The Elections Bill 2021

 Labour's Clive Lewis nailed it in his speech in yesterday's Commons Second Reading debate:

I will start with a question. If your policies are unpopular with most voters and your own party’s demographics are shrinking, what do you do? Do you change your policies so that your party’s platform is more appealing to more voters, or do you make it harder for people to vote? After reading the Bill, I think we now have this Government’s answer.

The point is that the most contentious change to our electoral law need not be made. Personation, as has been explained here and elsewhere many times, is a vanishingly small issue in England and Wales. The requirement for photo ID is an unnecessary inconvenience. Government spokesmen repeatedly riposte that the voters of Northern Ireland have no trouble with it. But the situation in the six counties is different. Because personation, including the use of the names of the deceased, has been a systemic evil there for generations, the majority of democratic voters in Northern Ireland welcomed the reform introduced by the Blair government in 2002. 

So, if a change does not have to be made, and that change involves additional expense, especially on the part of local authorities who will be responsible for issuing electoral identity documents, then one must suspect an ulterior motive.

The latter holds true of the removal of the limit on the years an expatriate has been away from the country after which they cannot be registered to vote here. If this was such a basic right, unjustifiably denied, why did the Conservative-run coalition and subsequent Conservative government not reinstate it? The answer to that is of course that it would have tilted the vote in the 2016 EU referendum and subsequent elections in which Europe was a principal factor.

Why remove the limit now? The suggestion has been made that it increases the pool of people permitted to make personal donations to candidates while making such donations more difficult to police. Another relaxation benefiting richer parties was welcomed unashamedly by Craig Mackinlay who was one of the Conservative MPs helped by the party's national "battle bus" sent to closely-contested seats. 

From changes made which were not needed, to needed changes which have not been made

As the secretary of a party which had blind and partially-sighted members, I naturally looked in the Bill for a remedy which genuinely is needed, enabling all disabled voters to cast a secret ballot. I was disappointed. In clause 8 there is just the following wording: "such equipment as it is reasonable to provide for the purposes of enabling, or making it easier for, relevant persons to vote in the manner directed" which is easy for local authorities to weasel out of, given the inclusion of the word "reasonable". From memory, this is no more use than the existing provision which resulted in a variety of devices in polling stations round the country, most of them virtually useless. 

One further thought: discussion of this important Bill in the media is inevitably swamped by responses to the announcement by the PM of increased taxation to boost the NHS and social care budgets and the attack on the living standards of state pensioners. For once, this seems to have been a lucky (for the government) coincidence rather than the result of plotting. 

First mis-steps by the "new" Taliban

 If you want international recognition - and the people of Afghanistan certainly need international money to start flowing again - it is not a good idea to appoint an alleged money-launderer as your finance minister in your caretaker government, not a prime minister on a UN sanctions list.

Mind you, if that list is based on CIA intelligence, perhaps it should be looked at again.

Another mineral-rich third-world nation falls to an armed coup

Liberal International reports:

Two days ago the military in Guinea seized power and has shut the country's borders and installed a nationwide curfew.

LI vice president, former prime minister of Guinea and leader of the main opposition Cellou Diallo is safe but the situation remains highly unpredictable and Guinea's future is in the balance.

Assessing the take over, reviewing the risks, and discussing the political trajectory for Guinea, Liberal International President, Hakima el Haité will speak directly with Cellou Diallo at 1pm UK time today.

While there must be concern at an elected government being ousted by a military junta, it has to be said that the outgoing president had Guinea's constitutional law changed so that he could embark on a third term. The coup leader has accused government ministers of corruption but has promised a return to free elections eventually. As in Afghanistan, we must wait and see.

More on Estonia

 Well, the stand-off reported in a previous post was broken and Estonian MPs settled on their state auditor and National Museum director as state president after all.

Constitutional quirks notwithstanding, Estonia has been outstandingly successful since joining the EU. Last month, Euronews published an article highlighting her progress.

For starters, the nation has garnered an enviable reputation for mastery of the digital realm and leads the region on many economic and social indicators, flying very much in the face of a common misconception about 'slowness' being a national trait, of which more later.

For Tonis Saarts, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics in School of Governance, Law and Society (SOGOLAS) at Tallinn University, the country’s biggest accomplishments besides the EU and NATO memberships and the dominion of the e-realm is establishing “resilient and well-functioning liberal democratic institutions.” Asked what Estonia did differently than the other two closest Baltic neighbours, Lithuania and Latvia, in executing reforms over the last 30 years, Saarts underlined that Estonia managed to avoid the rise of oligarchs.

It is a sobering thought that this tiny state in the shadow of the Russian federation is less in thrall to oligarchs and to Putin than Johnson-dubbed "global Britain".

Need for Taliban to form representative government

 Euronews reports that the first reactive flush of embassies of EU nations closing has been replaced by cautious engagement.

According to the EU, cooperation is dependent on the Taliban meeting five conditions, including preventing the export of terrorism, respecting human rights, creating an inclusive government, allowing access to humanitarian aid, and allowing the departures of Afghan and European civilians who wish to leave.

When the conservative Islamist group took over last month, the EU and many Western countries chose to close embassies in Afghanistan, limiting their influence on any new administration. But now, Brussels is changing its tone, whilst remaining cautious about formally recognising the Taliban, as well as how trustworthy the new government will prove to be.

It does, however, hope to keep any European citizens remaining in Afghanistan safely and prevent a new large influx of migrants coming to the bloc's borders.

Earlier, the Christian Science Monitor in explaining the roots of the Taliban's swift success incidentally pointed at potential vulnerability:

“They used age-old Afghan traditions, as was the case when they came to power the first time [in 1996],” says Douglas London, former CIA counterterrorism chief for South and Southwest Asia. “It wasn’t through a series of military conquests. The Taliban leveraged negotiations and bribery with local and provincial officials.”

The Taliban need to keep sweet local governors, officials and clan leaders who do not necessarily subscribe to the former's extreme interpretation of Islam. For this, the Taliban administration will need money. In turn, this can only come from international aid and from trade, both of which depend on cooperation with other nations.

While on the subject of perspective, we should not rush to write off Afghanistan as a perpetual failed state. People of my generation can remember (though I never indulged) the Afghan trail through territory which welcomed visitors from the West. Richard Gregory recalled:

Herat was the first real destination on the Hippie Trail. The paranoia of oppressive control in Turkey and Iran was left behind for a wilder but welcoming state of anarchy. Afghanistan has people from many distinct tribal and ethnic groups on which I am no expert, but the one thing they all seemed to have in common was a proud independent spirit. 

 They generally had a great sense of fun too. The traditional hospitality of the country is well documented, and it extended to the young Europeans with long hair who crossed in their thousands during the sixties and seventies. In the major cities there were hotels, cafes and restaurants whose clientele were exclusively 'hippie trailers'. They were networking centres where travellers would swap stories and advice, learn where to head for in the next town, and smoke the world's finest hashish.

The widespread suspicion of foreigners probably began when in 1979 the Soviets invaded in order to shore up an unpopular elected Marxist government which had failed to fulfil its promises.

Finally, Alexander Hainy-Khaleeli, a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, takes the long view:

Biden labelling Afghanistan “the graveyard of empires” is, at best, historically illiterate and, at worst, utterly self-serving. It not only negates thousands of years of Afghanistan’s history as a flourishing centre of civilisation, but also—in an act of supreme imperial hubris—shifts the blame for U.S. failures there onto the land and people of Afghanistan themselves.

But where did this phrase come from? What does it mean? And why is it flat out wrong – and even racist?

It may sound like timeless wisdom, but Afghanistan’s epithet “the graveyard of empires” appears to have been coined only recently—so recently, in fact, that it doesn’t even predate the U.S. invasion. It first appeared in 2001, in a Foreign Affairs article by the CIA’s former Pakistan Station Chief Milton Bearden, titled ‘Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires.’

In the article, Bearden cautioned against a U.S. occupation of Afghanistan based not only on the historical experiences of the Soviet Union and the British Empire, but also of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and all “the world’s great armies on campaigns of conquest” who “eventually ran into trouble in their encounters with the unruly Afghan tribals.” This argument reduced the history of Afghanistan to a history of its invaders and dismissed the Afghan people as backwards and savage, recycling classic orientalist tropes for a “War on Terror” audience.

Most importantly, however, Bearden’s argument is utterly at odds with the realities of history. Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan not only conquered Afghanistan, their successors ruled it for centuries after them and adapted themselves to its culture and religion. Far from being a place where empires go to die, the land of Afghanistan was, for millennia, a place in which they thrived and prospered, thanks in part to its strategic location at the crossroads of Asia. It is only to be expected, then, that many great empires also emerged from Afghanistan to make their mark on world history.

Thanks to Liberal England for pointing us to the last article.

Council makes grants available for green projects

Thanks to the Green Liberal Democrats, I learn that Chelmsford City Council has allocated funding to help make Chelmsford greener:

Greener Chelmsford Grants make £100,000 available for projects that address the climate and ecological emergency in Chelmsford. Applications are more likely to be successful if they are for projects which protect and enhance wildlife and green infrastructure, lower energy consumption, reduce waste or lower carbon emissions. These are the priorities set out by the council for addressing climate change and ecological crises.

Councillor Rose Moore, Cabinet Member for Greener and Safer Chelmsford, said, "The Greener Chelmsford Grants are one of the many actions being taken by the City Council to deal with the Climate & Ecological Emergency declared in 2019. Everybody in Chelmsford and beyond needs to play their part if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change and these grants recognise organisations which are putting great effort into doing their bit."

The pot does seem rather small and looks more like a "toe in the water" than a major change in direction. What Essex can do, West Glamorgan councils can surely do better. I fear, however, that unless there is a major clearing-out of the dinosaurs on Neath Port Talbot CBC our council will continue to move in the opposite direction.

Mark Harmon is 70

 Happy birthday to the actor who, before the creation of the NCIS TV series, was probably best known for his portrayal of Ted Bundy in a TV drama-documentary about the serial killer.

"They are not genuine asylum-seekers, they are economic migrants"

 While hoping that the new administration in Kabul is true to its word, and that human rights will be respected under a Taliban government, one must accept that, based on history, many - perhaps most - of those attempting to flee the country have a genuine fear of retribution. I would therefore disagree with those who, like John Redwood, regard most refugees as people who want to take advantage of the UK. In case, the UK is only one of migrants' preferred destinations, Germany and the Scandinavian nations having consistently taken more immigrants than the UK.

We Liberal Democrats do little to discourage the general impression that we have an "open door" policy regarding immigrants. Statements like "they have risked their lives getting here, they deserve to stay" owe more to social Darwinism than humanitarian feeling. Then there are the many testimonials from refugees or their offspring who have made it to the top of a professional tree. I do support the party policy of allowing refugees to support themselves by paid work even while their status is being investigated. It would not only offset the costs to the state but also afford some dignity to those who were able to continue their profession while in this country. However, the advantage to the state of filling gaps in the NHS or social services should not sway an assessment of the reality of an incomer's fears if he or she were returned home. Also, by allowing them to settle here, we are depriving a (probably) third-world nation of a professional trained at that nation's expense. 

But the majority of voters does not comprise professionals. Most of them are in jobs, or seek employment, where there are many more applicants than vacancies. They know that, given the opportunity, employers of manual labour will take on unofficial migrants, by-passing minimum wage legislation, knowing that the workers dare not complain and that legal enforcement is practically non-existent. The reluctance of voters in those areas of high unemployment to support any migrant policy is therefore understandable.

I agree with Mr Redwood on one point. We have been bad, and so far as I can see continue to be bad, at assessing refugees' cases. The answer is to move much of the process closer to the source of migration, using the expertise of FO staff and intelligence on the ground and to provide safe corridors to the UK for successful applicants, thus removing the reliance on criminal gangs and hazardous sea journeys. The expertise of the division handling those who still arrive undocumented on our shores must be increased, even if this means paying a premium for foreign language skills. Enforcement of employment legislation on (especially) building sites needs to be taken seriously. And finally, the UK should stop interfering in the affairs of other countries unless we can be sure that what we leave behind is better than what we went in to correct.