UK Party Conferences 2013

My disdain for the transparency and excessive aspiration of the party conference season was close to shutting down any thought of writing much about it, beyond the last article’s brief showing of a lack of deference. I thought to wait until the whole lot was over next week, when the Tories had said their piece, but I’m going to jump the gun on that. After the Lib Dems, UKIP and Labour there is surprisingly already quite a lot to say. Less surprisingly, none of it too good.

Quickly then. The Liberal Democrats once again set the bar for pitiful desperation, with notable speeches coming from Vince Cable as he went on the attack against their coalition partners for being the “nasty” party. Presumably this makes the Lib Dems the nice party. And Nick Clegg was almost popping an aneurysm as he screeched into the microphone, “We’re not here to prop up the two party system, we’re here to bring it down!” I have many problems with both sets of approach.

First, despite the occasional bleating threat from the catamites of coalition that they might cede from the agreement and leave the Tories to a minority government, the likelihood of this happening, at least until the most expedient moment in time prior to the 2015 elections, is minimal. Clegg himself stated with wild abandon that the Lib Dems simply must stay in power as otherwise Labour or the Tories would surely take us down the road of communism or fascism respectively. So Cable’s attacks on the Tories are little more than self-flagellation as his party are inexorably tied to them for the foreseeable future.

It won’t serve the Lib Dems one bit to paint the Tories with the nasty brush, because they have largely towed the line with the same power-hungry eagerness that has utterly annihilated their support base up and down the country. In this sense, they’re a bit like the school yard bully’s pathetic underling, the one who hides behind the big lad and supports his loutish behaviour but then runs to the teacher later to discreetly rat everything out, hoping to gain supremacy via treachery.

Frankly, Clegg’s entire speech smacked of, “If we say it loud enough and often enough, then it must be true.” It’s sort of an effective political strategy except for the fact that it was barely half a wink after the Rose Garden two or so years ago that those once loyal had forever written him and the party off as crass operatives lacking any scruples. I don’t think anyone believes the Lib Dems are around for any other reason than to serve themselves, and the notion they form a critical mechanism against main party excesses will only ever again fall on deaf ears.

Moving on, UKIP… ah, UKIP. Thank you for vindicating the avalanche of criticism I levelled at you some months ago after the aberration of your success in Eastleigh. There have been various things between that by-election and last week’s conference that have steadily delegitimized them, and so my expectation of a dearth of joy for them come 2015 is on track. This is only helped when central party figures like Godfrey Bloom not only depart the reservation, but actually go stratospheric with their patent deficiencies of character and credibility.

Do I even need to detail his infringements? Never mind the fact that his name is now popularly “Bongo” after his incredibly tactless comments on foreign aid some weeks ago – throwing around the term “sluts” and bashing up CH4 journalists with party pamphlets is a new kind of crazy. Bloom already lost the whip and is now also quitting the party in Brussels, but the damage has already been done. I can’t remember a single policy point or anything from, say, Farage’s keynote speech. So thanks Bongo! Enjoy the wilderness, but I don’t think you’ll be alone for long. UKIP really is a gift to satire.

As for Labour, well, the opposition has been having a very tough time of late. As if sliding poll numbers during a prolonged government austerity drive wasn’t enough of an indictment of their own quality as a group of politicians, Damian McBride’s dagger to the soft flank of his former comrades speaks further volumes. I would say first that I do not believe for a fleeting microsecond that Balls and Miliband weren’t party to McBride’s actions during the Labour years, as they themselves were staunch Brownites. The launch of his book was callously timed to take advantage of the Labour conference and deliver maximum sensation against Labour’s front pair.

As for the conference itself, we’ve had fairly empty promises of a return to socialism in the form of repealed taxes, increased benefits, more social support, bank levies… all of which screams of a reaction against criticism for Labour being only able to promote an austerity-lite model that was received with particular derision after nearly three years of lambasting and rejecting everything the coalition was doing. It’s a feature I particularly despise about the Labour party at present, but what really miffs me here is that all of these things that Balls and Miliband have promoted are barely even socialist.

It’s just classic New Labour. Big spending promises, which have largely already been called out as unfunded and impractical, and only a short while after they came close to financially sinking the nation. They have slipped straight back into bad habits after a few years in opposition left them completely floundering for an idea that was even remotely dynamic. It is really appalling. Miliband just gave his big speech, and although I’d usually reserve some words for how laughably uncharismatic he is, being as stiff and obviously coached as any useless public speaker I’ve ever seen, I think it would only distract from the more pertinent point.

If Labour went to the elections in 2010 saying of the Tories, “You can’t trust them on the NHS,” after 13 years of Labour government and a distinct shift in Tory culture and personnel, then how on earth does Labour expect we could trust them on the economy? It will have only been five years come the election and the people at the reigns are still very much the same that were central to Labour’s abysmal failings pre-2010. They haven’t learned and they haven’t listened. The Treasury reports a funding gap in Labour’s proposals of around £27bn, and I take Labour’s denial of this with absolutely zero faith. I think they are dangerous.

The Tories will probably repeat something along these lines during their conference, which I expect will be a fairly confident affair. The more the economy grows, the more their poll deficit will decrease and this will only be helped by Miliband’s beleaguered position. They should be careful however, because one thing Labour did accurately identify is that the recovery isn’t yet being felt by the majority of voters, and the cost of living has taken a sharp upturn. If in the next couple of years they can provide more than what amounts to Labour’s rhetorical dogfarts, they stand a decent chance.

Without wanting to sound too much like a right-wing sycophant I could suggest you read past articles where I liberally criticise the Tories and coalition for their various amateur errors, and surely they will produce some further points of consternation. But I guess at the moment the strident river of tripe emanating from the other parties actually puts the government in a reasonable light. If only they ditched the moronic bedroom tax and lowered VAT a bit. The narrative is there for the taking. I guess I should actually wait and see what their conference reveals…

Syrian Justice

Syria, Syria, Syria… all indications suggest that so much struggle and tragedy for the past two and a half years is about to boil down to some geopolitical wrangling and a reprieve for Assad. The West’s bizarre fixation on the use of chemical weapons has actually probably saved the man from an international onslaught, their surrender deemed sufficient to compensate for those made dead or displaced by conventional arms. Assad’s intent to brutally eradicate any vestige of resistance has taken second place to what the rest of the world deems acceptable means.

A round of applause for Putin, I suppose, he has consummately bitch-slapped his western counterparts in this particular round of diplomatic manoeuvres. His op-ed piece to the New York Times yesterday was like an international victory dance, as the Russian proposal for Syria’s chemical disarmament simultaneously distracted from the core issue of the still raging war and allowed Obama to avoid an embarrassing defeat at the House of Representatives. But everyone gets to look tough and proactive, so yippee-kai-yay.

After the breakneck pace of the last couple of weeks – the clear signs of a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the regime against a Damascus suburb, followed by rabid pronouncements of imminent action, followed by the decisive gut punch to any such action that was the UK Commons defeat on the motion – it somehow feels like a resolution of sorts is near. I say “of sorts” most generously. Here’s the potential reality we face – Assad loses his chemical weapons but is able to continue prosecuting his war courtesy of Russian and Iranian support, as the fractured movement against his regime is slowly choked out.

Russia maintains its vital Mediterranean ally, replete with warm water ports, while the balance of involvement from other regional nations shifts from military support to the rebels, to sustaining what will surely continue to be a long and painful refugee crisis, bought by Assad, paid for by Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. The international community will basically wash its hands of the scene, job done with regards to our arbitrary concern for chemical weapons, and not feeling too bad about the rest because of some decidedly symptom treating humanitarian support, pointless diplomatic pressure tantamount to screaming through sound-proof glass and because of the noxious proliferation of the narrative that Assad is only fighting terrorist Islamists.

What semblance of truth there is in that statement only exists because we stood back two or so years ago and watched Assad and the once more consolidated and honest rebellion open the doors to a broader sectarian nightmare. Would that the hammer had come down then. It seems to me that the catalyst for the current diplomatic route we’re travelling was the imminent threat of force, however stunningly deluded little Dougie Alexander might be, bleating as he his from within the Labour ranks about how they should take credit for all of this. No, rather Labour just managed to throw the whole process into disarray.

Intervention was justified, and only a consummate Milquetoast like Ed Miliband needed more proof… well, actually he didn’t, he just saw a window to beat Cameron for a change. There were more than enough indications that it could have been effective in crippling Assad’s regime. Putin and Assad were always sure to make the argument that intervention could only deteriorate the situation, it being in their deeply vested interests not to see the regime fail, and the general public of the UK and USA were all too willing to believe this after a decade of deeply controversial and largely unsuccessful actions in the Middle-East.

Oh but what about Hans Blix you say? That adherent to the UN, he warned against military action too. Yes well, the UN… an organisation, a vast organisation, with a mandate for self-preservation borne both out of the altruistic mission to hold the world together by the seams, and also by the self-interest of its employees. Military intervention would never have passed the Security Council and so would be necessarily in direct contravention to the UN. It’s ironic that Putin mentioned the League of Nations in his letter to America, as we could all be wondering how much more impotence and ineffectiveness the UN could actually survive at this point.

If nations like the USA, UK or France were constantly required to act without UN consent because of the permanently embedded impediment that is China and Russia on the Security Council, then what’s the point? Bravo, Putin, bravo.

What else is there to say? I guess this is about as much a measure of justice as those Syrians who wanted to be free of Assad are going to get. The justice of being shot, bombed and burned instead of gassed by a tyrant whose crimes somehow haven’t been deemed by the international community as so awful that his mere presence, let alone his continued rule, is as cruel an insult as one can imagine. How goddamned naïve of me.

Perspectives on Syria

I should really stop visiting the comments sections of major news organisation’s websites, particularly where currently pertaining to Syria. There is a reason that I have an almost negligible respect for the anti-interventionist brigade, which happens to be in the majority, and it can pretty much all be seen under every article on the Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Huffington Post… you name it. A deluge of utter morons has descended onto these forums to fill them with the most rank and misinformed perspectives on this issue. Conspiracy theorists, racists and the plain old idiotic who haven’t tried for a second to filter through the storm of information flowing out of the embattled nation seem to be forming this bulk of public opinion.

Here’s a selection of the standard offerings that have recently caused my blood to boil.

1. “This conflict was engineered by the USA in some sort of regional power play that would benefit Israel.”

This suggestion hardly even warrants attention, as the organic nature of the Arab Spring demonstrably fed into Syria, prompting localized protests against Assad’s regime that were brutally suppressed by Syrian security forces. Assad was already playing the “terrorists” card at this nascent stage of the civil war, causing a backlash of more protests that were also violently suppressed. Large elements of the Syrian army, not to mention the Syrian people, clearly took issue with this murderous tendency of Assad’s, causing desertion and defection to a newly established opposition front. Instead of negotiating, Assad escalated the conflict into a fully fledged civil war.

This all at the same time as US and Israeli relations being as tetchy as ever, and each country having plenty to concern themselves with. Months after the Syrian conflict began, both powers were quite content to ignore what was happening in Syria as Israel once again staged a short war in the Gaza Strip and the USA were deeply involved in Egypt, Libya and ever-so-slightly in trying to unsuccessfully mediate Israeli aggression in Gaza.

Narratively, practically, logically, empirically the first point is total bunk. It likely arises from the fact that the Golan Heights have been of significant strategic important to Israel since they took control of the region following the Six Years War, a conflict that was prompted by repeated antagonisms by Egypt, Jordan and Syria against Israel. Syria used the Golan Heights, which were supposedly demilitarized, to artillery bombard Israeli settlements.

In addition to this, Hamas and Hezbollah have both received extensive support from the Assad government over the course of their lifespans in order to engage in proxy conflict with Israel, a point of no small consternation to successive Israeli governments. There is clearly little love lost between these two nations, and the Syrian conflict is ripe for conspiracy theorists.

2. “The opposition are terrorists and have perpetrated the majority of the crimes in this conflict. Assad is the noble bastion of secular hope for a country that will otherwise be overrun by jihadists.”

This one is particularly offensive. At this deep and intractable stage of the war, there are indeed terrorist elements operating in Syria, but they are still only a small minority of the fighting element, unless of course you count the entire Assad regime. The Al Nusra front are estimated to have less than 10,000 fighters and are the only group with a known affiliation to Al Qaeda. Other groups with Islamist agendas such as the Syrian Islamic Front and Syrian Islamic Liberation Front promote varying degrees of adherence to Sharia principles and yet are still outnumbered by the ostensibly secular Free Syrian Army, by far the largest opposition element in Syria.

The Free Syrian Army was the earliest manifestation of an organised opposition force, back in the days when this conflict was generously still being called an internal security crisis. They formed off the back of Assad’s repeated employment of despotic measures to suppress calls for more democratic controls in a country that has been led by an Assad since 1971. The FSA has largely been comprised of the Syrian people who put down their trades and businesses and were forced to pick up guns because of Assad’s irreconcilable actions. Their numbers and efficacy were swelled by numerous defections from Assad’s own forces.

Assad and his state media machine have been persistently plugging the myth that all the while he has been fighting unlawful dissidents who threaten the regional stability brought by his regime. Many Western observers probably wrote the entire opposition off as a barbaric entity after a certain YouTube video showed one freak incident involving a rebel fighter cutting flesh from a dead Syrian soldier and having a nibble. Atrocious, yes, but wildly misrepresentative. There are actually other more substantive examples of non-individual controversies being attributable to the opposition forces, such as the use of suicide bombings.

But broad culpability for this war in general, and for the greatest share of specific actions that should chill a person to their core, are the responsibility of Bashar al Assad. As mentioned, he kicked the conflict off by using heavy military apparatus in an indiscriminate fashion against his own people, and perpetuated it likewise. The recent evidence of his use of chemical weapons is almost a moot point.

If the international community had taken decisive action at an earlier stage, we might not now be talking about how difficult intervention is because of the convolution caused by the presence of the the Al Nusra Front. I still don’t believe the existing terrorist element is actually significant enough to erode the secular emphasis of the Syrian nation.

Trying to de-legitimise the entire opposition based on the presence of these minority elements is either painfully misinformed or wilfully disgusting.

3. “Intervention is stupid. What, you want to stop Syrians dying by killing more Syrians? Warmonger.”

Shut the f@ck up. The reductive simplicity of this statement might make me want to cause you bodily harm. As if “intervention”, a term with a large variety of potential characteristics, implicitly means the West will indiscriminately carpet-bomb Damascus or that we’ll be dumping troops into another desert to slowly perish in a protracted occupation. People have been so quick to write off the effectiveness of any form of military intervention however, that I’m almost tempted to want precisely that so these types can see exactly how effective a well-executed intervention against a fatigued security force in a morale crisis can be.

Analysts and defectors have been quite clear that an array of military targets are available for Western forces to strike, which would have a devastating impact on Assad’s regime were he to lose them.

Accusations of warmongering could not be more ill-conceived. This conflict has been raging for about two and half years and the international community has more or less sat on its hands, being definitively too pathetic to act. It’s an utter tragedy that it’s taken over 100,000 dead and the blatant use of internationally outlawed chemical weapons to stop the world from dragging its feet over Syria.

As it is, the temperament of intervention is currently that the USA have given Assad a one week ultimatum to yield his chemical weapon stocks or face punitive strikes, an ultimatum actually backed by Putin who seems finally unable to ignore his nuisance regional ally. Yeh, that’s really champing at the bit for some death and mayhem.

4. “But if we do anything at all we’ll upset the delicate regional balance and makes things worse!”

This is the closest thing yet to a respectable anti-interventionist position, as indeed there is a fairly complex network of groups and interests at this point. However, as mentioned the FSA remains the key opposition unit in a country that has largely enjoyed secularism in its recent history, and the notion of an Islamist takeover strikes me as slightly exaggerated.

The main issue I take with this is that it is the same logic that has been applied by other nations from the start. After Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the immediate aftermath of Libya, there has been huge hesitance to do anything about Syria and look where we are now.

So… ok. Let’s keep doing nothing and hope for the best? Yeh. It’ll work itself out. Because the conflict isn’t at all only getting worse under the current conditions.

This one is called a difficult decision, and I put my stock in action at this point. Two and half years of frustration and upset caused by the endless newsreel out of Syria is about as much as I can take. Thus god forbid I was actually a Syrian right now.

Russia, China and Iran, by the way, are about as likely to involve themselves in a war as Ed Miliband is likely to ever possess a shred of moral scruples, or testicles for that matter.

5. “Iraq here we go again!”

No, and I’m not even sure where to start with this one. I’ll keep it simple. For reasons you should be able to research yourself, Iraq and Syria are completely different and must be judged by their own set of facts. Beyond this, the entire suggested character of Western involvement in Syria is SO different to Iraq that even the French are getting involved this time.

Yes, Hollande has shown a bit more international clout over Libya and Mali than his predecessors, but then add Merkel to the coalition, and Putin marginally stepping away from his unconditioned support of Assad, and you should be wondering less as to why I was so mean about Ed Miliband earlier.

6. “Intervention is really only about making Obama and Cameron feel good about themselves. Politicians like to massage their own egos with this sort of pointless action”

Again, hideously reductive. You know how racists often say, “I’m not a racist, but…”? The people who use this argument are almost exclusively saying, “We all care deeply for the Syrian people and want their suffering to stop, but… 6.”

Frankly, given how clear this matter is to me, and despite being in the clear minority, I’m starting to suspect that people pulling these daft arguments out are genuinely apathetic to this prolonged conflict, the many tens of thousands of dead, the millions displaced and a country laid to ruin.

Intervention is about stopping this conflict, and it has been demonstrated that intervention could be effective. If you think otherwise, you’re a cynic or worse.

7. “It’s not our problem, let the Syrians sort it out themselves.”

Well, as heartless as this perspective is, at least it’s honest. I would remind these people to think about their own words the next time they peacefully protest in this country about anything, or better yet, when they go to peacefully vote out this government, or the next, or many to come. Syria might not strictly speaking be our problem but it’s mighty hypocritical not to take into account the joys of living in a country like England.

Let’s just hope we never need any help should our government ever crack down on us Assad style, eh?

I’ve temporarily exhausted myself. But like the thronging crowds at a Victorian grotesquerie who can’t help but look in horror at the Elephant Man, I’ll likely return to these threads to encounter more of the best evidence I’ve seen to date that people can well and truly be utterly deluded.

Or Not…

Well. Did I speak to soon or has the House of Commons voting against action in Syria come as a genuine surprise? I think the latter but either way, it’s a great disappointment. If you were happy with this outcome know that such humanitarian luminaries as Vladimir Putin, and Bashar al Assad for that matter, support your position. It would be imprudent to get to carried away with what the UK’s lack of a role in whatever action does now take place would mean, as any interventionist campaign was going to limited in the first place, but I still believe this was the wrong decision.

Labour, under the worthless guidance of their leader Ed Miliband voted en masse against the military option. Perhaps I have a set of hate-tinted glasses on for this man by now but discussions with folk about his role in this passage have concluded very unfavourably for him. While it’s parliament’s job to reflect the will of the people, and opinion was not weighing in favourably on this issue, I would argue that on Syria broader public opinion is lamentably misaligned. As Philip Hammond phrased it, Iraq has poisoned the well.

There were and are lessons to be taken away from the last ten years of the UK’s military activity, primarily that we shouldn’t get into the wrong conflicts in the wrong manner. What we shouldn’t have told ourselves was that we should avoid all conflict because we can only get into the wrong conflicts in the wrong manner. To throw some platitudes at you, conflict can’t always be avoided and sometimes force does need to be met with force. Clearly Ed, Labour and a handful of Tories and Lib Dems disagree.

Painfully short-sighted, and although that’s an accusation easily levelled against someone of my position who wants intervention, I think my accusation carries more weight. As mentioned in the previous article, the Syrian crisis has been raging for over two years, utterly unchecked by diplomacy or any hint of concern for the well-being of the Syrian people. As things are going, this is a fight that won’t end until Assad kills everyone he needs to kill and likely many thousands more. His father taught him well.

Despite the brewing talk of intervention in the last week, there cannot possibly be a legitimate argument to say the West is warmongering or hasty. Our lack of action to this point is proof of that, as much as so many Syrians enduring prolonged, inhuman suffering. Before this conflict ends it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see parliament brought back to the question of intervention, with the added weight of more needless dead and the guilt of not having acted emphatically sooner. Whatever the US and France do at this point is likely only round one.

As mentioned, the lack of UK involvement won’t shake the very foundations of hope for the average Syrian and I doubt Assad is cracking open the champagne but it’s a sad indictment of the political cynicism in this country that we couldn’t get behind a limited campaign in pursuit of a worthy aim. Too good an opportunity for Miliband to ignore, as indeed Cameron has suffered an embarrassment after more than a little bold rhetoric. To quote No.10 and Foreign Office sources, “Miliband is a fucking cunt and a copper-bottomed shit.”

After leading the charge against Cameron’s intent, the man even had the gall to remind the government that it had a duty not to wash its hands of Syria. In case you’ve already forgotten that quote, “Miliband is a fucking cunt and a copper-bottomed shit.” Certain individuals like Simon Jenkins have indicated their belief that the suggested form of intervention, limited air strikes, serves only to massage the egos of the politicians who order them. They aren’t effective apparently. A hideous and reductive perspective.

Right now Assad continues his war against his own people, while essentially the world does precisely f@*k all and I’m sick to death of it. Something is better than nothing, looking at what nothing achieves, and if something starts with limited air strikes then the massaged ego of a few politicians is absolutely acceptable collateral.  With regards to war, we’re simply making a cowardly value judgement in favour of the collateral of inaction.

Again the Eve of Conflict

It’s looking more than likely that the USA, UK and France will once again be shipping out forces to fight a battle far removed from home. The Assad regime of Syria seems to have finally pushed too hard, with the chemical gassing of a Damascus neighbourhood resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of other casualties. Not the first hint of this civil war crossing into more vicious territory, and it was already more than vicious enough. As governments and militaries are this very moment drawing up plans, prompted further by the Arab League’s recognition of Assad’s clear and unacceptable crimes, the British public are already beginning to react.

The tone does not seem overly favourable to the idea of intervention. A quick flick through the comments section of any media site will prove this. Whether it’s outrage over another Middle Eastern intervention before we’ve even brushed off the sand from the last three, the fact that living standards don’t seem to be faltering enough for the government to drop probably millions of pounds worth of munitions in the coming weeks or more overt brands of cynicism (oil, power conspiracies, interests etc.), you could even say there’s a fair dose of pre-emptive anger. Whether you’re Obama, Cameron, Hollande or associated foreign secretary, you can guarantee this action isn’t being taken lightly.

How could it be? It’s been over two years since Assad’s forces started shooting his own people for peacefully protesting for more democratic controls, sparking the backlash against his government that quickly devolved into a civil war, no matter how cautious global commentators were in labelling it so. Throughout this time over 100,000 people have died in Syria, despite the repeated and impotent protestations of the international community. When the red line was drawn a few months ago over the use of chemical weapons, we even had to considerably thicken that line to the tune of blatant and callous use before we would act.

I’m no hawk. Not that you need to be to view things like the mismanagement of Afghanistan, the outright disaster of Iraq and the as yet unresolved troubles of Libya as stark indictments of Western government attitudes towards intervention and more importantly, reconstruction. But it still sickens to me read comments that are simply heartless to the plight of the Syrian people, and I hope beyond hope that this now almost unavoidable intervention will somehow get it right. I can’t even suggest what the character of that would realistically look like, given that this conflict is now beyond protracted and deeply convoluted.

Here’s what I’d say to the average dick who thinks the Syrians should just sort their own mess out. They were trying to and more or less just received indiscriminate gunfire for their troubles. Would you riot and rebel if the Cameron government let blood on the Mall like this because we wanted to have more freedoms? Too f@*king right you would, and you’d be crying across the Channel and the Atlantic for help all the while. This isn’t even the most pertinent point though. For nine out of ten Syrians, this was never their fight to lose and regardless their country is now largely reduced to rubble and graveyards because of a sick, megalomaniacal despot in Assad.

I don’t much care if the Syrian opposition has added their own share of controversy to this mess, as it seems as perfectly clear who landed the first and most overtly unjust blow, as who is responsible for continuing and escalating the conflict. There is no such thing as rulers. Leaders like Obama, Cameron and Hollande are all on borrowed time, graciously lent to them by democratic peoples. The moment Syria didn’t want the Assad regime was the moment he should have gone, not that they ever had a tenable mechanism with which to remove him. He never had any legitimacy to lead his people in the first place, inheriting all that he had from his father.

Not our problem? That’s a perspective for spineless hypocrites in my opinion. Like any instance where the world has twiddled its thumbs while thousands upon thousands of innocent people have perished in a war completely beyond their control, Syria deserves help. Whether you like it not or it’s around the corner, just maybe remember your objections the next time you go to peacefully vote out Cameron because you didn’t like him. I support the intent. Just pray it isn’t another failure.

The EU Hurts Itself by Helping UKIP

The latest Eurofeud within Westminster is already well under way, as this blog as been discussing at some length in the recent weeks. It’s nice to know however, that the feuding isn’t for nothing, that there is a tangible purpose to the whole thing. The Eurosceptics are too extreme in my opinion but then the status quo-ticians are also deeply frustrating. The UK, by which I mean its primary constituent in its people, are for the greater part not happy with the current dynamic and are certainly not happy with the look of the future.

And Brussels today throwing down the continental law gauntlet is a perfect encapsulation of the public dissatisfaction. Adam Weiss of the Advice for Individual Rights in Europe outfit is not happy with Westminster trying to reform the benefits system where it pertains to migrants, and believes that everyone is entitled to the same access, quality and quantity of government support. Where the Queen’s Speech laid out the intention to limit these things to migrants, in the first step of government on the road to rendering UKIP obsolete, the European Commission takes Weiss’ side and says, “Non!”

I don’t necessarily agree with the legislative measure on principle, as it does seem jingoistic to say, “We get the full teet and they don’t because they ain’t from here.” It isn’t the strongest position to hold to but I can understand the political reasoning behind it, which is trying to calm a few frayed sensibilities. It may be misinformed to suggest our country is being overrun and that we can’t afford all the welfare support to these ‘mooches’, as we’re not being overrun and migrants are largely hard working folk, but perceptions of ownership of ones home nation are very sensitive and can’t be dismissed out of hand.

You could accuse various governments in the past couple of decades of having done this, and the result is this present surge in UKIP support, aided so handily by the currently poor economic climate being heavily informed by European problems. Being extraordinarily generous, that is a tenuous platform from which the EU is imposing their will upon the nation. Ian Duncan Smith, who has somehow evaded a medieval style tarring and feathering for his domestic reforms to welfare, now has a serious mandate to challenge the legal process we’re now being dragged through. He could emerge redeemed, or if he fails, possibly irrevocably disgraced.

The feeling will be that either he wasn’t effective enough, and so domestic welfare cuts will seem unfair against the inability to make reforms specific to foreign born residents, or it will seem that he couldn’t be effective even if he wanted to, and that is more fuel for the “out” campaigners. Either way, the Tories lose, UKIP win and if Europe had honest desires to keep the UK in the union, Europe loses too. I don’t have the least considered or moderate of positions on the question of Europe and even I am fairly outraged every time our judicial and legislative bodies are rendered impotent by a body I feel I have no connection to whatsoever.

It’s hard enough to feel engaged with even the domestic political situation sometimes. I get to vote in my MP and councillors and the minimal degree of democratic participation isn’t exactly thrilling. Don’t even try to sell me the idea of MEP’s, as they couldn’t possibly hope to make me feel more enfranchised than someone who represents a fraction of the people they are supposed to. This to me is the greatest flaw with the entire idea of the EU. By dragging the process up another tier and even further away from the hands of the people, they leave themselves wide open to accusations of technocracy.

Why can’t it be like the USA? Well for a start, the USA is hardly the model federal system itself, and to say it works isn’t altogether the truth. Ignoring the fact that European history is deeper, more complex, and replete with wildly different cultures, languages etc., there is in the USA a constant debate and struggle over the dynamic between state and federal authority. This coming from a nation that was founded with some federal principles, is a stunning indictment of the lack of reality in the thinking of those who believe Europe can be the same any time soon.

For this continent to evolve into something like the USA, it would take one hell of a lot more nuance and consideration from the drivers of the project, not to mention more time. This is complicated by a lot of recent indications, such as the failures of a lack of unified monetary policy within the Eurozone, that suggest the project must be brought forward with intent. But as a result we’ve seen in the past few years a proportional increase in dissatisfaction alongside every news report telling us that Europe tells us we can’t do this, that or the other.

It seems very clear that renegotiation is the best way forward for both parties. The historical impetus that drives the continental desire for the EU has never been rife in the UK and it’s time for the honest discussion that achieves a mutually desirable outcome. UKIP will only antagonise the debate and so let’s hope that Cameron takes a robust set of proposals to the table and that the EU is willing to listen. The sooner I know what exactly the heck Cameron thinks the renegotiated position is, the better, for everyone, because while I don’t want to be governed from outside the UK, I also don’t want the UK to slip into belligerent obscurity.

Britain’s Gay Marriage Headache

Good lord, just when I think I have a window to ditch this scene, I’m pulled back in. For a fortnight now I’ve been trying to write about something, anything, outside of the UK and with the gears of Westminster now steadily grinding out the latest EU nightmare, it seemed like a good time to look abroad. Scandal in America, political upheaval in Pakistan, Syria somehow finding another rung down on the ladder to hell… interesting things. What wins out unfortunately is Tim Loughton MP, and that acronym, if you didn’t know, for Tory backbenchers actually stands for Massive Prick.

Wadeth he into the gay marriage bill, single point of pride for Westminster in recent times, with not so much a cleaver, but rather covered head to toe in some foetid and unusually sticky substance, presumed to be the moral diarrhoea of his fellow party troglodytes. So angered are they by this government’s daring to level the playing field for people of all sexual orientation, before ripping the UK out of the European project without a moments forethought, that they are effectively holding the bill hostage. A pack of snarling, drooling infant vampires if ever there was.

The point was raised in last week’s Question Time, presumably for the approval of Tory throwback Philip Hammond, that it seemed unfair that heterosexual couples were only entitled to marriage, not civil partnership, whereas homosexuals would now have access to both. The Defence Minister, who tried to suggest that the people were also angered by the government’s prioritisation of gay marriage over the “economy”, must have taken this point, ridiculous and insignificant when compared to inequality and persecution of homosexuals, back to party HQ.

After a Satanic ritual resembling a bukkake sequence, during which these bucktoothed, horse-faced and over-bred pack of social regressors subliminally communicate their prejudiced, backwards views, it was decided. This would be the next stylus in the flank of their leader and the progressive hopes of the majority of the nation they conspire to keep from advancing into the 21^st Century. Just when you thought the Conservative Party didn’t have a single remaining bullet with which to shoot itself, they dig one out of somewhere.

Adding this amendment to the Marriage Bill is intended to slow the whole process down and eventually even resign it to the dustbin of political stagnancy. That Labour initially came out with favourable sounding noises over the matter is a mystery and it was left to Nick Clegg of all people to call for some common sense. “Don’t derail the bill,” to paraphrase. But where Labour at least could claim honest support for the notion of equal access to both forms of personal union, the Tories have nothing to hide behind. Half the party voted against the bill in the first place.

But Labour have indeed now crunched the numbers through their little machine, the one that calculates public resonance and produces the most expedient course of action, and are tabling their own amendment, ostensibly to the same effect as Loughton’s. I’ve yet to ascertain why Yvette Cooper thinks this will “save the bill”, instead of producing the same gumming effect as Loughton’s, but apparently she is confident it would garner more cross-party support and would be free of some of the impediments that No.10 have cited.

Where the £4bn price tag for extending civil partnerships is from, is something about which I am just as curious as Cooper, but whether or not it is true, I’m slightly miffed by the presumption of her party that they are doing anything other than opportunistically grandstanding over Tory in-fighting. If they had just stayed away from the amendment issue altogether, there wouldn’t have been enough support for Loughton in the first place. It seems Labour just cannot resist the temptation to compound David Cameron’s woes.

He had to go begging to them not to support Loughton’s amendment so the bill could pass with greater ease, and Labour then have the audacity to attack him for undermining the bill by raising concerns over an amendment process. The opposition are clearly more interested in seeing Cameron fall, even if that meant the death of the Tory party’s moderate agenda. Labour would be fighting a much less agreeable conservative government in that situation, further proving they haven’t an ideological conviction of any depth to speak of. The Labour Party. Politics first.

To end on an emphatic note, if this latest of Westminster clusterf*@ks results in the gay marriage bill being shelved, I’m out of here. Just point me in the direction of the nearest moderate liberal nation whose legislators haven’t got their heads intractably burrowed up each others rectums. I already have the lowest sense of pride and confidence in our lot than I have ever had. There would be nothing left after a regression like this one. Marriage means whatever the hell we want it to mean and everyone gets the same deal, end of story.

The Good Ship Eurofeud Embarks Again

Well well… it turns out our Prime Minister has a little fight in him after all. Quick to chide cabinet ministers Gove and Hammond over their indiscretion concerning the European question, and holding the course on the 2017 date for the referendum, it seems he’s not ready to bend over to the Eurosceptics quite yet. Although doubling down on holding the referendum if renegotiation is rejected by Europe will hush the right a bit, two and half years after the general election is certainly less politically expedient than it could be. A smattering of confidence in the party’s 2015 intentions, and in his own renegotiation policy.

A cheeky little endorsement from Obama on his support for a “fix” is nice, but isn’t certain to shake more than a few MPs out of their intoxication, drunk as they are on pandering to this transient UKIP bounce. The American president isn’t exactly every conservative’s cup of tea. This week, from the comfort of a New York armchair, Cameron gave his fellow party leaders Clegg and Miliband a minor savaging on their own undetermined positions regarding the UK’s relationship with the continent. “Heads in the sand,” as the PM phrased it, omitting entirely his own firmly lodged disposition up until the last few days.

While a very large question mark remains over the issue of what this renegotiated position would look like, the suggestion is that it would come heavily down to Cameron’s individual abilities as a statesman. In the face of Hadal level confidence and even whispers amongst conservatives that here is a latter-day John Major, the embattled leader’s resurgence, of sorts, is vital to his prospects. And judging by the debate in the Commons yesterday over the Queen’s Speech and this theatre about the absence of the EU question, Cameron does appear to have turned some of the guns away from himself. Rigorous criticism was circulating around the entire House, notably in Clegg’s direction.

The amendment was easily defeated 277 to 130, but the 114 Tory MP’s who voted in favour are still a long term issue for Cameron. And with 29 year old Eurosceptic MP James Wharton winning the private member’s ballot for the first attempt at a referendum bill today, we can anticipate early problems in the process. Wharton is a staunch in/out referendum supporter and will certainly be trying to lock down the House on the 2017 date. It was by no means an overwhelming rebellion on Europe, but with backbench support up from 81 in favour of a referendum in a late 2011 vote, the already blatant swoon rightwards by some MPs is further indicated.

Now it remains to be seen how many in the Commons will actually get behind Wharton’s bill, and while it is currently likely to be shot down, the Tory’s did announce this morning that the three line-whip was coming down in favour of it. Cross-party backing is in short supply right now, although 11 Labour votes in favour of the Queen’s Speech amendment shows some desire in the opposition for Miliband to take a stronger stance on Europe, and as Tory Eurosceptic John Baron was suggesting earlier, there will be hopes a few Lib Dems could be rolled over in favour too. This issue remains something of an anathema to me though.

At the time of the Lisbon Treaty, Clegg was a bold little mouthpiece when it came to Europe, calling for a referendum then, and carrying this message through to 2008 and beyond. Despite criticising Cameron on the radio today for the renegotiation policy being “clear as mud”, where he stands and wants his party to stand on the matter is now one of Westminster’s total mysteries. To “lead the reform and then give people a say in a referendum when that leads to a change in the rules”, is ostensibly a position loyal to the coalition agreement, which stipulated that changes in the EU relationship would trigger an automatic referendum.

Sadly, the agreement also states that he and the Lib Dems have to be integral to such a reform process, and in light of Clegg’s hateful fecklessness, born from a confusing amalgam of power hunger clashing with a party political need to remain distinct from his coalition partner, I predict he will be true to his spanner-like identity. Thrust himself firmly into the works he will, the unmitigated pillock and architect of Liberal Democrat ruination. He’ll be the linchpin of political deadlock for the next two years while his party begin trying to carve themselves a more distinct and electable identity for 2015.

Rant over. They just annoy me, the Liberal Democrats. Not being a Eurosceptic myself but recognising the problematic relationship between the UK and an increasingly integrating continent, at least politically, it seems clear that public sentiment is generally in favour of strong and determined action to achieve the relationship the public is comfortable with. I believe in renegotiation, albeit ideally helmed by someone less precarious and subject to the sceptics gaze than Cameron, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong in questioning the very one track European trajectory that has been.

As disturbing as it is to say this, as long as Cameron can hold his nerve he remains the best prospect for moderate change. Labour haven’t shown signs of offering the British people what they want and I doubt the Lib Dems under Clegg will ever have the guts to follow through with their supposed position. UKIP simply want the UK to slip into obstinate and isolated ignominy with their extreme position, more to the tragic irony of their general “Rule Britannia” understanding of the world. So… yeah. If Europe is the central issue in your mind, then the man even I had virtually written off last week is indeed your flickering, faint supermarket-bought pocket torch of a thing once known as hop… shop? Hope! Hope.

Spring of the Long Knives

Nigel Farage must be laughing himself silly. Not to be hyperbolic, but chaos has beset the main three parties, as the last few weeks show the knives being drawn from clunky sheaths by not the subtlest of hands. Just today, Conservative cabinet ministers Hammond and Gove turned up the temperature on Cameron by announcing that a referendum on Europe tomorrow would see them voting “out”. The pain isn’t limited solely to the Tory leadership however, as signs indicate Labour and Liberal Democrat factions are steadily beginning to murmur insubordination.

It doesn’t come as the greatest of surprises that Peter Mandelson is dipping his beak back into the news cycle at this point, with words that poor old Ed Miliband won’t be delighted to read. Attacking the vagueness of the rather insipid “One Nation” theme that the opposition launched at last year’s party conference, the more cutting edge of his criticism was about Labour’s broader trajectory and focus. “You have to be more than a slogan and more than a label to get people to vote for you. So much is obvious,” he says.

Clearly not obvious enough to his party’s Commons front bench, who have proved guilty of being little more than a hollow protest bloc under Miliband’s leadership. The odd whispers of exciting, intellectual social democratic ideas that he is reported to be a font of haven’t translated into notable policy or a cohesive party mission. And more importantly, they haven’t translated into an energising force in terms of the electorate. Miliband, and Ed Balls for that matter, have consistently polled worse than their opposites in government.

This will be a strange one for Miliband to compute, given that “One Nation”, a concept pinched off conservative Disraeli, was his attempt to plant the Labour flag much closer to the Mandelson-favoured centre-left. A mild twist, given that Miliband came up through the party in the Brown faction that never quite got behind the “Third Way”, and was propelled to the top by the unions. Without the support of the dark lord of the New Labour movement and having been recently thoroughly spanked by Unite leader Len McCluskey for not being a union lapdog, it seems that Cameron is not alone in his hapless scramble in the dark for an ideological foothold.

Perhaps the most speculative of the treacherous whispers is regarding Nick Clegg, although how his fate isn’t considered inevitably sealed by his party’s current flirtation with ruin is an enigma. Whether or not Gove’s suggestion that Clegg’s opposition to childcare reforms is an attempt to shore up his strength in the party is almost irrelevant. Supposing that the slyly propagated rumour was true, and even if Lord Oakeshott were to put Vince Cable on the throne, the party are doomed to face only more electoral pain for the coming years. The initiative is gone for the Liberal Democrats, and they won’t see another bump in the polls like 2010 for some time, if ever again.

Of greatest import currently is that we’re on the eve of dramatic activity within the Conservative party, with events since the local council elections telling us that Cameron is likely to surrender to most of his right wing’s demands on Europe and immigration. Unless he has suicidal tendencies. Even the “compassionate” sympathisers seem to be getting dragged by fear into the traditional fold as is particularly indicated by Gove, who has been a major supporter of Cameron up to this point and for a long time. The education secretary undercutting his leader so bluntly is no small thing.

Until the 25^th hour Cameron was desperately trying to inject enough confidence in his EU “renegotiation” strategy with Merkel to avoid this sort of mess, but UKIP struck too soon and he simply failed in that respect. With prominent ministers speaking their rather expedient piece, adding to the anti-EU chorus of old Tory notables like Nigel Lawson, this bizarre vote on the Queen’s Speech amendment on Tuesday is about as clear a message to the PM that it’s time for obedience on Europe. That, or protracted in-fighting, which could consign the lot of them straight back to opposition.

Tense times, where centre-ground politics are at stake. The country is generally not at all lurching to the right, as the Daily Mail might idiotically suggest in an attempt to deny Labour some comfort out of a very soft performance in the polls, but the race to target the middle that New Labour initiated has presently lost its vigour. I don’t think it’s impossible that we see a set of manifestos come 2015 that much more resemble types from the pre-Blair years. It’s looking that way for the Tories and we still have to see for Labour, but the amount of time they take to start galvanising their bases is directly proportional UKIP’s consummately unwanted longevity.

David Cameron’s Pickle

This isn’t an article about the Prime Minister’s penis, or any part of his genitalia for that matter, although were he to find his testicles any time soon it would a tremendously good thing for the country. Cameron’s reaction to the UKIP plague has been a consummate disappointment in the immediate aftermath of last week’s council elections. Where William Hague calmly assured of no lurch to the right, we see in the Queen’s Speech the new centre-piece of coalition politics – immigration reform.

This has been in the deck for a while now but one suspects the PM was holding it in his pocket for the day when he needed more than his Etonian credentials to sate his right wing’s fears over anything moderate. That day has come but it is a tragedy the card has to be played due to external forces. An intra-Tory xenophobia war could have been managed and largely squashed but with UKIP putting serious pressure on the party, there is every likelihood we will see some startling changes in the months to come.

I described the PM in my last article as a curiously wet non-entity and that assessment remains. Where my excitement has gone over his centrist appeal and apparent dynamism with regards to taking the Conservative Party in a new, compatible and modern direction, I’m not sure. Probably flushed down the toilet with half a dozen cabinet fails, a couple of party rebellions around Europe and gay rights and an ever sluggish economy. All taken together it smacks resoundingly of a dearth in leadership.

The traditional Tories were never going to just fade away or become naturally subducted into Cameron’s compassionate model, that is, beyond initial electoral logic. He clearly failed to realise that this was his job, to carry the party with him. Instead he ploughed forward with his loyal clique in tow and has up to this point been dangerously dismissive of those within the party who opposed his more progressive tendencies. Not that I’m defending the reprehensible Nadine Dorries, but the leadership’s treatment of her is indicative of this.

If immigration needs reforming then fine, do it. I’m hugely wary of the wide and competing range of arguments in this area and frankly cannot be bothered to wade into that now. All I know is that the timing of this new initiative is cynical and transparent to the point that I’m tempted to add Cameron to my Bonfire of the Ministers. The right wing is indisputably wagging the Cameron, if you’ll pardon my phrase-butchery.

Compassionate conservatism is now a dead brand thanks to wildly controversial NHS overhauls and welfare reform, coupled with slashed corporate and 50p tax rates, against a backdrop of decreasing living standards. The electorate won’t buy that line again for some time indeed. So while the rightwards lunge is hugely undesirable, the centre is no longer fertile ground for the Tories and they are left in an ideological crisis. At the moment, Labour can reasonably look forward to a leading share in the vote come 2015, as completely undeserved as that is and would be.

I tentatively whispered some months ago that perhaps Hague deserves a second shot at the top job, especially if he could do so during a period that wasn’t politically untenable for the Conservative Party. I wouldn’t exactly describe the current climate as tenable but the Tories are still in power with a good stretch ahead of them. While I’m usually highly skeptical of the often nominal cabinet reshuffle, proactivity should probably come in the form of radical personnel changes. I’d prefer that to an immigration policy that satisfied those with the worst perspective on the issue.