Trump and Johnson’s populism have shaken the old Establishment, and raised some very interesting questions about who is and who is not nowadays inside the Establishment and a beneficiary of the protection of the liberal elite. Yesterday two startling examples in the news coverage cast a very lurid light on this question, and I ask you to consider the curious cases of Hunter Biden and Brendan Cox, two of the most undeserving and unpleasant people that can be imagined.
The BBC news bulletins led on the move to impeach Donald Trump for, as they put it, his efforts to get the President of Ukraine to undermine a political opponent. To be plain, I think Trump was quite wrong to get personally involved in this, but please park the entire subject of Donald Trump to one side for the next ten minutes.
What I find deeply reprehensible in all the BBC coverage is their failure to report the facts of the case, and their utter lack of curiosity about why Joe Biden’s son Hunter was paid $60,000 a month by Burisma, Ukraine’s largest natural gas producer, as an entirely absent non-executive director, when he had no relevant experience in Ukraine or gas, and very little business experience, having just been dishonorably discharged from the Navy Reserve for use of crack cocaine? Is that question not just little bit interesting? That may be the thin end of it – in 2014-15 Hunter Biden received US $850,000 from the intermediary company channeling the payments. In reporting on Trump being potentially impeached for asking about it, might you not expect some analysis – or at least mention – of what he was asking about?
As far as I am aware, the BBC have not reported at all the other thing Trump was asking Zelensky about – Crowdstrike. Regular readers will recall that Crowdstrike are the Clinton linked “cyber-security” company which provided the “forensic data” to the FBI on the alleged Russian hack of the DNC servers – data which has been analysed by my friend Bill Binney, former Technical Director of the NSA, who characterises it as showing speeds of transfer impossible by internet and indicating a download to an attached drive. The FBI were never allowed access to the actual DNC server – and never tried, taking the DNC’s consultants word for the contents, which itself is sufficient proof of the bias of the “investigation”.
Crowdstrike also made the claim that the same Russia hackers – “Fancy Bear” – who hacked the DNC, hacked Ukrainian artillery software causing devastating losses of Ukrainian artillery. This made large headlines at the time. What did not make any MSM headlines was the subsequent discovery that all of this never happened and the artillery losses were entirely fictitious. As Crowdstrike had claimed that it was the use of the same coding in the DNC hack as in the preceding (non-existent) Ukraine artillery hack, that proved Russia hacked the DNC, this is pretty significant. Trump was questioning Zelensky about rumours the “hacked” DNC server was hidden in the Ukraine by Crowdstrike. The media has no interest in reporting any of that at all.
It is plain in that case that Trump is the media’s villain and the Bidens, father and son, are therefore heroes being protected by the Establishment media. Now let us look at the case of Brendan Cox.
Boris Johnson’s behaviour in the Commons two nights ago was reprehensible. Watching the unrepentant and aggressive braying of the Tory MPs, I was genuinely concerned about the consequences for democracy should these empowered right wingers ever get a majority. Johnson has removed the social restraint which used to cloak their atavistic instincts.
This Tory display also very much reinforced what I have been saying for years, that we will not gain Scottish Independence through a repeat of 2014. We were allowed a referendum with only moderate cheating by the British state purely because they believed there was no chance we could win. They have been disabused. There will never be a Section 30 order an an agreed referendum again. We will have to seize Independence by means which the British state will deem unlawful. Anybody not prepared to do that is not serious about Independence.
I digress. Johnson’s behaviour is appalling and he is at an interesting stage where the Establishment and its media is unsure whether to embrace or repudiate him, the calculation depending on whether they think he will win, and on the impact of Brexit on their personal financial interests. But as with Trump, I ask you to set aside your judgement on Johnson and not think of him for a moment.
Yesterday BBC news programmes brought us repeated appearances of Brendan Cox to comment on Boris Johnson and other MP’s parliamentary behaviour. This Brendan Cox:
One such allegation was that Cox pinned a co-worker to a wall by her throat while telling her ‘I want to fuck you’. Cox left the organisation before being subjected to scrutiny on this and other allegations. However, another woman, a senior US official who met him at a Harvard University event, made similar allegations against him, ‘of grabbing her by the hips, pulling her hair, and forcing his thumb into her mouth’ ‘in a sexual way’. In contrast to Assange’s treatment, and despite a social-media furore, for nearly three years there was largely a media blackout on the story. At last, in February 2018, a right-wing tabloid broke the embargo and reported the allegations, and other news organisations had to follow suit. Finally, ‘Cox apologised for the “hurt and offence” caused by his past behaviour’ and announced he was withdrawing from public life.
I strongly recommend you to read that last linked article. Cox is very much on the wavelength of the Establishment media, a full member of the New Labour neo-liberal elite who shuttled between jobs in the Labour Party and in high paying neo-liberal propaganda organisation Save the Children. Cox was personally pocketing £106,000 a year plus expenses from donations to the “charity”. A serial unfaithful sexual aggressor, his wife’s murder sees him recast by the media as the grieving survivor of a perfect marriage. Precisely his strongest political supporters – Jess Phillips, Stella Creasy etc – are Julian Assange’s bitterest opponents due to far flimsier, hotly denied and less attested sexual allegations than those against Cox. But neo-liberals get a free pass from the modern feminist movement (cf Bill Clinton).
Boris Johnson’s behaviour was a dsgrace. But that is no reason for the BBC rehabilitation of the “retired from public life” sexual predator.
The fascinating thing is the binary, good versus evil, narrative which is being pursued in the liberal media. Trump and Johnson are bad. Therefore Hunter Biden and Brendan Cox must be good. The truth, of course, is much more complex than that. I am afraid to say that if you want an excessive simplification, a more accurate one would be that the entire political elite on all sides are self-serving and venal.
There is a more interesting story inside that, where significant portions of the public have lost respect for the Establishment, due in large part to the vast and increasing wealth gap in society, but this disillusion has been battened on by populist charlatans, and particularly directed against immigrants. This feels like an extremely unstable phase in society and politics. But instability brings the possibility of radical change, which is indeed much needed. We must all work for good from it.
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– “We, in alignment with our consciences and our reasoning, declare ourselves to be in rebellion against our government and the corrupted, inept institutions that threaten our future.
– The wilful complicity of our government has shattered meaningful democracy and cast aside the common interest in favour of short-term gain and private profits.
– We hereby declare the bonds of the social contract to be null and void, which the government has rendered invalid by its continuing failure to act appropriately. We call upon every principled citizen to rise with us.”
Declaration of Rebellion.
Media, Tell the Truth!
Government, you are unfit for purpose, so we are calling a Citizens Assembly!
J Corbyn
“We have a Prime Minister that protects the establishment, pretending to be anti-establishment. A born-to-rule Tory claiming to be a radical. Boris Johnson and his wealthy friends are not only on the side of the establishment, they are the establishment. His party’s election campaign will be swimming in cash.”
Corbyn is (understandably) pushing a simplistic impression of events. It’s not a case of “the establishment” but rather “establishments”. Both sides in the Brexit referendum were flooded with money from the City of London. Leave benefited from the Hedge funds (maximum volatility = maximum profit) and the tax evasion outfits (concerned by the threat of enforcement originating from Brussels (that would certainly never come from a bought and payed for Westminster)). Remain benefited from the more mainstream financial operators concerned by the potential loss of access to the European market.
In all systems there are no clear positions, only confused and swirling, competing interests. Come 2020, in Scotland, we will witness the clash of the Caledonian establishment (Sturgeon, Laird and the Bute House nexus) with the “auld, radical guard” (Salmond).
Precisely. The Toxic System idolises competition and competitiveness; those who compete most vigorously win and rise. So it is entirely predictable that we find the most toxic competitors, and the most toxic competition, at the very top.
Even Johnson’s sister suspects he is doing the bidding of foreign billionaires and tax exiles who are betting against the pound. She said so plainly on the BBC and was promptly ignored.
https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/09/26/a-bbc-hosts-jaw-dropping-response-to-a-bombshell-from-boris-johnsons-sister/
Please don’t imagine I’m a Johnson fan, or, for that matter, a fan of the likes of Crispin Odey – far from it – but unless you are the losing counterparty to these bets in currency movements or share prices (the counterparties being banks, hedge funds, or other financial institutions, all of whom are no less rampantly amoral), what difference does it make to you or me if one party happens to make a multi-million pound profit on a currency bet? Some other undesirable individual or organisation will have made an equal multi-million pound loss.
“what difference does it make to you or me if one party happens to make a multi-million pound profit on a currency bet?”
Well, it does make a difference if the pound gets devalued; imports are more expensive, e.g. food, clothes, petrol etc. etc. and real inflation rises (as opposed to the governments fixed inflation figures, which are all about keeping public sector pay rises in check). The real point is that, like Farage, Johnson is beholden to support and funding from the same people that stand to make a pile of money from the £ tanking. This represents a conflict of interest between the PM doing what’s good for the country, i.e. avoiding a no-deal Brexit, and pleasing off-shore speculators and oligarchs, those that want to see a no-deal Brexit. It is also not about simple futures options on the £ it’s about being able to by UK assets up at a knock down price due to the $ purchasing more £’s.
It would also be relevant if funds’ preference is to bet on volatility without caring about other market directions (i.e. up or down). If you can make money on volatility then perhaps that is easier to manipulate than price direction.
“Well, it does make a difference if the pound gets devalued; “
That wasn’t the point I was making. Any profit from shorting Sterling would take place *as a result* of a devalued pound – it wouldn’t cause it. There’s just as much money on the other side of the bet, otherwise there’d be no contract!
Look, a drop in the exchange rate of the free floating currency of a developed nation such as the UK relative to others has a floor below which it will not fall.
Import substitution, increased exports, and the currency movements due to resulting increased FDI will see to that.
Interestingly, there was a plethora of articles prior to the 2016 referendum complaining that the rate of Sterling was too high (GDP/EUR @1.42), and that this was bad for the UK’s exporting industries.
The EU is on the verge of a massive bout of QE; Draghi, the outgoing President of the ECB has announced that unorthodox measures such as MMT now be considered, after the failures of monetary policy to stimulate growth in the Eurozone. This is very likely to result in a drop in the value of the Euro against other currencies – including Sterling.
But so what? A free-floating currency is essential for monetary and fiscal freedom in a sovereign country; the economic basket cases that are Greece and Italy ( and the UK in the ERM, pre-Black Wednesday) are evidence of the damage that’s done when a country’s currency is pegged to another, or, even worse, when your country is a currency user rather than a currency issuer.
Some people are never happy!
The pound had started going up while Parliament was prorogued, now they are back it is falling like a stone.
The current decline in £ value has more to do with the BoE signalling a cut in interest rates.
Contrary to what you have stated the currency markets have been very consistent with regard to no-deal and the value of the pound – you need to look at the consistent trend and not take a snapshot. Plenty of resources on the web to confirm this for yourself, but for example; Johnson becoming PM saw the £ tumble. The Benn Act saw the £ rise.
Sorry Deb, I replied to your post above!
It is unclear to me how those on the remain side of the argument think that the long term UK trade deficit will be fixed without a currency devaluation. That is the whole point of floating exchange rates and independent national currencies, that you can allow adjustment for uncompetetiveness to take place via devaluation rather than by deflation.
I was grimly amused to read about the lack of political integrating institutions in Imperial Germany and the nazi “polycratic dictatorship” because the descriptions seemed to refer to every polity that has ever existed. It’s harder to disguise since the lexit referendum despite the efforts of the state broadcaster and corp-0-rat media to fudge things but eventually things will return to “normal”. Like the civil wars 1688-1689/91 1775-1783, 1812-1815, 1919-1921 it will be papered over, especially by tame historians.
Indeed, it’s CrowdStrike’s fabrication of the “Ukrainian artillery hack” that created the “high confidence” pretext for then US President Barack Obama to expell Russian diplomats from America in late 2016. (A later parallel occurs with the UK and the Salisbury so-called “novichok” expulsions.) It’s this bogus CrowdStrike attribution using the falsified Ukrainian incident that’s helped propel years of the giant geopolitical hoax we’re witnessing on both sides of the Atlantic. American cyber-security expert exposed this scam at the time – but it’s never reported on by the legacy press. Those media outlets that reported the false news of the GRU attribution have yet to walk back the claims (as fake as the tale of sick children and dead ducks in Salisbury more recently spun by the NYT).
Will any major press outlet in the US or UK now tell the truth? As you’ve noted – the BBC et al don’t even reveal Hunter Biden’s activities. The press failure is the scandal that’s enabling the corruption of the pols.
NB Jeffrey Carr’s the American cyber-security expert who did some great work exposing the “smoke and mirrors” of CrowdStrike in 2016/17. Like an element in a penny stock play, the fake Ukraine = DNC “hack” GRU attribution was added to by succeeding news stories and new, deceptive, claims to whip up the “Russiagate” promotion.
More on Ukraine:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/here-dirt-trump-wanted-about-bidens-and-why-zelensky-doesnt-want-give-it-him
More on the US response to Trump impeachment attempt:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/after-trump-accused-cover-susan-rice-admits-obama-put-call-transcripts-top-secret-server
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/how-gop-will-answer-pelosis-pre-planned-lawfare-assisted-impeachment-plan
While the Feminist Tec BBC re-habilitates Cox and Biden, can there be any other function of 5G and universal spying other than to denigrate the people?
Thank you Craig for correcting the totally false impression given by the BBC that Trump was trying to manipulate people in Ukraine when in fact he was trying to discover some truth about the investigation against him.
I spoke to a Chinese electronics engineer working on the 5G project. His line is that they do not normally install spying software but that for specific foreign customers they do. He said that the Chinese installed system in Belgium had, at Belgian request, software that routed copies of all messages to Belgian state security.
Politifact gives an interesting review of the (Joe) Biden / Shokin events.
the russian press covered the case:
– the case of Biden was investigated by Victor Shokin, then Prosecutor General appointed by then president Poroshenko.
– Joe Biden demanded dismissal of Shokin:
“I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” /*the money he talks about is 1 billion $US that american taxpayers agreed to pay from their pockets through the decision of their elected government as help to Ukraine, the purpose of this money… oh, if the new eco-icon Greta complained of her stolen childhood in the face of Donbass kids, perhaps she would know the better answer/
Biden added that the prosecutor was then fired. “Well, son of a b***h. (Laughter.) He got fired.”
—
it’s enough to make a conclusion. If a person is innocent, he would have said “They investigated and proved me innocent” – isn’t it?
Mr Murray
I am afraid you are suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance right now. All the antidemocratic behaviour is coming from Remainers and the Opposition benches, who are sufficiently cowardly and unprincipled not to submit themselves to a General Election for blocking Brexit and bringing Parliament to a standstill. Nothing, but nothing makes Keir Starmer et al more nauseous than acting like they are the Government with the full consent of the most disgraceful Speaker ever to lord it over the House of Commons.
It does you no favours implying that 17.4m people did not know what they were voting for, nor that the Conservatives are about to become uber-neoliberal fascists. You know full well that they will lose any election fought on such a mandate and you also know full well that the Conservative party will die within four years if they campaigned on a big infrastructure manifesto then sold the country off to the Yanks.
You are of course playing to your Nationalist audience, just as the SNP always does.
You have the cognitive dissonance necessary to believe that Guy Verhofstadt is anything but a dictator far worse than Boris Johnson: if ever there were were a manifesto for EU divorce, Guy Verhofstadt is that manifesto. Rude, aggressive, triumphalist, sneering, imperialistic and more. That is what you freely ally with. Shame upon you….
The EU gravy train for Scotland is over, Eastern Europe is where the money now goes. So what is the deal you have struck with your EU masters for bringing rUK to its knees? For to make remaining in the EU worthwhile, some dirty deal must have been struck. Whatever it is, it is not honorable…..
I am most interested in what you would do if the first election after revolution brought a Unionist majority to Holyrood? Would you meekly let Scotland be readmitted to the Union or set up the Provisional Scottish Republican Army?
That Unionist majority might well happen after an undemocratic putsch.
It is definitely within the bounds of realistic scenario planning.
So when you fulminate about braying Tories, as if braying were not a daily habit of every Labour MP in Parliament, ask yourself what your own limits are when seizing independence is on the table.
It might shock you if someone told you that you display authoritarian tendencies yourself…..
I have said nothing whatsoever about Brexit in this article. You are revealing your own peculiar fixations.
Guy Verhofstadt is a fake liberal as revealed by his support for the crushing of Catalonian democracy. I don’t support the man in the least and your comments are yet another manifestation of your peculiar fixation.
There are respectable left wing reasons to be anti EU. But it is a matter of simple fact that they did not motivate the majority of Leave voters, who were motivated by anti-immigrant racism.
I did not vote for Brexit, but I would seriously like to know how you justify your claim that millions of people who did where motivated by racism. This is as disgraceful an accusation as anything Johnson has said in parliament.
Have you been living under a rock? There is a massive amount of polling evidence that anti-immigration was the largest interest of Leave voters.
“Anti-immigration” does not automatically correspond to racism. I have noticed this trait in the left in the past, the assumption that your opponents are not just wrong, they’re evil.
I haven’t seen any conclusive evidence of this interpretation and though I tend as (a matter of routine) to doubt the findings of any polls carried out by corporate pollsters and media, even taken at face value I still wouldn’t stake a claim upon your interpretation above, let alone try to sum the various factors* as a fundamental “anti-immigration racism” of the working class.
How else does the army recruit young working class lads into an army whose core purpose is to fight wars against other working people just like them but with different coloured skin, living in a far away country where oil or minerals are abundant beneath their soil or sand?
*Post Thatcher conditions in northern working class cities and towns provide fertile soil. Government policies and state racism are the main driving force behind working class racism and always have been. It can’t happen without a background of racist wars, without classism and racism disseminated from every orifice of state, beginning in board rooms and flowing out of Downing street, on down through the justice system, media, education and employment opportunity, right down to the recruiting sergeant on the high street.
Athanasius
Just using the politically correct term for this week “opponents” doesn’t work.
Those like who want to leave had hard brexit and racism forced down our gullets by the previous and happily gone incumbent at No 10.
For the millionth time. I want Corbyn’s Leave , Norway + and freedom of movement and people to carry on. I don’t want to be imprison in this septic Isle after it has decided to close the doors to asylum seekers, students and fellow europeans.
johnson pretending to do a wobbly about something he doesn’t care about in the least doesn’t convince me I’m not going to get what i want. Corbyn is the only adult in the room.
That’s a ridiculous assertion to make Craig. I agree with spirit of your article but this comment is (and forgive my language here) fucking stupid. You’re FAR too intelligent to actually believe that concerns about immigration and racism are the same thing and I’m disappointed you conflate the two so casually. If I wanted that level of analysis I’d just read the BBC.
Advocating for a sustainable migration system that doesn’t have a negative impact on the wages/housing etc of the indigenous working class is NOT racism.
You have a noticeable fixation ON immigration, why Craig? Clearly you want MORE immigrants, without being able to explain who will pay for the infrastructure etc, especially if they come here as unemployed.
Then, of course, you are putting immigrants AHEAD of us Brits – biased is the best of the derogatory words that you could be rightfully charged with. IOW, we have no right to say who we allow to come and live in our homeland, so let me take that further. Do you, Craig, have the RIGHT to allow into your own home (house) only those who YOU say can come in, or can ANYBODY enter it, even against YOUR will??? It’s the same principle, Craig.
Northern “Advocating for a sustainable migration system that doesn’t have a negative impact on the wages/housing etc of the indigenous working class is NOT racism.”.
If that was all it was, I might agree with you. However, research has proved that it was conflated with racism so I think that you owe Craig an apology.
I think that there was concern over uncontrolled immigration numbers, and that that concern has now been conflated with racism.
Politicians seemed unable to grasp that net immigration of about 300000 a year (adjusted by births and deaths) required the equivalent of building new housing the size of Newcastle every year….. and the same politicians go on about the need for more ‘affordable’ housing!
Well said @Skye Mull – I couldn’t agree more.
Skye mull
If every asylum seeker was forced to sell their property abroad as British residents are forced to do before receiving some benefits it wouldn’t be such an uphill playing field
The reality is that certain rogue governments have direct contact with our own UK criminal govt under which their own political contempibles are exchanged for oil rights in their country.
One example used to be Jack Straw, another would be the present cabinet whose fingers are blue with neo colonial Apple pie.
Those asylum seekers are fascist Islamists to their own people and surprise surprise carry on being fruit cake Islamists when they are housed in NW2.
“But it is a matter of simple fact that they did not motivate the majority of Leave voters, who were motivated by anti-immigrant racism”
Now that is questionable, Craig, with respect.
Did not most Leavers simply want to keep sovereignty (or the illusion of it imo) closer to home?
Reducing most exit voters to racists is unfair; you should take more notice of those who seized the chance to fuck the bastards up.
It’s more than unfair, It’s a bloody disgrace. And there was me thinking this was one of the best Murray pieces i’ve seen, only to see his bigotry below the line. Very unfortunate.
“But it is a matter of simple fact that they did not motivate the majority of Leave voters, who were motivated by anti-immigrant racism.”
Such a poor way to try and shut down people that voted to leave. Craig, can you point us to the “facts” that tell you that the majority of Leave voters were motivated by anti-immigrant racism.
It is merely your cheap assertion, one that I am sick of having thrown at me.
I would assert, had the referendum taken place pre the financial problems of 2008 the Remain vote would have won by a far greater majority than Leave eventually won by, in 2016. I would assert that people voted Leave to protect their “wealth” they did not vote leave out of racism.
Have I not read here recently of your doubts about free and fair UK election results? In 2010 – no single party majority we end up with Conservatives/Lib Dems, 2015 Conservative sneek a win with 12 seats, 2017 Conservatives lead with a minority government, I would not at all be surprised if the Leave vote had achieved a greater win than that which was reported.
As the saying goes Turkeys would not vote for Christmas, I would also say that the majority of the population did not vote to continue with austerity in 2015 and 2017. All political persuasions having felt it’s sting.
My own reasons for voting leave were neither racism or financial but distrust of the EU organisation.
Many thanks Craig, for all your postings & the time and effort that obviously goes into this blog. I can’t say that I fully understand or follow ALL your posts, but this site is certainly one of my Go To places for information, and I’ve recommended this site to others.
If I was only informed by, say, the Sun newspaper ( or similar) and Facebook, and was stupid enough to believe in it, I too might begin to think that I knew best.
I would much prefer that unelected European bureaucrats decided the allocation of funding in this country, than the jobs – for – the – boys Tory self – interested failures, that we’ve witnessed so far.
“You know full well that they will lose any election fought on such a mandate and you also know full well that the Conservative party will die within four years if they campaigned on a big infrastructure manifesto then sold the country off to the Yanks.”
They might fight an election based on some other mandate then do those things anyway, the way you do. If they die within four years the LibDems can be re-jigged a la Macron.
Nonsense.
Sense
“The EU gravy train for Scotland is over”. Surely you mean to say that the gravy train for Wales and Northern Ireland is over as well. Scotland is in a rather different position as they are pummelled by an international cabal called NATO.
One can only assume that the EU funding 2007-13 for Wales, some £1.9bn is replicated in the following 6 years, and I also hope that the Welsh assembly will not be bleating to have it replaced with taxpayers money that has been created from hot air,i.e. debts.
Like you say, reality will hit many homes, once we leave the golden cage.
” Surely you mean to say that the gravy train for Wales and Northern Ireland is over as well.”
You forgot England.
I didn’t think Craig piece was about Brexit. It’s actually one of Craig’s more interesting posts. Everyone wants Trump impeached apart from his core supporters and also those few who hold their noses and suspect he is the obstacle to further war, but at the same time one can’t help but wonder about Hunter Biden and the story there.
I note that Craig refers to Bill Binney, who I think is worth paying attention to. I recollect what Mr Binney said about who knew about the bulk collection plans prior to it’s introduction.
That makes me reflect on the impeachment process and without going into details I conclude that it has got legs. The legs may be because there are solid facts (I wouldn’t know about that), but if I were betting on impeachment (I’m not) I would be betting on it not because of the facts, but because of who is pressing it. As I see it (and as often I may be wrong – hence no betting) this is no fly by night surface water impeachment it something out of the deep water. Trump is right to be rattled. Nancy was not joking when she said “welcome to my wheelhouse”.
However, after impeachment comes the Senate trial and no President has actually lost at a senate trial. If the House impeaches on a majority it seems unlikely that 2/3 of the Senate would actually find him guilty – that would mean a lot of Republicans would have to be seriously fed up with Trump. But maybe some of them might be prepared to back the Vice – to usher in Mike Pence as President. If so its a maybe.
Generally, I think Craig is right about demonisation. It’s bad yet at the same time it’s quite useful because if you think about it then it’s like invisible shorthand giving you clues where you should look: why is a person demonised; why is X not spoken about etc. If you think everyone should surely be talking about X and their not then tells you something. [I suppose if people want to hide facts they may be better to give them a good airing so that they are lost in plain sight?]
I don’t know anything about Brendan Cox and so I won’t comment on him.
As for whether Brexit is about racism. I don’t think it is but unfortunately I would concede that just as Republicans in the States are said to have consciously selected Pro-Life as a way to mobilise voters who would not otherwise vote for policies which generally benefit the rich the Brexit campaign went for cheap and dangerous levers (stupid pun intended).
Brendan Cox did leave public life after the allegations, as far as I can see. The question is now whether he’s trying to make a come-back or if it was just a one-off interview (which would be reasonable).
The question is why he is thought by the BBC to be a fit and proper person to adjudicate good and bad social behaviour.
As you report Brendan Cox apologised and withdrew from public life. To the best of my knowledge this is the first interview he has given since then. It is possible that as Jo Cox’s widower the BBC felt he had something to add to the discussion on the effects of heightened rhetoric in political life.
“I withdraw from public life pending the next interview request from the BBC”?
“I apologise for physically violent attempts at sexual assault”?
Oh, that’s all OK then Tony. Thanks for clearing it up. No double standards here then compared to the treatment of, for example, Alex Salmond.
Ok, I listened to the interview (which I didn’t really want to do). I think it was legitimate to ask him about his own experience of violence to mps, because he has felt that most seriously of anyone in the country. And violence towards MPs was part of the debate in parliament.
But I entirely agree with you that he shouldn’t have been asked to comment more generally on social good, such as on the general tone of parliamentary debate and whether it helps democracy.
They could have asked Galloway, as an MP who was assaulted, received many death threats, etc. Somehow he is overlooked in this regard, they used to have him on occasionally for political analysis or to be sworn at by Alan Sugar or something, but he seems to have been run onto the sidelines..
A quick search will show a lot of interviews by Brendan Cox since his ‘leaving’ public life. Mainly personal stuff about the aftermath of his wife’s murder, but some purely political, eg:
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/jo-coxs-widower-accuses-corbyn-of-defending-a-dictator-over-venezuela-views-37775626.html
In truth he seems to have been determined to get back into things as swiftly as possible:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brendan-cox-save-the-children_uk_5a8ae04fe4b00bc49f46c61f
All sides of the establishment seem to believe a halfhearted apology is all that is required for anything – no matter how horrendous and they are then entitled to carry on as before. Cox’s record of harassment was well known (I can remember Private Eye pieces).
OK the Belfast Telegraph interview shouldn’t have happened. I agree.
But the Huffington one is not fair. Cox privately asked someone from the women’s equality party for advice on how to make an effective apology. That seems an appropriate action to me — he was quite high profile and a poorly phrased apology can cause more offense and distress. Maybe he was a bit clumsy in the phrasing of his request. But does that give the person the right to share his private messages? And then complain about “the man who stands too close to me when he comes to ask questions after a talk I’ve given” … Sure it’s annoying but is standing close a burning issue now? is Cox hard of hearing? I don’t genuinely don’t understand that bit.
(I do understand Craig’s point that he is probably an unpleasant person, he was disgraced and should certainly not capitalize on his wife’s death.)
But the HuffPo piece says that the writer had only the briefest previous contact with Cox, so any communication (by Twitter in this case) can hardly be regarded as private or protected by some code of friendship. And he had already made a rather mealy-mouthed ‘apology’:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/18/brendan-cox-resigns-from-charities-amid-sexual-assault-claims
which suggests that such communications may have been more about trying to gain support rather than genuinely seeking advice or indeed change his habits. His behaviour doesn’t seem to be of the ‘moment of madness’ type, but a long-standing pattern of abuse which was generally ignored because he had the right friends.
As to the ‘standing close’ thing, I wondered if she meant that some men use it as a way of trying to ‘hit on’ women, but I think it may be a more general point about invading other people’s space. After all if a man deliberately stands closer than necessary to another it’s seen as an act of aggression and can lead to a fight. But women are simply expected to put up with it, without complaint?
It does seem clear that he had a long standing pattern of abusing his position of authority, cheating on his wife and getting away with it.
Still, I think we need some route in society for rehabilitation, and it has to be ok to ask for private advice on this. Three years had passed, his wife had been murdered, his attitude and behaviour had probably changed. If he’d been to prison he’d have been able to come out remorseful and start afresh.
My private advice would have been to stay away from the media for still much longer and show genuine remorse by doing something generous and humble. Which he doesn’t seem to have done.
Looking back to 2016 and CrowdStrike’s false attribution (not the first time Dmitri Alperovitch / CS did such a thing for its masters) – we see how the US media was used to legitimize the fraudulent elements, forging this bogus attribution link into a key propellant in the great hoax, and helped create the US intell myth that grew like topsy. This is how intell agents and political insiders et al construct a scam.
As US cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr noted at the time: “Major media outlets including the The Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, and PBS Newshour ran the story without fact-checking a single detail. Motherboard, Forbes, SC Magazine, and other media did the same.”
eg. here’s an article in the Washington Post – typical of what appeared across the legacy media, and provided the fabricated “high confidence” pretext to blame Russia for the so-called DNC “hack”:
“Cybersecurity firm finds evidence that Russian military unit was behind DNC hack”, Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, December 22, 2016 @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cybersecurity-firm-finds-a-link-between-dnc-hack-and-ukrainian-artillery/2016/12/21/47bf1f5a-c7e3-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html
And here’s some of the early articles by US cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr that debunks the mainstream media coverage:
“FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report: A Fatally Flawed Effort” @
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fbidhs-joint-analysis-report-fatally-flawed-effort-jeffrey-carr/ – December 30, 2016
“The GRU-Ukraine Artillery Hack That May Never Have Happened” @
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gru-ukraine-artillery-hack-may-never-have-happened-jeffrey-carr/ – January 3, 2017
“Crowdstrike Needs To Address The Harm It Caused Ukraine” @
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/crowdstrike-needs-address-harm-causedukraine-jeffrey-carr/ – January 15, 2017
In March 2017, VOA’s Ukrainian service picked up on the work of Carr and others – and exposed the scam. CrowdStrike was forced to walk back its false claims re the fabricated “Ukrainian artillery hack” – but, no matter, the lie had done its job. It enabled Obama to target Russia and it set in motion the false narrative of proof that Russia hacked the DNC. The numerous bogus news reports – in WaPo and elsewhere – have still to be retracted:
“Think Tank: Cyber Firm at Center of Russian Hacking Charges Misread Data” @
https://www.voanews.com/usa/think-tank-cyber-firm-center-russian-hacking-charges-misread-data – March 21, 2017
And we’ve all see how this, and other elements, together were used as ingredients in the Russiagate scam that some forces in America+ aim to carry forward with new illusions – enabled by a press that is not concerned with facts or truth.
Great stuff Mr Murray.
Pedant Alert !
venial? Surely venal?
Thanks, updated.
I’ve wondered who the Establishment back but come to the conclusion that Johnson is part of their play. I think they are very, very frightened by Brexiteers and their reaction after a deal, May’s deal or similar, is passed, and have been taking measures to suppress any rioting. The drone incident may well have been one of them. Just before the event IATA Director General Alexandre de Juniac, warned about Brexit “On April 1 it will be us, the airlines, who have to manage millions of passengers potentially grounded in airports unable to take a flight … It will be a nightmare in European airports and UK airports,” The media have continually spouted the ill effects of No Deal.. But I believe the Establishment’s greatest asset is Johnson who in becoming PM mopped up the Brexit supporters but little by little the whole thing has been deflated with the demise of their hero. Brexiteers in Daily Mail readers’ comments are far less extreme than they used to. Johnson’s guide,Cummings may have been put in place by the Establishment to make sure Johnson acts the fool.
Couldn’t agree more ruth. Johnson is merely there to stop brexit by playing the fool….and soften brexiteers up to eventually accept a second referendum.
I wonder what Johnson is up to. His recent behaviour has been cast as trying to create a MP vs people split over Brexit with Johnson on the side of the people. However I don’t think this explains his more colourful outbursts which don’t appear to benefit him at all.Now it could be simply that Johnson is an idiot, with the stress of being PM getting to him.
Another explanation which Craig mentions:
“There is a more interesting story inside that, where significant portions of the public have lost respect for the Establishment, due in large part to the vast and increasing wealth gap in society, but this disillusion has been battened on by populist charlatans, and particularly directed against immigrants”
Is Johnson and co doing what the Republicans have done with American politics? Becoming so extreme and brazen that they drag their opponents along with them into the mud, demeaning the very offices they hold. The Republicans have the strange position of being in government but also arguing the State itself is the problem. They roll back the powers of the state to control corporations while at the same time wrecking what is left. For example reducing taxes and increasing the deficit at the same time. Their behaviour then makes their argument even truer. that the State is the problem.
Cox’s phony sanctimony is followed by a long thread of comments on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/MrBrendanCox/status/1176958217122983938
PS Does he still live on a boat and what does he do for a living?
A. Yes. Still on a boat. He has published his book ‘More in Common’ and is Curtis Brown’s client. They are a ‘literary ad talent’ agency.
https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/brendan-cox
He links to his strange piece in the Mirror which consists of one liners.
Brendan Cox: The hate-filled language of Brexit puts every one of us in danger
This week it feels like our family isn’t the only one who is missing Jo’s presence – the country is missing her too
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/brendan-cox-hate-filled-language-20291646
There is also a video on the link there of his sister-in-law, Kim Leadbetter, speaking. I remember seeing her standing behind her parents after Jo Cox was killed. Strangely she was smiling throughout.
It was Kim Leadbetter who supported her sister’s dodgy husband on behalf of the family when his “mistakes” were revealed (see my comment below, and also https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jo-cox-husband-brendan-sister-supports-sexual-harassment-allegations-a8216271.html ).
If I remember correctly, there were many anomalies in the story of Jo Cox’s ‘murder’ at the time just days before the EU referendum. Thomas Mair is still in prison presumably. He did not speak during his trial.
From an old e-mail in my Inbox
‘
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3657417/Inquest-open-death-MP-Jo-Cox.html
Questions??
.Went to the old man who was alive first (‘firstly found’ as in scrub as in searched and not on a pavement in a town) , and to the younger woman second though she was dead or nearly so.
.Several or many eye witnesses – but we saw one only, an ?evasive male of say 60 on the BBC who said the assailant shouted Britain first or similar. ?Later retracted.
.Police and ambulance called at 12.52. BUT “The detective said Mrs Cox was taken into an ambulance by paramedics and emergency doctors who “tended to her but were unable to save her life”. He said she was pronounced dead at 1.48pm. We were told elsewhere that she was taken to hospital where she could not be saved, .Is it normal for a. doctors to be present in an ambulance in Batley b. for a bleeding/dying/breathless person not to be taken under blue lights to the nearest A&E WHILST CPR is administered, IV fluids run etc ? There are doctors who go out, as with London’s air ambulance, but resuscitation is started and the patient whisked in – as you all know.
Separately – BBC interviewed good neighbours. Level people. At least two spoke of ‘Mair’s’ orderliness and ?gentleness. Yes – I recall, would help elderly with their gardens. Pictures showed a man of about 35 on a community project – decking. Usual pastel drawings of Mair due up before Magistrate Arbuthnot (wife of the warmonger and Zionist) show a bearded man of at least 55 – guessing. ‘
Talking of more interesting stories within stories I think the precise nature of the event which propelled Mr Cox to fame is interesting to say the least.
Is the Establishment really as united as supposed? They seem to me as divided as the rest of us. If, as Craig has shown us, the Queen was complicit with Johnson in the prorogation, lots of others, those who actually know something about our relations with Europe and their importance to the modern-day functioning of Britain, are pro-EU remainers. The entire government is composed of Atlantic Bridgers who hate the very idea of the EU, and dream every night of being Trumpies. That doesn’t look like a secret united establishment which can then be described as hypocritical. Where is it, who are the people who are to be included in the “Establishment”, and who excluded, because they don’t have the right views? I suspect that the more Brexiter-tilting Establishment (Establishment, not voters) comes from those who aspire to the ideals of the old landowning aristocracy i.e. would like to pretend to belong to. I know quite a number of people like that.
Nobody comes out of the Brendan Cox saga looking good.
Jo Cox obviously knew what her husband was up to (since he lost his job over the allegations), but she publicly acted as if they were a happy family. On the day before she was murdered, the couple put on a publicity stunt with their two small kids in a boat on the Thames as part of the Remain campaign.
When the the allegations came out, Jo Cox’s family expressed their support for her unfaithful husband “as he endeavours to do the right thing by admitting mistakes he may have made in the past, and we respect him for doing so. We all make mistakes”.
And his behaviour while working for Save the Children was not just that of an isolated individual. The charity’s UK chief executive, Justin Forsyth had to resign because of similar allegations going back years.
The New Labour leadership is mired in this affair as well. Cox and Forsyth had previously worked together at 10 Downing Street under Gordon Brown. And Save the Children gave Tony Blair a “global legacy award” in 2015. Afterwards it made a half-hearted apology for giving that award, with Forsyth saying that Blair “helped Africa and children”.
Yes, our ‘free press’ cannot recognise that because one side is wrong, the other side may also be wrong too. It keeps the message nice and simple for the proles.
This has stopped being news and is simply propaganda now.
And to cap it all, this morning I see on the BBC that they, the BBC, have upheld a complaint (one complaint) against Naga Munchetty due to her response to Trump’s “Go home” speech in re several foreign born female politicians. She simply said what his words were and related a personal anecdote of racism directed at her. The BBC has IGNORED countless REAL cases of bias, bias against Scottish Independence and SNP, bias against Jeremy Corbyn, bias against Brexit etc etc but THIS is the singular instance in which they choose to uphold a case of bias?? NB I make no claim to SUPPORT any of the preceding points of view or politicians but I do notice bias when I see it. Many only see it when it is directed at THEM and THEIR point of view. By being so biased against a diverse number of things the BBC actually uses that to defend itself eg ‘you think we were hard on you, look what we did to xyz last week’ But the BBC IS deeply biased and deeply flawed now. Worse than the bias is when they simply fail to report on things, claiming them not to be ‘newsworthy’ enough when they clearly are.
We have now reached the stage when the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’ is fit only for it’s politicians to argue about how they argue. And this IS considered newsworthy.
PS I take your point about getting to a point where Scotland is independent but your words WILL be deliberately misconstrued the very next time you are interviewed. Under normal circumstances I would only think a Blogger would need to worry about what a lawyer would think of his words but your detractors named below will already be setting about their scurrilous work. I’d hate this to have a chilling effect but these days anything can happen. Good men are pilloried and the bad guys are running the show…
they are hiding behind balance. yesterday Radio Norfolk’s discussion about what goes on and how badly everyone is behaving in Parliament, mainly focussed on Johnson’s bluster, then Nick Conrad had the temerity to say ‘that we have to be balanced’ with a mention of JC and how he is struggling to deflect the anti Semitism campaign, any thing to bring in a little back stab.
Thanks for another great article, Craig, and I very much hope that XR will be a model for the Scottish Government.
Here is a mock declaration for N. Sturgeon to copy and publicise in a speech tomorrow, to ensure that article 30 does not slip the mind of Snolly G. Johnson.
” We, the Scottish Government have asked more than once for article 30 to be considered should we leave the EU on the 31.Oct.2019. After the last few days of chaotic mismanagement of laws and affairs of the House we will now Guarantee the PM that we intend to declare UDI on the 1.Nov2019, should he not give us our legitimate rights to another Independence referendum before that date. We will be instructing the civil; service and related organisations to prepare our tax and financial obligations to be re directed as to replace the current Governments obligations in Scotland”
I second Clarks above comments, time to talk of a rebellion and change for the better, for otherwise we will perish by flames or high waters.
Gary
I echo your thoughts on the BBC. That struck me immediately. I do not claim to be a fan of Naga Munchetty (I find her a little patronising and irritating) but I think she has been made an undeserved scapegoat by BBC Executives as a means to deflect from the real, more serious ongoing bias in their reporting. Disgraceful hypocrisy at its most evident. There is all the pro-Ukraine, anti-Russian, anti-Assad, pro-terrorist BBC/MSM narrative, none of which is reported with what can be described as objectivity. Have those BBC executives who upheld the complaint against Munchetty never seen the disgraceful, clearly biased, interviews carried out by Maitlis, Sackur at al with people who not only voice opposition to official narratives but also have strong evidence for their views, but are shouted down with fatuous comments and insulted by the said interviewers?
And, as you say, failing to report on serious, significant issues because they don’t uphold the official narrative e.g. the OPCW’s very questionable handling of the Syria/Douma investigation by withholding key expert evidence; failing to report on the UN session in December 2018 convincingly discrediting the commonly perceived reputation of the White Helmets; failing to report on the evidence submitted by the Russian government to the MH17 Investigation team in February this year comprising official documentation showing that the remnants of the BUK missile found at the crash site were directly linked to a missile owned by the Ukrainian military; failing to offer specific details of the legal basis for the detention of the Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar (because there is no legal basis); failing to report on developments in the Julian Assange case e.g. the performance by Roger Waters outside Belmarsh a couple of weeks ago … the list goes on.
Somebody high up at the BBC, perhaps in their legal department, clearly heard Attorney General Geoffrey Cox’s speech in the Commons when he said he thought it was OK to say the Supreme Court judges’ decision was wrong but it’s certainly not OK to condemn a judge’s motivation. The BBC say it’s all right to criticise racist language but not to condemn the motivation of anybody who uses it. What a load berks they sound.
We will never overthrow the ruling class unless we condemn them personally. Always personalise. The ruling class is only a collective of individual sh*tbags acting in what they see as their own interests. Their motivation is evil. Those who rule society do not care about the wellbeing of those whom they rule. Medics on 150K a year do not bend over backwards to help their patients. Those who control the “education” system do not want working class people to think straight. And so on. Understanding this is absolutely fundamental to criticising capitalism. The ruling class does not serve the general interest. Yes, it does employ many many scribes and chatterers who assume that it does, that problems in society result from “bad management” and so on. Well they don’t. They result from exploiters consciously acting in their own interests. The ideology of the separation of power is bourgeois bullsh*t. Seriously, how simple can this be? Screw the patrician BBC.
Why is the state broadcaster giving top billing to an unelected adviser who is slagging off Parliament?
I look forward to Seumas Milne being given the same latitude. Which of course is not going to happen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49847304
If the unelected adviser is running the show, as we understand he is, then it would be quite normal for journalists to go straight to the source, rather than bother with mere figurehead ministers (including Johnson), whose views are only misunderstandings of what the boss is saying.
Does anyone know what illness Eugenics Cummings suffers from that on getting appointed in Number 10 he postponed surgery for until after Halloween? I don’t wish ill health on anybody, so I wish him all the best and I hope he fully recovers. I am wondering whether it might be literally a brain problem. What was it – a few years in a shack on his father’s farm reading Thucydides? That sounds very much like a trip through the wilderness of mental ill health. Did he painstakingly read every page of all the titles that were on the reading lists when he was at Oxford? It is quite clear from his writing that he isn’t quite right in the head. What has caused me to write this is what he said yesterday at a book launch, about how his current struggle is “a walk in the park” compared to the Vote Leave campaign. Is it? Really? His boy Mophead his getting his Old Etonian a*se kicked all over the place in the Commons, in the Supreme Court, and in the London Assembly. Night Club Boy could be rallying the troops, but I doubt it. That’s not a good way to rally troops. I suspect he actually means it. Is he cracking up?
The BBC doorstepped Eugenics Boy this morning and recorded him saying he did NOT say his current task was a walk in the park. Interesting… I think they mean to say he’s f***ing crazy…
Of course this could all be put up, but I doubt it.
Bravo Craig!
So much truth is wilfully ignored, by the BBC/legacy-media, and by the red-team v blue-team mentality.
We have to move beyond this.
Sir Nicholas ‘Fatty’ Soames. You can’t get any more establishment than him, yet he was purged by Johnson. Are we watching some kind of internal power struggle within the establishment itself? Old guard versus new guard sort of thing? The Establishment is watertight, it just sticks together through every scenario and yet, here’s Johnson kicking out one of their own. That suggests to me that there’s serious division between the factions.
@Mist001 – Usually splits in the most powerful echelon in society are exaggerated, and for the idiots who believe that MPs rule the country there’s a long-running stage show that presents precisely such a misleading theme. But in this case one has to recognise that the opposition to Brexit from power centres as important as Britain’s two most prestigious universities is REAL. Curiously there doesn’t seem to have been much in the media about senior civil servants “all having voted for Remain” and being hell-bent on stopping Brexit – not even now there’s a prime minister whose chief “adviser” has avowed that he wants to put the boot in to the civil service. Perhaps that’s around the corner?
PS The authorised nickname for Nicholas Soames is “Wardrobe Key”. That has got to be the greatest ever putdown by a wronged wife.
Brilliant article. Again showing how MSM is in collusion with the moneyed, the powerful and the corrupt.
It’s clear to anybody that the “hate filled language” has been raining down on Leave voters since the middle class hissy fit exploded on the 24th of June 2016. One only has to read The Guardian, both above and below the line, to see the sneering, leering hatred and snobbery that motivates the losing side.
As John Pilger wrote shortly after the referendum:
The most effective propagandists of the “European ideal” have not been the far right, but an insufferably patrician class for whom metropolitan London is the United Kingdom. Its leading members see themselves as liberal, enlightened, cultivated tribunes of the 21st century zeitgeist, even “cool”. What they really are is a bourgeoisie with insatiable consumerist tastes and ancient instincts of their own superiority.
http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-british-said-no-to-europe
Johnson’s use of the word surrender is entirely appropriate since the Benn Bill undermines our negotiating position. There is nothing controversial about it, let alone to apologise for.
Meanwhile we’ve seen the slippery I’m Alright Jack Brussels mob denigrating Leave voters, invariably along class lines.
The fact that a Labour MP brought a murdered MP into the discussion in order to score points just shows how low these people will go.
“Johnson’s use of the word surrender is entirely appropriate since the Benn Bill undermines our negotiating position.”
You’re parroting stuff. And it’s not a Bill; it’s an Act.
You probably think the Act requires the prime minister to accept any date for an extension that the EU Council says it wants. It does no such thing. If you bother to read the Act, make sure you understand the double negative in s3(3):
“But subsection (2) does not apply if the House of Commons has decided not to pass a motion moved by a Minister of the Crown within a period of two calendar days beginning with the end of the day on which the European Council’s decision is made or before the end of 30 October 2019, whichever is sooner, in the following form— ‘That this House has approved the extension to the period in Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union which the European Council has decided.’“
“the Benn Bill undermines our negotiating position.”
How can a parliamentary act undermine negotiations when it is intended to extend the period of negotiation? What undermines negotiations is not extending those negotiations but asserting that negotiations will end “come what may”. No one enters into good faith negotiations while being threatened with the premature termination of those negotiations, can you imagine if the roles were reversed and it was the EU threatening the UK with such a tactic?.
Anyone with half a brain knows that the pursuit of no-deal is the objective and not a tactic. If it were a tactic it would be on a par with someone pointing a gun at their head and threatening to pull the trigger unless they get what they want. That is not a “negotiating position”.
” …. pointing a gun at their head and threatening to pull the trigger ….” Also known as the Cleavon Little stratagem. “Nobody move or the ni***r gets it”.
“Johnson has removed the social restraint which used to cloak their atavistic instincts.”
We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Eugenics Cummings won the referendum by reaching beyond the UKIP-knuckledragger vote (Farage’s market) to make Euroscepticism “respectable”. (Which is not to say it wasn’t principally about racism. It was.) I’ve got to wonder whether Night Club Boy shouldn’t mind how he goes. And that’s not a reference to the “serious medical surgery” he has delayed for several months in order to work in Number 10. What I mean is that if it comes down to snapping back at distressed women who have received death threats that they’re talking a bunch of poop, he might get dented on the respectability front, even if the Tommy Robinson fan club AND the toffee-nosed Henley and polo club thugs will be punching the air with glee. Of course this may not matter, numbers-wise. But who knows? I suspect he does want a general election, largely because he might find it quite easy to split this demographic between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. But how about a snap referendum, a single-question “Yes or No” one? It’s not so easy to split the enemy in one of those.
Think of it this way. He’s got “Get Brexit Done”.
If the opposition parties could unite to call a snap referendum (let’s say in a one-paragraph bill), they could have “Enough is Enough”. Work the idea of “Back” in there. “Enough of this chaos.” “Let’s have some order.” “Back to normality.”
(Note: if you lose £10 accidentally, you are likely to be willing to do more work to get it back than if you have an unexpected chance of gaining £10 you didn’t have.)
This is just a thought…
N-
Which is not to say it wasn’t principally about racism. It was.
Erm. No it wasn’t. The issue of EU membership has nothing to do with race.
Many Leave voters come from minority backgrounds. 30% of Lib dem voters and many greens voted leave along with 5 million Labour voters. Most Tories i know voted remain.
Please stop pedaling this garbage.
“Peddling”.
He’s not on his bike.
@Glasshopper – I’ve noticed that when people say “Erm” in a discussion they’ve usually not given much thought to arriving at whatever it is that they’re about to utter, preferring to attitudinise. So thanks for the signal.
You could learn the difference between “pedal” and “peddle” too.
Listen – do you know what a focus group is? General political ones start by asking people what they think are the most important issues of the day – not abstractly or intellectually important, but important in their real lives, in relation to their living conditions, their hopes and fears, and those of their family members. Focus groups are all about finding out what people really think, and how they think. They are very different from television programmes or statements by politicians. And immigration almost always comes up first. After a time the moderator usually has to make a big effort to get the group to move on to another subject. Do you think there is much difference between a Tory voter focus group and a Labour voter one when it comes to the issue of immigration? I can tell you there isn’t.
Immigration has nothing to do with race. It is about the entire social sphere from jobs, housing, education, etc.
It is only a race issue for left wing blowhards who think everything is about race. As we can see. Many leftists are obsessed with race. It’s all they talk about.
“It is about the entire social sphere from jobs, housing, education, etc.”
Which is the responsibility of good governance. Tory austerity has decimated many of those things you mention, from jobs that don’t pay enough, to unaffordable housing and to schools where parents often have to contribute directly to the funding of their children’s education. Blaming the effects of austerity on immigration is one of the most disgusting aspects of the Tory/UKIP led leave campaign. The UK is one of the richest countries on the planet and can easily afford decent public services. Beside all that the indisputable fact is immigrants are net contributors to the economy.
Also if the UK government desisted in decimating other countries in the Middle East and North Africa then there would be far fewer asylum seekers and war refugees making their way to the UK, of which the numbers taken in are minuscule compared to other European nations and those nations which neighbour the UK government’s targets.
Deb O’Nair (September 27, 2019 at 13:10):
‘Beside all that the indisputable fact is immigrants are net contributors to the economy.’
You are talking rubbish. If you subtract those immigrants who work in the City, then immigrants are NOT net contributors.
“You are talking rubbish.”
And that’s your ‘argument’ is it? I used the term ‘indisputable fact’ because no one disputes the facts.
https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/8747673d-3b26-439b-9693-0e250df6dbba
“If you subtract those immigrants who work in the City, then immigrants are NOT net contributors.”
A ridiculous assertion based on nothing but your own ignorance. You should be embarrassed with yourself.
Anyone can split and splice demography, ethnic backgrounds and geography and point to a particular group but to do so would be victimising a minority. Is that where you’re at?
Debonair
I have no disagreement with you regarding our insane policy of destroying Middle Eastern countries. I’m no neocon.
However, that is not relevant to the discussion of EU membership, although there is some overlap due to the open borders.
There are plenty of good arguments for leaving the EU, and a few for remaining too. My point above was that race is not pertinent to the topic of EU immigration. But as so often is the case, leftists immediately start screaming the race card because they are obsessed with the topic. And oddly, many remainers of all political shades have jumped on this idiotic bandwagon too, and it needs to be challenged.
If you subtract those supreme court judges who ruled that prorogation was illegal, then the government was NOT acting unlawful.
If you subtract those goals scored by England in the 1966 World Cup final, then England did NOT win the World Cup.
Ad nauseum.
Glasshopper.
Social decline has been attributed by some on the leave campaign to immigration, and some of those people have a xenophobic/nationalist attitude, and a small minority are no doubt racists but I also take the point that many (i.e. most) brexiters are not racist, and to insinuate that leave supporters are driven by racism is wrong.
Deb O’Nair (I don’t know why there is no Reply button in your comment box).
The reason why I specifically mentioned those foreigners working in the City was because they are doing the jobs that the British are simply not qualified for.
Other immigrants who come here are taking jobs that Brits could do, since it doesn’t
require any qualifications etc.
So basically, if you look at the situation say in 1990 compared to today, a lot of those immigrants were necessary.
Then of course we had the ever closer union with the eu, and under bliar things really
went out of control.
Further compounding the problem was that the Govt wasn’t doing its job, of removing
those who illegally came here, so that, after 14 years, they couldn’t be deported.
Numbers for these people amount to the low hundreds of thousands to over a million.
So regarding Oxford Economics, well you know what they say about stats, don’t you? But
to really put the nail into your dumb counter argument, simply answer this:
How many immigrants are there who are undocumented, i.e. the Govt has no idea who they
are and what pay they get, so since we have a large unknown, how can OE come up with
their figures with any claim to credibility? Just for you, they obviously can’t.
Besides, they are part of the liberal establishment.
Ralph.
You are not making any serious points. I can not point out the shortcomings in your arguments because they are not arguments, just a series of baseless assertions which you have, no doubt, picked up over the years from the anti-EU right-wing press and their poster boys; Farage and Johnson.
Deb O’Nair
Hampshire is awash with new housing because every new house sells for half a million.
That’s an awful lot of mortgage interest flooding the 80% of the economy and a few scraps left for the boss of Persimmon too.
Rents in Birmingham are reaching 800 pounds a month for a scruffy semi because of the brexit rush to get on the gravy train before All Saints Day. Tusk was smirking when he gave the special place in hell ERG till Halloe’en to crash out of the EU.
If only the EU was always so jolly. When Germany wants to lead a European Army, I see no choice but to get out as quickly as possible. Then if the German army gets nasty with us , let’s hope it only has missiles powerful enough to plop into the North Sea.
It would have been much better if the banks had not collapsed on Gordon Brown’s watch because so many people lost their savings and blamed him. yum! Belch! said the Tory 80% of the economy. and Yum! Belch! is what the currency gamblers are saying now too.
If that sounds inconclusive, we are half way up Mount Everest and a few shoogly pegs have already gone. Do we just gracefully dangle over the crevasse, or do we hope the EU will send a helicopter to the rescue? Our British sang-froide is never worried about the blood sucking Tory vampires by night or the Yetis of the EU.
Deb O’Nair (September 27, 2019 at 19:18)
‘a series of baseless assertions which you have, no doubt, picked up over the years from the anti-EU right-wing press and their poster boys; Farage and Johnson.’
I’ll take that as your surrender; making assumptions with no proof destroys your own argument. QED.
Ralph,
you can take it anyway you like but all I have heard is your baseless assertions, avoiding addressing points by simply dismissing them, and finally, accusing me of behaviour that you have been clearly engaged in yourself.
“Please stop pedaling this garbage.”
Pedaling?
On your bike! Pedal off!
Glasshopper. Do you by any chance come from the Tory party’s Central Office?
“The issue of EU membership has nothing to do with race.”
So how do you explain all the vitriol heaped on EU citizens as well as actual attacks on them?
If that isn’t racist, I don’t know what is.
That’s xenophobia…not racism.
These eu citizens are mainly caucausian…ie…the same race as many uk citizens. Important that distinction is made.
When notorious right-winger Tony Benn was campaigning to leave the EEC (as it was then) in 1975, one of his arguments was that it was easier to leave then than to wait until a later date, when it would be much more difficult. Prescient words from that knuckle-dragging old racist.
Bear in mind also that more calculating racists will have voted to remain.
It was a working class rebellion however you gloss it.
One of your finest pieces Craig. Excellent analysis.
Thankyou Craig once again for an invaluable article.
I think you have mnentioned the background of Mr Cox before, but I was fascinated by the info about Hunter Biden.
I spend very little time trawling (not trolling!) the internet for the truth about things and because of time limitations rely too much on MSM, feeling uneasy as I do so perhaps like many. As a result I was horrified by accounts I heard of the Trump Zelensky phone call, making it sound like it was a bullying call trying to make Zelensky fabricate lies about Biden.
However it now appears something very far from this may have been the truth. Based on what you say and having read the entire near transcript, Trump’s position, though he flouts protocol consistently and massively, is in itself reasonable and shows a penetrating grasp of events.
Thanks once again.
Thank you! Nice to see some people are still living in the field of reason and logic. It’s been infuriating having to explain that distinction re Trump and Biden to people over the last few days and I’d genuinely forgotten about Cox being outed as a predator. Incredible duplicity from the establishment, as always.
Many people’s considerations of what might happen next in the Brexit story contain a notion of a possible Pitchfork Scenario, in which mobs of 11-fingered Leavers carrying flaming torches cause, well, let’s just say a LOT of physical trouble.
I am now seeing head-in-the-sand responses to that notion offered by those who observe that 13 million registered members of the electorate abstained in the referendum; that many people don’t much care one way or the other; that many Leave voters wouldn’t touch the Tory party with a 10-foot bargepole; that some Leave voters are “members of minorities” (a kind of 2010s version of the word “coloured”); that such and such a percentage of such and such a demographic prefer their boiled eggs to have runny yolks; etc. etc.
This is what is called “denial”. Do those who are engaging in this kind of pooh-poohing have any idea of how small a percentage of people who are REALLY ANGRY it takes to bring about the first few pogroms, to make things really start cracking off, to bring the country to a standstill even?
When you think about it, Brexit that is, Johnson’s associates whoever they are including Jacob Rees-Mogg stand to make billions from the collapse of the pound on a no deal Brexit by betting against the currency just as Soros did on Black Wednesday.
So it should come as a surprise to no one, that Johnson and his advisors are intent on leaving without a deal. We had the prorogation of Parliament, now we have Cummings exploring ways to use the Privy Council to bypass the PM asking the EU for an extension. The House has also blocked the governments attempt for a three-day Commons recess, with regards to the Conservative conference.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Johnson won’t ask for an extension post 19th October, and that he will put all his time and effort into running the clock down to a no deal Brexit, if he’s permitted to do so.
On an another note it struck me that the judiciary, (In England) were hailed as almost heroic in their decision by the remain camp for thwarting Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament. This is the same judicial system that currently oppresses Julian Assange.
How many MPs who aren’t lining their pockets? Pointing fingers at Johnson et al. instead of all of them is wrong.
I seeth at the time wasted on the so called strategems to by-pass the Benn Act. The constitutional, legal experts are entitled to have their say but it matters not a jot. Cummings would welcome the opportunity to attempt Order of the Privy Council followed by “the Benn Act is underwritten by UK law, A50 is underwritten by EU law and EU law is supreme”, only for the arguments to be shot down by the “treacherous elite”. That’s the whole point, to be seen to be defeated representing the “will of the people v’s the elite scum”.
Indeed N_ the Bolsheviks were a tiny percentage in Russia and they managed to slaughter 10s of millions in the name of their drivel.
No, they slaughtered Bolshevism by 1921 and turned into west European liberals; hence the mountains of dead people. Plus ca change.
I’d say the revolution was almost dead in Russia at the start of the civil war in early 1918 when the bosses successfully militarised labour, save for a few admirable later working class revolutionary efforts such as the Kronstadt uprising in 1921.
I think you’ll find the Cheka was hard at work right from the start in December 1917 well before the decent nice Bolsheviks apparently turned into murderous western liberals.
Lenin is held in high regard by Eugenics Cummings. What appeals to Cummings the most, I wonder? Lenin’s acceptance of German imperial gold or his government’s use of mobilisational war propaganda that tied in to the symbolism of the past? (Bogatyrka hat?)
Is Number 10 behind the timing of the BBC’s racist decision that British Asian journalist Naga Munchetty was in breach of its guidelines when she called a racist a racist?
Let’s not beat about the bush: censuring or silencing people for calling racism racism is racist.
An open letter protesting the decision has been sent to the BBC signed by 44 non-white British journalists and broadcasters. I think they made a mistake by not also having some white signatories, because many white people abhor the racism that the BBC has shown here. Jeremy Corbyn for instance has unequivocally supported Ms Munchetty.
The timing seems right up Eugenics Cummings’s street.
What is happening is that a British state organisation is trying to legitimise telling non-white people to “go back where they came from”, by seeking to relegate the recognition that such a call is racist to the level of an “opinion”. Obviously there will be many critical responses from people who genuinely oppose racism. The idea is to frame these responses as shrill and bossy and coming from left-wingers who want to impose their trendy opinions on “everyone” as if their opinions are objective truth. In other words the BBC is ratcheting up the racism. It wants the kind of “neutrality” and “balance” in which on one side, here you have a person with the opinion that telling black and Asian British people to “go back where they came from” is racist, and on the other side, here you have a person with the opinion that it is not in the slighest bit racist and is akin to offering them a cheese sandwich.
This is the kind of thing you get when a racist piece of filth who has called black people “piccaninnies”, the same word that appeared in Enoch Powell’s famous “blood” speech, is the prime minister.
Ukraine is thin ice for the DNC, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer precisely because an investigation will uncover (in MSM terms) some extremely damaging information on one of their own. Why protect Joe Biden in any case? He is clearly in the early to medium term grip of senile dementia. His presence as a candidate and his debate performance reflects badly on the Democratic Party as a whole. Hmm? Perhaps Biden has the dirt on Pelosi and Schumer?
Two wrongs don’t make a right but it does muddy the waters. Trump will have a field day with the secondary revelations (primary in historical context) about the dirt on the Bidens.
There is however an opportunity for the three Presidential candidates operating beyond the corporate restraints. Who amongst them is forthright and blunt enough to call the Bidens out as the venal gangsters they are? My guess is Tulsi Gabbard. She has been using every opportunity she can grasp to call out the KSA as the originators of terror (state and paramilitary).
Perhaps Biden is a “stop Sanders, throw the election” candidate?
But neo-liberals get a free pass from the modern feminist movement (cf Bill Clinton).
Excellent point. I’d still like to believe that there is something decent about the ideals of feminism, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to throw up every time I hear some middle-class donkey proclaim himself or herself a feminist.
“We will have to seize Independence by means which the British state will deem unlawful.” I wonder what they might be. Anyway, in 1975 a group of men with similar ambitions were convicted in Glasgow of plotting to help seize Scottish independence through a so-called “tartan army” and jailed for many years.
Very well put, your best editorial in a long time.