Steve Baker and his daft plans

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Published by The Guardian (12th September, 2018)

Seven years ago I went on one of my strangest journalistic jaunts, when I joined the first western parliamentary delegation to Equatorial Guinea. Because of my work with African music, I was invited to join three Tory MPs and a theatre director on a trip to meet leaders of one of the world’s most thieving and thuggish regimes. It was riveting to sit in on all the discussions as its politicians tried to promote their oil-drenched country to their British counterparts.

The venture was not a success. First, they rumbled that I was a journalist, which did not go down well as we drove around in our official cars and flew on the president’s plane. They had spent a lot of money presenting a phoney image of a prosperous democracy, only to provide me with a unique chance to see behind the scenes of a secretive state that sought to keep out prying foreign reporters. Then there was a furious row with the prime minister, followed by a fiery bust-up with the British organiser. I sat there taking copious notes. It made for a compelling magazine article.

Yet I was disturbed to see the naivety shown by MPs with little idea about the real nature of a government that was milking energy wealth while crushing freedom and crippling any hope of prosperity for its people. Our first discussion was on Equatorial Guinea’s ‘dynamic democracy’ with some senior politicians, whose chunky watches and Hermes handbags indicated impressive wealth. Caroline Nokes, one of the British MPs, politely asked if democratic reform was driven by the people, a bizarre question for anyone with the slightest knowledge of the situation. She now attends cabinet as minister for immigration.

I warmed to Nadine Dorries, despite disagreeing on many issues, because of her fierce reaction to those trying to dupe the team. The third MP was a friendly and earnest fellow named Steve Baker, elected the previous year in Wycombe after serving as an engineer in the Royal Air Force and then working at Lehman Brothers. He asked fake opposition MPs if they instigated political debate, then quizzed the prime minister about tax systems. Later he told me of his support for the laissez-faire Austrian school of economics and scepticism over the security of our monetary system, saying he kept a silver coin in his breast pocket to remind him of potential impending collapse and favoured a return to “commodity-based” currencies such as the gold standard.

Baker was clearly committed to his new career. So much so that on the business class flight to Malabo – the capital city – he worked on his blueprint for Equatorial Guinea’s transformation rather than knocking back the champagne, despite never having actually been there or seeming to have much knowledge about the country or its repulsive government.

Now fast forward seven years later. For this man has emerged as one of the leading lights in the European Research Group of hardline Brexiteers – and seems to be doing much the same thing in advocating a course of action for a country based on ideology rather than insight. Baker has said he wants the EU abolished, not just Brexit, claiming its disappearance ‘would not be noticed’. Yet he is far from the only fanatic in his disruptive group devastating the government. The ERG is led by the supercilious Jacob Rees-Mogg and seems intent on getting Boris Johnson into Downing Street before the ‘Heineken Tory’ (who reaches parts of the electorate others can’t reach) turns totally flat.

But it is Baker, who briefly served as a Brexit minister before flouncing out over the Chequers deal, who popped up this week to warn the prime minister that ‘at least’ 80 Tory MPs are ready to vote down her plans. He is shop steward for the hardliners, trying to keep this fractious mob in line like an old-time trade unionist in a tense industrial action.

Yet these obsessives threatening the prime minister and pushing the nation to disastrous brink of a no-deal departure from Brussels still cannot tell the public of their own plans. They may have pushed this cause for decades, then won a corrosive referendum two years ago that left their nation hideously divided. Anyone who dares question their wisdom, suggest a second referendum, float the concept of compromise or propose a softer deal that might protect firms and jobs is attacked as an ‘enemy of the people’. But just six months before departure date from the European Union, they still cannot tell the electorate the shape of their own plan.

They have tried, of course, as their proposals constantly shift. One minute they look to Norway, the next Switzerland, then Canada. Even Albania was mentioned as a possible model. They mutter about the World Trade Organisation. Yet at this late stage as we hurtle towards the cliff edge, these people who led Britain to leave the EU and tore apart their country remain unable to set out their plans. They put their proposals on paper – with lots of tax cuts, dropping all farm tariffs, a ‘Star Wars’ missile defence shield, and sending an expeditionary force to the Falklands – but it had to be shelved since it was so absurd and filled with flaws. Yet still the likes of Rees-Mogg and Baker arrogantly tell their party to unite around their vague vision.

This is the real betrayal of democracy – to win a ballot, then bicker constantly about how to achieve the aims while blasting anyone who comes up with something more sensible for denying the will of the people. They offer optimistic talk of life after Brexit, then respond with vicious negativity to those who try to find a path through the mess they created. These hard-right fanatics are no different to Corbynistas on the left in their intolerance of dissent. Yet there is one big difference: they have absolutely no workable idea how to achieve their naive aims. Sadly, it is no surprise to my old friend from Equatorial Guinea at their helm.

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