It is currently popular among those who make money writing media articles about politics, to argue that Boris Johnson will implode next year and be replaced as Tory leader by someone more rational and conventional. I very much doubt this: the most important reason for that doubt being the power of the atavistic English nationalist forces that Johnson has unleashed in British politics. Astonishingly, despite the UK government’s hideously inept performance in the Covid crisis, and the corruption and looting of the public purse on a massive scale for which the pandemic has been used, the Conservatives still lead Labour in the UK opinion polls.
Partly that is due to Sir Keir Starmer having no apparent policy other than to ensure that no party member ever criticises Israel. But it is mostly due to the fact that Johnson’s supporters do not care what happens to the country, as long as they can see news footage of black people being deported on charter planes and immigrant children washed up dead rather than rescued. The racist brand is very, very strong in England. Cummings and Johnson’s plan to appropriate it and target the areas of England with lowest levels of educational achievement as their new political base still holds up as a political strategy. Look at the polls.
Tory MP’s care about themselves. They will ditch Johnson extremely quickly if he becomes a perceived electoral liability and therefore a threat to their own jobs. But as long as the Tories are ahead in the opinion polls, then Johnson is secure. The idea that there is a norm to which politics revert is a false one. Many of the same pundits who are assuring us now that Johnson will depart, also assured us that his kicking out moderate and pro-EU Conservatives from his party, and removing Remainers from his Cabinet, was a temporary move to be reversed post-election. There is in fact no going back to the norm.
Even the dimmest Labour Party members must now realise that Starmer lied when he promised he would carry on with Corbyn’s radical economic policies if elected to the leadership of the Labour Party. The Corbyn phenomenon was interesting. It arose as a reaction to the massively burgeoning wealth inequality in UK society and the great loss of secure employment opportunity with rights and benefits available to the large bulk of the population. That situation continues to worsen. Brexit was in large part a cry of pain resulting from the same causes. But Brexit in itself is going to do nothing to improve the social position or economic prospects of the working class.
Whether the novelty of Brexit will in the long term continue to be enough to channel the desire for radical change away from actual programmes of redistribution of wealth and ownership, I doubt. I suspect the Starmer project will falter on public reluctance to yet again embrace a choice of two Tory parties, and Starmer will be ejected as Labour leader before he can become the third Blue Labour PM. In the meantime, I can only urge those in England to vote Green. I can certainly see no reason to vote Labour and validate the Starmer purge.
As a former professional diplomat, I am going to be astonished if there is not a Brexit deal announced very shortly. It is plainly highly achievable given the current state of negotiations. The EU have moved very far in agreeing that an independent UK body, as opposed to the European Court of Justice, can be responsible for policing UK compliance with standards regulation to ensure against undercutting. The “ratchet clause” sticking point, where a mechanism is needed to ensure the UK does not undercut future improved EU regulatory regimes, can be resolved with some fudged wording on the mutual obligation to comply with the highest standards, but which does not quite force the EU to simply copy UK regulation in the improbable event it becomes more demanding than the EU regime. By making the obligation theoretically mutual the “sovereignty” argument about UK subservience to EU regulations and standards is met, which is the ultra Tory Brexiteers biggest fetish. Fisheries is even simpler to solve, with obvious compromises on lengths of agreement periods and quotas within easy grasp.
It should not be forgotten that David Frost is not the plain loutish Brexiteer he has so spectacularly enhanced his career by impersonating domestically, but is the smooth and effective professional diplomat he shows when actually interacting with Barnier. It could only be an act of utter lunacy that would lead Johnson to eschew a deal that the Express and Mail will be able to trumpet as a massive victory over Johnny Foreigner. I expect we shall be seeing a union jacked apotheosis of saviour Johnson all over the media by a week from now at the very latest – another reason he will not be leaving office.
It is of course, all smoke and mirrors. By expectation management, a deal which is a far harder Brexit than anybody imagined when Theresa May set down her infamous red lines, will be greeted by a relieved business community as better than actually blowing your own brains out. As I have stated ever since the repression of the Catalan referendum, I can live with leaving the EU and live with abandoning its political and security pillars. I continue to view leaving the single market and losing the great advantage of free movement as disastrous.
One thing that has been very little publicised is that, deal or no deal, the UK is going to fudge the worst consequences by simply not on 1 January applying the new rules at the borders. There will not be immigration checks on the 86% of truck drivers entering the UK who are EU citizens, for the first six months. Otherwise the queues by mid January would scarcely be contained by Kent itself. Similarly, the UK side will not be applying the new customs paperwork on 1 January except on a “random sampling” basis. Those who are eagerly anticipating chaos on 1 January will thus probably be disappointed. In fact the deleterious economic effects of Brexit are quite probably going to take some time to show through in a definite way. I do not believe we will see either empty shelves or major price hikes in the first few weeks.
My prediction is this: Boris will agree his thin deal and at the end of January the Brexiteers will be gloating that the predicted disaster did not happen. Effects on economic growth and employment will take some time to be plainly identified, and it will be mortifying how readily the Tories will twist the narrative to blame the EU, and also to obtain English nationalist support for the notion that this gradual pain is worth it in pursuit of a purer country, with less immigration. That may sound crazy to you. But is it not crazy to you that the Tories are still ahead in UK polls after the last year? Mark my words; hope that Boris Johnson will simply vanish is very misplaced.
There is of course the possibility that Johnson is indeed completely bonkers and will not agree any deal at all, in which case 1 January chaos is unavoidable and all bets are off. I should be very surprised indeed. But then I did not think Trump would be mad enough not to concede the US Presidential election. Trying to predict the irrational mind is a pointless undertaking. I don’t think Johnson is that irrational; but I have been wrong before.
I think it is safe to say that Johnson’s visit to Brussels is purely political theatre. For one thing, von der Leyen (a very mediocre politician) is not empowered to simply accept any deal proposed by Johnson – only the 27 member states (and regional parliaments) plus the EP can. Countries would have be consulted first.
Either a deal has already been done and this is all show for Johnson and von der Leyen’s benefit. Or there is no deal and the show is to let Johnson claim he has done “everything possible”. Why would the EC go along with that? Because shutting the door on Johnson would be much worse in terms of PR.
It is interesting to note Barnier’s sudden and rather unexpected remark: “There will be no negotiations after Wednesday.” And here we are on Wednesday with Johnson’s “last ditch” visit to Brussels.
Who knows? Perhaps Johnson will return and emerge from his plane clutching a piece of paper in his hand. Perhaps Mr Biden (a devout Irish Catholic) has told him: “Do it or else!”
Frankfurt won’t let Vilnius, Ljubljana, or Lisbon stand in the way. All it would have to do is flex its fly-swatter demonstratively. Have you looked at Ursula von der Leyen’s background? I think she is formidable. And she is East-facing…in the big business sense.
No British politician will wave a piece of paper, whether from the top of some airstairs or from the balcony at Buckingham Palace. If there’s one thing they know about in the past, it’s that.
I’m not following the day-by-day details, but is there a “hell if we know what the British side actually wants” vibe, as Angela Merkel expressed about Theresa May? (In Russian the vulgar phrase “хуй их знает” might be used.) Admittedly with May it was back in the days when some within the Westminster and Whitehall beltway (who as the arrogant Dominic Cummings rightly said knew far less than they thought) believed there might be a second referendum with Remain as an option.
Cue a video of illegal immigrants landing in Essex by boat or something like that. The message behind all the “Brits banned from Europe” stories in the gutter press is “Tell them to f*** off”.
The cretins who backed Brexit seem not to understand the concept of “consequences”.
I have very solid evidence that Sir Keir Starmer and his flying monkeys do not tolerate any criticism of him either, or his censorship in the Party. This is based on very close experience as well as observing the vast numbers of officers and Councillors either being suspended or resigning in disgust for darng to bring unwanted motions to their CLP meetings. It is either the motions or searches through social media.
His overall task for Labour is to stop the red wall becoming rebuilt and to scatter all the bricks (members) so no grassroots political parties can exist.
He will also be passed the baton to cement that grandee status that will forever scatter the social contracts and remaining silver as a toady to the hedge funds and insurance companies who are already moving in FAST into our data infrastructures and personal information. Most of the data on families and individuals being collected through the various Covid £ trillion contracts for testing are gathered on US server of major US corporations such as Salesforce.
You think that won’t be used for slick direct marketing? It’s a done deal as they like to say, or more exactly for us a done no-deal BrexShit.
A year on from the general election and isn’t strange that there is barely a peep from the media about Johnson’s disastrous record in office? Indeed, has any Prime Minister in history brought the country so low in such a short period of time?
We all remember how our media told lies about Corbyn during the election campaign that would have embarrassed Mugabe’s henchmen – and yet here we are a year later, with even the most blood-curdling Tory predictions for a Corbyn premiership coming true under Johnson.
Mind you, I guess the establishment must be getting desperate to throw Kay Burley and Beth Rigby to the wolves – or is that how the political-media mafia blackmail works?
If we were really generous and assumed there was some sort of competent, truthful, non corrupt inner sanctum within the Tories controlling things, then we might think that following the referendum the Tories recognised that Brexit was undeliverable so they put an absolute arse in charge to take all the flak, with the intention of replacing him when it all inevitably went t!ts up.
There again …
“even the most blood-curdling Tory predictions for a Corbyn premiership coming true under Johnson”
That’s an excellent point, but most media consumers – including those who consider themselves intellectually non-passive – have very short memories on matters on which they have been conditioned to have short memories.
CM – ‘The racist brand is very, very strong in England’
A pointer to this would be the way the parties dealt with Theresa May’s immigration act of 2014. A handful voted against including the SNP (5 of 6), Plaid Cymru, Caroline Lucas and a few Labour MPs (Corbyn, Mcdonnell, Abbott, Skinner + others), and a few Lib Dems (Sarah Teather, John Leech). The act enabled the home office to deny black british citizens their rights and to imprison them and to deport them.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/windrush-immigration-act-corbyn-may-145894
In the 2015 general election both of the two biggest parties effectively played the race card with their immigration policies.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/29/diane-abbott-labour-immigration-controls-mugs-shameful
In the 2016 referendum, all sorts of racist muck was thrown about, but the worst I’d say was Farage’s breaking point poster which was about racism pure and simple. Nobody thought the refugees in Farage’s poster were coming to the UK. It was well known that most were trying to get to Germany where they were welcomed. Farage was dog whistling the keep Britain white sentiments engendered by the gutter press, and he knew he had a constituency.
Exactly Franz – both the controlled parties have been singing from the same hymn sheet.
The only stone they had in their boots was the accidental election of Corbyn. Which they couldn’t shake out so easily. Even resorting to a snap election by May in 2017 after the chicken coups failed and party membership exploded into hundreds of thousands. They lost a few limbs there and barely survived with many recounts and a DUP Frankenstein Monster coalition with Labour collaborators.
Immigration and the EU were the scapegoats on which the hard BrexShit was based, by way of Austerity.
The print media front pages through the period easily show that it was a full spectrum, establishment, DS , global robber barons planned, financed and run operation. Just like all the copycat Alt-right factions which sprung like triffids across Europe.
I think that your dire prognostications of economic calamity overlooks that fact that the working class has been living with one since 1976. We won’t notice the difference but everyone else might. It’s what I voted for; surprising really that the only state vote that I haven’t boycotted since 1983 (because it was a democratic vote) is the one where I won. I haven’t stopped laughing since the morning after. ;O)
CM doesn’t predict economic calamity, rather the opposite, a slow decline. And yes, the working class, who have suffered since 1976, will only suffer more. Closure of factories that depended on the single market. Already so in the case of Honda.
Funny how remainers have become so coy about working class unemployment since the votes were counted.
Not going to be better under Brexiters.
The working-class have nothing left to lose. You can’t take the breeks off a Hielandman as my gran (RiP) used to say. It is the middle-class that is going to get squeezed out. Their standard of living is set to drop like a stone. Hell mend them! as my gran (RiP) also used to say.
Save me from lip-pursingly precious middle class people who say it’s always them who get squeezed the most.
The working class have got a lot to lose – food in their cupboards and fridges, accommodation, fairly secure tenancies, the tide of debt keeping below nostril level, not having been burgled or mugged recently, not having family members under the age of 50 die of TB or some other infectious disease, not having infant mortality above 3%, not starving, not being able to get much health treatment for chronic illnesses, the right of free movement, things like that. Some are still even in jobs.
Brexit is going to do no good at all for the working class, who now seem to support nevertheless the Brexiter Tories.
??
Craig Murray is a breath of Scottish fresh air, I am English but have Scottish ancestry through my Grandfather, Jim Campbell, but it is not the bloodline that tugs at me to follow Craig. It is his clear headed and honest writings that hold me. I am sick to the back teeth, as are many of us, by the blatant lies and duplicity of our politicians and those in public office who care nothing for anyone in society who does not belong to their own small circle .As long as the world works for them is all they care about. We are mere cattle to be led by the nose. I take great heart whenever I think of the French and Russian revolutions, the parasites and leadership back then thought they were safe from retribution and never gave a thought to what could happen. It will happen again when the masses realise that they have been duped time and again. All it will take is for those in charge to lose control of the current forms of media. Small voices like Craigs will become a deafening roar by which time the game is up for those at the top.
David Rhodes. Our “masses” need to lose some weight, spend more time educating themselves with blogs like Craig’s, and having more empathy for those under sanctions and the curse of continual endless wars which are proppergated by our own politicians, who they keep voting for.
It’s a bit ironic that the act of “taking back control of our borders” will involve leaving them wide open for six months.
Andrew N. Yes about time Nationalists who hate foreigners started working in hospitals, nursing homes and in the fields. Just like the so called ex pat foreigners living in Spain who voted for Brexit and the Tories who joined Europe, now complaining about their problems. Ask Afghans, Iraqis, Lybians and Yeminis what they think of how we invite our boys with guns and bombs to their “open borders”.
“Whether the novelty of Brexit will in the long term continue to be enough to channel the desire for radical change away from actual programmes of redistribution of wealth and ownership, I doubt.”
That the novelty of Brexit will in the long term continue to be enough to channel the desire for radical change away from actual programmes of redistribution of wealth and ownership, I too doubt (if this is what you meant).
Joanna Cherry..A work of Sublime beauty….I’m in Lurve –
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry
thanks for the link to an inspiring Joanna Cherry, Brian, surely a woman to be reckoned with in future.
Joanna correctly identified Westminster with a Tory majority of 80 as an exercise in futility. She wanted to get back into the fray at Holyrood but was blocked by Murrell’s party machine. Talk of dual mandates and the expense of running a Westminster by-election. But what’s this! Miraculously, Neil Gray MP has been confirmed as the candidate to replace the retiring Alex Neil in Airdrie & Shotts 2021. Gray is a professional politician in his early 30’s, very much pliable to the will of the Sturgeon “kitchen cabinet”. The stench of corruption from Bute house is overwhelming.
Vivian
I thought the NEC changed the rules to stop an MP standing for election as an MSP unless they gave up their MP seat first. Is Gray giving up his MP seat soon? Or have the rules been broken already?
Whilst I’m sure you’re only being ironic and making a joke, those sorts of ad hominem comments are best left to the sexist, chauvinistic, sun reading, Bernard Manning fans.
An important article in the latest London Review of Books.
It’s long- more than 19000 words, discursive and scholarly. It’s by Perry Anderson.
And it is about the EU and how it came to be what is today. It’s about the organisation that the UK is leaving, and when you finish reading it you will find it hard to understand why anyone is not celebrating.
Anyone, that is except those who understand that institutions like the EU which not only keep democracy at bay and ensure that political decisions are made by elites willing to do the bidding of the capitalist class but, in addition, manage to do what most such arrangements cannot do which is to impose the rule of the few without risking an uprising of the many. It is government as a spectacle with the people as an audience.
The EU is a modern version of the Congress system which Metternich tried and failed to impose on Europe in order to suppress the nationalism and democratic yearnings that the French Revolution and its armies had awoken, and which the developing USA seemed to be promoting.
Throughout the Brexit debate it has become increasingly clear that what the bien pensant intelligentsia object to is the way in which leaving the EU opens up the possibility that a new course, away from a world dominated by NATO and imperial capitalism, the world in which the comfortable classes have become very comfortable.
So soon after, the narrow escape from the mild democratic reforms Corbyn seemed to represent – an escape which involved an almost terminal degradation of public debate and a wide ranging betrayal by the intelligentsia- Brexit seems another, though smaller, challenge to social stasis and the principle that-and for the poor most of all-There Is No Alternative.
Yeah, socialism in one country. Isolation from the outside world. EU is bad, never mind what might be better. Easy when you’re far away in moderate Canada, where the politics is not at all the same.
I suspect that the world that you live in, mentally, disappeared long ago, like the ‘moderate’ Canada to which you refer. In recent years at both federal and provincial levels Canada has suffered a series of extreme right wing governments. The current Liberal government has set the pace in sinophobic policies, opposition to Latin American reform, taking the lead in promoting Guiado’s ‘Presidency’ of Venezuela, being the first to call for Morales to step down, defending the kleptocratic thugs in Haiti on the grounds of feminism, etc etc. The Canada of Chretien, Trudeau even Mulroney has been replaced by a nastier US satrapy.
I suspect that your EU is equally mythical, a social Union, run by governments of the left believing in welfare states and high taxation, with honest judges and mild well regulated police forces. Not at all like the EU that we see in action daily, the EU that crucified Greece and the other PIIGs.
Bevin, I really have to take exception with your blunt BrexShittery, which in the Alt world is part and parcel of the anti-Covid populism Climate/Environmental chaos denialism.
All the smelly kippers in all their populist disguises bought by FB ads and paid young thugs , created by foreign billionaires and hedge fund funded Alt-right and ‘hard left’ movements and quislings in many a European country – working towards the gaining strength of the EU as it matures and levels the playing field where nato can take a hike.
Just go and watch/read Merkels ultimate ‘state of the Union’ address today. Which mainly started off and stayed on keeping the Covid under control this Xmas and winter there. Hey they have got to 500 deaths a day and nearly 20,000 excess deaths because of Covid this year.
The U.K. went past 70,000 in the first wave.
We massaged ours down to 40k ‘Covid’ deaths by ignoring the rest of the excess deaths. As we are by declassifying and not measuring correctly now. – we will hit 6 figures while Germany has a FIFTH as many.
As the quisling kipper types show boat heckled her about fake Covid and climate change and being a liberal PC mutti she shot back without missing a beat
“I believe in the power of the Enlightenment. I believe that Europe is where it is today thanks to the Enlightenment and to the belief in the fact that there are scientific findings that are real and should be followed,” Merkel said.‘
‘ In a moving speech to the Bundestag, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Germans to give up family Christmas celebrations and not to gather in large groups, especially with vulnerable people such as the elderly. “I am sorry, I am very sorry from the bottom of my heart, but if the price to pay is 590 dead a day, it is unacceptable from my point of view,” she said, which drew loud applause.
“And when the scientists are practically begging us to cut back our contacts for a week before we see Grandma and Grandpa and elderly people this Christmas, then maybe we should think hard if we can’t find a way to start our school holidays on the 16th instead of the 19th. What will we say when we look back on this once-in-a-century event if we can’t find a solution for these three days?” she added.’
She did eventually turn to BrexShit. Make it clear to the Quisling Bozo in the U.K. and other European governments that the most important issue is NOT fish but the single market and the level playing field under a common court as future regulations and Laws diverge.
Bozo went to have a pointless dinner with the Head of the EU commission- who does not have much say in the negotiations. But he won’t be rushing to barge in on the EU heads of states like Trezza did to receive her No-Deal prize but got ‘ambushed’ by the masterful Merkel.
She lasted long enough in her chancellorship to fuck up the takeover by the chief quisling within the EU – Macron , raised to take over the reigns from Angela at the beginning of the year. He works towards a hard BrexShit too, no matter what he says and would use a veto that would push through an unlikely deal.
In her last year as the longest serving and best leader in Europe and America’s for generations – she will not let the bastards build a Singapore on Thames just 20 mile off the coast of the EU to steal it blind. That’s why No Deal was the only plan and Bozo is not going to be allowed to be turned over like May.
He would be putty in her hands.
I hope you can give that some consideration.
Anyway I’ll carry on with kicking the gonads of the Red/Brown manipulators and narrative constructors in the mainstream and Alt streams, above and below the lines.
“In her last year as the longest serving and best leader in Europe and America’s for generations …”!!
I must have missed the beginning of that joke.
But really, you ought to read the article. This notion that the EU bourgeoisie are only neo-liberal sadists when southern Europeans are being devoured is nonsense- the purpose of the EU is to screw the people. The fact that the Tories, and The Establishment have the same objective is not a reason to support an institution built on deceit, gangsterism and open contempt for the people. A contempt not unlike that of the Remainers and Blairites, after a clear referendum decision, calling for re-votes until the hoi poloi with their low levels of academic achievement ‘get it right.’
You only need to take a look at the nations on the periphery of the EU to see how great the EU is, despite its imperfections. The UK has within the space of a few years degenerated into something close to a ‘failed state’ as we circle the drain of exit, but the examples of the north African countries or Ukraine just shows how much further there is to fall outside the EU.
Everything that the Remain campaign said would happen with Brexit more or less has happened, while none of the promises of Johnson, Farage, and the rest of the stooges look close to coming to pass.
Tom, ask the youth of Spain, Italy, Greece, etc, how great the EU is.
@portside
At any rate, they don’t want to leave. Last time I went to Andalucia and Sicily they looked pretty prosperous compared to previous times, so maybe your jibe is less evidenced than you suggest.
Lafayette, next time try Naples.
Lafayette??? Laguerre!
Damn autocorrect!
Yup .. as I suspected, you show your true ‘colors’ B.
The quisling nato wannabes show a lie to your blinkering narrative.
Hungary and Poland, are being pushed to carry on pissing inside the EU tent that actually benefits them as net receipts in the EU. Promised great swathes of Ukraine and to be party to be the buffer between the EU and Eurasian imperial coalescence that finally edges out the ‘Old Aristos and Financial Owners of the World’ that they parcelled out between themselves centuries ago.
The new kids on the block are like their fraternal old imperial states Austria, Dutch, Swedes, Danes and yes the French ‘establishments’ playing to the these who backed BrexShit and an fully fledged incorporation of the U.K. into the US multinationals.
As they hope to form a reverse of their role to protect Russia and the Soviet Union from a mass attack and invasion on multiple fronts. Which became unnecessary with MAD.
Brexit is just another attempt at the never ending strategy of the Great Games. Talking of it as in way benefitting any of the inhabitants of the countries is just button pushing, jingoistic, religious BS.
Singapore on Thames suggests an arrangement comparable with the relationship between China and Singapore.
Would you rather the relationship between China and HK or that between China and Singapore?
China complains about HK and Taiwan but it doesn’t complain about Singapore. They muddle on quite well.
Pathetic whatabouttery by BrexShitheads as usual to completely divert attention.
Thanks Bevin, I shall definitely check that out. Perry Anderson’s writings on the EU over the years have been first class.
After the Johnson-VDL dinner, it seems nothing has changed. There’s not going to be a CM suggested diplomatic compromise. I’m not surprised.
They had a “lively” conversation it seems. I wonder what that means in diplomatic language. Does it mean rudeness, raised voices and swearing? Or does it mean jokes and laughter?
It seems rather unusual language for a diplomatic statement.
I wouldn’t take the word ‘lively’ from a diplomat to mean jokes and laughter. It’s a diplomatic understatement of what went on, in my view. I hope she kicked the shit out of him!!
Unfortunately this prediction is looking about as good as Craig‘s General Election predictions from last year.
Cannot see a deal materialising now. The latest charade tonight gave me the impression not of someone genuinely trying to get a deal, but instead of someone trying to look like they are trying to get a deal.
Johnson famously said “F*** business” – probably when he was as drunk as a state-schooled Tory landlord at a golf club bar – but he surely didn’t have the City of London in mind. If the City is finished then Britain is finished. Tumbleweed time in the City and it will be empty bellies time throughout the land. (Although of course there won’t be any tumbleweed at the Rothschilds’ New Court whatever happens.)
That’s the position that has been eagerly bolstered by every British government since 1979. (Insert references to “mortgaging”, “asset stripping”, and “casinos” here.)
And yet…a quick trawl through the past few days’ output of the yellow media fails to find much about the City in the coverage of the ongoing negotiations. The essential is being kept quiet. It might already be all over.
Tory leaders in Britain only fall because of “Europe” for wanting to become too friendly, not for “standing firm” and failing to “do deals”. Johnson doesn’t seem about to be tarred and feathered as “Surrender Boris”.
Johnson might fall because of Scotland if next May’s Scottish general election yields a resounding win for independence supporters though, after the election and before a referendum rerun, given that his whole persona plays to the SNP “unionism is English Toryism” lie, but a pro-independence majority is far from a certain eventuality. Whether any polling stations are likely to be open in Britain during 2021 is another question. No elections have been held since the start of fascism in March. Sturgeon wants to regain her party’s lost majority but she also wants to stay out of the prison cell where she belongs.
If/once Boris ‘takes back control’, the Scottish Parliament will be dismantled in short order. Sturgeon will be toast. There will be nothing or no-one standing in the way.
@Emily – What do you mean by “if/once Boris ‘takes back control’ “? Presumably something different from what you say will be the consequence of that happening.
Johnson will not fall if Scotland gets and wins a vote for independence. Most of us English population will wish it well and help when we can. Its only our ‘leaders’ who are drunk on the supposed power and influence that being the UK brings who want to keep it going.
I can’t wait for the day that the UK, no longer in existence, loses its seat on the UNSC and England reverts to being a bit more like other countries of similar size, in Europe like say Spain or Italy. Then, depending on the experience of the Irish post Brexit, the possibility of a British Isles free trade zone opens up.
Plus we might get shot of the damagingly expensive nuclear deterrent, so hold your nerve SNP, give us a brilliant reason to can it.
Boris Johnson might be replaced BEFORE an independence referendum because his persona helps the SNP’s lie (which is highly insulting to many Scots) that a vote for the union is a vote for colonial English rule under English Tories. His persona is close to a classic case of ruling class English Tory arrogance and it has nothing like the well-mannered and urbane side that was present in David Cameron’s persona (at least when no dead pig was in the vicinity and the cameras weren’t running).
N_
Remind me , was it Cameron’s penis in the pig’s mouth or the pig’s penis in Cameron’s mouth?
With Johnson, by using algorithms to rig the election the Tories are chewing the electorate.
Both metaphors equally disgusting, but Cameron left when we closed our teeth, while Boris seems to be able single handedly to wreck both business and workers simultaneously by wrecking the democratic process.
“But then I did not think Trump would be mad enough not to concede the US Presidential election. Trying to predict the irrational mind is a pointless undertaking.”
Not conceding in an electioin riddled with fraud?
https://spectator.org/pennsylvania-bombshell-biden-99-4-vs-trump-0-6/
Sounds perfectly rational to me!
I have no idea about how much fraud has gone on in this election because I have only the words of the Trump camp and the MSM to go on. Two unreliable sources. Mind you the State of Texas has decided to file a suit against other stses for unconstitutional practice durring the election.
@JC: It’s not “MSM” who are promoting this evidence-free conspiracy theory about Fraud. Just the FOX sewer, and a bunch of cranks on social media, OAN, and Trump stooges.
Texas has filed a suit, which is going to go precisely nowhere. That couldn’t possibly be because the Attorney General for that wretched state, one Ken Paxton, is under investigation for bribery and abuse of office, could it?
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/04/politics/ken-paxton-texas-ag-investigation/index.html
This is the second time this crook has been done for this crime. Last time around he pleaded ignorance.
You don’t reckon he’s angling for a pardon from Trump, who’s currently handing them out like party favours? Surely this cannot be a desperate effort to gain the boss’s attention?
I suspect that you are quite wrong.
The Texas move to the SCOTUS can be regarded as nothing to do with election or voter fraud. It is all about those states not abiding by their own rules on how they should run an election. The petition now has the support of 17 other states.
The prime roll of SCOTUS is interpreting the Constitution and many experts in that field are saying that this case has a very good chance of succeeding, if only due to it being considered clarification of points of Law not proving difficult to lay out fraud.
Those supporting Trump appear to have been running what appears to be a very effective strategy. Trump firing up his 75M followers, his lawyer Giuliani and team going into the weeds and stirring up the mud of malpractice at multiple state local level while the independent lawyer team of Powell/Wood have been going at the national level digging into the overall control of the election and the impact of Dominion in particular. The result being sufficient angst to force something to happen. All done in the face of ridicule or virtual silence from the MSM.
The next 10 days are crucial. Biden may yet be the President reject rather that elect.
I forgot. AFAIK the President can only pardon Federal crimes. If Paxton is being pursued at state level then no pardon for him.
Which “experts” think this lawsuit has a good chance of succeeding? Please tell.
The only thing working very well with the clown-car of Trump, Powell and Giuliani is getting the dupes to pour in vast amounts of money. Over $200M as of a few days ago. They have absolutely nothing that doesn’t get laughed out of Court. Making all sorts of silly allegations outside Court and in the newsrooms/ chat-shows is one thing. Lying in Court is another, which is why no case ever goes anywhere.
As to your PS…. the FBI is looking into the crooked AG of Texas. The FBI prosecutes federal crime. The clue is in the first word of that agency’s name.
A lawsuit pitting 18 states against 4 states with the aim of telling those 4 states that they can shove their election results where the sun doesn’t shine will look very “Disunited States of America”-y from Moscow, even if to many in the US itself it appears embarrassingly ridiculous and Loonyville.
Questions of procedure in the House, unlike the appointment of a president if the Electoral College doesn’t manage to choose one, are not decided on a state basis but by majority vote. The idea that it would be easy-peasy for Trump to get the backing of the House because according to the constitution it would vote by state delegations is naive. There are many procedural angles that would be decided on by a majority.
If for some reason neither the EC nor the House can decide, then the House Speaker becomes acting president, and who the House Speaker actually is is also decided by majority vote. Since the House doesn’t have to appoint one of its own members, they could appoint Joe Biden if they wanted. They could even do it on the morning of 20 January.
Most of the 74m Trump “followers” have lard a*rses and however many pairs of “tactical” and “combat” underpants their “elite vanguard” may have stocked up on they would be no match for the army or for a state’s national guard, even if a few of the most psycho among them could doubtless pull off some Anders Breivik-style atrocities, which is probably a desideratum for some of the string-pullers in this affair. Meanwhile yesterday’s daily figure for deaths “with” Covid-19 in the US, 3265, was the highest ever. By 20 January the overall figure could exceed the number of US citizens killed in WW2. (It already exceeds the figure for WW1.) Is there a hint of a “death cult” here?
If, according to N’s scenario, Biden ends up being both Speaker of the House and acting President, who would end up managing the business of the House? Would such an obvious subterfuge be subject to legall challenge?
It’s easy to imagine such a situation degenerating into civil war, with Trump refusing to surrender the presidency, so that there are two rival Presidents, each supported by several states.
Who’d have thunk it?
‘Kent’s roads once again are beginning to resemble a lorry park as drivers queue to access the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel.
There are big queues at Dover and Eurotunnel for the second day running which have been put down to the pre-Christmas rush, stockpiling and coronavirus vaccine delivery.’
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news/another-day-of-lorry-chaos-looms-238903/
I bet that the store cupboards and freezers belonging to them that hath are full to bursting.
Look at the photo.
And that is without any Customs checks. Honda has stopped production until Monday due to delays of parts!
Pre-Christmas rush and vaccine delivery? It could be that firms that own lorries want them out of Britain pronto. A lorry that’s stuck stationary in Britain is like a hole in the pocket.
Some of the bourge have probably made arrangements to skedaddle fast, if they haven’t already left.
I hope this is not a sign of things to come, but any sweet potatoes bought recently turn to mush and fungi after only a few days in the cupboard*. Previously these would last for months sat in the cupboard.
*No they weren’t next to onions.
I’ve recently noticed that sweet potatoes are now as cheap as regular spuds – must be why.
«Any sweet potatoes bought recently turn to mush and fungi after only a few days in the cupboard*. Previously these would last for months sat in the cupboard.»
The difference (which applies to eggs and other stuff) is washed sweet potatoes (which lose their protective film and go mush quickly) and unwashed ones which last for a long time.
Something unmentioned by our paid for media, in their coverage of the Brexit shambles regarding fisheries, trade, and level playing fields, is that they, collectively, only form one part of the leave deal. Equally important, if not more so, is the agreements surrounding Military, Security and Policing cooperation. Maybe, those deals have already been done, behind closed doors. The Ready baked bit ? Are we really leaving, fully, at all ? Perhaps we should be told !
“Maybe, those deals have already been done, behind closed doors.”
Maybe, maybe not. The plods were reported, a week or two back, to be downloading like crazy the contents of the European crime database (don’t know its exact name), because access was going to be cut off. Might have been a precaution, though knowing the competence of the current lot in power, I am not convinced.
It’s surprising that MEPs aren’t becoming more exercised about this whole process. They have a veto and understandably want to properly scrutinise any deal. They could be forgiven for thinking the clock is being ‘run down’ to bounce them into agreeing. Appallingly disrespectful stuff from Barnier and the dictatorial von der Leyen. Monday 14th December is the earliest they’ll get a look at any deal if one is agreed by Sunday. Westminster goes into recess on the 20th December, don’t know about the European parliament?
Back here, Johnson can rely on Tory MPs to rubber stamp, literally any deal, and if by some weird chance they refuse, there’s always the knight in Establishment armour, Sir Keir Starmer, to ride to Johnson’s rescue.
“Appallingly disrespectful stuff from Barnier and the dictatorial von der Leyen.”
Classic Europhobia. Those two have a mandate from from the Council of Ministers, and haven’t exceeded it. Quite in what way von der Leyen is dictatorial totally escapes me. She is not an independent actor.
Sorry, I’ve figured out what you meant by ‘dictatorial’. It’s that she’s a woman, isn’t it? Bossy, like Theresa May, in your view.
Like Theresa May, she was a crap minister apparently, when in the German govt. Her approval ratings with the German public were abysmal, she presided over multiple debacles as Minister of Defence.
Goose
Only populists need approval ratings, to compensate for their incompetence. Boris Johnson was fully aware of EU demands long before he decided to place himself on the side of Leave. Which basically means he has done sweet f.a. for 4 years. How unbelievably patronising of him to think that his presence alone might help the poor foreign lady understand British demands.
I suppose there was a remote chance that she might in an eccectric moment have seen him as a squashed hedgehog she could re-inflate with her bicycle pump after he had been naive enough or hungry enough to allow himself to get himself squashed crossing the road.. He now enters that special place in hell of those who haven’t the foggiest idea how to achieve their stated political goals.
Ya rah bung ho blah, which translated from the Bullingdon means, ” stupid cow no speke English,. Wonder if Theresa May could get me a bit of hotel receptionist work in the Carbbean while all this cools down. I could build buses out of cornflakes packets, until the crisis passes. Wtf is Gove going to say?
That’s the impression created. Why did she even entertain Johnson last night when she didn’t have to as Commission President?
I’m pro-EU btw, certainly not a Europhobe. But as someone who prefers transparency, and democratic accountability,the one thing I don’t like about the EU is the unelected Commission. The President of the European Parliament should be far more important if the EU is to gather respect from European citizens. A backroom stitch-up , hiding the details(security agreements) may suit the British, but Europe should try to be open.
Goose
The EU is clearly never going to be the thing you want it to be and that is intentional.
Goose – “the one thing I don’t like about the EU is the unelected Commission”
von der Leyen was elected by the EU parliament. MEPs are elected.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-elected-european-commission-president/
Indeed not. She is a handpicked, antidemocratic puppet of the European plutocracy. At least the albino sea elephant has a veneer of democratic legitimacy to serve plutocracy.
@Xavi
Precisely.
The European Parliament has never really been empowered properly, and it’s this imho that has damaged trust in the EU. It’s been far too easy for Farage and other UK Europhobes to point out the democratic deficit and leverage it to their advantage. This despite the UK’s democracy: FPTP elected HoC and unelected HoL and no written constitution making us, well, hardly a democratic role model.
Adding to the democratic deficit you’ve got the President of the European Central Bank ,Christine Lagarde, who seems to shake off serious scandals in France, like a cat with nine lives. President of the European Council is another appointed position, although less controversial as that role is to represent the members of the Council, so it’s understandable they should decide.
“and it’s this imho that has damaged trust in the EU.”
Only there isn’t any damage to trust in the EU. Everybody’s staying, except UK. Popularity of the EU has never been higher. The only people who go on now about the evils of the EU are the Brits. Certainly it’s a complicated organisation, couldn’t be otherwise, but talking about disappearance of the EU is only among Brexiters, who would complain whatever the reality.
Just when you thought the UK political scene couldn’t get any more depressing with Johnson, Hancock and co, read this from Lisa ‘Neocon’ Nandy setting out Labour’s New approach, or perhaps that should be New Labour’s approach. A less thoughtful or inquiring piece of drivel is hard to imagine.
https://labourlist.org/2020/12/lisa-nandy-to-set-out-labour-plans-for-britains-place-in-the-world-post-brexit/
It follows on from this piece,which could have come from any leading neocon hawk in the early noughties. Liberal interventionism i.e., dropping bombs on poor people while wearing the cloak of the humanitarian, is back, at least if these have any say.
https://labourlist.org/2020/12/a-special-relationship-for-the-centre-left-labours-foreign-policy-reset/
Quote from the second article:
Under Nandy’s initiative, Labour is already looking at developing proposals for reform of the UN Security Council, which has proved itself incapable of approving action to defend people from egregious human rights violations in Syria and elsewhere. As permanent members of the UN Security Council, China and Russia have repeatedly wielded their veto to defend the Assad regime from military and legal prosecution. How best to counteract their increasing global influence will be a key question confronting the new Biden administration.
—
Trying to bypass the P5 would just destroy the UN. The idea of an infallible ‘good’ west and ‘evil’ obstinate east is an idiotic, puerile view of the world that only a truly blinkered person could hold. And as for Starmer’s Pledge 4, it looks very hollow indeed :
4. Promote peace and human rights
No more illegal wars. Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act and put human rights at the heart of foreign policy. Review all UK arms sales and make us a force for international peace and justice.
4. Promote peace and human rights
No more illegal wars.
^ An implicit admission the UK has engaged in illegal wars. That’s pretty far from where he is now. You do wonder if he even wrote those pledges or whether someone was hired simply to excite the membership. He also promised, in another pledge, to abolish the House of Lords. With New Labour Lords singing his praises, does anyone think Sir Abstainer will be that radical?
And then they wonder why people are increasingly cynical.
“As permanent members of the UN Security Council, UK and USA have repeatedly wielded their veto to defend the Israeli regime from military and legal prosecution.”
The US is never afraid to stand alone at the UN.
Nandy seems ignorant or completely naive about geopolitics and the logic of spheres of influence.
Whereas it’s perfectly reasonable for neighbouring countries, like say Iran, to show an interest in stabilising Syria or Iraq. Our ‘interest’ basis for being there, thousands of miles from home is far more sketchy.
Gavin Williamson: ” Russia should go away and shut up”
Lisa Nandy, Russia and China should go away and shut up.
Is anti Russia and China only game in town?
No mention of other states.
I am more and more convinced, that we have Fascist in power, opposed by National socialist.
International socialist, pacifist, anti imperialist, anti militarist have become national security risk and as such no vote winners.
Is Labour trying to attract EDL BNP and Brexit party voters? In Utilitarian Philosophy good move! Let’s get rid of,old fashion left and we will win elections. Personaly I wonder why people don’t vote or join centrist party Lib Dem.Is it political opportunism or what.
As someone crudely put it on Twitter: they’re after the flag-shagger vote.
Problem with that is, those people will vote Tory regardless… if instructed to by the Star and Sun.
Goose
Nandy is so uninspiring. Corbyn struck at the root of the problem of Britain’s foreign policy, the illegality of foreign wars. Nandy takes the illegality as a fact of life.
Is it not uninspiring when the descendant of victims of the brutality and duplicity of the British Empire, seek public office in order to continue that tarnished role into the future. “I want to be the one dispensing oppression and ransacking the empire” writ all over her.
Just like a certain other country who since 1948 have wrought apartheid and concentration camps on their own citizens. Nandy and Starmer both represent the ‘it’s my turn now’ mentality of political ambition. We found ourselves in this old glacier of history, with the tools of war within our grasp. We thought the only thing stopping us now was the apathy of the British public.
Bit o sweet talk about the Russian and Chinese threat hit of corporate bollocks, and then we get to bomb the Muslims to oblivion.
Open legged Labour. Ready to stag.
Mods, if the mobile is programmed to change individual words + therefore meanings, why on earth would I trust it with chunks of text? Humans are irrational and we have to out up with that all the time. I really not fashed about the complete unpredictability of my mobile phone. Not to touch it better imho.
—
[ Mod: Copy-paste actions do not modify the contents of the text being copied: clipboards do not have an autocorrect facility. The text that is pasted is the text that was copied. That would seem to be the function you were looking for.
Autocorrect can be turned off in the system settings.
If you turn it off and your finger accuracy on a mobile phone keyboard is poor, you may end up with even more mistakes. The solution in both cases is to check and correct the text before you post it. That is your responsibility, no-one else’s.
The blog is designed principally for computer screens. If you find posting comments too awkward via a mobile phone, and you are convinced that the blog readership is in need of your words of wisdom, then kindly compose the text on a device on which you can type (and copy-paste) more accurately. ]
It’s more National socialist to me than neocon.
Starmer’s Labour would be more hawkish and dangerous than Johnson’s Tories. Starmer constantly boasts that National Security is Labour’s No.1 priority. Not Covid, not poverty; not the NHS and public services… no, national security & defence.
Johnson seems quite nonchalant and laid back by way of contrast. Starmer’s shadow cabinet is full of people who think it is the UK’s role to bring order to the world, as if we’ve arrived at perfection ourselves and wish to export it via aggression.
Are you saying that Biden, Starmer and Nandy will not make the world great again ?
Lisa Nandy was part of the most right-wing PLP intake in history in 2010. Thoroughly vetted and trained by Mandelson and Progress. Fanatical neocons to a man and woman. They still see the Iraq war as one of Labour’s greatest moments.
Even Trump questioned the Skripal narrative believing it to be “spy games” according to reports in the US press.
When did questioning anything become unpatriotic? Corbyn only said we should wait for more evidence before attributing blame. This was when there were even more missing pieces than now.
If the intel agencies told Nandy that Santa Claus is real, Nandy would probably be outside, excitedly staring up at the sky on Christmas Eve.
Nandy was calling for the abolition of the monarchy in the leadership campaign (google it).
Both she and Starmer(10 Pledges) presented themselves as radicals who were ready to shake the system up. That kind of deception ,merely to win votes, should be unacceptable to the membership.
This Machiavellian stuff is pretty standard textbook stuff and is fully expected of politicians. It is all set out in simple terms in books such as the 48 laws of power. Stuff you really shouldn’t have to read because it is so basic. You can’t beat the power game – you have to play it!
I know the campaigner is a different political beast entirely.
But even so, you shouldn’t pull a 180 on those who elected you. If you do that, then equally, they have every right to call for you to quit.
Starmer’s behaviour with regards to Corbyn and the left, would be the equivalent of Craig becoming SNP President than leading a campaign to save the union. Many on the left, who previously backed Corbyn, supported Starmer, so good was his campaign pitch.
But therein lies the problem. The electorate at large don’t understand the power game of politics. So they are eternally damned to be disappointed time and time again. It was Arthur Schopenhauer the philosopher who said that life was a desegano – a series of disappointments. Life mirrors politics. Eventually, well at least in politics, it leads to frustration which always needs and finds an outlet – enter Brexit.
Maybe, just maybe Ken Clarke was right when he said that they wanted NO DEAL all along 😉
Kim
If it contains nuts, it should say so on the packet. People have been jailed for failing to do that. We don’t have time to switch to political mode , from honest mode.
Both Starmer and Johnson need to realise that when they lie , they are de-humanising us. De-humanise me and I will not comply with your lies. De-humanise your own side and you get shoved under a bus.
That’s just what Boris found out on his dinner date last week.
Kay Burley criticises Boris Johnson…and she gets whacked. Chucked out of the door like someone that Dominic Cummings didn’t want in his “Klute” nightclub in Durham…and told she’s persona non grata for six months.
Might Murdoch interests reply with a deft uppercut putting Johnson out for the count?
The media headline I’m waiting for is:
‘ BBC Journalist stands down for 6 months – due to telling the truth ‘
Only recently has the BBC discovered that Brexit is upcoming.
Must have got permission to say I assume.
The BBC I think has the job of keeping the lovely white ponies trotting round the Circus Ring as the whole tent collapses.
Oh and 50 billion quid in notes/cash is missing according to the bank of England.
When asked about how where and what they were going to do about it – the reply was close to – We’re not arsed.
A bit like the Russian Oligarch’s 2 trillion piling onto the deacks of the most notorious fleet of Pirate ships ever to sail the dodgy financial seas – the City of London.
Bilton’s BBC doco went off like a rocket and was snuffed out with 36 hours.
Probably because it might lead to further investigations and not just by the BBC.
The Russians are not the only Oligarchs in the CoL dockyards.
I will say there is one BBC journo still doing a proper job. Katya Adler.
She too was whacked BRI silence 12 months ago for telling the truth about the oven ready BS by Bozo during the dirtiest election ever in a modern ‘democracy’ upto that point.
Katya’s tweets are the only things visible, her actual written reports are instantly buried in layers of shite often with the arch DS plant LauraKoftheCIA.
I hope she sticks at her reporting and moves into politics at some point.
«As a former professional diplomat, I am going to be astonished if there is not a Brexit deal announced very shortly»
I think that is a professional deformation misreading of the situation, because the situation is exquisitely political, and the number one priority of the EU member governments is to avoid creating a precedent that gives an exiting member a special deal, while that is the number one priority of the Conservatives. A key passage from T May’s “Lancaster House” speech, where she equates a deal that does not encourage other countries to exit with a punishment:
«Yet I know there are some voices calling for a punitive deal that punishes Britain and discourages other countries from taking the same path.»
Blissex
I’m a bit amazed that Boris’s lies have so permeated the MSM narrative that we need to be reminded what the EU position is and always has been. Boris stepped through into the magical Narnia where destiny spoke to him .
Only the British, 70 years after the collapse of their empire , could be so completely engrossed in the fantasy of their own navel, and lost in the memory of their past. Like a film about a lonely old person with flashbacks to their youth like Ebenezer Scrooge.
What is more , we have still to be flown in our pyjamas to British War crimes of the past, and to our own moral bankrupcy and gravestone, before we can be cured.
There’s always an easy way and a hard way, but the Tories have chosen the most difficult road, by constantly being in denial of reality, while the world laughs.
That is a brilliant analogy Giyane, i hope I can remember it.
The other interesting aspect of the situation from the point of view of EU member countries is that the Conservatives promised and carried out that promise to interfere in the internal affairs of the EU, by sending political missions to try to swing specific lobbies (prosecco vendors from Italy, car makers from Germany, etc.) against their governments and the EU institutions, or the governments of some EU countries against other EU countries, as the the EU countries were so many indian tribes or primitive sheikdoms easily fooled with small bribes and shiny beads.
The only government with the established right to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries is that of the USA, and the arrogance and manipulation of the Conservatives won’t be forgotten for a long time on the continent, especially by the super-sensitive french elites.
According to the BBC “Boris Johnson says there is a “strong possibility” the UK will fail to strike a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.”
I say that in that case, if people suffer shortages and disruption, there is a strong possibility that they will have his head come the next election. 🙂
M.J.
And that election will come in 3 months time.
“Johnson’s supporters do not care what happens to the country, as long as they can see news footage of black people being deported on charter planes and immigrant children washed up dead rather than rescued. The racist brand is very, very strong in England.”
I’m sorry, Craig, but when you post something as incendiary and outrageous as that about any single group of people, there’s no way I can give you any kind of fair hearing. And the ice would have to be six feet deep across the floor of Hell before I would vote for a Tory.
I read the writing here as an exaggeration for effect – it is not meant to be taken literally. One could quite fairly say that there are people who could be classed as “Johnson supporters” but who are not racist; there might not be many of them, but you only need to find one to disprove the assertion.
Equally there are plenty of people who appear on the racist scale, but who are not such appalling people that they actually want to see dead children. Perhaps this style of prose suggests that folks who will excuse the phenomena of “washed up dead” do in fact exist – which is a point worth making.
When Starmer accused Johnson of mismanagement of the Brexit negotiations in his first question on Wednesday’s PMQ, Johnson framed his reply by first asserting the introduction of the new immigration points system, in other words immediately appealing to the country’s xenophobia, which is another term for racism. In other words he was saying that the main goal of Brexit is to keep the foreigners out.
Mordaunt took the same pitch this am in the House of Commons banging on about the paramount importance of “sovereignty”, whatever that means, again appealing to the same racist instincts. To point that out is far from being “incendiary or “outrageous”.
Perhaps Crispa, Johnson was aiming his remarks at Starmer’s strategy of mobilising his base by appealing to racists, imperialists and the law ‘n’ order mob; trying to make sure that Starmer could not outflank him on the right as he seems to have been trying to do. The problem is that the appeal to bigotry, racism and imperialism has become the central ground of politics.
It was for the crime of trying to shift that ground towards the left and an appeal to the economic self interest of the masses, a shift that inevitably entailed shifting the state’s priorities away from the military, the secret police force and suppressing the working class, that Corbyn was subjected to an international campaign of villification and misrepresentation.
Johnson’s fear and Starmer’s hope is that by agreeing to massive increases in the “Defence” budget, going along with legislating impunity for criminality by cops and soldiers (the theme of Starmer’s career as DPP) and expelling socialists, the Parliamentary Labour Party will be able to compete on looks alone with the other Tories.
As to those who despise racists, regard themselves as internationalists and long for peace- they, the punditry assume will split up into Greens, socialists, Liberals, and abstentionists, so they don’t matter. The battle is for the bigots, not because they constitute anything more than a minority but because they are not demanding anything that would involve expense or change.
Nobody voted for Brexit to stop trade with the European Union, now, did they, so there must have been another reason.
Crispa – ” In other words he was saying that the main goal of Brexit is to keep the foreigners out.”
It’s all rhetoric. To March 2020, net immigration for the past 12 months was 313,000, of which 58,000 were from the EU. The 265,000 non-EU net immigration is entirely in the hands of the home office. Add to that all of those temporary workers who are brought in for agricultural work. Given the birth rate has been declining since 2011, immigration will continue to be high.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2019
“So what you’re saying is…” (insert smear along ellipsis)
“Cummings and Johnson’s plan to appropriate it and target the areas of England with lowest levels of educational achievement“
I doubt they gave a toss whether any given constituency was in England or in Wales.
Wales
2017: Tories + UKIP 35.6%, Labour 48.9%
2019: Tories + BXP 41.5%, Labour 40.9%
A 7% swing.
Hardly anyone in England gives a toss about English nationalism. The English independence movement is about three aging former National Fronters with a dozen car stickers.
Craig, you’re the finest blogger out there…This is more than spot on..There is some harsh truths for English people here..even i think Brexit which i voted for will not deliver any real social and economic benefits, we don’t have the right socio-economic model here and Brexit would have worked with Corbyn but with Johnson?, its falling apart…my own view is that the benefits of Brexit after 10 years will be neutral..neither a disaster or a great gain..the loss of Scotland would be a heavy blow though..I think you should be awarded a prize for what you write..
Tesco has admitted it has begun stockpiling “long-life” products. A “No Deal Brexit” it is. Hold on to your seats.
That may explain why when I was in a Tesco store today there was very little orange juice. There were no packets of four one-litre cartons at all. Dunno whether any other commenters here have noticed anything like that.
Rationing by the government would be far preferable to rationing by Tesco. Nationalising Tesco would also be welcome. I imagine Tesco has been talking with the government for some time.
BUT the government will want to do the rationing using microwave trackers called “smartphones” – and therefore in heavy cooperation with the two Californian Hitlers, Google and Apple. That will be so even if it is not admitted – even if the authorities run with the ridiculous line that on the one hand there is the Google and Apple option and on the other hand there is some alternative option, and that they are choosing the alternative option. How on earth could they do a mass surveillance/rationing operation using smartphones without involving both of those companies? It’s impossible.
Incidentally a 50% share in a number of Tesco stores is owned by Trinity College, Cambridge, the institution that also owns Felixstowe port.
Certain products do seem to be ‘disappearing’ from the shelves. As that other retail behemoth would say: “We do not know if or when this product will be in stock again”. From a prisoner’s dilemma/game optimal theory viewpoint if you suspect that a non-perishable item you regularly purchase is in danger of ‘disappearing’ it may be prudent (if you can afford it of course) to do some stockpiling yourself, oh, tol hell with it, just strip the shelves 😉
btw how is is possible to ‘own a 50% share in a number of Tesco stores’? It seems only possible to buy TSCO as far as shares in Tesco go, not shares in individual stores.
Trinity buys stake in Tesco stores – Varsity (Cambridge University news)
Helpful?
«non-perishable item you regularly purchase is in danger of ‘disappearing’ it may be prudent (if you can afford it of course) to do some stockpiling yourself»
A lot of people simply cannot afford to do that, to spend a few hundred on hoarding “just in case”, and often they don’t have the space in their tiny and expensive rented places. It is just the sharp-elbowed “Middle England” upper-middle and middle classes who have the cash and the space to hoard, and most of them voted for brexit, and screw-everybody-else, screw-everybody-else.
«Certain products do seem to be ‘disappearing’ from the shelves.»
And that hoarding is really dumb once again because the “Middle England” tories who are doing it seem not to have read the news that the Johnson government has just passed a law that “suspends” customs checks for 6 months, so that those “Middle England” tories won’t miss their Parma ham, french cheese, spanish oranges.
hoarding is interesting because it can happen even when there is supply chain issue, like a run on a bank, all it takes is for people to think that other people are doing it.
Preparing for the proverbial hitting the fan is ongoing. Armageddon is always just ‘around the corner’.. Prepping works on a rolling six months time-frame. Six months so that you have enough time to ‘prepare’. i.e. spend lots of money on ‘supplies’ that you will never need. As one prepping deadline comes into view another deadline further down the line is set. Just like those ‘End of the World’ predictions of old.
Apropos your predictions about Trump and Johnson…”I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people” (Isaac Newton).
In Trump’s case, the narcissistic personality disorder he suffers from actually prevents him from admitting even to himself that he lost. His denial of losing the election was actually fairly predictable.
I will concede that Trump is much more deranged than most people were aware of or chose to believe.
More surprising is how otherwise sane and reasonable Republicans (not just the MAGA simpletons) are supporting and facilitating this madness even after his loss. But history has shown how a variety of complete crackpots have attracted devoted and fanatical followers.
The pound sterling has been having a bit of a “dead cat bounce” for the past 20 minutes, presumably because the Bank of England is spending assets to try to prop it up. That won’t work for long. Watch it collapse in response to this and that piece of Brexit news here.
The collapse will provide additional reason for EU-based companies to want their lorries out of Britain as fast as possible, as they realise there aren’t many British goods they’ll want to load on them to take back to the continent and try to sell at vastly inflated prices.
Try explaining that to the “Enoch was right” “send them back” knuckle-draggers who voted for Brexit, whose latest tabloid-induced fury tells them they’re going to be “banned” and “barred” from sinking 10 pints a night in Torremolinos.
A quick comment on the said nationalist, British-native, racist knuckle-dragger demographic: we might compare the mentality of a large part of it with that of the reactionary peasantry in the history of France and other countries. Not the urban petty bourgeoisie; the peasantry.
In any case, beware confusing the working class with white van man. White van man does indeed, on the whole, support “send them back”, but white van man is petty bourgeois (basically lumpen petty bourgeois) not working class, and he does not account for a big percentage of voteshare, even if he shares his favourite “reading” matter, the Sun, with many reactionaries in the working class.
Some have taken exception to some of what Craig wrote in the thread header, but the correlation between not having a university degree and voting for Brexit is large. Sure you can argue until the cows come home that correlation is not causation, but look at the fundamentals: does “send them back”, also known as “Leave” or “Brexit”, imply having horizons that are broad or narrow?
Yes, N_, those narrow-minded self-interested folks you describe (i.e. proletariat + petty bourgeoisie) most likely account for the majority of the Brexit vote – but there’s also a significant (class-independent) set, whose horizons of awareness are very broad: i.e. the politically-informed left wing who are resolute in their resistance to neoliberal globalism as embodied by the supra-democratic EU. These latter folks are much more likely to engage politically and to express their point of view on web forums such as this one.
I think Craig focuses his ire on the narrow-minded knuckle-draggers and sounds off about them alone, seemingly oblivious to the insult implied by conflating them with his own politically astute readership. Hence the cries of indignation displayed in some of the earlier comments.
The “dead cat bounce” is now over, and sterling is plunging through the floor. It’s cheaper than it’s been since September now.
This should be the time that SNP government starts planning its own currency and central bank, I’m hoping there’s a new impetus within the SNP NEC to make this possible. Sterlingisation should be a non starter on independence.
If the Pound drops in value the issue won’t be empty trailers heading back to the Continent but rather a reduction in imports to Britain leading to a dearth of trailers and shipping containers to handle cheap, British exports.
If the Great British Pound is collapsing it means that exports are cheaper and imports are dearer. It is middle-England who will be paying over the odds for their Brie whilst the Rest of Europe will be dining on shortbread and Scotch whisky for a song.
The BBC now rounding on the EU with regards to the trade deal or the lack of it, BBC news cites China’s new bloc trading group and the Canadian, USA, Mexican bloc trade deal as not being as strict on rules as the EU wants to be with the UK.
It sounds to me as though the BBC now knows there’s not going to be a low deal or any deal with the EU, and is now preparing the groundwork to blame the EU for our coming misery.
But these are trading blocks (a Common Market) for at least the time being. The Asia-Pacifc Free Trade Area Agreement has yet to morph into a situation whereby Beijing is dictating to the Canberra legislature. But give it time. Will Australia in the fullness of time become a Chinese territory like Hong Kong?
“Will Australia in the fullness of time become a Chinese territory like Hong Kong?”
Unlikely – Australia is the tip of the USA’s spear when it coming to condemning Chinese economic expansion.
«The Asia-Pacifc Free Trade Area Agreement has yet to morph into a situation whereby Beijing is dictating to the Canberra legislature.»
Then consider how Westminster is dictating to the Menchester legislature, as recently for the tier 3 restrictions. Lancashire has been a London territory like Hong Kong for Bejing.
When will Lancashire recover their sovereignty from the faceless, unaccountable, overpaid mandarins of Whitehall?
And Cornwall
Liang. What do you mean Hong Kong ‘become’ a Chinese territory ? Like Taiwan, Hong Kong is Chinese, was Chinese as much as Isle of Wight is British.
Hong Kong, which has always been Chinese, was seized by the British in order to act as a smuggler’s haven. British rule there only made sense because it was part of China and offered easy access to the country.
Where does Australia fit into this? Do you suppose that the Chinese need it in order to control New Guinea, Timor or Indonesia?
China has not attempted to conquer an overseas territory for millennia. Anything it wants from Australia can be had by trade and peaceful relations. All it requires is for Australians to cast off the last traces of the racism which has been such an integral part of its development. That and the inexplicable desire to be allied with the USA.
Well, there are explanations, but none of them are “good” ones. Same for England’s grovelling subservience to the USA.
Bevin, indeed, why are Australian troops in Afghanistan. Oh yeh, to give them and other EU countries experience of live fire and live target kill practice.
Off-topic:
If only our ‘democracies’ in the UK and the USA, had such an accurate, tamper-free, and checkable, voting system as the one they have in Venezuela.
Be prepared to puke when you hear of the US’s dirty tricks and of their media’s failure to report the truth. (No surprise there, though.)
Myth & Fact in Venezuela’s Latest Election: Eyewitness Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA6kADp8ziA
Consequences of joining a gang and then trying to leave…EU to UK..you let us fish in UK waters for another year and we’ll let you fly to EU airports for another six months. Over to you Boris and Nigeria.
Nigel
No, You let us fish in your waters we let you sell on our market ,tariff free! 70 % of your catch you sell to us.
You do not eat what you catch. Brexiteers do not eat Langustine.
You eat cod and salmon. You fish shellfish, sole, mackerel,turbot ( served for Boris dinner with Ursula )
Silver lining. Fish restaurants will be so cheap that French and others will come just for dinner and choke themselves on shellfishand cheap Australian wine.Cheap pound might help as well.
Breaking News…
Sir Keir Starmer still not 20 points ahead
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 39% (-)
LAB: 37% (-)
LDEM: 8% (-1)
GRN: 5% (+1)
BREX: 1% (-)
via
@Survation
, 04 – 10 Dec
Chgs. w/ 06 Nov
No doubt Nigel could see his chance and become the Leader. Nice line in uniform design from Hugo Boss to boot.
Corbyn would be at lest on 40 % but different criteria apply to Sir Starmer.
Great job Sir, you are just few point behind, Keep following and abstaining you will get silver.Keep Lib Dems at bay!
Lisa Nandy did not get opportunity to tell British people how patriotic she is. She will be soon all over BBC once we stop talking about Brexit.
Pigeon English. I am glad for Jeremy’s sake (as I would be for Craig) that he wasn’t handed the Chalice of power with a Brutus and his mates and daggers for a cabinet. For Brutus is an honorable man who says Jeremy is ambitious. No Jeremy can , if the Tour still runs, get to France and away from the undeserving.
By the way, the EU has now li ked Flight access to fishing, latest.
«Sir Keir Starmer still not 20 points ahead»
Looking at personal popularity Starmer is well behind Johnson and way, way behind Sunak.
Thus my proposal: to replace Starmer with Sunak as the leader of New, New Labour: Sunak is from a minority, has a Blair like smile, is a thatcherite, is popular, so a perfect fit for New, New Labour.
Sunak is a Tony Blair clone. He even goes to the same voice coach. Talking of which, what is it with Starmer and that nasal tone? Are his sinuses blocked?