We must have a second referendum

I've not posted on this blog for ages, as I became very busy finishing off the MA in History that I was studying via distance learning. Now that is finished, and we are facing probably the most tumultuous few weeks in British politics since the second World war, I feel I ought to post something about Brexit, starting with the political events of the last few days.
Last week, various parliamentarians, including the Speaker, Jon Berkow, were accused by elements in the media, as well as many on social media, of hatching a coup to thwart the "will of the people", when the Speaker allowed an amendment to be added to the government's finance bill which would force the government to come back to parliament within three working days, in the event of Teresa May's withdrawal agreement being defeated, with a statement about how they now wished to proceed. This accusation was utter nonsense. In a matter of such vital importance, it was quite right for the speaker to allow parliament (which represents the whole country) to put some pressure on the government (which, being a minority government, represents less than half of the electorate). During the referendum campaign, many brexiters opined that parliamentary sovereignty was the very thing which they felt was threatened by the UK's membership of the European Union, so it is hard to see why they would complain about parliament trying to exercise some kind of check over the executive in these circumstances. (Some brexiters even called this an unprecedented seizure of power by the legislature over the executive. I would suggest that Charles I, were he still around to comment, might not agree with them on that.)
Last night Teresa May's withdrawal agreement Bill was defeated, by 432 votes to 202, the largest defeat for any government in parliamentary history. Jeremy Corbyn has tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, which will be debated and then voted on today, although the government is expected to survive thanks to the support of the DUP. After last night's defeat, Mrs May said that she would reach out to other senior parliamentarians across the house to try to find out whether there was some form of deal that could be supported by a majority in the house, which could then be put to the the European Union.
However, in this afternoon's Prime Minister's Questions, she stated that any new deal must involve an end to freedom of movement. This shows that she is either in total denial, or is being completely insincere in her offer to listen to other parties. The EU have made it very clear that the current deal is the only possible deal on offer if the UK insists on leaving the single market and customs union, and there is no way that Britain would be allowed to stay in those institutions if it does not accept freedom of movement.
For the past two years, Mrs May has let herself be guided by the misguided notion that it is her duty to take Britain out of the single market, out of the customs union, and to end freedom of movement, because, apparently, that was what most leave voters wanted when they cast their vote to leave the EU. This was a fundamental mistake because, as I argued in this post shortly after the referendum, even though many Brexit voters may have been opponents of immigration, the fact that the leave vote was only 52% means that the anti-immigrant brexiters were undoubtedly only a minority of the those who actually took part in the referendum. There is, therefore, no mandate for insisting on an end to freedom of movement or membership of the single market or customs union. Mrs May's inability to see this could potentially lead this country to disaster.
There has been talk recently of a move within parliament to come together around a Norway style deal (something I argued for in the post just referenced), but if Mrs May is intransigent on this then there is no real possibility of it coming to fruition. If she survives today's no confidence vote, then we are left with only two options. Either a 'no deal' Brexit, which almost all forecasters say would be disastrous for the country, or no Brexit at all. Until a few weeks ago, I was opposed to the idea of a second referendum, but since these seem now to be the only two options (unless, against all predictions, today's no confidence motion succeeds) I have now become a supporter. I do not believe that there has ever been a majority for a 'no deal' Brexit. Indeed, the latest polling indicates that staying in the EU is now the "will of the people". It would, in fact, be an affront to democracy if the government were to take us out of the European Union with no deal, without first checking if that was what the majority of the British people wanted.

The transgender question

Yesterday, on LBC radio, I listened to an interview with a woman who is involved in helping schools to deal with the question of transgender students. I began listening after the interview had started so, unfortunately, I don’t know who she was. Apparently, she has recently been vilified by the Daily Mail for “telling teachers not to use the words ‘boy’ and ‘girl’”. The reality, as she explained, was that she advises teachers to address large groups of students as “people” rather than by using gender specific terms, since there might be some present who would feel excluded by such terms.

The presenter (James O’Brien, of course) opened up the phone lines to callers who might have questions they wished to put to this woman about her field of expertise, or areas of confusion she might be able to clarify for them. Unfortunately, I was listening from work so was not able to call the show, but had I been at home I would have been very tempted to call, since transgenderism is an area that I do have some confusion about and I would appreciate being able to discuss my questions with someone who knows more about it than I do. In the event, I had to tweet my question, which was, “If there were no socially prescribed gender roles, would there still be people who felt they were trapped in the wrong body?” Unfortunately, JO’B did not read out my question, but I did receive a number of “likes” and “retweets”. On investigating the twitter profiles of my likers and retweeters I found that the majority of them were women who identified as feminists and considered transgenderism as a threat to the safety, privacy and rights of women. My tweet, however, was not meant to be a condemnation of transgenderism. It was a genuine question which I have never heard properly addressed and would very much like to know the answer to so that I can formulate my own stance on transgender issues, particularly now that such issues have become so topical and politically relevant, with the government considering making it easier for people to legally change their gender.

If the answer to my question is 'yes, there would still be people who felt they were trapped in the wrong body even in the absence of socially prescribed gender roles' - in other words, if the reasons for people being transgender are not predominantly related to their identification (or lack of identification) with societal expectations of masculine or feminine behaviour - then what that would appear to indicate is that transgenderism is not actually about 'gender' at all. Rather, it is about biological sex and the straightforward desire to have a body of the opposite biological sex to that with which one was born. If that is the case, then what does it mean to be a man trapped in a woman's body, or vice versa? Wouldn't that seem to imply that being male or female is an ontological reality that goes beyond mere physical 'plumbing'? That there is something like a male or female 'soul' - a kind of gendered "ghost in the machine" - completely unrelated to either socially defined gender roles or to ones biological reproductive equipment, that resides within each one of us and occasionally finds itself residing in a body of the 'wrong' sex?

In other words, if transgenderism is something more than just people reacting to societal pressures for men and women to behave in certain ways (by changing their own bodies instead of trying to change society's prejudices), then it follows that the distinction between femaleness and maleness, far from being merely skin deep, must exist at a level that is deeper and more fundamental than mere physical differences in body shape or even brain structure.

It would seem, then, that when someone born female claims to be male, or vice versa, anyone who agrees with that claim is effectively taking the view that there is a real difference between a female and a male on a level which is far more fundamental than the obvious differences in bodily organs.

To put it another way, if someone with a female body is actually male, what part of him is it that makes him male? His soul? His mind? His personality? Is there a gene that determines someone's gender? (This seems plausible to me. Animals seem to have gender roles which, presumably, are genetically determined.) Is there such thing as a male brain and a female brain? (I have read that there are structural differences between 'female brains' and 'male' ones but, if true, I assume these are just rough differences between the 'average' female and male brain, rather than a genuine binary distinction). This question of what it is about a transgender person that makes them the opposite gender to that of the body into which they have been born is one to which I do not, currently, know the answer - but I would genuinely like to understand this issue.

The issue of transgenderism, what it means and how it should be accommodated by society has certainly thrown up a number of interesting questions. While I would in no way support any policy that denied someone the right to identify themselves in whatever way they please, I'm not ashamed to say that there are many aspects of this sensitive and nuanced subject about which I do not yet have a clear and fully worked out view.

On finding one's 'political home'

I listen to LBC Radio a lot, mainly to the shows of James O’Brien, Maajid Nawaz and Iain Dale. One thing I’ve noticed that crops up in a lot of calls lately is the idea of people searching for a political home. Many callers are essentially socially or economically conservative but are not comfortable with the Tories’ approach to Brexit, or feel that austerity has ‘gone too far’. Others may be of a centre left political stance but might not feel very enamoured of Jeremy Corbyn or the more ‘hard left’ elements which seem now to have become the mainstream of the Labour party. Then there are the hard core Brexiteers who are angry at the perceived dithering of the government over the issue of the UK leaving the European Union. And, equally, the unrepentant Remainers who don’t feel that the Labour party, as the official opposition, are doing enough to fight for the pro-EU position. These people often say that they feel they have no political home. But, sometimes, a caller will announce, like an enthusiastic religious convert, that he or she has, at last, found his/her political home, perhaps in the Liberal Democrat party or, more often, as a member or supporter of UKIP.
This idea of needing to find one’s political home seems rather pointless and, to be honest, somewhat self-indulgent to me. Political parties exist essentially for the purpose of gaining power in order to enact the policies that they promote. I don’t see the point in joining a political party in order to be amongst people who have views that are as near as possible to one’s own, if there is no real prospect of getting a chance to put those views into practice. For some people, it even seems as if their party affiliation is worn as a kind of intellectual fashion accessory, in order to let people know at a glance - particularly on social media - what type of views they hold and what viewpoints they disdain, which politicians they feel an affinity for and which ones they hold in contempt.
I am a member of the Labour party, not because I believe in everything that party stands for - in fact they are not even the party whose basic views are most similar to my own at the moment – but because, of the two parties which have any real chance of coming to power in Britain at the moment, they are the one I would most like to see in government. Their policies in regard to funding the NHS and lifting the public sector pay cap, and their concerns about the cost of living and, in particular, of housing, are more in accord with my own, and relevant to the life circumstances of myself and my family, than those of the Conservatives. But politics is not sport and should not operate on the basis of tribal loyalties. Should the day come when it makes more sense to vote, say, Liberal Democrat (as I have done in more than one general election in the past) in order for more of the policies that I believe in to have a better chance of being implemented, then I will gladly jump ship and support the Lib Dems. That is the only way in which the idea of finding one’s ‘political home’ makes any sense to me.

Trump's stance on Afghanistan could prove counterproductive

President Trump - who seems to have abandoned the isolationist stance he appeared to adopt during his election campaign - announced last night that there will be a further 4000 American troops sent into Afghanistan, and he has called on the UK and other NATO countries to follow suit. This time, though, the remit of the US forces will not involve any attempt at 'nation building'. Their purpose, he says, is simply to kill terrorists.
There is a real danger, in my opinion, that this will turn out to be an extremely counterproductive move. With the US military mission being told specifically to not concern itself with 'nation building', there is a potential to slip into an attitude of disregard for the safety and well being of afghan civil society and, indeed, afghan civilians, altogether. Consequently, the US could end up making a lot more enemies in the region than it already has, thus ultimately increasing the threat to American interests and American security far beyond its current level.

First thoughts on the election result

This is a good outcome for those of us (like myself) who are opposed to a 'hard brexit'. A weakened Theresa May will be presiding over a Tory parliamentary party many of whom are surely opposed to the headlong rush to leave the single market that has been May's policy up until now, and facing a strengthened Labour/SNP/Libdem opposition. At this point I think there is hope for the possibility of the UK remaining within the European Economic Area. Indeed, that would surely be the only sensible thing to do, when the alternative is to be recklessly led out of the single market by a demonstrably weak and wobbly Tory administration in charge of negotiating an acceptable 'divorce' settlement in a limited time frame, beginning in 11 days time. Also, in terms of things like the future of the NHS, social care, workers' rights etc, it's obviously less scary to have a Tory minority government than one with an unassailable five year mandate to wreak as much havoc as it likes.

Council tenants contribute to social care too

I don't agree with the Tory policy of making home owners pay for social care by having to pay all but £100 thousand pounds of the value of their homes to the local authority after they die. However, I have heard several people, both on the radio and on the doorstep while canvassing (for Labour), complain about the policy in something like the following words:
"Why should I, when I've worked hard all my life to be able to own my own home and have something to pass on to my children, have to sell my house and give most of the money to the government in order to pay for my care, while someone who lives in a council house will get the same care completely free of charge?"
As someone who lives in a council house, I find this view very annoying, because it is based on a complete misunderstanding of the situation. Let me demonstrate with some simple calculations. I realise rents and house prices have been lower in the past than they are today, and they may be higher in the future, but for the sake of simplicity I'll do the calculations in today's money.
My rent is currently £620 per month. I first moved in to a council house when I was 22, but I spent some time unemployed and some in private rented accommodation, so I'll write off three years and start my calculations from the age of 25. So someone, such as myself, who moves into council accommodation at a cost of £620 per month and pays full rent from the age of 25 until the age of 67 (the retirement age for people, such as myself, who are reliant on a state pension and who will not retire before 2028) will, by the time they retire, have paid a total of £312,480 in rent - all of which goes back to the local authority (the very body which is responsible for social care). This is the equivalent of what someone who owns a home worth £412,480 would have to pay. Like the home owner, the council house tenant will have no home of their own left to pass on to their children, in spite of all that money they have paid throughout their lives. But unlike the home owner, they won't have £100 thousand pounds of assets left over. Furthermore, this will be the case whether or not they require social care.
I don't agree with the Tory policy, because I believe health and social care should be integrated and free at the point of delivery for everyone, but I hope I have demonstrated that just because someone lives in a council house does not mean that they are somehow free-riding at the expense of homeowners when it comes to paying towards the care that we may all, some day, come to rely on.

Update

Obviously, everything I wrote in my previous post about how I intended to respond to the outcome of the County Council elections is now completely null and void, since we are now in a General Election campaign. I intend to campaign as fully as possible for a Labour victory in that General Election. Issues of party leadership will, no doubt, take care of themselves after 8th June.