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.
Well, here we are at the end of the week, all the signalling is of No Deal, and hair-raising rumours from people who were there suggest that Boris attended his continental fish supper with all the diplomatic statesmanship of somebody who had been doing lines in the limo all the way there.
So it looks like Craig was indeed wrong, and very soon folks like “Squeeth” and “Allie” are going to discover that actually the working class did still have quite a lot to lose.
What way will they and their friends jump?
Will there be any self awareness and self reflection? Will they understand how they’ve been played? There’s got to be long, long odds on either of those things happening, given that they seem to be anything but a cerebral bunch.
Will they be mollified by the bitter satisfaction of many from the former middle class joining them in the shit, which seems to be all that a number of them ever wanted?
Will there be a stampede to save their broken dreams and egos via a Union Jack wrapped revival of National Socialism? We can be confident that such a thing will be presented to them on a silver platter within a matter of months.
“Will there be any self awareness and self reflection? Will they understand how they’ve been played?”
The exact same questions must also be posed to remainers. Has the penny dropped yet that all those sensible soft Brexit options were derisively rejected not to stop Brexit but Jeremy Corbyn? You were played ruthlessly by people every bit as unprincipled and unscrupulous as Johnson and Mogg.
Rubbish! Craig is NEVER wrong! Give me ONE example of when Craig has been wrong. See, you can’t. Case closed!
You were just given one very possible example: Boris will fail to get a deal with the EU. Actually I will be happy if we do get one, because that could spare citizens shortages and hardship.
The fascists lost, get over it.
Kurton Wald,
” “The Trump administration sued Facebook on Thursday, claiming the social media giant illegally reserved thousands of jobs for immigrants the company was sponsoring to stay in the U.S., instead of looking for qualified American workers to fill the positions.” Hmm.”
So, the Trump administration has approached some 30 courts and been thrown out of court the same number of times.
It is an absolute nonsense – the US does benefit from the brightest and the best coming to the US after being educated at their foreign state’s expense – then they migrate to seek a better life. This is just discrimination, envy, xenophobia and sometimes – simple racism all in one horrible mix.
Hmmmm?
“The racist brand is very, very strong in England”
But nothing like as strong as it is in the bigoted northern province of the UK.
‘It’s true that in the 1970’s and early 80’s Scottish nationalism was infected with an exeptionionalist slant, “whas like us” “the greatest little nation on earth” and such twaddle. Now we seek to,be an unremarkable, little Nation on the North Western frontier of Europe. And yet we’re accused of racism.
I wish racism was confined in these Isles but I’ve heard just as much clap trap wherever I’ve been. Edinburgh and Glasgow middle classes are very progressive but I have family in Granton that echo the same words prejudice and anger as family I have in Barking.
They are both excluded what makes me sad is that on both sides they were once high spirited excited working class people up for change, now they’re fearful angry and cannot help but echo the tropes of the mainstream right wing press.
I feel sometimes that middle class liberals of the Scottish urban areas play the same self aggrandising games that they do in London the constant refrain “we’re better, we wouldn’t stoop to racism” all the time ignoring their own bigotry to their nearest working class countrymen
All the fear seems to come from those terrified of leaving the EU.
Goggle p.m Johnson’ vile racism about Scots…Stop being fucking lazy
Who’s being Lazy? I’m fully aware of the disgusting rot that Johnson write. I’m just pointing out that bigotry is a universal problem. And we’d do well to remember that
Shatnersrug ..I meant that for Glasshopper.
A Haiku Poem or Two –
People are Crying
And the Tories Are Laughing
In Westminster Bars
Haiku 2 –
Dancing and Singing
When Independence is ours
Such Joyful Wee Jigs
Haiku 3 –
Money and Oil
And Military Machines
Cannot be Eaten
BrianF
CM – “Partly that is due to Sir Keir Starmer having no apparent policy other than to ensure that no party member ever criticises Israel.”
There was that article by Matt Kennard re Starmer’s atlanticist leanings and his apparent role in ensuring that the persecution of Julian Assange should continue.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/05/five-questions-for-new-labour-leader-sir-keir-starmer-about-his-uk-and-us-national-security-establishment-links/
I wonder if Starmer isn’t all that bothered about the UK becoming more reliant on the US.
Mind you , remember that Johnson employed ‘dog whistle racism’ to describe Obama as the part Kenyan president because a bust of Churchill was returned to the UK embassy. Hopefully, Johnson won’t be too disparaging about Biden’s Irish roots.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/22/boris-johnson-barack-obama-kenyan-eu-referendum
Whether Johnson is removed would depend on whether there is any truth in the Old Turkish Proverb:
“The Fish Rots from the Head down”.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1337440318464155648.html
Ah ha, and now we’ve announced we’re preparing to send four British gun boats and helicopters to intercept, board and arrest French fishermen.
What absolutely incredible jingoism from a belligerent busted flush of a faded power. France is not Argentina. It is a modern well equipped EU nation with a splendid military which incidentally has an independent nuclear deterrent.
And save for the nuclear option I don’t think Britain would find the German military a push over either. In fact the whole concept of Britain threatening gun boat diplomacy is an absolute nonsense. But of course Britain sees Europe as the enemy, and whilst the announcement of gun boats may have been for domestic public consumption, there is European domestic public consumption too, and such behaviour escalates divinising and resentment.
One thing is certain, Britain is now a rogue nation off the shores of mainland Europe and the EU are well advised to recognise that and proceed accordingly. Maybe not a hot war, but most certainly Britain is now at war with Europe – economically, socially and culturally.
A splendid military when they’re massacring civilians; not so splendid against people who can fight back.
When was Britain ever not a rogue nation though? Can’t think of a time.
As the Hard BrexShit train speeds off the ends of the Article 50 tracks with a disorderly exit from the EU – here are a selection of this mornings egregious actions by Bozo and his clown Circus.
FISH
Not just the bollocks of our ‘fleet’ of naval ships (2 in reality) policing our sea borders against these evil EU nicking the fish which pass through ‘our’ water. That in itself is absurd as the satellite guided, radar fish finding, super trawlers will just carry on hoovering up everything before the poor fishes get anywhere near poxy British territorial waters, which our fishermen have already sold their quotas for decades ago.
They did so because its a dangerous job in our tiny old trawlers – very rare to hear of disasters and deaths at sea nowadays, thank god – but apparently the government wants to see more! Just as the Bullies want to see more deaths at Xmas for the proles but not their own. As they joyously leave a trail like a Bullingdon in a EU China shop level of disruption, the entitled brats who never grow out of their antediluvian brainwashing.
SCHOOLS
So alight on this mornings threat (oddly published by the Obsessive at least 12 hours before it normally would!)
‘The government is using its emergency powers under the Coronavirus Act to threaten to use legal action against headteachers in England who want to allow their pupils to learn remotely in the run-up to Christmas.
The Observer understands any schools that were planning to move most of their teaching online during the last week of term, to ensure none of their pupils would have to self-isolate on Christmas Day, are being ordered to remain open.’
HYPOCRISY,
Meanwhile Eton – where Bozo and his clowns learnt their whorish manners –
‘Eton College has closed temporarily to stem a rising number of coronavirus cases among teachers and pupils, it was reported.
Simon Henderson, the school Head Master, wrote to parents saying “a number of symptomatic boys and staff tested positive” for the virus, according to the Daily Mail.
Pupils will be taught remotely until the end of term in order to prevent the number of cases spiralling out of control, the paper reported. He did not specify the number of cases that had been confirmed within the college.’
Reports the Torygraph of a story in the Fail!
No threat of emergency powers action against Bozo Alma Mater.
So if you are a toff child you are already sent home to protect your Xmas but if you are in a state school you are advised to risk infecting your parents and grandparents or trying to self isolate in your bedroom (if you have one) through Xmas by act of Emergency Powers!
This while Merkel begged her federal states that closing schools 3 days earlier so that kids could see their grand fathers and grand mothers safely at Xmas .
This singularly illustrates the heartless nature of our government and establishment towards the majority of our citizens.
BASTARDS
Where do they learn to be such sociopaths?
The Torygraph curiously interjects in its story -‘The move at Eton come amid a free-speech row at the £42,500-a-year school.
Will Knowland was sacked for gross misconduct after recording a lecture which questioned “current radical feminist orthodoxy” and then refusing to remove it from his YouTube channel.
The school’s appeal panel met on Tuesday and is due to deliver its verdict early next week. Eton has said the dismissal was “not a matter of free speech” but one of “internal discipline”.’
???
Lols, as the Jesuits would say ‘give me a child at six’ so says the Whore masters of England, ‘I’ll give you a whole bunch of bozo’s who never grow up and stamp on the proles as they are driven to agree to policies which will keep them as suffering dumb beasts they are reared to be!
Dungroanin .. Well Said
My wee Grandaughter , and a handful of her mates are in Isolation in their bedroom till the 17th.. My daughter
says She aint going back till next year term.. No indication that the high School will close early.. Shits.
The wee Soul was only just out – for a week, after her first 14 day stint of Quarantine…After her Dad was tested positive for the virus… that sort of thing cannot be kept up methinks..
Stay Safe
British warships to stop EU fishing boats from fishing in UK waters after the 31st of December if no deal is the outcome. Scotland doesn’t have a say in the matter as usual.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/four-navy-ships-to-help-protect-uk-waters-in-case-of-no-deal-brexit/ar-BB1bQSLW
Your link says that fisheries are a devolved matter so any decision for the navy to patrol around Scotland will rest with Holyrood.
And the last Colonial Governor of Hong Kong, Lord Patten says Johnson is on a “runaway train of English exceptionalism”. Too bloody right!
Oh and it gets better.
Gun boat diplomacy here we go.
Former first sea lord, Lord West, we’ll board EU vessels if we have to, and cut their fishing tackle.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/brexit-prepare-for-punch-up-in-channel-over-fishing-rights-former-chief-of-naval-staff-warns/ar-BB1bRzff?ocid=msedgntp
A big figure in Gordon brown’s Government of all the Talents, along with Alan Sugar and Digby Jones.
Like they did in the cod Wars? Oh, that was the Icelanders….
You can’t really go around cutting fishing tackle willy-nilly. Discarded fishing tackle is one of the biggest causes of death and suffering to marine creatures.
Foreign fleets coming in and hauling marine creatures out of the water to be eaten do not do them much good either.
Anyone that obeys the new law will have nothing to fear.
Patten is a notorious trougher who gets 40 grand a year pension from the EU. He will say whatever he’s told.
And to hear Patten this morning on the Today program on BBC Radio 4 almost frothing at the mouth with his anti-Chinese bullshit all completely unchallenged by that complete cunt Nick Robinson. It was like a party political broadcast by the Nazi party.
Patton, ex Governor of Hong Kong, with his feathered headdress and all the paraphernalia of a colonial functionary, now in the Lords, elected by no one yet touted as some sort of expert on Hong Kong and China.
I can’t wait for the BBC to lose any public funding whatever. It never has carried out a public broadcaster’s function, merely a mouthpiece for this country’s awful governments.
Cheer up. Kevin McKenna has revealed his Brexiter credentials
Share – post to Facebook – did not work. Why not?
This blog has been ‘shadow-banned’… 😉
Craig has written a post on this very topic:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/people-need-to-reclaim-the-internet/
There’s a lot of propaganda this morning about how the British kingdom’s navy is “on standby”, “armed”, with its “gunboats” at the ready, raring to “protect” “Britain’s waters”. Meanwhile the prospect of the EU not selling Britain the energy it wants is being described as a potential “blockade”. Funny that, because I thought Britain was going to be a paradise of low regulation and “free markets”, an ideal soil for the rise of a new Silicon Valley, as compared to the etatist, mercantilist, highly regulated EU. But what do we have here? We have the Tory scum whingeing about property owners having too much power over their property, too much power over who they sell their products to! But wait, the property owners in question are FOREIGN. In the Tory mind, they probably put the milk in their tea first when they’re not too busy using deodorant spray under their armpits instead of taking a shower.
Maybe there are some articles on page 19 of the Guardian or Independent telling the “educated” middle classes that the British flounce-threat is all a bluff, a clever negotiating ploy with all the power of the “playgrounds of Eton” behind it, and “shhh, don’t tell the EU”.
There is bound to be an “immigrants try to land on a British beach” story any minute now, perhaps together with an “immigrants who are already here want to put their hands all over white girls, just like they were doing in Rotherham while the police were at political correctness classes” story.
The authorities are unlikely to want anybody to go out of their house “unnecessarily” when the shelves run bare.
There is no good Brexit. The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit.
N_
If we had had Trump here and he had exposed the algorithmic irregularities of the last election, we Brits would not necessarily have thought that democracy was a better system than rule by fraud and newspaper. We know this from the simple fact that 99% of Brits think that CCTV spying gives peace of mind, i.e. control, not loss of control, and ‘privacy’ means waiving your privacy.
Corbyn wanted a good Brexit which excused us from having to participate in European Army wars, while retaining all the advantages of free trade with the EU and free movement of people. There was nothing wrong with that oven ready deal, but to match it Johnson had to claim that he also had an oven ready deal , a concept that has just been blown out of the water.
The penny dropped with the British public when immigrants started to come from Bulgaria and Romania which had both been un-civilised from their ancient civilisations by having been colonised by a brutal neglect by the Soviet Union. If Great Wanker wanted to carry on helping US imperialism against the rest of Soviet-destroyed world then freedom of movement was not acceptable.
It was not a Tory who established the new role of US poodle in the Great Game,it was Tony Blair, the cross-eyed, cross-dressed, double-crosser. Tories believe in sovereignty, from their own little castles, right up to the big castles in the air, the EU, the United Nations and NATO. The only reason Hard Brexit took hold in the British population was because of the errors of the Left, which tried to brainwash everything that came in their path out of their religious civilising influences and into atheism.
Even now, in the face of all sorts of chaos, the British are on a mission imho to stop Marxist atheism slipping into this country by means of freedom of movement. Our civilisation is so fundamentally rooted in Christianity, that it can accept a few million brother/sister Muslims, and any amount of fake, Yank Christian nonsense on the BBC. But not the un-dead of peoples who have been stripped of their religious touchstones which future Empire2 labour governments are going to import.
Brexit is a problem entirely created by the Left.
Have to agree, Giyane. The Left is to blame for Brexit. The electorate had no where else to turn. They have been goaded into voting for Brexit. Like rats in a corner they were trapped. They have been pushed, goaded, ridiculed, looked down on, despised. Voting to Remain would have meant that the electorate had undergone a lobotomy. Voting Remain would have only resulted in further humiliation. Brexit is now the inevitable consequence of the policies of the Left.
The electorate turned out for the vote and did the same as me, poked a stick in the eye of the boss class. All the remainers have done is bleat about losing.
The blame for Brexit lies with the 17.4 million who voted for it. And Cameron.
Alec Lomax
December 12, 2020 at 18:48
What a stupid statement you make which is static and gathers dust.The EU project is a crypto fascist system set up by Fascist spymaster Allen Dulles.You should dig a little deeper into the history of the EU project and you will find it is one of the most corrupt criminal organisations on the planet Earth so check it out and it may surprise you.
No, it doesn’t. The root causes of Brexit go a lot further back than Cameron as you very well know. You can’t blame a cornered electorate for voting for something for which they had effectively no choice not to do so.
The root causes may well go back centuries, but Cameron was the one who called the referendum and lost it, lost it entirely through his mishandling of the Remain campaign.
“The blame for Brexit lies with the 17.4 million who voted for it. And Cameron.”
Not a democrat then?
With the greatest respect G.
No.
Keir Starmer’s vision to win in 2024 – economy, love of Britain and voter’s trust… vacuous stuff.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmers-vision-win-2024-23154776
In Starmer’s world everything was utterly terrible before he arrived and Corbyn, well, he never got anywhere near power. He said “but for the comments of Jeremy Corbyn” the party would be more united by this point, …as if his own actions to date haven’t been divisive?
The guardian too presenting Labour’s slight recovery as being purely due to the man with all the personality of Robocop. In the guardian’s world any slight polling uplift is due to Starmer and his centrist(right wing) shadow cabinet, and any polling regression due to Corbyn’s legacy. In a two-party system how could Labour not make at least some polling inroads with this govt and its seemingly corrupt, incompetent handling of Covid?
Their political analysis always omits the bounce the Tories got from removing May. Worth repeating given this offensive revisionism, that prior to Johnson Labour had been competitive under Corbyn throughout 2016, 2017, 2018 – often leading in the polls. It was only in 2019 that polling support slumped for both Labour and the Tories after the original expected UK leave date (29 March 2019) came and went. In 2019’s European elections The Tories got just 8.8% with May at the helm! They recovered by bringing in Johnson to ‘get Brexit done’- an understandably popular message among a frustrated electorate, sick of Brexit dominating all the political space.
To look at 2019’s election result in isolation is to deliberately paint a false political picture. The true test for Starmer, if he gets to an election(?) will be the 40% and the 12.87 million votes Corbyn received in his first general election test as leader in 2017.
Tory anger mounts over ‘undignified’ no-deal plan to deploy Navy in Channel
“we know what we voted for… and Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t press the ‘big red button’ if it comes to nuclear war with France over fish”.
We shall fight at sea, on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds over the spouting, coley and pollack along with other fish Brits won’t eat.
The whole debate is a nonsense anyway as some species , like mackerel, make extensive migrations and only pass through our waters for a short period. Others are more sedentary, like prawns which stay close to their burrows in muddy habitats.
Quote : Mackerel visit the Danish waters and coasts every year during the period from June to October. They come from the North Sea, where they overwinter. In June and July, the fish spawn in massive schools close to the surface. After spawning, the schools spread out and they start feeding on sprat, herring and sand eel.
The Danes are threatening to catch them earlier in their waters if denied access. That’s how ridiculous this debate is.
Just as Thatcher is reputed to have claimed that her greatest legacy was Tony Blair it is looking as if Blair’s legacy was, if not Starmer, who is unlikely to be long with us, “not-Corbyn”.
It is a legacy that both Covid and Brexit put in stark relief: there is little doubt that a Corbyn led government would have responded much more quickly and purposively to the pandemic. If the UK had acted as Taiwan or China or New Zealand did a few tens of thousands of those who died would likely still be with us.
As to Brexit: the clear path for Labour (the path that the Blairites and allies like McDonnell blocked) was to respond to the very clear result of the referendum by negotiating a sensible mutually beneficial disengagement from the EU ending in an amicable parting of ways. This could have led to an agreement being reached which might, usefully, have been submitted to the electorate for approval.
The alternative, after the ‘people had spoken’ was always between a reasonable withdrawal from the EU-negotiated by a government whose concern was the welfare of the many, rather than the advantage the few could obtain by sacrificing the interests of the working class- and a last minute, effectively No Deal Brexit.
From the Tory point of view a No Deal ending, calculated to make all subsequent arrangements attractive as alternatives to chaos, was always preferable. It will lead to hasty-actually well prepared- ‘deals’ which will not be subject to real scrutiny and will lead to the immediate and long tern lowering of general living standards.
Both Tories and the Blairite clones knew that they faced the real danger of a socialist reform government which would begin by re-instituting the welfare state that Thatcher and Blair had demolished- reform in the shape of apparent restoration of institutions whose popularity had only grown in their absence, reforms that would have included a revitalisation of manufacturing, would have been a potent political mixture, which with a dash of ‘patriotism’ (as opposed to racism) would have made even more appealing.
It was that alternative, in whose shadows lurked the appalling spectre of Westminster leaving the reservation of NATO and Uncle Satrapy and reaching out to that enormous part of the world under sanction or suspicion that has made the real business of the ruling class ensuring that there should not be a socialist government or any impetus towards one.
The actual matter of whether neo-liberalism should be of the Brussels, City or Beltway fashion has never been and is not important.
The important question was that the referendum vote signaled a move towards democracy, which made it all the more important that Brexit and the Labour movement should be kept apart. And that democracy, in the form of the referendum vote, should be led down the path that Farage offered rather than the road to Socialist ‘hell’ down which Jeremy Corbyn pointed.
“This could have led to an agreement being reached which might, usefully, have been submitted to the electorate for approval.”
Remainer casuistry.
I think it’s all about making money. Both the EU and Corbyn increasingly threatened that. The days of squirrelling squillions offshore and handing out lucrative contracts for your friends, family, and occasional neighbour/ex-landlord were soon to end unless steps were taken.
Now, with Brexit more or less oven-done and safe pair of faces, Starmer, playing “opposition”, we see a newly re-invigorated Tory return to the trough.
A Corbyn government would have been subject to the instant Reistance as the Trump government was.
He would have been hounded for spending a fifth of what this government has done this year.
And been blamed for any excess deaths.
@Dungroanin
Correct.
Only it’d been worse, as Trump at least serviced wealthy vested interests with tax cuts etc; he threw money into military expenditure and always sided with Israel, thus his opponents in the end were mainly the liberal press.
A Corbyn-led govt could’ve only functioned if allowed to. Clearly there were enough Labour MPs who combined with their media/press accomplices would’ve prevented that. Had he become PM they’d have turned every minor mishap into a huge existential crisis for his administration.
What’s really problematic, and what should concern all, is how Corbyn exposed just how narrow the permitted democratic choice actually is. And it’s due to various vested interests, who neither respect, nor will allow democracy to thrive or even barely operate in the UK. It’s also shown Scotland what the ‘real’ options are.
Goose
Corbyn’s enemies were mostly from within his own party. Starmer is sitting on a volcano. The mincing attrition of Starmer and Sturgeon against their immediate predecessors is acidic.
When the H2O of wet knickers and SO4 of their combined malice combine together, sulfuric acid will follow.
I mostly agree with you but the turgid prose makes it hard to bother reading beyond the first paragraph. Bit of editing (and heavy cutting) would do wonders.
Well, we’re not quite at the point where the proof of Johnson’s irrationality (madness) has arrived, but we’re almost there. The most surprising thing is, Craig, that you’ve been unable to bring yourself, even at this late stage, to understand the the opportunistic extremism that lies under Boris’s buffoonery and incompetence. All along, the problem of predicting the outcome of these “negotiations” is whether or not one believes that Boris and his cabinet are actually negotiating in good faith. I’ve long since contended that they haven’t; that the desired outcome for these extremists is a total severance from any sort of European input into Britain’s “sovereignty”. This is extreme because any sort of trade deal with any nation comes with all sorts of constraints on sovereignty as the greater part of these so-called “trade” deals is concerned with investments and intellectual property and rules around them, including dispute settlement mechanisms that are the antithesis of sovereignty and democracy. These people could have saved the UK and the EU three wasted years by declaring a unilateral independence from the EU on the basis of the referendum result, but instead we’ve had this pantomime of broken promises, ill-will and studied ineptitude. So it has always been obvious to me, and many others, that there will be no agreement with Europe on Britain’s withdrawal. You should actually be welcoming this proof of Boris and the Tories’ “English nationalism’ (even Tory peers now publicly agree with you) because it has increased the likelihood of eventual Scottish independence immeasurably. Whether Johnson will “disappear” or not depends on what happens in the next six months. A run on the pound, inflation, unemployment with the closure of Nissan Sunderland and a few others major employers, and perhaps some serious knock-on effects in the City of London, and he will go, as the rump of the Tories, reacting to public alarm and unrest, panic in their need for self-preservation.
“The most surprising thing is, Craig, that you’ve been unable to bring yourself, even at this late stage, to understand the the opportunistic extremism that lies under Boris’s buffoonery and incompetence. All along, the problem of predicting the outcome of these “negotiations” is whether or not one believes that Boris and his cabinet are actually negotiating in good faith. I’ve long since contended that they haven’t; that the desired outcome for these extremists is a total severance from any sort of European input into Britain’s “sovereignty”.”
Craig wrote:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/bad-faith-negotiation/
Bad Faith Negotiation [Tue 15 Oct 2019]
“The second problem is one of bad faith negotiation, and this is what is troubling the diplomats of the FCO. To negotiate an agreement with the secret intention of breaking it in future is a grossly immoral proceeding, and undermines the whole principle of good international relations. I should like to be able to say that I am sure this cannot be the intention. But when I look at Johnson, Raab and Cummings, I am really not so sure at all. It is possible that Johnson will succeed in the apparently insurmountable challenge of securing a deal all parties can agree, by the simple strategy of promising some parties he has no intention of honouring it.”
And again:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/johnson-intended-to-break-the-withdrawal-agreement-even-before-he-signed-it/
Johnson Intended to Break the Withdrawal Agreement Even Before He Signed It [Mon 14 Sep 2020]
“For Johnson, the Withdrawal Agreement provisions on Northern Ireland were only ever a device to get him over an immediate political difficulty. The fact he simply lied throughout the election campaign that the Withdrawal Agreement imposed no new checks or paperwork between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, should have made plain he was not serious about it. He had simply lied to the countries of the EU in signing a treaty he never had an intention to honour. He simply does not see himself as bound by any notion of honour or honesty.”
One more thing, I wonder how the prospect of 600,000 Hong Kong Chinese arriving in the UK in the next three years are going to change the political landscape? Will there be a backlash? Almost certainly there will as the overcrowded, under-housed and disaffected present population get squeezed even further -and as the immigrants from Hong Kong find life distinctly unrosy in these cloudy crowded islands – much more prickles than flowers . And if so, who will feel it? Johnson and the Tories for their actions in facilitating this surge of people? Just wondering out loud.
John Sources Please.. Then we can have look…
P.s.. I think Craig is Far wiser than you
“One more thing, I wonder how the prospect of 600,000 Hong Kong Chinese arriving in the UK in the next three years are going to change the political landscape?”
Why would 600,000 people want to live in the UK and be unemployed when they could stay in China and have a job?
Speaking of targeting those with the lowest levels of educational achievement, here’s a piece in the Daily Express, the preferred “reading” matter for those who find the Sun too intellectual:
“Royal Navy will board French ships and arrest EU fishermen in OUR waters in no deal Brexit“.
*********
the Royal Navy … “robust” … armed ships … Four Royal Navy patrol ships … ready from January 1 … the power to halt, inspect and impound EU fishing boats … the UK’s exclusive economic zone … offshore patrol ships … machine guns … weapons … run alongside a vessel … boarding it for inspection if deemed necessary … impounded and taken to the nearest UK port … dramatic development … (Macron) refused to budge … cross-Channel tensions worsening … ship deployment had long been planned … Ministry of Defence … extensive planning … use weapons against EU fishing boats … firing warning shots against French fishermen; firearms are only used when there is danger to life … crank up tensions … memories of the 1970s “cod wars” … people will go around shooting at each other … if people are bolshy when fishing, it can be difficult. You have to be robust … Normally, you let the vessel escape … but Europe is not going to prosecute its own fishing boats … Royal Navy’s frontline Fishery Protection Squadron … patrols … beefed up … shrunk to about four vessels. In living memory it was about 17 vessels and used to protect fishing boats off Russia’s Kola Peninsula, Iceland and the Newfoundland Grand Banks … If the Government says we should stop foreign fishing vessels fishing, the Navy will be the people to stop that happening … the squadron enforces fishing rules such as making sure nets are the right size, with people who are compliant. If suddenly you have to stop people illegally fishing in your waters, that’s a bigger task. Let’s look at the cod war in the 1970s. People were ramming each other and trying to cut each other’s fishing nets…”entente cordiale” between France and the UK is beginning to fray … Mr Macron demanded access to British fishing waters for years to come… Brussels is said to be fighting for at least 10 years of fishing access… The MoD has conducted extensive planning and preparation to ensure that defence is ready for a range of scenarios at the end of the transition period…
*********
(In several cases, paraleipsis was used, e.g. statements were made similar to “Nobody is saying Her Majesty’s navy will be machine-gunning the Fr*gs”. Anyone who knows more than a tiny bit about how propaganda works on the subconscious knows that negatives are often ignored.)
Dig the use of the word “bolshy”! That’s from Alan “Lord” West, the former “first sea lord” (head of the monarchist regime’s navy) who once had a “friendship” with a member of the Swedish pop group “Abba” who is now a “princess”. This guy has probably spent all his life hating proles and foreigners who get “bolshy”. Whatever blood he has spilled won’t be enough for him.
But I doubt fishing rights are taking up more than 1% of talk time. The big issue is the City of London.
It might be said that the City is acting in the way that some have suggested Trump might act, and smashing the country up on its way out of the door.
It is kind of funny how the President of the United States of America can be allowed to remain in power for months after knowing they have been sacked. In a regular job ‘SECURITY’ would escort you from the building the moment you were sacked. You would be lucky if you were allowed to collect your personal belongings and clear your desk (under very close supervision).
“Any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the UK will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time.”
And likewise, the UK must respect the EU has the right to collectively act, if the UK seeks to undercut their hard won standards, workers rights and other social protections. Johnson seems to want to retain all EU membership’s advantages, alongside the right to diverge entirely and not in a positive way. It’s a wonder the EU hasn’t told him to get lost.
However, try explaining this to a Brexiter and they’ll accuse you of ‘siding with the EU’, and/or that ‘France and Germany are out to damage us’, such is the tabloid BS.
If we had an truly free, inquisitive press they’d be quizzing Tories on which standards they wish to drive down so as to fear the EU taking such steps. Instead, we get this ‘Gun boats at dawn’ crap.
Congrats on getting back up.
Still think a trade deal is more likely than not?
What is already clear, is that they aren’t going to give elected MEPs enough time to scrutinise, debate and vote on any last minute agreement – a deal which will be presented as a great triumph. This is disrespectful from Von der Leyen – an appointee let’s not forget – someone who was thrust on the EU in an undemocratic backroom stitch-up, much to the anger of many elected MEPs.
Worse still, Article 218(5) of the EU Treaty allows for any deal, or parts of it, to be brought into effect before it has been fully ratified. However, this would be the first time the Council has agreed to provisional application, before the EU Parliament has voted on a trade deal. Disrespectful of democratic rights and to many it will look like France(Barnier, Macron) and Germany(von der Leyen, Merkel) really do rule the roost, if it should unfold like this over the next few weeks.
“This is disrespectful from Von der Leyen”
You seem to be under the illusion that VDL is a political head of the EU. She is not, the political leadership is collegial and vested in the council of Ministers. VDL is just their messenger-girl, mandated to handle the crud from Johnson, as he tries desperately to get to do a divide-and rule late-night deal with Macron and/or Merkel, which the EU absolutely refuses to allow.
In any case it is Britain who’s running things up to the wire, in Johnson’s increasingly wild efforts to get the EU to surrender its interests or what used to be called cakeism.
If a deal ’emerges’ very late, the impression this has all been theatre, will be hard to dispel.
Johnson faces Europhobe critics within his own party and it’s fair to say MEPs aren’t enthusiastic about the idea of the UK emerging in any way victorious from Brexit negotiations. If a deal can be brought into being the parties may figure they can bounce those critics into ratification.
Good to see your website back on line Craig – been getting “502” and “522” cloudflare errors all day.
Presumably this is a DDoS attack from so-called “pro-Israel supporters”.
Anyone have more info?
Just a failure at a data centre; probably slow to be fixed because it’s Sunday. Good to see you NSH.
The usual server is still down; site admin got this site online again by moving it to a backup server that is kept on standby. Because this site was restored from a copy, some comments were lost.
Ah, OK. Thanks for the information. After what’s been happening to the Labour Party, I was getting quite worried. Good to see you too.
A conversation that might happen, so to speak, in the event of shortages following a no-deal outcome:
Public: You said there would be a greal deal. Why the shortages?
Boris: National Sovereignty (waves a flag and points South)
Public: Never mind that. We are facing shortages. Give us the deal.
Boris: No, because I would lose face. It is preferable to me that you suffer. Not losing face is my No. 1 priority.
Public: Just wait till the next election …
Since Johnson is now certainly responsible for more deaths than Osama Bin Laden, how come we’re routinely censured if we dare to say aloud that he should be removed from the earth at the business end of a gun?
Ed Miliband on Marr : “we might have higher standards than them [the EU], and they might try to unfairly compete with us”
Pfft, yeah right.
I’m sure that’s Boris’, Raab’s ; Gove’s , JRM’s overriding concern about adherence to ‘level playing field’ rules.
We already have higher standards that the vast majority of the EU in almost everything. The Germans are still producing 40% of their electricity from coal. The Danes were farming mink until the cull last month. The French are still producing foie gras.
Thousands of immigrants are on the channel coast desperate to get into the UK.
Every other EU state as far more infringements of state aid than the UK.
For once in his puff, Ed is right.
If so, I’m sure something could be easily agreed.
But looking at those names do you really think any concerned about raising our standards? Or deregulation and driving our standards down to gain a perceived competitive advantage?
Gove for example, has said in interviews, he wishes he was born in the Victorian era, most of the Tory party probably secretly pines for the return of Victorian workhouses and hanging and flogging. This isn’t a party known for pressing for higher environmental and social standards in Europe.
Just one example from a guardian piece in 2016 quote:
Huge sections of the UK coastline were too polluted for swimming until EU legal action forced the government to clean up
In the 1980s, the British government tried to claim that the beaches of Brighton, Blackpool, Skegness and many other resorts weren’t used for bathing, to avoid dealing with the sewage, condoms and tampons that polluted them. Of the 27 beaches it agreed were used for swimming, nine were too dirty to reach the minimum bathing standard.
Today, after legal action from the EU and directives on bathing water and urban waste water, 99% of the UK’s 632 designated beaches have been deemed safe for swimming.
Nobody swims in the UK because it is too damn cold. If you are wanting a beach culture and have millions coming there it makes sense to spend a bit on waste treatment and keep your golden goose bright and shiny.
It is ruinous madness to spend millions treating waste in the scottish highlands to the same standard. One any given day we have a hundred beaches without a soul, except perhaps the odd dog walker. It is not as if sewage is not natural or deposited by thousands of animals not complying with the EU flushing regulation.
Impeccable logic ..
“We already have higher standards that the vast majority of the EU in almost everything”
Any area in which Britain has higher standards than the EU had nothing to do with the market fundamentalists now running the country. They want the kind of bonfire of regulations that produced the Grenfell Inferno and to entrench Britain’s status as the most unequal society in western Europe.
“What’s really problematic, and what should concern all, is how Corbyn exposed just how narrow the permitted democratic choice actually is. “
This is absolutely correct.
By the same token had a Corbyn government taken office it would have shown not only the ruthlessness and contempt for democracy with which the Establishment and ruling class would have reacted. But, and of much more importance, it would have led to the development of popular organs defending democracy and thus, greatly extending it.
Corbyn, for all his faults, faults dwelt upon with great relish often by way of excuse for inaction and cowardly cynicism, made the nature of his programme quite clear in his invocation of Shelley and his appeals to the many to act against the few. He was not talking just of canvassing or voting but of organising in order to be ready to respond to the anticipated violence of the ruling class.
In the campaigns against Corbyn, campaigns which still run at full throttle, it was made crystal clear-to those who have eyes and ears- that the violence had begun. The lies, the misrepresentations, the sabotage, the expulsions of socialists, the almost unprecedented language and actions of the PLP (from Watson and Hodges down to Austin, Phillips, Vaz., Mann etc) went well beyond the discourse of party factions struggling over ideas. It was always obvious that the source of the energy of the anti-Corbyn people was completely external to the Labour Party and the wider movement. It was quite clear that this was a war waged by the Security/Secret Police as agents of the US, Israeli and Gulf governments.
The threat that Corbyn represented was against the Permanent Arms Economy which has been the central principle of US state policy since 1944- the policy of maintaining the US in a position in which the rest of the world has to choose either to submit, as the UK has, and follow Washington’s every order, or to employ all national resources on striving to keep pace with the implied US military threat, or to endeavour to exist without provoking the wrath- either by opposing US actions or by developing successful, non capitalist domestic policies which the US ruling class feels obliged to wreck lest they become popular- which leads to US aggression.
“Corbyn exposed just how narrow the permitted democratic choice actually is”
He exposed our liberal elites as firm allies of conservatives against even mild social democracy and peace, just as Assange has exposed the emptiness of their commitment to free speech and due process. Salutary lessons for young people in Britain.
This is why the introduction of proportional representation will be fought tooth and nail too. The left toys with campaigning for it but they’d be up against incredible opposition.
Our leaders and media mock how Iran’s Council of Guardians determining who can run for a seat in their ‘elected’ assembly. But our two-party system + media, operate in much the same way, or at least to the same effect – they close ranks to defend the status quo from challenge. The UK, US and Canada use FPTP to the frustration of real democracy.
…the choices are narrowed down and pre-vetted before the public get a say between Pepsi and Coke.
exactly. with some offbrands allowed to run but not win. sanders at least pretended to be classic coke (fdr democrat!) , but in a reprise of 2016 threw his support to new coke in the end, and campaigned tirelessly for it.
The Labour Project was only a version of Keynesian reflation and not ‘ Marxism or Socialism’
Roosevelt’s answer to the problem was much more economically left.
He knew that it would be temporary relatively and so in the US 1972/73 season the US leapt off the Gold Standard and started leveraging other countries surpluses. That and the price manipulation of the Dollar and lo and behold the near quadrupling of the oil price via OPEC and bingo the mirage could work for a while longer as the great economy.
Truth for me is that 40 years of neo- liberal economics from those who never understood what it meant ( including Thatcher ) have perverted the minds of anyone over the age of about 50 and bought off in a small manner the working class voters who thought they were ‘ One of us’ due to being lent money for a mortgage and borrowing more money for holidays on the strength of the price of the house.
Lucky people?
It’s like having a semi -socialist government is not allowed.
It isn’t and it won’t be for a long long long time.
p.s. Milliband was pretty decent on Marr.
Marr is a total idiot sometimes in his defence of the government – off scrip/list of questions he’s well out of his depth.
p.p.s. Raab’s main point in his interview seemed to be about keeping Johnny Foreigner out – he looked well pleased with that sovereignty gain.
Doesn’t look good for the staffing of 40 hospitals has promised the nation.
Then again Johnson is a congenital liar.
I wonder if he’s lying about a No Deal?
I think he is.
” Salutary lessons for young people in Britain.”
But only if they become aware of them.
Bevin, you are a joy to read, here and elsewhere. Thank you for voicing my concerns, you save me hours on this keyboard and I could never be as erudite as you.
An afternoon conversation with an english friend, a house here in France and another in England, an international businessman, `I`m ashamed to be English`…..
As an aside, just tried to spend €500 on an English account, to a company here in France, payment refused…
Two minutes later they accepted my French card payment. I was trying to used my English account whilst it still has value.
My twopenneth is that Brexit was always about the city of Westminster and dodgy money.
One of the main reasons people feel so demoralised about what happened to Corbyn, is the realisation of what a rare, missed opportunity Corbyn’s leadership represented. Someone who is genuinely incorruptible and honest leading a western democracy… is certainly not the recent norm.
The left has faced particular barriers to promoting those from within their ranks who favour radical change, due to constant interference from overreaching agencies and the wealthy and powerful alike(including media proprietors). Traditionally it’s only the left who wish to challenge the status quo.
The embers are not out…
https://thecorbynproject.com/join-us/
Interesting . Wonder if this nascent project can grow into something?
Despite the centrist Change UK – TIG rightfully crashing at the election, I do think a new party, one that’s discernibly left, could establish itself and become a viable threat to Starmer’s, ultra-bland reheated ‘New Labour’ offering. Especially if members abandon Starmer’s party en masse over some issue or other.
The left isn’t well organised however, as seen with the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, many of whom refused to even condemn Corbyn’s suspension, or sign the letter urging his readmission.
In the end progress always wins
Pigeon English-really? Where are the examples of this wishful inevitability? In whose lifetime are you talking about?
I don’t see any practical matters being discussed.
The most vulnerable seem to suffer the most
Sunday Times
Supermarkets are this weekend stockpiling food and other goods after being told by ministers that a no-deal Brexit is on the cards.
Food producers have warned there will be shortages of vegetables for three months and emergency planners predict that no-deal would spark panic-buying on a scale that could dwarf the coronavirus crisis.
Johnson could soon be embroiled in another controversy . Report:
US state department officials are considering designating the Houthis as a terrorist group before the 20 January inauguration of Joe Biden.
This move, no doubt aimed at placating the Saudis and MbS, comes hot on the heels of the US unilaterally recognising Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in a quid pro quo for Morocco normalising relations with Israel. Jared Kushner is certainly busy in these last days of Trump administration travelling to ME capitals. It’s only due to a quirk in the US system that Trump is still there at all. Presidents once took their oaths of office on March 4. The four-month gap was needed in part because of the time it took to count and report votes and to travel to the nation’s capital. The 20th Amendment, ratified on January 23, 1933, moved up Inauguration Day to January 20 and the first meeting of the new Congress to January 3. Seems insane that they can’t revisit the issue in 2020 to shorten it to ‘days’, in order to prevent this kind of ‘lame duck’ abuse of power.
Why doesn’t Biden say he’ll reverse all this stuff?
“Why doesn’t Biden say he’ll reverse all this stuff?”
He’s got to lead from the Center, critical mass of voters and he’s already mitigating the full prosecution of scofflaws co-conspiring with Trumpty Dumpty thinking Americans are weary of discord.
What is tiring is the failure (Watergate. Iran Contra, fake WMDs) to rein in criminality ‘for the good of the Nation’
Trump’s and the GoP leadership’s behaviour is reprehensible and disrespectful to their electorate.
He’s lost an election and here he and they are cramming as much of their agenda in as possible. It’s not like he’s served the two-term limit. he’s been rejected after one term. I ‘m sure it’s baffling to Europeans why he’s still there pursuing such controversial policies with huge ramifications.
Reports also that the US Justice Dept. is investigating bribery allegations in relation to Presidential pardons offered under Trump. The Presidential pardon also seems quite absurd in this day and age, as it dates all the way back to English laws that gave monarchs the power to grant mercy to their subjects.
Republicans have to periodically change pseudonyms to protect their guilty.
They are 19th century Whigs who morphed into Dixiecrats and then Republicans but their ideology of Nativistic Isolationism has never evolved beyond Neanderthal
“He’s lost an election and here he and they are cramming as much of their agenda in as possible. “
Perhaps he made a deal with the Dems where he was supposed to ‘win’ the election and got cheated on. Now in the last few weeks of his office he is putting into reverse as much of the stuff he agreed to as part of that deal, as he can.
Perhaps Trump tried to win but didn’t get as many votes as the other guy.
Ever thought of that? Nah… that would be just NUTS, what a stupid conspiracy theory.
he doesn’t have to lead from the so called center, which most europeans would consider quite right wing. he wants to. he was an awful candidate, and his appointments show he is likely to be an awful president, continuing the policies that has resulted in so much unrest in the first place, and brought us trump (and sanders). trump was a fraud, and sanders a gatekeeper in the end. but the problems aren’t going away. millions of people may be evicted in the coming 3 weeks, and millions more don’t have enough to eat.
meanwhile the republicans and democrats haggle over the number of crumbs to dole out to citizens in need.
“US state department officials are considering designating the Houthis as a terrorist group”
Have the Houthis considered designating the US state department as a terrorist group?
“Why doesn’t Biden say he’ll reverse all this stuff?”
Because he loves it.
From the Heil: “Operation Capstone: War games to mock up worst-case scenarios and test country’s readiness for No Deal Brexit will be carried out THIS WEEK“.
“Worst-case scenario” is a phrase beloved of executive officials who have never seen real trouble in the whole of their pathetic deskbound lives.
What are we talking about, then? Empty shelves in the shops, some bombs go off in railway stations, a school is taken over by terrorists Beslan-style, a biological attack hits a tube train, some guy wants to be the new Anders Breivik, the “bespoke app” (sometimes you gotta laugh) that is supposed to tell any remaining cross-border lorry drivers where they should take their vehicles to for inspection doesn’t work, software systems at hospitals and airports and the ones that control mobile phone networks, the energy grid, and food and medicine distribution centres are brought down in mysterious hacking attacks (cf. Estonia 2007), and on top of it all the French media release a video of the “Princess Diana” Fiat Uno identifying all of the British service personnel who were riding in it, together with incontrovertible evidence that Robert Fellowes, the British monarch’s private secretary, was indeed in the assassination team’s control room while the operation was live, because here’s the tape?
But it’s OK, I mean they’re running their “wargame” in good time, maybe even as long as two weeks before stuff really happens. Then again, one has to wonder what they’ll do if they “test the country’s readiness” and the country fails the test. It’s in the nature of a test that you don’t know what the outcome will be.
“A WTO Brexit could result in tariffs and quotas being imposed on business with the EU, which is the UK’s largest trading partner.“
Ha! The EU is indeed Britain’s biggest trading partner, and Britain imports five times as much from the EU as from any country outside of the EU, including about a third of its food. Soon those sentences should be changed to “the EU *WAS* Britain’s trading partner” and “Britain *USED TO IMPORT* five times as much…” Meanwhile the EU’s biggest trading partner is not Britain. It’s the US, followed by China. So yeah, “what hurts us hurts you”. Like hell it does.
“A WTO Brexit could result in tariffs and quotas being imposed on business with the EU, which is the UK’s largest trading partner.“
Classic Project Fear – that word “could”. How about “could not”? – the WTO’s preferred tariff level for everything is zero.
OTOH, is the UK even in the WTO?
What is the point of tariffs on either side of the Channel? Surely they just cancel each other out? Tariffs are in effect a no-so-hidden-tax on business and like all costs in the mercantile chain passed on the ‘end user’ – the consumer.
Info please: what happened to the Mark Hirst contempt of court trial? Last I heard, it was scheduled for last month (with Craig’s scheduled for next month). Have there been developments which have passed me by?
The last ‘major development’ was a transfer of £10,000 from Craig’s fighting fund to Mark’s fighting fund. It was mentioned on this blog. I don’t think it was that long ago but memory can play tricks. You will need to look back on the blog. So I would assume Mark’s case is still ongoing. Court cases can be ‘abandoned’ at the stroke of a pen though.
“I have transferred £10,000 from my defence fund to Mark Hirst’s defence fund, which needs money immediately. If anybody who donated objects, your donation can be refunded if you use the contact button top right to send a message.”
From the Irish Times.
“Brexit is the logical outcome of resurgent English nationalism. … If English nationalists don’t belong in the EU, they don’t belong in any kind of political union. That includes the UK. … The fact that Scotland also wants its independence merely adds to the argument. Wales and Northern Ireland should take notice.”
Vivian O ‘Blivion
The EU’s only legitimacy as an authority to be obeyed is in mutually advantageous trade . When we are told that the EU will build an army which we will have to contribute to and obey , that is not a rise in English nationalism, that is a demonstration of the English not wishing to be told who to fight , how to fight, when to fight, why to fight , by more than one owner at a time. If Ireland feels the need to project its own nationalist agenda onto England , well that’s its problem , not England’s.
Some people feel so absolutely uncomfortable about themselves that the only way fo relieving their self-hatred is off-load their discomfort onto others. Square pegs into round holes. Should we lick up Napoleon and Hitler’s vomit? We have enough wars from Zionist America without participating in French and German imperial fantasies as well. A good try though, talking bollocks about England when we are facing Hard Brexit.
We are neither rabbits blinded by the headlights nor still wet behind the ears, to listen to insults from the EU.