41 thoughts on “An interesting anti-Brexit argument”
Mr Ecks
Jackal-Heart is another Remainiac who has lost his marbles long since.
I wouldn’t trust him to tell me the time of day.
Agammamon
” A disorderly break-up of the EU would damage the UK, independently of our status in or out. . .Indeed preventing a disorderly collapse should be the UK’s priority. And when we were in, a disorderly collapse was unlikely. . . .Brexit . . . also removes a brake on the insane Federasts of Brussels.
I think the counter argument is that that brake only *slows* the insane federasts of Brussels – it does not stop them. The ratchet only goes one way. In addition, sure the destruction of the Eu will harm the UK irrespective of ‘in or out’. The question is how much harm will the UK suffer before that destruction, coupled with the harm of the destruction itself – is that more or less than the harm you’ll suffer while out plus the harm of the destruction to you as an outsider.
Methinks its better overall (my SWAG analysis) to have left, get one with your lives, and deal with the EU’s destruction when it finally rolls around rather than stick around fighting the federasts for the slightest bit of breathing room for the next decade.
Agammamon
Unobtrusively aligning business regulation and deepening economic integration is necessary.
And does not require the EU – and the EU comes with ‘A parliament, a flag, an anthem and a head of “state”‘ whether you want it to or not.
It can be done perfectly fine among nations that *wish* to do so. Hell, the US (and I’m sure the UK – hell, I’m pretty sure the UK and *France* have been able make these sorts of agreements from time to time) have plenty of standards that are created and used by *trade groups* – not governments – across the nation. No one had to force these people to standardize, they did so because a sufficiently large group of them saw the advantages of better inter-operability.
David Moore
This is the same ‘influence’ argument that had Cameron begging for some concessions to keep the UK in the EU and, collectively, the EU told him to fuck himself.
Agammamon
Ultimately, the costs will become apparent to the UK pretty rapidly.
How rapidly? Is this like Global Warming rapidly? You know, how we’re on the edge of a tipping point that is always 20-50 off?
Paul Erlich rapidly? You know, we’ve already passed the point of no return and by 70’s70’s and 80’s now?
“This ship is sinking and we must stay aboard to help keep it afloat.”
On balance, I’d rather man the liferafts and get back to shore, thanks.
Charlie Suet
This argument is one of the reasons I ended up voting Remain. But I’m less and less sure that it’s at all valid.
It’s clear the people in charge of Europe despise us and think we’re a nuisance. Plenty of European politicians see votes in trying to destroy this country, judging by the noises they’re making. You’d never think that we contribute as much as we do to the EU for all the clout we seem to have. (Rightly) not being in the Euro has also already put us on a different track.
We’ve demonstrated no basic ability to hold Brussels to account for anything, certainly for the past twenty-five years. A large, large constituency of the chattering classes can’t be induced to believe that there’s anything wrong with the EU.
Stuff that would cause pandemonium were it done by British politicians is tolerated and ignored when it’s done by foreign ones. Criticism of the EU, a large supranational organisation disposing of billion pound budgets was left long ago to people either deemed strange and obsessionalist or judged to be racist.
Which being the case I’ve no idea how we are supposed to have reformed the bloody thing. They hate us, and we don’t care enough.
Pers
A lot of the media was running this sort of argument before the vote too.
As for Jackart, I lost any interest in what he has to say long ago.
dearieme
I’m not persuaded, but it’s a far better argument than the usual Remnant rubbish. That’s based on some either EU than the one we’ve got. It’s based on a reformed EU, or a platonic ideal EU, or just on a childishly romantic idea of “Europe”.
The Brexit campaign had one signal advantage over the Remainders: the Brexiteers discussed the actual, existing EU.
Bloke in North Dorset
I was surprised when I read that post in my RSS Feed this morning. I don’t always agree with him but he usually writes well and makes a cogent argument. I found this one rather messy and had difficulty understanding his main point which seems to be that the EU is in for a car crash sooner or later and that it will be later if we stay in, which doesn’t seem like a good argument to me.
I wonder if he’s having doubts about his own Remain convictions?
“This ship is sinking and we must stay aboard to help keep it afloat.”
On balance, I’d rather man the liferafts and get back to shore, thanks.
And if the life rafts aren’t far enough away when the ship sicks they can get sucked down as well. So definitely better to leave sooner rather than later.
Bloke in North Dorset
*sinks*
Gary
Yeah Chris Dillow made a similar argument where he said “we cannot assume the EU will act in the interests of its own citizens” but concludes we should stay.
These are not ‘on the one hand…but on the other’ type issues; the are existential dealbreakers.
MattyJ
My argument is the opposite of this. The EU has already shown how opposed it is to reform. Only a wake-up call the size of Brexit could convince the EU elite that reform is needed. Therefore Brexit is the EU’s best chance for survival.
Charlie Suet
I’ve never quite understood the liking so many libertarian blogs seem to have for Dillow. He’s as apt to be mindlessly foul about the evul Tories as many Graun journalists.
So Much For Subtlety
Yeah. If your husband is beating you the only sensible thing is to tough it out so he doesn’t get worse.
Heard this argument a lot during the campaign. It has the huge advantage to Remnants of blame. When the EU eventually collapses, they will claim that it wouldn’t have collapsed if it weren’t for us. If there’s rioting, they will blame us for every injury. If there’s a bit of war — hey, it’s Europe — they will blame us for every death.
monoi
I’m with you MattyJ, I believe Brexit has pushed the inevitable end of the EU further in the future.
A bit like the steam escaping through the valve of a pressure cooker to reduce pressure.
Not that brexit is a bad thing, I’m for it, but he consequences will prove different than expected.
Edward Lud
What’s our track record, when it comes to improving the EU from within?
I read that Merkel intends to introduce a solid bar on benefit claims for EU migrants for a five year period, which is effectively what she refused to the UK.
The EU club rules can, and have been, bent to accommodate the Jerries, but not the Brits
Dongguan John
Bravefart, according to Vince Cable in The New Statesman (of all people in all places!) France and Germany both violate at least one of the four freedoms they lecture the UK on being sacrosanct:
Germany does not accept another pillar of the single market. It blocks free trade in services to maintain German professional standards and to prevent dilution of its privacy laws in a digital single market. France resists another pillar, free movement of capital, if this results in French firms being taken over.
Vince Cable misses the point: the French and Germans bend the rules because it is their club; it isn’t Britain’s, and never was.
The Inimitable Steve
One of the main reasons to oppose brexit is that the UK doesn’t benefit from being “out” should the EU collapse.
Fake and gay. If course we’re better off outside a doomed ship. When the nutjob captain and his lunatic officers start feeding captive passengers to the marauding Islamic boarders , we’ll be laughing from the lifeboat.
Not only has Brexit given free rein to some of the very worst people in the UK,
Muahahahaha!
it also removes a brake on the insane Federasts of Brussels.
Not our problem.
Brexiters have been doing so for decades – talking down the UK’s influence in the EU to the extent we’re actually thinking of walking out of the UK’s proudest creation: the single market.
Do fuck off. Are any non-autistic people actually proud of the single market? It’s not exactly up there with parliamentary democracy, the Empire, or jammie dodgers, is it?
Buying and selling with Froggies and Krauts is nice. The infinitely expanding cosmos of pettifogging rules and restrictions that go with it are not.
Not to mention unlimited immigration being smuggled into law under the guise of “free trade” – and I say this as someone who likes Poles.
On a list of Britain’s proudest achievements, the single market belongs somewhere between Gyles Brandreth’s jumpers and the invention of dogging.
The UK drove Russian sanctions to this day.
Why? Russia isn’t our enemy. Why are we going out of our way to pick a fight with a nuclear superpower?
The EU will integrate itself to death, there will be chaos when the voters of Europe can take the tin-eared arrogance of Brussels no more. There was no need for all those millions of lives to be attenuated during that process.
Who cares? Let them eat Merkel.
Rob
Yeah Chris Dillow made a similar argument where he said “we cannot assume the EU will act in the interests of its own citizens” but concludes we should stay.
(Sat drunkenly on a hospital bed, crying) “But I love him, officer!”
Edward Lud
“On a list of Britain’s proudest achievements, the single market belongs somewhere between Gyles Brandreth’s jumpers and the invention of dogging.”
Steve, oh, Steve. Oh. ROTFLMAO doesn’t do justice to my reaction to that line. Keep them coming, they make a middle aged rake almost happy.
Rob
His Twitter feed has been bonkers ranting about Brexit since the day it happened.
ken
When the EU and the Euro collapse the UK will suffer because of trade links and geographic proximity. So, leaving does not reduce this “indirect” element. And the direct costs of trying to prop up the idiocy would primarily have fallen on Euro group member countries. It is possible that as the idiocy rolled toward the cliff edge, emergency contributions might have been asked for from the non-Euro group – which the UK now probably avoids, but the UK will suffer much of the cost of the idiocy no matter what. OTOH, the Eurocretins will drive the bus over the edge no matter what, so staying in probably didnt make much sense either.
Merkel is a significant contributor to the idiocy, having locked the Greeks in and thrown German taxpayers funds at the periphery. Hopefully she will still be around when her stupidity will see her named as the most moronic leader of postwar Germany. If people think Cameron is an idiot for the Brexit, wait until we see the Euro collapse.
Liberal Yank
I posited the same argument in this blog before I understood just how unaccountable the EU actually is. The only new point I can raise is to ask why it took this long for someone on the Bremain side to ask it?
BniC
On the same day the BBC reports a region of Belgium is blocking an EU trade deal with Canada, farcical beyond belief
Hedgehog
Nah, fuck ’em, their bed etc.
And the horse they rode in on.
Indeed preventing a disorderly collapse should be the UK’s priority.
I suggest you Brexiteers (I’m not one, only because I’m no Brit and I don’t get to vote. I don’t even live there) start to work on making sure the collapse is orderly.
Heisenberg
“Steve, oh, Steve. Oh. ROTFLMAO doesn’t do justice to my reaction to that line. Keep them coming, they make a middle aged rake almost happy”
A rake rotflmao at that? I have to guess that ‘middle aged’ means about 70 and Richard Whiteley is your hero, chuckling at every mention of ‘twice nightly’.
bloke in spain
Never pay any attention to a man who wears Lycra.
Edward Lud
Charles Hawtrey’s my hero, Heisenberg old chop. Followed by Delia Smith and then the great Duke of Wellington. Noel Edmonds is first reserve.
What’s your point?
Edward Lud
Mr in Spain, how dare you? My real name is Whowearslycra.
bloke in spain
Sorry Mr Lud. You’d have to have been an assiduous reader of Jackarse’s blog to understand his particular fetish.
dearieme
If our leaving is so bad for everyone, why didn’t Brussels chuck Cameron a couple of bones when he was doing his “negotiating” pantomime?
Bloke n North Dorset
Meanwhile, in other news apparently Nicola isn’t rushing in to a second referendum. Shame, we could kill 2 birds with one stone.
john77
@ dearieme
‘Cos Juncker wanted to get his revenge on Cameron for daring to oppose his appointment and assumed that we would vote “!Remain” anyhow.
BniC
Been reading the Fractured Europe novels set in the near future, in it an independent Scotland is a broke, run down state that had to sell Prestwick airport off to the Chinese to use as an airbase in order to survive
Jim
“Meanwhile, in other news apparently Nicola isn’t rushing in to a second referendum. Shame, we could kill 2 birds with one stone.”
Translation – politician realises that calling a referendum whereby whatever happens she’s fucked is a bad idea………………….
Rob
“Been reading the Fractured Europe novels set in the near future, in it an independent Scotland is a broke, run down state that had to sell Prestwick airport off to the Chinese to use as an airbase in order to survive.”
That would buy, at most, two years welfare for the Weegies. What do they flog after that?
Jackal-Heart is another Remainiac who has lost his marbles long since.
I wouldn’t trust him to tell me the time of day.
” A disorderly break-up of the EU would damage the UK, independently of our status in or out. . .Indeed preventing a disorderly collapse should be the UK’s priority. And when we were in, a disorderly collapse was unlikely. . . .Brexit . . . also removes a brake on the insane Federasts of Brussels.
I think the counter argument is that that brake only *slows* the insane federasts of Brussels – it does not stop them. The ratchet only goes one way. In addition, sure the destruction of the Eu will harm the UK irrespective of ‘in or out’. The question is how much harm will the UK suffer before that destruction, coupled with the harm of the destruction itself – is that more or less than the harm you’ll suffer while out plus the harm of the destruction to you as an outsider.
Methinks its better overall (my SWAG analysis) to have left, get one with your lives, and deal with the EU’s destruction when it finally rolls around rather than stick around fighting the federasts for the slightest bit of breathing room for the next decade.
Unobtrusively aligning business regulation and deepening economic integration is necessary.
And does not require the EU – and the EU comes with ‘A parliament, a flag, an anthem and a head of “state”‘ whether you want it to or not.
It can be done perfectly fine among nations that *wish* to do so. Hell, the US (and I’m sure the UK – hell, I’m pretty sure the UK and *France* have been able make these sorts of agreements from time to time) have plenty of standards that are created and used by *trade groups* – not governments – across the nation. No one had to force these people to standardize, they did so because a sufficiently large group of them saw the advantages of better inter-operability.
This is the same ‘influence’ argument that had Cameron begging for some concessions to keep the UK in the EU and, collectively, the EU told him to fuck himself.
Ultimately, the costs will become apparent to the UK pretty rapidly.
How rapidly? Is this like Global Warming rapidly? You know, how we’re on the edge of a tipping point that is always 20-50 off?
Paul Erlich rapidly? You know, we’ve already passed the point of no return and by
70’s70’s and 80’s now?“This ship is sinking and we must stay aboard to help keep it afloat.”
On balance, I’d rather man the liferafts and get back to shore, thanks.
This argument is one of the reasons I ended up voting Remain. But I’m less and less sure that it’s at all valid.
It’s clear the people in charge of Europe despise us and think we’re a nuisance. Plenty of European politicians see votes in trying to destroy this country, judging by the noises they’re making. You’d never think that we contribute as much as we do to the EU for all the clout we seem to have. (Rightly) not being in the Euro has also already put us on a different track.
We’ve demonstrated no basic ability to hold Brussels to account for anything, certainly for the past twenty-five years. A large, large constituency of the chattering classes can’t be induced to believe that there’s anything wrong with the EU.
Stuff that would cause pandemonium were it done by British politicians is tolerated and ignored when it’s done by foreign ones. Criticism of the EU, a large supranational organisation disposing of billion pound budgets was left long ago to people either deemed strange and obsessionalist or judged to be racist.
Which being the case I’ve no idea how we are supposed to have reformed the bloody thing. They hate us, and we don’t care enough.
A lot of the media was running this sort of argument before the vote too.
As for Jackart, I lost any interest in what he has to say long ago.
I’m not persuaded, but it’s a far better argument than the usual Remnant rubbish. That’s based on some either EU than the one we’ve got. It’s based on a reformed EU, or a platonic ideal EU, or just on a childishly romantic idea of “Europe”.
The Brexit campaign had one signal advantage over the Remainders: the Brexiteers discussed the actual, existing EU.
I was surprised when I read that post in my RSS Feed this morning. I don’t always agree with him but he usually writes well and makes a cogent argument. I found this one rather messy and had difficulty understanding his main point which seems to be that the EU is in for a car crash sooner or later and that it will be later if we stay in, which doesn’t seem like a good argument to me.
I wonder if he’s having doubts about his own Remain convictions?
And if the life rafts aren’t far enough away when the ship sicks they can get sucked down as well. So definitely better to leave sooner rather than later.
*sinks*
Yeah Chris Dillow made a similar argument where he said “we cannot assume the EU will act in the interests of its own citizens” but concludes we should stay.
These are not ‘on the one hand…but on the other’ type issues; the are existential dealbreakers.
My argument is the opposite of this. The EU has already shown how opposed it is to reform. Only a wake-up call the size of Brexit could convince the EU elite that reform is needed. Therefore Brexit is the EU’s best chance for survival.
I’ve never quite understood the liking so many libertarian blogs seem to have for Dillow. He’s as apt to be mindlessly foul about the evul Tories as many Graun journalists.
Yeah. If your husband is beating you the only sensible thing is to tough it out so he doesn’t get worse.
F*ckwit.
Heard this argument a lot during the campaign. It has the huge advantage to Remnants of blame. When the EU eventually collapses, they will claim that it wouldn’t have collapsed if it weren’t for us. If there’s rioting, they will blame us for every injury. If there’s a bit of war — hey, it’s Europe — they will blame us for every death.
I’m with you MattyJ, I believe Brexit has pushed the inevitable end of the EU further in the future.
A bit like the steam escaping through the valve of a pressure cooker to reduce pressure.
Not that brexit is a bad thing, I’m for it, but he consequences will prove different than expected.
What’s our track record, when it comes to improving the EU from within?
Peace in our time.
I read that Merkel intends to introduce a solid bar on benefit claims for EU migrants for a five year period, which is effectively what she refused to the UK.
The EU club rules can, and have been, bent to accommodate the Jerries, but not the Brits
Bravefart, according to Vince Cable in The New Statesman (of all people in all places!) France and Germany both violate at least one of the four freedoms they lecture the UK on being sacrosanct:
Germany does not accept another pillar of the single market. It blocks free trade in services to maintain German professional standards and to prevent dilution of its privacy laws in a digital single market. France resists another pillar, free movement of capital, if this results in French firms being taken over.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/10/germany-and-france-bend-single-market-rules-so-why-cant-britain-control
Vince Cable misses the point: the French and Germans bend the rules because it is their club; it isn’t Britain’s, and never was.
One of the main reasons to oppose brexit is that the UK doesn’t benefit from being “out” should the EU collapse.
Fake and gay. If course we’re better off outside a doomed ship. When the nutjob captain and his lunatic officers start feeding captive passengers to the marauding Islamic boarders , we’ll be laughing from the lifeboat.
Not only has Brexit given free rein to some of the very worst people in the UK,
Muahahahaha!
it also removes a brake on the insane Federasts of Brussels.
Not our problem.
Brexiters have been doing so for decades – talking down the UK’s influence in the EU to the extent we’re actually thinking of walking out of the UK’s proudest creation: the single market.
Do fuck off. Are any non-autistic people actually proud of the single market? It’s not exactly up there with parliamentary democracy, the Empire, or jammie dodgers, is it?
Buying and selling with Froggies and Krauts is nice. The infinitely expanding cosmos of pettifogging rules and restrictions that go with it are not.
Not to mention unlimited immigration being smuggled into law under the guise of “free trade” – and I say this as someone who likes Poles.
On a list of Britain’s proudest achievements, the single market belongs somewhere between Gyles Brandreth’s jumpers and the invention of dogging.
The UK drove Russian sanctions to this day.
Why? Russia isn’t our enemy. Why are we going out of our way to pick a fight with a nuclear superpower?
The EU will integrate itself to death, there will be chaos when the voters of Europe can take the tin-eared arrogance of Brussels no more. There was no need for all those millions of lives to be attenuated during that process.
Who cares? Let them eat Merkel.
Yeah Chris Dillow made a similar argument where he said “we cannot assume the EU will act in the interests of its own citizens” but concludes we should stay.
(Sat drunkenly on a hospital bed, crying) “But I love him, officer!”
“On a list of Britain’s proudest achievements, the single market belongs somewhere between Gyles Brandreth’s jumpers and the invention of dogging.”
Steve, oh, Steve. Oh. ROTFLMAO doesn’t do justice to my reaction to that line. Keep them coming, they make a middle aged rake almost happy.
His Twitter feed has been bonkers ranting about Brexit since the day it happened.
When the EU and the Euro collapse the UK will suffer because of trade links and geographic proximity. So, leaving does not reduce this “indirect” element. And the direct costs of trying to prop up the idiocy would primarily have fallen on Euro group member countries. It is possible that as the idiocy rolled toward the cliff edge, emergency contributions might have been asked for from the non-Euro group – which the UK now probably avoids, but the UK will suffer much of the cost of the idiocy no matter what. OTOH, the Eurocretins will drive the bus over the edge no matter what, so staying in probably didnt make much sense either.
Merkel is a significant contributor to the idiocy, having locked the Greeks in and thrown German taxpayers funds at the periphery. Hopefully she will still be around when her stupidity will see her named as the most moronic leader of postwar Germany. If people think Cameron is an idiot for the Brexit, wait until we see the Euro collapse.
I posited the same argument in this blog before I understood just how unaccountable the EU actually is. The only new point I can raise is to ask why it took this long for someone on the Bremain side to ask it?
On the same day the BBC reports a region of Belgium is blocking an EU trade deal with Canada, farcical beyond belief
Nah, fuck ’em, their bed etc.
And the horse they rode in on.
Indeed preventing a disorderly collapse should be the UK’s priority.
I suggest you Brexiteers (I’m not one, only because I’m no Brit and I don’t get to vote. I don’t even live there) start to work on making sure the collapse is orderly.
“Steve, oh, Steve. Oh. ROTFLMAO doesn’t do justice to my reaction to that line. Keep them coming, they make a middle aged rake almost happy”
A rake rotflmao at that? I have to guess that ‘middle aged’ means about 70 and Richard Whiteley is your hero, chuckling at every mention of ‘twice nightly’.
Never pay any attention to a man who wears Lycra.
Charles Hawtrey’s my hero, Heisenberg old chop. Followed by Delia Smith and then the great Duke of Wellington. Noel Edmonds is first reserve.
What’s your point?
Mr in Spain, how dare you? My real name is Whowearslycra.
Sorry Mr Lud. You’d have to have been an assiduous reader of Jackarse’s blog to understand his particular fetish.
If our leaving is so bad for everyone, why didn’t Brussels chuck Cameron a couple of bones when he was doing his “negotiating” pantomime?
Meanwhile, in other news apparently Nicola isn’t rushing in to a second referendum. Shame, we could kill 2 birds with one stone.
@ dearieme
‘Cos Juncker wanted to get his revenge on Cameron for daring to oppose his appointment and assumed that we would vote “!Remain” anyhow.
Been reading the Fractured Europe novels set in the near future, in it an independent Scotland is a broke, run down state that had to sell Prestwick airport off to the Chinese to use as an airbase in order to survive
“Meanwhile, in other news apparently Nicola isn’t rushing in to a second referendum. Shame, we could kill 2 birds with one stone.”
Translation – politician realises that calling a referendum whereby whatever happens she’s fucked is a bad idea………………….
“Been reading the Fractured Europe novels set in the near future, in it an independent Scotland is a broke, run down state that had to sell Prestwick airport off to the Chinese to use as an airbase in order to survive.”
That would buy, at most, two years welfare for the Weegies. What do they flog after that?