Now the fun begins
As a self-professed cynic I sometimes get accused by readers of not taking politics seriously enough in the context of world affairs and the nation’s future etc., but I cannot help that. My area of special interest is the ‘game’ and its procedures rather than the respective party policies and standpoints.
After the initial lemming-like rush by all participants to get on the airwaves and hopefully make an early splash in the media’s General Election coverage by trying to trump each others’ criticism of the Government, over the last 36 hours we have been enjoying what I describe as ‘Stage 2’ – the spectacle of some of the lesser opposition parties moving on to unveiling some of their own policies and instantly getting into a bit of a tangle.
One of few consistent things about UKIP over the years has been the ability of its leaders to shoot themselves in the foot. Poor Paul Nuttall (successor but one, or is it two, to Nigel Farage as UKIP leader?) is finding it just as hard as Farage has done to find a Parliamentary seat that will give him an even chance of getting elected as an MP.
Nigel, of course, had everything going for him – most particularly a degree of national recognition and marketability (I hesitated there to call it ‘charm’) in front of the cameras and – always a major plus, this – an unfailing ability to provide good copy at the drop of a hat. In this respect, quite why he’s stood for Parliament quite so many times without ever getting voted in might be a worthy subject for a student PhD thesis. He’s already abandoned any thought of standing in June.
Hapless Mr Nuttall – he of the dodgy CV claims – does not possess Farage’s X-Factor and indeed, for all his apparent affability in the TV studio, presents in public as a politician from the Vauxhall Conference rather than Premier League.
Having drawn a serious amount of incoming fire this week for fronting such new UKIP policy announcements as a ban of the burka and Sharia Law, the press pack had clearly decided in one of its pub sessions that it might be fun to put him under pressure over his failure so far to declare whether or not he’s going to stand as an MP.
Hence, the night before last, I watched a Channel Four News piece in which he was seen pursued by cameras and reporters down a corridor before being helped by his aides to hide in a broom cupboard. You know you’re doomed when you and your party are only receiving coverage as light relief from the real battles of the moment – a version of the old ITV News At Ten cliché “… And now, to finish with, here’s a story about a skateboarding duck …”
Meanwhile Lib-Dem leader Tim Farron has been digging himself a bigger hole day by day on the subject of his religious beliefs.
Again, probably in the same pub session at which it decided to quiz Mr Nuttall about whether or not he was going to stand for Parliament, the hardened hack element of the press had sniffed the germ of a knocking story than might potentially run and run in Mr Farron’s approach to gay sex.
Ah – religion and politics – that old chestnut. About fifty years ago analysis of voter behaviour first demonstrated that, given the ongoing secularisation of UK society, professing one Christian’s (or indeed any other faith’s) beliefs had passed the ‘threshold’ from being a political plus into actively being a minus.
Hence poor Mr Farron being skewered.
He’s not been scoring many runs recently by his twin approaches to the constant questioning he’s being subjected to on the subject of gay sex –i.e. firstly, getting annoyed at it, and secondly (as far as I understand his tactics), asserting that there is no contradiction at all involved if what he believes in his private life is 100% different to what he professes in public when out and about on the UK campaign trail desperately trying to hoover up the votes of UK electors.
Yesterday Sir Keir Starmer – whose slight resemblance to Captain Haddock from the Tintin books continues to slightly unnerves me – unveiled Labour’s policy on the upcoming Brexit negotiations.
This seemed to amount to (1) making a unilateral announcement, on the day after Labour wins the Election, that all EU nationals living and/or working in the UK can stay in this country; (2) that Labour will insist upon remaining in (or having access to) the Single Market; and (3) that ‘something will have to be done’ about Free Movement of EU nationals – as in, instigating something less than Free Movement in its place.
Pardon me for intruding, but what surprised me yesterday was the fact that no media interviewer actually put Mr Starmer under any serious pressure on these points – perhaps they were just being kind, given the disarray Labour is in on policy matters generally.
I would have liked to have heard him asked the following two questions:
(1)
Once Labour has won the General Election and announces that all EU nationals living and working in the UK can stay [this being done as a gesture of high principle and goodwill towards the EU generally], what will it do as and when the EU’s response is “Well, thank you very much for that but, just for the record, we’re not prepared to do anything similar for the one million Brits who currently live in the EU”?
(2)
Can Mr Starmer please explain how – if, as has been regularly stated and indeed emphasised by all EU leaders and Brexit negotiators, being in the EU Single Market, and/or having access to it, necessarily also involves accepting Free Movement as a quid pro quo – how on earth does Labour propose (one way or another) to end up having access to the Single Market when it also intends to ditch the Free Movement requirement and instead introduce some sort of UK control over immigration?
Furthermore (again), when Labour places its demand for access to the Single Market but the abandonment of Free Movement into the UK upon the Brexit negotiating table – and the EU rejects this completely out of hand – could he please explain what Labour’s fall-back position will be?
