Cummings’ game theory depends on who he thinks he is signalling to
Mr Cummings has never pretended that no deal is the ideal outcome of the Brexit negotiations
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, looms large over Westminster. Like the evil eye, he’s held up by his political opponents as the font of every setback they suffer, his devious tactics unsettling them at every turn. Though many of Mr Johnson’s supporters look to him as a messiah guiding them single-handedly to the Brexit promised land.
Much of the mystique derives from
his successful stewarding of the Vote Leave campaign, but also from his expansive blog in which, across tens of thousands of meandering words, he sets out his political thinking and his vision for Britain.
One key theme is a preoccupation with game theory – the mathematical study of rational decision-making that, since its inception, has been applied to everything from nuclear diplomacy to evolutionary biology.
The most famous and straightforward example of game theory is the prisoners’ dilemma. Two criminals are sitting in separate interrogation rooms. If both stay silent they will serve one year in jail, if both confess they will serve two. But, if one confesses and the other doesn’t, the former goes free and the other gets a three-year sentence. Both the maximum reward and minimum risk comes from confessing, and so the only rational outcome is for both individuals to do so.
What’s that got to do with Mr Cummings and Parliament? Well, some suspect that, if you can understand game theory, you can understand his thinking, with the proroguing of Parliament the most recent example.
The key to applying game theory to politics is understanding the motivations and objectives of your opponent and how much suffering they will put up with to reach them.
Mr Cummings has never pretended that no deal is the ideal outcome of the Brexit negotiations. But in getting Mr Johnson to prorogue Parliament and insisting that any general election will be scheduled for after Oct 31, he is signalling to his opponents that he is willing to accept it anyway.
The question is, who is he signalling to and why? If his message is aimed at Parliament, it may well work. If the Government succeeds in shutting off the legislative route by eating up parliamentary time, then the rules of the game begin to change. If Mr Johnson can return to the Commons in October with a deal from the EU, concessions or not, and say with absolute truth that it’s this or no deal, then enough MPS in Parliament will consider their rational choice to be to vote for it. But if Mr Cummings’ message is also aimed at the EU, in the hope of getting a new deal, then things may play out rather differently.
Mr Johnson is fond of saying that preparing for no deal is the only way to get a deal. Yet applying game theory to diplomatic negotiations only works if you genuinely understand your opponent’s position and their thinking. Without information, you can only guess.
Some game theorists like to think that democracies don’t go to war against each other because they are so open and therefore easy to read. But can Westminster read Brussels or Berlin?
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, often claimed that, while the EU was behaving in a dogmatic manner, eventually economic rationality would win out. Leaving aside whom one believes will be most damaged economically by no deal, is that actually the EU’S main calculation?
If it isn’t, then what would be a rational move for the EU? What does it fear more: economic chaos or having to play chicken with every large member state that demands a renegotiation? Mr Cummings seems to think it’s the former. Perhaps it is. We’ll soon find out.