by liberal japonicus
I heard there was some stuff happening in the UK. Here’s a thread for you to explain it to everyone.
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
by liberal japonicus
I heard there was some stuff happening in the UK. Here’s a thread for you to explain it to everyone.
It’s instructive to read letters of resignation from ministers who’ve resigned recently over policy differences – Jess Phillips on 12th May, and John Healey on 11th June. The common message is that Keir Starmer talks a good game but fails to deliver.
A British Prime Minister is unlike a US President in that, by construction, he has the votes in the Commons to get legislation enacted. But also, by construction, he needs to retain those votes to keep his job. Most MPs are anxious to win their seats again at the next General Election, and they want the party leader most likely to facilitate that. Before Theresa May, MPs were highly reluctant to depose a Prime Minister, but that guideline has been destroyed by Brexit and its consequences – if a PM’s MPs perceive an electorally more attractive alternative, he’s gone.
The British government operates under budgetary constraints which do not (yet) apply in the US – they can borrow only so much money, as Liz Truss discovered. Meanwhile, voters want more government spending, especially from Labour governments, and lower taxes, especially from Conservative governments. In the absence of economic growth, which has been crushed by Brexit, these things cannot be delivered. (I’m looking at these numbers per capita.)
Furthermore, the main categories of UK government spending are on benefits (especially the state pension), health, and education. In all of these things, static spending, in real terms, looks inadequate – see Baumol‘s cost disease. Debt interest and the armed forces are two more rising costs – Healey’s resignation was because defence spending wasn’t, in his view, increasing fast enough.
Any Prime Minister would have had a difficult time in the last two years – Rishi Sunak called the last General Election five months before he had to because he didn’t want to be responsible for impending decisions on spending. Burnham will have the same challenges. In the short term the hope is that he will do a better job of presentation: he could hardly do worse.
In the medium term, the country won’t get stable governments unless economic growth is restored. The biggest single positive step would be to rejoin the EU. We’ve got to the point where that’s not unimaginable.
(I’ve used “he” because the context is Starmer’s resignation. But two of the four short-term Prime Ministers who preceded him were women.)
I think the main problem is the lack of education of the voting public. Most voters make decisions based on impulsivity, obsolete class identity and nostalgia. I have no idea how anyone can deal with this. And even the educated ones you hear on e.g. ‘Any Qestions’ seem to be mostly overinformed cranks.
Pro Bono’s comment pretty much tells the whole story.
I only wish we could rejoin the EU, especially since Michel Barnier has proposed that we might still be able to have some of our originally negotiated special terms etc. But although it seems that public opinion has moved, I am afraid that if definite moves were made in this direction, it might reinvigorate the loathsome Farage, and Restore, and all that they represent. That might have some seriously undesirable consequences; the (re)election of Trump has proved that nothing, no matter how terrible, is impossible.
The biggest single positive step would be to rejoin the EU. We’ve got to the point where that’s not unimaginable.
I can see calling it imaginable. But possible any time soon? It seems like that would require some significant portion of the population to accept that they were conned by the pro-Brexit campaign into thinking that the economy would benefit, rather than suffer. (They were told there would be negative consequences, but chose not to believe it.). Oops.
Getting people to accept that they made a mistake, is really difficult. Nobody likes to admit, even to themselves, that they were played for fools. I’d guess that it will take a bunch of Brexit believers dying off, and being replaced by younger voters who have no personal history in voting for it I’d live, for Britain’s sake, to be wrong about that. But….
The numbers are quite encouraging:
https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54925-what-do-britons-think-of-brexit-10-years-since-the-referendum
And if Brexit achieved anything it was that the idea of leaving the EU is not even contemplated anymore in any member state.
I don’t know if the EU should want the UK back anytime soon though. Because, as has been mentioned, there will always be some populist hay to be made by agitating against it in the England; for we are only talking about England here really.
Not that one shouldn’t agitate against e.g. the EU’s shameful immigration or agricultural policies – but that’s another matter which doesn’t concern the likes of Farage etc.