Cameron’s Fear That EU Partners Will Reveal Truth About His “New Deal”

British People - EU Renegotiation - Referendum - Brexit

David Cameron is negotiating with the British people on behalf of the European Union, not the other way around

David Cameron’s entire “renegotiation” (in fact in has been no such thing, for there were never any demands made) has all been completely backwards, with the prime minister far more interested in huddling with fellow European ministers to work out what kind of a deal might be successfully snuck past the British people than conducting any kind of listening exercise with the British public to determine what key concerns and demands need to be taken to Brussels.

And we see yet more evidence of this in the Times’ Red Box briefing today, which reports on the understandable concern from the government that the meaningless superficiality of David Cameron’s “reform” will be inadvertently exposed by a fellow European leader or minister who makes the mistake of telling the truth:

British ministers are urging their European counterparts to talk up David Cameron’s renegotiation deal to persuade British voters that it is significant.

There are fears in the UK government that some foreign leaders, who have been irritated by Cameron’s demands, will be publicly dismissive of any deal agreed at next month’s European Council summit.

Senior British figures point to polling that shows that opinion on the EU is evenly split, but if voters think the prime minister has secured “major change” they will vote overwhelmingly to stay.

[..] The nightmare scenario is if a minister from Germany, France or Poland goes on the record to say Cameron’s changes are meaningless window dressing.

The piece goes on to quote polling which suggests that successfully presenting the output from the renegotiation as “major change” dramatically increases the probability of a “Remain” vote:

Asked to “imagine David Cameron has secured a small change in Britain’s relationship with the European Union, securing guarantees over some key issues that he said protected British interests, but without any major change in which policy areas the European Union has powers in”, 38 per cent wanted to leave and 37 would want to stay.

If Cameron “could not secure any change” and the referendum was held with the EU “as it is now”, 46 per cent would leave and only 32 per cent remain.

But if Cameron gets “major change” including “substantial changes to the rules Britain has to follow and British opt-outs from European Union rules in several different policy areas” the result is dramatically shifted

Some 50 per cent of people would then vote to remain, with only 23 per cent determined to leave.

None of this is in any way surprising, and as such it is not really “news” at all. Anybody with their head properly screwed on knows that the government is not conducting a serious renegotiation with the EU in good faith with their mandate from the British people, and that everything we are now witnessing is part of a co-ordinated public perceptions and expectations management effort from a prime minister and a government who made their minds up long ago.

But while this is hardly breaking news, it is still worth taking the time to pause, step back from the daily commotion of the Brexit debate, and marvel at the bigger picture.

The first duties of any elected government – of any prime minister – are to advance the national interest of the United Kingdom, and to fulfil the mandate on which they were elected in the first place. Feeling the pressure from UKIP midway through the last parliament, David Cameron chose to offer a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EU – against his better judgement, his personal pro-Europeanism and his (wrong but sincerely held) belief that Brexit would be against our national interest.

But since having been returned to power in May, the prime minister has not acted in good faith based on that mandate. In fact, he has been deliberately deceptive and manipulative, seeking to create and propagate the illusion that he is pounding tables in Brussels and fighting for our priorities in Europe, when he never even bothered to check what those priorities are, let alone insist on any specific concessions.

David Cameron and his loyalist cheerleaders prance around as though they have bravely confronted the EU with a specific list of demands designed to win back sovereignty and secure it forever, when all they did was write a wheedling, begging letter to Donald Tusk hesitantly suggesting a few topics of discussion – half of which were slapped down the same day.

This is how you end up with the risible scenario of George Osborne appearing on Newsnight yesterday to give an update on “renegotiations” which are not taking place, and declaring himself a eurosceptic despite the fact that he is currently engaged in nothing more than a joint marketing effort with our EU partners to hoodwink British voters into thinking that we have won some meaningful concessions:

If David Cameron, George Osborne and the more vacuous half of the Conservative Party can all describe themselves as “eurosceptic” and do so with a straight face, then we are all eurosceptics now. Everyone, from Martin Schulz, Jean-Claude Juncker, Kenneth Clarke and the entire sorry cast of Britain Stronger in Europe would qualify as a eurosceptic by this metric, because everybody concedes that the EU needs reform of one kind or another (even if that reform involves “more Europe”).

In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that when it comes to this non-renegotiation, the British public are effectively sitting at one end of the long conference table while the British government schemes and confers with the rest of the European Union at the other end.

I know it is hopelessly idealistic of me, but I expect more from my elected government. And it is getting tremendously tiring waking up every day wondering what new schemes,devices and cunning plans the prime minister of this country intends on using to hoodwink and misdirect the people he supposedly serves into believing that he is in any way working on their behalf.

A greater man than David Cameron – if his devotion to the EU and fear of Brexit were similarly genuine – might have stood up and declared that because he believes EU membership to be strongly in our national interest, he couldn’t in good conscience put it to a popular vote or negotiate in an unbiased way on behalf of the United Kingdom. Yes, such a stance would have further fuelled the rise of UKIP, but at least I could respect the intellectual honesty and consistency.

But David Cameron did not do this. Rather than behaving with honour or principle, Cameron swanned around, pretending to share the public’s concerns about the European Union, and then – as soon as his re-election was secure and the UKIP threat neutralised – zipped across to Brussels to begin plotting with fellow EU heads of government and state as to how Britain’s pesky electorate could best be mollified, placated and distracted while the Brussels juggernaut rolls on unopposed.

And they wonder why there is a strong public perception of a self-serving European political elite who doggedly pursue their own interests in direct opposition to the will and interests of their national electorates!

There is only so much that one can take of duplicitous politicians who pretend to be eurosceptic and favour Brexit when stumping for votes or positive headlines, but whose every action contradicts this stance once in power. And I may have finally reached my limit.

If the EU’s form of parochial pseudo-internationalism really does represent the best future of human governance – and it really, really, really doesn’t – then politicians should come out and say so. They should own their love and admiration of the EU and their lack of faith in Britain, instead of hiding from these things and pretending to be eurosceptics.

I respect any politician of any stripe who has the courage of their convictions – who is able to articulate a sincerely held viewpoint without first running it by a focus group, and whose commitment to their causes runs deeper than exploiting them for electoral gain. That’s why I maintain a degree of respect for Jeremy Corbyn, despite sharing none of his socialist beliefs.

Jeremy Corbyn’s sincere-but-loopy socialism I can respect. The unabashed European federalists in Brussels I can respect, too. Though hardly any of them are democratically elected officials, at least they have the courage to hail their creation for what it is – an embryonic state in gestation.

But David Cameron and George Osborne – europhiles in stolen eurosceptic clothing, actively engaged in perpetrating a moral fraud on the British public – people like that I cannot respect, do not respect and will never respect.

Brexit - Flexcit - European Union

Top image: cartoon by Ben Jennings

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Why I Write

Political Blogging

At the risk of sounding like a PBS telethon…

Why isn’t there more good journalism out there? Gawker paints a depressing picture for those of us who toil away in the often thankless business of writing.

Hamilton Nolan writes:

Many writers believe that our brilliant writing will naturally create its own audience. The moving power of our words, the clarity and meaning of our reporting, the brilliance of our wit, the counterintuitive nature of our insights, the elegance with which we sum up the world’s problems; these things, we imagine, will leave the universe no choice but to conjure up an audience for us each day.

Time and experience have long since disabused me of any such idea. Fortunately, writing about politics and public policy – if immensely frustrating at times – is also its own form of reward.

Nolan concludes:

Maybe there is a talented young writer out there with a dream of starting the very best, smartest magazine or website that has ever existed, and building it into their very own historic legacy. I am here to tell you that it will not work. The business of media has very little, if anything, to do with quality journalism. If you aspire to be a Writer of Legitimately Good Things, the best you can hope for is to get the prestige spot that is paid for by the garbage. To hope for a prestige spot that is not paid for by garbage, or by a lone rich wacko, or by a new advertising technology, but instead by the mass audience that will flock to your brilliance is to ask for too much. If you are able to get a job writing good stuff, you are one of the lucky ones in the big Exercycle of Mindless Entertainment that is “the media.”

Now, political writing certainly shouldn’t be an easy career option. After all, it takes a certain arrogance to expect to be remunerated for sitting at a keyboard ranting about the state of the world and pontificating on the “obvious” solutions to society’s ills, particularly when there are people out there doing real work like serving in the armed forces, providing healthcare, creating world-class art, working out how to get to Mars or producing amazing, unthought-of new consumer products.

There are certainly times when my own efforts at political writing seem depressingly far from the high ideal set out by George Orwell, and much closer to the ranting of the pub bore or the slick keyword focus of the SEO marketer – though having done this (with varying levels of commitment) for four years now, I hope that I am somewhat better than when I started out.

Earlier this week I was at a talk given by Dan Hodges about his general election book “One Minute To Ten”, and got chatting to a senior journalist from the Sunday Times. I put to him that while political blogging may have been ripe with promise ten years ago, the format seems to have dried up today, and readers left with the choice between established legacy media outlets or the latest viral clickbait funnelled through social media.

He didn’t disagree, and hammered home the fact that many readers currently have almost zero loyalty to any specific news outlet, and instead get their news according to what happens to be trending on social media or appear in their (often bias-reinforcing) news feeds. This trend is reflected in the traffic stats for Semi-Partisan Politics. A sizeable minority of traffic now comes through Facebook in particular, and there is always the temptation to devote time and effort to promoting pieces on Facebook to get more eyeballs on the latest piece, even if it brings in few potential long-term readers with whom one can develop a relationship.

The one positive trend at present is the growing and thriving community of Brexit bloggers and campaigners coalescing around eureferendum.com and the work of Dr. Richard North to promote Flexcit – by far the best (and only) properly thought-through plan for how Britain might best leave the European Union and re-emerge as a globally engaged, prosperous sovereign democracy.

If only the same collegial, rigorous and dedicated spirit could be found elsewhere in the political blogosphere as exists among many of my fellow Brexiteers (see links in the sidebar on the right), journalism in this country – particularly citizen journalism and the concept of the campaigning blog – might not be in quite such a parlous state.

Regardless: whatever the people at Gawker say, Semi-Partisan Politics will continue to grow and flourish as we enter 2016, and will campaign – loudly and unapologetically – for the following goals and ideals:

 

Brexit: freedom from the European Union

Democracy and national sovereignty

Constitutional reform and a federal UK

Separation of church and state

Healthcare reform, not NHS worship

Smaller, smarter government

Free speech, without restriction

Fighting timid centrism on the Right

Fighting empty virtue-signalling on the Left

 

If you agree with these objectives and enjoy this blog’s coverage of UK politics and current affairs, please do consider using the PayPal tip jar to make a small regular contribution or a one-time donation:

 

 

Any reader donations will 1) be a personal ego boost to myself, 2) help me to do more original reporting, like the successful live blog of last year’s UKIP annual conference, and 3) help me promote this site and the work of other like-minded writers – particularly in the crucial effort to win a “Leave” vote in the coming Brexit referendum – so that we can actually make a difference.

Small donations from individual contributors are not only greatly appreciated by me, but also help to preserve independent journalism and commentary in general – so that nobody has to rely exclusively on the BBC, the Guardian or the Telegraph to understand what’s going on in our country and around the world.

But it’s not all about the money. What matters even more than that (for me) is spreading the word and sharing the message – and these days, like it or not, that means social media. So if you read something you like here, don’t just sit on it. Share it on Twitter or Reddit. Email it to a friend. Be that person on Facebook who posts provocative political articles on their timeline.

2016 is already off to a good start – pageviews and comments are at their highest ever, and an appearance on a certain major national political TV show (to be announced soon) is in the works. Onwards and upwards!

Many thanks to all my readers for your continued generous support.

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A Plan For Every Stage Of Your Life

David Cameron - Parenting Classes - Plan for every stage of your life - Coke Zero Conservatism

David Cameron’s rootless Conservative government is casting around, finding ever more ways to shoehorn the state into our lives

Buried in all the talk of Brexit and Bowie this week has been the Prime Minister’s announcement that he intends to force every British parent to take state-run classes in parenting – if not on pain of criminal penalty then at least at the sharp end of some pointed fiscal incentives.

The Telegraph reports:

All parents should enrol in state-backed parenting classes to learn how to raise their children properly, David Cameron will say as he announces a new plan to stop families breaking up.

[..] He will use a major speech on Monday to set out proposals for a new voucher system to incentivise parents to attend the classes in an attempt to make parenting advice socially “normal” and even “aspirational”.

The Prime Minister’s plan comes as he announces a £70 million investment in relationship counselling to prevent hundreds of thousands of families splitting up over the next five years.

Mr Cameron’s speech marks the latest step in delivering on the Conservatives’ key election promise to help families at every stage of life.

So here we are. The man who lets his daughter be carried around in a Waitrose bag in the Downing Street gardens – when he isn’t accidentally leaving her behind at the pub – thinks that the rest of the country make such bad parents that what they really need is a big, heaped spoonful of big government medicine to set them straight.

One does not have to deny that family breakdown and – how to put it – “unaspirational” parenting have real, negative consequences in our society to balk at the notion of government run classes enforcing the childrearing fads of the day on first time parents.

And Cameron is not even targeting potentially troubled familes – that would be far too judgemental. No, these classes will be “made available” to all, because children “don’t come with a manual” and apparently what has worked for parents for thousands of years is suddenly insufficient to the task of raising a child in twenty-first century Britain.

Dr. Ellie Lee retorts in Spiked magazine:

As parents well know, it is one thing to seek out genuine expertise and help when a child has specific problems (for example, parents of a sick or disabled child will do everything they can to get help from doctors and find all the advice possible to make their child’s life better). But it is quite another to imagine that parents want to be taught the supposedly general skill of parenting. Rather, being a parent means taking on the responsibility for trying, experimenting, failing and learning from experience over and over again. And parents find that the best people to support them in their childraising are those in their family and local community.

… [This] episode shows how a belief in parental determinism, justified through neuro-nonsense, generates a policy programme based on the idea that raising children is just too important and difficult to be left to mere parents, their families and their communities. Those who hold an a priori belief in the need for parenting education simply cannot accept that parents may neither need nor want expert advice. The only conclusion they draw is that more must be done to find ways to train parents, and to increase parents’ ‘demand’ for their own training. Furthermore, they openly support the idea that taking babies away from their mothers is a way to ‘alter destinies’ and ‘improve life chances’.

Policymakers and a parasitical layer of third-sector organisations, whose claim to expertise and professional status lies in knowing how to improve others’ ‘relationships’, are telling us nothing about parents and the family. And it’s not just parents who lose through the relentless politicisation of parenting, and, by association, the private sphere; it’s all of us.

How long, one wonders, until David Cameron seizes upon that totalitarian idea from north of the border, and seeks to introduce a Scottish-style Named Person scheme in England and Wales, whereby a specified adult named by the government is placed in a position of co-responsibility, together with the parents, for the welfare of every newborn child?

Don’t think he wouldn’t do it. If we have learned nothing else about David Cameron since he came to power in 2010, we know that there is no conservative, small government principle which he is not happy to cast into the woodchipper if it helps him to dominate the political centre ground and atone for the supposed reputational sins of Thatcherism.

Never mind that the Named Person scheme was cooked up by Nicola Sturgeon’s swivel-eyed SNP government in Scotland, and is the complete antithesis to how a restrained state should behave. That won’t stop David Cameron if he spies an opportunity to undermine the nationalists, steal a march on the Labour Party and gain short-term tactical political advantage.

But that doesn’t make it good policy, good politics or the right thing for any party calling itself “conservative” to be doing. Who within the Conservative Party – James Cleverley, Chris Philp, Lucy Allan, David Nuttall? – will stand against this creeping tide of paternalism, one which is otherwise likely to be implemented unopposed given that both sides of the warring Labour Party would probably also approve?

Mandatory parenting classes as part of your masterplan for every stage of our lives?

Dear God, man, stop talking. You sound more socialist than Jeremy Corbyn.

No to Named Person Scheme

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Time For An English National Anthem?

God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols - 2

We don’t need to change our national anthem, or create a separate one for England. We just need to make much better use of the one we already have

Is it time that England asserted herself by choosing a new national anthem of her own, separate and distinct from “God Save The Queen”, which supposedly represents our whole United Kingdom?

MPs seem to think so – the House of Commons has just voted in favour of an English national anthem, with a strong movement emerging to make Jerusalem England’s new anthem. But was Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins right to table the motion in the first place, and would we be right to ultimately adopt his idea?

In short, no. Much as this blog is generally in favour of full parity between the four home nations – best expressed through a federal structure brought about as the result of a full constitutional convention – calls for a separate English national anthem are particularly unhelpful at this time.

Our United Kingdom is already fraying at the seams. Having narrowly avoided dissolution as a result of the Scottish independence referendum last year, now is hardly the time for further measures which emphasise the relatively slight differences between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. And no matter the temptation to poke swivel-eyed Scottish nationalists by meeting their quasi-religious fervour with a matching level of English nationalism, any step in this direction is likely to do more harm than good.

Is “God Save The Queen” a great anthem? Sadly not. Though as one commenter said on the BBC Daily Politics last night, it would have sounded less turgid sung lustily and at twice the speed, as apparently it once was. But there is no escaping the fact that Britain’s national anthem is a dusty and somewhat dull affair, especially set against the rousing, martial Marseillaise, the strutting, operatic Italian anthem or the ever-inspirational Star-Spangled Banner.

But much that is “wrong” or unsatisfactory with “God Save The Queen” can be remedied by performing it better. That means much less Lesley Garrett warbling away in a high soprano, and more beautiful arrangements like the heart-stopping Benjamin Britten version which has been given a new lease of life in recent years at the Last Night of the Proms:

 

The hushed opening, stately and noble tempo and beautiful harmonies, slowly building to an impassioned climax in the (too rarely heard) second verse, “Thy choicest gifts in store…”, actually make those who have only ever heard bad recordings of our national anthem stop and reconsider its merit.

And this sense of a fresh look is possible with contemporary performances too. We all know how the Americans pinched the tune to our national anthem and rebranded it as a patriotic song entitled “My Country, ‘Tis Of Thee“. Well, in the right hands it can sound incredibly moving – again showing that we British fail to make the best use of the source material at our disposal.

Consider Kelly Clarkson’s beautiful performance of “My Country, ‘Tis Of Thee” at President Obama’s second inauguration in 2013:

 

It is quite possible to listen to this beautiful arrangement – with Clarkson accompanied by the US Marine Corps band – and get quite emotional, before thinking “wait – I recognise that tune!”

Yes, that amazing performance which had you on your feet was none other than “God Save The Queen”, re-branded and given a glitzy makeover by a people who are a bit less hesitant to wear their emotions on their sleeves. Once again, we could learn a thing or two from our American cousins.

But of course, there is no escaping the fact that the words of Britain’s national anthem are written to glorify one person – the monarch – rather than our country itself, or her people. For some with republican leanings, it is impossible to get past this obstacle, whatever their other feelings on the subject. I can sympathise with this position. But as someone who greatly admires the Queen, has enormous respect for our country’s history and heritage but who increasingly thinks that the monarchy should be gently separated from our constitution once the second Elizabethan age is over, I still sing our national anthem with pride, thinking of my country rather than just my Queen.

The temptation to meddle – to change things, supplant or supplement them – is always going to be present, because nothing we do or create will ever be perfect. But “God Save the Queen” has been with us since 1745. It is very much a part of our history. In the past year alone it has seen us through two world wars, a cold war, as well as technological and social revolutions which have utterly transformed Britain – nearly always for the better.

Could we adopt Parry’s “Jerusalem” instead? Yes, of course. Nobody doubts that it is a fine composition, with a century of its own history and lyrics – it is a setting of a poem by William Blake – in its favour. It also has the advantage of glorifying a country, or at least an idea of a country, which is what national anthems are if anything supposed to do.

But is the satisfaction we might feel by doing so worth adding to the factors which are undermining our United Kingdom from within and without? Is taking what would be a very bold step toward the reassertion of separate English identity worth potentially destroying our union. I do not think so.

Should we change our national anthem, or create a new anthem specifically for England? Absolutely not. Not now. We should just make much better – and more musical – use of the anthem we already have.

God Save The Queen - Musical Score

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Modern Safe Space Culture Will Never Produce Anyone Like David Bowie

David Bowie - Beckenham Free Festival

Something more than David Bowie died this week

Why has David Bowie’s death affected so many people so deeply?

It goes much deeper than the pro-forma grief athleticism which the internet does so much to encourage. Yes, we can easily find examples of people going too far in their vicarious grief – often with extremely awkward effect:

David Bowie Death - Madonna Reaction - Facebook

 

But there is also something more than just anonymous people assuming a hysterical degree of mourning more appropriate for the passing of family members and close friends.

Neil Davenport attempts to draw out this undefined sense of loss in a piece in Spiked magazine entitled “Bowie and the shrinking sense of possibility”.

The piece begins by pointing out that while Bowie’s success was far from assured in the early years, it was made more likely by the greater sense of freedom and possibility which reigned in the early post-war decades, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Davenport points out:

It’s worth remembering that Bowie slogged on the margins for ages, in two-bit bands, recording very minor songs, before finally finding his voice. Back then, British society created a kind of free space in which young people who were willing to take the unpredictable route of cultural experimentation could do so.

This should give some small measure of hope and a reminder to many of us toiling away in relative obscurity – be it in the arts or elsewhere – that success is rarely instant, and the lasting success we savour the most almost always requires a supreme degree of effort to be ploughed in to our endeavours before any results are seen.

But unfortunately, many aspects of our contemporary society conspire against encouraging this personal risk-taking and reinvention, as Davenport goes on to explain:

Today, in obsessively trying to ‘support’ and mollycoddle young people, society unwittingly robs them of the independence, resilience and drive that Bowie showed in his graft and in his shift from being a nobody to a zeitgeist-changing genius.

Where Bowie encapsulated a genuine sense of freedom and possibility, of total and frequent reinvention, today’s young people find themselves living in an era that discourages risk-taking, puts off adulthood, and erects official scaffolding around their lives. Young people have internalised a culture of anti-freedom.

We can see this in its most extreme form in the desire of some Western-born youths to join the death cult of ISIS, who seem to think that a repressive Caliphate which does all their thinking for them is a really great idea. We see it on university campuses, where student leaders make hectoring demands for Safe Spaces and ban controversial speakers, songs, newspapers or comedians. We see it with the daily emergence of yet another moronic petition calling for someone or something to be banned or punished for daring to ‘offend’ others. For all the celebrations of Bowie’s achievements, what he represented is actually in very short supply today. His death should serve as a reminder, or rather a wake-up call, of some of the backward social changes of the past 20 years.

Who would have thought that calls to outlaw clapping and booingtearful temper tantrums about dress codes, stifling ideas by labelling them ‘problematic’the insistence on safe spaces and mandatory sexual consent workshops for students would have such a repressive, suffocating effect on our society?

That’s not to say that there is no great new talent emerging seven decades after the birth of David Bowie – clearly there is. But time and again, we see the biggest acts and pop stars of today are more eager to ostentatiously embrace prevailing social values as an act of public virtue-signalling rather than court controversy by cutting across today’s strictly policed social norms.

Lady Gaga took no risk when she sang “I’m on the right track baby, I was born this way” – indeed it opened the door to stadiums full of even more lucrative fans. That’s not to say that she was wrong to do so; Lady Gaga’s advocacy of gay rights is laudable. But how often do you see an emerging pop star court real controversy or confound society’s expectations these days? You can blame some of this on commercialisation, sure, but not all of it. Something deeper is at work.

When emerging artists see ordinary people shamed and ostracised for saying the “wrong” thing or even just adopting the wrong tone on social media, how many will have the courage to incorporate anything truly daring or potentially “offensive” in their acts, or create spontaneously from the heart without first processing everything through the paranoid filter of societal acceptability?

No, trigger warnings and safe spaces are not directly to blame for the X Factor or One Direction. But all of these unsavoury phenomena – and the societal trends which create them – are indelibly linked.

Why, then, has this particular death hit many of us so hard? Perhaps because deep down, we realise that we have lost something more rare and precious even than David Bowie – the possibility of ever producing another like him.

David Bowie Quote 1

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