An Open Letter to Pearl Clutchers re No-Deal Brexit
Catte Black
Dear Pearl Clutcher,
I know you’re very preoccupied panic-buying essential drugs and spare body bags (for when some of your family members inevitably die following a no-deal Brexit).
I know you’re seething with social-media-meme-induced rage about – well, you aren’t totally clear but you know BoJo is behind it all – and are too busy hammering out hysterical status updates to think too much. Even if thinking were your strong suit, which, let’s be honest Pearl, it isn’t.
I know you’re worn out from listening to that nice Owen Jones squeaking about ‘democracy’ at all those #stopthecoup rallies you went to with your Guardianista chums. And you have a dozen ready meals to prepare for the freezer (for when the EU takes away all our food), and biofuel to buy for the generator (for when the EU turns off the electricity).
But can I just grab a quick moment of your time, Pearl? Just to point out one small fact you might want to consider.
Here’s a thought experiment for you.
* * *
You are a landlord.
A not very nice landlord.
One day one of your tenants comes to you and says he wants to leave. He asks for his deposit back in full.
You say actually he forfeited his deposit because his dog wrecked the carpets and there’s paint on the kitchen tiles. But you’ll agree to him having a partial refund, provided he lets you keep his furniture.
The tenant says ‘but my furniture is worth more than the deposit, so no thanks.’
You say, ‘well that’s the deal, take it or leave it.’
The tenant says ‘I’ll leave it thanks.’
He leaves it and moves out with his furniture
* * *
Now re-run that scenario, only THIS time a new law means the tenant can’t leave without accepting a deal.
What will you do now? Bear in mind, YOU can refuse the deal, but HE can’t. YOU can offer almost any terms you want. HIS only option is to ask nice for something better. So, will you:
- Offer him better terms than before because he asks nice?
- Screw him every frickin which way you can and give him an even worse deal than before – because he literally can’t refuse?
With this in mind, what do you think the media hysteria about No Deal might actually be about?
Do you still believe neoliberal warmonger austerity-fan Hilary Benn was thinking about YOU when he tabled that bill?
I know the Guardian and its shrieking sisters have all been telling you that No Deal Brexit is even worse than just regular Brexit, and that probably it will mean everyone in the country dies (instead of just most of us), the sun boils and the Kraken wakes from the depths to devour all those who still breathe upon our shores.
But you see, Pearl, that’s reductionist garbage.
Forget Boogeyman BoJo and the blaring Carnival of Fear, and think. In the real world outside the perceptual insanity of media memes being able to walk away with No Deal is an essential part of any negotiation isn’t it? Without it you can’t deal at all.
And if you’re negotiating with a jerk who refuses to budge from his unacceptable terms then walking away is all you can do.
It’s definitely not better to say ‘oh well, I can’t have no deal so I guess I just take whatever you got.’
All Boris’s antics and Hilary’s timely intervention has done is bring us to this pass where the UK population is cheering the fact they have handed themselves over to the oligarchs wholesale.
Oh and, according to George Galloway, John McDonnell et al even persuaded Corbyn to vote against an election – against his own best instincts.
It’s quite clear now that #Corbyn wants an October 14 #GeneralElection2019 but he is being held hostage by the 5th Column Triumvirate of Thornberry Starmer and McDonnell.This is all on the public record. I remind Mr Corbyn of the fatal error made by Mr Callaghan in 1978 #Brexit
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) September 5, 2019
The media will tell you this was sound tactics because Corbyn would certainly lose.
Well, maybe, but let’s not forget if Corbyn loses an election, the old Blairite rump get to force a leadership contest and maybe foist Benn or Phillips on us. And let’s not forget Phillips and others are on record saying they don’t want a Corbyn government.
So, I suggest it’s possible the Labour Right doesn’t want an election because they know Corbyn could win.
Further they’ve managed to spin this so that Corbyn is now associated with Remain – thus alienating much of his natural base.
It’s all round so far a victory for the status quo, the centrists, the anti-democrats, the 1%.
BoJo seems passing good at not getting what he allegedly wants but what the ruling elite need, doesn’t he?
So, Pearl, do you feel silly now for basically campaigning for the oligarchs to shaft you?
Yup, you should.
How long before the cheering Left clue into the silent coup just pulled on them?
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A surprising number of comments on this thread (including the most aggressive and childishly insulting) are aimed at refuting or abusing opinions or claims the article does not make.
Before posting please do the following:
1. READ the article.
2. Comprehend that it is NOT claiming the U.K. should leave the EU without a deal.
3. Avoid refuting this claim or any other claims NOT made in the article.
4. Avoid using ad hom in place of argument
Thank you.
And if you’re negotiating with a jerk who refuses to budge from his unacceptable terms then walking away is all you can do.
The childish behaviour exhibited is by an author of an article who apparently slings insults at the EU – not that this organisation does not deserve it in spades – that are simply pulled out of her behind and fail the reality check when one consults the WA agreement.
And if you’re negotiating with a jerk who refuses to budge from his unacceptable terms then walking away is all you can do.
That has nothing to do with the reality of the EU and the obviously incompetence of the UK lower house that apparently following the discussions although never familiarized themselves with the text or even the brief.
This is the second article by Ms. Catte that lets me to believe that she argues in many ways similar to what I read on alt right sites, and let me to suspect that she is rather a plant to obfuscate instead of pursuing whatever the truth is. Iwonder who her paymaster – at least intellectually – really is.
I say this person is a paid troll and should be shut down.
Yeah he’s a troll or lunatic but he doesn’t have to be shut down if there was some support shown BTL for the site!
I am starting to think the open comment experiment is proving a failure. Noisy minorities move in to heckle the writers and admins and abuse the site’s free speech. The silent majority just stand back and watch it happen. Can’t even be bothered to vote down obvious abuses. Zero censorship requires community support and responsibility. If we don’t support it we lose it.
Free speech cannot be abused.
Edited by Admin to fix formatting
Known troll ‘William H Bonney’ turns up and the incoherent hate comments against this site all magically get a slew of new upvotes.
Someone is clearly using proxies to multi-vote for troll posts.
11 people voting up a comment that is almost literally incoherent, attacks the article for ‘slinging insults at the EU’ when it doesn’t and attacks an OffG editor for being a paid agent!
Only 6 people vote up a reply that calls the commenter a troll and 8 people vote it down.
What is going on here? This wouldn’t happen on any comparable site. If a portion of the readership hates this place enough to vote up even crazy nasty obvious trolls just because they’re being rude and the majority doesn’t even rally any support, how much longer is this place going to be here? The editors will get sick of the abuse. Close down comments or close down the site, and then what?
“The editors will get sick of the abuse. Close down comments or close down the site, and then what?”
Then move the comments offsite, to an internal “sister site” or a freebie open forum (e.g. Twatter or anywhere similar that permits or inherits–in the OOP sense–onsite login credentials from here (i.e. practically none, as is appropriate and sometimes necessary for free, anonymous expression) with an autolink back to the article on this site appended to each.
In my experience, many less than committed visitors to a (any) site dislike even scrolling down so I’m assuming even fewer would be tempted to follow (and, more importantly, post to) a link under each article pointing to offsite comments (or a text box under each article expressly gathering comments for offsite display: incidentally an approach significantly more protective of posters’ security and anonymity).
Maybe even import, on editorially agreed basis, “editor’s selections/curations” (similar to the On-Guardian’s “Picks” but with less of a their-smugboot-in-your-face frame of mind) back to this current Off-Guardian BTL cage fighting spot (in effect the equivalent of editorial upvotes, sans any no votes and downvotes, which would be left behind in the offsite comments, if not abandoned).
…
We appreciate the call for support. But we are not going to be closing down or further censoring the comments! We get thousands of readers per day, only a tiny percentage of them are trolls and very very few of those become a problem.
Lets not behave like The Guardian, which, whilst a once valuable place to discuss serious issues, transformed into a place where no critique of its own views could be allowed, which is hardly upholding notions of freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
Some points arising (but not scored):
“READ the article”
1. Despite an overwhelmment of in-their-face evidence to the contrary, the proportion of the otherwise IT-sophisticated commentariart that consistently overlooks or forgets that the great wen that comprises its electronic legacy is largely recorded in WOM* still retains its element of surprise. Go to point 2, below: ↓
2, “Avoid refuting this claim or any other claims NOT made in the article.”
This is known as ‘recursion’→ See point 1, above: ↑
“Avoid using ad hom in place of argument”
3. One of the more spectacularly successful confusions deployed by the degenerate lowlife hanging out in the open cesspits and sewers serving as the sanitary infrastructure of the aforementioned great wen has been to erase in the minds of many of the less mendacious inhabitants, for much of their online time, the crucial distinction between ad hominems and ad modus operandiems.
* Write-Only Memory
This article and the discussion below the line has been a much needed break from the hysterics seen elsewhere. Between the intense media driven polarisation and the extreme arrogance of the political class, it’s hard to see how they’re going to put the lid back on this one now. As one poster below alluded to, things are starting to look a little too like Russia circa 1917 for comfort.
I’ve been trying to work out the Labour position on Brexit for some time now.
So far as my limited intellect can grasp, it appears to be something along these lines:-
Labour will respect the referendum result and leave.
But it will not leave without a deal under any circumstances.
If it wins an election and forms a government, it will seek to obtain a new deal from the EU.
Even though the EU has said it will not offer any new or improved deal.
So it will accept any deal the EU does condescend to offer.
But at the same time this deal has to meet a whole series of different requirements that are impossible to meet.
And Thornberry, Watson, Starmer and most of the Blairites who make up 80% plus of the PLP are determined to Remain regardless of any deal that is theoretically offered by Brussels.
So they will actively campaign against any deal they themselves will presumably just have negotiated.
And this will be subject to a second referendum.
They will advise the population to reject the deal they themselves have just negotiated.
And they may or may not respect the result of this referendum.
There now, come to think of it, it’s all very clear and logical, isn’t it?
Glad we got that all cleared up.
RED LINES.
A Labour govt would secure a deal. It wouldn’t prioritize offshore money etc, that for the Tories are absolute prerequisites, required by their billionaire backers, both leavers and remainers. Normal people would be a priority – imagine that……a UK govt putting its populace first
The UK under a Labour government would be shafted even worse than Greece under Syriza.
Mark, for a guy with a “limited intellect,” you sure catch on fast!
The irony is that Corbyn is a ‘big girls blouse’ but not necessarily for not calling a GE.
More so for his failure to get to grips with the division within the Labour Party and particularly the PLP faction.
Bojo kicked out 21 mutinous MPs.
Jezza needs to kick out about 221 Blairite Backstabbers.
Admin, the answer would be to limit comments to one per day…
Posters would have to think before they write.
The discussion would still move forward without trolling.
Catte and Everyone Else
If you have not read it and did not know of its existence take a look at:
“The Impact on the U.S. Economy of Including the United Kingdom in a Free Trade Arrangement With the United States, Canada, and Mexico”
published by US International Trade Commission in August 2000.
Experiment 2: the UK withdraws from the EU and joins NAFTA (i.e. a no deal Brexit) was estimated in 2000 to result in a 17.54% increase in US exports with a $2250 million surplus in the US’s favor.
https://www.usitc.gov/publications/docs/pubs/332/pub3339.pdf
Now tell me Washington are not pulling the strings on Brexit.
Craig Murray has come out of the Remainers closet after watching the Boris’ Pro-rogue show in Parliament: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/really-a-right-wing-coup/comment-page-3/#comment-892069
This makes him a pearl clutcher apart from an Islam apologist and a convert to the CO2 craze.
all this nonsense and screeching over an arrangement that didn’t exist in its current form until 1992. i have t-shirts older than the EU. all this panic that a small country which somehow managed to rule most of the known world for a few centuries couldn’t possibly exist without the good graces of a bunch of yuppie twats in belgium.
all this focus on supposed “leaver” racism (which in many cases does exist but would have whether or not brexit was ever a “thing”) toward immigrants and refugees instead of introspection regarding the UK/US/saudi/israel axis that caused the flood of refugees in the first place. not a lot of attention paid to the irony of the UK doing said things while being harassed from outside its own borders by mirror images of their own neoliberal plutocrats and bean counters. maybe we’ll see a flood of british refugees flooding…norway? who knows?
and last of all…the irony of MPs (menial prostitutes) bleating about “democracy” while attempting to block the will of the majority. good times. good laughs.
Frakenstein Labour Party https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/09/04/why-remoaners-are-so-terrified-of-a-general-election/
AndrewC,
Seriously ? You are shilling that rag here now? You do know of its the origination?
‘Spiked’s predecessor, Living Marxism, the journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which ceased publication after ITN won their libel action against it.’
You do know the author of the piece you quote can himself be desrcibed as a ‘piece of work’ ?
He has opined such sageness as :
“If You Were Abused By Jimmy Savile, Maybe You Should Keep It to Yourself”,[10] O’Neill argued against victims of sexual abuse by high-profile individuals coming forward publicly…”
&
Referring to high-profile cases of racial abuse and alleged racial abuse, he argued, “these incidents and alleged incidents are not racism at all, in the true meaning of the word”, due to the levels of passion involved, describing anti-racism efforts as “a pretty poisonous desire to police the … working classes”.
&
He is opposed to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia, arguing that it has been “attended by authoritarianism wherever it’s been introduced”
Etc etc etc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_O'Neill_(columnist)
There is more there about his fellow travellers – a rum bunch – it show how the two ends of a string are tied together as common controlled opionionators, whose prime motives seems to create maximum divisions between peoples, using identity politics from both ends of the artificial one dimensional spectrum.
AC that article belongs down a WC
For these wondering where many of the highly charged brexity commentators and splurge of them here on O-G may have originated this is looking like the smoking gun.
Dungroanin thank you for your reply, I was unaware of the genesis of Spiked but take heed of your comments but what is the difference between Spiked and the BBC in regard to Saville
do you boycott the BBC ? My question is purely rhetorical but I’m glad to have read your recourse and will check the bona fide of links in the future, so thank you for that
AndrewC,
Glad that you are not defending them and anybody in doubt that the full spectrum – out means out, hard brexit better than a soft brexit – non stop blitz, from both ends, should realise they have been played like suckers and ADMIT it to themselves first.
Nobody likes to think they have been fooled and they end up compounding their folly by refusing to acknowledge it.
I haven’t engaged in Beeb/tv news media for a couple of years now and wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole – just a bit of research on their senior editors, correspondents and management easily reveals that they are a major propaganda machine.
That is why i refuse to pay their regressive poll tax licence ‘fee’ to be propagandised to.
‘Never believe anything you here and only half believe what you see’ – until you have verified it, is my guiding principle to reduce the risk of being suckered.
It is now time to turn and face the truth and fight these who hunt us to control the public perception.
Goodluck.
Frankenstein Labour Partyhttps://www.spiked-online.com/2019/09/04/why-remoaners-are-so-terrified-of-a-general-election/
There have been various polls floating around, for what they’re worth (probably not very much.)
One puts the Tories/ Labour on 37/30 % in an October election.
28/28% dead heat if it goes to November.
How credible those figures are is open to question.
Another puts the Tories/ Farage on 35/12%, with Farage picking up 18% if it goes to November.
If Bojo wants to save his skin, he has to do two things: (1) convert the Tories into a Brexit rump, and (2), enter into a formal pact with Farage. Nothing else works for him.
Corbyn has been taken hostage by hard line Remainers.
He’s not particularly interested in the issue. He’s never been a Brussels Groupie. He wants to renationalise the railways and implement an industrial strategy – and the EU will just veto that out of hand.
Labour’s Brexit policy shifts on a daily basis and Thornberry is incoherent. It will not bear up to much scrutiny.
Other considerations.
Bojo will present this as an issue of People v. Parliament.
The French Foreign Minister has said he will veto any further extensions.
Expect the unexpected.
Expect a lot of court cases as well.
Whatever the outcome, the Kritarchy will be unpopular.
People don’t like the idea of Men In Wigs ruling on contested political issues.
Expect Project Fear to go into overdrive in the MSM as well.
Despite all the obstruction and obfuscation, the centre of gravity appears to be shifting towards Brexit.
None of the mutineers like Umuna, Berger, Woollaston and the rest have the courage to risk a by election. They know that they have about as much chance of retaining their seats as they do of being struck by lightning.
Farage intends targeting vulnerable Remainers like Watson and Kinnock. More power to his elbow.
Remain have been indulging in fantasies and wishful thinking that all the Leavers have either died or become discouraged. A Bojo/ Farage coalition has the potential of picking up 400 seats.
But who knows? It’s all up for grabs.
Anything can happen in the next 24 hours.
Hang on to your jimmies, folks.
Just break out the choc ices and the popcorn.
Sit back and enjoy the fun.
Are you so determined to leave the eu that you are happy to see the likes of Farage Johnson Duncan Smith & the unelected Cummings etc in complete control? If so what advantages do you see for ordinary working class folk?
I’m not advocating anything, W.
I’m just going through the possible permutations of what is likely to happen.
You have to do this when you live in a banana republic like Britain.
Bojo plus Farage probably makes sense from their point of view.
Ordinary working class folk get shafted whatever happens.
That’s Rule No. 1 of the Westminster Parliamentary Rules.
The main point is this has the potential to bring the whole rotten system crashing down – when possibly ordinary working class folk will cease to be shafted.
Remain = Punch in the face (tyranny)
Leave = Kick in the bollox (capitalist free for all)
either way the working class get to vote
for the least worse option a bit like general elections
shame Corbyn never got to be in charge on a no deal brexit
This ideological project, one that has been in the planning stage for years wants to take neoliberal capitalism to the final stage. It wants to completely abandon the social and economic model that has underpinned most western economies for the last seven decades. What they really want is a Britain that eventually emulates what will look like the worst of America. These extreme capitalists want a low regulation, small state economy, where privatisation, and the so-called free market, completely takes over. There have been many warnings about this in the last decade, but little in the way of real resistance.
As the people of Britain continue just to accept whatever happens without much complaint (like state surveillance, destruction of privacy, loss of workers rights, civil liberties, et all) the next stage of their destiny is depressingly playing out to a plan. After bailing out the banks for their egregious crimes a decade ago, it became apparent that there was little in the way to stop extreme neoliberal capitalism from marching on. With renewed vigour, camouflaging their ambitions in a web of lies, deceit, disinformation and propaganda to both confuse and avoid alienating voters, the race was on to force and then win the EU referendum Brexit vote.
Evidence of corporations having unreasonable power in Britain arrived when, in an irony worthy of comedy series ‘Yes Minster,’ transnationals such as PepsiCo, Mars and Diageo were put at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease almost as soon as the Conservative’s arrived in office in 2010. Civil Society was not represented. This is the basis of their plan. Seriously, it is.
Another Tory minister has just jumped ship, Rudd.
Jacking in the Tories completely.
Bojo could be on his own soon.
Absolute rubbish. Brexit is more like leaving the golf club but expecting to still be able to play and use the clubhouse.
As for the ‘media hysteria’ – the media hysteria seems to be more about our democratically-elected Parliament doing it’s job and preventing something very damaging.
I guess our media would rather our political class tugged its forelock to American billionaires and powerbrokers who want to asset-strip and dominate the UK without the EU being involved.
Another first time out of nowhere troll poster promoting anti-democracy and blowing smoke.
The type of negotiation isn’t the point you knuckle-head. Doesn’t make any difference if it’s a landlord, a golf club or a car dealership or anything else you name. Point is you have to be able to walk away or you can’t negotiate.
But you’ll probably get a bunch of vote ups from the other malignant knuckleheads here.
‘Tom’ had 0 upvotes at 9am BST. Now he has 5. And MLS now has 5 down votes.
In fact all the troll comments acquired 5 new upvotes at around the same time WHBonney posted.
I strongly urge the site admins to look into this. Trolls are using proxy IPs to do fake upvotes. It’s incredibly petty but intended to spread discord.
In the article by Catte Black and subsequent discussion re “An Open Letter to Pearl Clutchers”. I find it extraordinary that the bigger picture hasn’t been remarked upon!
That is the role of the USA. After Pompeo saying that Jeremy won’t ever be PM coupled with the endorsement that Trump gave Boris leads me to believe that the NSA/CIA working with MI5 and MI6 along with Mossad and every other hostile anti-democratic swamp creature would have had a hand in the original proposal to wrench the UK away from Europe and into the ‘Free Trade Agreement’ with the USA thereby achieving two if not more aims of the Empire.
The first to sow division and weaken the competitor trading block to the USA and secondly to consolidate the role of the USA as the leading force of the white Anglo-Saxon former colonies of the old British Empire. The UK becomes what has been evident for a long time,…the UK is a vassal state of the US Empire.
Does one not think that the wars in the Middle East didn’t have an added bonus for the US, in that they knew Europe would be the overwhelmed by the flood of refugees? Thereby weakening the ‘unity’ of Europe to the commercial and hegemonic advantage of the US.
The US global plan has been carefully thought out and implemented over the last 70 odd years. As the USA is the aggressor with a plan it is flexible enough to accommodate changes in tactics as the need arises, but hasn’t strayed from the strategic plan of world domination.
After the UK, Germany will be pulled into gear. The current stumbling blocks of China and Russia are being encircled by NATO and short range nuclear missiles. Iran and other recalcitrant would be independent countries have to be dealt with as well.
Brexit, stay or leave was a trap and like previously in 1971when Parliament voted 356-244 in favour of making a new application to become a member of the EC subsequently the working class became divided in the lead up to the referendum of 1975 as many believed with justification that being in the EC wouldn’t give them any improvement in their working lives.
Now working people think that they will be better off out of the EU! In my humble opinion the Free Trade Agreement with the US will make them worse off vis a vie the NHS and GM food.
Observations from a faraway ex pom.
What is this all about?
What is going to happen over the next few weeks and months, and in the longer term?
This is a failure of the political class to deliver Brexit.
There was a clear mandate to do so over 3 years ago.
But the political elite failed to deliver Brexit because it never had any desire to do so. It never had the slightest intention of doing so.
17.5 million people have been cheated.
We now have a failed, corrupt, broken, dysfunctional system, which has been tested and found severely wanting. Our sham democracy has been revealed for all the world to see.
It is deadlocked and utterly incapable of resolving the crisis.
It no longer serves any useful purpose whatsoever.
It cannot continue without root and branch reform.
So where do Johnson and the Tories go from here?
The Tories are imploding. They are visibly disintegrating.
Johnson went for broke in an attempt to deliver Brexit by 31 October.
And he has gone broke. This is a busted flush. It isn’t going to happen.
Labour/ SNP/ Liberals/ Tory Rebels will deny him an election until after 31 Oct.
There will be no election until he has been visibly humiliated and failed to honour his pledge to deliver Brexit. They want him broken and humiliated.
He will probably resign rather than revel in the humiliation of following his orders to go begging Brussels for yet another pointless extension.
The shortest serving PM in history, and the most abject failure.
Who will then lead the Tories? Who cares? Will there be any Tory Party left?
This leaves a significant vacuum for Farage to fill in an election around November.
The Tories are a joke and all the other parties are now openly Remain.
The 17.5 million and the former Labour heartlands have no other political home – unless something far more extreme emerges, and this won’t happen by November.
Farage’s party were the clear winners in May. They are likely to gain mass support in the general election.
Could Labour form a government?
Unlikely. They will lose the support of millions of traditional Labour Leave voters.
And the Remain vote will ebb away to the Liberals/ Greens.
Labour has been weakened by the endless Blairite Backstabbing, and the anti Semitism and other anti Jezza smears. Many people can see through this for what it is, but others will be taken in by it.
The Liberals and Greens will probably pick up support, but this is unlikely to be converted into long term strength. It will be a flash in the pan.
So what is a possible election outcome?
A much diminished rump Tory party. A sizeable Brexit bloc. Liberals picking up support, if only temporarily.
Possibly some kind of very weak coalition led by Labour, with Liberal/ SNP/ Green support.
Jezza either replaced as Labour leader by some pro austerity neoliberal warmonger nonentity, or allowed to stay in place with his powers severely circumscribed.
This coalition would then either go through the charade of re negotiating with Brussels, or just ditching Brexit out of hand, with or without a second referendum.
But nothing will ever be resolved. Nothing will be settled. This will run, and run, and run, and run. It will go on for years, and years, and years, and years.
Brussels has its Fifth Column firmly in place in the British Establishment. It has no incentive to make any concessions whatsoever. It will treat any Labour coalition like it treated Syriza. Britain will be broken on the wheel, like Greece before it. It will probably impose humiliating and stringent terms on any Labour administration seeking to remain in the EU. Maybe joining the euro and greatly hiked budget contributions. A veto on the composition and policies of any future government, such as it imposed on Greece, Italy, and Spain. Maybe they’ll just appoint EU Commissioners to rule Britain. This is what they have done before.
One thing is certain.
The divisions will continue.
There will be no improvement.
Things will only get worse.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
There is no end of the tunnel.
This will continue indefinitely.
Whatever view you take of Brexit.
“We now have a failed, corrupt, broken, dysfunctional system, which has been tested and found severely wanting” we now have this? Now? How about always had?!
Very true. But they can no longer paper over the cracks.
The ‘hidden hand’ will decide what happens regarding Brexit. How convenient though that all the established parties want to remain and now it looks like poor Boris will have to go begging for an extension. A lot of ‘smoke and mirrors’ in my opinion to get the desired result for all concerned (obviously not including the 17.4 million people who voted leave and the unwitting remain faction)
It begs the question where does someone go who is politically inclined when they realize that they have been royally shafted by all sides and the Red /Blue façade is just that, a great big con.
The big winner could be Farage, as in May.
The only political home left for Brexit supporters.
And everybody who wants to register their disgust with the existing system.
That is a possible outcome – a new party fighting its first GE winning.
But anything is possible.
You roll the dice and see what happens.
Should we even expect an imminent election?
The Opposition could keep Bojo in office indefinitely, a lame duck leader of a zombie administration, endlessly prolonging the agony. Maybe for years, a full term till 2022.
Don’t expect any quick resolution.
This could go on, and on, and on, and on.
For years, and years, and years.
Unless the peasants with pitchforks put an end to the whole tawdry, degrading spectacle.
Or somebody like Fuhrer Tommy Robinson takes over the streets.
How easy is it to manipulate voting results in the UK? In the US it was done through immigrants and through Google/Facebook, in Holland / France it might have been done post voting too.
Clear mandate?
I keep taking Laudanum, but still can’t thinking that I’m living a nightmare.
So – what do you do when you end up on the street and a seemingly nice American man suggests that he can look after you for the rest of your life?
Once the UK is out of the clutches of one bloc of evil they will end up in another bloc of evil.
I am an aetheist but using that word for effect.
Perhaps a worse one without the semblance of a welfare state?
Welcome to Bourgeois Democracy.
The choice of the least worst option.
Problem is I don’t hear the rumble of Revolution.
I hear the right but not the left.
British Socialism and revolution do not go together.
For now Bourgeois Democracy it is and no leftist posturing is going to change that fact.
Not for the present.
This is the era of Reformism not Revolution so we have to live with the choices.
Before anyone believes the Catte-puke nonsense one should actually read at least the briefing notes of the WA beforeget all hot under the collar about the mean EEEEEUUUU…not that I am a fan of the seame, but posting absolute shite does not help anyone. The main problem is the border between NI/IR, which of course needs provisions to be kept open
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8453
Without this backstop a hard border will have to be established in order to prevent no EU compliant goods entering the EU through NI. And guess what – none of the member states will look favourably at Britain being able to freely export to the EU without any rules.
A Brexit without agreement will mean one thing for sure – a reestablished border in Ireland and the risk of strife again with somethings blowing up or maybe finally a reunification, as the majority in NI voted to remain.
In conclusion – I have yet to read an article of such a low quality in any left leaning alternative outlet except maybe the shite that is sometimes posted on RI. The post is even useless as manure.
to make it clear – RI is definitely not left leaning but alt right, so low quality is a thing there of course. But to read “Stuss” (an encompassing German expression of “shite” and related stinking manure) here..is disappointing.
To echo PSJ you shower this scatalogical generic insult on the article and then make a slew of points that have nothing whatsoever to do with anything in it.
I think you should be asked to indicate which part of the article you disagree with and produce some kind of framework to justify your language. Failure to engage should mean your comment is dropped down the spam drain.
I know there’s a no censorship policy here but it’s hard to see it abused by nasty pieces of work like this just trying to disrupt and intimidate. The ones upvoting his smears are not much better. Why the fuck are you here if dumb fuck binaries is all you can handle.
Sorry admins for ranting. I like this site and too many of the noisiest commenters are just here for the wrong reasons and just totally take advantage to splurge hate.
I think you should have zero tolerance for personal attacks especially against your writers. That doesn’t impact free expression but it does stop the well being poisoned by creeps and haters.
The totality of her article is an insult to those who can read and understand the WA agreement which has little to do with the idiocies she propounds. If she wants to be taken seriously she should maybe consult at least the briefing notes I linked to and then it is up to her to specifically address what irks her regarding the WA instead of an idiotic slam dunk.
If that it is asked too much, then this site as many others who pretend to be left or at least critical of Gov. policies but are nothing other than ill informed vanity shows and not worth my time.
You were asked to specify what you dislike or find inaccurate or to resemble puke in the article. You totally fail to do that, but let’s take a look at what you do say:
This is a bit weird, because the article isn’t concerned with and doesn’t discuss or allude to the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) . It is not about any aspect of the WA or even about Brexit as a good or bad entity, so this observation is really non sequitur, odd and meaningless.
Why are the things she propounds ‘idiocies’? You don’t explain that at all. In fact you literally don’t talk about a single actual word she writes.
She does not say anything irks her about the WA because she does not mention it even obliquely. Why do you keep talking about the WA when it has nothing to do with this article?
I think judging by this sentence English is not your first language and I think we can charitably suggest this is why you have totally failed to understand what this article is about.
Or maybe you’re just obsessed with the WA and think everything you read is about that even when it clearly is not.
Or maybe you’re a troll.
None of that explains your abusive rage though, which I think is down to inadequacy on your part.
What’s really funny is more than one person upvoted you either on the basis you were being personally rude and aggressive to this woman or because they, like you, are so unable to read English they don’t know what the article is even about.
“…this site as many others who pretend to be left or at least critical of Gov. policies but are nothing other than ill informed vanity shows and not worth my time.”
So long.
This article is not about the WA. You don’t even have anything to say about the article. You just throw abuse words and people vote you up. Disgusting.
In practice, there won’t be a hard border. There never has been. Ever.
There has never been a hard border with Ireland since 1922. The one exception was a couple of weeks in 1944 prior to D Day on security grounds, when the border was closed. This is a non issue, an invented problem to sabotage a democratic referendum.
Correct. And we have identified a troll.
No hard border since 1922? So those armed checkpoints were what then? And we won that vote for a united Ireland and Britain still said no
Armed checkpoints were set up all over NI to try to stop bombings and shootings, most of them nowhere near the border.
Then, as now, the border was an irrelevance.
The main issue with the border was pig smuggling. Irish and NI farmers smuggled pigs back and forth across it to claim double subsidies. Irish pigs temporarily became British pigs, and vice versa.
I own up! I’m really hoping that story was true and not pinched from Flann O’Brien: The Poor Mouth: a bad story about the hard life’
No, it is quite true. Almost as big a problem as coke smuggling on the Mexican border. Pig subsidy abuse was a major issue.
They used to do it with fuel, something to do with different tax an VAT rates. They’d dig a secret pipeline across the border and have a storage tank connected to each end on either side of the border.
‘Catte puke’?
I wonder why you wrote that infantile ad hom down and thought it added weight and credibility to your argument.
The question becomes more relevant when you consider Catte’s article isn’t about and doesn’t even mention any of the points you talk about.
The topic of Brexit seems to have people in the UK reduced to such simplified binary thinking they no longer read what their supposed opponents say but simply bombard each other with competing factoids and concomitant abuse.
I don’t believe Catte was taking any part in this black/white Remain/Leave ‘debate.’ I believe she was making a point of some insight and with her trademark wit and clarity that has altogether passed you (and, sadly, several others here) by.
Why not read her article again. You many even understand it on a second run. It would only benefit you.
>>“Not that I’m a Fan”
>>proceeds to shill HARD for the EU
A fine article, which avoids the mistake of over-simplification.
This isn’t a simple matter.
Very apposite, but you talk about shafting Britain like it’s a bad thing. Before Britain tried to escape the EU, it shredded all it could of its residual human rights protections and tried to do the same internationally in Chagos and the Mideast. If the EU stripped Britain’s assets like it did to Greece, that would materially diminish the threat posed by the runt of the P-5 litter. Isolation and slavish dependence on its CIA handlers would help justify curbs on its veto impunity and waterfall privileges in the Secretariat.
Landlord-tenant? See, yet again the image of oppression! Get over this Bullshit. The EU is a Club that benefits its members.
Shame it don’t benefit the average Joe, shame its economic proscriptions ensure perpetual austerity for most, just a shame it exists at all really given it now but another part of a large neolibreal ecosystem we are all supposed to worship.
And it supports Nazis in Ukraine.
Austerity is an EU thing enforced on us! The EU is not your friend and was set up by literal nazis and the CIA
There seems to be a lot of Corbin trolls on this thread. How anyone can shill for Corbin after his links to ” so called ” billionaire, Geoffrey Epstein have come to light? Epstein was the leader cospiracy to rape, abuse and traffic young teens. I am not saying Corbin has done anything wrong but I am not buying Corbins crap about ” Geoffrey had a beautiful mind – and a billion dollars – whats a girl to do ?” He at least should be investigated. And as for all you Corbin trolls who march in lock step towards the establishment of Corbin’s 1000 year reich, I genuinly pity you.
Learn to spell pablomillerunit.
fortunatly, different frank you are not my teacher – just a wannabe who couldn’t get into the spelling police
To the people who just voted down, why ? I was under the impression that most members of the establishment are involved- if not in the crimes of raping, abusing and trafficking young teens at least in the poorly essayed cover up that we now witness. Who have we got here ? Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Tony Blair, some governor and whatnot, correct me if I’am wrong,but thats a full house. I , naturally assumed because Corbin is a member of the establishment, he was involved, sorry if I got that wrong. If that is why you downvoted I accept you correction Corbin was NOT involved in the Epstein conspiracy otherwise an explanation might be nice?
Leadership is a question of moral character.
I’m voting that up, because it’s true.
However, you seem to have no idea where that moral character is to be found today.
Try a new compass.
Is it possible you could state the grounds for that claim?
Basically just your willingness to swallow a cheap story about Corbyn being involved with “the Epstein conspiracy”.
He’s about the only prominent politician today with anything resembling a conscience, and most of us who read OffG are here because we are very much against swallowing cheap stories.
My criticism and suggestion were based upon that perception, but I apologize if I used overkill, since I noted that you accepted a correction on the above Corbyn issue.
I reckon you were right to upvote – I think its a tautology.
It’s just that we got off to a pretty bad start with your,
I have not encountered the phrase “shill for Corbyn before”…
I’m not suprised about that, there is no one shilling for Corbin.
he is on his own unless we help him
Are you thinking of establishment mediawhore stooge Jane Corbin, Pablo. Such an elementary error wouldn’t surprise me, considering the dog’s-breakfast you lot made of the Skripal scam – to the extent that you now have to keep them kidnapped away somewhere unknown (or dead) just to keep them quiet. Er – the real world’s over here – when you want to re-join…
No I was thinking of what Joules Moules said the other day on a thread something about along the lines of ” in a long and dissolute life experience has taught me to suspect everyone ….” ,in the cui bono thread, which I cant find to give you the full correct quote.
“I was thinking of what Joules Moules said the other day on a thread something about along the lines of ” in a long and dissolute life experience has taught me to suspect everyone ….”
No, you weren’t “thinking along those lines”. You were pursuing a particular, defined end. You were fabricating, or knowingly quoting a fabrication of, a direct quote, with intent to establish, or help establish it as real news.
“I , naturally assumed because Corbin is a member of the establishment, he was involved [with Geoffrey Epstein”]
No, you didn’t “naturally assume” that. You didn’t “assume” it at all. In fact you supported it with a direct quote ( ” Geoffrey had a beautiful mind – and a billion dollars – whats a girl to do ?” ) specifically in order to cement it as actual information.
“sorry if I got that wrong.”
No, you didn’t get it wrong. You got confronted with it and backed off with a phoney apology that. And you’re not sorry, except for finding you have to back off or look like what you are. If you hadn’t been confronted with it you would happily skipped the apology and let it ride on.
Why don’t you just write your mind as it is without all the bullshit pfaffing around with phoney claims, phoney retractions and phoney apologies, lest some readers begin to imagine they can smell a rat.
You don’t pity us at all.
You wish you were capable of independent thought too.
You need to relax- I was attempting to make a joke – but with a point behind it. I was trying to suggest that the established leadership cadre seem shot through with corruption and maybe it is time for a change. I prefer Corbin, on moral grounds, over any other option, available in the voting booth. I trust Corbin more than any other option. Corbin attempts to refer to the moral category. None of the others do. Maybe its time to look at all this politics through a slightly different lens. Whether he succeeds or not is immaterial. As for pitying you, in reality why would I – I’m one of you.
Well then all is good.
I’m pretty relaxed generally, but without knowing people at all it is obviously easy to misunderstand the “tone” of their written comments.
I’ve landed in that quandary myself as often as anyone else, and I’m certainly with you in wishing for a real change.
You got class– even though you shill for Corbin! Cheers Wardropper
Oh, one tries…
oh ffs, it’s CORBYN. someone you seem to dislike and profess to want to help in the space of two posts. are you schizophrenic? At least deign to spell the guy’s name properly, eh
I haven’t heard anything linking Corbyn to Epstein. Where did you here this? Being an anti-zionist, I can’t imagine why Corby would want to hang out with someone like Epstein. But maybe you know differently?
I’m sorry Seamus I was attempting to be satyrical I haven’t written anything for 30 years and since reading a lot CJ Hopkins over this past summer he has made be begin writing, which is great except it all comes out as a cack handed sub copy of CJ’s stuff. It will pass. For the record Jeremy Corbin never met Jeffrey Epstein. Cheers
Phew! You had me going there for a minute. I thought I’d missed some important news nugget out there.
stick to your day job of poisoning your assets
Why , are you against people expressing themselves? I would of thought the average off-guardian reader would be delighted at someone doing something creative, especially if that person had done very little that was creative for a long while. You don’t seem to fit that pattern. Your comment seems pointlessly controversial, have you anything intelligent to say ? This isn;t an ” abuse ” board – its a comment board – try writing a comment and show some backbone.
f*** off, troll.
Milosevic, I agree with you. On the the humour bypass, do not worry, it happens to comedians from time to time – you have proably been overdoing it. Take a few day off, do nothing and let your batteries recharge, Don’t listen to the knockers ! You will be funny again. Over the last year some of you comments have made me laugh. Mark my words, a bit of rest and some pandering and you will be back to your razor sharp best. Remember, I believe in you, even if sometimes you do not believe in your self. You are too hard on your self, sometimes honesty shades into self doubt. Do not feel you are on your own, I am there for you every step of the way Cheers!
pablomillerunit
How intelligent does one have to be to be unable to understand the verb: to leave?
The verb to leave the EU is clear enough…
But no mention about leaving the Customs Union or the EEA, nor leaving without a deal, nor when the UK leaves.
So the Parliamentary representative democracy (voted in POST the referendum by the people) is put to work to try and make this desire to leave the EU work in practice; it’s not like walking out of the door when you cancel your gym club membership…
Democrats understand this, but extremists and anarchists struggle with the concept somewhat. And obscenely rich oligarchs who want to keep their tax havens use the media to sell the citizens a lie.
FrankSpeaker. The government’s Remain leaflet, sent to every household at more then £9 million, made it perfectly clear that if we voted to leave that would include leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160813202542/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk
The leave the EU is clear enough…
But no mention about leaving the Customs Union or the EEA, nor leaving without a deal, nor when the UK leaves.
So the Parliamentary representative democracy (voted in POST the referendum by the people) is put to work to try and make this desire to leave the EU work in practice; it’s not like walking out of the door when you cancel your gym club membership…
Democrats understand this, but extremists and anarchists struggle with the concept somewhat. And obscenely rich oligarchs who want to keep their tax havens use the media to sell the citizens a lie.
The “parliamentary representative democracy” never had the slightest intention of implementing Brexit.
It just went through endless arcane mental and linguistic gymnastics to try to pretend otherwise, whilst doing precisely nothing for 3 years.
This article cuts clean thru the bullshit and tells it like it is. A few pearl clutchers respond below the line by throwing the bullshit back again, jumping in it and screaming about how important the fucking bullshit is.
If you don’t want to see clearly no one can make you.
Fortunately I think most here do.
In the Lords now, Lord James has just been told by David Blunkett to stop telling of his amendment as it would be in his best interests – supported by Adonis the Jobswrth – Lord James wants the British public informed of the European Defence plan to steal the military, intelligence and back up including industry. Nobody supported Lord James, rather they laughed at him and claimed it wasn’t relevant. The House of Lords is no better that the HoC – Lord James withdrew his ammendment in the light of the NEED to get the rogue ‘no deal’ bill passed today!!!!!
The electorate are on their own now against parliament
Oh, dear. What a lot of hot-air. It would seem that the public hysteria has reached OffGuardian’s columns. Of course, the frenzy building up is coming from parties which want to avoid Brexit at all and any costs, and there will of necessity be continued turmoil and disruption since this is what usually happens when any significant social and political paradigm shifts occur. If paradigm shifts don’t appeal, then it might be an idea to take Voltaire’s advice and dig the garden instead.
It is significant and unfortunately predictable that a chorus of conservative (small c) voices are beginning to be heard at this time – and from large sections of the left at that. They have suddenly discovered that the ancien regime is not so bad after all, and anyway we can ‘Remain and Reform’ the existing structures of the EU. This is the view of Messers Varoufakis and Zizek. The touted ‘Remain and Reform’ get-out of doing anything significant clause is a necessary figleaf since doing anything significant this will upset things; this default position of the centre-left and has not and will not meet with success, however, quite simply because it doesn’t challenge the three cardinals pillars of the neo-liberal EU. Namely, Freedom of movement of labour, capital, and commodities. Have the lessons of Syriza been forgotten?
You see the economically challenged centre-left have overwhelmingly bought into the end-of-history, end of the nation state, hyper-globalist thesis, which means in practice defanging national struggles against the globalist juggernaut. As Bill Mitchell notes, ‘’ … there are still national borders. There is exchange rate uncertainty despite increased deregulation. There are major cultural and linguistic differences that preclude a full mobilisation of resources across national borders. There is ‘home bias’ in investment portfolios. There is a high correlation between national investment rates and national saving rates. Capital flows between rich and poor national fall considerably short of what theoretical models predict. There are still severe restrictions to the international mobility of labour. The truth is that we do not live in a completely globalised world, far from it. Ergo, nation-states can pursue their own policies. This conclusion is reached by all those who look into it.’’ I think he is right.
Anyway I digress.
Another thing which has occurred is that the EU is doubly occupied, Brussels is the sub-contractor, the boss is in Washington and the US, think operation Gladio. Europe is effectively an occupied zone, politically, ideologically and economically. More so since the ‘New Europe’, to use Cheney’s phrase, has now been tacked on to western Europe. One of the points that Chomsky has made, apart from the fact that there are new good options is that if the UK leaves the EU there will be, given the inclinations of the British ruling class, an irresistible pull of attraction to the US. A point to bear in mind.
But I have to say that I find that the whole business is getting a little tedious; the same ‘arguments’ just get recycled by the same partisans but at a higher volume and the ‘debate’ gets no further ahead. That’s politics I suppose.
I don’t see any hot air in Catte’s piece at all. I see cogent and clear argument. The fact it goes over the heads of the noisiest most opinionated commenters BTL is annoying but not Catte’s fault.
It wasn’t directed at Catte. The hot-air was below the line.
Hot air? Galloway described this article as ‘brilliant brilliant brilliant’.
Francis:
I love Bill Mitchell: but he is as MMT ‘model blind’ as any other MMTer. The Central Bank is an asset of the BIS and the possessing trans-national Inner Party. Onshore capital is not sovereign. It is not the amount of the flow but its denomination in dollars that vassalises all other currencies. And, above all, he and Warren refuse to even talk of the ‘petrodollar’ – which is a myth – but the eurodollar is not. How can an onshore currency be hermetically sealed as an island economy if it is being effectively cloned ‘offshore’ to form the largest pool of liquidity on the planet? It can’t.
Trade is mediated in dollars – and lesser amounts in euros, yen, etc. The Eurobond markets multiply these currencies by interbank lending. The offshore capital markets are huge and underpin speculative lending, shadow banking, and derivatives trades that are merely tangential to the ‘real economy’. This speculative casino adventurism of overfinancialisation has outgrown national real economies by unknown orders of magnitude. If you read between the lines of Mark Carnage’s speech at Jackson Hole – even the central bankers are getting worried. Argentina was a good case study for the autonomy of policy and the Peso.
Crises happen with a ‘strong dollar’ drawing currency onshore from off. Not a ‘savings glut’ of ‘missing’ liquidity. Which leads to a global liquidity imbalance: onshore and off.. BIS working paper 291 has good information on this. Carnage was addressing the same problem: if we translate from the argot of ‘central-bankerese’. No one has answered how a relatively piddling amount of collateralised loan, sub-prime mortgages, and wealth management products could cause a twelve year Epic Crisis globally? Or why the global economy is contracting with all that fictitious finance and speculative capital splossing around offshore. Because every country has a model MMT island currency and policy potential?
The global economy is inter-linked. Importers need exporters (and vice-versa). Very few countries are autonomous and materially self-sufficient. Inter-tradal economic flows needs dollars. Dollars do not grow on mainland trees. The magic money tree is offshore, out of sight, and judging by the interchange of Warren and Steve Keen …outside the neat hermetic MMT model. (Yes, and I do know that Keen is an MMTer – but he has reservations. And none of them will talk about entropy. Keen did: but he thinks technology and future generations will clean up our mess. For which irresponsibility, I defunded him by £3 a month. I never did find out if he modeled import/export trade balances in Minsky. It doesn’t really matter. Entropy is the most important hidden variable that means that economies do not follow anyones model – bar none.).
Yes BigB, I know Mitchell is an MMT enthusiast. I am not actually. I just think his position on the EU, Brexit and the hyper-globalisation gibberish is basically correct. As for MMT, sorry I don’t buy it (forgive the pun) I’ve tried reading that stuff, but the idea that you can print money to infinity and there will be no negative consequences seems totally intuitive, as does the idea of the world operating on the basis of freely floating currencies. For textbooks only. Or the absurd idea that exports are bad an imports are good. Work that one out if you can! MMT is not economics it is theoretical accountancy. We must have a debate about this some time.
whoops I mean ‘counter-intuitive’
Well, that’s exactly what I get from Mitchell and his co-author Thomas Fazi. Particularly the depoliticisation history: from Thatcher to today. He has recently had some good stuff on the rises of financialisation and derivative trading. In answer to my own point above: it is now 73.5 times world GDP …which is staggering. I’m in total agreement with him that this has to stop. Quite how – without crashing the global economy – remains to be seen. I would say let it crash and let the speculators pay. Only it our pensions, welfare, houses, and infrastructure they have been gambling with.
The jury is out on the MMT-GND until detailed proposals are published.
Excellent comment, Frank! Looking forward to your next article. Just a technical correction:
It was actually Rumsfeld who made that howler of a remark. I remember it clearly!
I stand corrected!
“…we can ‘Remain and Reform’ the existing structures of the EU. This is the view of Messers Varoufakis and Zizek.”
Not necessarily Varoufakis’s view. He’s made it clear it was not his view before assuming office, but one born of respect for the express view of the Greek electorate to remain in the EU and the Eurozone once he had, and it’s a view he has seemed less committed to as time goes by. Wouldn’t know about Zizek. It’s such a hassle wiping down the inside of the screen and getting a contact high when the program ends that I usually change channels before it starts.
If we could all grow our own cannabis, we could self-medicate with cannabis oil. Works wonders on too many ailments.
Rick Simpson |The Cannabis Conspiracy, Hemp Oil Healing, & Rockefeller Medicine
I can speak to the efficacy of cannabis as medicine. Been taking the oil, and now the milled foliage in home-made sweetie form for years. Only by mouth. Smoking it is less efficacious for health assistance – though not wholly useless even then. It is indeed a wide-acting health-assisting herbal medicine.
I also give it away to friends and neighbours, and they too report wide-action benefits. Cannabis Health Radio channel, on YT has LOTS of encouraging case-reports, from frontline diy users. Very helpful for getting a true picture.
Sorry Catte! Completely off-topic, but worth knowing.
I will add this to my list of your current activities and include it in the final report.
Apart from the Israeli investment of $one billion plus a hundred million in pure R&D for cannabis product developments in most recent times, it might interest readers to know that Bayer/Monsanto have already developed the first ‘GMO Sativa Seed’ … naturally, you will be needing their seed again . . .
Next year, ( lol ! ) 😉
The subversion of democracy is certainly something to be very concerned about but I do not buy Catte’s argument that all along Brexit was no more than a cunning plan to discredit the vote.
To recap the most significant factor driving Brexit was anti-immigration sentiments – these were fueled by Britains derranged right-wing media and of course by the direct consequences of years of austerity.
Instead of blaming those responsible for this form of class war those at the lower end of the income curve were persuaded to turn against those who were (in the rhetoric of the Daily Mail) stealing our jobs, our homes, and ‘our way of life’.
Such anti-immigration sentiments were given a veneer of respectability when smooth talking operators like Nigel Farage endorsed the basic thesis, while producing alarming posters depicting a ‘swarm’ of foreign invaders, allied to snappy phrases like ‘breaking point’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36570759
The message couldn’t have been clearer – get out of the EU before Britain succumbs to full blown Islamisation or some other kind of external threat.
Eric Zuesse provides a much more insightful, and balanced account (IMO) highlighting the manner in which supposedly democratic institutions have been colonised by powerful lobby groups, corporate entities as well as self-serving politicians (like Boris Johnson, IDS, JRM, Priti Patel and Liam Fox) who’s primary interest is looking after their own class interest rather than serving the needs of the electorate.
https://off-guardian.org/2018/07/02/america-is-one-dollar-one-vote-not-one-person-one-vote/
It goes without saying this form of corruption long precedes Brexit so that today even if Britain was out of the EU it is all too apparent to any rational observer that democracy serves little purpose if the only realistic choice is between various brands of neoliberalism (Blairism, Swinson, or swivel eyed libertarians in the tory party).
As we have seen time and again on Off-G any politician vaguely aligned with the left can expect to attacked vociferously by both sideds – by the right for being a marxist, a spy or an antisemite, or for the left by not being able to withstand the dark forces that shape the long-term outlook of Britain’s reactionary establishment.
It’s not the right-wing media, it’s the Zionist media.
They’re not self-serving politicians, they serve the Zionist agenda.
That entire viewpoint you expressed as being your own is garnered wholesale from the liberal mainstream media that you think you despise but which clearly still shapes your thinking.
Brexit was about a lot more than lowest common denominator racism. Wake up an de-couple from the media ‘reality’.
Concern about lack of labour and travel restriction was conflated with racism but is no such thing. The free movement of Labour is sold as benefiting workers but only benefits employers by driving wages down to the level of the poorest nations in the mix.
And your own comments about the ineffectiveness of voting indicates the liberal media bid to discredit voting has also worked on you.
That’s a real thing bro. Haven’t you seen the articles in the Grauniad and co complaining how voting is undemocratic? Clearly they’ve impacted you subliminally at least.
Here is a series of front pages from the Express Terence – subliminal?
https://twitter.com/theryderathome/status/1168025054824882177?s=20
What is the problem with comprehension skills on this thread?
Point 1 – I did not say there was no racism, did I? So showing me some racism is totally pointless.
I said Brexit was ‘about a lot more’ than that.
But sure, show me some of the racism I never denied existed, and totally ignore what I actually said.
Point 2 – The ‘subliminal’ quote you lift was made in connection to a TOTALLY SEPARATE POINT about how the OP was being ‘subliminally’ influenced against the value of voting.
You just skimmed and then leaped on your hobbyhorse without bothering to understand what I actually said.
You wrote “Brexit was about a lot more than lowest common denominator racism.”
I showed you how the msm (as did targeted social media advertising) used the lowest common crass button pushing of prejudices, to blame the effects of POLITICAL AUSTERITY upon EU membership.
Of course I am not saying all who voted leave did because of EU workers and families.
I will say the likelyhood is high that ALL who hate immigrants from anywhere, if they look or speak differently, voted leave.
Nuanced enough for you?
And btw the Groan is the msm and as such it is shilling what all msm is doing – a hard brexit.
As is the beeb.
And yes i agree they are trying to also dampen the fervour for voting that they instigated by the brexit campaign. A high turnout in a GE favours Labout.
Are you insane? The liberal media is spawning articles about brexit being crazy and Boris Johnson being a lunatic or a devil.
Kindly point to one single article in the liberal press that is pro-Brexit.
Kindly point me to a list of what you consider to be ‘liberal’ media.
Look, do me a favour – please read the Princeton study linked to in Eric’s piece (above).
It is perhaps the most devstating critique of the way in which democracy has been subverted by those with sufficient money and power to do so (and long pre-dates Brexit).
In other words its a bit late in the day to notice how democratic values have been steadily eroded by predatory capitalism.
In fact from your response it seems like you don’t understand what I have actually said (hence ludicrous claims about how my outlook has been shaped by the MSM).
To take one example: electoral motives for the LEAVE vote.
Several attempts were made to analyse the most significant factors affecting those who wanted out of the EU – in all those I have seen anti-immigration sentiments always came out on top, or near the top. This is a simple undeniable fact, and not something invented by the Guardian.
http://www.euvisions.eu/factors-explain-citizens/
If you want to flesh out Catte’s argument a bit more please provide some evidence about who first devised this plan (and when), or a reasonable argument about how the strategy was implemented (and by which protagonsists).
As you can see, I am not dismissing the idea out of hand but in its present guise it seems a bit under-developed to get too carried away.
On the analogy disagreement, I thought how Catte’s example could be expanded to make it more like the situation that we are in.
I am the tennant, in dispute with a landlord, and I want to walk away from the situation on my terms. However, my sister also rents her business premises from the same landlord, and my mother and father rent a flat. More than that, the landlord keep his accounts at the accountancy firm which I own and run. The landlord is a bit of a big cheese at the local chamber of commerce and has actually put a lot of custom my way in the nepotistic way that business works. This forms a lot of my client base.
So imagine I just walk away from my one-to-one dispute with the terrible landlord and leave him out of pocket. He suddenly decides he needs to put up the rent on my sister’s shop, he needs to sell my parents’ flat which they love, he needs a new accountant and puts word round that he’s taking his business elsewhere. My business partner falls out with me, my business starts to fail, my family are furious at me, my parents soon to be needing a home.
I could just walk away from all that I guess and go and start a whole new life somewhere else, but that would be hard.
In a rather limited scenario of atomised economic actors out for their own self interests, Catte’s analogy does make sense, and makes a point. (I can’t help but think, ironically, of the image of ‘homo economicus’ at the centre of the Neoliberal religion). However, in truth, we are all drawn together by threads of connection that make negotiation and compromise essential. . The same is true of nation states -except of course that the connections are many times more complex.
There is no No Deal. There will be a deal, before or after the deadline. ‘No Deal’ means the inevitable negotiation will happen outside of A50 and beyond the scrutiny of the rather limp attempt at a democratic body in the UK, namely parliament. No Deal, means the deal of the governnment, the shady backers who fund Legatum, the City actors who want this.
The centrists we love to hate, are trying to keep their little corner of power, namely an effective parliament.
You’re still missing the point I’m afraid Crank, which doesn’t need any bells and whistles and isn’t dependent on the type or location of the negotiation.
It’s not about whether you SHOULD walk away, that’s a separate question.
It’s pointing out the simple fact that if you CAN’T walk away, if you’re prevented from doing so IN ANY CIRCS, the other side has no incentive to offer any but the worst possible terms, knowing you literally can’t refuse.
See?
Especially – as clearly stated in the article – when the other side is a bad person/entity.
Nonetheless, Crank is talking sense. It IS a complex situation that needs careful, non-Borisoid negotiation – which is exactly what JC and friends are aiming to do properly, I suspect; the one block of parliamentarians who are acting like good-faith realists, looking at the real, complex pressures on both sides of the EU-Britain table, to see what can be worked out that’s actually tolerable for all of us.
And one option, once the crazy crashout wanted by the US-kissing Borisoids has been blocked, is for a later parliament to say: ‘OK, the situation’s changed. We’ve prevented a hard, sellout-to-USAmerica crash-out. Now let’s have another look at that no-leaving-without-a-deal Act of P., and see whether we’re ready to repeal it now – and so be able to talk to the EU chiefs about mutual damage-limitation, on more equal terms, without artificial time limits, and with the option to walk away back in play.’
Having reached that stage, it will also be possible to offer the electorate the chance of another – or even several – referenda, to see what we-all now think, after these several years of weird paradigm-shift upheaval since the first one. Something approaching an honest, actually-democratic path, in other words, which Corbyn, in his understated way, always favours, unlike the dirty manipulations to which we’re being subjected right now by the English-raj-class gics (the gangsters-in-charge) and their bourgeois media’n’politics-whore servitors.
All this sounds like realistic statesmanship to me; which I think is what Jeremy Corbyn has always tried to honour – as an honest realist.
Dmitry Orlov pointed out in a recent blog that ‘democracy’ as we have it in the West now doesn’t work: it always degenerates into kleptocracy. However, what does work, with plenty of past and present examples to point to, is socialism with pragmatic market elements. That’s what we need here, urgently. And Corbyn, given the fighting chance that he now has, could deliver a version of that. Even the FT is beginning to admit it might not be so bad…
Then we are just into semantics. I am not saying that we ‘should not walk away’ I am saying that ‘we cannot walk away’. Period. Unless someone presents a future scenario where the UK has no further relations with the eu, then I take it as a given that there is no option of ‘walking away’. The attempts to legally block no deal are not attempts to legally prevent ‘walking away’, but rather attempts to legally block the executive from making the negotiations exclusive to the executive and their chums.
Most interesting the comments … no one has suggested the Bexit deal might be best negotiated by private parties. ( no government involvement is needed).. for example the pharmaceutical shortage is not really a shortage endemic to England, where one exists, but is global due to supply problems at the usual EU approved sources. and in some cases England could easily establish internally its own manufacturers. However if a new government were formed by say referendum or if private parties negotiate ..in global markets, no Bexit deal is necessary or even desirable? Global market forces vs competing private parties will find the supply and establish the best deals and bring the results to the UK without regard to government intervention or government to government deals. The argument about no deal Bexit is about those in charge of government trying to middle man the supply side economics.
Without the EU, British entrepreneurs should be able to render supply side economics. if the government wants to keep prices in line, it can supplement the purchase or reimburse the buyer.. more or less on the ability to pay..
Oh.
Gosh.
(Not got any pearls to grab but i’ll just imagine them)
You are absolutely right Catte. There is a coup underway.
It hasn’t physically materialised quiet yet. It is under construction like one of these toy battlefields. Take a brigade from Labour add a flank of tories, throw in the Irregulars under the Libdem flag coming in as reinforcements and charge like a herd of gnu’s through the flailing Tories to head off the election and a possibility of a Corbynite govt.
The election will happen it doesn’t have to be by October 17th.
The EU is not a landlord but a partner.
We are not a tenant demanding a deposit. It is more a stroppy mid life crisis bad spouse demanding a divorce without admitting their responsibilities and making a fair settlement. A bit like a John Cleese rant.
The current WA is based on May’s unilateral red lines. If there were new red lines there would be grounds for a variation to the WA.
It is eye ball time, much like the three way shoot out in the film The good, the bad and the ugly.
Tense innit?
(It has been a increasingly dynamic site here. Thanks to all you peeps at O-G, great writers and top publishing )
I thought it brave to render the issue in the form of an analogy because of the fingernails-across-a -blackboard effect it appears to have on some.Not me.I like to see problems like this one put cogently( as this was ),a core around which our understanding is eventually wrapped. The end lies concealed in the beginning.All bodies grow around a skeleton.Life is a petticoat about death.I will not go to bed.” ( ‘The Crock of Gold’ )
Put it more simply.
You go Arthur Daley’s used car lot.
“Ooh Arthur, I simply must have your clapped out Ford Cortina! I can’t live without it! I simply must have it at any price!”
Do you think that Arthur would bother throwing in his personal warranty, the free wine glasses and the free terracotta pot?
But I’ve already got a Mondeo. If he offers me a rubbish deal on the Cortina I’ll stick with the Mondeo thanks.
That’s what all these ‘deal’ analogies generally miss – we already have a deal, we’re just asking for a different one.
The deal is we’re shackled to the stinking corpse of an arrogant, corrupt, anti democratic, visibly disintegrating EU superstate. This is our one and only chance to extricate ourselves from this nightmare.
Corbyn won’t listen to the Bliarites so I think your point is somewhat moot.
Yesterday he put in a commanding performance and I predict that all the Bliarite leeches will scuttle off to join the FibDems.
The Blairites are running the whole show and setting the pace. It was a Blairite who tabled to NoDeal bill, and it’s right-wingers like McDonnell controlling Corbyn, at least by George Galloway’s account.
They have manoevered Corbyn into backing Remain, as Catte says, which alienates him from the North which is his natural constituency and which was strongly Leave.
If he had stuck to his guns about backing the referendum and voted for a GE he would likely have become PM.
I don’t see it that way. Corbyn is pro Leave…but not to crash out Disaster Capitalism style with no deal. That was never part of the referendum.
That’s what he’s working to avoid, he’s not succumbed to the Remainers.
Galloway says that ‘it is all in the public record’ that McDonnell is controlling Corbyn.
Do you know what he means by this?
Crank, not I don’t know, but I guess McDonnell may be a bit more of a realist that the idealist that Corbyn tends to have as a bit of weakness – nothing wrong with that per se, but at a time of national chaos I think McDonnell could perhaps do a better job than Corbyn in sorting the mess out.
I would have replied earlier, but bizarrely I’ve gone from being moderated and censored by the neoliberals on the Guardian, to now being totally moderated, and perhaps censored, here on OffG.
SNP?
The Bliarite leeches make up 85% of the PLP.
True story
Oh for gawds sakes
Corbyn campaigned for REMAIN.
He accepted the result to Leave.
Unless that result is proven to be flawed and illegal and is reheld because of that – the result stands.
He campaigned in a general election on a manifesto promising to honour the referendum.
Labour got 40% of that vote, Tories got 40% too!
But the tories did not then involve the Labour Brexit team in a cross bench alliance to set the RED LINES that determined the negotiations that led to the WA.
I mean, what is the point of ignoring these very recent facts?
I’ve got some good swamp land I want to sell you.
The sad thing is that leave or remain the oligarchs are shafting us any way. I still cant get my head around how easy it has been to divide the country, and have both sides blaming the other. Oh and the money raker,s love all this chaos though. Its great for making a killing. Check out the Legatum think tank for starters.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/legatum-who-are-brexiteers-favourite-think-tank-and-who-is-behind-them/
Thanks, that is interesting Kathy.
I was interested in ‘Unherd’ – the web journal edited Tim Montgomerie and funded by pro-Brexit hedge funder Marshall.
Under regular authors we see Paul Embery listed second under Douglas Murray (read Craig Murray on him).
The Blue Labour gang (like the Spiked Online trotskyists) seem to keep some strange company. I am thinking of all the retweets that George Galloway gives to Embery’s twitterings….
I also agree that Chandler’s rise to megawealth seems suspiciously bizarre, and people asking about his incredible knack of speculating extremely risky investments in post Soviet Russia have would fit the pattern of an intelligence relationship.
I agree with Ryan Dawson though, the likely candidate is Israel not Russia in all matters pertaining to accusations of ‘outside interference’.
Note the identitarian categories of the Russian billionaires who made it big in the Yeltsin years.
Bojo has lost his majority and now has a split party with a deficit of approximately 21 mps, his brother resigned today. Moreover by forcing an extension to brexit and denying him the GE he craves, Bojo and his advisers cannot trap the Labour into a forced election which the Tories believe would have given them a major advantage to win. Yes, the PLP is dominated by ” moderates, centrists, Blairites” but Corbyn has been playing the long game. Hence why the local CLPs have the power to deselect MPs. It’s the membership that counts in the long run. Returning the party to it’s democratic socialist roots is a gradual process as Corbyn knows very well.
That is why the SNP has a golden opportunity with their 35 MPs to demand X in return for support.
The resignation of Ruth is the writing on the wall for the Tories in Scotland as is the purging of 21 moderate, if there is such a concept in the Tory party, mps. The SNP are a direct result of Labour trying to out Tory the Tory party as is the Labour party becoming a Labour party once more. New Labour was consigned to the dustbin of history it appears the Conservative party will soon join them. How many Tory leaders has Jeremy Corbyn seen off ?
Another Inane Analogy. Thing is the EU is not analogous to a landlord and the uk to a tenant. A better analogy would be the member of a golf club who wishes to leave so that he wont have to pay his dues, but still wants to play on the course when it suits him. The club committee offers him a deal – if he pays his arrears and agrees to play by the same rules unless new ones can be devised – then a future arrangement will be possible. But the member says “your deal isn’t good enough – if you don’t give me a better one I’ll drown myself and my family in your water hazard and that will cause you a real headache !!!” See how silly the ‘no deal threat’ is ?
I agree, Catte’s analogy makes zero sense to me.
The details are irrelevant, and you’re missing the point.
If you and I are negotiating and I can walk away without a deal but you CAN’T, it follows I can offer any terms I like and you will be forced in the end to accept them.
Think about it. Try it out with a friend. The media noise has blinded you to the obvious.
And try not to use words like ‘inane’. It’s only ironic when the point is sailing so far over your head.
The landlord analogy assumes that at the end of the tenancy, however it finally ends, there will be no more interaction between the parties. That is what happens when people move out of rented property : things are settled up (often acrimoniously) but both parties go their own way in life. The matter is closed.
This is not the case here with Brexit is it?
Whatever ultimately happens, there will be SOME sort of ongoing relationship between the continent of Europe and the United Kingdom, one that involves trade, laws, people, borders, knowledge, weapons and on and on.
So I think that Catte’s analogy is doesn’t fit at all well. I think it [adj.]’lacks sense and meaning’.
You’re not getting it. The minutiae of the analogy is completely irrelevant.
It’s just blindingly simple.
How do you negotiate if you can’t say no?
I think I am getting it. It is not the minutiae to which I object, it is the fundamental premise of the analogy which sets a false frame.
There is no ‘just say no’ if both parties are bound by future entanglements. A landlord and a tennant can have nothing whatsoever to do with each other ever again. That (-I presume you agree) cannot be the case with the UK and the EU.
Ok, let’s try again.
Forget the landlord analogy. Forget golf clubs. Forget everything.
It’s just two beings in a void negotiating a deal.
What the deal is about doesn’t matter.
The point is one of them literally can’t walk away, but the other one can.
Do you not see that this means the one who can’t walk away will in the end be forced to accept whatever terms the other party chooses?
He literally can’t say no!
You have to be able to walk away or you have nothing to bargain with.
Benn’s bill is a sneaky way of making sure the UK has to accept whatever terms the EU offers.
I get the principle, but it doesn’t apply to the case under discussion, so it is no more than a distracting hypothetical.
We are not in a void.
We cannot just walk away (unless we are prepared to break all contact with the EU forward of this point).
‘No Deal’ just means a deal struck outside of parliamentary oversight. That is all it means. It is an attempted power grab.
The principle applies to EVERY NEGOTIATION THERE HAS EVER BEEN.
YOU CAN’T NEGOTIATE IF YOU CAN’T SAY NO.
Sheesh! Do we need diagrams?
If you are intent on using the analogy of a landlord and tenant. Then maybe to progress this further. The issue now arises as you are actually moving into the semidetached property next door and you will still need to pass the water supply and food between the two properties. This is what happens with Ireland. On top of needing some level of mutual agreement for this too continue. A problem also arises because the semidetached properties have a dividing wall and by closing the doors between the two houses you now cause potential reawakening of an old argument between the two house holders who are sharing the property with you.
No, you just need to understand that the ban can be repealed any time parliament wants. So the analogy is fatally incomplete.
So we introduce a law that means our negotiators can’t walk away and have accept a deal – any deal.
But that’s ok because we can always repeal the law?
The insanity of the arguments here are truly unbelievable
Shouldn’t the question be why hamper our negotiators with this stupid law in the first place?
So – parliament should renounce the right to pass a law for tactical purposes, and then – after it’s done it’s job, and a chaotic and unpredictable situation has evolved further – decide to repeal it as no longer needed as an urgent stop-gap? That’s an insane line of reasoning, is it? Are you residing in an insane asylum yourself just now, J? 🙂
What’s so difficult to understand about this stroke of yer-actually-practical politics? Do you not get the logic? First block the schemes of the shysters behind the witless oaf Johnson; then, when that’s been done decisively, let go of the handy-for-the-moment tool that does that job. Fairly elementary – as Sun Tzu might have said…
It’s you who’s missing the point – the other party has to have something to lose by the other side ‘walking away’. Put simply the EU loss is dwarfed by the UK one. Saying ‘no’ carries so little weight as to be risible and ‘keeping it on the table’ continues to be counter productive. It’s actually easy enough to understand without silly analogies that don’t work.
But if the EU has nothing to lose by the UK walking away, what is the basis for negotiation?
What leverage does the UK have here if even a flat refusal to negotiate at all carries no weight?
It doesn’t have ‘nothing’ to lose.
The argument is that it is ‘dwarfed’ by the potential losses of the economically smaller party (UK). [not that I am necessarily arguing that, but you misrepresent I think].
I had a look at a 3 year old Audi on a garage lot the other day. It was going for £43,000.
Germany exports 850,000 of those and others like it brand new to the UK every year. Many for a lot more than £43k a throw.
It is Germany’s biggest export market.
The EU loses more than the UK in any scenario.
Any losses conceivably suffered by the UK would be “dwarfed” by those of Eire.
It doesn’t make any sense for Eire to remain in the EU if the UK leaves.
People who are happy to buy a £43k car because it is what they want to drive will find even more if necessary. It is like jewelery, expensive watches, designer clothing etc. The customers will still exist. German cars will always be desired because of their status. Just like Rolls Royces are mainly sold abroad the demand will not diminish.
You may have uncovered a facet of Brexit that needs exploration. Assuming that the Audi figures are correct that’s (conservatively) about 20 billion sterling sales to the UK each year. There’s 100% certainty that this isn’t going to be paid for cash on the barrel but rather financed through a complex series of loans and exchanges which result in a stream of income from the car buyers (who are really ‘car loan payers’) to the banks holding the paper. As we’ve learned from 2007-8 this type of loan tends to collateralized and is often leveraged so any shock to the cash flow can cause catastrophic results along the finance chain.
(I can see a situation post-Brexit where big ticket items like cars are priced and paid for in Euros rather than the local currency. Its common practice in Eastern Europe.)
How? Repeal the ban – when you’re sure you’re ready. Then continue to negotiate, knowing that walking away is back on the table, and you’re now ready to handle it effectively, if you have to; and your opposite number understands that reality too.
The amount of stupid on display BTL today is grim.
Trying to explain why you can’t make a deal if you can’t say no should not be this hard.
You have my sympathies, Ed, MLS and all
Ever seen a messy divorce – where one side decides to say they prefer no deal and walks away as a successful strategy?
Yes, I have seen that. It works pretty well if the one who desires a no deal has all the money and property, while the other has maybe only the children and has to beg the other for money and property or otherwise will face grim situations, and therefore cannot except a no deal.
Like the EU that is negotiating with GB. The EU is the one with money and property. GB has the pound (funny money) and sold its property, so basicly has nothing except for a lot of mouths to feed.
I wish you weren’t in this situation. It is totally unfair. But perhaps GB should just walk away and see if they can deal on their outgrow the Nemesis, which is the EU. Just look at Greece…
Well Willem if you have seen that messy divorce – you will know that the one who tries to run away refusing to pay their divorce liabilities is MADE to by a judge in a court room.
That is why there is no ‘no-deal’ in divorce proceedings.
Why is that so hard to accept?
A divorce is a negotiation with laws and rules which favour one side. Ie: not a genuine negotiation. Brexit is not a divorce, and we could walk away without paying any recompense. The government’s lawyers have put a figure of 9 billion owed by us. This does not include our share of the ECB (which we want to retain, or the real estate. The real estate alone would tilt the negotiation to the EU owing us money.
Stupid? Well you’re contributing, T. What don’t you get about the idea that parliament – a parliament after this one – can repeal the ban? What’s so difficult to understand about that?
Ed, none of the above stands if I can repeal my – self-imposed – ban on walking away any time I choose. It’s just as easy to see the ban as a stop-gap plug in a hull-leak, until you can get the ship into dry-dock, when you can knock out the – strictly temporary – plug, and get a proper fix done. (I live on a boat…:) ) Nothing in the – non-existent – British Constitution says that the ban can’t be reversed when parliament decides it’s done its urgent, first-aid job.
Oh Purleeeeeze!
Not the daft “Golf Club” analogy again? (Have you been reading The Guardian?)
What golf club pays members to join and continues to do so for years?
What golf club encroaches on your home life and makes laws for you?
What golf club tells you how you should spend your money when not playing golf?
What golf club goes out of it’s way to impoverish you when you decide to leave?
The list is long, and comparing the EU to a golf club is beyond absurd.
Yeah I’d agree that no analogy is going to fit and anyone with a measure of intelligence will understand that a threat to walk away from a deal carries little weight when it’s impact upon the other party is minimal by comparison to thagmkf the party making the threat. Sorry I didn’t mean to patronise anyone – I followed the analogy template set atl.
Try telling Germany that the impact of a no-deal is going to be minimal. Try telling The Republic of Ireland. And, if cross-border travel arrangements turn messy in the event of a no-deal, try telling Spain and Portugal that the effects will be minimal, as both their economies crash and burn due to loss of tourism revenue.
The impact upon the EU is dwarfed by that on the UK. You fail to understand that the UK is dealing with the EU as a collective entity – not individual member states. RoI will be protected from the worst fall out by EU transfer if funds for example – and indeed will likely benefit in the mid-term as inward investment goes from UK to RoI. So really to threaten no deal is just a nonsense that simply poisons negotiations. Please be my girlfriend or I’ll throw myself off beachy head! The EU as a collective has no incentive to give the UK a ‘good deal’ – that would be an existential threat to it. On the contrary it’s incentive is to treat the UK as a third country.
Oh, fer FFS, you Project Fear merchants are relentless with your lies. Britain won’t have a crisis in the event of a no-deal brexit. There will be no food shortages, because we can order as much food as we want to from non-EU countries, it will arrive in a couple of days, and it will be far cheaper than from the EU. We won’t have a medicines crisis, because we can order as much medicine as we require from Indian and Bangladeshi pharmaceutical factories (the same ones that do all the manufacturing for Western Big Pharma) at a small fraction of the price that we are currently paying. Doctors/Consultants will lose their Big Pharma gig, but who cares about that, other than them? We won’t have a monetary crisis because the EU is beholden to London. Currency speculators will put pressure on Sterling again, just like that lovely man (if I am to believe the BEEB’s fawning website article today) Soros did back in the day. We will ride it, just like we did back in the day.
I like the analogy of the landlord. The buy-to-letters are bricking a no deal Brexit because they realise their homes as assets scam and house price inflation might actually not go on forever. The selfish greed of these parasites is beyond sickening.
Your article makes a big claim about ‘pearl clutching’ implying that there are no serious consequences in a No Deal Brexit led by Boris Johnson and associates.
But I ask, at this moment, politically, where are you Catte ?
Do some reading beyond the MSM and you will see that Universties are declaring a No Deal Brexit as ‘highly undesirable’; the Federation of Small Businesses ‘say “No” to a disorderly No Deal Brexit’; The British Medical Journal tell us that pharmacists warn about worsening drug shortages if No Deal goes ahead; Unite the union (Corbyn’s closest and most active supporter in the trade union movement) campaign ‘No Deal, No Way’; UNISON (the biggest union) warn about us ‘sleepwalking into a disaterous No Deal’; Momentum now campaign against a No Deal, and Corbyn has asked the public to protest against a No Deal……
For you it seems these opinions either don’t exist, or are insignificant, or are all part of a deranged hysteria propagated by the Guardian newspaper.
Seems kind of disconnected to me.
Or, by your logic, I could just as well accuse you of working for the 1% by trying to muddy the waters and pushing a politically absurd fringe Left position which in effect bolsters the mad Brexit Party – Johnson Tories nexus of Neocons.
I don’t accuse you of that because I don’t share your logic, but I think I’ve made the point.
I don’t quite get your argument . All the organisations you mention are surely ‘remain’ organisations.
The deal they want is a deal that means we never actually leave.
Name me some ‘Leave’ organisations (your binary) and we might see where Catte is at politically – which was my point.
The Great Club Of the 17.5 Million.
Which at the most recent vote had shrunk to a mere 5.2 million Brexit Party Ltd vote.
Mark,
that is not an organisation (the key point).
Crank
As you say, all those parties you mention have their own views and interests. My understanding of Catte’s recent articles is they are more about challenging our thinking rather than leaping on some special interests bandwagon or setting out a political position. In my view, it is more about stepping back and taking time to critically reflect.
Up until recently I was a rep for Unite the Union. That doesn’t mean I adopted their position on Brexit. In fact I felt it was too simplistic and narrow and I often disagreed with their position and tactics which I felt were sometimes petty minded and too political. Academics, unions and charities, interest groups all have opinions and vested interests but rarely do I see them looking at the bigger picture and think critically. If they did, I believe we would have a decent well informed opposition in this country and we wouldn’t be having debates like this.
I guess that is politics.
I wrote elsewhere that I have (somewhat passively) supported Leave from a Left wing anti-Neoliberal perspective over the past 3 years, in principle. My point to Catte was about the politics, as I think she is tacitly advancing a political position.
Oh Lordy!
Not the drugs shortage idiocy again?
There will only be a shortage of drugs if HMRC refuse entry of essential drugs into the UK in the short window following a clean Brexit.
Of course HMRC would not hold them up, so a completely daft scenario that would never occur.
And lest we forget, there is no such thing as a no-deal-Brexit since there are already deals on aviation, haulage, Calais etc. And “no-deal” would swiftly be replaced by more small deals or a bigger deal that worked for us and our partners in Europe too.
It appears far too many readers here are still believing in the un-hinged hysterics emanating from The Guardian.
From my place on the groundas a pharmacist I can tell you I’d be very very surprised if those proclamations of shortages were coming from anyone who works at supply level. It’s just not the way the industry works. We get supplies from multiple routes exactly so that we can’t run dry, and as of now there is no indication our EU suppliers will stop shipping, but if they do we have suppliers in China, Canada and Israel.
The brands we get may change in that case but the active components in the drugs will be identical.
I am 100% sure that is scare stories and it makes me wonder how much else we see about other shortages is just as untrue.
I am sure that there are exagerated stories in the media about this. It is how they work. Not that I take your word as more authoratative than that of a group of pharmacists speaking publicly.
My point was that to stand forward and say, ‘No Deal, no problem’ cuts against a lot of opinion from people who work in many fields, not just the opinion of media cliques in London (as Catte seemed to be saying in her article).
Indeed. The media hysteria around shortages is reminiscent of the Y2K hysteria, commonly cited by the tinfoil hat brigade as a hoax when none of the predicted calamaties came to pass.
As one that worked in IT in that era, the problem was real, identified well in advance and much work was done to mitigate the problem. So good was the work done behind the scene, whilst the media were running around with its hair on fire, that very few issues occurred.
I’d be very surprised if the drug supply situation is any different and the quiet people responsible for maintaining it have had getting on three years to ensure that there is no discontinuity.
The people who want to Remain are:-
Blair
Soros
Obama
Carney
The Blairite Backstabbers who have been knifing Jezza for the past 3 years.
The City
CBI
The Banks
The Media
The Spooks
That’s just a short list.
Good company you’re keeping.
I don’t want Remain, and I don’t keep the company of any of those people.
What is more there are plenty who DO want Reamin who don’t identify with any of those crooks, just as there are many Leavers who do not identify with Aaron Banks or Nigel Farage.
It’s a bit depressing when, even at this late stage, the debate in some heads still falls back to “A or B, if not A then must mean B”.
Another ringer from Catte! Please keep ’em coming.
I know! How is it that the Remoaners just don’t seem to understand such a basic point? Looking desperate for a deal never gets you a good deal.
But I’ve got to do something I don’t normally do and black-pill my Brexit comrades just a bit:
I think any intelligent, half-way honest Brexiteer would admit that, immediately after a hard Brexit, there would be a recession of some severity and duration. Mind you, probably nothing fatal–Britain will have certainly seen worse in its history; but pulling out of the EU without an agreement would likely mess with supply-chains here and there, perhaps causing some temporary dislocation.
But here’s the real danger: some unscrupulous oligarchs could game the situation to their advantage and try and pull a ‘shock doctrine’ on you all. It wouldn’t be too hard, for example, for some finance sharks in The City–or George Soros–to start shorting the pound like crazy in order to trigger a severe currency crisis. Or they could take aim at your bond rating, forcing Britain to pay extortionate rates to refinance its debt. In other words, they could use Brexit as cover for turning you into the next Argentina. Worst case scenario? They might even be able to finally pull off the ultimate: a full privatization of the NHS. And here’s the kicker: the media will blame it all on Brexit! That’s right: you will take the fall for their crime.
Now, I’m not saying you all should back off of Brexit just because of that possibility–and it is just a possibility, remember. But I think it would be prudent if you all started to appraise one another of this scenario and get this story out to the public so that, if it does happen, you can undermine the media’s anti-Brexit spin somewhat.
Bill Mitchell has posted on this exact issue, namely the short term impact of a No Deal Brexit on 31 October, I’m still digesting his ideas on a MMT Green Revolution: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=43058
MMT is good stuff.
Sterling is a free floating sovereign fiat currency, and all the UK’s public “debt” (AKA private sector savings) is in Sterling, the monopoly creator of which is the UK govt via its central bank, the BoE.
Therefore the UK govt has no need to default on any “debt”, and as Sterling is no longer on the Gold Standard, or in a peg to any other currency, it has no need to increase interest rates to defend it. This renders the markets powerless.
There is a limit to how low the currency of a developed economy can fall, because import substitution, increased exports, and currency movements due to increased foreign direct investment all serve to put a floor on the value of that currency.
Well done Chris Rogers for linking to Bill Mitchell’s blog; MMT sees off any fake “threat” from markets and ratings agencies to a post-Brexit UK.
I was just giving a possible example of what sort of mischief they could get up to. Even if they can’t directly get at the currency, they can always do something to cause chaos–the banksters are very resourceful people.
I have to take 15 mg of Methotrexate every week for a rheumatic condition. Cancer patients need much larger doses. My local independent pharmacist could only give me 12 tablets this week, half the prescription (4 weeks’ supply), because he is having such difficulties in obtaining his usual supplies. I need to go back next week for the rest. I’ve been told that the large pharmacists like Boots and Lloyds are doing the same thing with this and other drugs. It may well be that there are no actual ”shortages” at present, but that somewhere in the supply chain, stocks are being hoarded against the possibility of genuine shortages in the future. However, it is inevitably worrying when one relies on these drugs and has never had any reason to doubt their supply before. It makes me think of the 1950s and 60s when my Polish dad used to send fairly basic drugs to his relatives back home, because they couldn’t get them there.
marijo1951,
In no way to I mean to belittle your issue in gaining necessary supplies of a drug you require, and of late have heard several similar instances, namely, drugs in short supply and prescriptions needing to be fulfilled at numerous pharmacies.
That said, methotrexate is viable for supply from 5 nations internationally, there are 10 suppliers in total, here is the list:
Fermion from Finland
Zhejiang Hisun Pharma from China
Suryakala Laboratories Pvt Ltd from India
Excella from Germany
Huzhou Zhanwang from China
CF Pharma from Hungary
Mac Chem Products from India
Zhejiang Haizhou from China
Patriapharma from Hungary
Shanghai Jinhe Bio-Pharma from China.
Of the 10 suppliers, 5 are in the European economic Area, the remainder are in China and India.
My own Public Health Service in Hong Kong, which is based on the UK’s NHS, is certainly not a third world in character and many of the drugs I’m prescribed for long term medical ailments come from China, whilst others come from all over the World.
I understand the NHS imposes strict standards on most medications that UK suppliers like Boots must abide by, that said, there is no global shortage, so, maybe, given many businesses have known that Brexit would occur after the UK enacted Article 50, we should ask why they are not prepared and why alternative sources outside of the EEA have not been utilised?
Pharmacies do always routinely have backup suppliers. There’s no reason to anticipate any problem
I certainly agree with your last paragraph. Currently there is much discussion on various patients’ forums about ingenious ways of obtaining supplies if the worst comes to the worst. I wasn’t really making a political point – just pointing out that it’s impossible not to be concerned when one is already affected by a possible shortage.
I’m a pharmacist and I can categorically tell you there is no shortage of supply or problem with shipping. The only issue we have is people trying to get prescriptions six or eight months in advance because they have been panicked by media scares.
We don’t currently anticipate any supply problems as we do routinely have numerous sources for most commonly prescribed meds specifically to guard against problems of supply. But hoarding and panic buying may produce further problems.
GaleW,
Many thanks for your professional input on this matter, having a firm grasp of supply chains and supply chain risk management, together with international logistics, I’ve been at a loss, if standard industry operating procedures are adhered to, why many are reporting difficulties in gaining drugs they require in the UK – I understand we may experience difficulties in some food supplies, particularly goods from Holland, that said, and when I grew up in Wales, most fruit and veg we consumed was actually seasonal, that is, we did not have access to non-seasonal goods 24/7/365 – allegedly, pre-1973 we were all heathens in the UK engaging in cannibalism, well that’s if you believe the EU fanatics.
And GaleW, the obvious thing about this is that if people die from a shortage of needed medicinal drugs, the UK government (that governs over one of the richest nations in the world) will be toast.
At that point the citizens of the UK might finally get out on the streets with their pitchforks; something that’s long overdue.
RobG,
I’d not bet your house on that proposition, currently, we’ve had in excess of 130K deaths associated with the unnecessary imposition of Austerity on the UK since May 2010 0 100’s of 1000s have been left destitute due to Tory/Fib Dem savaging of social security, whilst many go hungry, or without heat.
The only major demo’s I’ve seen of late are Extinction Rebellion (Manufactured by the global elite) and this weekends AntiCoup, Pro-Democracy outbursts that have funnily ceased once we have mention of an actual, genuine General Election – and most folks at those demo’s were well heeled shall I say!
Chris, I have already pointed out the austerity deaths in another thread.
Admin, if you’re tuning in, I only dip into this board now and again, and I find the comment threads difficult to follow. Maybe I’m getting old and senile: most times e-mail notification of replies only gets to me days after the comments in question.
Quite often I can’t even post comments or access this site.
I mean no criticism of OffG. I’m just trying to explain to posters why I don’t always respond.
But enough of all this, Chris. My next obvious question (amidst all the unprecedented turmoil that is going on), is what should be Corbyn’s next move?
Well Rob, since Labour narrowly lost the 2017 election, most on the Left have pushed for a General Election, one which we hoped would deliver JC to Number 10, and allow our Party to make a deal with the EU ( if at all possible) and honour the 2016 result with as little economic disruption as possible – this sensible ‘halfway house’ approach has been condemned time and time again by the Traitors in the PLP to the point as of this week that I’m unsure if the Party is even following our 2018 Conference position, given the noise coming from the usual suspects.
As it stands, at the juncture we are in, and given this has always been a Tory mess, I’d allow the Tories to carry the can for a No Deal Brexit in the knowledge, if moves had been made, that Brussels would be a little more open to overtures from JC rather than the ERG maniacs after a disorderly break.
That said, I think JC should have picked up the gauntlet from the Clown and gone for a GE ASAP as our nation desperately needs to rid itself of the Tories – I’m just downhearted that the very same forces that have tried to destroy JC within the PLP, will remain in place, meaning any radical agenda could never be pushed – the intent has always been to depose JC and this remains so today.
Chris, you know the old saying, “you can never beat the house” (with regard to casinos).
I think that’s the situation we are now in, after four decades of Thatcher/Reagan/neo-liberalism; and these lunatics now control the biggest propaganda machine in history (the front pages today have been rather amusing).
I fear that the only way to rectify things will be Russian-style (which was the only real revolution in modern history).
Good to know and what I suspected, though I’m not sure it’s individual patients who are responsible. My suspicion is that large pharmacies, whether bricks and mortar or online, are buying in bulk. I hope they keep a close eye on the use-by dates.
I have long said that if Brexit didn’t cause a crisis that the elites would make one.
It seems they are actively trying to create shortages by panicking people into stockpiling.
Yup. And that’s exactly what the anti-Chavez businessmen in Venezuela have been doing on and off for years: hoarding their goods in warehouses in order to create artificial shortages.
I work in an industry sector which causes me to visit Commercial Vehicle Rental Companies regularly, and have family members that previously ran a logistics company but who now own and operate warehousing facilities i.e. renting out warehouse space.
These people tell me anecdotally that the warehouse space is at a premium and has been as long as Brexit has been on the horizon. They say that warehouses are packed with goods, especially pharmaceuticals and that the warehouse sector is highly profitable as a result of the expected Brexit chaos.
The suppliers of non perishable products know that they stand to make big windfall profits with any Brexit crisis whether it is a real crisis or a manufactured one. They have had plenty of time to plan and prepare.
Most meds have limited shelf life. They are perishable.
i’m sure the pharmacists are aware of that fact. it’s not like english people need a reason to moan about something, but that would cause red-tops to have full-page denouncements of whichever chemist decided to drop out of date neurofen on an unsuspecting public
Not most, just some. In many cases the use by date is superfluous and has more to do with generating repeat sales.
For those that do, often the usability limit starts only one the seal on the packaging is broken and even then they do not click over from being fine one day and useless the next, they degrade slowly so that an effective dose can still be obtained from medicines some way past there ‘use by’ date.
Obviously, a few drugs are heat and time sensitive (vaccines, insulin) but ahead of the last Breit deadline we learned that the NHS had become the world’s largest buyer of fridges, so there’s probably no problem there.
Who is paying for the extra storage facilities and fridges and electricity and staff that ensures that these items are kept correctly?
What are the numbers involved? Wherr are the facts?
Are bodybags being bought?
Is muppet JRM going to call the neurosurgeon expert and whistleblower a anti-vaxxer quack in public?
Thanks for bringing that up.
My pleasure!
This is just a rerun of the artificial shortages manufactured in Venezuela.
The EU and the UK quisling remoaners are playing games with people’s lives for their own political gain. We are not out of the EU so there should be no difficulties in the supply chain, especially considering that hundreds of freezers have been brought in to stockpile extra medicines. I don’t trust BoJo any more than the rest of them but we need to get out of the EU (ignore 17.4 million voters and in less than a decade you will have someone like Tommy Robinson running for PM).
Seven years ago my mother had to have her thyroid removed. She preferred to have it done here in France, which despite maggot Macron, et al, still has one of the best health services in the world, if not the best (by way of clarity, my mother is a British citizen who spends six months of the year in the UK, and six months in France).
I need hardly point out that anyone who’s had their thyroid removed will be dead in short order without the necessary meds.
If the shortage-of-medicine fear-mongering was real, don’t you think that people like me would be jumping on the bandwagon?
I know this has gone slightly off topic but I have been curious about the apparent delay in getting drugs. One reaction to my enquiries from a local pharmacist -‘someone is making money out of it and it aint us’. Not sure if this was a reference connected in some way to Brexit or something else. I read another article that there were drug shortages too in France, (remaining in the EU ) apparently because alot of drugs are purchased from Greece and they are having problems. Certainly best to keep an open mind rather than assume anything or believe what the media or vested interests say. I wouldn’t be surprised if some are playing on the fears of people to seek political gain, or/and profiteeting is at the heart of this.
Loverat, I would hazard that there’ll be no shortage of medicinal drugs; there’ll only be a shortage of commonsense.
And of course, whatever happens illegal drugs will continue to flood the streets (started by Thatcher and Reagan, to keep the plebs down).
It’s a funny old world, isn’t it.
I wouldn’t worry, real Brexit isn’t going to happen
Quite correct (with the old caveat that a week is a long time in politics).
Alas i share your skepticism. Like Nigel Farage, i can see a “re-heated withdrawal agreement” heading our way which would bring on a second referendum followed by Brexit 2.
This is the beginning of a saga that is going to last more than a generation.
much as it pains me to say so, and i sincerely hope we’re both wrong, but i fear you’re bang-on
Long time lurker, first post.
This article is disingenuous, because the EU is not our landlord and we are not any sort of Tenant.
It is much more like a co-operative housing association, and that changes the premise of the above argument altogether.
It is Horse-Shit.
We are trying to leave a free trade grouping where all members have equal footing and all have a veto. Nothing is done without consensus.
https://youtu.be/Hp8QF8yhPpU