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framingthequestion

~ Reflections on memory, history, photography and culture

framingthequestion

Tag Archives: Brexit

No Exit…

31 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by jaimeashworth in Uncategorized

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Brexit

Why will the idea of “associate citizenship” of the EU not go away? In the last few months, since it became clear that the British drive to exiting the EU was unstoppable, I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve seen positing this as some kind of answer.

I understand the appeal. In 2003, I waited with many others in a very crowded bar in Kraków to learn the result of the referendum on EU accession. I remember vividly the cheers of relief that accession would go ahead the following year. For many, that day, and the accession day itself, marked a return to Europe – if Poland had ever left. The national anthem records the March of troops in the Napoleonic wars “z ziemi Włoskiej do Polski”: from the lands of Italy to Poland. A series of events that began with the German and Russian invasions in 1939 had finally entered a new phase. One which promised to fulfil the dreams of 1989: that Poland could be a liberal democratic member of “the European club”.

In 2004, on the first day of membership, many of us watched the news reporting on Poland’s new “second capital” in Brussels. Even through the blur of a hangover (it was a very good party) I could feel the optimism.

Time has not been kind to that optimistic vision of Polish society, which will be the subject of a future piece. But it should remind us that membership of the EU can exert a powerful hold on the imagination of those denied it, and that many of those EU citizens whose future residency in the UK is now uncertain understand far better than we do why the EU is important. For us (ironically) the Polish poem of exile, Pan Tadeusz, may describe our plight:

“Lithuania, my country, thou art like health; how much thou shouldst be prized only he can learn who has lost thee. To-day thy beauty in all its splendour I see and describe, for I yearn for thee.”

But we need to recognise that the EU isn’t a state. It can’t issue passports: only member states can do that, though the words “European Union” remind holders that collectivities come in different sizes. If we are to make the best of this awful mistake, we need to be clear what we are trying to hang on to.

We also need to be clear that some sort of boutique accommodation with reality for Remainers isn’t on offer. This is happening and we can’t engage with the facts if we are pursuing this kind of fantasy.

Secondly, we need to stop and think quite carefully about the idea of citizenship. Asking governments to create a lesser form of citizenship is open to abuse by issuing governments. What if the sentimental desire for Britons to try and deny the realities of this situation opened the door for them to decide that migrants and refugees could only apply for these kinds of documents? Do we want our own government to devise such a scheme?

It is an unfortunate coincidence that Britain’s exit from the EU is formalised in the week of Holocaust Memorial Day. The stripping of German citizenship from Jews was a fundamental attack on their rights, which made all the others easier to frame and justify in law. We should not be rushing to create second-class citizens, but instead insisting on the fullest citizenship for all, in the widest possible collectivity.

Shocks, Forks and Fractures

01 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by jaimeashworth in Book Reviews, Culture and Politics, Uncategorized

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Brexit, India Floods, literature, Mark Haddon, The Pier Falls, Trump

IMG_3559

The title story of The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon (Vintage, £8.99), 347 pp.) is a harrowing account of how an idyllic seaside afternoon in the 1970s turns to tragedy. In spare, compelling prose, Haddon describes the initial warnings as the rivets holding the pier together progressively fail. ("There is a faint tremor underfoot as if a suitcase or stepladder has been dropped somewhere nearby.") He describes in merciless detail the fracturing of a summer afternoon into fragments, neatly chronicling each death and the aftermath as normality slowly settles over those left apparently unscathed. ("None of the survivors sleeps well. They wake from dreams in which the floor beneath them vanishes. They wake from dreams of being trapped inside a cat's cradle of iron and wood as the tide rises.")

Haddon's prose captures the way in which trauma is observed from the inside: slowly, but too fast to fully register; completely, but only in hindsight. Another word for this is shock. As Naomi Klein has recently written, "A state of shock is what results when a gap opens up between events and our initial ability to explain them."

Britain in 2017 feels similar to the disintegrating pier in Haddon's story, shuddering as the rivets joining us to the EU are worked loose, the fissures in our society are thrown into ever-sharper relief, and international politics seem more and more threatening. It's the shock that many of us experienced last year in the sweaty early hours of June 24, watching the numbers move like a tide, rolling upward until, as the dawn broke, the result was confirmed.

Many of us experienced that feeling of shock again in November as we watched Hillary Clinton's chances of being President go from being assured, to doubtful, to impossible. A feeling which deepened in January as Trump's inaugural speech made clear he intended to govern as he had campaigned: boorish, aggressive, chauvinistic.

Most importantly, it's the feeling as we watched the flames sweep across Grenfell Tower. Knowing what the inexorable progress of the wall of fire meant – as human beings, unable to stop ourselves imagining ourselves in the place of those inside – but powerless to stop it.

It's a feeling I've revisited many times this summer, as different journeys have taken me past the tower: blackened and silent, the sun still catching on glass that has not been shattered, a grim negative of the neighbouring towers. ("A moment's weakness had caused this horror, the way a single spark from these struck flints bloomed into the fires that surrounded her.")

The footage from Houston this week has brought that feeling again. Watching the waters rise and the roads disappear beneath the floods should remind us that we are always vulnerable to the environment we build through and over (instead of around and with). The levees and dams have creaked and overflowed, and the bonds of society have proved correspondingly frail. Looting and unrest have necessitated curfews, as stretched civil authorities focus on the crisis. President Trump's response, ("The storm, it's epic what happened. But you know what, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything.") encapsulates the dogma of small government and its failure to appreciate the importance of collective action to avert rather than manage times of crisis. ("He's never thought it this way, that lives are held in common, that we lose a little something of ourselves with every death.") In situations like this, the heroism of individuals needs to be backed by the state rather than left to fend for itself. We cannot allow ourselves to be flattered for our self-sufficiency by those whose job is to prepare.

In India, Bangladesh and Nepal, far worse flooding seems to be producing a different reaction to similar problems. The Times of India shows crowds working with rescuers, bringing food and helping to clear rubble. At root, though, the complaints are similar too: "Why does nothing change? Why are we left to fend for ourselves when they had weather forecasts warning them of extremely heavy rainfall?" asked one Indian columnist quoted in the Guardian. The residents of Grenfell know the feeling, as did the inhabitants of New Orleans in 2005.

In Britain, meanwhile, we continue to make our own weather: working toward "freeing" ourselves from the EU. The Brexit negotiations have resumed and it's clear that this government is determined to ignore the reality that 27:1 make for unhealthy odds. On Ireland, on the single market, on the customs union, on free movement; the position of Her Majesty's Government is that cake policy must remain separate from eating policy.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said this week that the government was determined to try and discuss the future trading relationship alongside the withdrawal deal, despite the insistence of the EU that this won't happen. As any country that has negotiated EU accession could tell you, negotiating with the EU on these matters is not a negotiation as conventionally understood. In accession negotiations, the only question is when, not if, individual countries would accept EU law and regulation (this, by the way, is a powerful practical argument for remaining). In our case, we lit the blue touch paper by triggering Article 50 and now require all 27 member nations' agreement to blow it out again, even temporarily. British inability to understand collective behaviour is quite profound (at least among politicians, who are usually happy to talk about what they claim people want but often less keen to engage with what they need).

Internationally, meanwhile, the Prime Minister arrived in Japan at an interesting moment, her plane presumably virtually banking to avoid a North Korean missile. Asked about the escalating (or at least not subsiding) crisis in South-East Asia, she termed the launch "outrageous" and suggested that the UN Security Council should resolve the problem. Collective solutions are good sometimes, it would seem, though the structure of the Security Council gives Donald Trump (along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jingping) a veto on any solution, so it's likely to be a question of state-to-state solutions in the end.

Haddon's stories have at their core an awareness that traumatic events alter our histories, both individual and collective. ("Today will be different, not simply shocking but one of those moments when time itself seems to fork and fracture and you look back and realise that if things had happened only slightly differently you would be leading one of those other ghost lives speeding away into the dark.") He skilfully evokes the sensation of escape and the chill of privilege it occasions. ("Everyone can feel the thrilling shiver of the Reaper passing close, dampened rapidly by the thought of those poor people.")

The stories also underline, however, that those forks and fractures are constructed of choice. Some choices are positive: in the final story, The Weir, a lonely divorcé rescues a young woman from suicide by drowning, forming a friendship that sustains them both. Mostly, though, the choices of Haddon's characters are negative. In Wodwo, Gavin, a venal middle-class TV presenter, shoots a stranger who interrupts a family Christmas. The stranger makes a macabre recovery, promising to return the following year: Gavin struggles to cope with his actions, becoming homeless before being found by the same stranger and sent back to his family home to interrupt the next Christmas. He approaches the same French window, seeing the changes wrought by the year in his family. And then they look up: he has become the stranger, even to himself. ("The intruder light clicks on. He knocks twice on the glass. As one his family turn to look at him.") What could he have done differently? What can we do differently? Who's making the choices? We need answers but first we have to ask the questions.

Brexit: Now wash your hands

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by jaimeashworth in Culture and Politics, Uncategorized

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Brexit, Brexit Bill, Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer

I doubt I’m alone in having received an email from my MP last night explaining their vote to trigger Article 50. As my MP is Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit Secretary, his views – and indeed his speech – have been widely reported. I wanted to share my reply as a kind of protest against the failure of the Labour Party to do its current job and effectively challenge and hold the government to account. Voting for this makes that hard to envisage. One Labour MP reportedly told Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon that they “need a bath after that”: they appear to be their own shower. 

Dear Keir, 
Thank you for this email. I saw your speech in the Commons earlier today and was impressed as usual by your clarity, honesty and integrity. 

On the point at issue, however, I disagree. A majority of your constituents – myself included – voted clearly to Remain and I had hoped that you would follow suit, particularly since the government has a majority and there is no need to contradict the democratically agreed policy of the party – parliamentary colleagues such as John Mann and Gisela Stuart will likely ensure the electoral cowardice of the government achieves what pass for its aims. 

I’ve just seen another clip of your speech again. You are a democrat and have the backing of party policy, your constituents and most importantly your conscience to lead you into the ‘No’ lobby tomorrow evening.
Respectfully yours,
Jaime Ashworth 

On Tue, 31 Jan 2017 at 19:58, Keir Starmer <keir@camdenlabour.org.uk> wrote:

Keir Starmer 

Dear Jaime,

As you know, the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill is before the House of Commons this week. Since many of you have strong
views on the issue, I wanted to write to you to set out my approach to this Bill. I apologise for the lengthy email – but none of this is straightforward!

Having campaigned across the country – with many members
from Holborn & St Pancras CLP – for a ‘Remain’ vote, I was
saddened and frustrated by the outcome of the referendum. For me and for many Labour MPs the Article 50 vote now presents an agonising choice and I have thought long and hard about the right course of action.

Although I am fiercely pro-EU, I am also a democrat. The Labour Party voted in favour of the Referendum Act, which paved the
way for the referendum, and everyone who campaigned knew the outcome would be decisive. Some have argued that the referendum was merely
advisory. Legally that is true, but the arguments are not just legal –
they are deeply political and, politically, the notion that the
referendum was merely a consultation exercise to inform Parliament holds no water. Equally the argument the leave vote was only 37% of those eligible to vote loses its strength against the argument that less than 37% voted to remain. Neither side can claim that those who did not vote would have voted either to leave or to remain. We simply do not know.
There is a wider point. Since I was appointed to my current role, I have travelled all over the UK – including to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I have met groups and individuals, held public events, talked to businesses large and small and discussed Brexit with different political parties and
leaders. 

From this, the evidence is clear: As a society we are more divided now than at any time in my life. The divide is deep and, in some instances, it is bitter. Labour must play its part in healing that divide: it cannot do so if it refuses to accept the outcome of
the referendum.

That is why I have repeatedly said that although I wish the outcome of the referendum had been different, I accept and respect
the result. 

It follows that it would be wrong simply to frustrate the process and to block the Prime Minister from starting the Article 50 negotiations. I will not therefore be voting against the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill this week.

The ballot paper on 23 June last year did not, however, give the Prime Minister power to act as she sees fit or to change our domestic laws or policy. That is why I have tabled a number of Labour amendments that would significantly improve the Bill and ensure Parliament can hold the Prime Minister to account
throughout negotiations. I will be taking these amendments through for Labour in the House of Commons next week.

First, these amendments would ensure MPs have a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal – that means the House of Commons has the first say on any proposed deal before it is considered by the European Council and Parliament. This would strengthen the
House of Commons’ ability to influence the negotiating process
and mean that MPs could send the Government back to the negotiating table if they are unhappy with the proposed final deal.

Second, the Government should report back to Parliament
regularly during the negotiations so that progress can be known and
checked. Labour has also tabled amendments that establish a number of broad principles the Government must seek to negotiate, including protecting workers’ rights and securing full tariff and impediment free access to the Single Market. We will also try to ensure that the legal status of EU citizens already living in the UK is guaranteed before negotiations begin – a point that is long overdue.

It is also important to recognise that the triggering of Article 50 is merely the start of the process for leaving the EU, it is not the end.

Any changes the Prime Minister seeks to make to domestic law would need separate legislation to be passed through Parliament,
whether through the Great Repeal Bill or more widely. Labour will
argue throughout for a Brexit deal that puts jobs and the economy
first and protects vital workers’ rights and environmental
protections. We also totally reject the Prime Minister’s threat to rip
up the economic and social fabric of the country and turn Britain into a tax haven economy if she fails in her negotiations.

As Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the EU I have been very clear that Labour will hold the Government to
account every step of the way. 

I know that many members have urged me to reflect the
75% Remain vote in Holborn and St Pancras by voting against Article 50 and resigning my post in the Shadow Cabinet.

I see the argument, but that would prevent me pressing Labour’s amendments, it would prevent me questioning the Government relentlessly from the front bench over the coming years and
it would prevent me fighting as hard as I can for a Brexit on the
right terms. 

It would be to walk off the pitch just when we need effective challenge to government. I believe that would be the wrong
thing to do.

I know that not everyone will agree with my approach,
but I hope that my explanation helps.

All best,

Keir

Keir Starmer

Labour Member of Parliament for Holborn and St.
Pancras 

http://www.keirstarmer.com/

http://www.keirstarmer.com

Holborn and St Pancras Labour Party, 110 Gloucester
Avenue, NW1 8HX



None of the Above

17 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by jaimeashworth in Culture and Politics

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Antisemitism, Brexit, Chakrabarti Report, Islamophobia, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, Labour Leadership, Owen Smith, Prevent Strategy

IMG_2040

Photo: Jaime Ashworth, 2016.

In David Hare’s play The Absence of War, about a privately charismatic Labour leader unable to connect with voters through a web of political advice and spin, a senior political adviser bemoans the diversity of opinion that is a feature of Labour politics. “It’s easy for the Tories,” he complains, “They’ve got money and power to unite around. What have we got? Bloody justice. And no two definitions of that are ever the same.”

While it might be argued that a progressive politics necessarily stems from vigorous debate informed by passionately held principles, the last few months have demonstrated the other side of that: an emphasis on ideological purity and groupthink at the expense of the party’s alleged political goals of either holding the government of the day to account (the job of the official opposition) or winning power to implement change (pretty close to a textbook definition of a political party). As a follower of two Twitter accounts (@GentlerPolitics and @LabourAbuse) devoted to chronicling the abuses of both sides, I can testify (with many others) to the intensity and abusiveness of the debate. It has, however, generated much more heat than light. While I regret saying this (but not as much as I will once this piece is available to comment on, I suspect) I can’t see how I can vote for either candidate.

Let’s start with Jeremy Corbyn. I didn’t vote for him, because I think that fundamentally he’s wedded to a political model that has passed its sell-by date and is temperamentally a (frequently principled and often right) rebel rather than a unifier. Poachers can turn gamekeeper but they have to be wary of shooting themselves in the foot. He has discovered the hard way why Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown and Milliband would all have preferred him to toe the party line at various points. For his supporters to complain about parliamentary disloyalty is as hypocritical as the actions of many in his Shadow Cabinet were craven as they fled the coop when they became afraid the liberal sheen was about to come off him post-Brexit. Though in fairness Corbyn has, in regard to Trident, proved himself capable of criticising his party’s policy while leading it.

And then there’s antisemitism. Ken Livingstone’s comments were misinformed and offensive, and the failure to respond decisively was damaging. The response in the Vice.com documentary to an article by Jonathan Freedland was frankly bizarre: describing it, without any obvious foundation or subsequent explanation, as “disgusting” and “subliminal” suggests some agenda I can only guess at but many others have concluded about. The figures for his appearances in support of the Remain campaign are contested, but his reluctance to appear alongside those he disagreed on other issues with – like David Cameron, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown – is clear and puts his relationship to Hamas and Hezbollah back on the table as indicating his point of view rather than (as claimed) his desire to explore issues with those he disagrees with.

As for the response to the incident… I think Shami Chakrabarti has done more than enough in her career to justify a peerage but her report was anaemic at best, as some of the abuse chronicled in the Twitter accounts mentioned above has shown. Corbyn’s remarks at the launch were incompetent rather than malicious, but suggested a failure to take the issue or the audience seriously. The offensive remarks addressed to a Jewish MP by an activist who was later greeted warmly by Corbyn reinforce the view of him as one of the following: a fierce holder of principles with very limited ability to maintain focus when an issue doesn’t interest him; someone who didn’t understand why the remarks were offensive; or someone who agreed with the sentiment. Any of these are deeply problematic qualities in a potential Prime Minister (which is what Corbyn allegedly is): sometimes, annoying and frustrating as it is, you do have to accept the premise of the question. To govern is to choose, but you can’t always choose the issues you govern on, or the choices available.

Choiceless choice leads neatly to the candidacy of Owen Smith. While he may offer an alternative, and is certainly the most defiant spectacles-wearer to run for major political office since, well, John Major, he shares with the former Prime Minister a kind of anti-charisma. Major’s fashion sense combined with Tony Blair’s hand gestures and just a hint of predatory scoutmaster is not an appetising package.

In terms of his policy views, his soundbite on Newsnight that “There are too many immigrants in parts of Britain” suggests that Smith needs to learn when the premise of the question does need to be challenged. His statement in the leadership debate that “The Prevent strategy, that is grossly undermined and under-resourced in this country, ought to be at the forefront of Labour’s policy, making sure we foster better community relations in Britain” is even more troubling. Prevent, which is the unholy love-child of Theresa May as Home Secretary and Michael Gove at Education, mandates (among other things) that teachers report potential radicalisation to the authorities. Salma Yaqoob has described in the Guardian how her son suffered sleepless nights after being reported for participating in a WhatsApp group and suggested that Prevent “fosters the very climate of division and fear in which extremism grows.” A senior member of staff at a prestigious home-counties FE college described to me at an interview how a talented student had been interviewed for ninety minutes about her plans to visit family in Iran and how, as one of the approximately 20% of British teachers from BAME backgrounds, he was profoundly uncomfortable with the policy and the barriers it placed between staff and students in reporting genuine concerns. A far cry from the “cohesive, integrated multi-faith society [and] parliamentary democracy” it claims to be defending. Smith’s support of Prevent suggests that he is more interested in raising the level of social control than addressing the root causes of social problems. It signals a mixture of opportunism and limited vision that is less the dawn of a new era than the dusk of liberal politics.

As Richard Pryor’s character discovers in the 1980s classic Brewster’s Millions, “None of the Above” is a seductive slogan. Many reading will suggest that I too have to accept the premise of the question and vote one way or another, or that I am making politicians scapegoats for problems that extend well beyond their – or anyone else’s – control. They may also ask how I intend to vote in a General Election: thankfully, under the present circumstances, I’m unlikely to have to worry about that for a while. In any case, living in a safe Labour seat occupied by an MP I respect, the democratic deficit is likely to work in my favour.

But the leadership of the Labour Party is not a contest that requires my participation in the way a General Election does: it is what Anthony King has termed the “democracy of the fervent few”. It is the job of political parties to present coherent, practical and reasonably attractively packaged policies so that I can exercise my right in a democratic society to choose who to vote for: in my case for policies that try to thread the (perhaps impossible) needle of retaining and advancing social justice without descending into statism. It is also a question of presenting the ability to execute policy; to legislate as well as agitate, with the compromises and attention to boring detail that entails. Democracy of the fervent few requires a fervour that neither candidate inspires, and therefore: I’m out.

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