Where To Next?

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/VBLUBs1mK2c )

There’s no doubt that we’re easing our way back towards the European fold. After accidentally voting ourselves into the wilderness we’re being gently guided into chummier territory. But at the same time the Prime Minister’s set the cat among the pigeons at home. All very confusing, but maybe it’s just the way he tells ’em.

With the long-heralded so-called ‘reset’ in UK’s relations with the EU upon us, we can look forward to closer ties with our nearest neighbours on security, defence and trade.

All this largely thanks to Keir Starmer’s patient diplomacy, driven by his determination to end what was effectively a standoff, stemming from Brexit.

Time was any sign of easing back on the rule Britannia and the hell with foreigners mindset, symbolised by our departure, would bring half the nation out in a rash.

But as the damage to our economy’s made itself felt, not to mention a range of added irritations, concerning travel, studying abroad, even hiring au pairs, the mood has manifestly changed.

Polling clearly and consistently shows that a majority of the British public now views the whole thing as a failure.

All of which suggests Starmer’s pushing at an open door in his efforts at mending fences.

And it’s worth bearing in mind that the town hall elections at the beginning of this month didn’t just elevate the anti-Europe campaigner Nigel Farage to dizzying heights.

The results also showed Labour bleeding away less support to the man’s Reform Party than to the Lib Dems and the Greens, who favour closer European ties.

Goes without saying that the Conservatives will join Farage in accusing Starmer of selling out, betraying Brexit and being generally craven and stupid.

But, given that the other big takeaway from those local elections was total Tory wipeout, they’re rather more focused on if – or more likely when – to ditch their leader Kemi Badenoch.

After all, as one of her predecessors, William Hague, is fond of saying, the party is: ‘An absolute monarchy moderated by regicide.’

Even there, though, there are no guarantees of resurrection. Surveys suggest the only person who could really head off the Reform threat is Boris Johnson.

Hounded out in disgrace for lying to Parliament? Just the man then? Er, discuss.

One asset though that he did have in spades was a boosterish optimism. An extraordinary ability to take everyone with him, no matter what nonsense he may or may not have been talking.

Forget the porkies about parties during those horrid lockdowns, his lasting legacy was his Brexit deal. Sounded amazing, but turned out as watertight as a paper sieve.

All very well talking the talk. Walking the walk is something else again.

Cue Nigel Farage. Like Bojo, he’s eloquence on steroids, and, some say, the ultimate snake-oil salesman. Problem being that when people take it they tend not to feel better after all.

Not that that stops him daring to dream of one day getting the keys to Number Ten. Nor does it detract from what he’s got over Sir Keir.

If he were a doctor he’d manage to leave a patient feeling cheerier even while announcing that what might have been a bit of a cold is actually a severe dose of Covid.

Doctor Starmer, by contrast, would probably depress the hell out of someone even though he’s just proved that what could have been a deadly virus is no more than a fit of the sniffles.

Instead of keeping it light, positive and easy, he has a knack of sounding like he’s conjugating a really abstruse verb, confusing and boring his audience in equal measure.

But it’s more than the delivery. It’s also the buzzwords.

A few decades back there was a campaign to keep kids off drugs under the slogan: ‘Just say no.’

Westminster has spent most of last week agog at how the Prime Minister framed his latest wheeze to bring down the levels of legal immigration.

That’s because when he either wrote or was presented with the inflammatory line about an ‘island of strangers’ he signally failed to do what should have been obvious. Just say no.

The phrase was an ugly echo of the notorious words that ended the career of one-time Tory high-flyer Enoch Powell.

In what was later dubbed the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, he spoke of a future where white people: ‘Found themselves made strangers in their own country.’

Even during that period, sixty years ago, when racism was widespread and undisguised, this was judged beyond the pale.

Which makes you wonder what on earth Starmer was thinking of, speaking as he did.

His problem is that he hasn’t actually been in the game all that long. An old stager would have spotted that elephant trap a mile off.

The reality is all he was really trying to point out was something that enlightened Labour folk have been saying for decades.

Don’t rush at things, basically. If numbers swell too rapidly the job of integration is made that much harder, both for the people already here, and for the incomers themselves.

The new arrangements will reduce the figures a bit. Probably not all that much, though they will wreak havoc in the care sector, and edge more universities towards bankruptcy.

Expect plenty more cries of outrage from both those quarters, which will feel rather of a piece with the ongoing fury stemming from the slashing of the winter fuel allowance and welfare cuts.

Trouble brewing then for Starmer, with key votes coming up in the weeks ahead, and concerns surfacing that even the massive majority Labour got at the general election’s looking wobbly.

The irony behind the immigration story though, which Farage pointedly overlooks, is that numbers shot up almost tenfold on the back of the Brexit that he so vigorously campaigned for.

With the free movement of European people suddenly halted, gaps in the labour market, social care being very much a case it point, had to be filled pronto.

Endless talk over the years about improving working conditions or salaries or training courses in key areas has been little more than just that. Talk.

An argument maybe against bigging up this aspect of policy, and getting voters agitated about something the government can’t or won’t do much about anyway.

All in sharp contrast to a seminal piece of legislation currently going through Parliament. One that gives terminally ill people the right to decide when enough is enough.

The Assisted Dying Bill is up there with reforms to the laws on homosexuality, abortion and divorce. Things that change the way we think and behave for generations.

Polls show consistent and unwavering support for the measure in principle, though there’s been much toing and froing among MPs regarding details and safeguards.

There was so much of just that on Friday that there simply wasn’t time to fit everyone in. So they’ll have another crack at it on, symbolically perhaps, Friday the thirteenth of next month.

Morbid though the topic is, if this bill does finally make it to the statute books there'll be many, many people heaving a sigh of relief that they will, at the end, be granted control, and dignity.