On using nuclear deterrents

A week on from my declaration that I’m giving up politics, my mind has settled a little more, and I realise more fully what I meant by that. I remain interested — fascinated, even — by fundamentals: what you might call political philosophy. What I have no time for or patience with is current affairs: the specific set of events and personalities that are in the news right now. That stuff is both ephemeral and monumentally frustrating, so best ignored. But the core issues continue to exercise me.

So when should we use a nuclear deterrent?

I’m giving up politics

I checked Twitter this morning, to find that the man who plunged the UK into its greatest international crisis since WW2 is now Foreign Secretary, and that a man who had to resign from Defence and was somehow not jailed for appalling leaking, is in charge of International Trade.

What both these appointment tell me is that for people in the game — and it is a game — nothing they do has consequences. Destroy our relationship with the continent? Never mind. Bring a mate along to top-secret meetings? Not to worry. Welcome back into the fold.

The first of two reasons I am very sad about the Brexit vote: direct consequences

I’ve spent most of the last week in a daze, compounded of equal parts bafflement, fury, simple tiredness (I was up until 5am on referendum night and only slept a few hours) and most of all, sadness. Really, I was good for nothing for most of the week. It was all I could do to get my “keep calm and carry on” post written.

As the dust begins to settle, I think I’ve started to process my thoughts enough to at least understand why I feel so devastated. For my own benefit, if no-one else’s, I think it’s going to be helpful for me to separate out two quite distinct strands. I hope it’s of use to some others, too.

This time, I am going to look at the immediate consequences of the vote.

I do not accept the Brexit referendum result

I’ve had a ton to say about the Brexit referendum, but I’ve been too depressed to write. I have a big half-finished draft that I may complete one day. But there is one thing that I think is important to say and I am saying it now. It’s this.

We’re hearing a lot of pious nonsense, even from Leave Campaigners, about how the People Have Spoken, and we have to respect the Result Of The Democratic Process, however little we like it.

I absolutely reject this premise out of the gate. We know that the voting was based on systematic lies. We know that the Leave campaigners are rewinding every promise they made. We know that many who voted Leave now wish they had voted Remain. We know that Nigel Farage said before the referendum that a 52-48 result would not be the end of the matter. What we have here is a snap opinion poll, not the democratic will of the British people. And there is nothing democratic about plunging blindly on into oblivion because of it.

It is the role and responsibility of every politician now to serve the country by doing whatever they can to prevent this car-crash. Democracy is not served by adhering to what amounts to a late-night drunken phone-call, in the teeth of all that is rational.

That’s all.

 

What happens now we’ve decided to Brexit?

We don’t know what will happen in the wake of last night’s poll. But we can make a fair guess, based on what has happened so far in the ten or so hours since the result became inevitable. Dan Kennet sums it up in two tweets:

To sum up this morning:
Farage: £350m will not go to the NHS
Gove: we need to consult experts
Boris: there is no plan
Did I miss anything?

— Dan Kennett (@DanKennett) June 24, 2016

Apologies, I forgot:
Scotland: Ta-ra
Hannan: Immigration won't fall
Markets: UK no longer 5th biggest economy#news

— Dan Kennett (@DanKennett) June 24, 2016

Nice work, Leavers. Enjoy your post-apocalyptic wasteland.

How should we respond? All I’ve got is this:

On the basis that it’s pretty much always good advice.

 

My last word on the European referendum

When you consult the people who have done serious research on what the results of a Brexit will be — politicians, civill servants, economists — they overwhelmingly say that the evidence points to it harming both Britain and the rest of Europe. They are not unanimous, but the majority is huge (Evidence below.)

What the Leave campaign has in response to this is Michael Gove’s line “We’ve had enough of experts”. So it comes down to this: for the 99% of us who don’t realistically know enough about economics or politics to have any idea what the result of Brexit would be, are we going to trust experts? Or someone who explicitly does not trust them?

Even if your heart says Leave, your brain should be telling you Remain.

Addressing the real “Project Fear”: eight things that terrify the Leavers, but shouldn’t

The cleverest thing that the Leave campaign has done is to brand the Remain campaign with the name “Project Fear”. That’s clever not only because it makes Remain look weak, but because it shifts the focus away from the fact that the Leave campaign is itself completely built on fear.

So let’s address some of those fears:

We’ll be forced to join the Euro! No we won’t. I’m no fan of Margaret Thatcher, but the Tory government that she built successfully negotiated an opt-out in 1992. In fact, even if the UK wanted to join the Euro, it wouldn’t be able to until it met five convergence criteria. At present we only meet two of them.

We’ll be on the hook for bailout after bailout! No we won’t. I’m no fan of George Osborne, but he secured a standing agreement that the UK, not being part of the eurozone, has no obligation in the Greek bailouts, or any others that might happen in the future.