The Overton Window

The Overton window is often used to describe the spectrum of ideas on public policy and social issues considered acceptable by people generally at any given time.  It usually changes quite slowly in either direction. For example, in the fifties it was seen as quite OK to hang people in Britain but now it's well beyond the pale and rightly so.  The six 'stages' of policy formulation in the Overton theory are Unthinkable, Radical, Acceptable, Sensible, Popular and finally Policy itself. As I said, it's usually used by policy makers to discuss what might or might not be possible but I think it's also useful for thinking about other things too.   Boris Johnson is moving the Overton window backwards -a lot.

First of all, the Home Office plan to ship vulnerable refugees to Rwanda, not for 'processing' their applications for asylum, but permanently, is in my opinion still at the 'Unthinkable' stage for most people. It smacks of Britain's policy of transporting convicts to Australia between 1787 and 1868 or Hitler's plan to send Jews to Madagascar (a French overseas territory at the time) after the fall of France in 1940.

A former Home Office Permanent Secretary Sir David Normington told the BBC that his assessment of the idea was that, "first of all it's inhumane, it's morally reprehensible, it's probably unlawful and it may well be unworkable."

This is apart from the astronomical cost - running into £billions - of effectively bribing Rwanda to take refugees that we don't want.  And as a former Overseas Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said this morning, refugees are going to have to be forced onto aeroplanes - if someone cruel enough can be found to do it.

Israel tried a similar thing, after signing a secret agreements with Rwanda and Uganda in 2013. Almost 4,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers were sent to central Africa under the plan up to September 2017. They went 'voluntarily'  - the alternative being imprisonment in Israel. 

When in 2018 they tried to increase the numbers by including not just asylum seekers but Eritrean and Sudanese  people already residing in Israel the whole scheme had to be cancelled after an international outcry. Nearly, every single deportee made their way back to Europe via Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Libya after absolutely horrendous journeys. Many were traced and interviewed afterwards (see HERE).  All but 9 left Rwanda and one of the nine was found to be living on the streets.

Listen to this:

"Throughout the journey, the interviewees were subjected to human trafficking, incarceration, the threat of forcible deportation to Eritrea, harsh conditions of starvation, violence, slavery in torture camps in Libya and a dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Europe." 

I am not convinced leave voters, even those who want immigration controlled, would find the plan remotely acceptable.

However, my point is that Johnson is backing Patel and some Tory MPs are in favour so the Overton window is definitely being shifted well to the right.

The other thing Johnson is guilty of is shifting the window, not on policy this time, but on what is acceptable political behaviour in a democracy like ours. We have no written constitution and rely on the 'good chaps' theory and addressing each other as The Honourable or Right Honourable member for wherever.

The furious row over Partygate is just the current scandal. There have been many before.

The prime minister lies repeatedly in the House of Commons and The Speaker does nothing. Johnson routinely misleads on almost every topic. He tries to circumvent or create new rules when chums like Owen Paterson are shown incontrovertibly to be corrupt after a full investigation..

He openly begs for money from donors to do up his Downing Street flat. Peerages are given to sons of KGB agents against secret service advice.  Ethics advisers resign when he refuses to sack ministers like Patel who are found guilty of bullying.

He trashes the ministerial code at every turn until it has  become worthless.

Each time Tory MPs back him and this sets a precedent for future incumbents. The public are persuaded that it's not important, it was just a minor infringement and doesn't really matter. The Overton Window shifts a bit more each time until we now have clear law breaking and still he refuses to go.

Ignoring lock down rules is played down, compared to a speeding fine. But it's not hard to imagine at some future date another PM upping the bar further - moving the window that is - a bit more and a bit more until far more serious criminality is excused.

Party political tribalism is driving it all in a very dangerous direction. 

The notion that we can't depose him because of Ukraine is laughable. I bet 50% of Downing Street's time and efforts in the last three or four months have been spent on partygate. If Johnson had resigned in December as any honourable man would, the new PM would have been able to devote far more time to important issues.

All prime ministers to some extent shift the Overton Window on policy - Thatcher for example on privatisation (I backed it at the time but I now have serious doubts) or Blair on LGBT rights, but nobody has done what Johnson has done or gone as far the wrong way on both policy matters and standards of behaviour.

Supposedly a libertarian, he has shifted the window violently to the right on policy and dragged it down on behaviour and we will all be the worse for it.