Tag Archives: May

May’s Brexit promises checklist

An issue with politicians is that they seek to shift goal posts gradually. We all remember Tony Blair trying to avoid humiliation by changing his Iraq words from ‘WMD’ to ‘WMD programs’, and thinking the populace would not notice the upcoming admission of failure.

Brxiteers have of course noticed the slow drip of wording change by May, Hammond , Gove, Rudd and others and seen the inevitable capitulation transpire.

It is often repeated by Remainers that the populace didn’t know what they were voting for when they ticked ‘leave’, and ipso facto that “they didn’t vote for <insert some guess words here presented as a fact>”. Grumpy did indeed vote in the 1975 referendum, and (for youngsters) the this was not about the EU – that didn’t exist then. It was about the ‘common market’, which was generally felt to be a good notion, but of course the Heath government had already joined the European Economic Community, so it was about whether to stay rather than join. The government of the day, however, deliberately sought to obscure the political integration goals, which were in fact well known to them, since it was a goal by European politicians from about 1946.

The fact is the citizens of the UK never ever voted to join what is now a political institution, the EU, and it was foisted on them; they probably would not have done so had they known what was to come. The obfuscation continued serially (Remember Keith Vaz and the “Beano” Lisbon Treaty ? – Brexiteers need no lessons from Remainers about lies and misrepresentations.)

However, the populace eventually got a comprehensive statement of the current politicians view of what Brexit would mean (other then being ‘Brexit’) when Theresa may set this out in detail in the Lancaster House speech. Grumpy has extracted a few snippets, as shown below, so to as to keep a track of how she does with this benchmark by the end of March. Grumpy harbours hopes, but fears there will not be many ticks in the right hand column cone exit day.

Threats don’t work

Mrs May has now resorted to threats to ministers, fellow MP’s, business and the populace in general to coerce them into accepting her shabby capitulation to Brussels.

In summary, it distils down to “my way or no way” or “my way, or else…”. By the time these utterances are made, the politician in question (and in such circumstances it is normally just one lonely person exercising their rapidly diminishing formal powers) is desperate, inward-looking, and unable employ the objectivity the situation demands. And so it is with Theresa, and her colleagues must make this situation plain to her by submitting their letters to Graham Brady.

On a wider note, Grumpy is programmed to react to a threats of such a nature from politicians by

dismissing any validity to their argument entirely, since they were unable to persuade by a rational, balanced reasoning without threats
never again to vote for a party which resorts to such bankrupt tactics.

It is hard to envisage that, come the next general election, voters will tick the conservative box, as it still will be a bitter and divided organisation at that time. Two people bear the blame; David Cameron for calling for the referendum in the first place, and Theresa May for failing to have the courage to spell out at the outset the obvious implications of her contradictory red lines, and resorting to sleight of hand, obfuscation and double dealing to hide this, with the result that we now have.

Not agreeable, May

Grumpy is not a lawyer. However, in his business life he negotiated a large number of individual and quite complex contracts, and over the years became familiar with some elements of sound drafting.

Often, there was a clash of ‘red lines’ of the parties and deadlock in the discussions. Both sides did have a motivation to ‘fill or kill’ and agreement, and there was always a temptation to defer facing down the core difficulties, in the hope that the situations surrounding them never occurred. It’s called wishing the problem away.

Bitter experience, however, soon evidenced that this was an illogical and very dumb approach. If the parties could not agree on something at the outset, they were unlikely to do so in the future, and the elephant in the room was likely to trample one of the parties at some point.

A classic fudge for deferment was to include in the contract an ‘agreement to agree’ at some point in the future should the circumstance causing the contention occur. This sounded plausible enough, whereby the parties would somehow sit round a table with coffee and digestive biscuits to act with good faith to resolve the issue they could not agree on before.

That the very illogicality of the notion was ever considered reflects the desperation the weaker side had to put ink on the contract.

Grumpy soon learned (aided by his excellent lawyers) never to even contemplate this. If the red lines were irreconcilable it was necessary to turn to an always available alternative to a negotiated agreement – walk out. He did so on more than one occasion, and never once regretted it.

Mrs May, along with the might of the legal capabilities of government and the civil service are potentially about to sign a document containing an ‘agreement to agree’. Nothing could be more indicative of May’s weakness, pusillanimity, hubris and stupidity on a matter which is so key to the country and its citizens. She should walk away.

Theresa May creates fudge aplenty on Vacuum Cleaners

The single most common thread in the history of UK involvement with Europe is the wish of politicians to obfuscate, confuse and plain lie about the ramifications of our membership thereof. Grumpy read the Theresa May agreement for Brexit with a mixture of irritation and resignation. Some 17 years ago Tony Blair and his odious henchman Keith ‘Beano’ Vaz sought to persuade the populace is that the words in the Charter of Fundamental Rights did not mean what they say. In the Alice in Wonderland world of Westminster, the logic of Humpty Dumpty applies – “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

Commission Regulation (EU) 666/2013 on vacuum cleaners limits (amongst other things) the power of cleaner motors to 900 watts. When the UK ‘takes back control’ of its own laws and regulations will it be able to legislate to loosen this restriction or not ? Alternatively, if the EU changed the regulation to 750 watts would the UK be bound to follow this, post Brexit ?

If not, and ‘regulatory alignment’ means what it says it means, the UK will be forever bound by EU law, and the whole exercise has been an utterly pointless exercise leaving us without any control of our lives, and with no EU representation to change this – we have become a vassal state of Germany.

However, if so, and UK shops were then able to sell cleaners with an increased limit of motor power of (say) 2500 watts , how does this play with no hard border with the EU ? So in one of the oft quoted Irish farms with the border running through the house, would it be ok to vacuum the living room but be subject to a Gardai raid if the owner moved on to the dining room ?

It’s a logical nonsense. It won’t work. Everyone knows this, and yet politicians persist in trying to fudge reality.

We all now know that the price ‘independence’ is to become an irrelevant excrescence off the shores of Europe. If that’s what the UK wanted, fine. But what we seem to have negotiated is neither fish nor fowl, and now that die is cast.