politics

Political Tech 25, a review

the door sign at the Political Tech Summit 25

I attended Political Tech 25 in Berlin in January. The slides and videos are sadly not yet ready but here is a reflection from my notes. I spent the first part of the morning in the plenary hall, and then visited the break out rooms. These notes cover insights into “elections and electioneering”, and “IT, Social Media and Persuasiveness”; I also cover a presentation from the Labour Party about their successful campaign in a separate document. Possibly the key lesson is that old school techniques still work, that AI is not yet used for communicating with people and the social media companies need to be treated as hostile spaces for progressives. I also include a short summary from the LP{ presentation. Use the "Read More" button to see my key learning points and links to the two documents,. ...

Best for Britain on Trumps trade war

I subscribe to Best for Britain’s news letter and they sent me the following. I can’t find it on their web site and so I have posted it here. Their front page has a comprehensive response to Trump’s trade war and is worth a look. Unlike me they are not focusing on the need for the single market to access the protection of the EU’s Digital Services Act and in fact are fundamentally in the “Fix Brexit” campaign, but what they say is interesting.

As you’ll no doubt have seen, the UK joins Brazil, Australia, and the uninhabited Heard Island – along with almost every other country in the world – in being slapped with a 10% tariff on all imports to the US. The EU has fared even worse, as they stare down the prospect of a 20% tariff. Unaddressed, this unprovoked and punitive move by Trump could wipe out all efforts to grow our economies, both here in the UK and in the EU.

We knew this was coming. Which is why we asked Frontier Economics to model how a better UK-EU trade deal could minimise the impact of Trump tariffs. The results should spur a simultaneous sigh of relief across Whitehall.

Not only would a common sense deal between the EU and UK cancel out the economic hit to the UK from Trump’s tariffs, it could also grow our economy by up to 1.5%. And those areas hit hardest by tariffs – manufacturing hubs like the Midlands and North East England – would see the greatest benefit. A deal that includes deep alignment between the UK and EU on goods and services would also shield the EU, reducing the impact of tariffs on the bloc by around a third.

Those sighs of relief should ripple around the Cabinet table too when you add in the results of our latest polling. Three times as many people think we should increase trade with the EU in response to Trump’s tariffs, compared to just 14% who say we should be sucking up to Trump in the hope of an exemption.

If there was any doubt, Trump is no friend of the UK. His unprovoked trade war will be felt by ordinary people across the country, in our pockets and in cuts to public spending. Anyone seeking to spin this slap in the face as a ‘Brexit win’ should remember the thousands now at risk of losing their jobs, and that Brexit itself has caused far more economic damage than Trump’s tariffs ever could.

But if we tear down barriers to UK-EU trade, we can gain significantly more from our largest trading partner than we stand to lose as a result of back-of-the-envelope calculations made in Washington.

In these choppy geopolitical waters, we’ll keep pushing the government to make the right decision and seek stability for us, and for our EU neighbours. Thank you for your support in helping us do it. …

50 years hard labour

I was given my Labour Party long service award to recognise 50 years of membership, I was able to make a speech of thanks, and I have posted my notes overleaf/below. …

Liberation Day

Today, or Yesterday depending on where you are the US announced a series of tariff increases around the world.

The FT explains how they calculated the tariffs; they engineered a number from the balance of trade deficit between the US and their trading partners. This has been a big surprise to most international trade economists. This is written in an amusing style asking questions on economics and supply chains, since the calculation method penalises, those countries supplying goods that the US cannot fulfil domestically, such as bananas and coffee.

In an article called, the stupidest chart you’ll see today, which I cannot understand, but they observe that a floor value of 10% has also been set, and comment,

One last thing not widely mentioned yet — there is also a baseline 10 per cent minimum tariff. Without this minimum, the UK would be treated with a negative tariff. So much for special treatment.

The original article points at the book Trade wars are class wars, where on its hosting page, they say,

Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees. Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today’s trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. In this thought‑provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace—and what we can do about it.

…

The Newsagents on Trump, Trade and Debt

In this podcast at the newsgents, the presenters talk about Trump’s tariffs and his liberation day and the impact on the UK’s public finances. This article is a reply.

The guardian reports US Department of State, channelling JD Vance, has raised the issue of “freedom of speech” in the current trade negotiations and are ‘concerned’ about the possible sanctions against an anti-abortion demonstrator who has been convicted of demonstrating too close to a clinic. The identification of ‘free speech’ as a trade issue is not just caprice. It was raised dramatically by JD Vance at the Munich security conference earlier this year. It is part of their pro-oligarch agenda; they are frightened of European regulators and the massive fines levied on the US high tech firms and now that Musk has bought twitter, the social media companies and their ‘freedom of speech’ is a tool by which they seek to maintain their power.

I was curious that they identified the fact that Trump respects those that strike back and yet spoke favourably of Starmer’s weak response, particularly when compared with both the EU’s and the US’s neighbours.

While they spoke of the short term economic results as a possible constraint on Trump’s behaviour, I suggest that the only constraint that concerns him is his popularity which since he can’t run again is of limited use to him. Curiously, I read an article by Lawrence Lessig today suggesting the founding fathers deliberately excluded term limits on the grounds that a desire for re-election would act as a moderator on behaviour. They were particularly concerned about kleptocracy, although Hamilton used the word plunder.

In the second part of the interview, they speak to Andy Haldane, once Chief Economist of the Bank of England. He argues that the trade war will blow Reeves’ plan off course as it lacks what he and others call fiscal head room. He argues that higher taxes will need to be raised but that the bond markets will live with a plan that works i.e. delivers growth, which he argues needs to be based on defence industries.

Itr was always unlikely that Haldane would argue that since the purpose of the golden rules and even the growth strategy is to reduce the national debt, what needs to change are the rules, the independence of the Bank of England and Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR). The progressive inventors of the fiscal golden rules argued that that their purpose was to protect investment. The purpose of Reeves’ iteration of the rules is to pay off the debt.

One justification against borrowing to fund investment, is the interest costs but Google reports that “As of 2023, Japan’s government debt to GDP ratio was 255.20%, while the UK’s was around 98.5%.” How can Japan fund their debt while the UK cannot?

I also question the efficacy of the government’s proposed industrial strategy; historically private sector capital has not invested in UK innovation which has been funded by retained profits.

It is frustrating that commentators like Haldane can’t or won’t mention easing trade barriers with Europe as a means of stimulating export led growth and that no digital liberty campaigners are arguing to rejoin the single market in order to implement the Digital Services Act which the US social media companies rightly fear.

Reeves’ rules are aimed at the wrong policy outcome, and her capitulation of judgement to the OBR is a democratic mistake which merely constrains her room for manoeuvre. In my view its time to review the independence of the Bank of England and the existance of the OBR. Economic policy should be the outcome of a democratic process, not a technocratic black box built by the dead.

I say more at this article on my blog, and on industrial policy at Chartist Magazine. …

Starmer’s choice

I wrote something on JD Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference. This was part of the series of policy repositioning for the trump administration. My article was published on labour hub, in it I reference Vance’s speech to the Munich Security conference, i note the oligarch’s hypocritical and fascistic agenda, the foreshadowing of the crippling of NATO, and talk of the UK’s alternatives pointing out that we seem to be re-joining the EU one agency at a time.

I reference reports of J D Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference, where he criticised the EU and member state governments for suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs. He refused to meet the German Chancellor and yet met, during an election, with the leader of the far right AfD (Alternative for Germany).

I note his arguments on free speech are partisan; US oligarchs want American rich people’s voices to be heard and amplified by privately-owned social media companies and fear Europe’s regulation of them being based on a demand for truth. We also note the hypocrisy of the US free speech advocates’ attacks on ideas, books and teachers in schools, universities and libraries in the US. His comments on not relying on foreign technology providers by which he meant China, may come to haunt him as Europe examines its defence supply chains.

Trump’s call for European NATO to increase their defence budgets to 5% of GDP is a naked attempt to build budgets for the US arms industry, just as the UK’s requests to have a side treaty on defence and security with the EU is also at least partially based on the economic interests of BAe.

Trump’s arguments about what does his money, that is, the arms shipments to Ukraine, buy, has a moral vacancy but it is clear that the view that ‘the business of America is business’ has returned to the White House. The crudity with which Trump pursues his views of US fiscal and commercial interests is echoed by the UK Labour Government in positioning its ‘EU reset’, arguing for changes in agreements which only benefit Britian from their limited, primarily electoral, point of view.

In the Labour Hub article I suggest, the choices facing the Starmer administration are bleak while Starmer seems to be seeking to avoid Trump’s tariff increases, on defence the choice is stark. The UK can either continue to act as a vassal state of the United States or develop more effective partnerships with the European Union. It should be noted that Vance has questioned the need for NATO joint command. Labour’s foundational commitment to NATO, is looking weaker than it once was.

Starmer’s ambition on EU cooperation is limited, I have argued that the UK should use the withdrawal agreement review clauses to re-enter the customs union and the single market. The suspicion is that for the Starmer Administration, the single market is a step too far because of its requirements for a free movement of labour and Labour’s fear of the Tories and Reform UK.

Today’s military questions and the need for ‘security of supply’ strongly imply that the UK should join the European Space Agency and possibly the European defence agency.

The proposed military and security side treaty is looking less and less attractive to both sides because in order to protect our democracy against the attacks from US social media companies and US owned AI search engines, the UK needs the umbrella of the EU’s competition & digital regulators, this needs membership of the single market. We have already rejoined Horizon (the R&D programme) and the Euro HPC joint undertaking, and Northern Ireland is still part of the single market. At what point do we say, we need our MEPs, Judges, Commissioners and Council seats back or will we just be rejoining the EU an agency at a time. …

The pan-European Mediterranean convention and EU/UK relations

In January, Marco Sefcovic, suggested that the UK as part of the negotiations to improve relations between the UK and the EU should consider joining the pan European Mediterranean convention (PEM); he also stated but the EU would consider such a proposal seriously. Sefcovic is the commissioner responsible for trade.

Mark Pennycook, the minister for housing, was asked to the same day what the government’s response was and repeated the redline mantras stating that the government had no interest in signing up to PEM. The following day he was contradicted by an anonymous government source who said that PEM would not breach Labour’s red lines. It was later stated by Reeves, that she would be happy to consider membership of PEM, although how this is part of her portfolio rather than a Cabinet Office matter I am unsure.

The PEM is an agreement on rules of origin, the effect of which is that assembled goods, using EU components do not have to pay a customs duty on the EU inputs when exporting to the EU. The Guardian have published an explainer, with two quotes, one suggesting it’ll have little effect and the other suggesting it’s an important and useful reform. It is hard to see how it will reduce paperwork and trade friction, in some cases it will reduce the sale price within the EU making British exports more competitive. It’s not a customs union.

Membership of PEM had been pushed by the LME, both at labour’s national policy forum in 2024 and they attempted to get it on the agenda of labour’s conference in 2023. The party leadership rejected these proposals and ensured the international trade with the European Union was not debated at conference. Even LME’s moderate, some might say fig leaf, pro-Europeanism seems unwelcome to Starmer’s Labour.

The Government policy consists of three proposals articulated in the Labour manifesto: a veterinary agreement, mutual recognition of qualifications and help for touring artists (& their crews and equipment). These positive proposals are underlined by three noes, no to the customs union, no to the single market and no to free movement of people.

The government also seems to be uninterested in clever hacks to the treaties and they seem to ignore the fact that the EU also has an agenda, and a stronger negotiating position and more expert negotiators. The EU will require that the UK meets all the terms of the withdrawal agreement, and there are eight disputes open at the moment. On top of this, there is the UK reluctance to talk about the EU’s proposal for a youth mobility scheme and the EU are also keen that the fishing agreement is rolled over. …

Munich 2025, peace in our time

The last week has signified the death knell of NATO. The ninety minute phone call between Trump and Putin signifies the road to a 21st century Hitler Stalin pact. The Trump administration’s proposals that the USA and Russia make peace in Ukraine without Ukraine being present at the table and mandating European NATO to provide peacekeeping forces are a return great power politics unrestrained by the rule of law.

Left wing fools who consider Putin’s Russia to be the successor of the socialist Soviet Union must be very happy.

This attack on the EU was reinforced by the Vice President, J D Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference, where he criticised the EU and member state governments for suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs. He refused to meet the German Chancellor and yet met with the leader of the AfD. We all know his arguments on free speech are partisan; they want American rich people’s voices to be heard and amplified by privately owned social media companies and fear Europe’s regulation of them based on a demand for truth. We also note the hypocrisy of the US free speech advocates attacks on ideas, books and teachers in schools, universities and libraries in the US. His comments on not relying on foreign technology providers by which he meant China, may come to haunt him as Europe examines its supply chains on the basis of national security grounds.

Trump’s arguments about what does his money i.e. the arms shipments to Ukraine, buy, has a moral vacancy but it is clear that the view that “the business of America is business” has returned to the White House. The crudity with which Trump pursues his views of US fiscal and commercial interests is echoed by the UK Labour Government in positioning its ‘EU reset’; arguing for changes in the agreements which only benefits Britian from their limited, primarily electoral, point of view.

European NATO needs to respond. The peoples of Europe need to have a think about the quality of its leadership.

NATO needs to audit its supply chain, evaluate its security of supply, and get off any Musk owned technology.

Also, European NATO needs to ensure that its military is not using any technology controlled by the USA. Most weapons have software, many companies including Tesla controlled by Elon Musk use software to control use of product, see Corey Doctorow on the use of DMCA. Permission can be withheld, particularly through software.

The EU needs to reaffirm its commitment to not sharing civilian intelligence with countries not bound by human rights law.

As part of guaranteeing military security of supply, the UK needs to join the European Space Agency. The UK needs to get off the F35, and Poland should think of getting off theirs too.

It is common currency that the UK Army is too small and thus the UK needs to increase the size of its army. It’s less common currency that its Navy is too large, particularly if we withdraw again from east of Suez. …

Accountable to whom?

In the USA, checks and balances are written into the US constitution and are designed to ensure the power is shared and controlled by the rule of law. One weakness in the constitution and the founders’ desire to control power is the development of the executive presidency and the growth in size of the United States. In order to win a presidential election one needs to put together a very large coalition, and when one takes into account that there is only one president, and the winner takes all nature of American politics, the checks and balances seem more translucent than expected as illustrated by the behaviour of the Trump presidency.

This tendency to monarchy is aggravated by the informal fashion in which the law and constitution regulates political parties within the United States and incidently the UK. A party cannot and will not hold a president of its own party to account and when one looks at the degradation of the Republican Party In Congress and the capture of the Supreme Court it becomes clear that US style constitutions cannot hold a rogue president to account.

Fixed terms are equally a problem, the electorate cannot change its mind. Political theory suggests that a parliamentary system solves this problem, but it would seem only if proportional voting systems are used. Proportional voting systems ameliorate the need for voters to participate within coalitions that they’re uncomfortable in and so don’t have to compromise as to how to cast their vote for a government,.

The Anglosphere’s problem is first past the post with a winner take all culture of government. This is replicated in most if not all Presidential republics.

If a major part of the problem is party capture, then it is clear the UK suffers from this as well, shown by Boris Johnson’s purge of the pro European wing of his parliamentary party, and by Starmer and Mcsweeney’s purge and intimidation of their internal enemies and opponents. I note that the Labour Government is going to make more Mayors, creating more power foci which can only be occupied by one person.

As voters, citizens, residents and party members, perhaps we should be asking for democratic guarantees, including term limits, by political parties within their candidate selection process and that they should be accountable to the public as well as to the party membership. …

Win/Lose vs Win/Win & Trump

I was pointed at this,and was advised, that, “Everybody I know should read this accurate and enlightening piece…”.

The best, most cogent and elegantly simple explanation into the inexplicably destructive negotiating processes of the President, by Prof. David Honig of Indiana University.

“I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don’t know, I’m an adjunct professor at Indiana University – Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of “The Art of the Deal,” a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you’ve read The Art of the Deal, or if you’ve followed Trump lately, you’ll know, even if you didn’t know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call “distributive bargaining.”

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you’re fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump’s world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don’t have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can’t demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren’t binary. China’s choices aren’t (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don’t buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation.

One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you’re going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don’t have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won’t agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you’re going to have to find another cabinet maker.

There isn’t another Canada.

So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already.

Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM – HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that’s just not how politics works, not over the long run.

For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here’s another huge problem for us.

Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it.

From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn’t even bringing checkers to a chess match. He’s bringing a quarter that he insists of flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld.”

— David Honig

From https://www.facebook.com/geoffrey.m.arnold/posts/10160302885212273, also at threads https://www.threads.net/@beingliberal/post/DFhUZedxEIT?hl=en

Not having studied negotiation, I can see that this ignorance is being applied to the original Brexit negotiations and to Starmer’s attempts to “reset” the election. …

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