Tim Bale's Blog

Criticising prime minister Theresa May’s approach to Brexit, Nick Clegg confessed that he’d always assumed May

would jump on a plane in the dead of night without telling the press, go to Berlin, have a nice, quiet sauerkraut dinner with Angela Merkel, and say to her ‘listen this is a nightmare for us, I don’t want this, you don’t want this, Europe’s got many bigger fish to fry… let’s try and reach quickly an accommodation’.

A few months later, and just ahead of the 2017 general election, veteran Sun columnist Trevor Kavanagh encouraged the tabloid’s readers to ‘give Theresa May the landslide majority she says she needs to take on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’. And writing in its aftermath, the paper remained convinced that it was still all about the German Chancellor, noting ‘It would be ideal if Ms Merkel realised the damage a “punishment” Brexit will do to German car giants and saw reason’. If she didn’t, it continued, May should ‘get serious about walking away’.

This was all too typical: as ‘Brexit’ began to dominate British political discourse, Remainers and Leavers were united in believing that the key to limiting the damage EU withdrawal might do or, alternatively, to exploiting the opportunities on offer, lay with Angela Merkel. But nor was it anything new. Indeed, from the moment David Cameron committed in early 2013 to holding an in-out referendum should he be re-elected as Prime Minister, right through to the moment Merkel stepped down as Germany’s Chancellor nearly a decade later, many British politicians and commentators – particularly (but not exclusively) if they were Conservatives –assumed that the path to whichever outcome they were bent on ran through Berlin.

The consequences of attributing this near-miraculous power to Germany’s Chancellor were serious, not to say deleterious.  The ‘Merkel myth’ skewed the British political class’s understanding of the EU’s priorities, its objectives, and the likely outcomes of leaving.

Boiled down to its essential components, the Merkel myth was based on four widespread but ultimately false assumptions, namely

(i) that the German Chancellor (and certainly not the EU’s appointed negotiator, once the UK had voted to leave, Michel Barnier) was the ultimate decision-maker on the EU side;

(ii) that in the wake of the Eurozone and refugee crises (both of which had supposedly proved this decision-making power) Merkel would deliver on her inclination to compromise in order to preserve good relations with the UK;

(iii) that German industrial interests would push Merkel in that direction; and

(iv)  that Merkel was essentially a pragmatist and one temperamentally inclined both towards the UK and to delay deciding until late on in any process.

The third of those assumptions has probably generated the most attention – in part because it has generated the most comedy, much of it occasioned by May’s future Brexit Secretary David Davis’s assurance prior to the referendum that ‘Within minutes of a vote for Brexit the CEO’s of Mercedes, BMW, VW and Audi will be knocking down Chancellor Merkel’s door demanding that there be no barriers to German access to the British market.’ This became, as Barnier’s senior adviser Stefaan De Rynck has noted in his book, ‘a recurring meme in London during three and a half years of negotiations’.

However, the other assumptions were every bit as important, reinforced as they were not just by misreadings of Merkel’s modus operandi and her underlying motivations but by an equally misplaced faith in the importance of supposed personal chemistry.

Cameron, in particular, learned far too late that, inasmuch as he had a good relationship with ‘Angela’, it did not mean that she would help him get what he wanted and needed in his renegotiation, especially when it came to constraining free movement. Yet it was hoped – early on anyway and likewise to little eventual effect – that the apparent similarities between the two women (unflashy, clergyman’s daughters, who had worked hard to rise to the top in a man’s world) might prove useful.

All four assumptions were also underpinned by a widespread tendency among the British political class to see the EU as an essentially intergovernmental organisation often overtaken by supranational pretensions. A powerful ally like Germany, then, would allow Britain to sidestep the ‘bureaucracy’ of the Commission.

France, on the other hand, was continually seen as an antagonist – and one intent on ‘punishing’ the UK for wanting to leave the EU. This made it all the more tempting to see Germany, along with the Netherlands, ‘the Nordics’ and ‘the Baltics’, as a counterweight, thereby underestimating the ultimately unwavering commitment on its part (and on the part of its Chancellor) to what one British minister regretfully called ‘the extraordinary grip’ exerted by Europe’s ‘political project’.

Ironically, the risk that this might occur was never lost on Merkel herself. In an address to Parliament during a visit to London back in 2014, she had noted

I have been told many times during the last few days that there are very special expectations of my speech here today. Supposedly, or so I have heard, some expect my speech to pave the way for a fundamental reform of the European architecture which will satisfy all kinds of alleged or actual British wishes. I am afraid they are in for a disappointment. I have also heard that others are expecting the exact opposite… I am afraid these hopes will be dashed, too.

She wasn’t wrong. Clearly, it is one thing to listen to a speech but quite another to actually hear it.

[Tim Bale and Karl Pike’s full-length article, ‘Hopes will be dashed: Brexit and the “Merkel myth”’ is free to read in the Journal of European Integration.]

Originally published at https://ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-and-the-merkel-myth/

Rishi Sunak is no magician.

Only a preternaturally talented politician could persuade voters that, after 13 long and not particularly successful years in office, his party represents the change they’re crying out for. That was the trick the Prime Minister tried to pull off at the Tory conference in Manchester but — judging from the polls and two truly spectacular by-election defeats last week — it’s one he’s signally failed to pull off.

Still, Keir Starmer and his colleagues are right to resist complacency. The Conservatives are sitting on a majority over Labour that will take a 1945/1997-style swing to overturn. And by no means everyone around Sunak has given up: some still claim to see “a narrow path to victory”.

Hope may be in short supply at Westminster and in CCHQ, but for many politicos it remains a powerful drug. The same, sadly, goes for ideology. Which is why the most vocal response in Conservative circles to the Government’s plight is to demand that it return to the eternal verities of Thatcherism by cutting spending to make room for tax cuts that are apparently the key — along with stepping up the “war on woke” and defending “the motorist” — to turning round its political fortunes.

That’s not entirely wrong. If the party is to stand a chance of holding onto the seats it flipped from Labour last time, it will need to “mobilise the base” — in its case older, whiter, less-educated voters living in England’s small towns and suburbs whose vote for Brexit (and Boris) reflected their underlying cultural and social conservatism.

But the kind of neo-liberal populism being urged on Sunak by some of his backbenchers and the Right-wing media bubble they inhabit has its limits and its downsides. For one thing, it won’t be enough to tackle or to distract from the day-to-day struggles that all too many voters face in making ends meet in an ongoing cost-of-living crisis and accessing the healthcare they rely on.

For another, banging on about small boats, speakers getting cancelled on campus, and which bathrooms and prisons people should go to — to name just a few of the “wedge issues” and “dividing lines” ministers desperately draw between the Government and the opposition — risks putting off as many voters as it excites.

If there is a narrow path to victory (or at least to damage limitation), then, it lies in Rishi Sunak rejecting those siren calls and holding his nerve in the hope that by next autumn he will, indeed, be able to argue that the economy is on the up, inflation and mortgage rates are on the way down, as are (thanks to bad weather rather than flights to Rwanda) migrant crossings and, more importantly, NHS waiting lists and times.

Sunak may be no magician, but he is, by all accounts, a genuinely keen cricketer. Between now and the general election, Prime Minister, boring Geoff Boycott rather than spectacular Ben Stokes should be your role model.

Originally published at https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/rishi-sunak-election-win-geoff-boycott-keir-starmer-b1115825.html

There will not be a UK general election tomorrow, however much political pollsters prod voters to say how they would vote in one. But if there were, even the most optimistic Conservative would have to concede that Labour would win, and win easily. In reality, the contest is unlikely to take place for another year.

By then, this year’s conference season, in which the opposition has had the best of it, will be a distant memory. Indeed, research that compares parties’ “before and after conference” ratings over the course of nearly 70 years suggests that any bounce Liverpool might have given Labour will deflate far sooner than that.

None of this means that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer shouldn’t have a spring in his step. As far as we can tell what constitutes “the fundamentals” when it comes to how people vote, they seem to point to a Labour victory — or at least a Conservative defeat. Starmer will be doing everything he can to ensure that he ends up at the helm of not just the largest party but a government with a decent majority — that, however, is by no means guaranteed.

On the upside for Labour, snail’s-pace economic growth and the cost of living crisis mean that, (if they ever really went away), bread-and-butter issues are back with a bang. And, on that score, things look dire for the government.

It’s not that Labour has an overwhelming lead when pollsters ask voters which party they think is best equipped to handle key issues. On the economy, for instance, it’s only ever in single figures, and driven mainly by the fact that, while only about a quarter of respondents name Labour, even fewer (generally around a fifth) plump for the Conservatives. 

What helps Labour, however, is that some three-quarters of voters think the government is handling the issue badly. The NHS and even immigration show similar results.

It’s also personal. Starmer’s approval rating may stand at minus 12 but Sunak is on minus 40. In addition, the overwhelming majority of voters believe that the government is tired and at the mercy of events. And while two-thirds see the Tories as divided, fewer than a third say the same of Labour.

And yet, the difference in values between the UK’s graduate and non-graduate voters, a gulf that helped tip the Brexit referendum in 2016 and Boris Johnson to win comfortably in 2019, hasn’t gone away. Indeed, new research by Manchester university professor Rob Ford presented at the conferences suggests the values divide is still important — and presents as much of a challenge for Labour as it does for the Tories.

Voters who left school at 16 are more likely to think immigration is a problem and less likely to share Labour’s priorities on tackling climate change. They’re also more likely to be wary about any move on Starmer’s part to improve Britain’s relationship with the EU. As a result, Labour needs to tread cautiously, not least because those school-leavers make up a significant proportion of voters in the small-town constituencies it needs to take from the Tories to win a majority.

To do that, Labour needs a bigger swing than that achieved by Tony Blair in 1997’s Labour victory. So the party’s relatively unimpressive performance in local elections is also cause for concern. Set against that is Labour’s recent progress in Scotland and increasing evidence of anti-Tory tactical voting south of the border.

Yet the fact that support for independence is still running at 46 per cent suggests that, notwithstanding its big win in Rutherglen and Hamilton West’s by-election this month, Labour would do well to limit its ambitions to winning just 20-25 Scottish seats in the House of Commons.

So while it is hard right now to see how the Conservatives can keep Starmer out of Downing Street altogether, making it there with a comfortable (or even just a workable) majority remains a work in progress.

Originally published at https://www.ft.com/content/ace8b489-2550-4526-91a3-ee439aa33f53

Special expectations

In 2014, on a visit to London, Angela Merkel addressed the Houses of Parliament. The then German Chancellor recognised in her remarks that British political actors seemed to have ‘very special expectations’ regarding her speech. Some people, Merkel said, seemed to be under the impression that she would signal huge reforms perceived to be in the UK’s interests. Others, she said, expected ‘the exact opposite’.

The German Chancellor, however, was not going to do either of those things. Instead, she delivered a state-of-play speech on EU integration, with a focus on the Eurozone.

Chancellor Merkel demonstrated, once again, that her overriding priority was the political and economic integrity of the European Union rather than narrower UK debates. Despite this, her message seemed to have only a limited impact on the British politicians watching – many of whom would go on to play roles in the Brexit referendum over two years later. Far too many of these politicians invested far too much faith in the ability and desire of Angela Merkel (and, by extension, Germany) to help the UK out.

Why? It is this question – and this puzzle – we sought to partly answer in our recent article. To tackle the issue, we employed the concept of political myth.

Political myths (and why we should study them)

What exactly is a myth – and a political myth? The British philosopher Mary Midgley worked throughout her career on comprehending different frameworks of meaning. Consequently, when we talk about myth, we mean much more than something popularly believed but not actually the case. Rather, and following Midgley, myths to us are one kind of tool to help humans to comprehend the world. They are products of our creating and assigning meaning to things. They are imaginative, and they are far more prevalent and important than we often recognise.

Midgley, of course, is not the only philosopher to think deeply about myth and meaning. Chiara Bottici’s recent work on political myth has restated both the importance and usefulness of the concept. Bottici notes the special ‘significance’ that a political myth accrues through the process of creating and bringing together different meanings in a political context. This idea – the ‘significance’ generated through the process – comes from Hans Blumenberg’s philosophical reflections on myth.

One further philosophical influence on our research came from Charles Taylor. In his book The Language Animal, Taylor argued that myths have the effect of combining different meanings. These meanings, in turn, produce a mythical meaning that is fully appreciated as a whole. In other words, myths have different elements, but they are understood together.

The Merkel myth

Our recent article in the Journal of European Integration argues that such a myth existed within British politics. The myth centred around Angela Merkel, and it goes some way to explaining why British politicians could hear one thing from the Chancellor (and indeed hear something similar from other experts on the EU, political, academic or otherwise), yet think quite another.

The ‘Merkel myth’ had several component parts. It featured the belief among UK political actors (a) that the then German Chancellor was the most important decision-maker within the European Union, (b) that she would more than likely deliver on her supposed commitment to smooth UK-EU relations, (c) that German industrial interests (notably carmakers) would insist upon a close and open UK-EU trading relationship, and (d) that Merkel herself was a pragmatist who would persuade her EU partners do a last-minute deal – as was apparently her habit – so the UK should hold its nerve come what may.

In 2013, David Cameron announced his decision to include, in the next Conservative Party manifesto, a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. This, we argue, was the moment the Merkel myth really became a part of British politics. Merkel was considered to be the European politician who could signal what kind of deal Britain might get in a future renegotiation.

Merkel’s opinions on the plausibility of any reform were influential on Cameron’s pre-referendum renegotiation. After Britain voted to leave, her views remained a key consideration. Leave-supporting actors had blind faith that Merkel would ‘see sense’ and give Britain the deal it wanted – seemingly regardless of the EU institutions and the EU team actually empowered to negotiate on behalf of the EU27. Yet it wasn’t only those committed to leaving who bought into the Merkel myth. Those who wanted the ‘softest’ Brexit – or even no Brexit at all – figured an alternative plan could somehow be agreed with (you guessed it!) Angela Merkel.

Why did people believe this?

The often agonising (and seemingly endless) Brexit process never seemed to come close to matching the confident assumptions of British political actors. So why did so many (although not, we should emphasise, all) of them believe that Chancellor Merkel – and the German government as a whole – would ultimately come to the UK’s rescue?

We think this is another reason why ‘myth’ as a concept for understanding certain kinds of meanings is so useful. The meanings around Merkel had heightened significance within British political elites. These beliefs often seemed to paper over the cracks of the UK’s diplomatic strategy, but only ever really provided political reassurance.

That latter point (the reassurance) is, perhaps, part of the reason some British political actors upheld the Merkel myth. It provided meanings to substantiate the preferred political strategy of some actors: to undermine the solidarity of the EU27, and benefit from negotiations with individual member states perceived as sharing the UK’s economic and trade goals.

Many myths

The world is, we suspect, full of political myths. And this is why we believe the concept is very useful for political analysis. But if that’s the case, we will need further theoretical reflection, as well as more empirical case studies. Part of Mary Midgley’s philosophical mission was to unearth myths, to consider their effects, and to engage with them critically. This is the exercise we have tried to play a small part in, too. We hope others will be tempted to join us.

Originally published at https://theloop.ecpr.eu/brexit-and-the-merkel-myth/

If you’re looking for subtlety and sophistication, Harry Hill and Steve Brown’s Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Opera is probably not for you. It starts – literally – with a bang and careens through a hectic hour and a half of high-energy songs and skits.

The committed cast are happy to provide their audience with caricatures, as opposed to characters. John Prescott (Rosie Strobel) is portrayed as a professional northerner, Robin Cook (Sally Cheng) as a priapic ginger gnome, Cherie Blair (Tori Burgess) as a sharp-tongued Scouser – you get the picture.Trailer for The Tony Blair Rock Opera.

Although the occasional joke misfires (blind David Blunkett walking into a door frame, really?) and some of the actors’ accents are as woeful as the deliberately dodgy wigs they whip on and off, it works on its own terms.

The music and the lyrics might not be that memorable, but the songs rhyme well. In the run up to the 1992 election, for example, Neil Kinnock (Martin Johnston) sings: “We’ve been waiting in the valleys, I’ve been storming it at rallies.” And Princess Diana’s fatal accident is neatly, if rather bluntly, summed up as “the chauffeur was smashed, no wonder he crashed”.

And they cohere nicely – perhaps even especially – when they stray beyond the bounds of good taste. Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein’s numbers (the latter done via a Groucho Marx impression) are a case in point.

The occasional cameos are particularly well done (Britpop’s Liam Gallagher was a favourite of mine), the impressively athletic choreography is basic but effective and one or two of the set pieces work particularly well. The momentous Granita deal (at which Brown was persuaded to give Blair a free run at the leadership in the wake of John Smith’s untimely death) is staged as a wrestling match complete with ropes and shiny leotards. Believe it or not, this actually conveyed what was allegedly discussed and agreed during that dinner pretty accurately.

The show’s limitations

So far, so good(ish), then. But there are some downsides. The most obvious is that in order to get most of the rock opera’s jokes, you probably had to be there – “there” being the 1990s and the early 2000s. Those under 50 might struggle to appreciate some of the political and cultural references, unless they’ve done or are doing a politics degree that covered the New Labour years.

Having not only lived through them but taught them, too, I had no trouble. But that didn’t mean I had no problems with the show.

First and foremost, it fell into the trap of inferring that Blair (Jack Whittle) was driven almost entirely by his love of the limelight. As a result, he is portrayed as an amoral airhead throughout – a puppet whose strings were pulled by Peter Mandelson (Howard Samuels).

In reality, I suspect even Blair’s toughest critics wouldn’t deny that his extraordinary powers of communication rested not just on his natural charisma but on a penetrating intelligence, too. Nor would they deny he was animated by a passion to do what – by his own lights anyway – was right.

Whether that sense of moral purpose (misguided or otherwise) deserted Blair once he left Downing Street and entered the shadowy world of high-paid, globetrotting consultancy is another story. But it’s a story that the authors (who were apparently determined not to write something too long) stop short of telling.

Other all too familiar tropes are much in evidence. Mandelson, who is effectively the narrator of the show, is predictably portrayed – albeit with considerable aplomb – as some sort of vampire or Mephistopheles. And by the same token, Cherie, although wonderfully played, is presented (not for the first nor, I suspect, the last time) as Lady Macbeth.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown comes over (very amusingly, as far as the audience were concerned) as a stereotypical angry Scotsman. Alastair Campbell, for good or ill, only gets a brief walk-on part, coming on, complete with kilt and bagpipes, after the ghost of Princess Diana has – bear with me – persuaded Blair to sex up the “dodgy dossier”.

My main gripe, however, was with the supposedly showstopping last number. Blair, not unreasonably, reminds the audience that 9.5 million of us voted him in for a third term, notwithstanding his decision to go to war in Iraq. The song that follows declares that “The whole wide world is led by assholes”, accompanied by pictures of a bunch of strongmen leaders from around the world.

To equate the UK’s prime minister, however little one may think of him, with the likes of Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad and Putin seems, to me at least, a category error. And, even if you disagree, the underlying message merely serves up more of the populist take on politics that, frankly, we could probably do with rather less of these days.

That said, if you happen to be in Liverpool for the Labour Party conference next week, don’t miss the chance to go see it at the city’s Playhouse. You might not love it, but there’s no way it won’t leave you laughing.

Originally published at https://theconversation.com/the-tony-blair-rock-opera-features-bagpipes-lady-macbeth-and-a-wrestling-match-with-gordon-brown-214753