BREXIT: ‘The People Have Spoken – The Bastards’
Frank Lee
Image source.
The whole brouhaha around Brexit has amply demonstrated the under-hand tactics used by the losing side post-2016 referendum. There seems no dirty trick that the PTB and their useful idiots will not employ in their ongoing campaign to keep the UK in the prison of the EU and keep the sinking ship of the EU afloat.
The counter-revolution campaign contained of 4 discrete but interconnected segments.
- Project fear: This was successfully used in the Scottish Independence Referendum and has been rolled out again in an attempt to reverse the Leave vote in UK’s EU referendum campaign. After the Leave vote result, media immediately went into (hysterical) overdrive with its tales of woe and chaos regarding the ‘inevitable’ collapse of the UK economy. Visions were conjured up of empty super-market shelves, mass unemployment, capital flight, food riots etcetera. The end of civilization as we know it. A notable example of conjecture and scare-mongering being presented as hard ‘facts.’
- Disinformation: The ‘experts’ from the political and media class assured us that life in the EU was wonderful and full of promise and if we only gave it a little more time it would become a veritable Shangri la.
- Enter stage left: the great and the good from the pseudo-left, social-democratic establishment, overwhelmingly in the case of the Labour party, who have assured us that the EU could be transformed – when all the evidence pointed to the contrary – and become an instrument of progress, prosperity and enlightenment. This policy was given broader exposure with Diem2025 the brainchild of one Yanis Varoufakis. According to the theory, nation states no longer existed, and reforms should start at the supra-national level. But as a matter of fact, the nation-state is precisely the arena which meaningful politics can and does take place. According to the Remain and Reform school, we apparently need a Europe-wide supra-national strategy – based upon what policies exactly? We must assume, according to the party line, that the nation-state is either dead or dying, this being an article of faith of the globalist left and the Washington Consensus. Strange bedfellows?
- Confusion: When the population has been softened-up and generally addled by the non-stop propaganda offensive waged by the media – private and state – they will tend to opt for the status quo. Clinging on to the wet-nurse in fear of something new and untested. A second vote is to now been mooted by the PTB, spuriously designated the ‘peoples’ vote, as if the first Referendum somehow wasn’t – and this has been massively endorsed by the Labour party membership and pretty much universally by the PLP. Ergo, the policy the ‘left internationalists’ is one of inter alia ‘strengthening democracy’ – all very noble.
However, the crucially important issue of the neo-liberal policy tripod: the three freedoms of movement – capital, labour, commodities – remains in place, political change will not take place. And provided the institutional infrastructure of globalized capitalism – the IMF, WTO, World Bank, the EU are overseeing and enabling the EU’s neoliberal project, economic and political change will not take place.
It is not the shackles of nationalism that give rise to the bureaucratic monstrosity which is the EU but precisely the opposite. The neo-liberal imperatives of open borders, liberalized commodity markets, liberalized capital accounts, abandonment of exchange rate controls, flexible labour markets and freedom of movement of labour, provide the theoretical and political under-pinning of the whole structure. Unless these political/ideological roadblocks are addressed the status quo will continue and continue to deteriorate.
In terms of alliance building, political convergence between states cannot be constructed at regional (for example the EU) or even less so at global levels even if it is not achieved firstly at the level of nations. Because whether we like it or not, nations define and manage concrete realities and challenges, and it is only at these levels that changes in the social and political balance of forces to the advantage of the popular classes will or will not occur. Changes at the regional and global level may reflect national advances and certainly facilitate them – but nothing more. In short the move is from local to national and finally to supra-national, not the other way around.
In order to stop the onward march of globalist neoliberalism governments and states must regain control of their economies and politics. There is no single way to achieve this critical goal, but without it hemispheric co-operation will remain little more than an empty rhetorical flourish. Moreover, everywhere electorates are looking to governments to be a counterweight to footloose corporations. It is this intuitive perception to rein-in markets that will increasingly occupy centre-stage between pro and anti the coming decade. For social-political movements the nation-state continues to be the chosen instrument for the organization of society. It cannot be any other way. However much social institutions will have to adapt to new global pressures, what is not in doubt is that the nation-state remains the crucible for equality seeking movements the world over. Efficiency, profitability and competitiveness have not won the hearts and minds of the peoples worldwide, nor are they likely to do so; precisely the opposite in fact.
Reform of the EU, which I understand to be the goal of the campaign of pro-EU aligned leftist faction fails to take into consideration the fact that the EU cannot be reformed since its whole ideological structure and constitution is built upon neo-liberal technocratic assumptions which can clearly be identified in the interior belief-systems of the bureaucracy, and consequently the daily practise and deliberations of internal institutions explicitly designed on a neoliberal model and cemented by legal statutes have made such changes impossible.
But such reasoned arguments were ignored by the Remainer berserkers, as they screeched: ‘’Smash the whole EU referendum farce with a second referendum.” The ‘farce’ meaning of course an outcome which the Remainers didn’t like. Well of course this is pretty much par for the course for EU electoral practise: If at first you don’t succeed, then simply repeat the playbook instructions until you get the right result, which is to say the result which suits the political/economic status quo.
Regardless of the pros and cons of EU membership I don’t think I have ever seen such a blatant attempt at the repudiation of universal suffrage as this. It seems to have now become fashionable and acceptable to question the whole basis of democratic electoral practise with the soi-disant elite – the elite which leads from the rear – actually openly questioning the validity of what it took a hundred years to establish, from 1832 until 1928.
I didn’t particularly like it when the Tories were elected in 1979, 1983,1987, 1992 and 2015 but I never and ceteris paribus, never would have questioned the legitimacy of their electoral triumph. Perhaps we should have staged a coup, Ukrainian style, and overthrown the democratically elected government and then had another election, come to think of it why bother with elections at all, after all you might lose.
There seems to be a real problem with left Remainers, including the soft-lefts which incidentally didn’t even allow a discussion on the issue. But democracy is not a la carte. Mess with the system and you open up a Pandora’s Box of baleful possibilities. Possibly and at some future date an election which returns a candidate/party to their liking may also be repudiated. In which case where do you go from there? Answer nowhere since it was always a possibility after the initial precedent had been established; and when election results become merely provisional or advisory, then genuine democracy is hollowed out and becomes a ritual, part of the political spectacle which in no way challenges the structures of power and privilege.
Universal suffrage and electoral practise are not conditional they are absolute. Democracy is table d’hôtel or it is nothing. The Remainer bloc seem to have undergone three identifiable ‘moments’ (see below) in their fury of not getting their own way.
Moment 1. Bertolt Brecht made the point after the East Germany rising in 1953, that the Communist government complained that they had done so much for the people and how ungrateful the people were. Brecht’s acerbic reply was that “the people should be dissolved and another elected.” That was the Remainers Brechtian moment. Bronze medal.
Moment 2 came the Augustian moment. St. Augustine who intoned: “Lord give me chastity and celibacy but not yet.” Translated into Remainerspeak it would read: Lord give me invocation of article 50, but not yet. Silver Medal.
Moment 3. Finally, there was the Richard Tuck moment: “The people have spoken, the bastards.” –Dick Tuck and American politician’s concession speech following his loss in the 1966 California State Senate election “The people have spoken, the bastards.” Gold Medal.
Gold medal therefore to be awarded to the Remainers for their characterisation of the Leave vote – some 17.4 million of the electorate – as ‘bastards’.
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This remains one of the best analysis’ of The Brexit question.
Quoted from it in April and did so again today.
As Tweets rain in from the second Miller case.
https://twitter.com/JoshuaRozenberg/status/1169554807855681536
Time for a Bozz and Jezz Unity Government for a Sovereign Parliament. #GrubStreetJournal #Brexit #GovtNatUnity #BoznJezzLove
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/09/05/time-for-a-bozz-and-jezz-unity-government-for-a-sovereign-parliament-grubstreetjournal-brexit-govtnatunity-boznjezzlove/
You really make it appear really easy together with your presentation however I in finding this matter to be really one thing which I feel I might by no means understand. It kind of feels too complicated and very vast for me.
I mention this Mark Twain quote often, but only because it needs to be memorized by those searching for a viable future for western civilization: Almost everything written and said about our elections overlooks his wise comment, made a heck of a long time ago: “If voting made any difference, they would never let us do it”.
That said, we should expect to be stuck with the results of any election until irrefutable proof of meddling is on the table.
It is also, however, perfectly rational to accuse certain people of compromising elections by having family ties to the manufacturers of computerized voting machines, etc. etc. …
The issue of EU membership is simply one of Sovereignty, the ability to control our own nations politics and economy.
We are as EU members ruled by an unelected cabal of bureaucrats. We can not be rid of them as things stand.
We can change our British Govt at a General Election, if we are displeased by their performance, We cannot change the EU bureaucrat system democratically.
There is a EU Parliament, which is a fig leaf of democracy. MEP’s can neither initiate legislation or amend it, but are ensconced in well paid sinecures to keep their mouths shut and go along with the illusion of democracy.
Check this fascinating interview out with Paul Craig Roberts, a former US government insider under Reagan.
He explains that the EU’s true role is a tool of Washington, set up by the CIA, to control Europe via one entity (as opposed to having to go around bribing and blackmailing 27 seperate governments) and also to use the EU as a weapon against Russia, hence why the US was so keen to introduce the Eastern Bloc to the community.
So much of what he said in this interview still holds water today, even though it was made before Brexit
Democracy lies in the hands of the losers: if they do not accept the legitimacy of the result, they destroy democracy.
Why has no one mention hatred? Hatred is beautiful, self affirming, so satisfying and so easy to create: the Sun, the Mail, the Express, Times and Telegraph spew it out on a daily basis. Hating people is so easy, just ask Tommy Robinson. From the manual worker and his “Nah I hate fucking foreigners and their fucking foreign food! Fuck ’em all off and let us fuck off as well!” To the upper class twit and his “I hate the French, therefore I’m British and because I’m British I hate the French!” Their self esteem is based on hatred and without it they are lost.
A friend, on the day before the referendum, walked around his factory shop floor and asked people how they would vote: to a man they said leave. Even when he pointed out to them that half the factory’s produce went to the EU, and if we left it was likely that the business would move to Holland and they could, quite possibly be out of a job, as one they replied, “Don’t care! Fuck ’em!”
I put it to you that there is little point in a second referendum because the outcome would be the same. Why? Because the Sun, the Mail, the Express, Times and Telegraph would spew out the same hatred as they did before and would be believed because hatred is beautiful self affirming etc. If the Sun backs Labour they win. If the Sun backs the Torys they win. I’m sorry but that is the unvarnished truth. As a socialist and passionate supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and John Macdonald it gives me no pleasure to say so, but it is the truth
Most of the North of England voted leave. Liverpool, by 58%, voted to remain: no one in Liverpool reads the Sun because they have been the victim of its lies.
In other words “People did as they were told!” by the press. I will grant that some voted leave to piss on the upper class but in my experience most were obedient because hating foreigners and immigrants is deeply emotionally satisfying.
Is it not ironic that Rupert Mudoch, a foreigner and immigrant to the USA, where he now has citizenship, should, through his publications, encourage us all to hate foreigners and immigrants?
Why has no-one mentioned hatred? Because its not about hatred its about democracy (what’s left of it) and sovereignty.
Your factory friend seems remarkably ill-informed. Isn’t it rather expensive to shift your whole operation to Holland just to save a small amount on tariffs exporting to the EU? Sterling is 11% lower than it was in 2016 so 4-5% tariffs still make our exports cheaper 5-6% cheaper. When you look at the historical data there is no strong correlation between relative exchange rates and imports/exports and they are not nearly so sensitive to price movements as one would imagine. Then there is our £9.4 billion net contribution to the EU. That alone is the equivalent of 3.5% of our total exports to the EU. One should also consider that 50% of our exports to the EU are services and there is no single market for services anyway. 30% of the goods exported are Petroleum & Products, Medicinal & Pharmaceutical, Other transport equipment, General industrial and power generating machinery so they are unlikely to see much effect by a WTO deal.
There are issues with road vehicles, but perhaps that is the only trade deal needed with the EU though a deal on road vehicles would be far more to the EU’s advantage because whilst we exported £18.3 billion in road vehicles to the EU, we imported £46.8 billion. That single export difference is £28.5 billion of our £67 billion trade deficit with the EU in 2017.
If you look at EU tariffs you will see that favour French farmers and German industry, but they are very consumer unfriendly. The UK should see a 17% reduction in food prices following a WTO Brexit if the government follows its published tariffs. Personally I think they should not have put 10% on cars as essentially all tariffs are a form of stealth taxation of consumers everywhere.
Since 1993: 36 of 40 countries trading with the EU on WTO rules have out-performed the UK in increasing exports to the EU year on year. The effectiveness of the customs union and single market are illusions. The barriers to trade are not simply technical. Exports to just four EU members – Germany, France, Ireland and the Netherlands account for 62% of our trade with the EU. Exports to just 7 members – Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Spain account for 82% of our trade with the EU and 30% of our global exports. Indeed, of the 27 members of the single market – exports to 15 of them account for just 2.7% of our global total. To put this in perspective our exports to Finland alone are 2.6% of global exports. The single market did not open a floodgate of trade because histories and cultures of trading are far more important than a few technical barriers. It is about actually finding the right supplier with the right products and establishing trustworthy relationships and that can take year.
Leaving the EU with a WTO deal is not going to bring all those trading relationships to an abrupt end because businesses both in the UK and EU are dependent on them and they have taken decades to cultivate.
Have some faith in the UK and its people.
Sorry, I didn’t make myself clear. I wasn’t talking about international trade ect. but about democracy and what motivated the working class to vote as they did. Here, in the West Midlands 75% voted to leave. Why? In my opinion because they have been encouraged to hate immigrants by the tabloid press.
When they said, “Don’t care. Fuck ’em” to my friend I don’t think they were wieghing up the pros and cons of import and export tarrifs or WTO trade relations, do you? I think they were hating foreigners. Whether Brexit turns out for the nation’s good or ill it was acheived through hatred.
I think your factory friend presented his workers with a very strange question which they didn’t feel able to answer in a reasonable way because it was a politically heavily loaded question. It is understandable that they took a very working class answer in the circumstances, not least because his arguments and claims were completely unjustified.
I put it to you Simon, having worked on the shop floor in the West Midlands factories for 25 years, that the workers I have met, and been friends, with would not have given two sorts of shit about trade and tarrifs and I doubt whethter they would have known anythig at all about his claims or their international ramifications, justfied or not.
It just feels good to hate, it makes you complete, it is always the fault of the other and so on.
Sorry about the typos.
Wazdo – I get it – you are using others to represent your own thoughts.
Hating feels bad.
Getting rid of bad feelings feels better.
Don’t let truth get in the way of a good story.
Have you noticed that this is not only a lather rinse and repeat conditioning response, but that the good feeling is only momentary relative to dumping or discharging it on someone else – and that it doesn’t really leave you, but is cast ‘out of mind’ or made unmindful in the magical belief that the scapegoat carries the sins that are then killed or sacrificed as the due punishment – outside and away from you. In this are you set in power over evils attacked in another.
The need for scapegoats grows to become an insufferable unworthy world – excepting for taking joy in judging it so. The more addicted to fantasies of power, the less freedom to think or see any other way. In this sense our corrupt leaders reflect or epitomise common behaviour but given greater scope to represent such thoughts.
If self hate is the nature of the human conditioning – as the lie and the father of it – then everything else logically proceeds to such a world as this. Is this a world where everyone seeks to evade blame and loss of self by masking and diversion of whatever strategy keeps the wolf from their door? The shifting guises of projected hate can and do work deceits that weave truths into hiding their toxic nature or ‘make reality’ as post-truth manipulation.
I hold that until we recognize self-hate as hateful thought given belief by reacting as true. it persists regardless of cycles of its coming into awareness as a world that frames and defines us, what we can see, and be.
But in the self-honesty of a moment of noticing thought as untrue – is the shift to true appreciation in thought that more truly reflect you than loveless or hateful self belief.
So I feel there is a partial honesty in your report – but only as serves an emotional condition as a private state of relief.
I think it is not hard to see that it is the hater who carries the emotional conflict and not the hated – excepting they also join in hating or rejecting themselves. The magical wish to project hate and harm onto perceived enemies works upon its own mind – or in larger terms upon its own population.
One last thing… I see a pattern that precedes hate and this is the emotionally invested attitude of “I WANT IT THUS!”. When we are NOT met in deeply held emotionally invested conditions, we experience what I often call separation trauma as rejection, abandonment, treachery, lack, powerlessness or shame and hate and guilt AS our reality experience and IN which to survive.
A loveless world can seem to be met as a result of seeking to force or coerce love (other loves) to serve a ‘special’ sense of self. As we integrate our sense of our self, we come to recognize our thought as having set up the behaviour and response. Love is a quality of receiving and giving and not a ‘getting’ of specialness that substitutes as love – but which always breaks down to the hate running beneath it.
This love-hate alloy is signature to the human condition – or rather our self reinforcing conditioning.
To a large degree ‘people’ want protecting, shielding or insulation from (their) hate and fear, and many false prophets arise to feed the demand as every kind of escape in diversion and consensual investment or groupthink of mutually agreed definitions.
It used to be felt that ‘playing the race card’ in politics was dangerous – because it was associated with deeper destructive hate that cannot be controlled.
The idea that hate can be controlled is its appeal and protected status as power – where ‘control’ is assigned to the framing thoughts of justified or holy war. Otherwise it would be seen as a weakness that needs education and support in overcoming. Don’t let hate come in and spoil your life through its false allure of power – that is a deceiver and robber of your peace or true right of being. And let love reveal what is here to see and be and share in rather than set up conditions of self-specialness that guarantee fear, distrust and isolation as a sense of lack that is hateful and sets up to seek love and power outside yourself – by getting or taking from others to feed a lack that can never be more than momentarily fulfilled by an illusion given reality in a world-made for-getting.
Another point is that whilst you see hate as ‘deeply satisfying’, most of us do not see things that way. You need help my friend.
Do you not agree that hatred is deeply satisfying for Tommy Robinson? It’s how he makes a very good living.
Personally, I find cameradery and cooperation to be deeply satisfying but then, as I said, I am a socialist and not one of Mr Thatchers children nor one of her childrens children as so many of the young are today .
Just in case you do not know, and for those who don’t, Tommy Robinson is 100% a Zionist asset. Brexit was announced by Zionist PM David Cameron. It’s all divide and rule, courtesy of the masters.
Tommy Robinson Zionist asset proof – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZn721uOWLM&t=457s
He gets £10,000 a month in Zionist money.
Probably one of Shai Masot’s many duties when he’s not running smear campaigns with the Board of Deputies.
Sorry, you can’t be “a Socialist” while supporting the neoliberal EU. I strongly advise you to read this;
https://braveneweurope.com/thomas-fazi-and-william-mitchell-the-eu-cannot-be-democratised-heres-why
It explains how the labour market was denied full employment, the depoliticisation of European citizens, fixing economic theory by making central banks independent of government, leading to the acceptance of globalism and the “new reality”.
“To conclude, any belief that the EU can be ‘democratised’ and reformed in a progressive direction is a pious illusion. Not only would this require an impossible alignment of left movements/governments to emerge simultaneously at the international level. On a more fundamental level, a system that was created with the specific aim of constraining democracy cannot be democratised. It can only be rejected.”
Lundiel
Another excellent article by Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi assessing the fallacies of the supposed inevitablity of supranationalism. The general ignorance of the Left on these matters is genuinely shocking.
https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/national-sovereignty-supranationalism-brexit/
Sorry, but I can be any kind of socialist that I like. I admire Jeremy and John’s vision of a new UK starting with a publicly owned bank, The Bank of the North. A bank whose purpose is to help and finance worker cooperatives which are run for the benefit of their workers and customers and are democratically controlled.
This, in my view, is an attempt to create a new kind of life separate from the capitalist vision, along the lines of the American organisation Democracy at Work. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of successful cooperatives throughout the country and John and Jeremy are hoping to give as many as will the opportunity to work in one.
This would mean the separation of our economy into two sections, those who have good permanent jobs that can be the basis of a satisfying life and those who work for capitalism.
There have been successful cooperatives in Spain for years; maybe we could learn something.
Good luck with that inside the EU.
I think hatred can be felt as a result of feeling denied a voice by ‘indifferent and smug elites’ – but actually no articulation of intellect is needed to know that quality of life is being shut down and denied under bullshitspeak of security and delivery of care etc – its a system of lies and there is no one to speak FOR people – excepting seemingly those who as you indicate – use fear agenda to generate a proxy grassroots politic of manipulated activism. Just say No.
I read that you see this as hate of immigrants – but is it just being for or against migrants to Britain? – when the focus of the whole MSM on migrant hordes, migrant sympathy, and then migrant rapist and migrant terrorists – all runs as part of a psyop – that did and does confuse, split and scare people, and does have some sense of being directed as a weapon upon European or British culture – at the same time as targeting and undermining Arab and African peoples by globalist and corporate agenda.
The importing of motivated cheap labour is another issue. Migration to and from Britain are nothing new but the scale of this is at a rate and degree of change that has changed the gestalt of our times – and you are right that the MSM do not inform or educate but manipulate along a directed narrative. As I see it, a globalist narrative. Hatred is used as fuel for setting regulated thought and speech but only selected ‘victims are made into proxies by which to make war on freedom under the false idea of a freedom not to be offended – and state backed power to vilify hate criminals. Wait for carbon guilted parents to be shamed by their social credit winning children?
So it may be that the subjugation of the people under fake news, fed into a ‘brexit shock’ or the brexit as a psyop may have been contrived by insiders to be no less of a shock, but an intent to serve insider agenda. Such as reconfiguring the EU – after destabilising it – or breaking up the UK – and fragmenting society into powerless dependency to the provision of globally regulated corporate management.
I align in the Idea of sovereignty and do not support the idea of unaccountable ideological bureaucracy under guise of rights and protections to ‘lure the unwary into the stranger’s car’. Whether there is a willingness to live from a sense of freedom to arrive at decisions through process of transparency and accountability – instead of ‘post-truth’ manipulative bollocks, remains to be seen. Israel and US are more then eager to ‘trade deal’ and that could be worse than the frying pan – IF we are actually to leave the EU – because this is by no means a done deal.
So I feel you have a poor view of people and that is not at all uncommon in the ‘elites’ and those who align to suckle at the crumbs from their tabloids. But there is a lot of hate and a lot of fear, powerlessness and potential rage coming up. I feel what I feel but choose to walk the other way. And to take people as I find them. Smug hatred can hide in virtue signalling – but underneath is fear.
Instead of drip drip fear poison, we need education for the facing and moving through fear – but ONLY where there is a willingness to grow beyond its dictate. In any case project fear is much bigger than brexit – being a core part of post-truth manipulation. Is the genie being put back in the box? Is the Beast rising from the Deep?
‘Everything is supposed to be on the table but nothing is out in the open’ (A recent quote from ?).
And then there is your hatred of working people, told with your parable. If only you could elect a better people, more enlightened and signed up to your own ideology and hatreds instead.
I don’t hate working people. As I said I worked amongst them for 25 years but also I don’t have any illusions about the “fine and noble sons and daughters of toil,” which is an intellectual abstraction.
On the factory floor there is as much back biting and bitching as there is in any office.
I’m sorry, there is no unity in the working class Mrs Thatcher, Tony Blair, their children and the right wing press have seen to that.
“I didn’t particularly like it when the Tories were elected in 1979, 1983,1987, 1992 and 2015 but I never and ceteris paribus, never would have questioned the legitimacy of their electoral triumph.”
I have always questioned the legitimacy of Margaret Thatcher and her decimation of the British economy and transformation of the prior whigocracy (no matter who you voted for you got Sir Humphrey) into a Tory paradise (no matter who you vote for you get a crony capitalism privatization). She and her party never received a majority of the votes and if Britain had had a two-round voting system as in France instead first past the post she and her party would never have been in power. Imagine that: Jim Callaghan and David Steel in power in the 80s and Thatcher a footnote as to how right-wing extremism cannot prosper in Britain.
Maastricht and the single market were Tory inspired and Tory managed (Leon Brittan).
Frank now asks me to believe in Brexit and the “will of the people” will return this to a pre-Thatcher paradise.
I’m not buying it. If I did I would have to believe:
– The same thing as Rupert Murdoch, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Liam Fox, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Iain Duncan Smith, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump.
– That the establishment does not include any of the foregoing.
– That the establishment media does not include The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Sky News and the BBC all of whom have actively or tacitly have supported Brexit.
– That neo-liberalism was imposed upon the UK from the EU rather than by the US and the UK upon the EU.
Asking for another referendum is not a subversion of democracy, it is democracy in action. To think otherwise is to believe something akin to the idea that MPs should never have to stand for re-election and should hold office until they died or resigned.
People voted remain or leave for a multitude of reasons.
Some of them simply voted against anything promoted by Messrs Cameron, Osborne and Clegg; they are all no longer MPs.
Some of them believed BoJo and Farage and voted to leave to increase immigration from the sub-continent.
Now they have seen what the Tories have delivered they should all have the chance to vote for something different. Brexit including the final deal should be the people’s choice, not Rupert Murdoch’s.
Personally I was disenfranchised as Mrs T had forced me long ago to look elsewhere for work. Thank God for free movement”. Look through the old episodes of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and see how many times the Germans suggested leaving the EU because they had too many Geordie bricklayers – zero.
Bricklaying. A skilled teade allowing the working class to earn a modest (decent by our standards) wage.
Remind us what happened to the training and opportunities to take up this useful career. Who was it that sold this opportunity down the river?
Imagine for a moment that the Conservatives never organised a referendum. Would these excellent pages of off-guardian be filled with so many fringe slagging off EU related bollocks? No, of course not. The articles would instead be aimed at the real enemy within our shores. I hate David Cameron for what he did – divided our people 50:50 on a distraction.
The EU is not a peripheral issue. It controls everything of importance and makes national politics irrelevant. Ask the Greeks when they elected a government Brussels disliked and it was just replaced by some IMF/ EU satraps. Or the Spanish government that made some Cabinet appointments Brussels disliked – and they were promptly vetoed. Or the Italian budget that was just binned by the Commission and the entire government replaced by a few Brussels hitmen. Or the interference in Poland and Hungary. If old Jezza was elected, they could just demand that he be replaced as well, Guaido style, and any programme he tried to implement be discarded.
Another little interesting snippet.
‘The 87-year-old billionaire backs Best for Britain, an anti-Brexit group that’s calling for a second referendum. He has reportedly donated more than £700,000 to the campaign.’
‘The Hungarian-American has long been vocal about the vote to leave the EU, and previously said he refuses to “butt out” of the debate because the decision to leave was a “tragic mistake.”‘
First published in the mainstream American political journal ‘Politico’ 05.29.2018. This is a publication with a worldwide readership.
So here we have a foreign national – Mr Colour Revolution himself – interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation state with a view to bring about the change of policy that ”he” decides is desirable.
No comment needed really!
Ah, but the Chosen People have a God given right to muscle in and lord it over the goyim.
It’s rather annoying to know the money he using is what he robbed from us the year I left school.
Ah, yes! But he’s a cool, progressive, ‘leftwing’ billionaire, so it’s OK, isn’t it.
The thinking that bred such monstrous lies needs eradicating.
And he’s one of the Chosen People so any criticism of what he gets up to is “anti semitic.” Like criticising the banksters or Wall Street or the IMF.
read this:
Lord James of Blackheath, the man who spotted the first lead that revealed British and Israeli involvement in the Iraqi Supergun affair and who in 2010 became just about the only peer of the realm to raise the issue of the national debt in proper terms in the House of Lords, has released this paper, which calls upon the Lords to prevent the Crown shattering the Constitution by acting in breach of the Monarch’s oath of office to uphold the Declaration of Rights 1689.
A constitutional initiative to override political deadlock
Public anxiety and dismay as to Brexit political arguments reflects the similar mood and confusion in the House of Commons, which makes it extremely difficult for the public, poorly served by the media, to understand the critical issues — which in turn will make it more difficult to gain wide acceptance to find any kind of solution. In particular, it is noticeable that the Parliamentary discussions are failing to address significantly critical Constitutional problems, which may vary according to which solution is the outcome. It may be helpful to win public support if these are now more clearly explained and understood, yet only the Daily Express last Friday has made any significant move toward this.
Nothing would help more to achieve public understanding of the Constitutional hazards than to initiate urgently a direct appeal to the United Nations seeking their support for bringing the European Commission into strict conformity with the requirements of Clause 46.1 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969. Serving this Notice would also provide immediately justifiable cause for an extension to the Chapter 50 timetable and would demonstrate a firm and legally justified Government initiative.
In line with that application to the UN, the Government should then explain to Parliament, and in the media, the different constitutional hazards arising from the alternative solutions available. For example, remaining in the EU — whether temporarily or indefinitely — may well see the UK embroiled in the coming move to Qualified Majority Vote in 2020 and beyond.
This is contrary to the popular vote and that which our Government has promised to deliver. It is utterly inimical to our constitution. It will involve the creation of a European standing army and loss of control of our defence forces. We have been warned of very significant consequent damage to our intelligence services, there will be a loss of control of fiscal [tax] independence and currency, and loss of diplomatic independence to make international treaties. A full destruction of our constitutional autonomy and sovereign independence could, and most probably will, rapidly follow any arrangement that does not recover sovereignty, which was originally breached in the Lisbon Treaty. We must exit by initiating a supra-party-political consensus confirming our constitution.
The way forward from this is to:-
1. Make an immediate appeal to the United Nations making reference to a potential breach of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaty Making 1969 under Article 46.1, with a view to seeking an adjudication that the EU is attempting to force us to agree a treaty based upon fundamentally unconstitutional arrangements unacceptable to the British Crown. I repeat my earlier contention that the Attorney General previously discouraged this initiative because he had addressed the wrong clause in the Treaty. The correct clause states that no trading agreement may be entered into which significantly compromises the constitutional integrity of the responding nation, which is surely an accurate description of the European Commission’s exit position.
2. If the application could be supported by Her Majesty, it would add significant force. This application to the UN could surely be assembled by a Government legal team within a single working day and be ready to be presented by the UK’s Ambassador to the UN on behalf of Her Majesty within 48 hours. Media coverage would immediately raise the entire public perception of the Brexit issue; put into perspective political loyalties; and engender, hopefully, a public patriotic response.
3. In the meantime, we must begin to educate the public and electorate as to the relative risks of both a Remain strategy and the reasons why a No Deal exit may be the only means to preserve our national independence and our continuity of our proud sovereign status. We must also show how this sovereign status will only be placed in ever greater risk unless we are set free and clear from the European Commission’s qualified majority strategy due to commence in 2020. If the UN do not uphold our complaint, then only the Leave without a Deal solution will achieve this.
4 The dire constitutional consequences of remaining will very likely force an abdication by the Monarch. She would either have to accept a state of perjury or maintain the Crown’s honour by abdication. Her oaths of office will have become entirely corrupted such that no successor could undertake them, thus the total demise of the Crown is a very real and inherent risk in remaining.
Failure to terminate the membership of the European Union will continue to lead us all deeper into a treasonous liability arising from placing our governance subject to a foreign Potentate. That Potentate is unelected by the UK’s electorate, is unaccountable to them and irremovable by them.
This is an absolute affront to the Dignity and Majesty of the Crown. It could foreshadow the total demise of the Monarchy.
When Brexit is finally done, Parliament must be shown to have discharged its absolute responsibility not to have reduced its own omnipotence.
In summary, the British public must be brought to an understanding that Brexit is a vital precondition for the maintenance of our sovereignty and independence and that our political forces are acting responsibly and with great integrity on behalf of the whole community. In passing, it will do no harm to remind all levels of Parliament in this process.
Lord James of Blackheath CBE
More depressing stuff about the evil thugs who rule this world, and it’s all about money. Steve Keen, Michael Hudson, and many other fine people said it was best for the UK to leave the E.U., but according to this article, that’s not such a good idea.
The British ruling elite are split into two groups: the old industrialists who want easy access into Europe, and the military-industrial-financial-complex which wants closer ties with the U.S. and its war machine.
Boris Johnson says, “f*ck industry”.
Yep, the money is in endless wars, mercenaries, money laundering, and dodgy finance. We’re taking about pure evil again!
There’s the people who funnelled dark money into the Leave campaigns – the cash openDemocracy revealed, which went through former Scottish Tory golden boy Richard Cook to the DUP, and the cash which came through Arron Banks, via Gibraltar, and which we’ve spent much of the last two years tracing.
Then there’s the tangle of dark money funded think tanks – groups like the IEA and the Taxpayers’ Alliance, who have been toiling away for unknown clients, promoting a hard Brexit for more than a year now.
As my openDemocracy colleagues have revealed, they have unprecedented access to government at the moment.
This network works closely with America’s corporate funded neo-con world, including groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who spend their time fighting against action on climate change or restrictions on gun sales, and are closely connected to both Trump’s White House, and British Trade Secretary Liam Fox.
Last year, for example, IEA director general Mark Littlewood toured the US, fundraising from wealthy donors and promising to “shred” EU regulations, according to a Greenpeace undercover investigation.
Littlewood’s colleague, Shanker Singham, was essentially the author of the famous “Malthouse compromise”.
One of the main groups Littlewood visited was agribusiness firms, keen to shape UK farming regulations after CAP.
Then there’s the military and the mercenaries. Brexit group Veterans for Britain had on its advisory board a string of powerful figures, including the former head of British Armed Forces, Field Marshal Lord Guthrie (who’s from just outside Dundee).
These people are connected to a string of private intelligence companies – Guthrie now works for the private intelligence agency Arcanum, whose chair has described Brexit as an “opportunity for American business”, while privatised military propaganda companies like Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ played contentious roles in the Brexit campaign.
These firms shouldn’t be underestimated – the UK is now the world centre for mercenary companies, not something it can say about many business sectors.
Though there is another notable one: money laundering.
And in two years investigating the Brexit elite, it’s very clear that most of the money launderers are desperate to leave the European regulated space.
More here – a chilling read.
The National
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17506649.revealed-how-dark-money-split-the-tories-ruling-elite/
If you’re worried about “dark money” and the Referendum. you’d do better to focus your attention on Mr. George Colour Revolution, the man who brags he’s got over 200 MEPs in his pocket. Partly thanks to his billions, Remain outspent Leave by over 2:1.
You are having Brexit because the kingdom your are a subject in is approaching a change in Monar. Your monarch rules it’s so called former colonies eg Australia, Canada by use of legal/fictional contrivance known as ‘The Order of St John’ which is recognised by the UN As a legal entity having the functions and capacities of a state lacking only residence to give it form.
The Order of St John was set up in the late 1900’s as a way to transfer and store sovereignty of the British Commonwealth monarch. The Order has an ambulance service for its cover. It supposedly hands out honorary knighthoods. However despite their so called honorary status no Grand Prior or even Prior is known to have existed other than those who were selected from St John Ambulance ranks.
A Grand Prior is to be found in all the former colonies. Likewise will be found seconds in the form of Prior.
Governor’s General and Governor’s are Priors. The Governor General for Australia is raised to Grand Prior on the very day Governor Generalship is attained. However it is notable that the oath sworn to the Monarch in the Grand Prior ascension takes place before the oath of allegiance occurs to the so called Australian Crown.
In other words the oath for prior pre-dates and forever over rules the oath of allegiance to the people of Australia, the parliament, the Australian Crown.
So wake the fuck up people Brexit has to do with monarch change.
To the Rule Britannia Leavers above. Do tell me or perhaps list all the faults and harm the evil EU has visited upon you, your family and friends ? Have they destroyed your manufacturing industries and reduced your economy to a basket case dependent on the financial machinations of the moneyed elite ? Tell me exactly what legislation the EU has imposed on your “Great” Britain which has left you in such a frothing outrage at all those nasty bureaucrats who constrain your lifestyle and chain you to never ending European servitude. Once you stop and get rid of all those Johnny Foreigner types from your green and pleasant land tell me how you intend to put the “Great” back into your suffering little EU abused Britain.
”Have they destroyed your manufacturing industries and reduced your economy to a basket case dependent on the financial machinations of the moneyed elite ?”
I’m glad you raised the question of Euro basket cases. For a start I would direct you to Italy a no-growth, indebted basket case with a debt -to-gdp ratio of 130% and a largely insolvent banking system. There some other interesting indicators you might like to peruse.
I suppose Brexit is to blame for the fact that Britain is now growing faster than the major European economies. The latest ‘monthly’ GDP figures show that the British economy grew by 0.3 per cent in the three months to November 2018 and will probably sustain that rate of growth for the entire final quarter of 2018. This is in contradistinction to major European economies such as Germany (which will probably record a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of negative growth) with France and Italy probably following in Germany’s wake. (Check out Trading Economics)
Then there are those lovely Baltic Shangri Las.
Recent studies conducted by Baltic sociologists are confirming that a Europe of “two speeds” is not merely a fantasy of some journalists. A few days ago, Lithuanian research center Spinter Tyrimai published a rather disturbing report indicating that every sixth Lithuanian studies English in order to emigrate to another European country that can be found the list of “first speed” ones. It’s also been noted by the people that took part in the above mentioned poll that the absolute majority of the Lithuanian population regards their home state as a “launch pad” for a search of a better life in more prosperous Western European states.
This notion is confirmed by statistics showing that in some sparsely populated areas of Lithuania there are only two to five inhabitants per square kilometer, a population rate that can be found in some deserts. The latest Eurostat report on the situation in Lithuania shows that up to 29% of the inhabitants are living on the verge of poverty, with the situation remaining unchanged for eight consecutive years. At the same time, Lithuania is among the top five states of the EU where people are being employed for meager salaries.The sad reality of this trend is evident in historical records showing an unprecedented drop in the population of this Baltic country, falling from 3.7 million back in 1990 to 2.8 million in 2016 – a 25% decline. Income inequality and the striking poverty of some Lithuanian residents is only getting worse over time, putting Lithuania on the list of the poorest EU states. A typical resident would pay a third of his monthly salary in a bid to get access to healthcare services.
It’s not surprising that for many years Lithuania has had the largest number of suicide cases in the EU. Therefore, it is quite understandable why Lithuania remains a country that consumes more alcohol than any other, as it’s been stated by the World Health Organization (WHO).A similar situation can be seen in other Eastern European countries, that are being described, according to Der Spiegel, as so-called “second speed EU states.”For instance, after obtaining independence from the Soviet bloc in 1991, the population of yet another Baltic country – Latvia has been diminishing annually with the rate of 23,000 people a year. These frightening figures were unveiled last March by a professor of the University of Latvia, demographer Peteris Zvidriņš who would note that the sad reality is that Latvia loses a small town every two weeks. In raw figures, that is 55 people a day, or 1,650 people a month. Another Latvian demographer, who heads a local office of the International Organization for Migration of the United Nations, Ilmar Mezhs, has recently told Skaties.lv that most of those who are leaving Latvia are not planning to go back. Referring to the forecasts of Eurostat, Mezhs suggested that in sixty years in the place of 2.7 million people who had previously resided in Latvia, one would find less than a million people still dwelling in this country. According to preliminary reports, the country’s population has already been reduced to 1.946 million people. Latvia has been plagued by high mortality rates along with the massive exodus of its people since 1991. According to LTV7, a local media station, the situation in maternity wards across Latvia is critical: low salaries often go hand-in-hand with a shortage of medical personnel, especially young professionals. If the situation is not addressed urgently, as various Latvian media sources report, there will be no qualified doctors left in hospitals.
The problem is that large numbers of people have been living below the poverty line for years with no sign of improvement. This statement was made by the Commissioner for Human Rights in Latvia, Juris Jansons during an address he made in front of the local parliament last March. It’s no wonder then that according to the official records a total of 115,000 people a year in Latvia are suffering from clinical depression, which amounts to every fourteenth resident of the country, and these people need treatment, notes the Latvian information agency LETA.
Latvia has overtaken Estonia in the number of people newly infected with HIV in 2016, thus becoming a leading EU state in this area. This data was presented by the BNS agency along with the Baltic HIV Association with a special reference to the data provided by the epidemiological surveillance authorities.
The terrible conditions that people live in in this Baltic country include the fact that out of all migrants who arrived in Latvia in accordance with the European refugee transfer program, only five people decided to stay in that country, with the remaining refugees fleeing Latvia immediately upon their arrival. Among those who remained there was one family of three people and two more refugees, one of whom would still leave Latvia eventually.
And then there is the star performer – Greece!
Yes, its a great life in the EU.
Francis, you put your finger on the big EU problem: the disruptive effect of free movement of people when economic levels of countries are so different. The UK (Blair) made this worse by opening its doors to migrants from the new member states without the period of transition such as the Germans imposed. So a Latvian doctor, nurse or engineer suddenly discovered he/she could earn ten times more by moving to the UK. Who can blame them? The trouble is when the highly qualified people leave, the services and quality of life go down so the people less qualified want to leave as well. You can’t get an eye operation; there are no doctors. So you leave. The country starts to empty out. It sounds “illiberal”, even cruel, but people have to be kept in their own countries if they are to develop. Paradoxically, Russia and China are doing better than the Baltics because their nationals are not welcome as migrants to the West.
Well there’s inflated food prices by 17% to begin with which obviously harms myself, my family and friends.
“The EU’s tariffs are terrible for the UK because the EEC’s customs union was designed and built before we joined the EEC in 1973. The tariffs were set in order to protect Continental producer interests, notably French farmers, German car makers, and Italian clothing and footwear manufacturers. Those were – and still are – the areas where the EU’s external tariffs are very high. The high food tariffs were and continue to be very damaging to us as a net food importing nation. Our consumers pay 100% of the elevated prices for food inside the EU’s tariff walls, but only part of the benefit goes to British farmers. The rest of the benefit of the higher prices goes to farmers in other EU countries.
The White Paper advocating EEC entry in 1971 estimated that “membership will affect food prices gradually over a period of about six years with an increase of about 2.5 per cent each year in retail prices” (para 88 on p.23).
Although the increase was less visible because it was phased over time, this meant that the Heath government accepted on our behalf a permanent elevation of about 15% in food prices as part of the cost of entering the EEC. And this elevation of prices has persisted, with a more recent estimate that the price of food in the UK is at least 17% more expensive than it would be outside the EU (Gerard Lyons and Liam Halligan, Clean Brexit, Policy Exchange, January 2017, p10.)
And yet we have doomsayers today claiming that leaving the EU will result in food prices going up. By what mad process of logic can it be right that joining in 1973 resulted in food prices going up, and leaving in 2019 will result in food prices going up yet again to even higher levels?”
http://marker.to/Wcz4WY
Of 40 countries trading with the EU since 1993, 36 have done better than the UK is growing exports to it. There is the political trauma and high economic costs of membership not to mention the lost opportunity costs of not being able to freely trade with the rest of the world.
@Grafter
I can see why you, and no doubt many ‘remainers’, would take this stance. Human instinct is to focus on one’s own personal situation in order to form an opinion. I know people whose sole reason for voting to remain in the EU was because they feared that, if we left, this might result in additional bureaucracy in organising their annual holidays to the continent. I refuse to concede that these people were morally superior to me simply because they chose to vote the way they did.
Conversely, and this is the point you are overlooking, many people who voted to leave did so based on their assessment of past and present observations and what the EU will progressively look like in five years, ten years, twenty years time. For some it was the state of the economy and what the future looked likely to hold that convinced them that the UK would be better off left to its own devices, particularly as the more ‘wealthy’ (‘wealth’ being a relative concept) member states would be expected more and more to subsidise failed member states such as those alluded to by @ Francis Lee. For others, granted, it was simplistically seen as a step towards reducing the numbers of ‘foreigners’ coming to this country. For me personally, as someone who admits to having no expertise in assessing the economic situation, I voted to ‘leave’ owing to my ethical concerns about the prospect of more and more tolerance, and indeed influence, of neo-Nazi states in the EU; the prospect of an EU army asserting an imperialistic power over other countries for the EU’s own hegemonic aims, and possibly in collaboration with the USA who have followed this course for time immemorial; and allegiance with NATO and it’s immoral and aggressive ideology.
Everyone who voted in the referendum had their various reasons for voting the way they did, and there were well-founded and not so well-founded reasons on both sides. The simple reality is that had we had a competent Government handling the outcome of the referendum you should not even have had to reflect your dissatisfaction about the position we are all in.
The EU is far more destructive to third-world countries, which it dominates and undermines with its imperialist trade policies. Take a look into the horrific effects of EU policies on Africa:
https://mg.co.za/article/2017-11-10-00-eu-chicken-dumping-starves-africa
Just look at Greece/ Spain/ Ireland/ Portugal for examples of their handiwork.
Closer to home, Ireland was ordered to privatise water, though there was zero support for it in the country. All Greek assets have been sold off at fire sale prices to its favoured carpet baggers. Democracy has simply been abolished in all these countries.
It has destroyed democracy in this country. Britain is ruled by unaccountable anonymous nonentities in Brussels. All important decisions are taken there.
If you’re happy with the results, wave your little blue flag about. But most people aren’t.
What’s the EU done to stop all of what you mentioned?
What’s the EU done to protect is powerless, struggling citizens?
It became startlingly clear from the start that we are up against a ruthless force in trying to leave the EU.
When Jo Cox was murdered (if indeed that was her fate) in a glaringly obvious false flag event, days before the referendum, anyone with any sense could see that it was amateur, albeit macabre, theatre. It then became even clearer that something was up and Brexit wasn’t going to be permitted when the establishment didn’t fully investigate the crime and conducted a farcical “trial” of the supposed culprit, i.e. the “nationalist” patsy.
Events since have fully confirmed this scenario. We now know that the U.K. will not be allowed to recapture full sovereignty under any circumstances whatsoever. And ultimately it is us who will have let such a dire eventuality happen.
The similarities between Jo Cox and Anna Lindt are striking
Indeed. Apart from them both being pro-EU (and so suitable as martyrs in the Remain/Pro Euro causes) they both heavily criticised Israel and their treatment of Palestinians. Did this make them prime targets for the killers?
The Mossad motto “by way of deception thou shalt do war” comes rushing to mind.
This is a very good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xyo0rzLyiw
Absolutely brilliant. Gold Medal and all the gongs for Frank Lee, Frankly sublime.
“It is not the shackles of nationalism that give rise to the bureaucratic monstrosity which is the EU but precisely the opposite.”
Their plans were to have the whole area as one unit unter US dominance, TTIP/NATO/EU plus the Pacific area under TPP. American rapacious legislation would have been everywhere. Ukraine was to be in, but without Sevastopol there was no point. Turkey is in NATO already and was to get into the EU. All these lovely plans did not succeed although some bits still are, e.g. the joint facility of Pine Gap (Australia) loses its ‘joint’. We have to be careful they don’t go much further and we reduce military expenditure rather than expand it.
Now it’s like a big plate of useless leftovers in Europe and in Australia we have to choose if we want to eat or throw bombs.
If you have to negotiate Brexit then it’s not a Brexit. You’re still tied to the EU. Anything short of a no deal Brexit is no Brexit.
Frank Lee,
What you have written here is brilliant. I may be naive, but I think the real situation amongst our MP’s is even worse than you portray. I think many have been literally brainwashed. It has been a standard technique, for many years, using psychological residential training courses with titles such as Team Building,Leadership techniques, Behaviour Analysis, Presentation Techniques and Behaviour Modification, largely developed by The Tavistock Institute. Don’t knock it – I have attended most of them, and they are incredibly powerful. I simply wouldn’t go on the final one, because I saw what it did to a colleague. Over 5 days, it is a brain deconstruction and rebuild job, such that you are a changed person. You are Now, The Company Man – or The Political Party Man – or The Religious Man. It’s much the same as joining a Cult, and I thought I was extremely brave and lucky to escape the Cult of The Catholic Church at the age of 15. It is brainwashing on a local scale. but it has always been going on, mainly through religions. The only escape is to leave, and think for yourself objectively. Test these ideas and decisions. Do they make any sense? Do they work? If not refect them. Check out The USA for Mass Brainwashing.
Meanwhile:::
According to The Daily Telegraph, The EU have now told Theresa May to put Jeremy Corbyn in Charge of The UK Government. I have to admire their arrogance, and to be fair The UK Gov had it coming, for being so completely and utterley totally useless.
The EU ARE the Dictatorship, well so they think.
You can hardly blame Jeremy Corbyn, for wanting to leave The EU.
Live: “Corbyn in The Driving Seat. May holds talks with Labour leader to shift her “red lines””
Is The Telegraph making it up? I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting that. Has The EU told us, we can no longer have any elections, and we just do as they tell us to do??
Has anyone asked Jeremy Corbyn if he wants to be the leader of Tory Party…or is he simply appointed?
I can see, this is likely to annoy some people.
Tony
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/8317
This survey gave it as 59% unable.
There are others which come up by searching
What percent of the British population are unable to name the Prime Minister. How did you search it?
I posted this link btl in the Fraudian and was treated to a critique of the survey instead of data on a survey finding otherwise. Please don’t do that, unless you have contrarary data, Zig., but do reply as you sound incredulous.
This is misplaced as it is a reply to zigzagwanderer below. Seems to happen sporadically. I thought it was my dying iPad but this was with a new one.
The new ones are built dying.
Just imagine if Trump (whatever you think of him) had been negotiating this deal. We would have been out by now with whatever we wanted, with the EU paying US £40 billion.
Instead, we had this bunch of no hopers constantly kowtowing to Brussels, instantly complying with whatever ludicrous demands were made, coming out of every negotiation stripped down to their underpants.
All we are seeing now is a game of smoke and mirrors to cover up the hard fact that Brexit has been sabotaged and the Referendum result has been stolen. There will be continuing protracted furious mock battles about minor issues of no real importance, accompanied by mass produced hysteria in the MSM.
But all that matters is BREXIT IS NOT HAPPENING.
We will be staying in the Customs Union and the Single Market.
We will continue to be subject to EU political control and regulation, and the jurisdiction of the European Court.
We will not be able to conduct trade deals with the rest of the world.
We are NOT leaving the EU.
There will be pitched battles about whether to give the EU £39 billion or £40 billion, and a legion of peripheral issues to throw up a smokescreen to obscure the constitutional coup that has taken place.
This is the way things happen globally now. Any election that produces a result you dislike is obviously fraudulent, corrupt, rigged, stolen, illegitimate, or hacked by the evil Putin. As in Georgia, Ukraine, Venezuela, and elsewhere. We all live in a banana republic now, or a banana republic without the bananas. Just stage some kind of coup. Find some stooge to declare himself a rival president. Stage street violence and mob rule, AKA “People’s Democracy”, to overthrow an elected government.
This was our one chance to unchain ourselves from the stinking corpse of the EU, but the traitors in Westminster (and especially the traitors in the “Labour Party”) have deliberately blown it. They never intended to implement the Referendum result in the first place, and have worked tirelessly since the moment the result was announced to delegitimise, sabotage and undermine it. Jezza or no Jezza, I for one will never vote Labour again. They have kicked in the teeth the millions of traditional Labour voters across hundreds of constituencies they claim to represent. It may be some small consolation to know they will pay a very heavy price for this, and the sham democracy we live under has taken off the mask and shown its ugly true face.
It looks like we will continue to be chained to a corrupt, arrogant, dysfunctional, anti democratic, failing EU Superstate now going hell for leather to complete the process of centralisation and bureaucratisation, and which is totally incapable of reforming itself.
You have not addressed the “compared to what” question, Mark. Sure the EU is silly but the players you decry will still be the same within the UK, or it will just be their offspring. In addition to being comedy sui generis, Brexit is also all in the timing, or should have been.
This could all have been settled in one five minute phone call if there had been a genuine desire to implement the referendum result and leave the EU. It would have gone something like this:
“We’re leaving now.
We’re going to carry on trading with the Continent, as we have for the past five thousand years.
We’re going to carry on importing your goods free of tariffs and quotas.
That will continue until you impose tariffs and quotas on our exports, at which time we will match you euro for euro.
We will respect the rights of EU nationals living in the UK.
That will continue so long as you respect the rights of UK nationals living on the Continent.
No, we’re not giving you any more money, you can go and f*** yourself.
Bye.”
No need to waste any breath on the non issue of the Irish border. We’ve had an open border with Eire since 1922. That will continue unless the paddies are incited to start playing silly buggers by Brussels – their loss if they do.
I think it was wise not to implement it right away, indeed the knowledge that few politicians, much less the general public understood the implications, it would have made it irresponsible. Even more irresponsible was putting it prematurely before the public by Cameron et al. who themselves were fuzzy on it. This says several things, including the conclusion this was not about what was best for the UK in the long term, simply because it had not been explored well enough. If you doubt this, talk to anyone in Science. Ancient unis have appointed positions like vice-presidential equivalents for Brexit. Talk to any of them. The government was breathtakingly out to lunch on every key issue.
I am not for or against. I am for a more informed choice and a second referendum.
You want to ignore the wishes of the younger generation whose vote probably should be given a premium since they will be the ones enjoying the benefits or suffering the consequences.
To repeat myself this will be perceived as (not that it is any of these)
1) a rejection of the EU and it’s main founding principle, an anti war one
2) a manifestation of the now gratuitous superiority complex from which Britain still suffers
3) a subtle and unpleasant racist flavour which seems out of date
4) further endorsement of the American invasion monkeys and their amoral ways and the cozying up to the subhuman excrement that passes for their leadership.
5) a rerun of the ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’ attitude which was so well characterized in I’m all right Jack and had Britain nudge third world status more than 50 y ago.
But then what do I know.
Yes, democracy is SOOOOO inconvenient.
It is not being implemented right away, it is not being implemented AT ALL.
Cameron did what he had to. I’m no fan of his. He did what he did because 4 million voted UKIP and they won the EU elections. He was losing control of his party and the whole country and was trying to do something to resolve the issue once and for all. He got away with it with Scotland and was going double or quits. Sometimes gambles come off. He didn’t know what else to do. The peasants were revolting.
Maybe we should just appoint some worthy Oxbridge don to take all our decisions for us. He could tell us all what to do in between pre prandial sherries.
Maybe only those who are appropriately “informed” should be allowed to vote. Maybe you should have to take an exam. Maybe a young person’s vote should be worth 50% more than an old person’s vote. Maybe the vote of a 40% higher rate taxpayer should count for double that of a standard 20% rate taxpayer. Maybe people on the dole who aren’t paying tax shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all. Maybe the votes of white people should count for more than those of black people. Maybe the votes of men should count for more than those of women. Maybe women with big tits should get an extra vote. Maybe exceptionally good looking people (like me) should get ten votes each (if we don’t just rely on the worthy don.)
The EU has got nothing to do with pacifism. If you think it has, you could go and ask the Yugoslavs, or the Ukrainians, or the Libyans, or the Afghans, or the Syrians, or the Iraqis, or the Venezuelans, about that one.
We were dragged into the EU by an elite INFERIORITY complex. How can we possibly survive without the EU? If we don’t go into it, the Germans will invade Poland again! The only thing standing between us and another Hitler is the Common Fisheries Policy!!
Of course anyone who votes the wrong way is old, racist, bigoted, stupid and uneducated. They probably kick their whippets and cheat at cards as well.
I think you should have to retake your driving test once a month in case the decision was wrong the first time. And Olympic medal winners should have to retake their competition at least 3 or 4 times to be on the safe side. And the Champions Cup and the Grand National should be re run at least half a dozen times to be on the safe side.
You know little, clearly.
Have you any idea how annoying it is to be told “Your vote counts for nothing”?
So, tell me why my vote counts for nothing. Racist? Stupid? Xenophobic?
Should I have my right to vote removed completely? Because I’m not educated enough?
Oh, one last thing. Stop lying! If you didn’t care about in or out, you wouldn’t want another referendum!
“Oh, one last thing. Stop lying! If you didn’t care about in or out, you wouldn’t want another referendum!”
Aren’t you the little charmer. I am not lying and it’s your problem, not mine. I have tried to give you a perspective from outside by someone more familiar with how outsiders perceive all this than you. In return I have been accused of being a paid lackey and of being a liar. Despite all the indignation on this thread and despite my repeated asking, I have not had a reply to my question about a second referendum. I provided a link in response to the sneering comments about my quoting data showing half the English population cannot name the PM. No reply to that either. No contrary data either.
As for the bleating about your vote counting for nothing, I am sympathetic but not very. Voting and democracy are supposed to be founded on understanding the issue. Maybe you did, but a great many did not.
Bite your tongue and endure the second referendum and if you win, then great. But I suspect you are scared shitless you won’t and still want to force feed your first uninformed result to the population, who now have second thoughts as well they should. GB has played this very badly and let me be more blunt. You look ridiculous in my opinion. Cosy up up to the Americans. Live it up. Obama tried several times to warn you about this. I suspect he had his reasons, ones closely related to his insight into what America had become.
Sadly, my fat thumb mistakenly liked your comment.
Charmer?!?!
It’s clear that you are lying, because your agenda is obvious yet you claim you favour neither result.
I’m tired of entitled twits like yourself who have a few letters after their name and think their opinions are ‘better’ Obama tried scaring us. We’re a yank satellite. Besides, Obama is a scumbag. What did he do for his fellow blacks compared to Wall Street? Drones? Guantanamo?
If you have any streak of decency about you, you’ll let the choice be applied, and then fight for your choice afterwards. Democracy.
I’m not the one who is scared. That’s you. You’re the one who fears the future, because you stand to lose. And do you honestly think you could cope with “I fucking told you the first time!”? I doubt it. What’s left of the NHS (name only) would buckle under the caseload of middle class stroke victims
Your ego won’t allow that though, will it…Many didn’t…What exactly didn’t they know Spiderman? You have no idea what it’s like to eat monster munch for breakfast and that your only goal of the day is to piss away the shit streak on the porcelain. You don’t have to compete with imported labour for a pittance, all the while enjoying zero security and no way to plan a future
If you paid any real attention, you’d be well aware of my feelings towards septics. You really are clueless!
I’m a leftie, I back lexit. Not Tory money worship. It’s money worship that gave us brexit!
Why don’t you bite your (minority) tongue?
Ouch! You have me wrong, Random, but your leaps to conclusions are not effective or attractive. I keep saying I have no stake in this. Why won’t you accept that? Is it because your rehearsed diatribe is all you got?
I was there for the 20 years preceding the vote and during it. I do have some familiarity.
If you have no stake in this, butt out.
Find something else. You’re not helping anyone by interfering.
You should be lurking, not posting
Once again the presumption is that the bewildered herd, the hoi polloi, the great unwashed did not know where their own interests lay. All those southerners on the Beeb World Service that I have heard all smugly talk about the Leavers’ ignorance, even as they remain firmly south of Watford. They need to go further north to the former industrial areas, even to such rural areas as the North Riding where many of the few decent paying jobs have gone to Eastern Europeans rather than the local lads and lasses. In part because Blair immediately signed on to “freedom of movement (of labor),” while Germany, France and other western European countries used their right to a moratorium on that (I believe it was to last about five years).
Moreover, the UK is the third largest financial contributor – one of the main reasons the Germans and French and Eastern Europeans do not like Brexit – to the EU fund. Meanwhile some 20% of Brits are in poverty, there are growing numbers of homeless, the NHS is being (and has been deliberately so since Thatcher) destroyed, the social safety net has been deliberately shredded and all public services from education to road maintenance to water provision has been privatized (yet repair of the infrastructure has to be funded by taxpayers). Meanwhile those in and around Westminster are cronies with, and of, the aristocrats, the plutocrats; there is a revolving door, lobbying – UK governance resembles US governance more and more (not that it was ever a true democracy – rule by and for the demos, the people). Meanwhile oodles of money is and will continue to be spent, by whatever governance exists in Westminster, on destroying Middle Eastern lives and nations, on pushing the sales of bombs and other military materiel to Saudia, e.g., wasting taxpayers’ money on obsolete aircraft carriers in order to “project” a dead and dusted imperialist “power.”
Of course the bourgeoisie – petit a haute – like the EU: they vacation there, they buy pied a terres there, they work there for universities, for companies. But the ordinary working classes, you know, those who work manually – where are their work opportunities supposedly provided by the “Freedom of (Labor) Movement”? How many of them holiday in Milan, Barcelona, Lyon, Berlin, buy dwellings on the Riviera?
Yes, the Johnsons and Rees-Moggs of Brexit are unmitigated arses and lied through their teeth. But please don’t assume that many or most of those who voted to Leave were duped by them, didn’t know their own best interests.
They will just spin this out as long as they can.
Every DAY we stay in they are bleeding us of another £50 million – to add to the £500 billion we’ve paid into this protectionist racket already.
£500,000,000,000.
We’ll all be wanting to put the snow back in sky eventually.
There are three powerful trading blocks: BRICS – NAFTA and THE EU.
No matter how leftie any of us are that is a fact and globalisation and the fact that the western proletairiat was exported a long time ago.
I can only take a view from the UK as that is what I know – not from Wikpedia or other sources of information.Like many I’ve lived through it and am still living through it.
Neo liberal economics has had full reign for nearly forty years in the UK ( longer in the US) and the politicians that paid lip service to that economic model are certainly still among us. It is till legion in the Labour Party.
Corbyn’s concern is not specific to whether we leave or remain the EU, his concern is for the economic effects of a No Deal Brexit on the poor. The poor are already poor due to Thatcher/Blair/ Cameron and May’s fetish of the effects of trickledown economics despite the Financial Crash proving that you can’t trust Financiers with money or assets.
The miracle is that instead of the Tories and Blue Labour being blamed for the state the UK is in many ( 40% )
of the turnout last time included many poor and the not very well off. There aren’t enough well off enough people to keep that going on a material basis anyway.
That’s the puzzle which can only be explained by Patriotism – Nationalism – racism and Xenophobia.
There is nothing for Tory/Blue Labour voters to ‘ conserve ‘ they have nothing – they own nothing.
They have been left behind but not by the likes of Corbyn.
What the writer of the piece above is saying is that sovereignty lies within National States.
He’s not wrong but a globalised world has put paid to that and the UK can either negotiate with that reality or go back to plough ( I’m being dramatic obviously ) and retreat from that reality as Trump is trying to do with the WTO.
The UK used to build many ships many aircraft and export all over the globe. That reversed due to effects of WW2 and was hammered home by the US over Suez.
So unless Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell have around 20/30 trillion quid to invest in reviving the Empire then the National State of the UK is a bit stuffed.
Besides even if the UK had the money – it wouldn’t have the skills.Even if it had the skills and the money we would have to compete with a globalised organised group of trading blocs who would undercut our overpaid highly skilled ship/aircraft building all parts built in the UK products.
It’s impossible.
Someone said once ” Learn to Trade ”
The UK has to learn to trade again and not rest on it’s past glories.
Choose your trading bloc.
That’s the reality as the left is in a Defensive struggle not a revolutionary situation.
Anyone who thinks the opposite need to revise their opinion.
With Brexit we are going for the woman with the gun.
The people with knives we will ahve to tackle later once we’ve wrestled the gun off her.
The silly players you mention may well be the same within the UK, but at least they will be close enough for us to keep an eye on them. Most people, if they are honest with themselves, find it extremely difficult to feel connected to the meetings which go on in Brussels.
Instead of “EU super state” substitute “Corrupt,incompetent, elitist, London based political establishment”.
You’re far from alone. Labour have shat on millions and there will be a price to pay.
Don’t care if I have to live under a Tory government anymore (will not vote for them) because I know where I stand with Tories.
Take Cooper for example. She is currently trying desperately to stop a no deal exit. Yet just a few months ago…
https://www.yvettecooper.com/normanton_immigration_event
I’m hoping both parties are made to pay a very heavy price for this.
But I will never vote Labour again. Not until we get a genuine socialist party.
Not one made up of 85% Red Tory Blairite Backstabbers.
Lots of well-written sophistry, Frank. How about answering the question neutral outsiders are asking? If this is so great and people are really persuaded, why not have a second referendum? No need for you to award medals. You seem to have as much fury about threats to getting your way, as you ascribe to the Remainers not getting theirs. It is bleeding obvious that voters in the first ref. had little clue what it all meant, except for some vague idea it would teach those “Frogs and Krauts” a lesson and reduce the number of Polish food stores on the High streets of Middle England. Polls, prior to all this, showed only half your population could name the Prime Minister for Chrissake. Yet the rhetoric was about the kind of irrelevancies (to the punters that is) this article illustrates.
In fact, Frank your article smacks of desperation, which is precisely how the world sees GB’s poodling for the rotting Americans, on whom you will be even more dependent after Brexit. What the hell is wrong with you? Plenty, I guess.
Now it seems to me that rightly or wrongly, the Brexiteers have conveyed the impression to the outside world this is mostly about Middle England racism and the yearning for the long lost, never to be regained trappings of Empire, mostly stolen goods anyway. I know this isn’t true, but in the world of public opinion impressions are what matter. In fact as glorious as you may feel Empire was, the world has changed and the British Empire is becoming a source of shame as well it should be. With Churchill no longer around to write your histories, it is being rewritten by others. In the history of the world, your starvation and enslavement of the Irish, your profiteering from enslaving Africans, your chronic theft from and ruination of the Middle East and parts of Africa by your greed, and your revolting complicity in American atrocities may be seen by others as landmarks.
Do me a favour Frank. Before you engage in white hot nitpicking about what I have said, which is what Sophists always do, answer my question about a second referendum. If you win that, all will be settled for outsiders who prefer to see votes rather than specious arguments to non-voters by self-appointed spokespeople.
best of 13 surely
So answer the question instead of trying to reductio ad absurdum what is already absurd. You are terrified of a second referendum. Be honest.
A seond referendum vote?
But I hate to spell it out, YOU ARE THE LOSER. You gave you best, and it wasn’t enough. You didn’t get the prom queen
Yeah, I said it. L for LOSER. You LOST. Democracy doesn’t work by having continued voting until lifes self appointed King ding-aling gets the answer they expected.
That your brain thinks it can justify a second referendum, surely speaks volumes of arrogance and superiority, sweet cakes. Stop crying, whinging and acting like a spoilt brat and jog on.
Now. Had I so been inclind to vote Remain, I would still hold this view of Remoaners and would NOW be siding the the Brexiteers.
You digust me a much as the people in Government.
I didn’t lose, not having had a horse in this race. But what an ugly face you present. Almost enough to make me take sides. Love the “digust” though.
Being terrified of a second referendum doesn’t enter into it.
The point is that a second referendum sets a precedent for a third, and then a fourth one.
Butties HAS answered the question, and most eloquently too, but one has to take out the earplugs to hear the answer.
Being terrified of Brexit is what the mainstream media are actually pushing for all they’re worth.
what if the second referendum is close again, as is likely. Theres everything to fear if that’s the case. The right would clean up any debate about democracy and legitimacy. All MPs know this. Personally I don’t think govnt democracy will last anyway since they have almost no power – they are beholden to corporations and the right, centre and left all know this. We all want change. The question is who will win the arguments for what replaces it. A second referendum would favour the far right, no matter the outcome. For that reason I dont want one. As it stands we can maintain a strong national leftist argument against EU neo-liberalism and unite the left and right post Brexit , bring the real arguments about the failure of capitalism to the forefront. If we have a second referendum it will be endless debates about democracy and very little about capitalism and wealth inequality.
United lost 2-1 to Wolves last night. But what does that result mean? There were some dubious refereeing decisions; Shouldn’t we just re stage the match with another referee? Maybe some of the players were off form at the time. Maybe the managers made a few wrong decisions. Maybe the crowd didn’t cheer loudly enough. That result is unsafe and we need to re run the match to see if we get a different decision.
The big difference is that in the big scheme of things, the Wolves result is meaningless. Yet everyone knew what 2-1 meant. Not so with the Brexit vote.
Not to United supporters it isn’t.
I don’t know what the last election result meant. Maybe the voters really intended to give May a huge majority. Maybe she should just ban all the other parties and give herself a 600 seat majority, like they did in Ukraine. Maybe they really wanted the BNP or the EDL to win. Maybe Tommy Robinson should declare himself prime minister. There are so many different ways to “interpret” the result. If things had been different, the result could have been different. Like if your uncle had been a bit different, he could have been your auntie.
I’m sure that from now on, any MP who receives 52% of the votes cast will say, “Oh no, that’s not good enough, that’s far too close, I can’t possibly accept I’ve been elected by such a narrow margin. We must have another election.”
“Election results mean whatever I say they mean,” explained the Queen of Hearts.
In which case why are they proposing only a BRINO versus remain referendum? A no deal exit is the most favoured option in the country after all and I suspect it would win again.
George I respect your point of view, this rhetoric of we didn’t know what we voted for is well past its project fear sell by date. I voted leave, despite media labelling of far right, Russian influenced, racist, and being unaware.
I voted for the safety net of the great charter, petition of rights and the Bill of rights. I have polish neighbours, had a black man as my best man at my wedding and I work as a lecturer. That does away with me being thick, racist, anti immigration etc. I don’t care who lives by me as long as they don’t Rob me or try to kill me.
Many people do not like the EU for the monstrous behemoth it has become and it directly threatens the UK with its hostile takeover of sovereignty.
David Cameron and countless others told us we would be leaving single market, customs union etc. A complete leave of all EU jurisdiction and we won. We voted for what the spin doctors have falsely called no deal. The UK has seen the corruption, social engineering, and lies peddled by the likes of George sorearse and Tony Bliar. We do not like it, we don’t want resource wars that do not benefit us the people. Wars that make us hated by the Islamic world, when we have a large Islamic community that seem to just want to be left to get on with life quietly like us.
It was remain that lied the most, no EU army? No loss of sovereignty etc, keep the status quo. I have suffered directly as a result of EU bureaucracy and political lies from both Labour and tory governments. The establishment is totally remain, just look at the recent protests. A remain march that had people transported in for free and overestimated numbers. A leave protest on a working day that the stasi police tried to incite unrest at giving it a bad press.
Do you really like this removal of freedom of speech, crushing dissent, censorship, and ignoring law itself, backed by corrupt paid and bought judiciary?
We’ve seen this before in the the 1930s and it didn’t work out well. When will we open our eyes and see it for what it is and learn from history.
Don’t need a second referendum when we haven’t honestly attempted to implement or respect the result of the first. That is just trying to change or ignore and nullify the first. That is how dictatorships work and make no bones about it we are in one right now. We will also be exporting this freedom and democracy to countries like Venezuela and Syria et Al seeing as we are so good at it.
If we had a fair referendum leave would win again, but for the reasons above it is inappropriate and an insult to the winners of the first.
Look at the way it has been suggested, remain or mays washout. Remain, leave with a deal, or no deal, splitting the leave vote giving advantage to remain.
A second referendum is there to forget the first and its inconvenience. Would you trust the establishment after their shenanigans? A remainer would, a leaver would not. There has been election fraud committed previously in uk so why not this time?
There would also be a concerted BBC, MSM, George Sorearse and Bliar propaganda campaign.
All I see in remain is denial of what we are seeing around us and chronic Stockholm syndrome.
Do not worry though remainders as leave will likely be betrayed. The problem will be when they overturn something in the future dictatorship you don’t like.
When they come and sign up your children for conscription in the EU army for the next phoney War, we can at least say we tried for something different and we told you so.
Until we unite and see the evil for what it is, we have no chance, and I’ve said on here before, the principle of divide and conquer still sadly works.
Peace and hope to all, humans were born free, not to be subjugated by the elites.
Anticitizen one
Well said Sir.
Was that score binding?
The referendum was not.
The referendum was binding. From Cameron’s promise at Chatham House, through to MPs voting to honour the results
No it was non binding. Advisory only. MPs are not bound by it in any way.
How was it binding?
All referendums are non binding.
Does not matter what Cameron said.
All political parties, even including the Liberals, or whatever they call themselves nowadays, gave public commitments to respect and implement the Referendum result. As Clegg said, “Either you believe in democracy or you don’t.”
Otherwise they could have just commissioned an opinion poll and saved a lot of trouble and money.
Then they lost and changed their minds.
Maybe from now on General Elections are “non binding” as well.
Maybe we should just cut the cards for who’s going to be next prime minister, Aces High and Jokers Wild. Save a lot of trouble.
The downvotes mean fuck all
It was NON BINNDING.
You morons never get that.
If the downvotes mean fuck all, why are you posting about it?
You’ve already said that once…
You call us morons?!?!
The downvotes have reminded me I forgot to mention the invention of biological warfare/genocide by Jeffrey Amherst the most popular man in England of his time who advocated giving smallpox infested blankets to the First Nations in Canada and “Lord” Kitchener, more than a century later, also the most popular man of his time, who invented the concentration camp in the Boer War leading to the deaths of ~30,000 women and children.
Horace Walpole called him “that log of wood whose stupidity and incapacity are past belief”.
Having trouble finding evidence that Amherst was the “most popular man in England of his time”.
Post a link for me George.
http://www.militaryheritage.com/amherst.htm
This gives detail on his military career and his honours. It documents the repeated offering to him of increasingly important jobs, many which he refused later in life. I read the “ most popular” bit in an English periodical of the time when I was researching aspects of Canadian history, but sorry, can’t recall which one, nor did I reference it. It was just after his celebrated victory in acquiring New France, which played very well to the British public. Hard to surpass beating the French, and taking not only their land but that of the Jesuits, so it should be no surprise.
They exterminated their fair share of the 100 million plus Native Americans in the True Holocaust in the New World. So did our Spanish/ Portuguese/ French EU buddies. Our Italian EU buddies didn’t really pull their weight there, but they showed willing with their little genocide in Libya. Like our EU Belgian buddies with their 10 million Congo genocide. And our EU German buddies with their little genocides in Namibia and Tanzania. Genocide is as European as cheese quotas and wine lakes.
Both sound like odious turds. Times were different, as you know.
Today, people are more informed, with the world at their fingertips.
You could arguably describe Ed Sheeran or Jeremy Clarkson as the most popular in England today.
What are their crimes?
I am a fan of both, the latter a guilty pleasure. The crime is mine, then?
“Polls, prior to all this, showed only half your population could name the Prime Minister for Chrissake.”
Post a link to all these polls for us George ….. I’ve just spent some time googling for evidence of such polls and have drawn a complete blank.
See above, where I provide the link.
I’ll reply for you since you have not. It took all of two seconds to find the link.
Thanks George for taking the trouble to be interested in our problem and for providing the link, especially when I embarrassed myself by not being able to find it. It is indeed shocking that more than half the English population could not name their own PM. I am very surprised. I apologize again for being unable to locate such easily findable links and even one which was discussed at some length with context provided in one of our national newspapers – the Independent. I tend to conveniently forget uncomfortable facts, but hey, who doesn’t! When I said I spent “some time”, I can see how this could be interpreted as meaning considerable effort.
Instead of acknowledging this fact and contribution I will now set about to critiquing the studies, rather than searching for studies which gainsay them. This is the usual distraction tactic we use when we don’t like a result, or a political opponent.
Thanks again George, but how is it you knew about this study and I did not?
Well Zig, its like this. For my twenty years in the UK, I asked about 6 people nearly every working day who the PM was, as part of testing mental status. I adked more people than some who published on it. My own informal results are completely in line with the above.
Read this and digest it, then re-read your previous comments in this thread and see if you can find the irony:
Your 20 years of lived experience of this country is utterly irrelevant and all your statements merely indicate you do not have suitable intellect to be trusted with any kind of responsibility what so ever. Therefore any contribution you have to make to this debate can be totally dis-regarded.
Annoying when people blanket dis-regard your opinion on the basis of a technocratic appeal to authority, isn’t it George?
Oh come on! No one is disregarding anyone’s opinion. There was a vote. I was there and participated in the post mortem. It was a mistake to put the vote before an ill-informed public. But the promoters of the vote were also alarmingly underprepared, underinformed, and under illusions.
If you are so cocksure then why are you so panicky about a second ref?. I think it is because you can’t be open about why you want Brexit perhaps because it is so unacceptable in today’s world? They had several in Quebec trying to get the answer they wanted. They never did.
But have it your way. See if I care. And I would not ignore your opinion. But I have asked for it repeatedly. So cut the bullshit and hissy fitting. What is wrong with a second referendum, under the less than ideal circumstances of the first?
So you say you’re not disregarding anyone’s opinions, but have repeatedly made reference to the ‘ill-informed’ public being given the choice. The whole basis of your many posts on this thread is essentially that ‘we’ (ie leave voters specifically) didn’t understand what we were voting for, and therefore a second referendum is in fact, democratic. Quite clearly you didn’t follow the instruction in my last post and search for the irony. Even a modicum of self analysis would lead you to the conclusion that all your posts in this thread, and my post above you responded to, are in fact making the same calibre of argument – in short, I know best so shut up. When I make that argument, it’s ‘Oh come on!’ but you’ve been putting that forth for most of this thread? Frankly, it’s utter bollocks disguised as debate by draping it in your ‘authority’ as a retired academic and you should know better than to try make such an argument.
Lets pretend that doesn’t cause any problems with the other points you’ve raised and move on to address them, shall we? I’m not sure what you mean by:
“I think it is because you can’t be open about why you want Brexit perhaps because it is so unacceptable in today’s world?”
Presumably this is your literally evidence free attempt to imply my vote was a racist one? I detest playing your identity politics game (especially since you’ve already admitted you’re old enough to retire, do you people never grow out of this bullshit?) but seems how you’ll only turn round and do it again if I don’t play along: I’m under 30, I’ve voted Labour and Lib Dem the entirety of my politically engaged life, and I have plenty of European and BAME friends both in the UK and mainland Europe. Your insistence that it must be racially motivated only further highlights how out of touch you are with normal working class people of all race and religions. Inane drivel, yet again. And I don’t know why you mentioned Canada.
“What is wrong with a second referendum, under the less than ideal circumstances of the first?”
Ok, so what do you put on the ballot paper? May’s deal or No deal? Presumably as a committed remainer, that wouldn’t be acceptable to you despite several posts insisting you respect the democratic result of the previous referendum? The question must be binary in order to still achieve a clear result, so you can’t put May’s Deal, No Deal and Remain on the same ballot paper, much as I’m sure you’d like to split the leave vote.
And is this one advisory or legally binding in your interpretation (or do we only decide that once we know the result)? Lets say we hold another referendum and the result is reversed in favour of remain, then what, best 3 out of 5? I fail to see how holding another referendum does anything besides increasing polarisation amongst the public, and completely dis-enfranchising the majority of people who voted leave.
As a remainer, I’m interested to hear your suggestions on both the above, and these last few;
In your mind, how should the UK proceed from it’s current position?
How would you address the EU’s fundamental issues with productivity in southern versus northern states, and by extension the inverse issue of an artificially manipulated currency producing such vast economic inequality between those member states? Are you concerned at all by NATO and the EU’s open support for fascism in Eastern Europe? Any opinions of the mooted European army, especially in light of how Macron has responded to his population’s recent unrest?
Well Northern it will not have escaped your attention, nor mine, that most acid-tinged Brexiteer comments in this thread devolve to personal attack. So instead of addressing the issues you obsessively enumerate what I have communicated about myself and then attack that too. Its a kind of unsavoury mini-stalking but do recognize how it shouts out that your position is feeble.
Well how about this? You seem to think this is somehow about me, or you would like it to be, because it provides a channel for your aggression surplus, your array of favourite stereotypes, and that this tack will substitute for missing content.
I surely don’t know best and have never suggested that. Straw must be in short supply in the North. As for utter bollocks for argument I hesitate to disagree because you are obviously an expert on that. As for draping what I said in academic authority you are wrong again. The only reason you know I am a retired academic is because I was accused of being a paid EU troll and felt I should explain otherwise. And for all you know my field could be palaeobacteria.
As for racism, you will note I initially raised this as a possibility as to how this is all is being perceived. And having lived in an island in mid England for two decades, I have to tell you that I heard more racist comments in a week than I had heard in a year in North America. I am sure this influenced my own perception. But to say I insisted it must be.. is pure hysterical fabrication. If it isn’t that, all well and good but what is important is the perception.
I am not a committed remainer. Why do you need me to be? I started this dialogue to give my point of view as to how outsiders might view this. Read it again.
As for suggestions, you won’t get any from me. I don’t like being called a liar, or a paid troll. Of course I am concerned about the EU’s apparent predilections in the Ukraine etc. But not as concerned as I am about the hypocrisy of your comment vis a vis GB invading Iraq, Libya, Yemen ,Syria, Afghanistan and shouting “ How high?” every time the Americans ask you to jump. What the hell is wrong with you? Have you no f’ing pride? Or shame?
Clearly, I’ve under-estimated just how irrational you are, cause I’m really struggling to see the connection between the points I made and questions I posed you, and what you replied with? There’s no point in attempting to have a debate if you’re just going to respond with non-sequitur. Please can you quote the sections of my post that are ‘aggressive’ or ‘personally attacked’ you? Calling your argument utter bollocks is not personal abuse when its substantiated by a few hundred words of evidence supporting why it’s non-sensical, so please don’t try play that card. Who knew asking you to support your assertions with evidence constituted ‘unsavoury mini stalking’? If my position is ‘feeble’ and I’m ‘missing content’, why have you not responded to the bulk of my point George?
You really have no sense of irony what-so-ever do you? You genuinely can’t see how assuming that leave voters are racists makes you a hypocrite, can you? You’ve written 6 paragraphs there and I can’t find a literal single salient point that undermines anything in my position, just a lot of your personal invective wedged into a hole it’s not even remotely the correct shape to fit.
And asked for your last paragraph, you what mate? I’ve made precisely 2 comments in this thread prior to this, none of which mention Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan or the United States, so what exactly are you talking about? You say you don’t like being called a liar, but the content of your own posts proves you’re either at worst liar or at best just a simpleton, so you tell me?
Care to try answering my questions again?
In your mind, how should the UK proceed from it’s current position?
How would you address the EU’s fundamental issues with productivity in southern versus northern states, and by extension the inverse issue of an artificially manipulated currency producing such vast economic inequality between those member states? Are you concerned at all by NATO and the EU’s open support for fascism in Eastern Europe? Any opinions of the mooted European army, especially in light of how Macron has responded to his population’s recent unrest?
The best way to maintain dialogue is to insult your correspondent. Right?Unfortunately I don’t agree with that. Since you are unable to draw the connection between your attacking EU policy in the Ukraine and GB attacking and invading poor helpless backward countries, I have lost all interest in this conversation. You remind me of the occasional ugliness I met while in the UK. Fortunately most people were different, which is why I took the trouble of debating on this topic. I was mistaken. I was sympathetic to your dilemma, but now not as much.
Yo Northern, Stop feeding the Troll.
Hey Buttguy
Take your toothbrush and use it to clean around one of your public toilets. Then take the dummy out of your mouth, use the toothbrush on your remaining tooth, go back to watching 1966 replays for the thousandth time and reelect Tony Blair. Give George Bush a knighthood and torture more innocent people on Diego Garcia and invade more countries. Don’t forget their goods which you will steal and house them in the greatest warehouse of stolen goods in the world, the British Museum. Then sit down on your cardboard boxes and watch WWII reruns and keep telling yourselves you won the war, no matter that 80% of German military casualties occurred on the Russian front. Then visit websites and obsessively and in a deranged way downvote anything that smacks of reality.
I don’t like having to say this but George, you are really beginning to sound like another George who is often spoken about on off guardian. We are all entitled to our opinions though, unless they go against the establishment agenda.
”Lots of well-written sophistry, Frank. How about answering the question neutral outsiders are asking? If this is so great and people are really persuaded, why not have a second referendum?”
Why not have a second referendum? Because the outcome of the first does not justify a rerun of the second, assuming that everything was legal and above board the first time around. It this is the way that it works. You have to parties or constituencies vying for power by the simple procedure of a vote for all registered voters. Let’s call them party A and party B. Whichever polls the most votes, and as long as everything was legal and above board, they win the election/referendum – bang, the issue is settled. Didn’t like the result? Too bad, better luck next time.
But of course that is not the EU way. If the EU receives an electoral defeat, as it has in Ireland, Holland and France, then there must have been some jiggery-pokery going down. Well not exactly, it’s just that the EU elites didn’t like the outcome of the elections/referendums. SFW! tough shit! As I pointed out I didn’t particularly like the outcome of the UK elections in 1979,83,87,72 and 2015. There was nothing illegal or untoward about these elections so I just accepted it, went to work the next day and got on with my life. As we know governments in the UK are always minority governments, due to the FPTP system.
But it seems EU and UK practise now is to demand a new election/referendum because the result did not suit your political predilections. Quite frankly this seem quite outrageous and sets very destabilising and dangerous precedents. From now on no election will be safe in terms of its legal standing, except of course for the political and media elites and their useful idiots who are now embarked on this slippery slope.
BTW if you do get your way and have what can only be considered a legal ‘peoples’ vote this is going to open a Pandora’s box of bitterness and resentment; there will be no reconciliation between Leavers and Remainers who I suspect will openly gloat about their great ‘victory’. But your ‘victory. will be forever tarnished, you will be cheats who didn’t play by the rules. We seem to be in a crisis only matched by that in 1640/1650. I hope that you and your well-funded backers are happy about that.
My well-funded backers? What on earth are you talking about? I am a single individual retired academic and have not discussed this with anyone from the EU. You are welcome to my opinion but my motives are simply as a friend who lived in the UK for 20 years who thinks you are getting this wrong.
There already is an open sore and an open Pandora’s box. Are you saying you will respect a vote only if it suits you? Some democracy!
With respect, I think you are missing the point. The issue is not with the incredulity of the leave voters but with the duplicity of the politicians offering a referendum with only one option, to remain in the EU. Theresa May was foisted on the public to ensure that Brexit never happened. As for a second referendum, the only outcome of the first one was to ensure that no referenda would ever be held again. After this charade is over, we will be lucky to get a vote on anything.
Maybe we should hold a referendum on whether we should have another referendum.
Or we could hold a general election with Theresa May as the only candidate. That worked quite well in the Soviet Union. And it would give her a convincing mandate with 99.99% of the votes cast. End all this unnecessary confusion.
Point taken. But all that will fade into the ether. What will be left are the actual profound consequences. Don’t let your anger at the weasel-pols blind you to that.
@George C
For someone who isn’t bothered about in or out, you certainly talk some bollocks
Well-spotted you! I am a paid troll who gets a capitation for every punter I can keep in the EU yoke. See my more serious reply below to your other insightful comments.
Errrm, well funded by billionaires such as
‘The 87-year-old billionaire – George Soros – backs Best for Britain, an anti-Brexit group that’s calling for a second referendum. He has reportedly donated more than £700,000 to the campaign.’
‘The Hungarian-American has long been vocal about the vote to leave the EU, and previously said he refuses to “butt out” of the debate because the decision to leave was a “tragic mistake.”’
First published in Politico 05/29/18, an influential publication read widely in the US and worldwide.
Why limit yourself to just two referendums? Why not half a dozen, or 15, or 111?
What’s the point of a second referendum?
We’ve had one already, and the result has just been ignored.
You point out empty supermarket shelves ans riots, I Wouldn’t doubt it for one minute, we witnessed that nonsense with KFC last year when people were phoning the police because we couldn’t get their meals, as to regards deregulated work force ,as far as I’m aware the only European country that pursues that is this shithole, is there any zero hour contracts in the EU, ant where in the EU where you have to give the employer 7 days notice of industrial action, and you think this will be reversed do you if we leave? you need to wake up.
Don’t you think it would be easier to change this on the basis on one single vote (ie a UK election). How do you envisage changing things via and unlected Commission?
If the ‘Good Friday’ Agreement is preventing me from legally leaving the EU then why was it ever allowed into law?
To make it easier to read here is a summary of WTO Art 24 (I only wish I had the tech to highlight the best bits in red!)
WTO Rules Extract Article 24
5. Accordingly, the provisions of this Agreement shall not prevent, as between the territories of contracting parties, the formation of a customs union or of a free-trade area or the adoption of an interim agreement necessary for the formation of a customs union or of a free-trade area; Provided that:
(a) with respect to a customs union, or an interim agreement leading to a formation of a customs union, the duties and other regulations of commerce imposed at the institution of any such union or interim agreement in respect of trade with contracting parties not parties to such union or agreement shall not on the whole be higher or more restrictive than the general incidence of the duties and regulations of commerce applicable in the constituent territories prior to the formation of such union or the adoption of such interim agreement, as the case may be;
(b) with respect to a free-trade area, or an interim agreement leading to the formation of a free-trade area, the duties and other regulations of commerce maintained in each of the constituent territories and applicable at the formation of such free–trade area or the adoption of such interim agreement to the trade of contracting parties not included in such area or not parties to such agreement shall not be higher or more restrictive than the corresponding duties and other regulations of commerce existing in the same constituent territories prior to the formation of the free-trade area, or interim agreement as the case may be; and
(c) any interim agreement referred to in subparagraphs (a) and (b) shall include a plan and schedule for the formation of such a customs union or of such a free-trade area within a reasonable length of time.
Article XXIV:5 >
2. The evaluation under paragraph 5(a) of Article XXIV of the general incidence of the duties and other regulations of commerce applicable before and after the formation of a customs union shall in respect of duties and charges be based upon an overall assessment of weighted average tariff rates and of customs duties collected. This assessment shall be based on import statistics for a previous representative period to be supplied by the customs union, on a tariff-line basis and in values and quantities, broken down by WTO country of origin. The Secretariat shall compute the weighted average tariff rates and customs duties collected in accordance with the methodology used in the assessment of tariff offers in the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. For this purpose, the duties and charges to be taken into consideration shall be the applied rates of duty. It is recognized that for the purpose of the overall assessment of the incidence of other regulations of commerce for which quantification and aggregation are difficult, the examination of individual measures, regulations, products covered and trade flows affected may be required.
3. The “reasonable length of time” referred to in paragraph 5(c) of Article XXIV should exceed 10 years only in exceptional cases. In cases where Members parties to an interim agreement believe that 10 years would be insufficient they shall provide a full explanation to the Council for Trade in Goods of the need for a longer period.
It really is risible to see the Remainer MP’s squealing.
The vote for sending Article 50 had a huge majority. None of these squealers are on record as trying to add any conditions that would have allowed an extension or cancellation.
Same with the Withdrawal Act, passed by a huge majority with no codicils about Withdrawal Agreements (WA) or anything such like.
Now we have all sorts of tactics to thwart what they voted for, Cliff Edge, Disaster, Armageddon, Medicine Shortage etc, if we don’t have a WA, you name it.
All nonsense.
If we leave on WTO then the trade with the EU can remain exactly as it is now under WTO Article 24,
( see https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/region_art24_e.htm ) if the EU genuinely want a Free Trade Agreement. If they don’t then they are open to tariff charges of the 90 billion + trade surplus they currently enjoy, should the UK choose to impose them. (we may have to uder WTO rules)
In fact Art 24 allows such a trading position (i.e. as is) to last for up to 10 years if it is the intention to negotiate a FTA!.
No Cliff edge, no Armageddon in fact nothing to prevent a smooth transition (without paying through the nose) from EU member to non EU member with opportunities to trade under FTA with whom we choose.
Why does no-one in the MSM question the likes of May, Hammond etc on this!
Oh forgot they are all in it together!
Thank you for this!
Now, to those who have not, please read this:
Lord James: Remaining in the EU will constitute perjury by the Queen
I am not an expert, so am happy to be directed to any information that reasonably gainsays the author’s position, but from what I have read and heard – from many sensible and qualified sources – Lord James writes the truth.