Election Communication

Nine days before the U.K. General Election being held on 12 December 2019, I received  a flier canvassing for my vote from the standing MP for my constituency of South Belfast.

As she didn’t come and chat, I decided to write (7 Dec) to her email address.

  

Dear Mrs Little Pengelly,

Thank you for your Westminster election communication delivered to my address.  I read with interest the reasons it provides to vote for you next week.

Unfortunately your canvasser didn’t knock on our door to discuss it.  In the absence of an opportunity to debate its contents, allow me to ask you by email.

Voters, you argue, should "support a party which has delivered £1.5 billion for Northern Ireland..."

This week, I have passed workplaces in Belfast where NHS staff and university staff stand in freezing cold to publicise campaigns for fair pay.  Has the £1.5b been paid in part or in full or not any to date?  And can you demonstrate whether or not the windfall has been paid by the Exchequer either to Stormont, the NI Office or to DUP?  

Given your use of the past tense (delivered), please outline the programmes and projects to which it has been allocated in Northern Ireland and with what results, given the 3 year absence of devolved government.

Is the £1.5b a re-allocation of the normal block grant or is it additional to the grant awarded from Westminster under the Barnett formula?

If it has been paid, what conditions were attached in the letter of offer? 

What Economic Appraisals (HM Treasury’s Green Book requirement) been carried out to assess projects and programmes funded by the £1.5b?

The striking sight of NHS and QUB workers suggests that the £1.5billion, if it exists in reality, is not assisting the people who deliver education and health.

Does the £1.5 billion include an allocation for the "botched" Renewable Heating Scheme?  Perhaps that débacle is to be paid from the block grant or directly by Westminster on top of the block grant and the DUP £1.5b?

If you can show me that the £1.5b has been delivered with identifiable results, does your flier’s comment that the DUP "wants to get more done" mean that the block grant +£1.5 billion is insufficient support for Northern Ireland’s needs from UK taxpayers?  

Another reason listed to vote for you is to "protect Northern Ireland's place in the UK." 

Your constituents are well aware that you disregard the majority view in South Belfast (and across Northern Ireland) on Brexit.  How does a stance which will reduce UK GDP and terminate EU citizenship protect the British union; does it endear your constituents to reciprocate your vision? 

The threat to this union is not coming from Ireland. Its PM, An Taoiseach (whom the DUP leader condemns as “intransigent”) has spoken against a border poll. We have spent a lifetime content to tolerate union with GB; the prospects of your hard Brexit, however, and your leader’s support for illegal action by the Monarch to whom “loyalty” is shamelessly worn on her lapel does Little to promote protective support.

The prospect of Britain’s union collapsing comes instead from north of the border.  Scotland's Government is intent on seeking independence because of the Brexit your party has fashioned with the Conservatives.

Another argument you flag to win my vote is to claim that DUP are the "strongest unionist team."   This assertion sits uneasily with the DUP’s track record and with its ultimate achievement, the latest UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement. Your party denounces it as "The Betrayal Act."  That phrase echoes the PM’s much-criticised term “Surrender Act” for Hilary Benn’s bill. 

Voters will recall DUP criticisms of others (excluding the PM) to “dial down their rhetoric.”

Your constituents are reminded of the DUP’s public endorsement of a strategy which drew Her Majesty into proroguing Parliament, illegally.  What sort of advertisement is that for strong unionism as it inflicts reputational damage on the Monarch of her divided kingdom?

The PM refutes your mantra that his Withdrawal Agreement creates a border (your flier’s penultimate reason for giving you my vote inexplicably refers to "borders") in the Irish Sea. He argues repeatedly that under his “excellent deal” there will be no trade barriers between GB and Northern Ireland.

Has your trust in him evaporated; are you calling the UK’s PM a liar?  Or, worse still, arising from the betrayal accusation are you dubbing him a traitor, betraying your loyalty?

The other reason you add to enlist my vote is that your party "will not support a Corbyn Government."  I have previously sent you links to the many expert reports by official bodies such as the NIESR, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England, the ESRI, and others - including HM Treasury – all of which provide overwhelming evidence that Brexit will damage the UK’s economy.

It takes Jeremy Corbyn to make the DUP case and to rebut the PM with hard evidence.  The Labour Party leader presents a document from the Treasury as proof of trade barriers between GB and Northern Ireland and your party leader changes heart.  At a stroke DUP supports both Mr Corbyn as well as H.M. Treasury expertise.

DUP objections to regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and Great Britain have been expressed boisterously during Brexit.  It has been the DUP justification for opposing all UK/EU Withdrawal Agreements. 

And this is in spite of the fact that DUP in Government presided over a scheme for Renewable Heating which abandoned GB regulatory safeguards, its cost controls.

With a record in regional government that treated public finances in such a way, voters are sceptical about DUP financial management and about the sincerity of your declaration to deliver on devolved health and education.

Can the party which ended the regulatory alignment of pay parity be trusted to control health and education prudently?

I won’t even mention a series of other examples of regulatory alignment, bête noirs for the DUP.  It wants important social issues to be legally regulated on the basis of theology rather than on the contemporary basis on Britain's secular laws.  

The inconsistency in your stance to regulatory alignment matches neither UK nor international standards.

In a sentence, it is difficult to be persuaded by any single one of your six reasons. Nevertheless, we will mull over your request to vote “Little Pengelly X.”  And we wish you a Happy Christmas.  

An automated reply within a minute or two reassuringly acknowledged receipt.  
It added, interestingly, that “there are currently no MPs.”  That is because “Parliament has been dissolved until the General Election.”  As a result, I checked Mrs Pengelly’s website and her email contact address remains the Parliamentary one.  I expect that she will retain access to mail from her constituents.

A list of the empirical evidence set out in official reports and pointing to the economic damage which Brexit will cause is summarised in an earlier post[i].

©Michael McSorley 2019

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[i] https://michaelmcsorleyeconomy.blogspot.com/2019/07/how-can-uks-new-pm-resolve-brexit.html

Omnes ad unum, the Conservatives and DUP

Unlawfulness

The unanimous ruling of the UK’s Supreme Court that the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful, that “the effect on the fundamentals of democracy was extreme,[i]” is welcome.

The Conservative Government and the DUP leaderships have let the UK down.

Mandate

Given the Court’s emphasis on democracy, let’s consider the latter party.  Northern Ireland’s largest political party proudly displays its credentials on its name emphasising “democratic” as the first of two adjectives.

On the big issue of the era, however, the DUP does not represent the majority of Northern Ireland’s electorate which voted three years ago to remain in the EU.  They lack a mandate in Great Britain, with no MPs or District Councillors in England, Scotland or in Wales.  Unsurprisingly, their attempt to woo London voters in 2016 with expensive advertising in the Metro newspaper was rejected when the UK’s capital voted substantially to remain in the EU. 

Yet they wielded influence on Teresa May’s minority Conservative Government after she lost her majority in Parliament when failing to achieve the opposite in a General Election.  The CP/DUP arrangement is criticised as impugning the impartiality required of the UK Government in discharging its crucial co-guarantor role for the Good Friday Agreement.   

Nevertheless, the DUP has continued its support for the Conservative Government under Boris Johnson.  Its influence changed, however, when the PM deprived his own administration of its working majority by expelling 21 MPs who rebelled in a crucial vote.  At 10 pm on 3 September, all ten DUP MPs discovered their loss of clout on the Government.  Purged of the Father of the House and 20 like-minded Conservative “rebels,” they failed to defeat Hilary Benn’s bill which blocks a no deal Brexit.  The losing margin for the Government’s no-deal stance was 28 votes.  

The DUP has been uncompromising in supporting the new PM’s strategy which has been based on his “do or die” in a ditch “come what May” maxims to leave the EU by 31 October, deal or no deal, not forgetting “no ifs no buts.”  CP/DUP as one, “Omnes ad Unum.”   

Following the fondness of her party’s founder for multiple negatives (“Never, never , never” protesting against the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement), the current leader resorted to a double-negative that “the DUP is not a no-deal party.[ii]”  Juxtaposed beside DUP support for the new PM’s strategy, one stretches to explain the paradox. Perhaps George Orwell’s concept “doublethink[iii]” applies.

The DUP provided unequivocal endorsement for the controversial prorogation of Parliament for 5 weeks.  I was going to add that at least the DUP take their seats in Westminster – but, familiar with Stormont’s closure, they supported the unlawful suspension of the Mother of Parliaments.  The irony was nailed with satirical precision[iv] by the Ulster Fry.

Analysis of close votes in the Commons demonstrates the adverse impact of closed for business.  Sinn Féin’s mandate to stay away from Westminster probably pleases the DUP.  Abstention, however, ranks as an abrogation of electoral responsibility. It disenfranchises its electoral base and it denies electors a voice where key decisions are made on constitutional and other matters.  Attendance at Westminster could have nullified or lessened the voting quantum of DUP rivals.  

On 11 September, two days into the closure of Parliament, the Inner Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that the Government’s prorogation decision was unlawful.  It was ruled as an attempt to “stymie” (meaning thwart) the House of Commons and prevent MPs from scrutinising the Government over Brexit.  

As one correspondent expressed it, the three judges did not accept the veracity of the Government’s stated rationale for suspension.  For the DUP whose loyalty to the Crown is displayed on its leader’s lapel, it must have been agonising to be complicit in drawing the monarch into politics; and even more so to see Her Majesty consenting on 28 August to the use of her own royal prerogative for an unlawful act.  To have the Scottish judges’ decision upheld by the Supreme Court must turn agony into humiliation.

Good Friday Agreement

The DUP leader argues that the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement’s “backstop” insurance policy is unacceptable to all unionists.[v]  Evidence contradicts that stance.  Results of a new survey[vi] by Lord Ashcroft reveal that 20% of unionists are prepared to accept the backstop.  The party leader’s assertion to speak for all unionists is cast into doubt.

She ignores that the insurance policy commands strong support from business and farming organisations, apolitical bodies which are neutral on the union.  Any suggestion that a legal insurance policy to retain frictionless trade across Ireland splits the electorate on tribal unionist/nationalist grounds seems counter-intuitive.

Consistency is an issue for the DUP.  The party’s chief whip asserts that the backstop is “in clear conflict” with the GFA because it has no unionist support.[vii] He cites no quantitative evidence to verify his claim nor does he rebut the Ashcroft survey.  Instead his logic points to the opposite conclusion which is that Brexit contradicts the GFA because it lacks consent across the community of Northern Ireland.

Rhetoric

The DUP has earned its reputation and democratic credentials since its inception through booming and sometimes bellicose public discourse.   It occasionally still reverts to type, as the recent smear[viii] about “dirty Dublin tricks” reveals.  To witness its current leadership warning others to “dial down the rhetoric” seems disingenuous, arguably hypocritical.  On 1 August the party leader instructed Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to dial down his rhetoric[ix] following comments that moderate unionists and nationalists will query being forced into a hard Brexit which threatens the economy, north and south.

It came as a surprise, therefore, that there was no call the next day from her to Jonathan Powell (Downing Street Chief of Staff 1997-2007 and GFA negotiator for the UK Government) when he said that Boris Johnson will “abandon” the DUP for a free trade deal; and when Barbara Gray the Assistant Chief Constable of the PSNI argued that a no-deal Brexit could prompt an upsurge in republican violence,[x] no call emanated from the DUP complaining of dialled-up rhetoric; and likewise on 3 September when the credit ratings agency DBRS warned that a hard Brexit could reignite sectarian violence and a break-up of the UK[xi] there was no clamour about rhetoric. 

What they will make of David Cameron, the father of the referendum, and his rhetoric about the current PM and Minister for no deal planning (“leaving the truth at home”).  Fact or fiction, or perhaps you couldn’t make up this stuff?   Are Boris Johnson and Michael Gove really being called liars, who would have thought it? 

On which subject, an essay by the Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Warwick University[xii] revisits George Orwell’s dire warning about the link between the state of a language and the condition of politics.  “Brexiteers,” he says, “subscribe to a myth of English exceptionalism, as inscribed in their God-given fundamentalist language – now demonstrably a language for lying in.”  He cites the new PM’s description of his opponents as “collaborators” and a “junta.”  The author recalls the wartime slogan that “careless talk costs lives” adding that, if Brexit leads to shortages of medical supplies, that slogan might become all the more important.

Evidence-based policy making

When Government ignores facts and figures, its reputation suffers and problems arise sooner or later. This failing adversely affected the Labour Party Government because of its dismissal of evidence for the war in Iraq.  A plethora of expert research articulates alarming economic impacts of Brexit[xiii] heralding many issues that warrant urgent political attention. The expert data, however, have regularly dismissed as “project fear” or forgotten during and since the referendum.  

I have asked the DUP earlier this year for the evidential basis behind its opposition to the UK’s membership of the EU.[xiv]  A reply is awaited. 

The trend of dismissing evidence has continued this summer.  On 18 August when the Sunday Times published the Government’s plans for no-deal Brexit (Operation Yellowhammer) revealing food, fuel and medicine shortages because of Brexit, the evidence was explained away by Cabinet Ministers as “old.”  This was in spite of the fact that the dossier was compiled by the Cabinet Office almost a fortnight after the election of a new PM by 92,153 Conservative Party members.  

An abbreviated 5-page version of the Yellowhammer report has since been published (11 September), with the addition of the term “worst case scenario” to the title.  That extra phrase contradicts the leaked report when a senior Whitehall source told the Sunday Times – “this is not project Fear, this is the most realistic assessment of what the public face with no deal.  These are likely, basic, reasonable scenarios, not the worst case.[xv]”

Not only has the Conservative Government and DUP failed to rebut evidence, but worse, they have produced no contrary evidence as a basis for their aggressive exit strategy.  Does either party know more than experts such as the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England, the Department for the Economy (NI), and others?  And how is it logical that the Government of the UK does not believe its own expert research?

Every day apolitical organisations publish information which demonstrates the threats of Brexit.  For example, the Bank of England warns[xvi] that with a no-deal Brexit, “very big and highly profitable industries in the UK would become uneconomic.”   

And 2/5 of members of Northern Ireland’s Chamber of Commerce and Trade would move part or all of their businesses overseas in the event of a no-deal Brexit.[xvii]  And a new report from the body E-Surgery[xviii] corroborates one element of Yellowhammer.  It indicates that 59 medicinal drugs needed to treat breast cancer, epilepsy, diabetes, and heart failure could become impossible to access.

Community cohesion and neighbourliness

On the issue of the DUP’s pledge to protect the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Brexit has divided the whole of society, public opinion and political parties within the “United” Kingdom.  It has adversely affected the reputation of its Parliamentary democracy abroad[xix] and domestically as minority Government after minority Government struggle to agree on what Brexit means and on an exit strategy.  Businesses across the UK, on both sides of the Irish border, and in Europe have had cope with economic uncertainty,[xx] political unpredictability at Westminster and to invest heavily in Brexit planning. 

Most worryingly, the exposure of the UK’s unwritten constitution[xxi] has been laid bare as “feeble” and “a byword for democratic fragility.”  Does the CP/DUP partnership’s unlawful suspension of Parliament protect or endanger the reputation of “the precious union?”  Do their actions to make it a more attractive proposition?

People in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU based on empirical evidence.  Divorce from the EU is a threat to our economy and to peace.  Given the decision to leave, we must protect our interests from the scenarios predicted by the evidence.  If the Brexit campaign pledge that it will be easy and quick to renegotiate a new UK/EU trade deal means anything (and which helped win the referendum), there will be no “border in the Irish Sea.” 

Even if there were one, it would be a trade barrier and not a constitutional border because Northern Ireland has not voted to leave the UK - at this time.  The only evidence of imminent threat to “the precious union,” a salutary warning for the DUP, comes from Scotland whose concerns about self-respect, legitimacy and engaging with the outside world Europe speak eloquently.[xxii]

The erection of new trade barriers between the UK and Europe, down the North Sea and The Channel, are objectionable to most Scottish and Northern Irish electors.  They voted to remain in the EU without barriers to our European trade.  

Northern Ireland accommodates the UK’s only EU land border.  The case for continuation of a thriving single island open economy is unimpeachable.  Even accepting the self-harm that the unforced unilateral act of Brexit will effect on the UK, there is no justification for punishing our neighbours.  What is the CP/DUP alliance thinking?  

The Supreme Court ruling exposes CP/DUP decision-making at a fundamental level.

Northern Ireland wants to continue peaceful living and trading without political or criminal hindrance across jurisdictions in Ireland and internationally. 

©Michael McSorley 2019

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[i] BBC News 24 September 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49810261

[ii] BBC News 18 September 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49747203

[iii] “Politics and the English Language” George Orwell 1946 Doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accepting both.

[iv]The Ulster Fry 10 September 2019  https://theulsterfry.com/politics/rest-of-uk-adopts-northern-irelands-no-government-policy/

[v] BBC Radio Ulster Good Morning Ulster Arlene Foster interview 11 September 2019

[vi] Lord Ashcroft Survey 11 September 2019 https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/11/ashcroft-poll-on-support-the-backstop-reunification-and-party-leaders/

[vii] Belfast Telegraph 16 September 2019 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/there-is-still-time-to-find-solution-to-irish-brexit-border-issue-insists-dups-donaldson-38500139.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BT:DailyNews&hConversionEventId=AQEAAZQF2gAmdjQwMDAwMDE2ZC0zOWMwLTMzMTItYmVjOC0wMTE2M2VhYjRmOTPaACRlN2U2MjBiOS0xY2NiLTRlZjEtMDAwMC0wMjFlZjNhMGJjZDTaACQ3NTFiODAzYi0xMGE5LTQxZjAtYTE1ZS1iZTM2NWQzNTlmMGFbHRrZ_otLdxwmTkn9RXaQnLf7V9qYJHGaED8e_iwf7A

[viii] Belfast Telegraph 12 September 2019 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/northern-ireland/blow-for-belfast-as-ryanair-and-aer-lingus-cut-routes-38490545.html

[ix] Belfast Telegraph 1 August 2019 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/leo-varadkar-rejects-arlene-fosters-project-fear-claim-saying-all-should-be-afraid-of-nodeal-brexit-38366151.html

[x] Irish Times 31 August 2019 p1

[xi] Irish Times Peter Hamilton 4 September 2019 https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/severe-hard-brexit-could-reignite-sectarian-violence-ratings-agency-says-1.4007451

[xii] Irish Times The Ticket 14 September 2019 Thomas Docherty https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/decay-of-english-language-makes-it-perfect-for-lying-1.4012377

[xiii] https://michaelmcsorleyeconomy.blogspot.com/2019/07/how-can-uks-new-pm-resolve-brexit.html

[xiv] https://michaelmcsorleyeconomy.blogspot.com/2019/03/brexit-briefings-to-dup-mp-jan-feb-2019.html

[xv] The Times 19 August 2019 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/operation-chaos-whitehalls-secret-no-deal-brexit-plan-leaked-j6ntwvhll

[xvi] BBC News 2 August 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49203426

[xvii] Belfast Telegraph Business 13 September 2019 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/northern-ireland/firms-planning-to-quit-northern-ireland-if-there-is-hard-brexit-survey-38492309.html?fbclid=IwAR3I8AY5qCpzOQBssQY7giMPlILGhvKMpbRU5cUscwxE4YbLejep_k_NhE0

[xviii] Belfast Telegraph 13 September 2019 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/revealed-59-vital-medicines-that-may-be-impossible-to-get-if-the-uk-crashes-out-of-europe-38492903.html

[xix] Observer 4 August 2019 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/04/how-does-the-rest-of-the-world-currently-view-the-uk-brexit-boris-johnson

[xx] The Times 27 July 2019 Sterling’s fall in value Investors rattled by Johnson’s appointment

[xxi] Irish Times 3 September 2019 Fintan O’Toole https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-welcome-to-the-united-kingdom-of-absurdistan-1.4005396?fbclid=IwAR0jlz5cG4t5WAC3mz-1_pgZttGdZsLnD1rhTZjqBrzE-7TSA2Xg4MNtuAo

[xxii] 18 September 2019 https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/18/if-scotland-eventually-goes-brexit-may-have-given-it-a-hefty-shove-out-the-door/