There is excitement about who will be the new leader of the Tory party, and hence the new Prime Minister.  Someone who can accomplish Brexit.  Someone who can do the honourable thing by public opinion, the referendum result, and about the manner and terms upon which we leave.  As fatigue with the whole show sets in, a resolve to see this through remains and is, if anything, fortified by the continuing uncertainty.

When Brexit is accomplished, we will need strong leadership to deal with the consequences and turn our new situation to advantage; to deliver on the promised land of the Brexit campaign.  I have said all along, to anyone who would listen, that the people who lead us into the referendum result and into Brexit should lead us out of the European Union.  That makes perfect sense and has done all along.  It would have been so much better if we could have recognised that and implemented that truth back in 2016 and appointed a leader then who would have fitted that bill.  My own strongly held view at that time was that it should be Boris Johnson and/or Michael Gove and/or any of the other leading Brexiteers who should have been immediately put in charge of the negotiations towards getting us out.  How could we ever have allowed ourselves to think or act differently?  It has simply produced a waste of time and energy and lead as into the situation we have now.

But having belatedly put that right, or seeming now to be on the cusp of doing so, we should not be under the illusion that having righted that wrong and given ourselves a new dawn the change which is now about to occur will on its own deliver, in the days that lies ahead, on all the other things which need fixing.  The malaise in politics and the loss of public confidence in how it is done will endure nevertheless.  The drama of Brexit under a new leader and the challenges of making the most of the opportunities arising will require strong leadership but should not blind us to the fact that leadership, as we have experienced it in the past, is just no longer available to us. 

This leadership has been in the form of a strong individual leader.  Such leaders no longer exist.  Leadership now has to be a collaborative effort and what I have hitherto been a advocating as a means of providing a satisfactory Brexit, or a way forward from the vote which has led parliament into such an impasse, needs also to be at the foundation of how we now go forward into the promised land.  If this promised land is simply to be a re run, or a reinvigoration, of the forces of the old which now need to be transformed into the practices of the new then we shall simply be pouring new wine into old bottles.

What was offered as a way to break the Brexit impasse in parliament, and recognise the underlying forces responsible for it coming into being in the first place, will need to apply to politics more generally going forward, if we are not simply to keep an old corpse going by artificially propping it up and animating it from without.  The zombie is a popular theme in entertainment right now.  We should be aware of it becoming a fact in politics, however sophisticatedly done to blind us to the reality.  If we have not truly found a way to hear all the evidence, gather all the points of view, weigh and sift them all in a collaborative effort where strongly minded individuals work together to allow movement and find inspiration between them, then let us at least try to do this as something more like business as usual is restored to our future course, even though it will be anything other than normal with all the Brexit implications to resolve.

Don’t take my word for it. Look around to see where leadership actually is a rising now and it is within individuals but only when the act together.  If this is unappealing, look around and ask yourself where the evidence lies for perpetuating the old style of leadership.  It produces unsatisfactory outcomes which cannot find the endorsement they need to truly be taken up enthusiastically and with resolve.  This has happened with Brexit; don’t let it happen with everything else.

I just watched ‘Europe – The Big Vote’ on BBC One presented by Andrew Marr and while this provided an interesting resume of how we had got to this point and speculation about what might happen next week one thing I find consistently to be overlooked.

Our MP’s are reviled for having got us into this mess but this is an oversimplification extended to the absurd.  Not only that I suspect it fails to take account of the real human experience.

We may be mad with our MP’s collectively speaking but they are doing their best trying to get it right: right by their own conscience, right by their constituents, right by their party allegiances.  Theirs is not an enviable position to be in.  I don’t think there is any shortfall here of hard work or honest intent.  It is rather that they can’t find the right answer.

Some are convinced of course and have little or no doubt which way we should go.  But they tend to be those at the opposite extremes.  Those closer to the middle are still unsure if inclined in one direction.  And this is the problem: there is nothing as yet that can provide them with the answer they need: a point of reference whereby all can gain more mobility and flexibility in their thinking and approach.  The way to provide this has still got to be found.  Otherwise, many will still be looking for the end without the means to get there.

There is to be yet another vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.  Really could there be a greater symbol of the redundancy of thought.  The reason for voting will again be largely tactical for those not already in favour.  Nothing substantial has changed – just the movements of the pieces on the board.

We allow the stalemate to perpetuate and deepen.  Surely we only have to look at the situation and say ‘what is it telling us’ beyond notions of bad faith.  Then we can alight upon the correct response.

So it seems the Brexit talks between Labour and the Government are about to be abandoned, not least because of restlessness in Tory ranks combined with doubt as to how many MP’s would vote for any likely outcome anyway.

Please let’s now look at my suggestion.  It’s not perfect; it’s only a start.  But it’s a step, if not the step, in the right direction.  And all other approaches such as indicative voting, in so far as they seek to forge – or force – unity out of division, are likely to do so through compromise rather than consensus, through strategic manoeuvring rather than acting more directly on conscience, and through a process of attrition rather than one of construction.

Now is absolute time to do what is being suggested in these blog posts and to get on with it without further delay or prevarication.

Please, all of you who read this, urge your MP’s to take it seriously.

Thank you.

The reported insistence (Daily Telegraph, today) of the 1922 Committee that Mrs. May must set a date for her departure in order, in part, to meet the ‘existential threat’ to the Tory party is understandable, but misguided.  It is misguided because it fails to see that the problem, and the threat to the Party, is not just one of leadership but rather the electorate’s recognition that the ground has now moved and the political system must move with it.  The movement is away from party politics as we have known it. Focusing solely on the leader can only distract us from that.

I have just heard on the news that Labour is being urged to endorse the idea of a People’s Vote as part of its Policy over Brexit.

The question I have is what is such a vote likely to achieve?  If politicians themselves, given all the resources, intelligence and information, briefing papers and the rest of it at their disposal cannot significantly or conclusively change their minds, so as to find more of a common objective, how can the people themselves be expected to achieve this?

It seems like delegation on a grand scale: delegation of the MP’s responsibility to the electorate.

Surely the response must come from within Parliament itself and that response should then give the people something more to think about and decide how they want to position themselves in relation to it.

My last post put forward a specific proposal.  This had the benefit of utilising a known and practiced  Commons’ procedure towards breaking the Brexit impasse in a way that could provide for an up building, seamless process rather than a fragmenting, patchwork one.  But this carries also the burden of being a new idea squeezed into an old form.  This may be the best fit, but not the ideal set of clothing for it.  It is ‘off the peg’ rather more than ‘tailor made’ for the task whilst nevertheless being the option of choice because it is readily available, relatively well suited and time is of the essence.  It is ‘good enough’ for present purposes and therefore should be adopted.  But a new idea also needs a new form.  What might this look like?

We are blighted by forms which see the solutions to problems coming from an arrangement where the whole range of possible viewpoints is squeezed into two which then do battle with each other to find an eventual winner.  The whole thing is based on contest and edges readily into conflict and confrontation in the belief that this can somehow offer, or produce, the best way forward.  What an absurd idea.  And yet we continue to run with it as if it offered a self evident truth.  One thing that Brexit has at least taught us is that this is an approach well past its sell by date: ill suited to our needs and leading us simply into greater difficulties than the solution which we need.

We need to find forums in which all the relevant points of view can be heard.  We can expect there to be at least 12 of these (just as there are 12 signs of the Zodiac) and all these need to be represented in any problem solving procedure. However, they need to be present first of all as observations rather than opinions.  These observations – individual ‘points of view’ as properly understood – can then be worked with so that out of a bringing them together into an overall picture of the situation at hand a solution can arise out of this picture and the process itself.  This is in distinction to something that is conceived more in isolation and then imposed on everyone else (whether by force or rhetorical persuasion), something which could apply also to policies which have been forged out of a one sided perspective.

Only when we have a form that recognises all this, and mobilises it, will we once again have something fit for purpose; something which is truly representative and is actually focused on the problem at hand more than the opinions people have about it and the ambitions bound up with ensuring that a particular argument prevails.  For argument can only produce division – and ever deeper division – however it looks on the surface and opinion fragments just as observation builds.

The Westminster Committee which, as proposed, is to take responsibility for Brexit can also be mindful in its workings of all the above and ask how it can strive to give ever greater effect to these things.  Then the committee will not only be dealing with Brexit that will also be beginning to fashion a model that can be applied more generally for future benefit.

What could emerge from this is something that would take us from being ‘the laughing stock’ to once more showing the world the way in the field of politics, offering a form of governance truly suited to the times in which we live and the demands arising ever more for reform on a grand scale. 

So let’s take the opportunity to show the rest of the world how to do it.

But as a more immediate objective, let’s task Westminster to function in the way outlined and see what they can come up with on our behalf!

We cannot hope to solve the Brexit impasse through the theatre of the floor of the House of Commons.

Within such a public arena, MP’s may feel they have little or no freedom to change their minds even when in others circumstances they may be minded to do so; when they might find in the arguments or evidence presented plentiful reason to do so.

This Brexit issue needs to retreat to the Committee Rooms where different rules of engagement apply and MP’s are more used to working with one another and addressing subjects across party lines.  Where also everyone can be in the position of having a free vote with no whipping and with confidentiality as to who has decided in favour of what where this is also important for collegiate responsibility.

The committee members themselves – a group of MP’s selected by their colleagues as the most likely to be able to meet in the way anticipated and arrive at a decision for everyone else – will then spend however long it takes to hear all the evidence, to hear from the experts, to interview witnesses from across the spectrum of expertise with depth as well as breadth and having done so strive to arrive at a consensus.

This ‘consensus’ will almost certainly be more than a compromise but less than full agreement and follows a process already known, exercised and well developed in other domains.  Such a process will require facilitation however and the MP’s in question will need to decide how this facilitation is to be provided: with self facilitation or expertise brought in.

The time needed for this process to occur has now effectively been granted by the EU and we should get on with utilising this time in this way. All parties will be bound by the outcome and in return for this, the committee will publish a document detailing and describing what has taken place and the conclusion reached. This will be of such a nature and length that it can be accessible to all and readily understood by all.

How such an outcome is then endorsed by the whole country will be the subject of a further blog.

The bipartisan talks between Labour and the Government over Brexit have so far produced little more than accusations of bad faith, a refusal to cross red lines when dynamic negotiation requires otherwise, the prospect of more compromise than consensus (and this being seen as a virtue) and overall a genuine concern for what they may be cooking up between them even through a series of grudging compromises rather than a building of consensus.

There aren’t any signs of genuine progress we can celebrate.  What they seem rather to be working towards is something that will offer us the worst of all worlds: staying within a customs union whilst leaving the EU which will fetter our ability to trade on our own terms with the rest of the world whilst placing ourselves outside the benefits of staying within the European Union.  What a disaster.  And underneath it all is the failure to really get to grips with the Irish question.

When are we to fully acknowledge all these things?  Until we have, we will be left with a load of grubby compromises as fragmenting as they seek to be uniting and that will again serve no one in terms of practical solutions or aspirations.

We must do, and try, something different.  A view on this will now be offered.

So the local elections have come and gone and we know how everyone feels.  There is a major change ahead, or so it seems, with the whole political system in the firing line.  People are demanding something else.  As always however most are unsure what this might look like.  What will deliver the change that is needed?

If this is to be both radical and evolutionary, rather than revolutionary in a way that will just leave us staring into an abyss, then it needs to be something that builds on what is whilst also transforming it. 

I have a specific proposal to make and this is that the whole Brexit question is delegated to what will effectively meet like a Westminster Committee.  They will deal with it whilst other business goes on as usual or is belatedly allowed once more to go on as usual.  This would take the pressure off everybody and lead to a properly considered outcome which can go before everyone as such.

Movement is needed and movement should be what this process delivers.  Consensus is sought and consensus, properly understood, is what should be achieved.  This does not mean everybody getting everything they want but it does mean more than a compromise that leads to hardly anybody getting what they want.  That is the prospect we are faced with now.  It must not be allowed to come to pass.

However this is only to barely indicate the proposal.  The detail and further justification for it will follow.

This isn’t the second post I was intending but I have been away for a couple of days. The Sunday papers have carried stories of how the Brexit Party would now get the third most number of votes with Nigel Farage once more enjoying a surge in popularity. At the same time talks between Labour and the Conservatives seem to be somewhat stalled with a call for red lines to be relaxed to allow for progress. But will a new party cure the effects of division and polarisation by offering more of the same? And the arrangements for discussion between the different Ministers and their Shadows are commendable in many ways but we are still looking to binary ‘in/out’ or two party approaches to solve the problems these approaches gave rise to in the first place. So when will we realise the need to look at things afresh and in a way that allows movement from fixed positions as the evidence and the argument allows? We need something more like a consensus forged from bringing together a multiplicity of views; views which can be appreciated for their own merits . How this is to be achieved in this situation will be the subject of future blogs.