rich_jacko

2020 was hell. 2021 was the year life began returning to normal. 2022 was a full year free from Covid restrictions, and therefore a year for seizing opportunities. Never take freedoms for granted. Unfortunately, the same is not true for everyone. Whether it's China's ongoing Covid mismanagement, or people closer to home restricting their activities by choice, many seem to be stuck in a perpetual 2020 and I worry how it will ever end for them.

Globally, the rest of the news hasn't been great either. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has dominated the global agenda, climate change is hitting home in ever more frightening ways (including disastrous floods in Pakisatan and an unprecedented 40°C heatwave here in the UK), and economies are in a mess for multiple reasons. Women's rights took a (possible) step forwards in Iran with mass protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, and steps backwards in Afghanistan with the Taliban increasingly restricting basic rights, and in the USA with the overturning of Roe v Wade.

Here in the UK, we saw the end of an era with the death of our longest reigning monarch, as well as political turmoil with our shortest serving prime minister, not to mention double-digit inflation, multiple strikes and the pitfalls of Brexit finally coming home. But it wasn't all bad news - football finally came home as well, with the women's Euro 2022 victory. Sam Ryder almost brought Eurovision home, the Platinum Jubilee was a success, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released, and Boris resigned.

Personally, there were a lot of highlights for me this year - including two seaside holidays with groups of friends, going to two weddings, and (of course) travelling up and down the country as I achieved 10 running medals and a whole host of PBs. Less headline-grabbing, but still noteworthy, were several times meeting up with distant family and friends, hikes in the peaks and a lot of parkrun tourism.

I've yet to start thinking much about 2023. I hope family members with health problems have a better time of it. I'll have a marathon to run, but I'm not planning to enter quite so many running events as this year. I'd like to go abroad at some point (It's been a while!). Beyond that, who knows? I should start planning...

Happy New Year! May good fortune smile on you in 2023! :o)

Clearly a standard reply, and doesn't answer my questions about the logic of Labour's Brexit proposals or whether any version of Brexit is better than remaining an EU member. It's marginally better than nothing, I suppose. The gist seems to be, "Any deal is better than a May deal, so vote for us!"

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From: Gill Furniss (gill.furniss.mp@parliament.uk)
To: [ ]
Date: 25 January 2019 13:34
Subject: Brexit and the Withdrawal agreement - an update (Case Ref: [ ])

Dear Richard,

In the last few weeks, I have been contacted by hundreds of local people, expressing many different views both about Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal and the decisions MP are being asked to take about our exit from the European Union. I am tremendously grateful for everyone who has taken the time to get in touch. At every stage, it has been important to know what people across Brightside and Hillsborough think.

Most people, whether they voted to leave or to remain, told me that they thought the withdrawal agreement that May brought back was completely unacceptable. This so-called deal left us facing a blind Brexit in which we were asked to leave with no idea of our future trading relationship with the EU alongside the prospect of being subject to a trading backstop which we have no power to end ourselves. The deal was bad for jobs and the economy. It failed Labour’s six tests for a deal and rejected our sensible proposal to form a new customs union with the EU, the most effective way to give the frictionless trade that business needs. It came with a political declaration which is simply a twenty-six-page wish list and not a guarantee of our future relationship with the EU.
MP cannot overturn the referendum result, but I know that many people believe that a public vote may be the only way forward. It is for this reason that Labour have put forward proposals to Parliament that would give MPs the chance to decide whether a referendum is the right option for our country. This proposal is alongside our work to win support in Parliament for our proposals for a new customs union and a close relationship to the Single Market.

I did not come into politics to make my constituents poorer. I will not accept any result that causes huge damage to Sheffield and that means that I must reject any notion that we could leave with ‘no deal’. This would be devastating locally and nationally as is shown by analysis from many organisations. I will be supporting efforts in the coming days and weeks to ensure that no deal is ruled out.

I have never seen our Country so divided as it is now over Brexit. My guiding principles are to protect our communities from the economic damage that a hard Brexit will cause and respond to the reasons why people wanted to leave the European Union. There is no simple answer but it is now abundantly clear that Theresa May cannot achieve this. Only a Labour government can bring the country together and the fight to win one goes on.


Yours sincerely,

Gill Furniss MP
Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough
 

Blimey, what a week in politics, eh? It's been one of those where, against my better judgement, I found myself glued to the news feeds, waiting to see whatever's going to happen next.

I have to admire Theresa May's determination and resilience. I'd have told her party to sod off and sort it out themselves long ago, if it were me. May has made some dreadful choices on the way here, but she honestly seems to believe her deal is the best way forward. The problem is, no one else does. My own view, from as much as I've read, is that it is a terrible deal. It mainly seems to be about how the 2-year transition period will operate, with almost everything about the future UK/EU relationship still to be negotiated. We'd be committing to payin £39bn and being locked into a customs arrangement, in which we'd follow many of the EU's rules, but with no say over them, until such time as we can agree a future partnership. Not exactly a strong position in which to begin the next round of negotiations. Where's the incentive for the EU to ever offer us a good trade deal if they can just lock us into this in perpetuity? I can see why both Leavers and Remainers hate it.

But I can also see the argument that it's probably the least worst unhappy compromise we were ever likely to get from the Commission. In most negotiations, both parties aim for that sweet spot where you find a "win/win" outcome. But the Commission is idealogically opposed to "win/win" being an acceptable outcome. Is a better deal possible? Probably not. I always said I had voted Remain to avoid making a mess.

So what does happen next? A Tory leadership challenge seems almost inevitable, but May will probably win it. It's hard to think of any other candidates who wouldn't be completely unacceptable to either one fringe of the party or another. She won't get her deal through Parliament, although it all seems a bit late for Parliament to have suddenly grown a backbone. If it wanted to dictate what would happen in the event the Government couldn't get its deal through Parliament, the time to do that was when passing the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 or the European Union (withdrawal) Act 2018. As things stand, if the deal doesn't go through, we crash out with no deal on 29 March next year.

Part of me wonders whether May's steadfast refusal to consider any other option is a tactic to try to get her deal through. After all, if the EU could see there was a chance of cancelling Brexit, in whole or in part, the deal they'd offer could be even worse. Will she change her stance if the EU27 sign the deal off? Or if our Parliament doesn't? Legally, Parliament has signed away authority for her to do whatever she wants, but it remains sovereign. It would be politically hard for her to ignore a Commons vote on what she should do next. If the will was there, they could even force through emergency legislation to force her hand.

But we're still lacking decent alternatives. The EU has said it's this, no deal or no Brexit (yay!). I can see they might feel an obligation to renegotiate if there were a new Government, but that seems unlikely. The Commons may not vote for the deal, but they aren't going to vote for a general election either - that needs two thirds of the House to support it, and I can't see enough Tories going for it. Not that Labour offer any helpful solution anyway, beyond their self-serving call for an election. Their official policy (such as it is) has most of the drawbacks of May's plan - locking us into an agreement as "rule takers, not rule makers" - without even the few scant advantages (massively outweighed by the disadvantages, but at least there's some small logic to it) of leaving that May's does. The main problem with having a general election though, is that we'd probably end up with the same result as the last one, solving nothing.

So what about another referendum, a "people's vote", on the outcome? Well, one problem is the question - three options doesn't work. Although the hard-line Brexiteers won't like it, I can't see Parliament approving a question with a catastrophic "no deal" on the ballot paper. So I guess it would come down to choosing between May's deal versus Remain. That could work, and it's starting to look like the only light at the end of the tunnel. The main problem with having a second referendum though, is that we'd probably end up with the same result as the last one, solving nothing.

Opinion polls show a 6-10% lead for Remain at the moment, but that's not far off what they were before the first referendum. The polls also show that Leave voters are much more likely to turn up at the ballot box, to make sure "the will of the people" is honoured. Voter turnout amongst the under 30s looks like it would stay abysmally low.

If there is another vote, there needs to be a concerted effort to change people's minds. My social media friends, we need to be self-aware enough to recognise that we exist in our own little political bubble. It's very easy to criticise Leave voters as being wrong, ignorant or racist, but that's not going to persuade any of them to vote differently. We need to "check our privilege" and remember who Leave voters are for the most part - the poor, the elderly, the less well educated, the forgotten voters of non-metropolitan England, those who feel that the whole political system has failed them and overlooked them, to the extent that they might as well roll the dice in the hope they might - just might - get something better. Telling them they're stupid or wrong just makes us look like the "liberal elite" who don't understand their concerns.

So if there is going to be another vote, we - not just politicians and leaders in civil society, but all Remain supporters up and down the country - need to start talking and understanding the reasons why other people support leaving, what they are hoping for for the future, and how we can achieve the best way of getting there. We need to stop burning bridges, and start building them. If the UK is to have any chance of getting out of this hole we've got ourselves into, the time for the politics of division has to be over. We all have a responsibility for that. I know very few Leave voters (six, at last count), but I'll be working hard to change their minds.

Interesting times, eh?

Because I feel I've been horribly neglecting LJ recently in favour of The Other Place:

• 13 January at 19:16 - Pleasing co-incidence: Tom Baker filmed 42 stories as the 4th Doctor. Douglas Adams was Doctor Who's script editor for part of that time. ;o)


• 26 January at 20:44 - New office jargon: "Doing an Abrams" - to recycle what someone else already did because it's easier than coming up with something new and, what the hell, it worked last time... ;o)


• 31 January at 23:25 - OMG! How come no one has ever suggested I should try eating Jaffa Cakes with custard before today? Nom! :oD


• 2 February at 19:23 - Cameron's strategy: "Look at how badly I've ballsed this one up. Do you REALLY want me in charge of negotiating the settlement if we vote to leave? Vote to stay!"

Wow. Astonishing results.

So, the UK voted in 2011 to keep FPTP and the night has shown comprehensively why FPTP doesn't work.

Scotland voted last year to stay in the UK but the Union now looks to be in more trouble than ever.

Everyone thought coalition governments would become the new norm, but the Lib Dems' fate makes it unlikely any smaller party will want to go into coalition ever again.

The big story of the campaign was the rise of those smaller parties, but we're ending up with a very blue / red / yellow (albeit a different shade of yellow) House of Commons.

Not a good outcome for so many reasons. Where do we go from here?

...and the Scottish referendum seems to be dominating the news and half of all conversations at the moment.

( So I'll put this under a cut in case you're fed up with it all already. )

Nigel Farage, for all his faults (of which there are, oh, so very many...) was right about at least one thing. A couple of years ago, he said that when politicians don't listen to the people, extremism rises.

( May contain ramblings )

This can go one of two ways now. The EU elite can finally admit that these results are the death knell of 'an ever closer union', and start to listen. If they do, this election may turn out to have been a very good thing, the start of proper reform of the EU so that it works for everybody. Alternatively, they can dismiss the results as domestic politics and fringe extremism, and plough on regardless. In which case, things will only get worse.

Let's hope they listen.

(I originally posted this to Facebook, where the UKIP-related hysteria has got a little, well, hysterical.)

Well, there we are. I have just spoiled my ballot paper for the first time in my life:

"None of you even tried to tell me why I should vote for you, so none of you get my vote."

I thought about adding, "...you useless fuckers," but I decided that would just be childish. Tempting though.

Is it just me, or are politicians on all sides going about this Scottish referendum business completely backwards?

What they should be doing is holding a UK-wide referendum on whether we should have a federal UK, with equal levels of tax and spending powers devolved to each of England / Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland, and other things (e.g. foreign policy) remaining central. If, after that, the Scottish Government wanted to hold a separate independence referendum, they could do so with the Scots voting in full knowledge of what was on offer if they stay part of the UK.

Or is that too sensible?

For what it's worth, I'm rather fond of Scotland and would be sad if it became a foreign country. But I think it's right that if the UK stays together, it does so by choice.

So, the students are revolting (*snigger*), and quite rightly too.

But what no one is talking about - not the politicians, not the students, and certainly not the universities - is what seems to me to be the real reason why the fees for a 3-year degree have jumped from nothing to £27,000 in little more than a decade:

There are just too damn many people going to university these days.

Politicians of all parties are fixated on "widening participation", students love the opportunities, and universities love getting bigger and offering more courses to more people. Exhibit A: You only have to look at all the new buildings the University of Sheffield flings up every year to see how relentless the expansion is.

Of course, university is a wonderful opportunity and a great experience. Having more and more people go there is a lovely idea, but it just isn't practical.

Firstly, academia isn't for everyone. Some people's talents would be better focussed elsewhere (apprenticeships, anyone?) and other people simply aren't able to cope with the demands of it.

Secondly, whilst having a well-educated workforce is great, there's simply no need to have half the population be graduates. People will always be needed to work checkouts, answer phones, clean the streets and drive the buses, and you really don't need a degree to do any of those. Exhibit B: Look at the graduate unemployment figures.

Surely it would far better to have a much smaller proportion of teenagers going to university - say about a quarter of them instead than half? That way, there could be sustainable government funding for a smaller university sector, educating the brightest students who will get the most out of university, and who will end up in jobs where they can actually use what they've learned.

That's got to be better than having half a generation being 27 grand in debt before they even start their working lives.