Speaking at the Shipley & Keighley Liberal Democrats on November 24th, Caroline Jones prospective parliamentary candidate for Shipley said:
Firstly, let me say that I am honoured and hugely privileged to be the Lib-Dem candidate for Shipley.
To say that this is a time of acute political upheaval and insecurity is somewhat understating the case. Six months ago who would ever have thought that this is the place we would be?
I’m told that if, at the beginning of the year, you had placed a £5 accumulator on Leicester City, Brexit and Donald Trump you would have won £5m. On that basis I’m thinking of Ed Balls for Strictly!
However, we are where we are, and whilst we must look forward and work out how we salvage the best solution from the chaos, we do perhaps have to consider how we got here, in order to inform ourselves properly in finding solutions. We know the referendum was called to solve the Conservative party’s internal difficulties and fear of UKIP, an ill-judged risk, David Cameron was negligent and complacent to the extent that he rejected a number of safety features that could have been incorporated.
A few days after the referendum, a friend of mine commented that she couldn’t see why this had happened as she did not know anyone who had voted to leave – that I fear, is exactly the point. There is a deep divide that we have to close. I do know some who voted to leave, theyare those that have been left behind. They have been sold a very poor deal and I believe will be amongst the first to suffer. They always are – this is the same group that bore the brunt of the banking crisis, that have the poorer schools, the cuts in welfare and working tax credits, the bedroom tax, the lack of affordable housing and so on and on.These are all the work the UK government but Brexiteers were able to pin large amounts of blame for all the country’s ills on immigration and EU free movement. Voters knew that for once their vote counted and they fought back against the establishment.
As Remainers, we did a poor job getting the message across about how we benefited from the EU. About how it was so much more than what we pay in and get out. The EU is about the economy and trade, but also about security, partnership and peace.
The Brexiteers, were disingenuous in their messages but skilful in using them. They had slick phrases: £350m etc. thatonceit was on the side of a bus must be true. A case of simple lies versus complex truths.
So apparently, we are to leave the EU. It sticks in the craw, but I believe we should be very careful how we argue about the validity of the vote – finessing fine legal arguments, citing that referenda are advisory only etc. we know it’s true,but it will leave us open to charges of being undemocratic and denying the will of the majority. The arguments are complicated and we already know how difficult it is to deliver a complicated message – I think that at this point, it is not going to succeed. I believe that Tim Farron has the right approach in seeking to have another referendum when the substance of the deal is known.
It seems that the Brexiteers were as shocked to win the referendum as the Remainers were to lose it. The referendum was a mandate to withdraw the UK from the EU – there was no mandate about how this should be done. Immediately Brexit campaigners were pulling back from their promises and blandishments. They have no idea how to secure a new deal with the EU. They believe that the UK should have full access to the EU markets without any of the obligations and regulations that go with the single market. This is just not going to happen and ‘having got our country back’ and ‘taken back control’ we will all discover that to access the single market, we will have to abide by EU rules that now we no longer have any say over. One might argue the ultimate surrender of sovereignty.
Theresa May has chosen to view the referendum as binding – ‘the people have spoken’. Now, she is playing her cards ‘close to her chest’ well let’s hope she is good at poker - she is playing a bluff and since the other players are holding the aces she will soon be caught in her deceit. It must all be kept confidential so she can negotiate freely, but on the other hand she informed the CBI that they will be kept informed so there is no ‘cliff edge’. Her honeymoon cannot last much longer – in nearly 5 months she has nothing to show except shallow promises.If and when she pulls the rabbit out of a hat, then the people should have the final say as to whether or not they agree with the deal that the government proposes. Right now, this seems like a forlorn hope but we as Liberal Democrats are familiar with turning a lost cause around.
Firstly, the Lib Dems are in favour of remaining in Europe. That has been our uncompromising position throughout, no flip flopping to pander to a populist vote. We must remember that 48% voted to remain – where are they to go now? The Lib-Dems are the natural party for the remainers.And this seems to have been borne out in the Witney bye-election that saw a 23% increase in the Lib Dem vote
Secondly, many of those that voted to leave are going to be very disappointed. Theresa May was very quick to recognise that many of them were Just about Managing. I can’t see that they will be able to carry on just about managing given the conservative policies of giving a little, with increased free child care for example and taking a lot back,cutting tax credits for example. I saw a figure on Monday that suggested that an average family on low wages would end up £725 p.a. worse off. We should recognise their plight and remind everyone what the Lib Dems fought for and won in the coalition. Important things, that make a big difference; raising the income tax allowance, universal free school meals for infants, pupil premium, pensions etc.
We have to understand and respect the justifiable dissatisfaction that is felt in large parts of the country, not condemn them for having voted out. Farage, Gove and Johnson were shameless in their promises – they left us speechless by the audacity of their claims and they won a populist vote. Using even more extreme tactics we have just seen Donald Trump pull a very similar stunt. No-one believed that could happen either, but I personally think that Hillary Clinton lost it when she described Trump supporters as ‘deplorables’. They weren’t. They are just people that are only just managing and are clutching at straws – I fear too that they will be very disappointed.
So much that is important to people in their everyday lives is going to fall by the wayside in the pursuit of Brexit.
Housing: To quote Nick Clegg ‘It is essential that the government undertakes a large scale, publicly directed and underwritten housebuilding programme.’ We all know how incredibly difficult it is for young people to buy their first homes. What a tremendous boost to the economy this would be and we are going to need it!According to Nick Clegg only 18% of UK property wealth is owned by the under 50s this is a staggering and shameful statistic.
Education: We are so busy setting up new schools, free schools, faith schools, democratic schools and academies – none of which really means a jot. All parents really want for their children is that the closest school is a good school, that will give their children an education and the curiosity to pursue it throughout their lives. The constant changes are stymieing schools and teachers. Tests are not preparing children for later life and teaching them to solve problems but are instead are about measurements, targets and league tables.
The NHS: NHS funding has not kept up with even the rest of Northern Europe. The demands on our health service are constantly increasing through scientific advance and alonger living population. Furthermore it must be combined with social care. The situation where a hospital bed is occupied by someone needingdaily social care, not medical care which in turn postpones surgery or treatment for someone with a medical need is frequent, not just anecdotal. We all hope to live long and healthy lives but the social care for our older people that is available is often either prohibitively expensive or substandard. As one with experience of finding good care for a family member with AlzheimersI know that it is available but not everywhere or to everyone. I fear for those that do not have someone to fight their cause.
I could go on – give me a soap box and set me going and I could go on for hours. I haven’t started on the voting system, the House of Lords, the refugee crisis, defence, foreign affairs but I finish I offer one last thought….
Last week the Oxford Dictionaryannounced that the word for 2016 is post-truth. For clarification, I looked it up - Post-truth politics- a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored. Post-truth differs from traditional contesting and falsifying of truth by rendering it of "secondary" importance. Political commentators have identified post-truth politics as driven by a combination of the 24-hour news cycle, false balance in news reporting, and the increasing ubiquity of social media. Beware
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes," is a quote attributed (ironically, falsely) to Mark Twain.
That being so, I urge that we keep our shoes on at all times and take every opportunity to be brave and truthful. The message needs to be cogent and succinct. We need to bring our campaigning back to people face to face in a way that they can trust.