I despair.  I watched a bit of BBC “Question Time” (‘QT’) last night. For my ‘friends’ out side the UK, ‘QT’ is a current affairs Q&A programme with a selected panel facing a public audience. Naturally enough, just now, it was dominated by Brexit. I hate to say this, but it demonstrated just how broken our Parliamentary democracy is. It’s all about holding on to power, or gaining it. You couldn’t get a straight answer to “Is the ship sinking?” if the programme were held on the Titanic as it was sliding under the waves!

‘QT’ also showed (again) why Diane Abbott should never represent the Labour Party in any public forum, how inept the Labour Front Bench team is, and how Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t score a goal, except an own goal, even if he were the only person on the pitch. By refusing to talk to Theresa May unless she “takes No Deal off the table”, he just looks playground petulant and out of touch. A number of other party representatives (including some of his own senior back benchers) have managed to go through the door of 10 Downing Street to say much the same – but at least they can’t be accused of not engaging. As it is Theresa May can come back to the house on Monday with whatever ‘Plan B’ she decides, and criticise the Labour Party for not helping shape it, and Jeremy Corbyn won’t be able to say that, although he met with the PM, her Plan B ignores his contribution. “I’m not playing unless we can use my ball”.  Pathetic.

Let me say, up front, that for most of my early adult life I was a supporter of the Soviet Union.  I filtered my experience of the ‘Cold War’, because I was aware of the machinations of the state apparatus of the USA and UK, sometimes affecting me personally, to discredit and undermine the Soviet Union (and its allies).  Then along came Mikhail Gorbachev, Glasnost, Perestroika.  It seemed we all basked in his personal warmth as he thawed, it seemed personally, the cold war.  Those of us who had lived for 30 or 40 years under the threat of global nuclear anihilation were relieved.  Then came the collapse of the Soviet system, the dissintegration of the USSR and the rise of a new Russian Federation (for which now read Russian Empire) and, by the way, the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church.  It seems to me that some of the older Russian generation (by which I mean those who lived through the Soviet era) still harbour nostalgic and proud feelings for the achievements, and crucially certainty, of that system.  The younger generation, who focussed more on the hardships, constraints and, yes, the abuses of that time, were only too thrilled to discard collectivism in favour of individualism.  Here, in the UK, we are still reaping the consequences of ‘buying into’ the philosophy of putting yourself, rather than ‘society’, first even though, arguably, we had a better developed sense of when we were being ‘sold a crock’.  Then along came a new Tsar, Vladimir Putin: ex-KGB.  The writing was on the wall, but over the same time we had the global financial crash and we took our eye off the ball as successive UK governments set about eviscerating, amongst other things, our military capability.  We became embroiled in war in the Middle-East and Putin saw, and learned from, our effectiveness and weaknesses.  He had also learned from the debacle of Russian miitary intervention in Afghanistan. He set about modernising his military inventory and thinking: no more full frontal invasions to extend Imperial influence, but cyber warfare and proxy wars.

Put that into the context of a rise across Europe, especially in the east, of far-right nationalism.  Patriotism is, I would argue, a good thing; nationalism (which is not the same thing at all) is very dangerous.  Just now Putin’s “approval rating” in his own country is, we are told, on the slide.  There is a real danger of creating conditions where he could whip up support for patriotic / nationalistic support for external action.  1930s all over again?

There are strong arguments for and against holding a second UK referendum on Brexit (UK leaving membership of the EU).  To be clear I was, and am, passionately against Brexit but, in this blog post, I’m not arguing one side or the other.  I’m questoning process, and possible outcomes.

In my opinion the UK government made a fundamental mistake by not setting a majority threshold for the Ist (2016) referendum.  To me it seems crazy that such a significant and long lasting change could be, theoretically, decided on a simple majority of 1.  All of the angst, downstream of the vote, about “the will of the people” or “democracy” could have been avoided if a majority of, say, 60% one way or the other had been set.  Instead we were left with a relatively small majority in favour of changing the status quo.

Now, after 2 years of negotiating the terms of our exit (the “deal”), we know more about what Brexit means.  Some of the myths, and gaps in our understanding, that underpinned the referendum result have been clarified.  The UK is still on track to leave the EU on March 29th but the government, and Parliament itself, is split from top to bottom and has failed to ratify the terms.  There are calls for this impasse to be resolved by returning to a referendum.  Would demographics come into play? There are two more years worth of young people who have reached voting age since the last referendum; there are two years worth of older voters who have fallen off the roll.  It is widely believed that young people voted to Remain and older people voted to Leave.

I ask what the referendum question, or questions, could be?  It can’t again be as simple as asking to vote to stay or leave but what, short of a vote to rescind the decision of the first referendum completely, would resolve the question of the border between Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and The Republic of Ireland (part of the EU)?  Obviously there are other EU member countries with land (or sea) borders with non-EU countries,  How do they manage?  They have border controls.  Whatever we decide it seems highly unlikely that an open border in the island of Ireland can survive a no-deal Brexit.

It’s a mess; I can’t see how this is going to resolve unless there is a general election which returns a big Labour majority, and therefore a government with some authority.

I watched the Prime Minister, yesterday, commenting in the House on a ‘leaked’ government draft paper on future (post Brexit) immigration policy;

As I understand the PM, in the context of Brexit, the “British People” accept immigration is broadly beneficial but “just want to have control over it”.  Actually I think many people do not accept immigration is beneficial and want it stopped, period.  To be clear, I do not share this view.

Be that as it may, I cannot see how the proposals, whatever they turn out to be in detail, can deliver control without an effective means of detecting, detaining, and removing those immigrants who do not comply with the requirements of their registration / residency / work entitlement.

The focus seems to be, in the first instance anyway, on immigrants from EU countries by putting in place controls for them which are, broadly, like those already in place for non-EU citizens.  However, the controls in place for non-EU citizens demonstrably fail:  it appears the Border Agency (and whoever else) cannot keep track of,  and remove when necessary, those already here.  Ignoring the unknown number of illegal immigrants (from wherever), whether settled or itinerant, working in the black economy or trafficked, our immigration detention centres already seem to be full, with a mixed bag of illegal immigrants, failed asylum seekers, criminals awaiting deportation and visa ‘overstayers’.  One consequence of this seems to be those identified as ‘illegal’ are bailed to report, or reappear in court, and immediately disappear back into the populace at large.  What a surprise.

Whenever there is a TV news story about police resources, they often use a bit of film of two police officers walking along.  It makes me smile, all that is missing is the theme music from “The Bill”.  When did anyone outside London last see two police officers on foot?  Or even in a car?  We live on an island but I don’t see how, without massively increased resources in coastal and land border patrols, in police numbers, in courts, in detention and removal facilities, this is going to work.  And, given the continuing vice-like squeeze on budgets generally, who in government is going to argue for that?  In my opinion this is just one more bit of “oh shit, we’ve promised this so we’d better do something” policy making.

Image from ‘The Grocer’

The disastrous, multi-fatality, fire in a London residential tower block exposes more than questionable building practice.  With any luck it may, just may, also finally drive a stake through the still twitching heart of Austerity.

On the night of 13/14 June Grenfell Tower, 24 storeys of flats in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, caught fire.  At the time of writing it appears the fire started accidentally in one flat on the 4^th floor.  There are unsubstantiated suspicions of arson, perhaps because the block seemed almost to be home to many ethnic minority families, some of them refugees.  It is critically important that the Fire and Police authorities establish (and hopefully rule out) whether the cause was deliberate but the painstaking forensic work to prove, or disprove, arson has added to the slowness of the recovery operation.  This slowness added to frustrations which boiled over into direct action and the storming of the Town Hall.

Whatever the cause, the fire took hold and spread with astonishing speed and, despite heroic efforts of firefighters, the result has been scores of deaths and injuries and hundreds more made homeless.  The shell of the building will probably be demolished but perhaps part of it should remain, Reichstag-like, as a permanent reminder of the obscenity of Austerity: a symbolic headstone for one of the most unfair and divisive policies of our times.

Questions are being raised about the safety of similar high-rise residences, and especially local authority social high-rise residences, all across the UK.  As the initial shock subsided, anger appeared.  Anger directed at government (local and national), at architects, building contractors, indeed at anyone who represented authority who, however well intentioned, appeared at the scene to offer ineffectual sympathy and support.  This anger has already been seized on by groups who have taken advantage to promote a political agenda.

What we have seen, though, is the paralysis of parts of the local and national government system.  It seems unable to act in a coherent and effective way, and yet there are co-ordinated and rehearsed response plans for tragic events which result in mass casualties, like terrorism, a train or plane crash, or a sports stadium fire.  These plans derive from, or are refined because of, previous events where procedures were found wanting.  In this case, however, the authorities seem to have been totally unprepared and, worse, made incapable of responding by not having resources (physical, financial and especially human).  Faced with hundreds of people evacuated from the fire in their nightclothes, who had lost everything including the lives of family members, they appeared to not know what to do.  It was left to the community itself to respond with water, food, clothes and even shelter.  The immediate, and urgent, need to distribute casualties to hospitals across London, many of them unidentifiable or incapable of identifying themselves, led to mass uncertainty about the numbers, identity, and whereabouts of survivors.  The apparent systemic failure to track, and keep track of, people has added to the anger.  Furthermore, the event has exposed an uncertainty about who was in the building in the first place.  Some flats were owner-occupied, presumably sold off under Thatcher’s “Right to Buy” legislation.  Questions about who was entitled to be there, who may have been visiting legitimately, who was absent for any reason, who might have been ‘camping’ unofficially with friends or relatives, who may have been illegally sub-letting from the rightful tenant appear, so far, to be unanswered and perhaps unanswerable.  We may never know, and we may never even know the identities of those persons whose bodies are recovered.  If the building collapses spontaneously before all the victims are recovered, we may even not have a total number of bodies, never mind all the identities of victims.

At the heart of this is the housing crisis:  in a major city, with high numbers of transient people, there will always be some who ‘bend’ the rules.  It is inevitable.  However when housing provision is inadequate (in quality, quantity and affordability), the pressure to do so is increased.  Starved of funds to build, maintain, and manage housing stock many local authorities have been forced to pass on these responsibilities to arms-length groups or the private sector, a private sector primarily driven by profit rather than public service.  In the case of Grenfell Tower, the building was maintained and managed by The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO).  Ostensibly such an organisation is devolutionary: it is meant to improve democracy, to make the tenants themselves more directly involved in decision making, priority setting, maintenance and tenancy management.  It is meant to be more responsive than a town-hall based bureaucracy but, in reality, it devolves the management to people who may well be ill-equipped to handle it, leaving only a ‘rump’ of administrative expertise and support to liaise with them at the town hall.  And, of course, it is intended to save money.  This is especially a feature of post-financial crash local government: Austerity has seen local services closed down, or taken on by charitably funded volunteers.  Taking on a local library or swimming pool is one thing, running a large housing project is another thing entirely.  I have no way of knowing if this played a part in Kensington and Chelsea, but certainly local authorities across the country have been stripped of experienced housing officers, building inspectors and other professionals, like Architects and Surveyors, while their work has been sub-contracted.  In the case of Grenfell Tower it seems the building was recently refurbished, part of which was the over-cladding of the structure with insulated panels to improve the thermal performance of the structure.  There are suspicions, as yet unproven, about these panels being the cause of the rapid spread of the fire.  In due course we shall know if this is the case.  Even if they were, it may be that their specification was completely in accordance with the Building Regulations.  It may be that the work was competently carried out, and inspected, in accordance with the specifications though, given the state of the building now, it may be impossible to tell.  If that is so, then the Building Regulations may be changed.  If there were contractual failures, or unauthorised substitutions of materials, then the law will take its course – eventually.  Eventually is not good enough for the victims, their families, or residents in similar buildings the length and breadth of the UK.  The underlying question is whether an organisation like KCTMO is capable of effectively monitoring something like a complex building project, or its on-going management.  The more you break down and extend the chain of management, the more layers you build in, the more risk there is of failure.  What happens to accountability in these circumstances?

The tenants at Grenfell Tower, apparently, made repeated representations to KCTMO, to their elected council representatives and to their MP about safety concerns.  They claim these representations have been ignored.  When the inevitable public enquiry concludes, and reports, we may well find it isn’t only Building Regulations that are revised.

As the shock continues to subside, and recovery begins, people are asking what can be done to support all those directly affected: victims and relatives, emergency services workers, police etc.  I have heard pleas for on-the-ground community mental health workers to be deployed.  I have to ask where they will come from?  Surely not from NHS mental health services so eviscerated like every other public service by Austerity cuts that in normal times you can’t get an appointment for week or even months!  And as for rehousing the survivors in three weeks, as the government has promised; what about funerals?  The heartbreak of those whose traditions and religion require particular arrangements, which cannot be observed, is palpable.

No, everywhere you look in this tragedy you find the taint of Austerity that has been sucking the life blood out of our communities for years.  The aftermath of the fire has also exposed fault lines that run through ethnic, cultural, and class divides, and exposes the very centre of our political system to a charge of institutional disinterest and carelessness.  If not handled with great sensitivity, and determination, the consequences for our society may reach further, and last longer, than the immediate effects of the fire itself.  It would be tragedy heaped upon tragedy if another victim of this event were community cohesion.