Chance Or A (Cunning) Plan?

Chance Or A (Cunning) Plan?

The UK is entering into a year-long period of uncertainty in which, probably, planning and chance will both play some rôle. What rôle may each play?

All we can start with is what is already known and Descartes; doubt everything. (Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum). Johnson has said he will be going into negotiations with the EU without compromise on what he wants. The EU won’t, cannot, compromise on the fundamentals that bind the EU countries together. What is the most likely outcome? It has to be that the UK leaves the EU without an agreement. This is the more likely in that it appeared to be the preferred arrangement of Johnson before he became PM. So let’s bring in Descartes. Johnson has falked of great opportunities, benefits and friendship to all nations although it appears that no one can give even one concrete example of either of the former. Friendship between nations must be welcomed but is meaningless without context. Descartes can have a field day; everything has to be in doubt.

So, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal will that be chance or might it be a (cunning) plan? It can’t be pure chance because there will have been chances to do a deal. So, if no deal happens, it might be a plan. What then could the plan be?

There seems at the moment an unlikely alliance between a right-wing government and the least educated and most numerous part of the population. This situation is almost without precedent in the last century except in dictatorships and the UK is not a dictatatorship. So js this a matter of pure chance? It does not look like it, given that almost all of the most read popular press, owned by proprietors with clear political objectives, has for several years been been supporting the government in anti-EU sentiment. Get the less-educated and majority readers of the popular press on your side and you have a potential election majority.

So it looks like we have a plan. So, what is the plan? The grand plan, assuming there is one, has to be a matter of conjecture but the means needed to underpin it are clear. The less educated and less well informed majority has to be kept that way and fed something to keep them happy. Any means of enlightenment must be reduced or suppressed and some «sweeties» must be offered.

Is there any evidence for this? Well, the minimum earning wage has been upgraded slightly and os has the lower threshold at which income tax has to be paid. The combined result is that a low-paid worker will be around £200 a year better off. Sweeties? It’s hardly revolutionary.

What about keeping people less informed? Johnson has threatened to take away the licence of the most independent TV news channel, Channel 4, has passed a Parliamentary Act to prevent Parliament scrutinising trade deals, has done similarly to remove the Courts’ right to pronouce on the legality of government actions and, most recently, tried to divide the press by proposing that only pro-government media will be briefed on government plans. The UK is not a dictatorship and hopefully will never become one but these are all classic moves in that direction. This is not to suggest that the Uk is in danger of becoming a dictatrship but these easures ensure that even those seeking good information will have more difficulty finding it and the less well- informed will stay that way. They increase government control of what the populace can know.

Despite supposed uncretainty, I think that at this point chance can largely be discounted. There must be a plan and, whatever it is, the government is positioning itself to deliver it with the minimum of critical scrutiny and a majority of popular suuport, even if it is against the interests of that majotity. And that, I think, is what will most probably happen.