an agglomeration of parts with different histories and perspectives. There isn’t just one history of the UK and attempting to impose one to shore up the institution itself is counterproductive. Britain and England aren’t the same thing, and don’t even need to be seen as such to preserve the union.

·        Revitalising democracy, abolishing unelected lawmakers, and implementing an electoral system which enables different views and perspectives to be more accurately reflected. Gifting absolute power to a party which wins only a minority of the votes in just one of the parts of the union will always be resented by the other parts.

·        Strengthening devolution, making it more uniform across the three devolved administrations, and recognising the absolute right of those administrations to legislate in devolved areas with no interference from the centre, something which the Scottish Lib Dems amongst others have called for. It probably requires a written constitution because, under the existing constitution, any legislation to renounce the right to make laws in devolved areas can be repealed at whim.

·        Ensuring that the rule of law applies to all equally and that transgressions are dealt with, whoever commits them.

And, to add a primarily emotional rather than merely practical appeal:

·        Recognising and celebrating the inter-family links across these islands which have resulted from centuries of intermixing, and which often translate into a sense of commonality which transcends many of the more transactional arguments. As a result of internal migration within the UK, to say nothing of marriages and other relationships, there are large numbers of families in all parts of the UK which have relatives in others. That provides an emotional basis, even if it will never be enough in itself to overcome the practical failings.

There are two obvious things to note about the first five items on this list:

1.    They are not quick fixes. Trying to ‘sell’ the existing structures and processes instead of reforming them is like putting lipstick on the proverbial pig, yet that’s the unionists’ starting point. No matter how slick their campaign (and they’re having problems enough with that), they are still trying to sell a pig. A PR exercise just isn’t enough. It’s a point which Mark Drakeford at least understands – the union cannot and will not survive in its current form. The leap which he has yet to make, however, is to understand that the changes which he identifies as being necessary for the union to survive cannot and will not be delivered by either the English Conservative Party or the English Labour Party, because:

2.    The Anglo-British nationalists of both parties are ideologically and emotionally incapable of doing any of them. When you ‘know’, with absolute and unshakeable certainty, that “the United Kingdom is the most successful political and economic union the world has ever seen”, it’s difficult to see why anything might need to change. Ever. Something which is the bestest and perfectest known to mankind throughout the whole of history doesn’t need to change. It’s an astonishing, exceptionalist claim (which I’ve heard in different forms from Labour politicians as well as Tories – the words could have tripped off the tongue of Gordon Brown as easily as that of Boris Johnson) based on outright jingoism unsupported by hard facts or analysis, but one which they genuinely seem to believe, and they are unable to understand why everyone doesn’t accept it as truth.

It’s not that it has become wholly impossible to persuade people that maintaining the unity of the UK is worthwhile, it is that most of those currently in power are so blinded by their own dogma and ideology that they are incapable of doing those things which would be required to achieve their aim. The UK is doomed, not primarily by those of us who seek to dismember it, but by the failure of comprehension of most of its own ‘supporters’, who are incapable of even understanding why structures developed centuries ago are no longer suitable today.

Is there a case for the Union? 6: Culture

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The last of the usual arguments for the continuation of the union considered in this series of articles is to do with the culture of these islands. It is true that, in the widest sense of culture and human knowledge the world has gained much from the efforts of the peoples of these islands, particularly in the field of science and understanding. The problem, though, is that the nationalist proponents of this argument usually fall back on two major things (it's a bit of an oversimplification, but not that much of one) – Shakespeare and the English language. The importance of Shakespeare and his contribution to English culture should not be underestimated, but he was writing at a time before the UK existed. He was a product of England (into which Wales had already been incorporated) rather than of Britain, and the continued emphasis on him as some sort of ‘British’ icon is both historically inaccurate and dismissive of the work of Welsh, Scottish, and Irish writers. Indeed, more generally the emphasis on English language culture as ‘the’ culture of the British Isles ignores the parallel cultures of those speaking the other native languages of Britain. What they present as ‘British’ culture looks, all too often, as simply rebadged English culture. And they don’t even realise that.

It’s true that the English language (or as many increasingly call it, American) has come to dominate the world for many purposes, not least trade. But that didn’t come about because ‘we’ generously ‘gave’ it to the world; it came about because it was imposed on conquered peoples in colonised territories by force. And the same goes for those parts of the UK where other languages were universally spoken before English was imposed. Whilst being a native speaker of what has become the most widely spoken commercial language certainly bestows many advantages, that doesn’t make the language in some way ‘superior’ to others. Assuming that we should take pride in the outcome whilst ignoring the process is an unrealistic ask of those within these islands who still use other native, and historically persecuted, languages, to identify just one group.

It would be possible to develop a view of ‘British’ culture which was more inclusive and less jingoistic, and which recognised that ‘British’ culture is neither homogeneous nor the same thing as English culture. But that would mean, in effect, that the Anglo-British defenders of the union would have to change their view of what the UK is rather than simply demand that we all accept and buy into their view. It’s an impossible ask. If I were looking for a strong argument for the union, I wouldn’t try and base it on the imposition of English culture.

Is there a case for the Union? 5: A shared history

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Next up in the pantheon of arguments for perpetuating the UK is the idea that these islands have a long, shared history. It’s an argument that has the merit of being superficially true. There can be no argument that – even before the union with Wales, let alone those with Scotland and Ireland – the history of the people of these islands was intimately intertwined. Rivalries over land, wealth and power were no respecters of borders, and neither borders nor nations had anything like the meaning that they have today. Although, in strict legal terms, the unions between England, Scotland, and Ireland were based on parliamentary consent, whilst the incorporation of Wales was more blatantly based on military conquest, the reality is that ‘consent’ was given in a context where there had long been military conflict and conquest. Even England, as a construct, is based on the outcome of wars between different kingdoms within the territory recognised as England today. Having an intertwined history isn’t the same thing as having a common history. Whilst the events surrounding any military conquest might be undisputed, the conqueror will always interpret those events in a very different way to the conquered. At its simplest, was the bringing together of the peoples of these islands a process of unification and merger, or was it a process of conquest and subjection?

That is in the distant past, of course, even if the echoes still reverberate today. Since the union, there is much more of a common history isn’t there? Well, in some ways yes, in others no. It’s true that many Welsh and Scots played their role in the collective effort which built an empire, and in the numerous wars which the rulers of that empire started or participated in across the globe. It would be a mistake to overlook the fact that many in Wales and Scotland have bought in to the myth of military glory and splendid island isolation which typifies the ‘standard’ view of ‘British’ history. And yet the basic rule – that the same events can appear very different from different perspectives – still holds true. When politicians (and this applies to Welsh and Scottish ones, as well as English or ‘British’ ones) talk about wanting to teach children their history, they usually seem to talk about making sure that children know about key events, largely ignoring the fact that what is more important is how those events are interpreted and placed into an overall narrative. It’s as if they don’t understand that the events which they select, and the importance they ascribe to those events, are neither absolute not objective; they stem from the perspective of the speaker.

The list of kings and queens of England (a classic example of the history which 'British' nationalists want children to be taught) is exactly what it says it is, and treating it as though it’s a list of kings and queens of the UK ignores the fact that many of them never ruled Wales, fewer ruled Scotland, and even fewer ruled Ireland. The way in which supporters of the union conflate English and British history is not only wrong in perception, it is wrong as a matter of fact. It might be possible to develop an interpretation of history which recognised difference, and didn’t seek to impose a single version on everyone, but that would be anathema to unionists, who would see it as weakening rather than strengthening their case. Basing their case on a common history requires everyone else to accept a particular version of history, but the days when history could be dictated are long gone. If I were looking for a strong argument for the union which would appeal to those currently inclined to support independence, I wouldn’t base it on trying to impose a narrow and Anglicised view of history.

Is there a case for the Union? 4: Shared institutions and symbols

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Another argument made by unionists for the continuation of the UK is that there are UK-wide institutions which we share and which bind us together. It was a central part of the pitch made by Andrew RT Davies in an article in the National this week. It is, though, a very narrow range of institutions which they normally refer to – the armed forces usually top the list, followed by the monarchy, the flag, the NHS, and the BBC. Well, maybe not the BBC so much these days, given that the current government seem determined to control and neuter the organisation’s so-called ‘independence’. And using the NHS as a symbol of ‘unity’ whilst failing to adequately fund it or pay the staff what most people feel they deserve isn’t the brightest of ideas. Whilst people in general might well feel pride in the NHS, it's not a pride which is obviously reflected in government actions towards the institution.

There are certainly those who see the monarchy as something quintessentially British, a living link to a long history. It depends on a rather selective interpretation of a somewhat inglorious record of infighting, murder, and treachery, but there are three rather more important difficulties. The first is that many of those who support the monarchy are already on the unionist side: they aren’t the ones they need to convince. The second is that, from a Scottish perspective if not a Welsh one, the Scottish Crown, both legally and conceptually, isn’t the same as the English Crown. Historically, the union of the crowns and the union of the parliaments were two entirely separate events; reversing them separately is not at all the strange concept which it appears to be from the perspective of the English establishment. And thirdly, there are plenty of independent countries in the world which have, for various reasons, chosen to retain England’s monarch as Head of State. It is, therefore, perfectly possible to be a supporter of the monarchy, and even the present incumbent, and still advocate independence. The institution does not depend on the structure of the union.

When it comes to the armed forces, it is true that there is a long-standing, albeit often vague, sense of loyalty. However, in Scotland that is often to traditional Scottish regiments rather than the armed forces as a whole and those regiments have suffered cuts and mergers over decades at the hands of the London government. Scots might reasonably be excused for thinking that the bit of the armed forces to which they feel the greatest loyalty and attachment might be better protected under independence. There are also generational differences: even amongst the older generations ‘the war’ is now outside the experience of most, and whilst many unionists seem to see it as ‘the’ defining characteristic of the UK, for younger people it’s now almost ancient history.  It’s true that, partly because of its possession of nuclear weapons, the UK’s armed forces remain amongst the deadliest in the world, but whether that’s a matter for pride or not depends on perspective. The unionist argument depends on an assumption that their perspective is widely shared, which is, like many of the assumptions they make, increasingly out of kilter with the twenty-first century UK.

That leaves us with the biggest and most obvious symbol of all: the Union Flag. There really does seem to be a prevalent belief amongst the unionists that simply plastering the flag on anything and everything will somehow engender a pride in Britishness and a feeling of being together. There was a time when it might have been true – it was the union flag rather than the cross of St George which was flown for the English world cup team just 55 years ago, and it felt like a British, rather than simply English, victory at the time. But things have changed, and clocks can’t be reversed. What was entirely natural just half a century ago jars today. The one echo of 1966 which still has resonance today is the reverse of what it was in 1966, and it’s a negative one for the union. It is that the union flag represents England, rather than the whole UK. That in turn means that trying to replace saltires and dragons with union flags has, for many, precisely the opposite effect to that intended; rather than strengthening a feeling of union, it strengthens a feeling that English people conflate England and Britain. If I were looking for a strong argument for the union which would appeal to those currently inclined to support independence, I wouldn't try  and base it on a particularly English interpretation of institutions and symbols.

Is there a case for the Union? 2: Great British Values

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One of the favourite arguments of unionists is that the UK is held together by a strong set of uniquely British values. On closer examination, these turn out to be not uniquely British at all. Precisely what these values are is generally left vague, but it seems to include things like democracy, rule of law, fair play, and linking rewards to merit. That there is nothing uniquely British about any of these should be obvious, but somehow seems not to be to many. Worse still is that the claimed values aren’t even adhered to much of the time. Earlier this week, in response to the government’s decision to drastically reduce aid to Yemen, Jeremy Hunt said that "…abandoning a forgotten country and people is inconsistent with our values”. Whilst it’s true that it goes against what he wants us to believe the UK’s values are, it is in fact entirely consistent with the UK’s practiced values. It isn’t the first time that the UK has abandoned a forgotten country and people, as the Kurds, to name just one example, could readily attest. Yesterday, we saw the former president of France sentenced to a term in jail for dishonesty in office - can anyone seriously imagine that happening to the UK's current cabinet, where the rule of law is also supposed to be the norm?

It isn’t just in the field of foreign policy that the UK’s stated values and its displayed values are at odds.  We know that the majority of the UK’s lawmakers are unelected and hold their positions by dint of government appointment, heredity, or high office in one particular English Christian denomination. We have a compulsive and inveterate liar at the head of the UK government, and ministers who breach the law with impunity. Bullying is acceptable, and awarding jobs and contracts to individuals and companies with no open procurement process has become almost the norm. Inequality is significant and growing. More resources are devoted to tackling benefit fraud than tax avoidance and evasion, although it is the latter which has the greater cost.

An objective observer would rapidly conclude that the following are closer to being key British values than those generally claimed:

·        Autocracy is better than democracy.

·        Lies are worth more than honesty and truthfulness.

·        Poverty is the fault of the poor themselves, but those who already have plenty should receive more whether they work for it or not. And money made through speculation against the interests of the majority of citizens is the most highly-prized of all.

·        Inequality is a good thing, and the more unequal people are the better.

·        Obeying the law is optional for governments and the privileged, and not paying taxes is acceptable as long as you’re rich. Donating lots of money to the governing party can help with both of these.

·        Foreigners are to be looked down on and kept out.

·        Awarding jobs and contracts to friends is easier than assessing merit.

·        Britain is superior to all other countries in all respects, and others should know their place.

In fairness, most of the above list (apart from the last) aren’t actually uniquely British either, but the combination does more to define the 21st Century UK than the pretend values so often mouthed by its leaders. If I were looking for a strong argument for the union which would appeal to those currently inclined to support independence, I wouldn't try and base it on some vague reference to abstract and theoretical 'British' values which aren’t even the ones by which the country lives.

Is there a case for the Union? 1: The Unionists' failure of understanding

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Whilst Boris Johnson and his motley crew seem to be realising, albeit very belatedly, that they need to do something if the UK is to continue to exist, it seems that they are struggling to decide which strategy to adopt. Whilst some want to be aggressively anti-SNP, others think that Project Love might be more productive than Project Fear. The confusion looks set to run and run, with the likeliest outcome being two camps following two different strategies at the same time. They’re not really concerned about Wales at all, only Scotland (and that looks like a mistake in itself – the reason that they are in such a hole over what to do in Scotland is, at least in part, that they didn’t see any need to act sooner), but even there, they seem to be starting from an assumption that there are no fundamental problems with the way the union works, it’s just a question of finding the best marketing strategy. It is the very superficiality of that approach which dooms it to failure.

Some of the most successful marketing campaigns are those which attempt to sell Brand X instead of Brand Y, where the two products are basically very similar, and the demand is well established. Sadly, the political battle between Labour and the Tories in EnglandandWales has long been reduced to that sort of marketing exercise – two very similar products each trying to persuade customers that they are the best or cheapest. But reducing the choice to Brand X cornflakes or Brand Y cornflakes presupposes that the punters want to buy cornflakes in the first place. The problem that the unionists are facing is that most Scots have decided that they don’t want cornflakes, and aren’t even sure that they want any other type of cereal either. Trying to sell the merits of a particular brand of cornflakes to an audience which has gone off the whole concept of breakfast is an entirely different project, and probably an impossible one for people who can’t even imagine what the world might be like without breakfast.

Successful marketing requires an understanding of the mindset of the target audience, and the most successful businesses are those which, having understood their audience, adapt their product where necessary to suit the market rather than assuming that they can adapt the market to suit their product. And that, in a nutshell, is the biggest problem that the unionists face. So convinced are most of them that their product in its current form is indispensable to every household that they cannot even conceive of any way in which it might be improved. From their perspective, there is nothing in any way deficient about their product, and no need to change it. If people have stopped buying it, it’s because those people are wrong-headed and stupid. It’s easy to see how anyone starting from that viewpoint might believe that bullying, cajoling, or even bribing people into buying makes sense. But businesses which behave in that fashion invariably go bust, and there’s no reason to suppose the outcome for unionists will be any different.

The second big problem which they face is their own inability to distinguish between outcomes and structures. The union, as a structure, has value for its parts only to the extent that it delivers outcomes which could not be delivered without it. The suggestion is that ‘Project Love’ will concentrate on perceived successes, such as the vaccination programme and the furlough scheme. There are, in truth, problems with both, but let’s leave those problems aside and assume that these schemes can indeed be considered successes for the government. Whether they are also advantages of being in a union depends not on the degree of success achieved but on whether an equal degree of success could have been achieved had the UK already been dissolved into its constituent parts. Considered from that point of view, there is absolutely no demonstrable reason why Scotland, Wales, and England could not have individually achieved the same outcomes. (Whether they would have done so or not is a different question, to which the answer is unknowable, but it depends more on the competence of the governments elected than on the constitutional position of the countries concerned.) Claiming the successes, such as they are, of a particular government at a particular time to be successes of the constitutional structure under which it operates is a category error, pure and simple.

None of the above is intended to suggest that there is no case for the union. There is a case to be made, just as there is a case for independence, and people will have different opinions on the relative merits and strengths of those cases. It’s just not the same case that the unionists are making. A defensible case for the union isn’t about marketing and spin, or about misrepresenting apparent successes as being due to the union. I’ll return to what the case for the union might be in due course, but first it’s worth examining, over the coming days, some of the problems with the case usually being put forward.

Day trips to Scotland

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The PM took himself off to Scotland yesterday, for a series of carefully staged photo opportunities visits to see what’s happening on the ground in England’s northern possession. Part of his objective was to highlight all the wonderful things that ‘the union’ does for Scotland. As most expected, what shone through was that special sense of English exceptionalism and superiority which comes so naturally to people like him that they don’t even realise that they’re doing it. The words might have said ‘look what we’re doing together’, but it came across as ‘look what we are doing for you’.

One of the reasons for this dissonance is that he and his ilk start from an assumption that anything and everything done by the UK government is automatically a ‘benefit of the union’, because it is done by the government in London rather than by the government in Scotland. The fact that some things can only be done by Westminster as a result of a constitutional settlement which reserves the relevant powers to London seems to escape them. Looked at objectively, something is a ‘benefit of the union’ if, and only if, it is something which an independent Scotland could not do itself. That presents a real problem to unionists because there is, literally, nothing that an independent Scotland might wish to do that fits in that category.

Apparently, “[Tory] Insiders talk about a focus on showing the tangible benefits of the Union”, but all the ‘tangible benefits’ that they come up with are things which the Westminster parliament has simply reserved to itself in the first place. They refer to the way in which UK armed forces have been used in Scotland to help with the vaccination rollout, as though those armed forces are nothing to do with Scotland and as though an independent Scotland wouldn’t be able to call on its own armed forces. They talk about the money ‘given’ to the Scottish government to help in the Covid response, as though an independent Scotland would, uniquely amongst independent states, have no money of its own, and as if Scotland owns no part of the UK’s money. The one tangible benefit which a union could deliver is a pooling and sharing of resources between its constituent parts (whether nations such as Wales and Scotland or regions of England) on the basis of need, but that’s the one thing that unionists (whether Tory or Labour) have consistently failed to do. ‘Levelling up’ is just a slogan; it’s not a policy, let alone a plan.

Yesterday, former First Minister, Carwyn Jones, referring to Boris Johnson’s Scottish day trip, said, “…I’m sure this visit will be a success. Just not for him”.  The good news for independentistas in general is that the inability of the Tory English nationalists and Labour Anglo-British nationalists to understand how their own Westminster-centric mindset works against them, let alone change it, means that their efforts to win over the Scots will indeed bring about a great success. Just not for them.

Saving the precious union

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It was reported yesterday that the UK government is setting up a dedicated ‘union unit’, headed by Michael Gove, to battle Scottish independence and promote the union. Leaving aside the obvious point that if the answer is Michael Gove then someone is asking the wrong question, it seems that the main functions of this new unit will be to ‘explain the advantages’ of the union and brand everything with the union flag. The first will be a struggle, given that the only advantage that they can usually come up with is that the union has made Scotland so poor that they can’t imagine how it could possibly afford to be independent, and the second is likely to be counterproductive.

The idea that the union could be saved is not an entirely lost cause however; Wales’ First Minister has today talked about the sort of changes that could save the union. Whilst I’m not convinced that saving the union is a worthwhile objective in any event, I can see how turning the existing union into what Drakeford describes as “… authentically a voluntary association of nations where sovereignty is held by each nation and then pooled for common purposes” could work if it could be brought into existence. I just don’t see how, in practical terms, it could come about. It implies that the central Westminster government formally acknowledges, once and for all, the sovereignty of the people of Wales and Scotland, and renounces any right to legislate in any area where those countries have not formally agreed to share sovereignty. Technically, I don’t see how that can be achieved without a formal written constitution because any other arrangement falls foul of the absolute principle underpinning Westminster government that nothing any parliament does can ever bind its successors. But more important than the technical issue, I don’t see any possibility that a Conservative government would ever renounce Westminster’s sovereignty in such a fashion, and nor do I see any likelihood that Drakeford will be able to persuade either the current or any other foreseeable leader of his own party to renounce Westminster’s sovereignty either. The most practical route to implement Drakeford’s suggestion is for Wales and Scotland to become independent one day and then immediately agree to share and pool in specified areas, and Drakeford looks unlikely to follow through the logic of his position to that point.

The bigger question with which I struggle is why the union is so precious in the first place. Why are politicians so attached to a structure which was created over 300 years ago to meet the perceived exigencies of the day, as though what was felt to be ‘right’ at that point in time is necessarily and forever ‘right’ in all succeeding circumstances? For those in Wales who have fallen for the myth of ‘too small, too poor, too stupid’, I can understand why they might fear any alternative, but what’s in it for England? After all, if it’s true that Wales and Scotland are a huge financial burden on England, why go to so much effort to frustrate the independence movements? Let’s not forget that ‘sending £350 million a week to Brussels’ (even if it wasn’t true) was one of the motivations for Brexit; it ought to be a surprise that politicians who plugged that line are arguing that they should continue to ‘send £millions a week to Cardiff and Edinburgh’ (even though that isn’t true either) rather than supporting the national movements.

It’s hardly about votes either. We know that English voters are largely ambivalent at best about maintaining the union, and that amongst Brexiteer supporters of the current government there’s a clear majority in favour of getting rid of Wales and Scotland if it makes their purist Brexit easier. I’ve heard unionists waxing lyrical about ‘shared history’ (to say nothing of ‘the war’) and ‘cross-border families’ as though the first means that the past must necessarily determine the future and as though the second will somehow disappear just because a decision is taken to govern these islands in a different way. I’ve also heard (loud and clear!) the nonsense about ‘you can’t survive without us’, but I’ve never heard a cogent, reasoned argument as to why the union is or should be so precious.

It could just be that innate form of conservatism shared by both the Tories and the Labour Party, that inability to conceive of doing some things differently. It could be a fear that the UK (or, rather, England in this context) would be diminished in the world, although it’s hard to believe that architects of Brexit could seriously be worried about that. Maybe it just threatens their own sense of identity in some way. One thing about which we can be certain is that it isn’t about altruism or concern for the people of Wales and Scotland. One has only to glance very briefly at people like Gove and Johnson to know that.

Flavours of unionism

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Treating the politics of the UK as it affects Wales and Scotland as a division into independentistas and unionists is a vey easy shorthand which too many of us – myself included – tend to fall into. The problem is not that it’s wrong as such – particularly in Scotland where politics has effectively polarised around the question of independence – but that it’s too simplistic to label all opponents of independence as ‘unionists'. In reality, unionists come in different flavours (none of them particularly palatable from my perspective), and support of ‘the union’ isn’t really as uniting a factor as it can seem. That’s one of the reasons why unionists are doing such a hopeless job of putting their case.

There are undoubtedly some people in Wales who genuinely believe that Wales’ best interests are served by remaining part of a greater whole covering all or part of this archipelago. They usually (although not always nor exclusively) see those interests in economic terms. I think their understanding of the economics of independence is deeply flawed, but I don’t see anything unpatriotic about arguing for what they sincerely believe to be in the best interests of Wales. Others argue, equally sincerely, that class and economic relationships are more important than nationality. It’s an argument with which I have a degree of sympathy, but the idea that that solidarity ends at Dover (as at least some of them seem to believe), or that it mandates a particular kind of relationship between the nations of these islands (a belief which seems common to all of them) strikes me as having more to do with nationalism of the Anglo-British variety than with class solidarity.

The biggest problem faced by Welsh unionists, though, is that the unionists in England (and they’re the ones in charge) have an entirely different perspective on the same issue. Many English unionists may use the same language about Wales being too poor to support itself, but the idea that they are driven to maintain the union by some great altruistic wish to help and support Wales is naïve to say the least. My evidence for that statement is simple – they have presided over long term economic decline in Wales in favour of concentrating the UK economy in the South-East of England. They simply haven’t achieved, or even attempted to achieve, that which they say is their objective. So what does drive English unionism? It’s tempting to fall back on the grumbling Welsh narrative of England having land and people to exploit. It’s true, of course, which is part of what makes it so tempting; but it isn’t the whole truth.

Independence for any given geographical area does not, in itself, demand or require any question of national identity. For those of us who believe that sovereignty ultimately derives from and belongs to the people who reside in a particular area, the right of those people to govern themselves as they see fit is, ultimately, entirely for them to decide. The importance of national identity is not about whether people have a right to govern themselves, but about where they choose to draw the lines. Wales isn’t obviously a natural economic unit (and I know that that is not just about geography, it’s also about history and the way communications have developed) but what makes it a suitable unit for self-government is more about the extent to which the people living here define themselves (in a highly subjective process) as being Welsh. It doesn’t follow (as some seem to argue) that we must therefore be independent, but it inevitably forms part of the argument about why we should make that choice.

Not all independentistas see things in such terms, of course. My starting point – that sovereignty ultimately stems from the people – means that I cannot put up a single argument of principle (as opposed to practicality) against, say, a proposition that Ynys Môn should seek independence from Wales. The importance of this point is that those in Wales who raise objections of principle to the idea that Wales could ever be divided in such a way are actually seeing things through exactly the same prism as those British unionists who are so vehemently opposed to Welsh to Scottish independence: because the real driver of unionism is the idea that the UK is a natural and indivisible whole. As is becoming increasingly obvious, they don’t care about the ‘union’ at all, nor about the terms on which it was established (particularly relevant in Scotland). They don’t even see it as a ‘union’ either (although they use the term), they see the UK, rather, as a homogeneous nation-state which emerged from historical processes which are now irrelevant and in which all sovereignty belongs to the centre. There have been a series of articles and comments recently which portray the current government as being cavalier about the union and endangering it by their approach. It’s fair comment, but it fails to understand their perspective.

It’s not even the case that their perspective is wholly wrong or completely misguided – it’s merely dated. It’s a classic example of the way in which ‘institutional wisdom’ (which some might consider an oxymoron) fails to move with the times. Attitudes and beliefs change over time, but institutions struggle to acknowledge that fact. We are left with a UK run by centralist parties (Labour is as bad as the Tories on this) supported by centralist institutions which simply cannot conceive of the possibility that large swathes of opinion in the north and west of ‘their’ territory no longer share their views on what constitutes ‘the nation’, and they assume that changing the presentation and pasting union flags on everything will somehow eliminate any problem. The union is doomed by those who claim to be its supporters. Sooner or later, Welsh unionists will wake up to find that they are not only not on the same page as their leaders in England, they’re not even reading the same book.

There will be no 'new' union

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A number of Unionists have been suggesting recently that the ‘Union’ should be reformed in some way, on the basis of an understanding (which I think entirely correct) that the current situation is not going to last for much longer and the choice facing the UK is reform or collapse. Amongst them this week was the ever-thoughtful David Melding MS. Unlike many others who are proposing changes, Melding does at least touch on the how as well as the what, with his reference to a referendum. I can’t help feeling that most of the others, when talking about a new Act of Union defining the relationship between the parts of the UK, are assuming that the Westminster parliament can simply pass such an Act and it would then come into force. In strict legal terms, they may be right, but any new Act of Union which does not have the consent, both individually and collectively, of the participating nations will not solve the perceived problem.

The Union with Wales is the exception: it never involved any consent, it was simply an incorporation of Wales into England. But the Union with Scotland was implemented by resolution of the parliaments of both countries acting separately. (Northern Ireland, as ever, is a rather more complicated situation.) It is entirely possible that a new Act of Union would pass though Westminster with majority support from MPs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (the latter aided by the fact that most nationalist MPs don’t take their seats), but I can see no electoral outcome in Scotland in anything like the near term (Melding expects the union to end before the end of the decade without reform) which will lead to a majority of Scottish MPs supporting such a new Act. What then? Imposition on the basis of a majority in Westminster does nothing to resolve anything. Indeed, it would serve only to highlight the problem with the current situation.

Melding suggests that Boris Johnson should call a referendum in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland on the terms of an alternative model at the same time as the second Scottish independence referendum. It’s an interesting suggestion, but it throws up a number of potential problems. If Scotland were to vote against independence but hadn’t been part of the referendum on the new form of the union, where does that leave them? Alternatively, if Scotland votes for independence, might that not change the dynamic in both Wales and Northern Ireland, meaning that the result of a referendum held at the same time might look rather different than the result of a referendum held at a later date? After all, the 'union' would look very different in the different scenarios. And then – the really big question – what if Wales, Northern Ireland, or even both, voted in a different way to England – how is the result then decided? Is a rejection of the new alternative to be interpreted as a vote for retaining the status quo or for something different again? Any serious attempt at designing a ‘new’ union must involve the freely given consent of all the parties to it; by its very nature it thus recognises the sovereignty of the different nations to enter freely into union or not.

That, of course, is one of the reasons why it won’t happen. Outside a thoughtful few who really do understand the need for change, the prevailing view amongst unionists is that there’s nothing wrong with the current arrangements, it’s just the whingeing Celtic fringes who are unable to understand that they owe everything to generous and civilising rule from London. That’s why the biggest threat to the union comes from the unionists themselves. And, fortunately, they’re mostly beyond help.

Forced divergence

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It looks increasingly as though the English government is going to reduce the physical distancing rule from 2 metres to 1, and the various reviews and discussions taking place are more about trying to either keep the current scientific advisors on board or else find some different advisors who will agree with the proposal. ‘Following the science’ has increasingly become more about fitting the science to the policy than adjusting the policy in the light of the science. The science in this case isn’t entirely clear to begin with. Two metres isn’t risk free anyway; setting a distance is about calculating the level of risk. About the only thing we know for certain is that the risk of transmission is higher at 1 metre than it is at 2 metres – the precise extent of that increase in risk is subject to debate. In principle, it is entirely reasonable to be weighing up that difference in risk against the economic costs – there are many businesses which could be viable at 1 metre but not at 2. The problem about reducing it to mathematics and economics, however, is that it isn’t just money that we’re playing with – it’s people’s lives. And, of course, it’s always worth remembering that the people deciding that the risk is worth taking aren’t the ones who will be taking that risk.

The probability at this stage is that Wales and Scotland will, for the time being at least, stick to the current rule. Whether that reflects a difference in the weighting given to the two main factors, public health and economics, as some would like to believe, or whether it’s just taking a more holistic and long-term view about the economics (an extended lockdown might be better than a stop-start approach) isn’t entirely clear as yet. That applying different rules across such porous borders will cause difficulties is not in doubt, as we’ve already seen with the reckless rush to end the lockdown in England. Some of the implications could be interesting to watch – if a train can carry twice as many people with a 1 metre rule as it can with a 2 metre rule, will half the passengers on a London-Swansea train have to get out at Bristol Parkway before the train enters the Severn Tunnel, for instance? Having such differences isn’t unmanageable – they manage perfectly well on the European mainland – but it runs counter to the ‘British’ (and especially Tory) mindset, which still lives in the pre-devolution era of a single state with a single government and a single set of rules.

Increasing divergence between England on the one hand and the other governments in the UK on the other in relation to the pandemic wasn’t inevitable. Scotland maybe was always most likely to diverge, but the instinctive position of ‘Welsh’ Labour has throughout been to seek a ‘four nations’ approach, working through consensus. It is the English government which has made that difficult, by a lack of discussion or consultation and a conviction that it is uniquely ‘right’ about everything. Whether Johnson simply expected the devolved governments to fall into line or whether he simply didn’t (and still doesn’t) understand the reality of devolution is another open question. Neither paying attention to constitutional detail nor listening to other opinions are obvious character traits of the current PM. And taking decisions in direct contradiction of the expert advice provides further evidence of his determination to follow a particular path regardless of the consequences. The result is that he has pushed the First Minister of Wales, an apparently mild-mannered man who clearly would eminently prefer that EnglandandWales followed a common set of rules, into a position where he sees little choice but to ally himself with the SNP leader in Scotland and follow an increasingly divergent line. The alternative is tearing up a strategy which was prepared on the basis of the best expert advice available to him and following instead the capricious whims of Johnson. He seems to have rather more integrity than that.

When the United Kingdom ends –Scotland’s departure is now surely inevitable, and Welsh independence is rising up the agenda too – it will owe as much to the incompetence of the unionists in their approach to maintaining it as it will to the persuasiveness of the independentistas.

Of prime ministers and bent bananas

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Last week, the Western Mail’s Chief Bent Banana did a thorough and effective demolition job on the attempts by the Prime Minister and those around her to exercise tight control over the coverage of her so-called ‘whistle-stop’ tour to reunite the kingdom.  I find it hard to believe that she and her advisers could really have believed for one moment that four half-hour meetings with a small number of carefully-invited attendees coupled with rigid control over which reporters would be allowed to ask which questions could ever be portrayed as some sort of grand tour meeting the peoples of the nations which comprise the UK.  But what’s even more surprising is how little coverage there seems to have been along the lines of that delivered by the Western Mail.  Were reporters elsewhere cowed or overawed to such an extent that they simply regurgitated the desired message of a robotic Prime Minister as commanded?

Stunts – and it’s hard to see this particular grand tour as anything other than a stunt – have become the bread-and-butter of political campaigning in an age where the expectation is a 30 second sound bite on national news, and a whole day given over to travelling between 4 brief sessions is apparently considered a reasonable price to pay for that 30 seconds.  It takes no more than a moment’s rational consideration to dismiss outright the idea that such a stunt, involving no more than a couple of dozen individuals, could really have anything to do with ‘listening to the people’, let alone uniting the parts of ‘this precious union’, yet that it how it was, by and large, dutifully reported.

There’s more to ‘reporting’ than simply writing what the powerful want written, and for once the Western Mail managed to lead the way.  Clearly, the current Prime Minister struggles seriously to say anything ad hoc or unscripted and selecting which questions are asked is a wholly unnecessary step for someone who knows what ‘answer’ she is going to give regardless of what the question actually says.  The complicity of much of the media in reporting what she says as though she has in fact delivered answers is more reminiscent of what happens in a dictatorship than a democracy.