Labels don't help, even if they're valid

Tweet

 

A noticeable trait of some Tories – Sirjake is a classic example – is to avoid referring to ‘Labour’ or the ‘Labour Party’ and talk instead about the ‘Socialists’. The word is deemed to be, in its own right, sufficient condemnation of those to whom it refers with no need for further elucidation. In the milieu of those who do this, it might work, but it betrays an underlying assumption that what the speaker considers unspeakable is also considered unspeakable by most of those listening. It is, at best, a contentious proposition. There is a similar phenomenon in operation on what is loosely called ‘the left’, where the word ‘fascist’ is often used in a similarly abusive fashion, making a similar assumption that fascism is beyond the pale for most listeners. It’s lazy – and probably ineffective.

Merriam-Webster (other dictionaries are available) tells us that fascism is defined as: “a political philosophy, movement, or regime … that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”. An objective consideration of the political programme of parties like Reform and the modern Tory Party, to say nothing of American Trumpism or a range of European parties, will end up ticking most of those boxes, and leading to the conclusion that a resurgence of fascism is a real and present danger. But the applicability of a logically justifiable label is a wholly unreasonable, not to say counter-productive, reason for applying it. The problem is, in essence, that when we start looking at the public reaction to the elements of the definition, it becomes obvious that many of them are popular. Fascist ideology speaks to a number of deeply ingrained prejudices and biases. Using a label is a wholly ineffective way of addressing those underlying beliefs.

The commemoration of D-Day last week has been seen by some as a timely reminder of the cost of suppressing the last major outbreak of fascism in Europe, with its presentation of ‘the war’ as a battle between two ideologies, conveniently labelled freedom and fascism. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering about the validity of that characterisation. I’m too young to have been around during the war years, but during a childhood in the 1950s I certainly remember what some of the adults around me said about it. The phrase, “The only good German is a dead one” is a phrase I remember hearing a number of times, and the words ‘German’ and ‘Nazi’ were often conflated. It was only much later that I learned that not all Germans were Nazis (and, in terms of their philosophical outlook at least, not all Nazis were Germans; some were very much closer to home). The war, from that remembered perspective, was not some great ideological battle for those who lived through it and its aftermath, but a battle between two states which had fought each other in the past. The enemy was Germany, a traditional foe and competitor, not Nazism. It’s an attitude which echoes still in the stupid chant by some Ingerland fans about “two world wars and a world cup”.

The desire to see the outcome of that conflict as a triumph for good over evil, where the men in white hats defeated the ones wearing black hats, is natural and understandable, but if that outcome is more generally and simplistically understood as simply the victory of one country over another, it can all too easily leave untarnished the political philosophy which led to so many deaths. The corollary of a belief that one group or nation is superior is that other groups or nations must necessarily be seen as inferior. That in turn leads seamlessly to a belief that some have more rights than others. Pandering to such views rather than challenging them serves only to validate them, yet it’s where the official UK opposition increasingly seems to be. It’s as dangerous as simply hurling labels around.

Is England a nation?

Tweet

 

And does it matter anyway? The questions were prompted by this report last week about the establishment of the Northern Independence Party to campaign for an independent Northumbria. It’s an interesting development, to say the least, although whether anything will come of it in the long term is another question. Certainly, if different parts of what we today call ‘England’ were to successfully dissociate themselves from Westminster and become independent states, the possibility that the federalism fairy is anything more than, well, a fairy tale, becomes a little more real, although it’s a very big ‘if’, and it would be foolish for anyone to start making plans around such an outcome.

Many will respond by arguing that Northumbria is not a nation, merely a region of England (a fairly arbitrarily-defined one at that, on the basis of the NIP’s proposals), and that the right of all nations to self-determination therefore doesn’t apply. But if we stop and think for a moment, isn’t that almost exactly what British nationalists also say about Wales, or Scotland, claiming in effect that both are part of the ‘British’ nation, and therefore already enjoy the right to national self-determination? Nationality is not an easily defined concept. I’ve never seen, nor been able to devise, an entirely satisfactory and objective definition of what constitutes a ‘nation’, not least since most of what makes people feel that they belong to nation X or nation Y is about a subjective identification with other people who happen to live in the same defined geographical area.

If the people living in Northumbria (however the area is defined on a map) come to consider themselves a nation over the coming years, there is no obvious basis on which anyone else can tell them that they’re wrong. And that applies whether they consider the new national identity to supplant or merely supplement their existing English/ British identity. Some nationalists in Wales attempt to tell people that they can’t be members of two overlapping nations, both Welsh and British, but telling what is probably a majority that they can’t be what they quite comfortably feel themselves to be has never struck me as a particularly productive approach to discourse.

Does it matter, though? One of the reasons for preferring the term independentista to nationalist is that it avoids the question of what a nation is or isn’t and simply affirms that the people living in any defined area have the right to decide collectively how they wish to be governed. That surely applies as much to ‘Northumbria’ as it does to Wales or Scotland. Ultimately the difference in viewpoint owes less to any sense of nationality or nationalism than it does to the simple belief that sovereignty starts with the people rather than the monarch (or God, to be strictly accurate in terms of the English constitution). ‘England’ as an entity came into existence in the same way as the UK – kingdoms and territories were conquered and assimilated. ‘England’ has no more of an absolute claim to be treated now and forever as a single entity than does any other state. The ultimate triumph of the ‘English’ nationalists now running the UK is that their ‘Englishness’ is increasingly being seen to be relevant to only part of ‘England’; their assumption that they can simply impose their own version of Englishness on the rest is leading many to question whether the entity known as England serves their interests. There would be a certain irony if the term ‘Little England’ came to be seen as a geographical term as well as one describing an attitude.

How can we be so ungrateful?

Tweet

 

The fact that GDP per head is lower in some parts of the UK than in others is not inevitable. It is not an accident, nor is it the consequence of mysterious uncontrollable forces, it is the result of a seriously unbalanced economic system which sucks talent and economic activity to the ‘centre’ and concentrates administrative and government activity there as well, impoverishing the periphery in relative terms as it does so. London and the South East of England haven’t become richer than the rest of the UK solely on the basis of their own abilities and actions, they have done so as a result of London-centric government, and it isn’t just Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which have paid the price, it is also large swathes of northern England. The fact that it isn’t a result of the special economic talents of the residents of one small corner hasn’t stopped them from claiming that it is, and that the rest of us are relatively poorer due to our own failings. Far too many have believed them, but the biggest problem is that they’ve also convinced themselves that the wealth which they’ve accumulated at our expense belongs to them and them alone.

Toby Young may be an extreme case (as he is on most things), but his complaint that the Welsh and Scottish people are showing a lack of gratitude for what he sees as the ‘subsidies’ which the South East provide is an open expression of an attitude which lies behind the words and actions of the current UK government from the PM down. It’s true that there is a degree of fiscal transfer from the centre back to the periphery, but whether this is generosity personified or a grudging return of just part of that which was sucked out by an unbalanced economy in the first place is entirely a matter of interpretation. It’s a big gulf in perspectives; what he sees as ingratitude can also be seen as a complaint that those outside the centre haven’t all gone full Stockholm Syndrome.

An important feature of that particular type of English nationalist who denies being a nationalist at all is the idea of superiority. They don’t simply believe themselves superior, they ‘know’ it to be true, and the refusal of others to accept their superiority merely confirms the truth of it. It’s a belief which, it seems, nothing can dent. The loss of Empire was down to the folly of lesser people believing that they could ever govern themselves; the failure of the EU to give the UK everything it asked for just shows that the Europeans don’t know what’s good for them; and demands for independence from Wales and Scotland simply prove that the people making those demands are fundamentally stupid. But the real stupidity for Wales and Scotland is the degree to which we readily accept that view of ourselves.

Drakeford channeling Chamberlain?

Tweet

 

There was something very 1939ish about the First Minister’s announcement yesterday that he had sent a final letter to Herr Johnson seeking an undertaking about travel from Covid hotspots, and that, as Chamberlain put it, “I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received…”. Drakeford didn’t go as far as adding that “… and consequently, this country is at war…”, although reading some of the reaction in England one might be forgiven for thinking that he had done. In essence, Drakeford was asking little more than that people in Covid hotspots in England should be subject to the same rules about travel to parts of Wales with a lower prevalence of the virus as people in Wales are. It’s an entirely reasonable and sensible request, but the English nationalists have chosen to interpret it as some sort of attack on them.

It was predictable that the ‘Welsh’ Conservatives would find something to be outraged about, and they have reverted to their customary response about the law being ‘unenforceable’. In the sense that the police don’t have the resources to prevent people from breaking this law, and can’t apprehend everyone who does, they are factually correct. But that position is rather undermined by the fact that the same could be said of burglary (many cases of which don’t even get investigated due to a lack of police resources), and, as far as I’m aware, decriminalising burglary isn’t yet part of the Conservative agenda. (Daylight robbery, on the other hand…). That’s not to gloss over the problem that when an action currently undertaken by many is suddenly criminalised, a limited number of prosecutions and punishments doesn’t immediately stop the criminal activity. The same could be said (and was) about drink driving and failure to wear a seat belt, but what we have seen over time is that criminalising both of those slowly led to a change in social attitudes, and that change in attitudes has probably been more influential over the long term than the threat of apprehension and punishment.

The difficulty in the current case is that we don’t have the ‘long term’ in which that can happen; controlling the spread of the disease requires urgent action now. The most effective way of bringing that about would be through a feeling of social solidarity, a general feeling that we owe it to our fellow citizens to keep them safe rather than simply following our own selfish desires, backed up by the resources to ensure that people are financially able to do the right thing. It would be better if we didn’t need laws and fines to bring about changes in behaviour, but the problem is that the Tories, aided and abetted by New Labour, have spent the last four decades destroying that sense of social solidarity, encouraging selfishness, and purveying the myth that the resources aren’t available. A crisis like the pandemic shows why that solidarity is important – but a four-decade long process can’t be reversed in a few weeks, never mind the days that we have available to us.

It takes a very special kind of crassness and incompetence to turn a mild-mannered Clark Kent look-alike into someone who looks increasingly like an independentista. Unfortunately for Drakeford, the Conservative Party has an apparently inexhaustible stock of crass incompetents; he needs to prepare for much more of the same.

Flavours of unionism

Tweet

 

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.

Seeing oursels as ithers see us

Tweet

Confirmation bias is something from which most of us suffer to a greater or lesser extent. It means that we see and interpret things from the viewpoint of our own priors. The bigger problem that arises is not the bias in itself but the unrecognised assumption that the underlying viewpoints aren’t always necessarily shared by others. When coupled with an exceptionalist belief system like that of English nationalists, it can make people utterly blind to the very possibility of an alternative point of view.

The PM said this week that he is determined to preserve what he called ‘the magic’ of the UK, a ‘magic’ which makes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland disappear in the eyes of foreigners, who see only the huge successes of ‘Britain’ when they look at these shores. The first problem with that is that, even if it were true, that which he sees as an advantage is precisely part of the problem from an alternative standpoint. For those English nationalists for whom England and Britain are largely synonymous, making the non-English parts of the UK invisible is a feature of success. But using that line of argument in Scotland where Scottish invisibility is seen as a vice rather than a virtue is entirely counter-productive to the cause which Johnson claims to espouse; it’s an approach which completely fails to understand the situation on the ground. Reducing Scotland to a ‘brand’ of the UK is more likely to inflame than persuade.

The second – and bigger – problem is that it isn’t even true. Yes, of course, there are many people abroad who don’t understand the more-than-subtle differences between Great Britain, the UK, and England. There can be few Welsh people who have been abroad who haven’t struggled to explain that Wales may be part of both Great Britain and the UK but it is not part of England (although in my own experience the awareness of Scotland is significantly higher); on that Johnson is broadly right. But I suspect that most Welsh people – even many of those resolutely opposed to independence – would add the word ‘sadly’ to that sentence; one does not have to be an independentista to desire a degree of recognition of the distinction between England and Wales. The ‘invisibility’ touted by Johnson is not only not desired by many but it isn’t as absolute as he claims.

His broader comments about how foreigners see, admire and envy ‘Britain’ manage to progress from wishful thinking to the utterly absurd. There is zero recognition of the fact that most countries in the world are standing by in amazement watching a country which used to have a certain reputation for probity and common sense descend into chaos as it commits an act of great self-harm by exiting the EU, let alone the sadness that a country once regarded as a reliable partner is now degenerating into a country whose word cannot be trusted and which eschews co-operation in favour of making unrealistic demands. As part of his comments, the PM said, “I think what people in this country often don’t appreciate is the way in which the UK is seen abroad”. If the phrase ‘the people in this country’ had been replaced by ‘I and my government’, he might have come dangerously close to the truth. But his own confirmation bias would never allow him to understand that.

Being the best

Tweet

One of the problems for a certain type of nationalist is that they have a deep and abiding need to believe that their country is in every way ‘better’ than any other country. English nationalists are one of the most extreme in this respect. Indeed, they believe themselves so much better than anyone else that their form of superiority must not even be referred to as nationalism at all. They’re so nationalistic that they believe themselves to be uniquely not nationalist at all.

Such nationalism is often displayed by claims that the country is in some way ‘world-leading’. It’s a phrase trotted out regularly and is so self-evident that it never needs to be justified by mere facts or evidence. The phrase ‘mother of parliaments’ is one example, even if it doesn’t actually mean what most of them seem to believe that it means. Westminster is neither the oldest parliament nor the model for most other parliaments in the world, excepting only those that had some sort of version of Westminster imposed on them by Westminster itself. And most of those have reformed significantly since then, jettisoning the most arcane rituals such as the approach to voting.

Last month, Boris Johnson claimed that the UK’s approach to testing and tracking would be ‘world-beating’ and in place from the beginning of June. It isn’t and it wasn’t. Despite both of those negative statements being patently true they haven’t stopped him repeating the claim. It is an essential part of the nationalists’ approach to Brexit that the UK will become a ‘global leader’. It won’t and it can’t. I often wonder whether they really believe – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that the UK really is the best at everything; can they be that blind to the facts?  I’d almost like to believe that they know it’s just empty rhetoric – that would demonstrate that they have at least some connection to reality – but I can’t be certain. The intriguing question is why they have such a great need to believe that ‘we’ are in some way ‘better’ than everyone else. Perhaps the apparent arrogance and superiority masks a feeling of inadequacy. That’s a question for the psychologists – but for the rest of us, what’s wrong with being a normal state rather than demanding that everything ‘we’ do is labelled as being the ‘best’ merely by dint of being British?

Whatever the underlying reason, it leads the nationalists into saying and doing things which are increasingly farcical. Yesterday, the PM insisted that he is ‘very proud’ of the UK government’s response to the pandemic. That would be the response which has taken the UK to the number one position in the league table of deaths per million of the population, most of them avoidable, and managed to combine chaos and incompetence on an almost world-leading scale, beaten to the top slot only by Trump. I suppose, though, that coming top of any table is ‘world-leading’ in a sense, it’s just not the sense that a rational person would seek.

Is Mark Drakeford "inherently right-wing"?

Tweet

The First Minister’s attempt to explain why ‘nationalism’ and ‘socialism’ are incompatible serves only to highlight a lack of clarity about the meaning of either. He’s not alone in that, in fairness; it has been obvious for years that the way in which everyone ascribes their own meaning to both words obscures and frustrates debate rather than facilitating it. I could also throw ‘patriotism’ into the mix as well, given that it’s a word used recently by his own party’s leader. According to Drakeford, nationalism and socialism are complete opposites, but according to Starmer, the Labour movement and patriotism are “two sides of the same coin”. (I guess, though, that he means ‘British’ patriotism rather than the Welsh or Scottish variety.) Logically (and assuming that the two men’s political philosophies have at least a passing resemblance) that can only mean that they also see nationalism and patriotism as being polar opposites as well.

In truth, none of this debate about labels or what they mean is particularly helpful, particularly when we try to apply it to the question of how government should be organised on a territorial basis. It is perfectly possible for a patriotic – and perhaps even a nationalistic – Welsh person to believe that the Welsh nation is best served by remaining part of a larger whole, just as it’s possible for someone who isn’t Welsh, and opposes both nationalism and patriotism, to believe that Wales’ best interests are served by independence. It’s why I tend to use the term independentista – it’s not exactly elegant or commonplace, but it does explain more precisely what it is that I support. Debating the constitutional options for Wales is harder, of course, than simply dismissing anyone who disagrees by labelling them – that’s why Labour have long preferred to use labels. Why anyone would seriously expect Drakeford to be any different is the real puzzle here.

One other point struck me about what he said, however. I don’t know whether he was quoted accurately, because this sentence seems a bit convoluted to me: “In the end, I think it’s an inherently right-wing creed that operates by persuading people that they are because they are against what somebody else is”, but I think he was saying that persuading people to be one thing by contrasting that with what they are not is inherently a right-wing approach. I can’t help thinking that it is awfully similar to the traditional approach of Labour asking people to vote for them because “we’re not the Tories”, another way of avoiding debating the substance of what people stand for. Does that mean that we can safely label any Labour spokesperson who repeats that line as being “inherently right-wing”?

The problem is in England, not in Wales

Tweet

In the run-up to ‘that speech’ last night, the devolved governments were criticized in the media for ‘pre-empting’ Boris Johnson’s announcements or attempting to ‘steal a march’ over London. And in the aftermath, the media have reported that the devolved administrations have ‘rejected’ or ‘refused to accept’ what the PM said. It’s a classic example of the innate English nationalism and London-centric view of the world held by the British media. That narrow, blinkered view of events means that the wrong people are being asked the wrong questions.

All four governments were required by law to review the lockdown arrangements last Thursday, and all duly did so. The Scottish government immediately announced the results of its own review on Thursday and the Welsh government (whose cabinet met quite late in the day to discuss the matter) announced the results of its review on Friday. The English government decided to do things differently – they postponed any announcements for three days and went on to brief selected newspapers that the changes were going to be much more far-reaching than was actually the case. And they deliberately failed to tell, let alone consult with, the devolved administrations about their proposals. I don’t know why they thought it was sensible to do any of those things, although my best guess is that they seriously thought that it would build up Johnson’s speech to some great national moment – an attempt, in short, to gain some sort of political advantage. It backfired badly, largely as a result of the PM’s own failings and unsuitability for the role.

Ahead of a sunny bank holiday weekend, the English government deliberately confused the message and led people to believe that in a few days’ time there were going to be significant changes to the lockdown arrangements. It was entirely predictable that some people would conclude that a few days wasn’t going to make a huge difference, and we’ve seen the results of that on the news. Having given unattributable private briefings saying one thing, ministers were left trying to put the genie back in the bottle and failing miserably, succeeding only in sowing doubt and confusion where there had previously been clarity. Going on Sunday evening television to give people less than 24 hours’ notice that he expected them to return to work the next day with no pre-warning for employers and no usable transport system just added to the overall sense of utter incompetence.

So how come the devolved administrations are being criticised for not following suit? If three out of four governments have been straightforward and prompt in reviewing arrangements and clearly telling people their conclusions whilst the other has obfuscated, prevaricated and given out mixed messages in an attempt to secure party political advantage, why has the media criticism been aimed at the first three rather than the fourth? Instead of demanding to know why three governments have dared to act promptly and explain what they are doing clearly, shouldn’t they be asking why the fourth hasn’t? It reflects a London-centric attitude which fails to acknowledge that, on devolved matters, the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland governments have the same legal competence, and the same authority to act, as the English government. The arrogant fashion in which the English government has changed its messaging with no consultation with the other governments in the UK indicates an implicit assumption that London always knows best and everyone else will fall into line. The real question isn’t demanding why Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland aren’t being sufficiently subservient to England, it’s exploring why the English government is so utterly dishonest and incompetent. But English nationalist exceptionalism is still preventing too many from even understanding why the question needs to be asked.

Knowing they're exceptional

Tweet

The Times has published an article this morning which makes some excellent points. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the writer laments the fact that “A polarised politics has taken hold. It views the world through a prism of winners and losers and sees compromise and co-operation as signs of weakness”. She goes on to argue that “Lost is the idea that countries do better by working together to solve common problems, even if doing so sometimes means an apparent sacrifice of short-term benefit for the greater good”. And the title of the piece is “Nationalism is no ally in this battle without borders”.

What I couldn’t understand at first is how the alleged author of this piece, a certain Theresa May, can square any of this with her membership of, and continued support for, the most dangerously nationalist party ever to hold the reins of power in the UK. A party which seeks, nay demands, that the UK stand alone and compete with everyone else, a party which does indeed see compromising with anyone else as a weakness, and sees the sacrifice of short term sovereignty for the greater good as something which unnecessarily constrains its own freedom of movement. Then I realised where I had gone wrong – English nationalism isn’t nationalism at all; the problem is that the rest of the world simply doesn’t understand how very exceptional England is. It’s everyone else who must compromise and co-operate, bowing down before the superiority of the only nation on the planet which can afford to eschew nationalism because it knows it’s the best at everything. Why, only yesterday we found out that we don’t have the worst pandemic death rate in Europe at all – it’s just that other countries don’t know how to count. The problem is never with Theresa May or the Conservative Party – it’s the inability of the rest of the world to understand their proper place.

Pluses and minuses abound

Tweet

Prior to the 2016 EU referendum, the messages from the Brexiteers weren’t exactly consistent, but there were plenty of them willing to state that 'nobody' was talking about leaving the single market and that Brexit was simply about opting out of the political institutions and the ‘ever closer union’ of states.  Remaining in the single market would make a comprehensive trade deal the ‘easiest deal in history’ said one, and that could have been true just as long as the UK accepted the associated rules and standards.

Having won a majority on the basis of a series of mixed messages, it suddenly became obvious to them that such a scenario, often called Norway or even Norway⁺, was not a ‘real’ Brexit at all, since it involved continued compliance with all the rules to which the UK had previously agreed (and even, in many cases, initiated).  In the interests of ensuring an ever-purer version of Brexit, talk moved on to other scenarios, such as Canada⁺⁺⁺, or, in the worst case, no deal at all.  The latest iteration is that the best we can expect from the current government is Canada (with no pluses) or the alternative of Australia (which is the new name for ‘no deal’ since Australia has no trade agreement with the EU, but it sounds a great deal more voter-friendly than no deal).  I find myself wondering how long it will be before some Brexiteers start to propose North Korea^---, under which there would be no trade at all with the EU, sanctions on anyone who attempts to trade, and warships in the sea between the UK and the EU to enforce the trade ban.  And I understand that current trading arrangements with Mars allow the UK to set all the rules with no Martian input at all.  I just hope I’m not putting ideas in their heads.

Yesterday, Michael Gove went as far as to say that we don’t need any sort of agreement with the EU.  Strictly speaking, he’s entirely correct – we can trade with the EU with no agreement at all in place as long as we accept tariffs, quotas, rigid border checks, and a huge reduction in trade volume.  The PM himself said that there was no need for the UK to follow EU rules to get a deal, any more than he would expect the EU to follow UK rules.  Not for the first time, it underlines the English nationalists’ absurd belief that the UK and EU somehow enter the talks as equals, and ignores the fact that, on Day 1, the UK and EU will be following a common set of rules anyway – the question is about what happens when one or other decides to change those rules.

All trade agreements involve a degree of compromise around standards and regulations – even the basic WTO rules include provisions against state-subsidised dumping.  And the closer the alignment in regulation, the easier it is to reach agreement on tariffs and quotas for trade.  Or to put it another way, the purer the Brexit, the more barriers to trade with the EU.  What would help to ensure minimum barriers to trade would be some sort of framework for agreeing joint rules and a system for enforcing them.  I wonder why no-one’s ever thought of that before.  Oh, wait...

The basic problem remains that the nationalists driving Brexit are stuck in a mindset which believes that the UK has a right to be treated as an exception and the rest of the world will simply bow down before us.  And the worst part of it is that those who are cheering them on most enthusiastically are the ones most likely to pay the price in the end.

Progressive patriotism is an oxymoron

Tweet

There has always been a dichotomy at the very heart of the Labour Party between nationalism and internationalism.  Asked directly which they are, they will always respond ‘internationalist’, but scratch the surface and a deep-rooted seam of Anglo-British nationalism is readily revealed.  There have always been those who have stood resolutely against it, but what has been referred to as ‘working class patriotism’ has always been stronger, in the end, than the idealism of some in the leadership.  It was precisely this dichotomy which led many to claim that Kier Hardie died of a broken heart during the first world war, as his dream of international co-operation between the workers of all nations was torn to shreds by an outbreak of jingoism as those workers enthusiastically took up arms against workers elsewhere.

And just as that dichotomy has long been there, so has the response of leading figures in the party been split between those who seek to lead and persuade people that workers elsewhere are their brothers and comrades, and those who seek – for electoral gain – to ride and harness the power of simplistic nationalism.  And it was with all that in mind that I read, with huge disappointment, the words of the MP who is, apparently, the front-runner to take on the mantle of Corbyn, and her call for something called ‘progressive patriotism’.

It’s true, as she says, that “Britain has a long history of patriotism rooted in working life”, but arguing that that history is somehow ‘internationalist’ because one group of workers at one point in time opposed slavery elsewhere merely highlights the dichotomy to which I referred earlier; it doesn’t make patriotism internationalist.  Indeed, ‘internationalist patriotism’ strikes me as an obvious oxymoron.  There’s nothing wrong with having, as she puts it, “pride in our communities, dignity in our work and a common purpose”, but an internationalist stance seeks to use that as a basis for co-operation with others, not as a basis for competition against them.

One thing which I think is clear from the election is that the Conservative Party is reinventing itself as an English nationalist party (and I really do mean English here, not British) and riding the tide of jingoism which has always been there under the surface of apparently rock-solid support for Labour.  The Labour Party can either seek to accept this shift in the Overton window of public debate and work out how to ride and channel that sentiment (which is what ‘progressive patriotism’ seems to be about) or it can seek to show leadership and attempt to build a better understanding of why co-operation is always better than competition.

I don’t hold out much hope; the belief that co-operation is superior to competition looks like a key Labour value, but even to the limited extent to which it has been pursued it has always been limited, in practice, by the boundaries of the United Kingdom.

Confusing government and country

Tweet

When Johnson (Samuel, not Boris) referred to patriotism as being “the last refuge of a scoundrel”, he wasn’t referring to patriotism of all kinds at all times; he was referring, rather, to what he saw as the ‘false patriotism’ of Pitt the Elder.  Defining ‘false patriotism’ isn’t quite so easy, but when Johnson (Boris, not Samuel) demands that everyone ‘gets behind’ the government over Brexit, he is most certainly guilty of it.  Supporting the country isn’t at all the same things as supporting the government, a distinction which Johnson’s government is not unique in failing to draw.  Mark Twain suggested that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it”, which makes a very clear distinction between the two things.

Of course, what “supporting your country” means isn’t exactly amenable to clear and objective definition either.  Ultimately, it comes down to supporting what you individually believe to be best for your country, and there will inevitably be some very different views about that.  The point is that opposing a government can be every bit as patriotic as supporting it.  Those who feel that the current direction of government policy is wrong for Wales (or the UK) can be every bit as patriotic as those who support it.  Deliberately conflating the two things is indeed the action of a scoundrel.

For many Brexiteers, their version of ‘patriotism’ is at the heart of their rationale for Brexit and seems to be based around notions of absolute sovereignty.  For others of us, what is best for our country considers the wider interests of humanity as a whole, placing the ‘country’ in a global context on the basis that individual survival depends on collective survival.  From that latter perspective, a willingness to share sovereignty through organisations and structures which take decisions collectively through discussion and agreement is an entirely natural outcome; the debate then centres on the nature of those partnerships.  Tying to reduce the issue to one of patriotism is trying to avoid real debate about where our best interests lie, for the long term as well as the short term.  And pleas for ‘unity’ around some idealised notion of ‘Great’ Britain (the “greatest place on earth”) are an attempt to move beyond patriotism into a jingoistic version of nationalism.

That Johnson is a practised and habitual liar is established fact; but on his namesake’s definition, he’s also a scoundrel.

Yet more not-nationalism

Tweet

The former UK Ambassador to the EU has delivered a withering judgement on the UK’s approach to negotiating with the EU, in which he argues that the PM simply did not, and still does not, understand how the EU works, assuming (like Cameron before her) that the real negotiations were with the heads of government of the 27 member states, not with their appointed representatives in the EU institutions.  As a description of the mess in which we now find ourselves, it’s a helpful insight from someone who’s been there and knows how things work.  I wonder, though, whether it gets right to the bottom of the underlying problem.

There was another story over the weekend about the former Foreign Secretary’s complaint that ‘we don’t really know who’s running the EU or how to kick them out’, which, leaving aside his usual colourful and unhelpful language, struck me as being another side of the same coin.  In truth, it isn’t about not knowing who runs the EU, nor about knowing how to kick them out, it’s more about not liking the answer to those questions.  What he really seems to be hinting at is that there is no way for the UK electorate, acting alone, to change the people at the top of the EU.  For Johnson, as with May, the problem starts and ends with their own ideological perspective about what the ‘right’ way to do things is, and utter incomprehension that anyone else might take a different view.

From their perspective, the ‘right’ place – indeed, the only place – for power to lie is with what they choose to call the ‘nation state’ (although it’s actually more a question of which set of lines on the map was in place when the fighting stopped – a debate for another day).  From that point of view, it makes eminent sense that May would expect to be dealing with other nation states, just as it makes eminent sense for the nation state (well, for ‘our’ nation state at least) to be able to remove its leaders at any level.  It’s a position which has more holes in it than a colander though, when looked at from any perspective other than theirs.  They find it easy enough to dismiss the counter argument that the same rule should apply to Wales or Scotland, neither of which can change the UK Government unilaterally – after all, they’re not ‘nation states’ are they?  They’re merely regions of the only nation state which counts, with comparatively small populations.  And being able to change the people who rule over us doesn’t include the head of state (obviously – her power was given to her by God, not through any electoral process) nor the membership of the largest house of parliament (tradition and ‘the way we do things’ being more important than considerations of democracy).

It’s just as well that they keep reminding us that they’re not nationalists (apparently, only other people can be nationalists) because otherwise it would be very tempting to describe their view as being extremely nationalistic.

Choosing a century

Tweet

Underlying the whole Brexit process from the outset has been a current of Anglo-British not-nationalism-at-all which starts from a perspective of general arrogance towards the rest of the world underpinned by a sense of superiority and entitlement.  It’s a strong form of a toxic mixture which would be called nationalism anywhere else, but these particular not-nationalists are so special and unique that they alone are, in their view at least, entitled to deny the application of that word to themselves.  It hasn’t made for a smooth process of negotiation, yet still they persist.

We saw it at the outset with statements about ‘the easiest deal in history’; ‘they need us more than we need them’, and so on.  It’s a perspective from which the EU’s determination to treat the UK as it has asked to be treated – as a ‘third country’ – is interpreted as some sort of punishment or revenge.  It’s a point which has been well debunked many times – here’s a good summary – but every attempt to explain that it's what the electorate voted for simply leads to even louder howls of protest from those who continue to argue that the UK has a right to be treated differently.

Most recently, we’ve seen it in relation to the suggestion put forward by Nick Boles that the UK could ‘temporarily’ join EFTA and thus enjoy many of the benefits of continued membership whilst negotiating an alternative longer term relationship.  In fairness, there’s a certain logic to the idea – from a UK perspective.  It’s not without its problems, though, not least because it doesn’t resolve the problem of the British border across Ireland, and nor does it satisfy the extreme Brexiteers. 

But there’s another problem with it too – such logic as it does possess might be obvious from a UK perspective, but what about the other countries involved?  Expecting the existing EFTA members to simply change their structures and procedures to accommodate a new member whose GDP is larger than that of any existing member, and to do so on the basis of an expected membership period of just a few years, is another display of that famous non-nationalistic sense of entitlement and arrogance.  Their compliance with the requirements of a UK government which still hasn’t worked out what it’s trying to achieve as an end point is taken as a given – just like it was taken as a given that German carmakers and Italian prosecco producers would force their governments to give way so that they could continue to trade with the UK.

From the outset, the UK has apparently managed to misunderstand and misinterpret almost everything that the EU27 has said; assuming instead that the EU27 will ultimately come to see everything as the UK Government does (i.e. in simplistic terms of economic transactions) and blithely ignoring the clear and repeated messages that, for the EU27, ‘Europe’ has always been about much more than trade.  As we approach the end game, nothing in the UK’s attitude seems to be changing; the government still doesn’t really know what it wants in the long term and is still assuming that the EU will give way.  They simply can’t escape from that inherent sense of superiority and entitlement.  Despite the reports of a ‘secret’ deal about to be agreed, such details as have been leaked so far seem to suggest that it’s little more than another exercise in kicking the can down the road whilst the UK – and more particularly the Tory Party – continues to argue with itself.  The problem is that that argument is still about how to achieve a result which recognises that superiority and entitlement.  It’s an argument doomed to continue indefinitely until the political culture of the UK is able to mature enough to accept that the UK’s place in the world isn’t what they want or believe it to be, and that the world isn’t going to accept the UK on the UK’s terms.  I keep hoping that the whole Brexit shambles will have the one positive effect of dragging these non-nationalists into the twenty-first century – it certainly ought to.  So far, it seems to be having the exact opposite effect – they’re retreating into the eighteenth.

Being a good neighbour

Tweet

Increasingly desperate Brexiteers have resorted recently to accusing the EU of breaking its own treaties by not accommodating the UK’s demands, on the basis that those treaties require the EU to "develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness”, and some have even suggested that failure to do this leaves the UK open to follow Trump’s advice to the Prime Minister and sue the EU.  Leaving aside the irony of the PM trying to use an institution which she has said the UK wants to have nothing to do with (the European Court of Justice), to say nothing of the question as to whether taking legal action would help or hinder the negotiation of any agreement, there is an even more fundamental problem with the idea.  In effect, the UK would be trying to sue someone else for the consequences of its own actions, and it doesn’t take much of a legal brain to come to a conclusion about the likely prospects for success in that endeavour.

It’s true, of course, that the EU does have a treaty obligation to be a good neighbour, but demanding that the EU gives in to each and every demand from the awkward and obstreperous bloke next door is going well beyond neighbourliness.  Helping someone out is one thing; doing whatever he says is quite another.  The UK’s stance at the moment isn’t so much asking for a helping hand as refusing to step into the lifeboat unless the captain and crew first agree to repaint the boat, replace the engine, and change direction; and it’s backed up with the threat that if the captain doesn’t agree it will drown itself and blame the lifeboat crew.  The UK isn’t asking for neighbourliness, it’s asking for submission.

The Brexiteers don’t see things that way, naturally.  They portray the UK as a victim being punished by those horrid Europeans for daring to want to leave, and they start with a belief that the UK has an entitlement to unique treatment, because – well, because it’s the UK and is therefore special.  The idea that the UK is just another third-party state on the fringes of Europe (which is the logical outcome of Brexit) and can be treated with the same degree of good neighbourliness as other states such as Norway is anathema to them.  It doesn’t fit their world view.  The Anglo-British nationalists driving the Brexit project are stuck in a view of the UK and its place in the world which pre-dates the second world war, and probably the first as well.  It’s a world of empires and dominance, where others are there to be divided and ruled; a world in which the English language is pre-eminent and those countries which use that language form a natural set of trading partners for what they still fondly see as the mother country.  It's a world in which others may be our neighbours, but we are never mere neighbours to anyone.

It’s also a world which disappeared more than half a century ago; they just can’t see it.

"We can't vote them out"

Tweet

One of the core beliefs of Anglo-British nationalists is that the UK is somehow the font of democracy.  If there’s a phrase that they love, it’s the idea that England (and the term really was coined in relation to England not the UK) possesses the ‘mother of parliaments’.  It’s one example of the way in which the Anglo-British nationalist perspective differs significantly from both a more European perspective and the facts of the matter.

The English parliament is far from being the oldest in the world – that honour belongs elsewhere – but more importantly there is often a conflation of two very different concepts; having a parliament is not at all the same thing as being a democracy.  The fact that a monarch at some point convened a council of barons to advise him does not amount to the establishment of democracy.

Democracy is not a UK invention; it is very much a foreign one, later imported to the UK.  Indeed, from an objective rather than jingoistic perspective the UK looks to be a recent and reluctant convert to the principle of democracy, only introducing universal suffrage theoretically in 1928 whilst not doing so in practice until the right of some people to vote twice or even three times in the same election was abolished in 1948; and still refusing to abolish the role of hereditary peers, appointees and bishops of the official state religion.  ‘Democracy’ in the UK is a work in progress rather than a fully implemented concept, and that progress remains painfully slow leaving a version of ‘democracy’ which looks antiquated and arcane from the perspective of astonished Europeans.

It’s true, of course, that the Westminster system has been the model for many other countries, but these are countries which used to be part of the British Empire and for which their system was designed, unsurprisingly, by the colonial power in Westminster.  Those who think their own system perfect are hardly likely to suggest a better one for anyone else, and the copying process invariably included the retention of the hereditary head of state and a role for the completely unelected Privy Council until such time as the countries ‘granted’ their independence got around to changing it.

Yet despite the obvious and plentiful evidence of the UK’s own incomplete transition to democracy, the Anglo-British nationalists lecture the rest of Europe and the world about democracy and complain that the European Union is somehow ‘undemocratic’, just because the people of one member state, the UK, can’t unilaterally vote out the president, commissioners and civil servants appointed by the governments of 28 member states, completely overlooking the fact that the people of the UK can’t even vote out their own head of state, or even the members of one of the two houses of parliament.  The astounding part is that so many people fall for this false commitment to ‘democracy’.

Universal values can't be unique

Tweet

In “The desire of nations” in 1974, R Tudur Jones wrote: “An Englishman never calls himself a nationalist.  This is one of the characteristics of English nationalism.”  In its essence, the very idea that ‘nationalism’ is something from which ‘our’ nation is uniquely exempt is a highly nationalistic statement, necessarily underpinned by a perception of uniqueness and specialness when compared to all those ‘others’.

It’s unfair, of course, to say that all English people share this sense of uniqueness in the world, but it often seems as though most politicians and ministers do, and we saw a classic example from Michael Gove last week, attempting to claim that Brexit was nothing at all to do with identity politics – that was something from which only Scots (and presumably, by extension, Welsh independentistas as well) suffered.

One of the other characteristics of most English nationalists is that they seem to suffer from a complete inability to recognise the difference between England and Britain.  Monday’s tweet from Conservative HQ was an absolute classic:

.@BrandonLewis :The citizens of our country have created for themselves an inclusive & thoughtful English identity. One based on the values of freedom, fairness & justice. Principals that are not just shared in England under the St George’s Cross, but across our whole Union #PX

The stress on identity rather undermines what Gove said just a few days earlier, of course, but consistency is hardly one of the current government's great strengths.  It shows a complete confusion between ‘England’ and the ‘Union’ which can only encourage people to believe that the English consider themselves the superior driving force.  But leaving aside both that (and the fact that the ‘principals’ which we apparently all share obviously don’t include a commitment to accurate spelling), only a died-in-the-wool nationalist could really believe that “freedom, fairness and justice” are values which uniquely underpin one particular national identity.  Do they really believe – and expect the rest of us to believe – that these values are found nowhere else?

The mantra that the UK is a uniquely free, fair and just country is arrogant to say the least, but it's also inaccurate, to a greater or lesser extent, on all three counts.  The mantra is coming from people who are in the process of removing our freedom of movement across the continent of Europe, presiding over one of the most unequal and unfair economies in the developed world, and trying to find a way of opting out of international systems of justice such as the Human Rights Act.  They are, in effect, claiming that an adherence to values which they are actively working to undermine is the defining aspect of ‘our’ nationality.  And they're largely being allowed to get away with it.

English/British nationalists implicitly believe that there is such a thing as English/British (they generally regard the two as the same thing) identity but are obviously having a great deal of difficulty in defining what it is and on what it is based.  They feel a need to promote the idea of Englishness/Britishness in order to maintain the integrity of ‘this precious union’ (© Theresa May), but are struggling for a basis on which to do so.  And I can understand why they are struggling: scratch the surface just a little and two key aspects of what makes for the identity with which they are grappling emerge – royalty and wars.  But what sort of a nation is it which can only define itself, when pressed, in terms of the wars in which it has engaged and the idea of hereditary authority?  Yet that is what they fall back on – they are the two consistent themes in the promotion of ‘national’ identity by the state over recent years, and especially since the Scottish referendum of 2014.

The values which they exclusively claim to themselves are, in reality, universal.  They may not be universally applied in the world in which we live, but not being universally applied doesn’t mean that they’re not universally applicable.  Universal values, by definition, cannot uniquely define any nation, and any nation which truly felt they were core to its being would be trying to work with others to spread those values, not to undermine them.

To return to the quote in the opening sentence: just because people say that they aren’t nationalists doesn’t mean that it’s true; it’s more likely to mean the exact opposite.  Brexit didn’t open the particular can of worms which is English/British nationalism at its worst, but it certainly made it easier to express.  And it should remind all of us that constraining precisely that sort of nationalism was, from the outset, one of the core aims of the whole European project.  In that sense Brexit is very much an unpleasantly nationalist project.

Holding back the tide

Tweet

There’s more than a little irony in the way that some who have previously argued that the EU has too much power over the affairs of member states are now suggesting that the EU should have done more to intervene in the affairs of a member state in support of the Catalans voting yesterday.  It underlines the reality of the EU – it is an organisation formed by a coming together of member states, and those member states continue to hold the real power.  It’s the exact opposite of what the Brexiteers told us.  That an organisation of member states supports the position of those member states should be no surprise to anyone; it’s an argument both for becoming a full member state and for greater democratization of the organisation.

Those controlling states invariably believe that they are part of the natural order of things, and that they are – or should be – eternally indivisible wholes.  That’s as true for Spain as it is for the UK, and in both cases the central authorities attempt to justify their actions by demanding that everyone accept their definition of national identity.  So the British nationalists in the UK demand that we accept that the nation is the UK and that other identities are of lesser validity in the same way as the centralists in Spain demand that all within the territory of Spain accept that they are Spanish.  And both seek to retain current boundaries and authority.

Unfortunately for them, people don’t always feel the sense of identity that they are told to feel, and many of us feel quite relaxed about having different and overlapping identities at the same time.  But identity isn’t the only determinant of what is or should be a state; more important even than that is the idea that the people living in any area ultimately have the absolute right to decide how they shall be governed, by majority decision.  It means that there are two, and only two, methods of holding existing states together.  The first is by the consent of the people and the second is by the use of force.  Yesterday, the central authorities in Spain abandoned all pretence at following the former of those routes in favour of resorting to the latter.

Can it work?  Well, history teaches us that it has usually worked for long periods in the past; most modern states were formed and subsequently held together largely by the application of force and often appalling levels of violence over decades or even centuries.  But that was in the past: I doubt that a twenty-first century ‘democracy’ can effectively maintain unity for long by the use of force in an age where the reality of events is immediately known across the world, as well as by those directly affected.  That only leaves the ‘consent’ route.

The thing about consent is that it is, to adapt an over-used phrase, a process rather than an event.  Consent is expressed in the everyday actions of millions of people in the way that they do or do not accept the established order and interact with the state.  It is not something which happens on a specific date when a specific generation turn out to vote on a specific constitutional proposal.  An event like that does not – and cannot – bind successive generations for all time.  To try and maintain the fiction that it does – which is effectively the position of both Madrid and London - is to ignore both history and the reality of human expression.  Consent once given can be withdrawn at any time; people always have the right to determine their own future, a right which includes both keeping things as they are and choosing an alternative.

Yesterday’s use of force by the Spanish central authorities will almost certainly turn out to be counter-productive from their own viewpoint, although I suspect that there are many more twists and turns to come.  The Spanish Prime Minister has succeeded in proving what Cnut set out to prove to his courtiers centuries ago – that it is impossible to turn a tide merely by ordering it to stop – even if that was the complete reverse of his intention.  Worse, he shows no sign of realizing what it is that he has proved so clearly.

Beware unstable coalitions

Tweet

The Prime Minister is visiting Wales today, and is delivering a stern warning about the dangers of “an unstable coalition of nationalists”.  I think she’s absolutely right on that; being governed by such a coalition is a recipe for disaster.  The difference between us is that I think that the phrase “unstable coalition of nationalists” is a near-perfect description of her Conservative Party. 

Their nationalism, of the worst kind, is becoming increasingly and stridently obvious in the tone she and other members of her party are adopting.  It’s not just the primacy of immigration policy regardless of economic consequences, although that’s bad enough.  It’s also the way in which our future over the next few years is increasingly being defined in terms of the UK standing up to the rest of Europe.  It seems designed to evoke memories of the wars of the past.  Just take this phrase from her article in the Western Mail “as 27 other European countries line up to oppose us”.  This is not the language of friendship or co-operation; it is the language of naked nationalism.  It’s hard to believe that anyone talking like this ever believed in the idea of European co-operation.

And the instability of the nationalist coalition which is the defining feature of the Conservative Party under her leadership is at the heart of the fact we are having an early election.  It isn’t, and never was, the opposition parties, whether Labour or independentistas, which threatened to derail or undermine her negotiations over Brexit – she has had no difficulty to date in getting her way in parliament with the aid of a clueless Labour Party.  No, any threat to her majority comes from dissident Tories, and the election is aimed at neutralising that threat.  With the need for rapid candidate selection, she has given herself an almost unparalleled opportunity to influence the nature of the new Tory intake which she is expecting, and ensure that they will be more loyal to her.

Particularly in the light of yesterday’s opinion polls, I hope that people in Wales will think very carefully and take note of her warning.  Helping the Prime Minister crush her internal opposition is neither the only way, nor the best way, of getting rid of the current unstable coalition of nationalists which is governing the UK.