Is Brexit Null and Void?

Wishful thinking

It beggars belief that almost two months into the six-month extension to find a deal for Brexit that there has been no new thinking by the government. They are trying to transfer the blame onto the opposition following the breakdown of talks between the two largest parties. Labour has been complicit in these talks because they wanted to be seen to respect the result of the 2016 referendum. They did not have the gumption to indicate that they thought the only way forward would be a confirmatory vote. As a result they are reaping the anger of many of their voters who are transferring their allegiance to parties who are less guileful and more forthright about Brexit.

The talks were never likely to result in any accommodation. Mrs May has never understood the concept of negotiation, nor have most of her ministers. No stereoscope could ever make the red lines of Labour and Conservative produce a 3D version of Brexit. Mrs May has shown no inclination to shift her red lines even when she is told in no uncertain manner by both parliament and the EU that the answer is no. The government team then try again with the aid of a thesaurus to find some new phrases for existing red lines and an inbred arrogance that totally irritates the EU leaders and negotiators. Time is running out to organise a confirmatory vote before the end of October so parliament may have to choose between revoking article 50 or a no deal Brexit. In which case the past three years will have been wasted when so many issues of the economy and inequalities should have been addressed. The Tory Party should be embarrassed and humiliated by their machinations but they persist with the illusion that they are the victims of continental peevishness.

So there is to be a vote in two weeks time on a 'bold new deal' that has already been rejected three times, although it will be spun to sound like a more substantial package. It is unlikely to be supported by Parliament although Mrs May will probably attempt to have a confirmatory people's vote rejected at the same time. Mrs May will then resign and we will be able to watch the Tory party elect a new leader and wannabe prime minister. The field does not look to have any pedigree of statesmanship and the ageing right-wing members of the party will probably select someone like Boris Johnson who will want to start negotiations again or artlessly attempt to manoeuvre us towards a no deal Brexit. This will be justified on the back of a stellar performance by the Brexit party at the European elections next week.

What a tragic mess we are in, and we will not be going anywhere soon with Boris Johnson at the wheel and Jeremy Corbyn dropping the anchor. The metaphor of the UK coming last in the European song contest and British Steel about to go bust because of Brexit is a timely reminder that both the service and manufacturing sectors are going down the tubes. Still, the usual suspects in the media will tell us that there are 4 English football teams in the two European Finals so that should show the pesky Europeans that we are winners.

Carn Chuinneag

Carn Chuinneag peaking round the Scots Pine from Glencalvie

Tuesday, 14 May 2019

Ascent:     860 metres

Distance:  16 kilometres

Time:       3 hours 51 minutes

Carn Chuinneag      839m     1hr 39mins

After returning to Glencalvie from the long cycle and climb of Carn Ban, I cycle up Glen Diebidale and camp at the foot of Carn Chuinneag. It was 7:30pm before I started and too late to climb the hill in the fading evening late. Besides I was pretty exhausted from the early start, the long drive, the cycle up and down Gleann Mor and the tiring ascent of Carn Ban. I changed into a more comfortable pair of old trainers and loaded the tent, sleeping bag and some cooking stuff into a holdall and used some octopus clips to fix it onto the pannier carrier. It was a beautiful spring evening and the cuckoos were in fine voice. I cycled through the splendid grounds of Glencalvie House and exited by a fallen down gate to obtain access to the track up the glen. The stony track climbed 150 metres over the four and a half kilometres to Diebidale. It was a steady gradient and required some effort but there was no rush, I would be climbing Carn Chuinneag first thing in the morning when I would be rested.  

Lambs were gambolling in the lush grazings along the river and chased alongside me for a while. Several deer appeared but scarpered as I pedalled towards them at a pedestrian pace. I reached Diebidale House, which I presume is a shooting lodge and to my eye seems to have been built with a slight slope in the floor level. I found a rare patch of flattish ground by the burn at the foot of Carn Chuinneag and pitched the tent, filled my water bottles from the burn and treated myself to a brew of green tea (no milk required) with my Pasta 'n' Sauce. It was a warm night and I slept fitfully before waking at 6:00am, eating a banana and some nuts and had a brew before starting the walk at 6:45am. 

Although another hot day was forecast, the morning mists had yet to clear so the visibility was not as clear as I had hoped. There is an excellent stalker's path that has a perfect gradient for steady walking, it doubles back on itself several times before arriving on a terraced path that runs on the level about 100 metres below the twin summits. I saw three pairs of ptarmigan and several grouse during the ascent. I was feeling much friskier than yesterday and arrived at the impressive summit with its fine stone-built trig point. I ate some more food and lolled at the summit for a while, catching up on messages and the news before I began the descent. 

There was no rush as my overly ambitious plan to climb a couple of Corbett's in Strathconon by Strathpeffer had been on the assumption that I would have climbed Carn Chuinneag in the late evening was the wishful thinking of someone whose ambitions have not yet attuned to the ageing process. It would still have been possible to climb the two Corbetts but I would not have finished until 6 or 7pm and then be faced with a four-hour drive home and another trip to Strathconon to climb the remaining Corbett at the end of the glen.

I could see the hills of yesterday and Ben Wyvis looked ominously massive to the south. It brought back memories of windswept days on its cold exposed plateau. The finest views were back along the Diebidale glen and over to Carn Ban. My overnight campsite looked like the prime location for a tent nestled in the elbow of the burn. As I began the descent, several pairs of ptarmigan walked me away from their nests feigning their broken wing routine. I was at one with the world and followed the well-graded path down to the track below at a jaunty pace. 

It took very little time to drop the tent and then freewheel almost all the way back to Glencalvie House. There are two amazing tree houses and the grounds of the house look immaculate. I met a fisherman who was staying at the house but the water was too low for any sport. I arrived at the car at 10:30am and spent half an hour sorting out stuff, loading the car and rehydrating before starting the long leg home. I had been worried about these two hills, they are remote and probably the hardest of those left to climb but the weather and conditions meant that I could really appreciate some of the finest glens in Scotland. The drive back to Inverness was on quiet roads and after a stop for some food in Inverness, I was pleased that I had decided to give Strathconon a miss, it was far too hot to be hill walking.

Summit on left, the path tacks out to the right

The final 100 metres of ascent from the terraced path

Trig Point and Carn Ban in distance with a snow patch

West top of Carn Chuineag

4 ptarmigan in here

Stalker's path at 500 metres

My campsite at foot of the hill

Glencalvie tree house

Glencalvie Lodge grounds

Carn Ban

Arrival at summit and a welcome from the Assynt skyline

Monday. 13 May 2019

Ascent:           943 metres

Distance:        38 kilometres, 26km by bike

Time:              7 hours 52 minutes

Carn Ban          843m     4hrs  28mins


My remaining Corbetts, apart from the two on Rum, are all in the far north. The most difficult in terms of time and distance is Carn Ban, deep in the Freevater Forest and at least 15 kilometres from the nearest road but with the chance to cycle in part of the way on some hill tracks. It was a hill for long daylight hours and preferably good weather. There was to be a spell of 4 good days in mid-May but I had events on the first and fourth days so there were only two days including a 200 mile drive up and then back. If I went in from Glencalvie Lodge at the head of Strathcarron, it would add 10 kilometres to the bike ride but allow me to climb Carn Chuinneag from Glencalvie as well. I would probably need to camp in the glen as It would take over 4 hours to drive up to Glencalvie.

I left home at 6:30am on a near-perfect morning, the A9 was comparatively quiet and I made it non stop to Bonar Bridge where I had to stop to find the road along Strathcarron, which did not appear on the satnav. Strathcarron is a glorious glen with fine birchwoods and a good number of houses, it was slow progress on the single track road that was littered with pheasants, the occasional quad bike but no traffic. I arrived at the car park at Glancalvie, assembled my bike, changed into some new trail shoes and began the ride towards Attadale Lodge. 

It is a smooth track that winds its way along the Caledonian forest that embellishes the beautiful Alladale river. Just before the lodge, there is an information board and you cross a bridge and begin the rougher track, steep at first that follows Gleann Mor for 8 kilometres to Deenich Lodge. This is the estate where there are tentative proposals to re-introduce wolves, I remain open-minded on the possibility, aware of the damage done to the native Caledonian forests by deer.

It was tough going, uphill most of the way and some sections not particularly suited to my rudimentary mountain bike. A woman was cycling in the other direction on a long day from Black Bridge by Loch Glasscarnoch via Glencalvie and Glen Rusdale and back to Dingwall. Her mountain bike had massive wheels and tyres, all-round suspension, she was in her fifties and was training for a week riding the Portuguese mule trails. Two other cyclists came hurtling past on similar machines loaded with their camping gear. I felt low tech and my energy levels were sagging.

I reached Deenich lodge and spoke to a couple of Dutch visitors who had arrived by Range Rover from Alladale Lodge. They were full of praise for their stay there and felt that I was slightly bonkers to be exerting so much energy and sounding a bit jaded. I was, and the next two kilometres did not help as there was another hill to where the track from Black Bridge came in and then a descent to the start of the walk where a stalker's path climbs steeply to Cail Mhor.

I dumped the bike and began the climb, it always seems more difficult after a long time in the saddle. Reaching the top of the path brought me onto a boggy path that headed west but I decided to make a more direct approach and began a long slog northward. It was not possible to see the summit of Carn Ban because of the convex slopes. I reached the burn and continued upwards until I saw two walkers descending from a summit and presumed it was Carn Ban. I changed tack to reach the ridge they were descending only to discover when I passed them that they had been on the adjacent top of Bodach Beag. It had added a couple of kilometres and left me with a 100-metre descent and then a 150-metre ascent that added to the discomfort in my new shoes, they were not getting on well with my feet and each step was painful.

The summit of Carn Ban approached from the east gives no hint of what you discover on reaching the top. The skyline was filled by the Assynt peaks that were lined up for inspection, there is no finer sight. It was almost 3pm, at least an hour later than I had hoped. I had some lunch and then began a more sensible route for the descent, over the top to the south and then south-east down the broad ridge until I reached a cairn that marked a path running to the top of the stalker's path. It was very wet for the last few hundred metres and I pulled an abductor muscle avoiding a fall. I did wonder whether I could continue but after about five minutes the muscle eased and allowed me to limp down to the bike.

As so often on climbs involving bikes, the return journey was so much easier with lots of freewheeling and my wonder at how the cyclists who passed me on my way in were going so fast was simply explained by gravity. Some outdoor instructors had taken a party of young people to camp in Gleann Mor, from their activity and noise they seemed to be in high spirits. I was back at Glencalvie before 7pm, it was too late to climb Carn Chuinneag so I decided to pack my camping stuff and cycle to the foot of Carn Chuinneag in Glen Diebidale.

Parking at Glencalvie

Cycling into Alladale

The long and lonely cycle along Gleann Mor

Stalker's path to the left of the burn

Final slopes of Carn Ban from the east

The Assynt skyline

Long and lonely ride back down Gleann Mor

Looking east to Carn na Speireig

Old Sheiling

River Alladale

Local Elections in England 2019

The two major parties received their second-lowest share of the national equivalent vote since records began

The Local Election Results in England were a pretty devastating critique of the performance of local councils, or as the media would have it, the woeful performance of the two main parties in the search for Brexit. It is useful to look at the real outcomes, that is, the number of councillors of the various political parties and how this has changed since 2015, when the elections took place on the same day as the General Election, when David Cameron squeezed a narrow victory.

This is summarised by examining the number of councillors currently in office, the losses or gains since the last equivalent elections in 2015, and the corresponding percentage change. These are shown in the table below. The Greens and the Lib Dems (the pro-remain parties) saw their numbers soar whilst the Conservatives and UKIP (the pro-Brexit parties) witnessed all-time record losses. The party that sat on the fence (Labour) lost out, whilst the independents, who tend to focus on local issues, made massive gains at the expense of the two main parties, who controlled the majority of councils. However, this analysis takes a view through the prism of Brexit, and that is far from the whole story.

Green                265       +194   +273%
Independent     1178      +662   +128%
Lib Dem           1351       +703   +109%
Labour             2021         -82        -4%
Conservative    3564      -1334      -27%
UKIP                   31        -145      -82%

Listening, watching and reading the local election results made me realise how out of touch with local democracy the fourth estate has become. They have a collective amnesia about local issues; the days of gimlet-eyed reporting have been a victim of the banality served by social media. Almost all reporters and commentators reasoned that the election results were a pronouncement on Brexit and the failure of the two main parties to deliver a solution. There was little attempt to understand the impact of ten years of austerity and how it had devastated the range and quality of local services. This is more the fault of the Westminster government than the elected councillors of any party. The government has reduced its funding of local government in England by 50% over the past decade without understanding the consequences. The government has simply heaped the opprobrium onto the said councils.

Bus services have been withdrawn; libraries, sports centres, swimming pools and community facilities have closed; roads and schools are not being repaired; community care is failing to meet needs, far too few houses have been built, and there has been no concerted attempt to improve their energy efficiency. Community leadership has been undermined by taking away youth leaders, community safety officers, grants to community groups, closing local offices and making telephone contact virtually impossible as everything goes online. It is no wonder that the citizenry is fed up and disinclined to vote for the existing administrations in local councils, which are mainly either Conservative or Labour. Local politicians have been bracketed with the MPs who have displayed their incompetence with impunity over recent years.

As a returning officer for 14 years, I was able to observe at close quarters how local voting outcomes varied from UK elections. Yes, there was a general tendency for the vote of the party in power at the UK level to suffer. However, good councillors and there were many in all political parties as well as some independents, performed better than the benchmark for their party. They were the ones who held local surgeries, turned up at community meetings, and supported their schools and community activities and events. They acted for the people they represented when there was an injustice or failure to provide them with a suitable service. You could also predict the councillors who would do less well because they were failing to represent their electorate or espousing causes that did not resonate well in the community.

It became a bit more difficult after the move to multi-member wards in Scotland in 2007. This requires councillors from different parties to find ways to work together, as there were 3 or 4 councillors elected by a form of proportional representation to cover a far bigger ward. This also had a downside as the councillors tended to be approached by those who supported their party and had less exposure to the wider views of the electorate. If anything, it intensified the tribalism.

How the Prime Minister, Theresa May, has responded to the dire election results is to claim that the collapse in the Conservative vote, leading to 28% fewer conservative councillors and the 4% fall in Labour councillors, is a demand to get on and deliver Brexit. If she believes that Brexit was the main influence on the local elections, then surely the 109% increase in the number of Lib Dem councillors and the 213% increase in Green councillors should be telling her that perhaps Brexit is the problem, not the answer.

In which case, it becomes increasingly inevitable that the only plausible solution to the impasse is either a confirmatory vote on the options available: her deal, an alternative deal or remain. The chances of the Conservatives and Jeremy Corbyn stitching together a feasible Brexit are just another fiction of her imagination. He is studiously non-committal on a confirmatory vote and is no advocate for remaining in the EU. So we will have to watch the further episodes of the Conservative Party's own Game of Thrones for a few more weeks until the Tory MPs realise that the game's a bogey and ditch Theresa May, or go for a confirmatory vote before the EU calls that time is up and throws the UK out for obfuscation and incompetence. Things will not get better any time soon.