EU Referendum: President Obama Does Us All A Favour

Am I the only one who thinks that until fairly recently we heard a lot more from the Leave campaign in the reporting of the coming EU? Has anyone heard from Alan Johnson lately? Wasn't he supposed to be leading the Remain campaign? And what have we heard from the Leave campaign? To my mind its been a non-stop comic display of jingoistic wishful thinking and childish naivety. The plan seems to be that we will leave an alliance of 28 nations, comprising over 500 million people and generating nearly a quarter of global income and go and do better for ourselves on our own. We will do this by wrapping ourselves in the Union Jack and going to other countries like the USA and China and negotiating treaties that are on terms that will be entirely the ones we demand. And why will these countries give us exactly what we want? Well, because we are the fifth biggest economy in the world, have the fourth biggest military, countries will lose out if we close our markets to them and, and, and, 'Well, by Timothy we are British for goodness sake!'

Such run-away self-confidence was dealt a bit of a blow last week when President Obama put us in our place. He had to point out the bleeding obvious. We are not as important as we think we are. If we leave the EU we will not be at the front of the queue to sign a trade deal with the US. It may take 5 to 10 years for the US to get around to seeing us. Oh dear. But look on the bright side. Maybe President Trump or President Clinton II will call us in from the waiting room a bit sooner. Or maybe not. Obama's reward for calling us up from planet earth was to predictably reap a storm of protest and abuse from the Leavers. Boris Johnson suggested that the President was simply prejudiced against us because his Kenyan father had been opposed to British colonial rule. Although Johnson has been criticised by his own side for his intemperate remarks, I thought that he was putting the weakness of the Leave case very well. I am not suggesting that Obama is anti-British, but when you are negotiating you should assume that your opposite number is not on your side, favours their interest above yours and, yes, may dislike you.

It is thought by some that in 1945 at the end of WWII when the Liberation of France had only been possible because of the support and sacrifice of the Allies, General Charles de Gaulle said to Churchill, 'We will stun the world with our ingratitude'. Whether he said it or not, few would say he ever displayed any. What's more, he went on to veto the UK's application to join the EU, or the EEC as it was then called, not once, but twice (in 1963 and again in 1965). Clearly, he wasn't impressed by any of the UK's arguments for joining. He may not even have cared that UK membership would have improved French prosperity. He may have just been content with the situation where the EEC was a club run by West Germany and France for their benefit and seen British membership as a threat to this position. Better to be one of 2 equal partners in a club that was doing alright than 1 of three bosses in a club that was more prosperous overall, but where you ran the risk of the other two ganging up against you. I am not sure whether this attitude could rightly be described as prejudice but it certainly provides a cautionary tale against those who feel that they can get others to see their point of view and consequently act in their interest, even if they believe they have interests in common. I think you'll find its a bit more complicated than that. 

Roger Scruton wrote a book entitled, 'The Uses of Pessimism and the Danger of False Hope'. In it, he cautions us to be on our guard against those who encourage us to reject an imperfect and irritating reality and embrace instead a far better theoretical alternative. We should resist those who tell us that, if only we could summon up the courage to breakaway from the constraints of our own making, then we would be free to run to the sunny uplands of a brighter, better future. The Leave campaigners obviously haven't read this book. I think I even heard one of them talk on the radio about the 'sunny uplands'. The Leavers are so intoxicated with this idea of being 'Free At Last! Free At Last!', that any attempt to point out the downside of leaving is met with the the charge of 'scaremongering!'

My biggest fear if we leave the EU is that the EU will still exist. What's more, it will not remain set in aspic. What will it be like in 5, 10, 20 years time? When it comes to the future we only 'see through a glass darkly'. It is possible that in my lifetime (I am 50) the EU could open its doors to membership for Ukraine (population 45 million), Turkey (population 79 million), Belarus (population 10 million) and perhaps even Russia (population 144 million). What would such a huge expansion and geo-political shift mean for the EU's world view and priorities? How would such a vastly changed alliance view the UK and its interests? What's more the issues that I think have generated such dissatisfaction with the way things are of which the desire to leave the EU amongst some is a symptom, will not go away if we Brexit. Falling living standards for the majority of working people, increased debt, mass economic migration driven by war and poverty, globalisation, terrorism and religious fundamentalism, all will be unchanged the day after we leave. Brexit will not isolate us from mainland Europe and insulate us against our problems. On the contrary, I think it will expose our weaknesses. For example, the reason we export so little to non-EU countries (and EU countries for that matter) is not because of Brussels bureaucrats. It is because we have such a small manufacturing industry. This is due to decisions that successive UK governments have made which have led us to build our economy on financial services, shopping, property and private debt rather than making products that people want to buy. British people may fear that illegal immigration is getting out of hand, but you only need to have driven through the port of Calais regularly over the last few years to see the enormous resources that the French have invested to try and stop them getting through. They may have done an imperfect job in fulfilling their treaty obligations to a fellow EU member, but it is hard to believe that they would do a better job of protecting the borders of a non-EU member just because we told them to and said that we would be very cross if they did not.

So, thank you President Obama for giving us a much needed dose of reality. Let us stick with our EU partners present and future. Let us remain within an imperfect organisation that has lost its way for the moment on economic policy and is struggling to work together to deal with the fall-out from foreign conflicts. We should work together to make things better for all European citizens and not turn our back on our duty to do so in favour of a short-sighted petulant leap in the dark that risks our children's future.

School Academisation: A Lewisham Perspective

Here is the text, slightly edited, of a letter I sent to Nicky Dixon, a Lewisham resident, mother of two children at Lewisham schools and a member of the NEC of the Campaign for State Education (CASE).  Nicky has kindly agreed to let me post it on my blog as she agrees with me that others may find it of interest.

Dear Nicky

Thanks for your email. I think there is considerable justifiable concern about the Government's intention to turn all schools into academies by 2020. I am sure you won't be surprised when I say that you are not the first person to ask me to outline the Council's position on this issue. You are right to say that the Mayor has set up an Education Commission. It's job is to provide him with independent, professional advice on the best way forward for education in Lewisham. It's remit is not exclusively about Academisation but I am sure that they will address the issue. I am also sure that the Mayor will want to wait to receive their advice before making any new policy statements. However, this is not to say he has no view. Here is what he said in his speech at the recent Council AGM:

'Two years ago we set out to improve outcomes from our Secondary schools and to deliver enough primary places to meet the needs of our growing population. So far we have achieved the second of these but with growing difficulty while the first is a work in progress. 

We have established a Commission of experts to look at the performance of our schools and to make recommendations to us about what we need to do secure improvement. It will report shortly. 

When we consider its advice we will need to do so against the background of impending legislation to turn every school into an Academy and remove it from the Local Authority family of schools. Many of us take the view that this is a policy which derives from ideology not from any consideration of the evidence. We hear minsters attempt to justify it by reminding us that it was a Labour Government which first introduced academies. 

And so it was – but they were expressly intended as a way of achieving improvement in schools which were experiencing significant failure. We now have a policy which is designed to lead to all of Lewisham’s primary schools becoming academies – despite the fact that we have some of the best performing primary schools in the country. 

There will be opposition to this legislation and I have no doubt there will be fierce debate and efforts made to remove the worst parts of the bill. It has been encouraging to hear even Conservative councillors making clear their opposition to this. 

But this government has been democratically elected and is entitled to act on that mandate. Those of us who disagree with a given policy should say so and explain why but equally those of us who hold elected office must also examine the potential impact such legislation will have and prepare to deal with it. 

Nor can we wait until the legislation passes before acting – we will need to talk to those who are currently involved in delivering education in Lewisham about how we can work together to sustain the positives we now have while making ready to deal with the consequences of legislation. 

The co-operation between our schools has been a great strength in this borough and I hope we can use that strength to find local solutions to a changing situation rather than sit back and let Academy chains which know little of our community pursue a piecemeal approach.'

He was also clear when the Leathersellers' expressed their desire to convert their three Lewisham schools into an academy, that he was unclear what they believed they would achieve by doing so. He also made clear his view that he believed that their priority should be school improvement, that Academisation was no guarantee of this and that he feared that the pursuit of this organisational change risked causing a distraction that would undermine efforts to improve education outcomes for pupils.

The Council's position is ultimately a matter for the Mayor but I would as the Lead Member just make a number of points, some of which expand on those expressed by Steve. Firstly, I think it is generally accepted by many, regardless of their political persuasion that, to borrow a phrase from Christine Blower, the General Secretary of the NUT, based on the evidence, Academisation is not a school improvement strategy. The recent report of the cross party Education Select Committee came to the same conclusion, although they expressed it in a more measured way. (As an aside I found it interesting that the report went out of its way to record the view of a number of witnesses that appeared before them, who were at pains to point out that Local AuthoritIes had not run any schools since the Baker reforms of the 1980s. I suspect that the motivation of these witnesses was to counter the view of many people, including the former Secretary of State for Education, that interference by Local Authorities is to blame for failing schools. No doubt the impetus for Academisation stems from this erroneous view and the mixed record of academy schools bears this out)

Secondly, 6 years of large cuts to Council budget, plus 4 more to come, means that the Council's capacity to fight the policy of a democratically elected national government has been much reduced and will decline further. Moreover, this is not a situation like the threatened closure of Lewisham Hospital's A&E, where we had a strong case to argue that the Secretary of State has acted ultra vires, as the result of the court case demonstrated. Every pound spent on lobbying is a pound taken away from front line services.

Having said this, it is clear that there isn't unanimity of view on forced Academisation on the Tory benches in Parliament. I followed the recent debate on the subject with interest. Given that the Government only has a working majority of 18, it is unclear to me that any vote on mandatory conversion of all schools by 2020 would be passed. 

However, as you point out, regardless of this, Regional School Commissioners have powers to issue academy orders. To answer your specific question, our Commissioner hasn't issued any. It is hard to predict the future with certainty but, if he were to do so, it is hard to envisage a set of circumstances where we would be able to effectively oppose this.

Moreover, the government and the Commissioners are not the only driver of Academisation. Schools are free to apply to convert should they wish to do so, as our experience with the Leathersellers' demonstrates. Going back to the point I made about the Education Select Committee, the Council doesn't run any schools and hasn't run any schools in the way that many people think we do, for decades. In addition, the drive to Academisation has been given fresh impetus by the changes to schools' funding that the government are enacting. The government decision to implement what it calls 'fairer' funding for schools is going to redistribute funding away from inner city, urban schools to schools in more rural areas. It is estimated that this will reduce the funding for Lewisham Schools by more than 10%. On top of this, schools are facing increased running costs. So, regardless of Academisation, it is likely that primary schools, especially smaller ones, would have to come together in some way, in order to share management overheads. This is obviously going to fuel interest in the move towards primary schools combining to form Multi Academy Trusts.

In this response I have tried to set out the landscape in which the Council finds itself as it seeks to make Lewisham the best place to live work and learn and, in particular, to drive school improvement, as much as it is able to do so. I hope it has been helpful.