Citizen of the world, citizen of nowhere

"If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere,"

So said Mrs May.

The word 'cosmopolitan' was coined by the 4th century BC Greek philosopher Diogenes to describe himself and means 'citizen of the world'. Socrates himself said, "I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world".

The philosopher Philo (1st century AD) defined it like this: ‘A man who is obedient to the law, being, by so doing, a citizen of the world, arranges his actions with reference to the intention of nature, in harmony with which the whole universal world is regulated.’

Search for 'citizen of the world' and the results show many famous and influential people described by that phrase (e.g. Garibaldi, Trudeau, Thomas Paine, Orson Wells).

A 'citizen of the world' is someone who has lived in different cultures and understands their differences, their strengths, and can bridge the divide - can rise above parochialism. Authors often use such a character to take a fresh look at their own culture e.g. Oliver Goldsmith's (1728 – 1774) Altangi.

Clearly, being a citizen of the world has been seen as a good thing for the past 2000 years.

So what did Mrs May mean? In her speech she said:

"The spirit of citizenship ... means you respect the bonds and obligations that make our society work. ... People in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road.

"... If you believe you’re a citizen of the world ... you don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means."

Ironically it is Mrs May who deeply misunderstands citizenship. She believes a citizen of the world feels no connection to their local community, no responsibility to their neighbours. She believes that a citizen of the world is rootless, an outsider, a member of the elite.

In truth a citizen of the world understands that their own community is only a small part of a global community. Understands that what is done locally may affect many people globally. Understands that 'the way things are done here' is not the only way, and may not even be the best way.

In essence a citizen of the world is a person who understands that their neighbours live next door - and also across the world. Who takes responsibility for more than their own patch. Who is able to embrace new ideas and discard customs that have outlived their usefulness.

Mrs May in contrast is inward looking and backward looking, for all her talk of 'Global Britain'. Her Global Britain is either one where we compete to become the world's sweatshop, or one where we attempt to revive our Empire.

A previous Conservative leader, Mrs Thatcher, believed there is no such thing as 'society'. Both she and Mrs May regard belonging and responsibility as purely local.

This is deeply dangerous today when the challenges are global and yet where more and more national leaders are turning their backs to the rest of the world.

Singapore-on-Thames

The Chancellor has stated that a hard Brexit - which he favours - will mean changing our economic model to one with low taxes and light regulation. Mr Hammond says these changes would be necessary in order to "regain competitiveness". This is the model that Singapore uses very successfully.

What would this mean for the person in the street - and more specifically for the employee in the factory?

Comparing economic and employment figures for Singapore with ones for the UK it is clear that this change will lead to a lot of pain.

Competitiveness means that prices are comparable for a similar quality of the goods. Mr Hammond is referring to international trade, where the UK sells manufactured goods rather than raw materials (as does Singapore).

As we will be trading under WTO rules we will have the same tariff barriers to our markets as Singapore does, so we need to compete by keeping the manufacturing cost down to a similar level to theirs.

In manufacturing the main cost is labour. So let us compare the figures:

Average weekly wage (manufacturing): Singapore £540 ............ UK £590
Average hours worked per week: Singapore 45 hours ............ UK 32 hours
Productivity of employees: Singapore 119 points ............ UK 102 points

Note that the productivity figures essentially mean that for every 102 widgets a UK worker produces a Singaporean will produce 119.

So if we suffer a hard Brexit and go into direct competition with Singapore (and other countries like it) we will need to improve our figures to match. The fastest way to reduce our prices to match theirs is to simply reduce wages - employees could choose to work longer hours and work more effectively in order to earn more.

To match Singapore would require a wage cut of between 40% and 45% (down to around £330 per week).

Meanwhile food prices are going up meaning the buying power of those reduced wages will be reduced even further, while tax rates will have to go up in order to maintain the tax take. However, doubling the tax rate would be politically impossible, so ever tighter austerity will need to be imposed - reducing funds for the NHS, education, benefits, pensions.

No doubt this is an attractive proposition for hard-line Brexiteers. Singapore is a successful alternative to the welfare state, with no NHS, no social housing, no state pensions, no state education. In Singapore the user pays - and tough if you can't pay.

If this is the road the Conservative party wish to take us down then we, the people, should have a voice - we, the people, should have a choice.

Get out and vote

Why has Mrs May done another U-turn? She has repeatedly said that she will wait until 2020 before calling a general election, yet yesterday she announced she wanted to hold it in just a couple of months.

The first question is why she wanted to wait. The Tories have only a slim majority in the Commons. With UKIP imploding, Labour riven by internal divisions and the Lib Dems yet to recover from their own leadership debacle, and with the Conservatives being the only party clearly supporting Brexit, it seemed obvious to some that a post-referendum general election would see a landslide to the Tories - a ringing endorsement of Brexit. However Mrs May knew there were - and are - big risks.

When Mrs May became leader of the Conservatives a general election had taken place only the year before. Had Labour support fallen quickly enough to cost them seats? Would the success of the Leave campaign mean emboldened Tory voters switching to UKIP? Would worried voters support Lib Dem as the reality of Brexit started to dawn on them? Remember that the Conservative manifesto pledged to keep us in the single market. Comparing the 2015 general election results with the referendum results it was Labour areas (bar London) which voted Leave while Tory areas voted Remain.

Linked to this was the fact that only a third of the electorate had actually voted Leave - a third voted Remain and a third didn't vote. Older people were more likely to vote, and were more likely to vote Leave. The turnout for the referendum was greater than for the previous general election, but how many people did not vote because everyone expected Remain to win? How many cast a 'protest vote' and regretted it? Mrs May had already said no to a second referendum. A general election would have been (and will be) on the single issue of Brexit - as Mrs May acknowledged yesterday.

So what has changed her mind?

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland remain lost to the Tories but it is the English constituencies (533 MPs of 650 in total) which will determine our next PM. UKIP and Labour continue losing support, sinking deeper into the mire of factional politics, while the Lib Dems have yet to find an identity. Given the choice of Mrs May or Mr Corbyn for PM over half of Labour voters chose Mrs May. So it seems that voters won't want to punish her for Brexit.

Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn has announced Labour will only support a Brexit deal that includes “unfettered access” to the European market. As this is not on offer he is essentially saying Labour will not support any achievable deal. Add in the hard right Conservative Eurosceptics who also want a Hard Brexit and suddenly Mrs May has a problem.

To get her negotiated deal past Parliament she will have to ensure she has enough votes. At present that gives her some unappealing choices. She could appease the Eurosceptics by negotiating a deal little better than a unilateral withdrawal. She could try to buy votes from the SNP, but the price would be very high - Ms Sturgeon wants Scottish independence. In Northern Ireland Sinn Fein/DUP/SDLP will be most concerned over the closure of the border with the Republic, so free movement will be top of their wish list.

Mrs May knows that repeating 'Brexit means Brexit' is no longer enough. She can no longer hide. She needs a decisive majority if she is to achieve what she wants. Negotiations in Europe are going to be hard enough without special interests back home holding her to ransom. So she is staking everything on this roll of the dice.

My hope is that the Conservatives will not gain those needed seats, that instead the Lib Dems will regain the ground they have lost and become the party Mrs May has to work with. They may not be able to stop Brexit but at least they understand how important Europe is to the UK.

Between a Rock and a hard place

Mrs May has said that Gibraltar will not be part of the negotiations but somehow forgot to mention that in her letter to Mr Tusk triggering Article 50. He didn't forget, and in his reply clearly stated that Spain would have a veto over discussions about Gibraltar's future.

Things have not been helped by the myopic jingoism of Lord Howard, stating that if the Spanish gave any trouble then Mrs May would deal with them in the same way that Mrs Thatcher dealt with the Argentinians over the Falklands.

This is a serious issue, and such puerile flag-waving only four days after the trigger was pulled (and before negotiations have even started) is also a serious concern. While we were in the EU club this issue was discussed in a civilised manner, though Spanish vessels have repeatedly entered Gibraltar's territorial waters illegally. The most recent incursion was dealt with in the same way that the previous ones were - irate phone calls.

Once we have resigned from the club then things become a bit more unstable. Disregarding the bluster of such as Lord Howard, it is still quite possible that in the future shots might be fired.

If that seems unlikely then it is worth reading about the Cod Wars between the UK and Iceland in the 1970's. Vessels were fired upon, boarded, and even captured. The dispute was about territory again - who could fish where. And there is an important lesson in this: we lost, despite the overwhelming superiority of our navy.

We lost because winning nowadays is rarely about direct military might, it is about alliances. In this case Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO if we didn't cry uncle.

Another case to consider is what happened the last time things became strained over Gibraltar. In 2013 Spain imposed very strict border controls, causing a lot of problems for Gibraltarians. We asked the European Commission to arbitrate, and threatened to go to the European Court of Justice.

Clearly in two years' time neither of these will be an option. We can only call in people committed to settling such things amicably if we will abide by the decision - i.e. give up sovereignty. So the next dispute will be settled using political force with a dressing of armed force ("to show we mean business"). We may well lose again, as Spain has the EU and we will have no-one.

Team UK

Well we are off to a good start in negotiations over Brexit. Mrs May's letter triggering Article 50 threatened reduced co-operation over crime and terrorism if a satisfactory agreement wasn't reached. The UK home secretary, Amber Rudd, made things worse by saying: “If we left Europol then we would take our information ... with us.”

This didn't go down well, with a number of EU leaders responding that blackmail won't work. It definitely didn't this time - Mrs May's suggestion that trade talks should start now was rejected by Mrs Merkel,

At least Mrs May gave hints that her 'red line' over the European Court of Justice and the removal of EU regulations might be rather blurry. She (and the Chancellor) are also happy to pay our Brexit bill. So apparently she isn't wedded to hard Brexit.

So who will be negotiating on our behalf?

Mr Davis is the Brexit minister. He has twice campaigned for leadership of the Tory party, and was the man behind the EU slapping down Mrs May's attempt to enact her initial Snooper's Charter. Let's hope that he has no interest in challenging her for leadership any time soon.

We have Boris 'Cake' Johnson as Foreign Secretary, who believes, "It would be perfectly OK if we weren't able to get an agreement". When Mr Johnson's appointment was announced, the US State Department spokesman Mark Toner stifled a laugh and said,"We’re always going to be able to work with the British, no matter who is occupying the role of Foreign Secretary... This is something that, frankly, goes beyond – a relationship that goes beyond personalities" - a very diplomatic way of saying, "Are you serious?!" The reactions of senior politicians to the appointment were rather similar.

At least Mr Johnson wasn't allowed to contribute to the letter, or even see it until the day before it was sent. The letter also carefully avoided any reference to cake, eaten or uneaten.

Mr Johnson's gaffes are embarrassing enough without them appearing in something this important. If he thinks the negotiations don't matter then he should be kept well away from them.

We have Mr Fox as Secretary of State for International Trade. This is the Liam Fox who had to resign in disgrace as Defence Secretary and who had to repay over £22,500 for his part in the Commons expenses scandal. He has referred to citizens' rights as "one of the main cards" to play in the Brexit negotiations. Quite apart from the attempt to use blackmail (is this one of the UK's core negotiating strategies?), it is very worrying that he sees this as one of our main cards. Our hand surely is not quite that bare?

Mr Hammond, as our Chancellor, will have an important role. His first budget does not bode well, with his failed attempt to increase the national insurance contributions (NICs) paid by the self-employed. He argued that the manifesto promise saying he wouldn't do this did not apply because of a loophole added after the election. We don't want loophole wars in the Brexit negotiations.

The blame game played by Mrs May's and Mr Hammond's staff is also a concern. Each side (surely they should be on the same one?) made serious criticisms of the other, throwing around terms like "economically illiterate", "imperious" and even claims that the tax hike was "smuggled" into the budget. If something as minor as this can divide them so deeply then Brexit is going to be fun.

Our Ambassador to the EU is Sir Tim Barrow. Sir Tim took over from Sir Ivan Rogers in January when Sir Ivan resigned. When he left Sir Ivan wrote a letter to his staff which warned them that even in January our negotiation objectives had not yet been decided, that pro-Brexit ministers believe trade 'just happens' so have no interest in negotiations (see above), that they suffer from muddled thinking and offer ill-founded arguments to support their views, and that they discourage honest advice that goes against their preconceptions.

He also noted that the UK has little negotiating experience (we have no trade negotiators of our own as the EU does our negotiating for us),

We are trying to train up negotiators. However the trainer, Mr Woolcock, warns that even if we have good negotiators they will be under pressure to sign anything they can in order to make Brexit look like it is working.

It would make a great mini-series, but is this a good basis for negotiating our country's future?

You have to laugh

Mrs May has triggered Article 50 but there is no point getting despondent. It is one more step towards perdition, but we can still turn aside. So, instead of losing hope, Remainers are responding with gallows humour.

My favourite image so far is of the Dusseldorf carnival float:
http://oakridgeobserver.com/2017/03/30/british-pm-theresa-may-to-trigger-article-50-for-brexit/

There are also some excellent guesses at the contents of Mrs May's letter triggering Brexit:

http://mashable.com/2017/03/29/theresa-may-brexit-meme-article-50-signing/#jC9AswewDPqp

The best take so far has to be this exam question from 2040:

https://twitter.com/ipsilateral/status/846856057389502465

One thing that strikes me is that Remainers seem far more civilised than Leavers. Remainers respond with humour (obviously Remainers find a lot to laugh about - Mr Johnson announced as our foreign secretary, for example), while Leavers respond with violence - physical and political. They refer to Remainers as "Remoaners", dub disinterested judges 'enemies of the people', make death threats against Gina Miller - their targets only want a fair hearing, but any questioning of Brexit is seen as a serious threat.

However I know a number of Leavers, and they aren't exactly rabid attack dogs. They seem reasonable people who honestly believe Brexit is for the best.

So why the violence? Is it because Brexit is clearly a terrible idea and so any dissent must be squashed to prevent people realising this? No - Leavers really do believe Brexit is a Good Thing and accept there will be costs.

The key word is 'believe'. That explains the violent reaction to dissent, the 'at all costs' mindset: Brexit is a religion. Leavers don't hear a debate about a political settlement - they hear unbelievers attacking their faith.

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