Being a Conservative voter involves one disappointment
after another. We vote for free markets, small state, lower public spending, lower
taxes and always end up with the opposite.
David Cameron’s major achievement was granting the SNP
an independence referendum which led to Scottish nationalism moving from a
minority pursuit that could safely be ignored to it being in permanent government.
Theresa May’s major achievement was failing to get the
UK out of the EU despite promising to do so, agreeing to the Irish backstop
when she didn’t have to, and nearly seeing us ruled by a communist.
Boris Johnson’s major achievement was getting 3
quarters of the UK out of the EU, but leaving Northern Ireland stranded and
overseeing the largest expansion of the state in decades. He spent more than
Corbyn intended to.
Liz Truss’s major achievement was to blow up her
premiership with perhaps the worst Conservative economic shambles since Black
Wednesday in 1992.
The consolation of course is that if you are a socialist
or a Scottish nationalist your hopes too are likely to be disappointed. We always
end up in the social democratic slough of despond even if no one actually votes
for the centre.
Labour voters hoping for socialism will face the same
economic reality that Conservative governments do. If Labour tries to raise
benefits or increase public spending it will have to finance it and the markets
will determine what in the end can be done.
The SNP may win most seats in Scotland, but it still
has to address how to get Scotland out of the UK without wrecking the Scottish
economy. It still has to address how to form a new state when around 50% want
to stay in the old one. No one in the world has ever tried to do that. It still
has to reconcile being in the EU while the former UK is not in the EU and how
this could be reconciled with open borders and free trade with the former UK.
Until these problems are addressed and solutions found Scottish nationalists
are as liable to be disappointed as the rest of us.
It is likely that Liz Truss will only have two years
as Prime Minister. But she must rule both as if this is the case and it is not.
Firstly, the Conservatives must try to do some good
for the country in those two years. Even if Labour takes advantage of
Conservative decisions that lead to economic growth, we are all British and
must do the best for our country rather than our party.
If Truss has a chance, it is that two years from now
British voters see signs of prosperity and vote to stay with what might be
working.
There is no doubt that lowering public spending and
tax will increase growth. There is hardly a serious economic who disagrees with
this. Oddly however even after 12 years the Conservatives have never seriously
tried to shrink the state. There are just too many vested interests that
prevent it and the media goes crazy if you try to emulate some of the more
prosperous states that spend a lower proportion of GDP. The horror the horror, we
could be like Switzerland.
But the more that Truss can lower public spending and
tax, the harder it will be for Labour to raise it. Voters don’t like tax rises
even if they pretend to.
One of the keys to lowering tax is to make it
transparent to voters. Tax is deliberately baffling so that voters are unaware
of how much they earn goes on tax. This bit goes on national insurance, this
bit on council tax, this bit on VAT. There are endless rules and regulations
which obfuscate what we actually pay. Tax simplification ought to make it easier for
voters to see what proportion of our income goes on tax. If you were told that on
average about half of what you earn goes to the government you might be keener
to lower the bill.
Truss needs to make as many trade deals with the rest
of the world as she can and to get rid of as many EU rules that hinder business.
It is unlikely that Labour will be able to get the UK back into the EU. Who
will vote for Schengen, the Euro and no rebate? But make it still harder by
pointing out that EU membership would mean losing those trade deals with important
trading partners.
Get rid of the Northern Irish protocol. It would be
impossible for Labour to reintroduce it. It is intolerable that there is an
internal border between one part of UK territory and another. No other European
country would accept this. Make clear to Ireland that the existence of the
Belfast Agreement, the Common Travel Area and friendly relations in the decades
to come depend on it ceasing to be quite so irredentist. The UK does not have to
buy Irish goods. We could require Irish citizens to have visas if they want to
visit. Make clear that friendly relations, open borders and cooperation mean that
you don’t try to nab British territory. If you want unfriendly relations, then
go for it.
If Labour plans to introduce a form of proportional representation,
the Conservatives might try first to introduce a form which would benefit
Conservative candidates and which might at the same time allow Pro UK voters in
Scotland to vote for all the Pro UK parties, thereby uniting the vote. The Single
Transferable Vote would be preferable to other forms of PR that would make a
Conservative majority much more difficult in future.
Continue to help Ukraine to defeat Russia. If Russia
can be completely defeated in the field leading to the liberation of all of
Ukraine including Crimea, then the world will be a much safer place. We have
the possibility of regime change, perhaps even breaking up Russia, which will
see our main foe since 1945 finally neutralised. This will lead to great
defence savings in future. It is worth throwing everything at this. It is a
once in a century opportunity.
But Truss must realise that the main threat to our
security does not come from Russia but from China. We have since Mao treated
China as being not as dangerous and not as bad as Stalin and his successors. The
Americans foolishly aided and allied with China in the 1970s. We now have a Chinese
version of the Soviet Union, but which has a first-rate economy we have come to
depend on. China is much cleverer that Russia ever was. Its people work harder and
they are more united. In the decades to come China will be a far greater threat
than the Soviet Union ever was, because it has communism that works.
In the next two years Truss must try to do to Labour
what Gordon Brown did to the Conservatives. The 50% tax rate Brown introduced
in 2009 is a bomb that keeps blowing up in Conservative faces.
If the Conservatives can do something to prevent
people arriving in Britain illegally and staying because the courts make it
impossible to deport them, it will be very difficult for Labour to reverse this.
So, pass an Act, or leave the European Court of Human Rights or repeal or amend
the Human Rights Act, but make it possible to deport those who arrive here illegally.
Do everything you can to achieve this. This will be the bomb that will blow up
in Labour faces if they try to reverse it.
The most important thing that Liz Truss can do for the
UK would be to assert by an Act of Parliament that the UK is a single unitary
nation state made up of parts that happen to be called countries, but which are
not themselves nation states, and that secession by means of a referendum is
illegal. This is perfectly possible. Lots of European countries have laws
similar to this.
Obviously, this would cause some anger both in Northern
Ireland and Scotland and perhaps in Wales too. But point out that Ireland would
not allow Munster to secede by referendum and the neither the United States or
any other European Union country would allow a part to leave by this means
either and you can point out that we are just doing what everyone else does.
It is now politically difficult perhaps impossible to
abolish devolution, but devolution should never have been allowed to happen
without strengthening the unity of the UK.
If Truss could pass this act alone, she would be a
successful Prime Minister remembered forever even if she did nothing else. It
would be very difficult for Labour to repeal it even if it was forced into some
sort of arrangement with the SNP.
So don’t let’s be despondent. Let’s use the next two years
to make the UK more prosperous and secure. This is also our best chance of
extending these two years into another five.
