Rebadging the unicorn

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‘Badge engineering’ is a long-standing practice in both the car industry and the IT industry, and basically amounts to selling identical products with different labels or badges on them.  It never really fooled anyone, and wasn’t usually intended to; it was more about appearing to sell products targeted at specific markets by using brand names familiar to the relevant audience.

Today’s so-called crunch meeting at Chequers looks like an attempt at something similar, except that in this case, there is indeed a deliberate attempt to mislead.  From what has been revealed so far, it seems that the Prime Minister’s latest composite proposal is an attempt at rebadging something very close to membership of the single market á la Norway in such a way that the Brexiteers will think that it amounts to non-membership whilst those who think otherwise get a nudge and a wink to say that nothing much will change at all.  The deviations from the Norway model will still cause problems and are likely to be rejected by the EU, but this proposal isn’t really aimed at the EU27 at all.  The only aim of the proposal is to get the cabinet united around a proposal from which the PM and her team can then negotiate a route to a form of membership of the single market, called something different.  And as long as, at the end of those negotiations, the only difference is what it’s called, the EU27 are likely to agree.  A rose by any other name, etcetera…

It’s almost a wizard wheeze, except for the simple fact that it’s so obviously a ruse that no self-respecting Brexiteer would be able to swallow it.  Richard Murphy suggested yesterday that the main question to be asked is “Who will have quite the Cabinet by Monday?”.  It’s a reasonable question; the gulf between the two sides in the Tory party is so large that there is no chance of any substantive agreement being reached on anything which is remotely likely to be acceptable to the EU27.  If they do manage to reach agreement today with no resignations, it will be because they’re continuing to demand that the EU27 gives them that unicorn but they have solemnly agreed to call it something different.  In short, another fudge which kicks the can even further down the road.

The Prime Minister said today that the Cabinet have a ‘duty’ to come to an agreement on what they want.  For once, I agree with her – but that duty didn’t suddenly come into being today.  They’ve been under the same duty for the last two years, ever since the referendum vote, but it’s a duty about which they have signally failed to do anything.  It’s not clear why that is suddenly going to change.  And whatever she says, she certainly doesn’t trust the people whom she has appointed to the cabinet further than she can see them.  Telling Ministers that ‘they will have to hand in their phones and any smartwatches on arrival at Chequers on Friday’ (as the BBC report) doesn’t strike me as the action of someone who has any confidence that she can rely on the people around her.  And if even she doesn’t trust them why on earth should the rest of us?

Serving whose interests?

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Our First Minister seems to have had a nice little jaunt to Norway to see how they cope with being outside the EU but inside the Single Market.  A small oil-rich country on the fringes of the EU sounds almost similar to Wales – apart from the ‘oil-rich’ bit, which is pretty central to Norway’s economic success and is economically more important than any apparent similarities.  Oh, and the bulk of their exports to the EU consist of oil and gas delivered through pipelines rather than goods which need to be physically checked to ascertain their true origin.  Whatever, the basic model of being in the Single Market but outside the EU is certainly one deserving of some consideration, even if not immediately obviously relevant to Wales.

The response of the Tories’ leader in Wales was entirely predictable: Norway might be interesting, but what we need to concentrate on is a uniquely British solution, a unique relationship with the other EU countries of a type which no-one else enjoys.  The implication is clearly that it will be not only unique, but ‘better’ - after all, if an existing model was considered good enough, it would be a lot quicker and simpler to replicate that than to create an entirely new model.  It might even be achievable within the fabled two year timetable.

The other 27 will give the UK that unique and better deal, because …?  Well, because they’re all foreigners and the UK is unique and special.  Obviously.  And of course, countries such as Norway which have already negotiated deals will be more than happy for the UK to come along and get a better deal, because …?  Well, because they’re foreigners, not special and unique like the British, and they know their place.  Again, obviously.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, at the First Minister’s reference to retaining freedom of movement, but only to go to a pre-identified job.  (And sadly, Plaid has been making very similar noises.)  It’s as though they see freedom of movement as something which applies only to other people, forgetting – or more likely deliberately ignoring – the probable reciprocity of any such arrangement.  But in the real world constraints on ‘them’ coming ‘here’ also mean that the same constraints will apply to ‘us’ going ‘there’. 

So, in effect, politicians talking about limiting freedom of movement, in the case of nationals of other EU states, to those who have jobs to come to are also telling us that our own freedom of movement should be limited to that which primarily serves the interests of capital and employers rather than being considered as a right of ordinary people.  Yet still they claim to be ‘internationalists’, ‘socialists’, and ‘progressives’.  Their definitions of those words seem to owe more to Orwell than to Marx.