Nine lessons and no carols: Brexit Lesson 3

Brexit is a process not an event. And the EU, while traditionally poor at strategy, is very good at process. If we don’t start to take the process seriously and get better, we will get hammered. Repeatedly.

One cannot seriously simultaneously advance the arguments that the EU has morphed away from the common market we joined, and got into virtually every nook and cranny of U.K. life, eroding sovereignty across whole tracts of the economy, internal and external security, AND that we can extricate ourselves from all that in a trice, recapture our sovereignty and rebuild the capability of the U.K. state to govern and regulate itself in vast areas where it had surrendered sovereignty over the previous 45 years.

The people saying 3 years ago that you could were simply not serious. And they have proven it. They also had not the slightest plan on what they were going to try and do and in which order.

Bold, confident assertions, during and in the many months after the referendum that we would have a fully fledged trade deal with the EU ready and in force by the day of exit, and, not only that, rafts of further free trade deals with other fast growing countries across the globe, were just risible when they were made, and have now proven empty bluster.

Likewise, all the breezy assertions that “no deal” would pose no great problems for aviation, for road haulage, for medicines, for food, for financial services, for data and for any number of other areas – for most of which, “WTO terms” are simply not a safety harness.

No number of repetitions of the grossly misleading term “WTO deal” makes it any more real or effective. This is not because of Establishment remainer sabotage. It was because these were always fantasies, produced by people who at the point they said this stuff, just did not understand what they were saying.

Unfortunately, before much of the serious work to look at where we wanted to land post exit had happened, we locked ourselves into a date certain for the invocation of Article 50. That duly forfeited at a stroke any leverage over how that process would run. And it gave to the 27, who had, by the morning of June 24th, already set out their “no negotiation without (Article 50) notification” position, the first couple of goals of the match in the opening 5 minutes.

All the people who are now loudest in bemoaning the Prime Minister’s deal were, of course, the loudest in cheering from the rafters as she made this fateful error. Many are now hastily rewriting history to claim they were always against it. They weren’t, though. 

One cannot blame the EU27 for playing it as they did. Though one can and should blame them for having had too few serious top level discussions about how they see the relationship with the UK working after exit.

Before the Prime Minister had even turned up for her first ever leaders’ meeting, the combination of that decision to guarantee notification by a certain date and the red lines substance of her first Party Conference leaders’ speech had completely cemented the solidarity of the 27, which has held soundly ever since, on how to kick off and to design the sequencing of the process which has led to where we are today.

It’s about the one first order issue on which the EU27 have since held together in near perfect harmony. If that does not tell you something about this Government’s negotiating prowess, what will?

But in the total self-absorption of Party Conferences and Westminster, no one was paying much attention to how the EU was patiently constructing the process designed to maximise its leverage.

Even by April, when the first set of so-called Guidelines emerged from the leaders at 27, it was hard to get anyone here to read them. We were, as usual, preoccupied more with the noises from the noisy but largely irrelevant in Westminster, while the real work was being done on the other side of the Channel.

But those very expertly crafted Guidelines led completely inexorably to the December 2017 agreement. And the substance of that, in turn, led equally inexorably to all the elements of the deal now on the table which has caused the furore. The battle on sequencing which the then Brexit Secretary declared to be the battle of the summer of 2017, was actually long since lost before he started fighting it.

And because the U.K. had given no serious thought to the question of transitional arrangements until it was too late – precisely because of the fantasies propagated that this would be one of the easiest “trade deals in human history” and all would be definitively tied up legally by exit day – by the time they actually did focus, London was urgently begging for what is now pejoratively termed the “vassal state” transition, precisely because it knew that it could not be ready for a post Brexit equilibrium state by March 2019.

All the EU had to do was to ensure that the transition hinged off a Withdrawal Treaty containing a permanent legal all-weather backstop, and it knew that the U.K. had no alternative but to sign such a Withdrawal Agreement.

No amount of bold, but empty, talk about “no deal” being better than a “bad deal”, however oft repeated at whatever level of Government, made the slightest difference to the 27’s assessment of the negotiating reality: the U.K. needed much more time, and failure to get it would be much worse for it than all alternatives.

Whilst it is obviously good to know your “best alternative to a negotiated deal”  in all negotiations, you have to know whether you can walk out, and be very sure you understand what could happen if you do, and what you can do to mitigate all downsides.

But if you know you cannot mitigate, don’t bluff. It just makes you look weak, not strong, and it fools no one.

Those who were suckered into doing, or cheering, the wrong thing in the negotiation at the wrong time for the wrong reason, and duped themselves and others into thinking it would all be extraordinarily simple, cannot acknowledge that of course. So the narrative has be of “Betrayal” by a remainer elite who sabotaged the “no deal” plans

And if you set yourself a ludicrous, unachievable deadline for a complete regime change, don’t be shocked that others use the pressure of the clock and the cliff edge to dictate the shape of Brexit.

It is, in the end, the total absence of a serious realistic plan for the process of Brexit as well as a serious coherent conception of a post Brexit destination, which has delivered this denouement to stage 1 of what will be, whether Brexit proponents like it or not, a much longer process.

For the next stage, we need much less self-absorption, a vastly clearer, less self-deceiving understanding of the incentives on the other side of the table, and a less passive approach to the construction of the process. We need serious substance not plausible bullshit.

We already see in the Withdrawal Agreement the clear signs that, having succeeded with its negotiating plans in this phase, the EU will repeat the clock and cliff edge pressures in the run up the next U.K. election, knowing it can and will exact concessions as the deadline looms. But walking away to a “no deal” outcome, managed or not, does not escape that pressure.

One can of course blame the EU for overdoing their success in ordering the whole negotiations but the basic truth remains that it really helps, in a negotiation, actually to know what you are doing, where you want to go, the sacrifices you are willing to make and be stone cold sober about the real interests of the other party.

Festive-spiced apple bundt cake

  • Preparation time:20 minutes, plus cooling
  • Cooking time:55 minutes
  • Total time:1 hour 15 minutes, plus cooling

Serves: 10-12

Ingredients

280g unsalted butter, softened, plus 20g melted, for greasing 
330g self-raising flour, sieved, plus extra for dusting 
280g golden caster sugar 
3 tsp ground cinnamon 
4 tsp ground ginger 
2 tsp ground mixed spice 
½ tsp fine salt 
5 large eggs 
450g peeled and cored cox or gala apples (about 5-6), 170g grated, 280g chopped into 1cm chunks 
20g icing sugar, for dusting 

MASCARPONE CREAM 
300ml double cream 
250g mascarpone 
1 tbsp golden syrup

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C, gas mark 4. Brush a 2.4 litre bundt tin with ½ the melted butter, being careful to get it into all of the grooves. (We used the Nordic Ware non-stick heritage bundt pan * but any bundt tin will work. You could also use a deep, round 23cm cake tin instead; just grease and line it first.) Chill for 5 minutes, then coat with the remaining melted butter; dust all over with flour. Turn and tap the tin on the work surface to ensure every groove is coated with a light covering – this is key to ensuring the cake turns out cleanly. 

2. Cream the butter with the sugar using a freestanding mixer (or electric beaters) on high for 10 minutes until very pale and fluffy. Meanwhile, combine the flour, spices and salt in a bowl and lightly whisk the eggs in a jug. Slowly pour ½ the beaten eggs into the butter mixture, while beating on a medium speed. Add a spoonful of the flour mixture, then beat in the remaining eggs. Fold in the rest of the flour mixture until just combined, then gently stir in the grated apple. 

3. Spoon a little of the mixture into the tin, just to cover the base. Stir the chopped apple into the remaining mixture and pour into the tin. Spread the mixture with a spatula, creating a slight dip in the centre the whole way around the ring, to give an even rise. Bake for 45-55 minutes (if using a round cake tin, it might need 5-10 minutes more), until a skewer comes out almost clean (it will continue to cook slightly in the tin, so try not to overbake it). 

4. Leave to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and leave until completely cool. Meanwhile, whisk the cream until just holding its shape. In a separate bowl, beat the mascarpone with a spoon until smooth, then stir in the cream and golden syrup. Dust the cake liberally with icing sugar and serve each slice with a dollop of the cream. Alternatively, serve warm with caramel sauce for an indulgent pudding. 

Nine lessons and No carols: brexit lesson 2

Other people have sovereignty too. And they too may choose to “take back control” of things you would rather they didn’t.

The sovereigntist argument for Brexit, which was one powerful element of the referendum campaign – taking back control of laws, borders and money – is a perfectly legitimate case to make.

If you think the consequences of living in a bloc where the pooling of sovereignty has gone well beyond the technical regulatory domain into huge areas of public life are intolerable for democratic legitimacy and accountability, that is a more than honourable position.

But others who have chosen to pool their sovereignty in ways and to extents which make you feel uncomfortable with the whole direction of the project, have done so because they believe pooling ENHANCES their sovereignty – in the sense of adding to their “power of agency” in a world order in which modestly sized nation states have relatively little say, rather than diminishing it.

They did not want that pooling to stop at the purely technical trade and regulatory domain.

Brexit advocates may think this is fundamental historical error, and has led to overreach by the questionably accountable supranational institutions of their club. They may think that it leads to legislation, opaquely agreed by often unknown legislators, which unduly favours heavyweight incumbent lobbyists.

Fine. There is some justice in plenty of this critique.

Then leave the club. But you cannot, in the act of leaving it, expect the club fundamentally to redesign its founding principles to suit you and to share its sovereignty with you when it still suits you, and to dilute their agency in so doing.

It simply is not going to. We see this exceptionalism, with the idea that deep mutual recognition agreements should be offered to the U.K., alone of all “third countries” with which the EU deals, and in the initial propositions on both financial services, other services and data.

We see it in the constant have your cake and eat it demands which run through every document the European Research Group produce or endorse.

If by sovereignty we must mean more than purely nominal decision-making power and we mean something about the genuine projection of the UK’s power in a world, then, as we get into the deeper trade, economic and security negotiations ahead, we are going to need a far more serious national debate about trade-offs.

And the trade-offs are real and difficult. No-one should pretend that all the answers will be great.

To take just one technical example, though it rapidly develops a national security as well as an economic dimension, cross border data flows are completely central to free trade and prosperity – not that you would know it from listening to our current trade debate, which remains bizarrely obsessed with tariffs which, outside agriculture, have become a very modest element in the real barriers to cross border trade.

The EU here is a global player – a global rule maker – able and willing effectively to impose its values, rules and standards extraterritorially.

Before the referendum, we had Brexit-supporting senior Ministers and advisers who should have known better, fantasising about the autonomy we would have to plough our own furrow once sovereignty had been resumed and we were no longer obliged to live under the jackboot of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Sobriety only started to set in in this debate after the referendum, as the implications of a failure on the UK’s part to achieve a so-called “adequacy determination” under GDPR from the EU started to sink in – because corporates across a huge range of sectors started to set them out for Ministers.

The same applies to so-called “equivalence decisions” in masses of financial sector legislation. Again, the consequences of failure to achieve such decisions will be the substantial erosion of market access into EU markets by U.K. companies.

What, really, are these “equivalence” and “adequacy” stories about? They are the EU projecting power – it does so quite as well as, probably more effectively than, Washington, in multiple critical regulatory areas – and using its pooling of internal sovereignty to impose its values and standards well beyond its borders.

The current U.K. debate on sovereignty leaves so many corporate players mystified and cold because in “taking back control” over our laws and leaving the adjudication and enforcement machinery of what used to be our “home” market, we are privileging notional autonomy over law- making over real power to set the rules by which in practice we shall be governed, since departure from norms set by others when we are not in the room will in practice greatly constrain our room for manoeuvre.

 The massive costs of deviation will force large scale compliance with rules set when we are not part of setting them


Hostile

The most hostile environment for plants in my garden is the gravel on top of my flat garage roof. At least technically.  But since it’s been planted up with tough alpines, then there never really seemed to be a problem until this year.

The Summer was incredibly hot and dry so plants did die whilst we were away in August leaving gaps to be re-filled with new plants. It seemed a mixed blessing since the obvious thugs survived but were knocked back a little bit.

But then the weather got colder and very wet and a crack appeared in the roof of my garage with a drip.

In a bit of a panic, I called a roofer last seen five years ago asking for help. To be honest he was rather elderly when he last came round so I was mainly expecting  him to refer me to someone else but when he suggested that he come around and take a look, I wasn’t going to say no. 

John is in his 70s and has obviously worked hard all his life, mainly on the roofs of London. He is a big burly bloke, rather unsteady on his feet and the sight of him up a ladder is the most terrifying thing I’ve seen in a long time. He looks like he’s going to fall off the ladder at every single step up or down. And when he’s firmly on the ground, he looks like he’s about to die of a heart attack at any moment.

So he came around and made a temporary repair to the bitumen on the built in drain on the roof in the hope that it was the source of the problem.  Aside from worrying about him as he climber the ladder, the sight of him with a blow torch waving backwards and forwards near his legs was just too much to watch. We all hid on the opposite side of the house to avoid watching in fascination, sending one of th family over at regular intervals to make sure he was still alive and unhurt. 

A few days later and with a continuing leak, it became apparent that the entire roof would need to be re-sealed, a job that would require us to strip the plants from the roof, reseal the top and then replant.

So now I find myself, plants stripped, roof resealed and about to re-stock the roof. Most of the larger plants can just be sat back on top, but it’s also given me a chance to rearrange things to a more relaxed, less structured lay-out. It has taken just two days, and aside from the annoyance of people suggesting it might be due to the planting has been remarkably trouble free.

The hot weather followed by the cold and wet has most probably created a small amount of subsidence and the garage has flexed as a result, creating a crack that water has found and followed through. Two days into the process, and I’m wondering how best to lay out the plants and in some cases, their surprisingly huge root systems.

So the blue grasses are now in one large central island, with the thugs of the garden located at the corners of the central bed ready to march onwards into the middle as they inevitably will. The less thug like survivors have been placed in the beds around the sides of the roof, those still marked out by wooden boxes. Hopefully the wooden boxes will provide some protection from the root systems of the thugs and by marking out their territory, might encourage me to some weeding.

Most of the gravel removed will just go straight back onto the roof into roughly the same area as it was taken from. It is full of the bulbs planted over the years and of plants now dormant for Winter. It is also rather full of weeds after a year where the roof has been largely abandoned to its own devices.

So we will have to wait through the year to see what plants (whether deliberately planted or weeds) turn up and grow. The weeds can always be dug up or sprayed out of existence. Hopefully by putting the gravel back into roughly the same spot, we won’t end up with a very uneven spread of spring bulbs but, again, they can always be moved about 

I’m hopeful.

Nine Lessons & No carols: BREXIT lesson 1

First Lesson:  “Brexit means Brexit”

This means primarily that leaving the EU is genuinely a major regime change, with massive political, legal, economic and social consequences.

Being just outside the EU outer perimeter fence is not AT ALL similar to living just inside it. Which is where David Cameron sought to entrench the U.K. – outside political, monetary, banking, fiscal Union, outside Schengen, and with a pick and choose approach to what used to be the third pillar of justice and home affairs. His was the last attempt to amplify and entrench British exceptionalism WITHIN the EU legal order.

It failed. A majority voted to leave altogether

Once you leave the EU, you cannot, from just outside the fence, achieve all the benefits you got just inside it.

First, there will, under NO circumstances, be frictionless trade when outside the Single Market and Customs Union. Frictionless trade comes with free movement. And with the European Court of Justice. 

Second, voluntary alignment from outside – even where that makes sense or is just inevitable – does NOT deliver all the benefits of membership. Because, unlike members you are not subject to the adjudication and enforcement machinery to which all members are.

And that’s what we wanted, right? British laws and British Courts.

Fine. But then market access into what is now their market, governed by supranational laws and Courts of which you are no longer part – and not, as it used to be, yours – is worse and more limited than before. That is unavoidable. It is not, vindictive, voluntary, a punishment beating, or any of the other nonsense we hear daily. It is just ineluctable reality.

Leaving the EU whilst continuing to trade with it, as our largest single trade partner means that we have effectively sacrificed real power and influence over how the EU sets the rules and regulations for the majority of our foreign trade, and in return we receive only nominal power over our own state.

The solidarity of the club members will ALWAYS be with each other, not with you. We have seen that over the backstop issue over the last 18 months which will pale into insignificance when it comes to the actual trade negotiations. wait till the trade negotiations.

The solidarity of the remaining Member States will be with the major fishing Member States, not with the U.K. The solidarity will be with Spain, not the U.K., when Madrid makes Gibraltar-related demands in the trade negotiation endgame. The solidarity will be with Cyprus when it says it wants to avoid precedents which might be applied to Turkey.

The EU is negotiating with us, not as a member, but as a prospective soon-to-be third country, a competitor on the global stage. We voted to become a third country and an opponent and rival, not just a partner, now. It is time to accept the consequences.

Farce

Parliament has descended into farce. The government has come up with a version of brexit that no one likes, neither those that voted to leave nor (obviously) those that voted to stay within the EU. Rather than put their proposal to a vote and lose, the government after four days of debate, decided to pull the vote, offending everyone and try to re-open discussions with the EU. We’re supposed to be leaving in March.

Not surprisingly, her own party called for a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, Theresa May, which she then won by around 2:1. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but considerably more than the margin in the referendum.

So here we are. The PM is set to attend an EU meeting today that may generate some kind of non-legally binding letter that states the intent of the EU is not to hold the UK forever hostage in a customs union (the great fear of the most strident leave campaigning MPs). Even if she manages to achieve this, it is unlikely to placate her own MPs who are so far to the extreme and lack such trust in the process that nothing will satisfy them. 

Perhaps more importantly it will also likely fail to please the DUP, a small political party currently propping up her minority government, who quite rightly point out that legally it is entirely clear that the customs union will last forever (whatever intentions might be) for N Ireland unless the EU agrees otherwise, thus creating a border between N Ireland and the rest of the UK, taking one step too far towards a re-united Ireland.

So there will be some face saving letter written that will fail to please most of the MPs currently objecting to the government proposal which is now scheduled to be put before parliament after the Christmas break at the end of January. 

I’m assuming that the PM is hoping that given a choice between a bad deal (her proposal) and no deal at all, most MPs will vote for her deal which is somewhat ironic given the much quoted “No deal is better than a bad deal” parroted for the first year of brexit by her government.

But with that legislation is an amendment put forward by one of the MPs that removes the automatic process whereby we would leave the EU with no deal whatsoever. This would then leave responsibility for directing the brexit negotiations back to parliament where there seems to be no consensus as yet, as to the best way forward. Unless…

The loyal opposition party, Labour are biding their time and hoping MPs will become so disgusted with the way things are going that they can call a vote of no confidence in the entire government and thus force a general election where they themselves might win.

This strategy has a couple of obvious flaws. Whatever their faults and internal arguments or ambitions, the members of the Conservative party will never vote down their own government. The DUP have stated that they will also not vote to overthrow the Tories so there just aren’t enough votes available now we have a fixed term parliament to force a general election.

It’s also worth noting that the country is sick of brexit and want the whole thing over with, or at least progressing. They don’t yet realise that we’re just at the start of the process, that the trade deal as such is going to take many more years to negotiate. Any attempt to derail the process or unseat the government at the moment may well be very unpopular with the electorate and lead to a defeat in a general election.

Most likely the proposal from the government will remain deeply unpopular and be voted down. The Grieve amendment taking “no deal” off the table will be popular and will pass.

Labour may call for a vote of no confidence in the government, but it will fail.

So what happens next? The quick answer is that no one knows.

The government could throw its hands in the air, decide that the whole process was unworkable and undesirable and unilaterally revoke the whole Art50 process. A recent ECJ ruling has confirmed that the UK could do this and remain within the EU on the terms it currently enjoys.  but this seems a very unlikely outcome. As things stands it would run counter to the referendum result, undermining faith in government and parliament.

It is possible for the UK to apply to the EU for an extension to Art50, the process we are currently within that requires us to leave  at the end of March 2019 but it would need the approval of each of the other 27 EU states. Permission would only be given if there was a clear reason such as the need to call a general election or to call for another referendum if the decision on next steps was given to the electorate.

And as we creep closer and closer to the March deadline, unless there emerges a clear consensus within parliament as to the best way forward, a second referendum seems more likely, tinged with the spectre of leaving with no deal at all and the chaos that would cause.

We are edging ever closer to the edge of the waterfall.


brexit means this?

So now we know what brexit looks like, or do we?

Last week the EU and UK published a draft divorce agreement. Nearly two-and-a-half years after the UK shocked their own government by voting to leave the EU, we are about to discover what Brexit actually means.

Ofcourse the deal still has to be agreed by the EU and, harder still, by  UK Parliament. Several ministers, including the Brexit secretary, resigned in protest; Theresa May could yet be toppled. MPs must now grapple with multiple loyalties: to their constituents, their parties and their own beliefs, all of which are likely to have shifted since the referendum. Within weeks they will have to make the biggest decision facing Britain, and one of the biggest for Europe, in generations.

If the country has learned anything since 2016, it is to look before it leaps. Yet, in what well summed up the level of debate on Brexit, both hardline Leavers and Remainers alike trashed the deal before they had read a word of it. This makes no sense.

The terms of the divorce will take time for MPs and those they represent to digest—and they may well be amended by European leaders before Parliament has its vote. Nor is it clear what would happen in the event that the deal were voted down: more negotiating, a second referendum or crashing out without a deal? But as the crunch vote nears, mps must consider how to approach this fateful question.

First, we have to forget the past. The cheating that went on during the campaign, the premature triggering of Article 50 and the thin preparations are maddening. But they are questions for the inquiry that will surely one day dissect this national fiasco.

The task before Parliament is to decide in a cool-headed way whether adopting the terms on offer is better for the country than rejecting them.

Those who backed Remain—a group that includes most MPs—will find little in the deal to make them think they were wrong. Although it legally sets out only a temporary framework, its terms are clearly worse than the status quo.

Yet if they are to respect the referendum, MPs need also to judge the deal against what voters were promised during the referendum.

The Leave campaign had no formal manifesto, and most of those behind it have since fled the government but the animating idea was to “take back control”. In some ways the deal does this, notably in immigration, where Britain would reclaim the right to limit migration from Europe. The price of this is being kicked out of the single market, which would hit the economy. MPs must decide whether the government is right that the public accepts this trade-off.

But in other ways the UK will unequivocally forfeit control. It will stay aligned with many of the single market’s current and future rules, to keep trade flowing and the Irish border open, something the  EU has made a condition of any deal.

Once outside the EU, the UK  will have no say in setting these rules. European judges will still arbitrate on such matters, even though the UK will no longer be able to nominate them. This is not taking back control but giving it up.

Meanwhile, as long as it remains in a customs union Britain will not even get the consolation prize of signing trade deals with other countries, something by which many Brexiteers have come to set enormous (and unwarranted) store.

The deal also has implications for the integrity of the United Kingdom. It would keep open the Irish border, but create a deeper regulatory divide between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. Whilst most English voters do not care much about Northern Ireland, MPs, particularly those from what is formally called the Conservative and Unionist Party, should ask themselves whether it is right that an accidental by-product of Brexit should be a step towards Irish unification.

Hanging over this debate about the pros and cons of the deal is the question of what overturning it would do to the health of Britain’s democracy. Parliament has the legal right to ignore the referendum. But after a record number of people voted (to “take back control”, no less), it could be catastrophic for trust in mainstream parties if it were to do so.

The democratic argument is complicated. The vote to leave was an expression not just of Euroscepticism but of a wider frustration. It exposed divisions by age, region and class that the old left-right party divide had covered up. Far from bridging those divides, the bitter arguments since the referendum have if anything caused the two sides to move even further apart.

Overturning the vote would risk making them irreconcilable but adopting a Brexit deal like the one on offer would be unlikely to heal those wounds. Indeed, if the referendum was a howl by the left-behind against rule by remote and uncaring elites, this form of Brexit could make those problems worse. Anger at unaccountable rulers would not be assuaged by a deal in which Britain followed orders from people it could not elect. And those keen just to get the whole thing over with might find that Brexit marked only the beginning of national argument about the relationship with the behemoth next door.

Nor is it clear that the democratic thing to do is to hold people to the result of a two-year-old, narrowly won referendum, when the consequence of the vote has turned out to be quite different from what many voters expected. Polls suggest that a small majority now prefers Remain to Leave; more might prefer Remain to a compromise like the deal on offer. Almost all MPs want to respect the will of the people. The question is whether the people’s will found its perfect and enduring expression in 2016, or whether it might have changed.

There is no simple way out of this endgame. Whether the Brexit deal is accepted or rejected, it will scar Britain for years. Too many politicians are still grandstanding. Some Brexiteers still pretend there is a Planb that would deliver a painless exit.

Labour is mainly concerned with forcing a general election.

That needs to change, and fast. This decision must be made in the most reasoned way possible and with the maximum information available. Politicians of all stripes have spent the past two years talking about the national interest. In the coming weeks they must weigh up where they think it lies.

Spiced Mango Chutney With Chillies

Spiced Mango Chutney With Chiles

INGREDIENTS

  • 5 pounds mangoes
  • 1 cup, or 7 ounces, golden raisins (or dried cranberries, cherries or apricots)
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1 cup, or 7 ounces, brown sugar
  • ½ cup finely minced onion
  • ¼ cup peeled, finely minced fresh ginger
  • 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seed
  • 1 teaspoon coriander seed
  • 6 cardamom pods, seeds extracted
  • 6 Kaffir lime leaves
  • 1 4-inch Chinese long red hot chile, or to taste
  • 1 4-inch serrano chile, or to taste

 

PREPARATION

  1. Peel and dice the mangoes to yield 5 cups, or 2 pounds 4 ounces.
  2. Sterilize jars by running them through a dishwasher cycle, leaving them inside until ready to fill.
  3. In a large, heavy, nonreactive pot, stir together mangoes, raisins, vinegar, brown sugar, onion and ginger together. Crush the mustard, coriander and cardamom seeds with the side of your knife or a rolling pin. Add to the pot and stir well. Add the lime leaves.
  4. Wearing gloves, slice the chiles into rings. Remove seeds if you wish. Decide how much chile suits your taste. (If you are heat averse, start with half the recommended amount and taste. The chiles may be omitted altogether for a sweeter chutney.)
  5. Bring heat up to medium and stir occasionally as mixture comes to a boil. Bring to a good hard boil, stirring all the time. Cook for 25 minutes, being careful to avoid sticking and burning as the mixture thickens. Adjust heat as needed without losing the boil and continue to stir.
  6. After 25 minutes, the mixture should be thick, with the fruit suspended in the tangy syrup, and a spoon pulled along the bottom of the pot leaving a trail. Turn off heat and discard the lime leaves.
  7. Ladle the hot chutney into warm jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Run a plastic knife gently around inside of jar to remove any air bubbles. Recheck headspace. Wipe jar rims clean with a damp towel. Place lids on jars, screw on rings and lower jars back into pot of boiling water. Return to full boil and boil jars for 15 minutes. Transfer jars to a folded towel and let cool for 12 hours; you should hear them ping as they seal.
  8. Once cool, test seals by removing rings and lifting jars by their flat lids. If the lid releases, the seal has not formed. Unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used within a month, or reprocessed. (Rings and jars may be reused, but a new flat lid must be used each time jars are processed.) To reprocess, reheat syrup to boiling then continue as before.

Hidden

I was looking through the albums for photos that might be described as “hidden” and cam up with a surprising number of views through screens or doors.

And there were the obvious pictures of animals difficult to spot in amongst the scenery, no least my domestic cats.

Or somewhat wilder animals just lost in amongst the vastness.

 

But my favourite, the one that always makes me smile, is a picture of bees dancing in the flowers of my wild roses.