Why we should not be too happy about Dominic Cummings' departure from government

As Dominic Cummings carried his cardboard box out of Number 10 Downing Street, the gloating started. It came not just from the usual suspects, those who bemoaned the exit of the UK from the EU and his role in it. They were joined by some on the opposite side of the Brexit battle. Cue Bernhard Jenkins, Conservative MP, an arch Brexiteer, who celebrated Cumming’s exit from Downing Street during a BBC interview saying that (paraphrasing) things will hopefully get back to normal now. Interestingly he did not stop there and noted that, during Cumming’s reign, the Cabinet contained surprisingly few Brexiteers and he hoped that this would now be reversed. 

 

Dominic Cummings on his way out
YUI MOK/PA WIRE

This makes me think… did we get Cummings wrong? By we, I mean the ones on the ever so cosmopolitan, liberal, Europe loving side. Let’s take a step back and look at this from a wider angle. Cummings is often credited for his firm anti-European commitment. But what we may have overlooked with the Brexit battle indignation still red hot in our eyes, is that Cummings’ preference for Brexit was a means, not an end. Cummings had a keen eye for the discontent of substantial parts of the public with the establishment. We may question the validity of this term, but the millions of voters who turned out on the day of the referendum knew exactly what he was talking about. 

 

For anyone who lives in the North of England, that establishment, real or not, cuts across party lines. In fact, it combines positions as contrary as Labour in North West city councils and traditionally Conservative ones in Yorkshire and the Humber. Conservatives, rightly or wrongly, were loathed for their close contact with money and business, being seen as traditionally favouring those who already made it. Liberals, on the other hand, were perceived as hypocritical as those articulating the benefits of globalisation were often employed in white collar jobs, drawing on European money or benefiting from middle class council jobs with little impact on real lives. Just ask yourself: How many ‘development officers’ were funded by European Convergence funding (my own hand goes up!) and how little impact did they have on suffering communities beyond creating another cushy office job? 

 

Cummings’ strategy was to bundle those discontented voices and give them a purpose. We may disagree with the thrust of that purpose but the fact of the matter is that he achieved something many on all sides of the political spectrum had long called for: a revolution in democratic participation. People who never voted before used to ballot box to send a signal to politicians across the political spectrum to say they had enough. We may scoff at the simplicity of the political message. But the fact is that Cummings managed what others had long failed at. He revived moribund political life in the UK and drew people into the political debate as never before. 

 

I can hear the shrieks of horror. But at what cost! you may say. So? The fact is that we will all do better if our public debate has more voices in it, not fewer. Cummings has demonstrated to all of us the rewards of listening to the disadvantaged, the ones who stopped shouting for help long time ago. We may not like what we hear, but forcing us to listen to the ones in need is at the heart of a healthy political discourse. It is however, also challenging our misconceived democratic credentials that are often based on the exclusion of those we do not agree with. 

 

And so we return why we should not gloat about Cummings’ departure. His desire to make us listen to those we disagree with should be reason enough to us in the North West of England to regret his leaving. It may signal a retreat to the status quo ante. And that can only be bad for people living in a corner of England that receives a fraction of the investment that London gets. 

 

That’s why I worry when I hear Bernhard Jenkins and others, on the liberal side of politics, rejoicing that things will go back to normal now. Where I live, in Walton (Liverpool), this ‘normal’ has not served the people well. It is officially the most deprived constituency of England and Cummings was the first one to be interested enough to listen up. That does not make him a crusader for the dispossessed. But it makes him a champion of democracy. The irony! 

 

Why there should not be a people's vote

Of all people I should be the last one to side with Farage and the like in all matters of Brexit. As a German without a British passport I will lose most of my civil rights on 19th March 2019. However, recently I found myself increasingly frustrated and worried about the calls for a second referendum or people's vote on Brexit. There may be many things wrong with the first Brexit vote, not least our lack of understanding of how social media may or may not have been used (unduly) to influence the outcome of the vote. However, I do not find the various reasons for a second vote convincing. Here is why.

Argument 1: They did not know what they voted on

This is a bad argument to put forward. Not only does it reak of patronising voters it also cuts both ways. If people had really been ignorant of what the referendum question was about (or what a decision either way entailed) then re-running the referendum assumes that voters can only genuinely cast their vote under conditions of absolute knowledge. This strikes me as a ludicrous condition for voting in a democratic society. Whether we like it or not, frivolous voting is a right everyone has in a free country. And so is voting on grounds of self-declared ignorance.

The outcome of the negotiations need to be endorsed by the voters

Well, it does indeed. That's what parliament is for. Referenda are a poor mechanism to discriminate between policy options. And if I remember correctly that was also an argument against the first referendum. I still agree with this and hence a second referendum would solve little that cannot be decided by elected MPs.

We should stop Brexit 

That's probably the most annoying argument and one that is most likely to backfire. There is no guarantee that a second referendum would yield a substantial majority for remaining in the EU. Just think about the difficulty of drafting the referendum question. Would it be a three way choice between 'the deal', 'no deal' and remaining in EU? That would split the 'remain camp' and likely deliver a supporting vote for 'the deal', whatever that may be. So, remainers would not get from such a referendum what they wanted (to preserve EU membership). And why would people 'know' more about 'the deal' or 'no deal' options if they, allegedly, were in a state of fateful ignorance about the benefits of EU membership? Are the ramifications of 'the deal' any simpler to grasp? 

So, why are we talking about a second referendum or people's vote? It may be worthwhile to have a look at who is advocating it. John Harris's podcasts are little windows into our divided soul. And it seems to me that the dividing line between us runs somewhere between London/South of England and the rest of England and Wales. I think it's no surprise that this is also roughly the line that divides the well off from the deprived areas in England, those that have benefitted from, and have accommodated themselves with immigration and a global economy and those that have not.

I accept that Brexit will not rectify the injustices and imbalances between London and the rest of the country. But, living in the North West of England, I also understand those who feel left behind and may now look on with some schadenfreude as London house prices fall and multinational companies start to relocate to other European cities. The movement for the people's vote is born out of a recognition that with Brexit, London and the South of England would suffer (though the rest of England would disproportionately suffer even more). Yet for Londoners who have treated the rest of the country with imperial disdain and contempt for decades, many Northerners thought this was pay back time. And I can't blame them.

In this context, campaigning for a people's vote appears to be counterproductive. It ties up energies that are really needed to argue for a sensible, smooth exit from the EU. It would make more sense to work out how we can get to an EFTA or Norway solution and how to get this through parliament rather than wasting political capital on preventing something that has democratic legitimacy: leaving the European Union.

The subliminal world of political campaigning

In 1973, a new episode of Columbo hit the NBC screens. Robert Culp made another appearance, this time as a devious advertising specialist who used his ability to influence the viewers of his advertising videos to commit a murder. The particular method was to place subliminal stimuli into the videos which prompted one person in a selected audience to feel thirsty and leave the auditorium to seek some relief at a public fountain in the foyer. That's where the murderer struck.

The use of subliminal messages for manipulation is well known since the 1970s. However has obtained new resonance in our times of fake news and political campaigns using targeted messages.

Subliminal cues work by inducing brain processes below a threshold of objective awareness. In other words, they are stimuli which we are subjected to without being conscious of. There is some debate as to their effectiveness. Some research indicates that they are less effective than stimuli above the awareness threshold (those we can perceive as such). But all agree that they are basically a form of manipulation.

Never quite what it seems - Robert Culp in 'Double Exposure' NBC

There is also a clear consensus about what is wrong manipulating people. Manipulating people is not based on the selection of preferences based on human volition and deliberation. Manipulation is in essence a mechanism to avoid what we do when we need to chose, that is to think which options are preferable to us and why. As Hannah Arendt noted, giving reasons for our actions is part of the human condition. Whilst it is a fundamentally flawed process, it is also one that allows others to challenge us and enter into a discussion about the merits and disadvantages of our choices. It is the process by which we relate to each other in mutual respect and recognition of our ability to decide freely in matters concerning the body politic.

Arendt was clear about the fact that our public and private deliberations were often flawed, conditioned by a lack of knowledge, poor information, and the like. Yet, she contended, there was little else. Beyond the free and fair exchange of ideas in the public arena was only the realm of manipulation and distrust inevitably undermining the political institutions of democracy and civic liberties.

This is where targeted campaigning and subliminal messaging in advertising meet. As the Leave.EU donor Aaron Banks admitted to the Select Committee of the House of Commons, their campaign 'led people up the garden path' (one of those pretty English euphemisms for something loathsome, namely lying).

Combined with targeted political advertising, political choices may have become based less on what we know but what others want us to (not) know, a perversion of the notion of choice which is based on voluntary selection of preferences underpinned by an awareness of options and their consequences. As Arendt sees it, it is public civility and respect versus manipulation of behaviour.

Manipulating voters in political campaigns is similar to placing subliminal cues in product advertising. Voters do not quite know what they are being told. Where campaigners feel no commitment to be truthful, a basic consensus about our democratic decision making falls apart: that within the boundaries of the competition of ideas, falsehoods should not be part of the arsenal of weapons to defeat your opponent. All electoral laws in the Western world accept this basic principle; there are strict sanctions for those who disseminate lies deliberately in the public domain during a political domain.

Targeted political ads however are not illegal and we may want to ask whether our current electoral legal framework is sufficiently robust for the times of facebook, insta and rogue 'news' outlets.

In case you wondered, subliminal messaging is illegal in the UK. The BCAP Code defines it as 'misleading advertising'.And yes, Columbo did get his guy in the end.

The Malaise of Labour

The date is set, the knives will be out shortly. Well, at least amongst Labour politicians. And those knives are of course not sharpened for Labour's attack on the Conservatives, but for a good fratricidal battle as only Labour can do it.

Barring a miracle of triple Trump proportions, May will be Prime Minister with a sizable majority in the House of Commons and will emerge strengthened from the June snap election with a decent mandate to negotiate a hard Brexit. The Lib Dems will make some minor amends for their previous nigh annihilation in 2015, and the Greens will tread water as they have ever since they were founded.

So, what about Labour? Isn't this the big test Corbyn's proponents and enemies talked about? Maybe this is the moment when he will have to resign following what in all likelyhood will be a defeat of 1983 magnitude?

Nothing could be further from the truth. When was the last time anybody heard Corbyn or anybody from his team speak of 'electoral tests'? The fact is that Corbyn does not think of politics as a battle of ideas to be decided by general elections. He does not attach any significance to elections at all. His is the 'long game' of the socialist revolution (no joke!) where elections are not the litmus test of governability for Labour.

The stuff of dreams - Corbyn and the socialist consciousness

In fact, if you listen carefully to McDonnell and others, what matters to the Corbyn team is not the victory at the ballot box but the development of a historical consciousness of the proletariat that will emerge as things go worse. In their (contorted) Marxist logic, the more successful the Conservatives will be, the more the country will sink into a 'deep crisis' that will help develop the 'revolutionary situation' which is necessary to establish socialism in Britain. (I recognise that there is an element of caricature in this picture, but only just!).

The sad dynamics of these illogical theoretical gymnastics of Corbyn are that they leave the UK without a strong reformist opposition with policy ideas that are grounded in real life and speak to people who are at the sharp end of Brexit and Conservative policies in education, health and the economy. Such a viable effective opposition will only emerge once Labour (and the moderate British centre left) will be able to re-appraise the enormous policy achievements of the Blair and Brown governments for a moderate Labour government and stop seeing the last time Labour was in power through the prism of Iraq. The answers of such a re-constructed moderate left will be different to those given by the two last giants of Labour policy but the thrust will be similar: engaging with real life issues, formulating reformist policies in education, health and a rebalancing of the economy.

Until now, all we have from Labour is 'school meals for all'.

Protectionism vs. Free Market

The election of Donald Trump has thrown up serious questions about the commitment of the future US government to free market policies. Trump has repeatedly voiced his concerns about free trade agreements such as NAFTA and has indicated that negotiating other free trade agreements is out of the question. This does not bode well for the Brexiteers who find themselves in the awkward position to have advocated leaving the largest free trade zone (the EU) with the hope of engineering new ones with Britain as the driving centre. Given the preference of current populist leaders for protectionism, Britain could easily find herself in a free trade zone of one.

With public opinion increasingly favouring protectionist policies in the US and elsewhere, it may be worth reminding us of the rationale for free trade. The prime example of tariff and customs union remains the European Union which has underpinned the free trade agreement with a contractual framework ensuring that all participating countries implement the same standards of products and environmental protection. The idea was that free trade can only work for the benefit of all if everybody has to adhere to the same level playing field, hence free trade has to be supported by the same trading and production standards. How the Brexiteers will pull off a similarly comprehensive agreement with China, Australia or the Asian Sub-continent within the next couple of years is difficult to see. Although they have been critical of the pace of negotiation by the EU with Canada on the (finally agreed) CETA free trade agreement (it took the parties 7 years in total), the reason is less a unwieldy Bruxelles bureaucracy then to buttress the sustainability of any free trade deal with a comprehensive deal of similar standards on customer and environmental protection. Free trade is not worth the name if it only extends to exchange of goods. Those goods also need to comply with the same standards to ensure producers are on the same level playing field. Otherwise competition between free trade partners won't be fair.

The second issue relating to free trade concerns the movement of people. Brexiteers have been highly critical of the fact that free movement of goods and capital is linked in EU law to the free movement of people. They paint free movement of people as an anachronism in times of high geographical mobility. Where the world is on the move, countries need to regain control of their borders to steer migration.

The four freedoms of movement (capital, goods, services and people) are however linked within EU law for a specific reason, one that features less in the Brexiteers argument. It is one of equity between employers and employees, between capital and labour. To grant capital the right to move wherever it wants within a free market zone yet deny people the same right establishes serious imbalances between the two forces that shape our economic life. It is a question of equity to ensure that people have the same rights as capital.

The sum total of the Brexiteers case thus amounts to a muddled bag of inconsistencies. They would like to leave the largest free trade area to establish their own. They criticise the slowness of the EU's negotiating practice but fail to acknowledge the complexity of free trade agreements based on similar agreed product and protection standards which contribute to the protracted nature of these negotiation. They want more competition but trade agreements without similar standards will decrease the chances of fair competition between future trading partners. In addition, they want free movement of goods, services and capital (City of London) but deny the same right to people, therefore enshrining an imbalance in opportunities and freedoms between capital and labour. They want to boost free trade on a world wide stage at a time when the electorate in their ideologically closest ally (US) has given the strongest signal yet that protectionism is the word of the day. Britain may find itself in a world of its own, in a trade zone of one very soon if the Brexiteers' wish comes true.

The other Brexit narrative

As the new British Prime Minister intones that Brexit means Brexit, quite a few people still scratch their heads and ask themselves what it actually all means. The biggest headache for the British is now to determine where this magical nirvana outside the European Union is actually located and, once they have found it, to figure out how to get there.

Recriminations abound how we all got here and there are theories a plenty on the social media sphere, so here is, for good measure, mine, why Britain made for the exit.

On the face of it, Brexit was all about leaving Europe. However, in the midst of the campaign Nigel Farage mentioned that he would be very happy indeed to give up economic growth for better quality of life. His comment went largely unnoticed, but it shouldn't have. It was a remarkable admission by a, for good or ill, national politician for two reasons.

One the face of it, his admission to be willing to see less economic growth for better quality of life in Britain would be suicidal for any mainstream politician. Economic growth is the engine of progress. It pays for hospitals, schools and public services. To understand how dominant this narrative actually is look no further than David Cameron's promise to develop a 'well being and happiness strategy' of his government to replace the common indicators of national wealth which went ... exactly nowhere. Once in office, it's the treasury figures that drive everything. They determine whether departments have a bit less or more to spend, whether another school can be built or another foundation stone for a hospital can be laid.

So, why was Farage's comment not ridiculed? One may argue that he stands outside the mainstream debate anyway. But that is just lazy thinking. More likely, the mainstream was missing something out here that Farage had spotted and I believe it is the confluence of two issues. The first is the ineffectiveness of growth to translate into increases in real income for the working classes up and down the country. Britain was, up to the Brexit vote, strictly speaking, booming. Economically it was one of the most successful countries in the OECD. Yet, none of that growth meant any better life for the people in Yorkshire, Manchester or Birmingham who were on rock bottom agency pay. If the link between growth and wages had been severed however, there was little reason to pursue growth for the sake of it.

The periphery of economic growth
Stoke-on-Trent

The second issue was linked to globalisation. The growth argument is tightly interwoven with the globalisation narrative. In an increasingly connected world, we will become ever more mobile with our portable skills moving from one employer to another when it suits us. We, the workers, in this picture, are just as rootless and transferable as the companies are. But the fact of the matter is that this only applies to a tiny minority of young professionals (mostly male) before there establish families. People do not move around like things, they cannot be put on a shipping container and send off to far away shores if things go belly up in one place. It's this discrepancy between the mobility of capital (and companies) and people's rootedness in places that creates the friction in the globalisation gearbox and Farage put his finger on it long before anybody else did.

Where the growth narrative and the globalisation narrative meets it creates some incredible wealth, with a singular dynamic (metropolitan) elite of professionals benefiting from it. Where they jar, they create some real misery like the forgotten towns and cities on the periphery. Farage's comment, as always, was prescient, rather than backward looking, as his detractors have it. He spotted the losers in the globalisation race, for whom growth does not mean better living standards. Once the link was broken, the Kaiser was naked. Why pursue growth for the sake of it?

And this is the location where some counter-narratives are meeting and producing some very odd alliances indeed. One is, rooted in the anti-growth debate of the 1970s, articulated by the left-leaning anti-globalisation campaigners who warn against the economic and ecological consequences of ever more growth. The second is that which refuses to accept the inevitability (or indeed desirability) of progress. Both counter-narratives together, go to the very heart of the capitalist system and it is ironic (London) and tragic (Stoke-on-Trent) at the same time that Britain is the battle ground on which this argument is to be had.

The revolt of the dispossessed

The vote in favour of Brexit appears to have surprised everyone, not least the Brexiteers themselves. As politicians across the political spectrum in Britain and Europe scramble for answers to the question 'what next', the reactions from those in the Brexit camp and those in favour of staying in the EU could not have been more different. After a strangely sombre Boris Johnson addressed the media yesterday, trying to look presidential and like a PM in waiting, the Brexiteers have now gone into hiding. As the BBC correspondent Norman Smith noted, not one of them could be reached for comment at this critical moment and as the economic warnings of Remain campaigners come true. The reason is clear. Neither Johnson nor Gove ever had a plan of what to do next. Their campaign was predicated on questionable assumptions and base prejudices against immigrants. Now, that clear policies and a coherent strategy is required, they are nowhere to be seen.

Gurnos Estate in Merthyr Tydfil with a life expectancy of 58.8 years 

As for the other side, consider Nicola Sturgeon's response to the recent vote. Her cabinet made it clear that they will explore how to keep Scotland in the EU, something that conveniently overlaps with her overriding policy goal to take Scotland out of the UK. It helps that she has also quickly reassured Europeans who live in Scotland that they are welcome there. It is this inclusive political tone by Sturgeon that is such a far cry from anything Johnson can ever muster. 

As for the actual culprit in the room, the vote has made one thing crystal clear to anybody who wants to see it: Jeremy Corbyn has not got a chance in hell to ever make it to Downing Street. Whilst his anti-capitalist rants carry some favour with a small vocal left wing group in London, it cuts no ice in the traditional Labour heartlands which reel from cuts to local services and feel left behind. In that sense, the revolt of the poor in Merthyr Tydfil and Yorkshire was just as much a revolt against the Westminster elite as one against a Labour Party that had cocooned itself in anti-capitalist rhetoric and shadow boxing with their Blairite wing. If Britain is heading for a snap election in about a year's time, the Labour Party will likely to disappear from large parts of the country as an electoral force. 

Put the fences up!

UKIP and the Brexiters have been very adept at conflating the migrant crisis in Europe with the issue of Britain's membership of the EU. Once the floodgates are open at Europe's outer borders, so the argument goes, Britain will be swamped by all sorts of folk from far flung countries.

Whilst this line of argument conveniently overlooks the fact that neither migrants nor asylum seekers (and these are two different groups indeed) won't be able to move about within Europe at will since they have no European Passport and can't gain entry to the UK unless they become citizens of a European country, it obviously resonates with many who feel frightened and worried about unchecked emigration. That moving around in Europe is easier said then done for migrants and asylum seekers does not matter much to the UKIPers.

Within this wildly distorted debate about Europe and migration, it may be useful to reflect on a similar episode in English history that fostered xenophobia and led to calls to uphold border controls. Here is Nicholas Fuller MP on the 'madness to tear down borders' between Scotland and England in 1607:

'One man is owner of two pastures, with one hedge to divide them: the one pasture bare, the other fertile and good. A wise owner will not pull down the hedge quite, but make gates and let them in and out ... if he do, the cattle rush in multitudes and much against their will return ...' (Davies, p.553)

Fuller's intervention proved decisive. The English parliament refused to approve the Instrument of the Union between Scotland and England for another hundred years.