Following the mob

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On Wednesday, one of Wales’ former governors, William Hague, told us that he could not and would not support a second referendum on Brexit, because any such campaign would be ‘divisive and hate-filled’, even though he still believes that leaving the EU with no long-term deal in place – the favoured option of many of his political colleagues, and the outcome looking increasingly likely – would not be a good outcome.  It’s is clear that he believes that ending up with a poor outcome is better than the likely impact of a second campaign because of the way that campaign would develop.

In fairness, I think his fears about the nature of the campaign are well-grounded.  We’ve already seen the very ugly side of British nationalism at its worst on display in some of the tabloids – calling judges enemies of the people, and labelling opponents as traitors.  And that’s quite apart from the upswing in random racism and discrimination against foreigners.  I don’t doubt that it would get much worse than that in the event of any attempt to change direction, even if the condition which I’ve talked about before were to be met (i.e. evidence of a significant and sustained change of opinion). 

Notwithstanding that the promises made by the Leavers during the last referendum have been exposed for the lies that they were, and notwithstanding the increasing hard evidence of the impact of trying to implement that decision in a short timescale, any attempt to give the people a chance to express a different opinion would be fought tooth and nail by those who support Brexit, and we already know that truthfulness would be unlikely to feature in their response.

But here’s the question which Hague and others who take that stance need to answer: if it were to be clear that opinions had changed, and if it were to be clear that a change of direction would be in the best interests of the UK, would you really argue that we can’t have a second chance because those who ‘won’ last time round would use divisive and hate-filled tactics to try and repeat their victory?  Isn’t that at least a little bit like surrendering to mob rule?

Keeping one's head in a crisis

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The Secretary of State for Exiting the EU told Parliament yesterday that anyone who voted against the government bill on withdrawal was voting for a chaotic Brexit.  In the light of events so far, and in particular his own performance to date, it’s tempting to ask whether there actually is any other type of Brexit, whichever way they vote.  Chaos seems to be the order of the day, and it’s largely self-inflicted.

It looks like another attempt to blame someone else – anyone – for the failures of a government which gives every appearance of having not a clue what it wants in any degree of detail, but continues to maintain that whatever it is, the others should give it to them, because, well, UK.  There was another example of blame-apportioning a week or so ago, when William Hague argued that the government shouldn’t blame the voters even though it was really all their fault; by not giving the Tories the bigger majority which May had assumed would follow the election, they were going to end up having to pay more to leave the EU.  The mechanism by which the size of the government’s majority affects the amount of money owed to the EU was not spelled out of course (it would be interesting to see him try), but the electorate is the latest convenient scapegoat.

In the meantime, the leader of the Scottish branch of the Conservative and Unionist Party, said last week in relation to Brexit: “My real fear is that if there’s a short-term economic hit, we don’t bounce back from it”.  It’s an interesting definition of ‘short-term’ to say the least.

However, whilst her party, government, and ministers thrash around spending more time debating with each other than negotiating with the EU27, the not-at-all-robotic Prime Minister continues to talk serenely about smooth transitions, strength, and certainty.  It reminds me of someone I once worked with who, at a particularly difficult time in a large and complex project, said to the project manager, “if you can keep your head whilst all around you are losing theirs, you haven’t got a (expletive deleted) clue what’s going on”.

Keeping a straight face

Tweet Comics, of course, are experts at it.  Jokes delivered dead-pan mean that the observer can never be entirely sure when the punch line is coming.  Some politicians are quite good at it, as well, but in their case, it’s usually to cover their dishonesty.  They must know they’re doing it, surely, and I wonder if they have a good laugh at home later thinking about what they think they’ve got away with.

It’s hard to find anything to laugh at as the tragedy in Ukraine continues to unfold, but the UK Foreign Secretary and former Governor General of Wales, William Hague, managed an absolute classic yesterday.

He gravely announced to the world “We have to recognise the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine has been violated and this cannot be the way to conduct international affairs”.  No flicker nor hint of any suggestion that this might be, at the very least, a trifle ironic coming from the government of a country with centuries of experience of violating other people’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Threatening one of the world’s most heavily armed countries with dire consequences for daring to “do as I do rather than as I say” is not only disingenuous, it’s potentially downright dangerous.  If history teaches us anything it is that people uttering bellicose words often find themselves following it up with bellicose action.

The odd thing is that, in essence, he’s right – “this cannot be the way to conduct international affairs”.  If only he was serious…

Pots and kettles

Tweet The UK government, in the shape of the ex-Secretary of State for Wales, William Hague, has chided Iran’s leader for suggesting that Israel should sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.  It is, according to Hague, inappropriate for a country which has an advanced nuclear programme of its own to tell another country to give up nuclear weapons, unless it first does so itself.  So Iran must act first, was his basic message.

But if he’s right in his basic position, on what basis does a nuclear-armed state such as the UK, which is itself in breach of treaties over nuclear weapons and planning to breach them even further by building a new generation of weapons and delivery systems, have any right to tell either Iran or Israel what to do?

Still Digging

Tweet The news that Cameron didn't know about Ashcroft's tax status until this week, and that Hague didn't know until a few weeks ago, is pretty astonishing, given that questions and rumours have been circulating for so many years. After all, his lordship has been a key member of the top campaign team for several years and has an office as part of the Conservative HQ structure; successive Tory leaders must have been talking to him on a fairly regular basis.

Yet, assuming that the current Tory leader is telling the truth (and I think we should), we are effectively expected to believe one of two things.

The first is that Cameron (to say nothing of Hague, Duncan-Smith, and Howard before him) never felt that there was any need to ask Ashcroft the question, despite it being asked of him on a regular basis. He preferred to ride out the regular criticism and questioning than to ask one simple question. If this is true, it's diffficult to avoid the conclusion that he had a pretty good idea what the answer would be, but preferred to retain what Nixon memorably called 'credible deniability'.

The alternative is that he did ask the question, but was told to mind his own business, a response which he quietly accepted and did nothing more about. I find it hard to believe either of these, but surely one or other must be true.

All parties, from time to time, have people who for one reason or another are a potential source of embarrassment. I've always believed that it's better in the long run to risk a bit of bad publicity for trying to deal with a problem when it comes to light than to risk a great deal of bad publicity by turning a blind eye.

It looks very much as though four successive Tory leaders have preferred to attempt to ride out the storm for a whole decade - blinded by the vastness of the fortune directed their way. At the moment, I seem to be hearing the sounds of chickens coming home to roost.