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It’s OK for people to leave a political construct if they want to

Second, irrationality has become the norm. Although I have still to meet anyone who can actually explain what the benefit if Brexit might be, barring a mistaken belief that this will give us back the control over migration we have always had and not used, the Tory membership is apparently willing to impose substantial economic cost on everyone to secure that non-existent gain. Rational thinking has, then, departed. Blind faith in mythology is taking its place. That is the foundation for toxic populism, and worse.

Third, this is a gift to Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalists. The repair being observed is very largely English. My belief that the Union is nearly over grows by the day. And I am increasingly convinced that Scotland at least will not wait for English permission to depart.

Anyone not English can leave the English dominated political construction. The English aren’t allowed that freedom – seems to sum it up really.

39 thoughts on “It’s OK for people to leave a political construct if they want to”

  1. The sooner we get Joxit and Mixit, the better. And someone has to think up a good name for letting the Welsh go their own way as well.

  2. “the Tory membership is apparently willing to impose substantial economic cost on everyone to secure that non-existent gain”

    But it’s funny that well over half of the English seem to think there’s an economic gain (or why would they be voting for it?).

  3. “apparently willing to impose substantial economic cost on everyone to secure that non-existent gain. Rational thinking has, then, departed. Blind faith in mythology is taking its place. That is the foundation for toxic populism, and worse.”

    From the man-cvnt who believes in a species of sky fairy and who seeks to impose various potentially ruinous Green New Deal and planned social economy policies on us all this is really more than just a little fvcking rich

  4. “And someone has to think up a good name for letting the Welsh go their own way as well.”

    I don’t think the Welsh will leave. Wales, in its major places is so much more connected to England. Like, I know freelancers who live in Swindon and work in Cardiff 2 days a week. Lots of people in Bristol travel in from villages just over the border. Plaid Cymru struggle to get a 2nd place anywhere in South Wales (which is most of the population).

  5. Why would the Taffs want to go any way different from England? There was a Welsh Brexit majority in the Euros. Hardly a gift to the nationalists if the nationalists can’t get a majority to vote for it.

  6. Even if the scots become independent they’ll still be Brits, we’ll a bit like the scandis, always bickering when unified but get on fine as independents. Oh and lookee here Norway isn’t in the EU and its still fine.

  7. “barring a mistaken belief that this will give us back the control over migration we have always had and not used,”

    So the UK could end freedom of movement to and from other EU countries while remaining in the EU? Someone ought to have told David Cameron, it might have made his winning the referendum a bit easier………

  8. Does anyone have a view on this chap, Ivan Rogers (this is one of several articles he’s written on Brexit):

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/ivan-rogers-no-deal-is-now-the-most-likely-outcome/

    The reason I’m curious is that, notwithstanding that he’s clearly very pro-Remain, he should be very well informed, as a former UK ambassador to the EU, and yet…

    Apart from reminding me of some of Newmania’s ramblings, it comes across as much political guff rather than coherent analysis?

    There are so many obvious biases, or solutions (to problems he raises) wilfully ignored – be it playing with tariffs, reducing corporation tax, ignoring that the single market forces rules to be applied to “all” rather than simply the EU exports, etc, etc..

    I wondered if others here – Remainers or Leavers – had read any of his his articles and have a view? Or if anyone had thoroughly fisked any of his work? His Speccy articles have clearly been read by significant numbers.

  9. Bravefart

    Is there anyone in the world as lacking in a sense of their own absurdity as this guy? What a cretin

  10. “…barring a mistaken belief that this will give us back the control over migration…”

    The Sage of Ely ignores the complexity :

    1. Non-EU migrants who come here to work are more highly qualified than EU migrants who come here to work – they have to be because they need a work visa, whereas EU migrants tend to be low- or semi-skilled and have free movement.

    2. The number of non-EU migrants is swollen by ‘family reunions’, ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’. If — and only if — a post-Brexit government cracked down on these categories would immigration be reduced.

    3. We don’t need more low-/semi-skilled immigration, because we have 7 million people aged 16-64 who are economically inactive in the UK. — Obviously, this doesn’t include most pensioners. But we have too many immigrant wives and ‘dependents’. Meanwhile, in order to reduce immigration, UK business needs to invest (or be incentivised to invest) in more training and automation rather than importing labour.

    Just saying…

  11. Bloke on M4,
    Leavers didn’t necessarily vote in the expectation of economic gain. A recent YouGov survey showed that 61% of Tory party members want Brexit even if it means “significant damage” to the economy.

    Frankly I’m not sure it’s worth tanking the economy just to be ruled by cretins from Westminster instead of cretins from Brussels.

  12. I see that IKEA are giving 150 jobs to refugees.

    Which means that 150 UK citizens don’t have jobs.

  13. Meanwhile, in order to reduce immigration, UK business needs to invest (or be incentivised to invest) in more training and automation rather than importing labour.

    The CBI is mad keen on unlimited immigration.

    By one of those astonishing coinkydinks, while many CBI members are able to successfully privatise the profits of cheap immigrant labour, the costs are socialised.

    Costs of housing benefits, healthcare, education, tax credits, police, prisons, etc. etc. fall on the public purse in general.

    Solution: make employers pay for the externalities imposed by their immigrant workforce.

    So, yes, Mr FTSE 100, you can employ Pavel or Pajeet because they’ll work cheaper than Paul. Here’s your tax bill to cover the average cost to the state of providing public services for migrants, plus a bit extra for all that carbon footprint shite your corporate marketing team is so keen on.

  14. I have still to meet yet to listen to anyone who can actually explain what the benefit of Brexit might be

    FTFH

    It’s a very common trope (though the lack of originality is hardly surprising) among Remainiacs. No matter how many times I explain that Brexit is about democracy and self-determination, not the economics of trade or immigration control (important issues though they may be), it never sinks in.

  15. “Second, irrationality has become the norm.”

    Politics and values are not ‘rational’ in any sense, types of government, structure and outcomes cannot be decided through ‘rational’ enquiry, they are values people and nations hold. Rational would only apply if we both agreed our goal was x empirical outcome and one solution provided it and the other did not.

    “Although I have still to meet anyone who can actually explain what the benefit if Brexit might be”

    Alas I have met many many people with no familiarity with standard british euroscepticism at all. Tony Benn anyone? Michael Foot? Enoch Powell? The SWP? Daniel Hannan? Paul Foot?

    All, ranging from the right to left have made fundamental political and democratic cases for leaving what was the EEC and now is the EU. Shows him limited interaction with the intellectual world if he is unaware of these arguments.

  16. @PF Re Sir Ivan Rogers I think he’s talking a lot of sense. I know a lot of people here believe it’ll all be just fine if we leave without a trade deal, it won’t. There’ll be a big economic price to pay. However if that is the only way we can get to leave, then so be it. But “there could be trouble ahead”.

  17. Andrew M,

    “Leavers didn’t necessarily vote in the expectation of economic gain. A recent YouGov survey showed that 61% of Tory party members want Brexit even if it means “significant damage” to the economy.”

    I wasn’t trying to be obtuse, but I meant economic gain in the broader sense: the stuff people want (which includes money but lots of other things). I assign a value to having people in cafes and restaurants who can speak English well

  18. “I know a lot of people here believe it’ll all be just fine if we leave without a trade deal, it won’t.”

    Leaving and having a trade deal are two separate things, and should have been dealt with as such from the start. Now they’ll just have to be.

    The EU is in a weak position, knows it and is bluffing. The bluffing is getting silly (Cut off Zurich markets! Cut off London markets! – fucking good luck with that game).

    Sadly, our lot is too stupid (still!) to see it. Plus they don’t want to, because they nearly all want to r-e-m-a-i-n.

  19. @ BoM4
    I ascribe a value to having people in call centres who speak intelligible English, and a bit extra for speaking it well.
    In the last resort I can walk out of a cafe and never darken its doors again.

  20. “Frankly I’m not sure it’s worth tanking the economy just to be ruled by cretins from Westminster instead of cretins from Brussels.”

    It’s not about one place vs another. It’s about size. The cretins get to run a lot less of us. I don’t even want to be in “the UK” or England. I want to live in Wessex or Mercia or the London City State. I’ve seen how government works and the bigger it is, the more bloated and egotistical it is. Ideally, I’d like to live in a country no bigger than a local authority, but that’s not really practical.

  21. “In the last resort I can walk out of a cafe and never darken its doors again.”

    I stopped using a Chinese takeaway as they seemed to hire some relative from the old country and I just got fed up with it.

    More generally, I think we should import skilled labour rather than poor labour: software developers rather than baristas. I don’t believe there’s any net value to the country of importing baristas who are going to live in expensive cities. Many of them barely earn what it costs to house them. It’s also a bit like communism. Don’t improve performance, just throw more resources at the problem. Maybe if shops and cafes couldn’t get labour so easily, they’d invest in more robotics.

  22. Ian Reid

    Thanks for the response. You say “a lot of sense”, and that’s what interests me with this?

    WTO / Article 24 is not any area of expertise of mine, but this appears to be just one of a number of examples of potential misdirection within his text?

    Sir Ivan Rogers:

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/ivan-rogers-no-deal-is-now-the-most-likely-outcome/

    …one gets the next hoary old chestnut.

    ‘Well OK, it’s perhaps not the ultimate destination we need: but for x years under Article 24 of the WTO, we would be able to benefit from existing terms – an interim Agreement – which it would be illegal for the EU to disapply, whilst we negotiated a new Canada style FTA’. Completely untrue.

    In circumstances where you leave the EU without a deal, there simply IS no interim agreement. That is the whole point. The EU is entirely within its WTO rights to say that it will treat us as a bog standard third country, without any preferential arrangements, the day after we leave. And if we refuse to sign a Withdrawal Agreement, there IS no interim deal.

    Lance Forman, businessman and MEP:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/19/tories-must-end-leadership-farce-elect-boris-now-clock-ticking/

    Boris should invite the EU to Number 10 … and present two options: Free trade deal or no deal. They should let us have their preference …

    If they agree to a free trade deal, then we can leave on 31 October knowing that Article 24 of the WTO rulebook allows us to trade on the current basis, even for up to 10 years

    And I have seen lots of others make a similar point on this.

    They are not contradicting each other (unless Lance Forman is categorically wrong), but one of these scenarios appears to be portrayed highly negatively as the only likely outcome? Sure, the EU can say straight off that they don’t want a trade deal (despite having looked to offer one earlier!) but not perhaps as unlikely as Ivan Rogers appears to imply in his dismissal above?

  23. It’s a very common trope (though the lack of originality is hardly surprising) among Remainiacs. No matter how many times I explain that Brexit is about democracy and self-determination, not the economics of trade or immigration control (important issues though they may be), it never sinks in.

    I’ve come to the opinion that these people are brainwashed by the MSM they read/watch and listen to…

    They all share the same opinions on the EU, Farage, Trump, Fags, etc. and mostly argue in soundbites with little factual information to back it up.

    As a result, any discussion is like a game of Whack-a-Mole, once you have defeated their argument with facts they just switch to another and when that is done, back to the first…

  24. @PF Thanks for responding. I’m not an expert either, so it’s really a question of picking the expert you choose to believe. In my case I choose Richard North, who for all his faults, has spent a lot of time looking at this. Of course Richard Murphy has spent a lot of time looking at things too, so this is not proof of his expertise. But it passes my smell tests,and, to me seems plausible. Of course you might be right. But there were two things striking to me about the candidates debate. Firstly all but Rory Stewart said they’d try to renegotiate, the EU have said countless times they won’t do that, and I don’t think they’re bluffing. Secondly none of them acknowledged the EU has a role in this. If by October 31st we don’t do anything we’re out, because the EU has said that it what is happening. They all behave as if these silly foreign chappies will just go along with whatever they say.

    So we may well find out who was right. But since no-one has quantified in monetary terms what it means, and a lot of it will all happen over a longish time period, both sides can claim they were right. But my betting is that for the average punter the effects will be obvious enough that they would say it caused a lot of problems.

  25. @ Ian Reid
    After we leave the EU will have the choice of suffering from a “Hard Brexit” or negotiating a deal. They will doubtless try to negotiate a harder deal than with Mrs May.
    But handing Ulster over to Leo Varadkar and Gibraltar to Pedro Sanchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party will be off the table.
    If anyone is to blame it is Michel Barnier and Olly Robbins.

  26. “In my case I choose Richard North…”

    You could do worse (you mentioned one) but it’s worth bearing in mind that North is a bureaucrat at heart and sees the whole thing through that filter. He was against holding the referendum when we did and was convinced the vote was lost. Now he’s convinced we’ll suffer terribly without some agreed, timed complex decoupling.

    The idea that we will leave via some byzantine intertwined negotiation by experts like him is preposterous. Change comes via the likes of Farage and Trump.

  27. We were lied to when we joined, btw. And during the 1974 referendum, albeit I was not quite four at the time.

    Well, it may be that the pols and bureaucrats in Brussels end up giving us one up the derriere. Maybe.

    Quite why any self respecting Remainer would defend their doing so, I cannot imagine. And perhaps that’s a problem: are there any self respecting Remainers?

    It’s like Nehru and Gandhi rolling over in the face of Indians saying, ca. 1945, “Oh, please Meester Ganghi, we cannot cope without the Breetish”.

    Nuts to it.

  28. Ritchie is opposed to leaving a political construct which funds his egotrip non-job. What a surprise!

  29. Mr Potato only converses with fellow Lefty Europhiles; he needs to talk to the staff in shops he uses. East Cambs Leave 51%

    He’s obviously unaware Wales voted Leave.

  30. I think we should import skilled labour rather than poor labour: software developers rather than baristas.

    Even then, I’d rather say “no fanks” and train our own.

    Ever dealt with Indian computer janitors? They have qualifications coming out of their ears (Bangalore Institute of Plagiarism), but maybe 1 in 10 are worth a damn. Even that competent 10% tends towards rampant nepotism – Indians see employment with Western companies as a scam to hire more Indians, preferably their cousins.

    If they were any good, you’d expect India to be quite the hub for high tech startups, rather than just a source of cheap coders for the dark satanic datacentres of MSFT and GOOG, but nah. Tiny little Israel is a global leader in tech, even South Africa still punches above its weight. India – not so much. There’s probably more *good* techies in Wales than the whole of the subcontinent.

  31. I’ve pointed out on his blog that the Murph tax gap has dropped from nigh on £120bn in 13/14 to £90bn in 18/19, and asked him to comment on how this improvement by HMRC in conjunction with British taxpayers has been achieved.
    I don’t expect a coherent response.

  32. @Bongo

    He’s completely misrepresented that thing about HMRC debt. In 2010 he included all tax owing on a particular day -around £25bn- in the gap. Reality was that £22bn of that was collected.

    It’s in the HoC briefing. He made himself look a right twat.

  33. I have still to meet anyone who can actually explain what the benefit if Brexit might be

    Translation: ‘I didn’t know what I was voting for.’

  34. But, Mr Parnell, I have yet to see any economic benefits from your argument that Ireland should leave the UK and leave it’s most important market, just for this bauble called soverignty.

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