Monthly Archives: December 2018

The curious monomania of Mrs May

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It may be that Theresa May finds Tony Blair uniquely irritating – a position with which I can sympathise – but her condemnation of his call for a second referendum is uncharacteristically intemperate:

“For Tony Blair to go to Brussels and seek to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum is an insult to the office he once held and the people he once served.

She added: “We cannot, as he would, abdicate responsibility for this decision.

“Parliament has a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for.”

After all, her distinguished predecessor John Major has said much the same thing, on more than one occasion, and drawn no such opprobrium.

Let us be clear what Mrs May is calling an abdication of responsibility, an insult to the office of Prime Minister and the British people – it is that the same British people should be consulted, democratically, on the most serious issue to face this country for decades, perhaps since the War.

There is something mysterious here: why has Mrs May so determinedly set her face against the one course of action that might actually get her, and the country, out of the mess in which it finds itself, thanks to the blundering incompetence of David Cameron?

The matter becomes stranger still when you consider that her opposition to a second referendum – like that of the ERG, and Brexiters generally– is founded on the conviction that it would stop Brexit – which of course it could only do if the majority of the British people expressed the view that they did not wish to leave the EU. Brexiters bizarrely call this ‘stealing Brexit’ though how the British people (who are supposed to have voted for it in the first place) can steal from themselves they do not attempt to explain.

We need to be clear that the only justification for proceeding with Brexit is that you are confident both that it is the right course for the country and enjoys the support of the majority of the British people – yet if you genuinely have that confidence, then you must believe that a second referendum would confirm it.

The perplexing truth is that Mrs May neither believes that Brexit is the right course for the country, nor is she confident that it enjoys the support of the British people. For evidence of the first assertion, you need look no further than Mrs May herself, speaking in 2016, before the referendum:

(and note the clarity of her analysis in the clip above set against the inanity of her Prime Ministerial utterances, such as ‘Brexit means Brexit’.)

For the evidence of the second, that she can have no confidence that Brexit enjoys the support of the British people, you need look no further than the result of the first referendum*, which tells us that at the very most only 17.4 million people (out of an electorate of 46.5 million and a population of 65.5 million) have actually expressed a desire to leave the EU. In other words, there is not now, nor has there ever been, a majority of people who want Brexit.  (for a fuller treatment of this point, see The Real Enemies of the People.  and When simple arithmetic is the elephant in the room)

So how has Theresa May, a professed Remainer, perfectly capable of making an articulate case to support her view, ended up relentlessly ploughing ahead on a course that she knows to be mistaken, and setting her face against the one thing that might actually resolve the situation for the better?

I do know that she is a vicar’s daughter, so I would guess that she might have a strong sense of duty; I don’t know if she’s a fan of John Buchan, but I can’t help thinking there are parallels between this scene from Greenmantle and  her accession to the premiership:

‘How does one make a great decision? I swear that when I turned round to speak I meant to refuse. But my answer was Yes, and I had crossed the Rubicon. My voice sounded cracked and far away.

Sir Walter shook hands with me and his eyes blinked a little.

‘I may be sending you to your death, Hannay – Good God, what a damned task-mistress duty is! – If so, I shall be haunted with regrets, but you will never repent. Have no fear of that. You have chosen the roughest road, but it goes straight to the hill-tops.’

 

Hannay, it should be said, has been having a good war – he finds soldiering to his taste, likes the company of his brother officers, and is like to end up a brigadier provided he stays alive. What Sir Walter Bullivant pitches him is a mission that will take him away from all that and will very likely get him killed, but he pitches it to him in terms of his duty to his country – and Hannay accepts.

My reading is that May desperately wanted to be Prime Minister but felt that in order to do so she would have to jettison her own clearly-articulated views on Brexit  – so she recast it as a matter of Higher Duty and self-sacrifice: it was not about what she wanted, but what the country wanted – they would have their Brexit, at whatever cost, and no personal consideration of hers could come into it. Hence her dogged and illogical pursuit of a course that she knows to be wrong and against the national interest: it is a species of folie à deux between her and the Brexit voters, that noisy minority of 17.4 million people – ‘Dammit, I sacrificed my principles to give you this stupid course you voted for, so don’t think for a minute I’m going to let you change your mind!’

And if that sounds crazy, well – it is. But bear in mind that she is surrounded by people who think nothing of making a minority a majority, of saying the British people can steal from themselves, and that to give them a say on a matter of national importance is a betrayal of democracy; the lunatics, in short, have taken over the asylum.

It puts me in mind of Hamlet and the gravediggers:

HAMLET Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
First Clown: Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it’s no great matter there.
HAMLET Why?
First Clown: ‘Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

*though you may also consider her latest word on the matter (17.12.18), which really is Through the Looking Glass stuff:

‘But Mrs May will tell MPs on Monday: “Let us not break faith with the British people by trying to stage another referendum.

“Another vote which would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy, that our democracy does not deliver.

“Another vote which would likely leave us no further forward than the last.

“And another vote which would further divide our country at the very moment we should be working to unite it.”

(from BBC News website – my italics)

Note, first, the Freudian-slip-like ambiguity of ‘Another’ which suggests that she imputes all the faults she claims a second referendum would bring to the first referendum also. Then consider the words I have emphasised – a second referendum ‘would likely leave the country no further forward than the last‘ and ‘would further divide’ it.

In other words, she accepts that the first vote divided the country and did not take us forward, yet she is still insisting that it is her mandate to proceed with Brexit, and that  to allow another would somehow be ‘to break faith with the British people’ – what, all of them? or just the 17.4 million who voted for Brexit, many of whom would not do so again? – and ‘would say to millions… [again, how many? 17.4 or 65.5?] … that our democracy does not deliver’. How and why would giving people a say in their future do that, especially when you yourself believe them to be divided on the issue?

This is lunacy. It must stop.

Mogg Mendax

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Jake Mogg is associated, in the popular mind at least, with Latin, so perhaps we can open with the Latin axioms suppressio veri and suggestio falsi : the one means to suppress the truth, the other to suggest a lie. They are often coupled, the action of suppressing some truth – e.g. omitting key facts from an account –  amounting to the suggestion of a falsehood.

This morning, not for the first time, Mr Mogg referred to the 2016 referendum as ‘the biggest vote in our history’. It is a formulation that others who share his views also use, such as Mr Charles Moore [see here]

The claim is clearly intended to impress: it suggests that a special significance attaches to the referendum (and its result) in terms of its sheer scale: the implication is that the 2016 referendum is more entitled to respect than any comparable vote in our history and that it ‘must be respected’ and to go against it would be ‘a betrayal of democracy’.

But what does Mr Mogg’s claim actually mean?

It is typical of his utterances in being an unqualified ‘sound-bite’, casually slipped into his conversation without any explanation or elaboration. The effect of this – if unchallenged – is that it lodges in the listener’s mind as something that is both significant and true, something they will repeat themselves should any discussion of the matter come up (and I have heard it parroted by commentators, I am sure). 

But is it true, and if it is, is it significant? The short answer to both questions is no, to which I should add the qualification that the only sense in which it might be called true is insignificant, and in every other case it is untrue, so the question of its significance does not arise.

As noted above, Mogg’s claim is unqualified, and might mean any one of several things. Let us consider each in turn.

Was the 2016 referendum ‘the biggest vote in our history’ in the sense that it represents the largest number  of people ever to take part in a democratic vote in this country?

No. That was the 1992 General Election, when a total of 33,614,874 votes were cast, as against 33,577,342 in the referendum. 

Was it the largest percentage of the electorate ever to turn out in a democratic vote, then?

No. That was the 1950 General election, when 83.9% of the electorate turned out. As a matter of fact, the referendum turnout, 72.2%, is slightly below the average for UK votes from 1918 to 2017, which is 72.9%

But isn’t 17,410,742 the largest ever number of votes cast for a single issue in our history? Surely that is what Mr Mogg means?

Maybe. This is the case where the claim might be true, but is of doubtful significance. Some context is essential. The expression ‘In our history’ is misleading – intentionally so, I would suggest, with its implication of  a vast sweep of time in which a great number of votes have taken place, with this one being far and away the most significant. 

Yet the total number of occasions on which the UK has voted on a single issue is 3.

In the Alternative Vote referendum of 2011, 13,013,123 voted to retain ‘first past the post’.

The other two referendums were effectively on the same issue: should we remain in the EU in 2016 or its predecessor, the EEC, in 1975.

In terms of actual numbers very slightly more people voted to leave the EU in 2016 than voted to remain in the EEC in 1975, so this is the only case in which Mr Mogg’s claim (that the 2016 referendum is ‘the biggest vote in our history’) could be said to have any truth in it at all.

However, the figures are worth comparing: in 1975, 17,378,581 people voted to remain, as against the 17,410,742 who voted to leave in the 2016 referendum. So the latter figure is greater by 32,161 – a difference of 0.18%.

The difference is so slight that any claim for significance in terms of size – and that is what Mr Mogg is saying, ‘the biggest vote in our history’ – applies equally to both: if one is ‘massive’ ( a claim that is also made for it) then so is the other; in round terms, they are same – 17.4 million. The implication that the 2016 referendum vote is uniquely huge, and so dwarfs all others in importance, is surely false. Of the three votes the UK has had on a single issue, in terms of actual numbers, two have been equally large, with one fractionally larger (0.18%) than the other. That is as much truth as Mr Mogg can claim for his oft-repeated statement.

However, it should be borne in mind that the electorate in 1975 was substantially smaller than that in 2016, so that the actual number voting is of less significance than the proportion of the electorate it represents in deciding which is the largest vote on a single issue in our history.

In 1975, the electorate was 40,086,677, so 17,378,581 amounts to 43.35%;

In 2016, the electorate was 46,500,001, so 17,410,742 amounts to 37.4%.

So in percentage terms, the largest proportion of the UK electorate to vote for a single issue, on the three occasions when that has been possible, is 43.35% in 1975.

It is the job of journalists to challenge the claims made by politicians and subject them to scrutiny. Why has this not been done in the case of the oft-repeated claim that the 2016 referendum was ‘the biggest vote in our history’? It took me, an amateur, a couple of hours to find the relevant data from the comfort of my chair. Those charged with keeping our politicians to account must do better.

Where now?

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Given her past form, it is reasonable to assume that Mrs May’s assertion that she will fight the leadership contest with all she’s got is a sure sign that she’ll be resigning shortly; but however it plays out, it is difficult to see how the Tories will this time avoid the split they have postponed so often in the past in the name of party unity, or as the Tories like to call it, ‘the national interest’ and ‘the good of the country.’

But what then?

As I see it, all the likely permutations in the leadership contest point to the same end, which is that either one side or the other in the Tory party will be unable to support whoever is chosen:

  • if Mrs May wins and stays on, the Brexit faction will remain unreconciled;
  • if she loses or resigns (like Margaret Thatcher before her) because her margin of victory is too small, then no candidate that the Brexit faction chooses will be acceptable to the rest, and vice-versa.
  • In the event of May going, it is hard to see that there is any sense in running another candidate who takes up where she left off, and pursues her already discredited Brexit plan against a hard-liner, so the only realistic alternative is a People’s Vote candidate, who more or less admits the folly of all that has been done and says the only solution is to ask the people if they still want to do this; and that will be anathema to the Brexit faction.

It is very hard to see how any single candidate will unite the party as long as Brexit remains in contention, so whoever wins, the downfall of the government and a general election seems almost certain to follow.

Given that the Tories would enter such an election split along the lines described above, with a right-wing pro-Brexit faction seeking alliance from the other unsavoury elements and the centrists reaching out to the Liberals, will Labour be tempted to stick with Brexit in the hope of winning back their disgruntled traditional followers who voted for it, while taking for granted that they will have the support of most other anti-Tories? And in that eventuality, would the party remain united?

And don’t forget that Scotland is heartily sick of being patronised with sickly sentiment about ‘our precious union’, particularly given the way our clearly-stated view of Brexit has counted for nothing – as has Northern Ireland’s. The Republic can no longer be portrayed as a priest-ridden catholic theocracy, and a united Ireland might strike many in the North as preferable  to continued alliance with Brexit-obsessed England. This could be a seismic moment in the politics of these islands.