Yearly Archive: 2021

The current dispute between the EU and the UK over the practical application of the Northern Ireland Protocol section of the EU Withdrawal Agreement has the potential to ignite or re-ignite sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, and also to cause a major trade and logistics dispute between the UK and the EU.

From a practical perspective, sectarian violence is a lose: lose for everybody, and if there is a trade dispute between the EU and the UK, there will be significant negative impacts in the UK, which is not self-sufficient in most basic supplies for a highly populated post-industrial society. A trade war, if it occurs, will not end well for the UK. it will impact the EU also, but given the disparity in GDP size, and the reality that many trade routes into and out of the UK are via the EU, the effects will be disproportionately felt in the UK.

The history of the relationship between the EU and the UK is one of initial reluctance by the EU (or the EEC as it was then) to let the UK even join in the first place. President De Gaulle famously vetoed the first UK attempt to join in the late 1960s, and in turn, there was significant resistance in the UK when it finally agreed to join in the early 1970s. The resistance to EU membership never went away, it simply went underground in the two major political parties, waiting for an opportunity to re-emerge, which happened in 2015. Both parties were crippled in their approaches to campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU as a result.

The UK’s relationship inside the EU were always contentious. Margaret Thatcher certainly pissed off the EU leaders multiple times during her largely successful attempt to negotiate a better financial deal in the 1980s. However, the Single Market in its current form was a concept that she supported and lobbied for, since at the time that the UK joined the EU, it did not exist in the form in which it exists today. So the UK, while it was an EU member, had very significant strategic influence on the evolution of the EU.

However, the EU has always tended to see the UK as a reluctant member, and strategic UK actions since the 1980s, such as the refusal to join the Euro, and the attempt by David Cameron to head off a negative result in the 2016 referendum by once again re-negotiating the terms of UK membership, have reinforced that feeling. The UK’s sense of imperial exceptionalism has not helped its relationships while in the EU, and the current post-Brexit mess is merely a continuation of a fractious relationship.

BTW, I regard the Euro as a qualified failure; while it certainly added to trading convenience, it deprives a country in the Euro of a valuable economic lever for crisis management, namely the ability to devalue its currency. That caused major problems when Greece lurched into insolvency and could not devalue its debts by devaluing its currency; it no longer had an independent currency to devalue. The UK was right to not join the Euro.

The bigger question is why the relationship has always been fractious.

In my opinion, a major cause of the problem is that the political cultures in the UK and Europe are, in most cases, fundamentally different. Most European countries have electoral systems based on forms of proportional representation. They also have much more fluid political systems, with more than 2 major political parties, and with rapid evolution (and disappearance) of political movements. As a result, government by coalitions is the norm, rather than the exception. The EU reflects that, in that it is an unwieldy coalition of 27 countries, which for major decisions, requires unanimity.

The UK has no significant history of coalition governments. Apart from wartime, when party politics was essentially suspended, the only UK coalition of any length was the recent Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, with the LibDems very much as the junior partner.

The two major political parties in the UK have always been publicly hostile to proportional representation, claiming that a “first past the post” system is needed for what they term “strong government”. Cynically, they would say that, since a government with a majority in the House of Commons in the UK can essentially do what it likes. They do not have to take any notice of any other interest group or political party. It is not realistic to expect either of the two major parties to support the change of a system that has given them a comfortable duopoly for centuries.

People who are hostile to PR like to justify that hostility by mocking Belgium, which has had perpetually unstable coalition governments for decades. It once went nearly a year without any government at all. However, Belgium is not a credible example of the problems of PR. It is a manufactured country, formed by merging Wallonia, Flanders and part of North West Germany to act as a buffer state between France and Prussia. The reason for the instability is that the coalitions reflect linguistic community dynamics, and there is lingering distrust between the French and Flemish speaking communities. In an ideal world, Belgium would be unwound, but nation-states tend to be regarded as inviolate. (If the world was pragmatic, Kurdistan would be re-created also. But I digress).

The UK electorate had the chance to change from “first past the post” to a form of PR in 2011, but unfortunately chose to vote No. Since both major political parties were against PR, I was not surprised by the result. However, it has locked the current system in place for the foreseeable future.

The lack of proportional representation and coalition politics in the UK had persistent negative consequences when the UK tried to work within the EU. The decision-making processes in the EU are entirely coalition-based, and significant ones require unanimity. This does not sit well with the governing mindset in the UK of “we’re in charge”. As a result, the UK regarded the EU decision making processes as hopelessly cumbersome and too deferential to smaller countries, while the EU regarded the UK approach as insensitive and dictatorial. It’s two different mindsets of how to govern.

As you might expect from a supra-national grouping founded on consensus, the EU’s political leaders are almost all from countries with a strong tradition of PR, so they are experts at satisfying multiple divergent interest groups and building unanimity for proposals and laws. The UK’s politicians have little to no background in that style of politics, and more seriously, they never really showed any interest in learning how to operate that way. As a result, the relationship was marked by the bureaucrats working well together behind the scenes, with periodic public spats as the UK complained about something or other, and the EU leaders counted to a large number and said under their breath “here we go again”.

The resulting friction was always a part of the EU-UK relationship, and it still continues to this day, with the UK thumping the table after Brexit and demanding concessions from the EU. This is not a style of interaction that would have worked well while the UK was in the EU, and it is even less likely to work now that the UK has left.

The difference in political cultures has implications for any future relationship, up to and including the UK rejoining the EU, which will probably not happen in my lifetime. I consider it unlikely that the UK will even be considered for closer relationships unless there is a profound change in the current UK political culture. Whilst PR is not a requirement for EU membership, the current “winner takes all” mindset of UK politics is not a good match for the EU culture. Until the UK’s political culture becomes a lot more collaborative, I see no real prospect of any significant long-term improvement in EU-UK relations.

Right now, with a deeply authoritarian UK government in place, the two parties are about as far apart as you could imagine. Hence my skepticism that the current arguments over the Northern Ireland protocol will be resolved without further escalations.

I left out the “people behaving as assholes” commentaries this weekend. There are far too many to choose from. The failure to take mental health seriously over decades, and the negative impacts of sequestration as part of Covid-19, have left a lot of marginally adjusted and poorly-socialized people with significant temperament and anger management issues. Until societies start taking mental health a lot more seriously, while still making people accountable for their own actions, this problem will continue to build.

1. The G7 Summit

The annual public strutting of the G7 leaders has completed in Cornwall. As is usual at these kinds of events, disagreements behind closed doors are papered over with bright-fluffy-bunny press releases and fine-sounding statements of…well, some kind of intent to eventually think about getting around to possibly doing something at an unspecified future date about an urgent issue. Like Global Warming. Nothing significant, you understand.

However, the interaction dynamics between the participants can be seen via images and videos. Which is more interesting for observers when much of what is actually being said between the leaders is not visible, and is heavily filtered for public consumption.

The good news for the UK was that Boris Johnson scored a meeting prior to the start of the summit with President Biden. As normal, both men attempted to play down private disagreements, and portray a position of agreement on key issues. However there is a big difference between a statement like “we agree on the need to solve the Northern Ireland problem” (which is the equivalent of saying “we both agreed that water is wet”) and actually agreeing on how it should be solved. Everything that has emerged from the G7 shows that Biden told Johnson that he needs to solve the problem without pissing off the EU or the United States. When one government sends another government a formal diplomatic warning, that indicates a clear disagreement on something fundamental.

Right now, the UK government’s entire public strategy appears to revolve around bellicose statements challenging the need to even obey the new deals signed with the EU. Johnson and other government leaders, including the juvenile and scientifically illiterate leader of the DUP, Edwin Poots, seem to be trapped in a rhetoric hole of their own making. This bellicose table-thumping threatening made for some uncomfortable meetings, and torpedoed the original idea of the summit being a launch-pad for a New Global Britain (whatever that cute-sounding marketing phrase might mean).

2. The Addiction model of misinformation

Nick Carmody explains why the entire “Trump won” and QAnon cult follower groupings are probably an addictive behavior based on a combination of fear induction, and dopamine highs caused by further feeding of misinformation to confirm existing biases.

Because it is fundamentally an addiction, treating interactions as an opportunity for discussion and debate is almost certainly a waste of everybody’s time. The smartest people in the room may be the ones that walked away from interaction with friends and family members when they realized this.

3. Covid-19 

I am concerned that there will be a further wave of Covid-19 infection, which will proportionately impact the Southern states, due to the low overall levels of Covid-19 vaccination in many of those states. There is a clear correlation right now between political ideology and willingness to be vaccinated. States that have a majority of Democrat-voting progressive voters have significantly higher vaccination rates than states dominated by Republicans. 

The new variant of Covid, B.1.617,  is being referred to as the India variant.  I don’t think that name is racist, it simply reflects where the first contagion was identified, unlike the persistent GOP and anti-vaccine activist messaging of Covi19 as the “China virus”. When you read the comments of people using that name, it is almost always accompanied by allegations that Covid was manufactured and released by China. As far as I can tell, nobody is alleging that India or anybody connected to India released B.1.617.

B.1.617 is clearly more transmissible than prior variants, so if there are insufficient vaccinated people in a community, and/or there are insufficient precautions being taken by people to minimize the chance of infection, that new variant may soon dominate new cases and contagion, and a new wave may happen and force the return of rules that nobody really wants, like travel restrictions and indoor gatherings and entertainment venue restrictions.

4. Goodbye to Texas (soon) – a 2 year plan

After the mendacious and contemptuously undemocratic attempt by the GOP in Texas to ram through a blatantly unconstitutional and fascistic voting management bill, I have determined that we need to leave Texas sooner rather than later.

I am setting a 2 year target for us to be living somewhere else. The “somewhere else” is not yet determined. It could be California, where Mary’s family is from, or Costa Rica, or Hawaii.

Europe is out of the picture, because the UK leaving the EU left us with no ability to live in Europe in any EU country in retirement without paying penal healthcare costs. I am certainly not going to return to the UK, after numerous recent demonstrations that England is now dominated by nativism, xenophobia and a wish to return to the Days Of Empire. The UK failed Civics 101 starting 11 years ago when they failed to vote for proportional representation. They failed it 3 more times, once when they voted Leave, and twice in General Elections. I cannot trust, in aggregate, the electorate in England. In aggregate, they are making bad decisions and enabling politicians who have no respect for the democratic process.

My family in the UK will have to get used to us, in all probability, living further away than before. But since, as far as I can tell, they probably voted for Brexit, they actually have to own the outcome, and this is part of the outcome. We wanted to move to the Azores, but that is not going to happen.