Blair, Brown, Major and Cameron. Really?

Tweet The original stated premise of Cameron’s promise of a referendum on the EU was that he would first conduct some sort of renegotiation of the terms of membership and then put the result to a vote.  Perhaps he genuinely intended things to work that way, although exactly what was to be ‘renegotiated’ was never very clear.

It’s increasingly irrelevant though.  Both the ‘in’ camp and the ‘out’ camp are gearing up their campaigns already.  The ‘negotiations’ have barely begun, but the results – if there are any – will have no effect on the make-up of the campaigns.  Cameron’s fig leaf is looking decidedly dodgy.

In a sense, it’s not really a bad thing that the debate centres on the principle rather than the detail; I find it hard to believe that many electors will make up their minds by looking at the details of any Cameron package and carefully weighing up the impact.  It’s much more likely that they will be voting on issues such as immigration, or even just a desire to give a kicking to a government mid term, which all serves to underline the folly of getting into this position for short term internal party reasons.

I do wonder though about the strategy of the ‘in’ camp in the names that they’re putting forward.  It looks like the product of some sort of bubble-think to me.  I fear that an unholy alliance of Blair, Brown, Major and Cameron might actually end up having quite the opposite effect of that intended.

Watching the car crash

Tweet If I understand the latest statements from ex-PM John Major correctly, compromising Tory policies in exchange for Lib Dem votes to secure a parliamentary majority, and having Lib Dem ministers in just about every department of government to keep an eagle eye on what their Conservative colleagues are doing, is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.  But if the Labour Party were to enter government committed to negotiating some compromises on a much looser basis (and taking it vote by vote) with the SNP, that would be tantamount to being held to ransom.  (And the sky might fall in as well.)  And that seems to be not far away from Labour’s own position – doing a deal of some sort with the Lib Dems is fine, but the SNP are regarded as being untouchable.

I struggle to see any logical difference - in both cases, it’s simply a question of recognising that any party which cannot command a parliamentary majority by itself will need the support – or at the very least, the considered abstention – of members of one or more other parties if it is to carry its legislative programme.  In most European countries, that is simply the accepted norm; it’s the way things work, as National Left discussed earlier today.

At this stage however, both parties are being driven more by electoral logic than by any real thought about what happens afterwards.  They’re reminding me of an attitude I came across in one of my many jobs over the years, where the sales team were prepared to make just about any wild claim in order to close the sale, and simply assumed that those of us charged with delivery would be able to talk our way out of the commitments later.  It’s not honest in business – and it’s not honest in politics either.

I don’t know if Major and the rest really believe what they’re saying, or have given any thought to the longer term consequences, but somehow I doubt both.  It hints at desperation – a last throw of the dice in an effort to convince all of us – and the Scots in particular – that we should vote for whichever of Labour-Tory we dislike least, rather than think more positively about the future that we want.

For them, and their cheerleaders in the press, it’s the only way of preserving the status quo of a political battle fought between two parties who agree on just about everything, but occasionally pretend to be slightly different for electoral purposes.  The Lib Dems are - from this perspective - part of the same cosy consensus.  The last thing that any of them want is a block of MPs who might actually believe that a different way forward is possible, let alone having to depend on their support.  In that sense, it’s nothing to do with that block being from Scotland or from a nationalist party; the ‘Scottishness’ of the SNP merely makes them easier to demonise as ‘outsiders’.

Labour suggests that the Tories are deliberately talking up the SNP to damage Labour.  It sounds almost credible, but assumes that the Tories are being driven by strategy rather than panic.  I suspect that the Tories are panicking as much as Labour; they both want to return to the cosy two party politics of old, but neither of them really understands how to achieve that.  The result is that they attack the symptom (the growth in support for the SNP) rather than the cause, which is that the Scots have seen through the two parties, and have been offered an alternative which they seem to rather like.  But by doing so, they merely reinforce the conclusions which the Scots have already drawn about the pair of them.

At the start of the election, I thought that it was at least possible that the SNP surge would start to dissipate, and that the suggestions of 50 plus seats would be shown to be an impossible dream.  Perhaps that will still happen; but everything that Labour and the Tories do seems almost calculated to persuade the Scots to turn in ever greater numbers to the SNP.  The Labour-Tory campaign feels like watching a car crash in slow motion, with the drivers unable to bring themselves to do anything to avoid the collision, not because they can’t but because they won’t.

And they haven’t even begun to think about how they talk themselves out of the hole after the election.

Not all that automatic really

Tweet That former UK Prime Minister John Major is opposed to independence of Scotland is no surprise to anyone.  I was, however, a little taken aback at part of the advice that he gave the Scots last week.  Were Scotland to become independent within the EU, he said “...she might regret the loss of automatic British backing”.

It sounds as though he really believes that the UK Government has in the past ‘automatically’ backed Scottish interests on each and every occasion.  I guess that will come as a surprise to many Scots.  And there’s a parallel in Wales where many, particularly in the agricultural community, feel that the UK’s position in EU agricultural affairs has been one which tends to pay rather more attention to the needs of large arable farmers in the south east of England than to the needs of hill farmers in Wales.

But perhaps we should be grateful to Major for drawing attention to one of the key issues which the Scots will have to face in relation to the EU when they come to vote.  Do they believe it better to have the government of a small country focused on the needs of that country arguing their case in Brussels, or would they prefer to leave the arguments to a larger country, which has more clout, but which focuses on what it sees as being the needs of that larger country, even if their position then runs counter to the best interests of the smaller country?

I know which I’d choose.  A government focused on the right issues is surely preferable.