Irish wisdom
Brexit Breakthrough – Irish wisdom
Project fear refuted …
There are many serious and rational voices in support of a No Deal, despite the BBC’s overwhelming Project Fear coverage, and, to my surprise, by Channel 4’s Jon Snow (more on this below).
The pity is that these views are hidden from our view, but they are there, if you look.
So then, who are these misguided, treacherous, thick, ill educated No Deal supporters?
I have collected a few of the best arguments supplied by these well hidden voices below.
- The Mayor of Calais, surprising a BBC Today program interviewer two days ago; please listen here
- “we are ready and have been preparing for no deal for over 12 months, and there is no problem”
- as are Rotterdam and several other European ports
- “we are ready and have been preparing for no deal for over 12 months, and there is no problem”
- Lord Anthony Bamford (Chairman of JCB – One of our oldest and most successful multi-national exporters) “A No Deal Brexit would end business uncertainty” read in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph Page 4
- Leeds University students surprising Jon Snow in his Channel 4 televised debate – see here
- Shock horror, not all young people have swallowed the Project Fear offensive
- “So you are all leavers?” I quote Jon Snow’s incredulity at being faced down by so many rational 20 year erudite students!
- Sir Rocco Forte (Forte Hotels) “What we are not being told by the harbingers of doom is that inward investment into the UK in the first half of 2018 was the second highest in the world after China, but ahead of the US and Germany. We are not told that 94 per cent of businesses in this country are not trading in Europe.”
- Margaret Thatcher. See her famous speech (now all but forgotten) in 1982 railing against the formation of the EU and saying why she thinks the EU is a pile of poo (Ok “poo” is my word, not hers) – watch here
- Tony Blair in his 1983 pre-election address, before he started being paid by Europe and being told that one day he would become President of the EU.
- Now then, that’s what I call a proper U turn 😉
- …and finally me, or anyone who has taken the time to read the Maastricht Treaty or even a summary. Read a very good, balanced, summary here in the Independent which is a quite rational and readable examination of the failure of Maastricht.
No Deal is far far better than any deal with the EU. The so called negotiated “agreement” is, and always has been a criminal waste of time by the Mother of Parliaments ignoring the wish a democratic majority. Quite sickening in my view.
This is exactly what our pathetic government has been doing for the two wasted years!
May’s deal is just criminally stupid, argued by someone who has never made anything, of worth, happen.
Question: Who would I put in Orwell’s room 101?
Answer: All career politicians.
Why?
Politics original definition from the OED* “of the people, for the people“) is far too important to leave it to those who are clueless about the real life most of us (“we the people”) live. They think it means “of the politicians, for the politicians”
My evidence?
The last two years of party political idiocy arguing with the “unarguable with” (the EU bureaucrats and each other)”, who live by a rule book that nobody in the EU ever followed, other than the United Kingdom of Great Britain, of course ;-(
One despairs…
*OED : Oxford English Dictionary definition
Today’s definitions:
- Party politics discussed by journalists feeding their insane desire / need for endless short term media massage
- Discussing, endlessly, what some politician said and whether or not this affects their credibility
Acknowledgements:
- Peter Brookes – for 45 minutes cartoon.
- Also the Trouble Shooter’s creator, but sadly could not find out who that was, but Thank you
Mrs (Gollum) May debating with her dark side Brexit deal
So good – made my day …
Andy Serkis as Theresa May doing the Gollum voice debating herself about the Brexit deal pic.twitter.com/XFWFuJMV44
— Den (@Hobbesenero) December 9, 2018
The Brexit smokescreen unmasked & let’s see more of …
A short constitutional overview
A referendum is the most powerful democratic tool we have. It is, and was in 2016, a direct call to ” we the people ” to have our say.
But our confused party politicians hate that level of direct democracy because it sidesteps what they think is their job 😉
This explains why around 500 members of parliament are doing all they can to reverse the clear instruction given to them in 2016.
Our voice is now seldom heard because our weird, quasi democratic, party political system plus the BBC’s blatant preference in support of the EU. We could learn a lot from Switzerland on the use of referenda.
The smokescreen trying to confuse us all
The “Remain lobby” is winning the media presence battle and is relying on the ignorance of the majority of “we the people”. Most of us don’t have the time to read things like the Maastricht treaty and the Localism Bill.
I have read them both and both stink to high heaven.
The summary of both, presented to us and the MPs, is and was a party political statement rather than an accurate summary of legal intent.
We are now being faced with a media smoke screen, mainly provided by the BBC’s coverage and our MPs who are completely unrepresentative of their constituents.
Why the smokescreen?
Because we gave the wrong answer in their referendum and they dare not say out loud that the EU is a failed project, because they signed us up, in 1982 to the disastrous Maastricht Treaty. That utter twerp, John Major, signed the damn thing in direct opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s lucid understanding of what the EEC was about to become!
Probably one of the few things she ever got right! (Sorry Peter…(private long running joke))
Their smokescreen demystified
- May repeating robotically that “there is no other or better deal”
- but there is, its called NO DEAL; just requires a PM with the balls to inform the EU
- a monstrous change from her previous mantra of “No deal is better than a bad real” (Remember that one?)
- Parliament asking for all the legal advice on May’s ridiculous deal, completely missing the point
- lawyers will argue for ever and never see the wood for the trees – whoopeee, 5500 pages to read and advise upon, “Oh, that’ll be £100,000 please”.
- Endless repetition of “a disastrous Cliff edge fall if we have no deal”
- nonsense, it doesn’t
- Remainer MPs calling for us to remain in the EU rather than accept May’s pile of poo agreement
- Remainer businesses calling for a second referendum; their campaign largely financed by George Soros (The only guy to make £1 billion out of the 2002 ERM crash, another pile of EU poo)
- Remainer businesses demanding security (Mainly the huge global corporates run by bean counters).
- How dare they demand security? Small growing businesses never have security; that’s just called taking risks!
A few facts
I’m making these few simple points today because our media driven political class are making Brexit appear to be a disaster for Britain.
It is not.
The vast majority, 480 of 650 MPs, voted to remain in the EU.
My source is a Press Association survey.
More people voted in the 2016 referendum than in any general election since WW2.
The leave vote was 52% and those who wanted to remain made up 48%.
4% in a general election is enough to give the winning party a majority of 26 in parliament.
That is twice what she has while the DUP still support her.
We have been “handled” yet again.
My prediction
The EU & the Euro will disappear within 20 years. Just Google “how long will the EU survive” for a range of well argued reasons.
PS: Grr
PS2: By the way where are you Jacob?
Brexit solved at last; are you ready?
Whilst walking my dog this morning I had a chat with a fellow philosopher, much younger than I, so quite representative of our respective generations.
In five minutes we had solved many issues which had defied our best political brains for two years (Ed: Err, better get some new brains in quick then). We agreed that we are just about to lose our best ever chance of sorting out “the troubles”; the unification of Ireland and any remaining Brexit (*1 see an amusing spell-checker suggestion below) problems.
How?
By one simple manoeuvre. We give / merge Northern Ireland to the republic of Eire.
Result:-
- The problems of Ireland stay in Ireland
- The United Kingdom of Great Britain become just what it says on the tin
- Brexit is solved; today!
- The cock-up we made in 1922 is resolved and history will praise our bravery & common sense
- Arlene Foster can have our Plymouth Brethren , Mormons and the Rosicrucians too, so she has some people that agree with her.
- We get our £1.2 billion quid back
- Stormont becomes a sports centre and shopping mall
- What’s not to like for the rest of us?
By the way, did your you know that Eire (The Republic of Ireland) is number 10 in the worlds richest countries (ranked on GDP per capita) whilst the UK is number 37 – funny old world.
Kevein Meagher has written a book on the inevitable unification of Ireland. The discussion on his Twitter page is a good place to start.
Meanwhile, back to my normal drivel…
In the good old days, politics used to mean “of the people and for the people” but has now morphed into “of and for party politicians.
The headlines on the BBC news today are all about politicians groaning about what WE THE PEOPLE told them to do two years ago.
Once we realise that simple reality, what follows is this:-
They, our damn politicians, never wanted to leave the EU, but WE DID and WE TOLD THEM!
Infuriatingly, WE THE PEOPLE gave the wrong answer to”Call me “Dave’s” miscalculated referendum.
This threw our self serving, London-centric political class into a tizzy, and Cameron resigned before he was sacked.
They did not like the sudden emergence of real democracy (“of the people”) demonstrated in the referendum, and WE THE PEOPLE ARE WHO YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO SERVE!
The consequence is that they have done nothing about achieving a successful exit from the deeply flawed EU.
That is because, we were ignorant and did not realise the complexity of what we were asking you to do.
Instead they have invented a series of overly complex “fake” problems that they constantly discuss rather than obeying what WE THE PEOPLE said.
- We want to get out of the EU
- Go do your job and organise our departure in an administratively competent manner.
Instead smoke screens were created to avoid the real work they were supposed to be getting on viz.
- What about the customs union? (a minor irritant for business but soon solved)
- “soft or hard borders” (a minor irritant for business but soon solved)
- “hard” Brexit (very bad: the one we voted for) and soft options (the Brexit fudge that you lot want)
- cliff edge disaster (complete nonsense – see No.1)
- A “catastrophe”
NEVER do I hear those views in the street, in the pub or in the corner shop, those views are only heard on the BBC when a politician speaks.
OK, at the time of the referendum, most of us had never heard of the “customs union” or all the other daft phrases that the EU invent to make leaving tricky, but we didn’t need to know.
OK we had never heard of Article 50 and we did not care about that either! You lot created all that nonsense and that is the main issue; because sorting all the crap out was your job!
WE had realised that the EU was systemically un-democratic and we hated what the Euro had done to Greece, Portugal, Italy, Eire and Spain.
OK back to religion – I’m on safer ground 😉
*1 “Brexit” is replaced by most spell checkers with the word “brevity”, to which one can only add, in quiet desperation, “rofl”
Brexit on Theresa May’s terms would be the worst of all worlds
I am quoting Daniel Hannan an MEP writing in the Telegraph (on-line) a few days ago. Daniel is a Conservative MEP and someone who has been very critical of the EU’s systemic hypocrisy, inefficiency and financial incompetence for many years, as have I.
Whether or not you are or were a remainer or leaver, this current policy direction is beyond daft; it is criminal incompetence from Theresa May who is either so confused by what she thinks she ought to be doing or has gone bonkers!
I’ll just give you two paragraphs from his article, the rest you can read for yourself on-line here.
“Allow me 60 seconds to explain why staying inside the EU’s customs union would be catastrophic for a trading nation like Britain. It’s not just that the customs union uniquely penalises us as the only EU state that trades more outside than within the bloc. Nor is it that just that the customs union would give Brussels 100 per cent control of our trade policy with zero per cent input from us. No, it’s something worse than that.
Under international trade rules, if Britain joined a customs union with the EU, it would be obliged to match any concessions made by the EU in trade agreements with third countries. But, critically, those third countries would not be obliged to reciprocate vis-à-vis Britain.
Suppose, for example, that the EU struck a trade deal with India. Britain would have to copy every consequent change that the EU made in its procurement rules, technical standards and so on. But India’s equivalent concessions would apply only to the EU 27, not to Britain. The UK’s home market – the fifth largest in the world – would become a bargaining counter for Brussels negotiators to exchange for benefits to their own countries.
If you voted Leave and now object that staying in the customs union “would be Brexit in name only,” then I have bad news for you: the reality is far worse than that. Staying in the customs union as a non-member would place us in a new and uniquely powerless position. Labour spokesmen used to oppose such an outcome precisely because of the asymmetric position in which it would place Britain, obliged to do whatever the Brussels decided, but excluded from the EU’s trading partners’ matching concessions. Labour’s sudden volte-face in February was the most cynical thing I have seen in my 20 years in politics.“
Yes, this has become a complex issue to resolve, but it never needed to be. Both the Labour and Tory parties have let down the United Kingdom of Great Britain by their pathetic “party” political infighting.
Jeremy Corbyn has been a Euro sceptic for the last 30 years, until he found power. The same is true of Tony Blair; but just writing his name makes me feel sick!
Theresa May was always for staying in the EU so why are we surprised? She has not grasped what Daniel has so elegantly explained.
Parliament, and all party political leaders have failed our nation.
Salzburg, time for May to walk away, enough is enough
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The BBC’s ridiculous pro-Remain stance is irritating enough, but Salzburg has exposed Theresa May, yet again, to be completely clueless. I have been saying this for months here and here and here.
Do the BBC, Theresa May & Dominic Raab really think we are all stupid?
The EU’s delusional bureaucracy is simply fighting for its very existence. It is scared shitless of the domino effect once we, the second largest net contributor, leave.
The EU is a failed organisation run by failed politicians and tax avoidance specialists. It is incapable of realising, as David Cameron found out to his cost, that their future depends on sensible changes to the preposterous way they run things.
May’s technical people, the ones who know how things work, have all deserted the sinking ship that is the Tory party. They together with David Davis, hoped that the EU & Theresa May would see the sensible but fair way forward and hoped, somewhat irrationally, that the EU would also see.
Labour and the Liberals sank with Milliband and Clegg and are all still at sea too. Help!
‘Tis the same with politicians and journalists in the Westmonster (spelled correctly) village. They speak the same language but only listen to words from like minded narrow focused professionals who spout the same bollocks.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can see that the EU is a dreadful example of humanity’s stupidity and ignorance. The Euro is simply daft and cannot ever work for Greece & Germany at the same time because the Euro is effectively the Deutsch-mark.
The EEC was just about acceptable as a way to stop Germany starting another world war but Churchill never intended that we join the damn organisation!
Even, my pet hate, Margaret Thatcher, who was a disaster for the UK in so many ways, saw the stupidity of Maastricht and would never have signed the damn treaty that created the EU.
Please watch her famous “No, No No speech here. One of the finest moments of our history, now all but forgotten by anyone under 40.
Mrs May, for Pete’s sake do not waste any more time on the EU, they are in denial of their own inevitable demise, as are you.
Instead start working on a successful No Deal exit on March 29th 2019.
Then you can focus on things like:-
- Keeping the lights on as we close coal & nuclear powered stations destined for closure over the next few years.
- Making sure that Amazon, Google etc., Facebook, Vodaphone, et al pay realistic tax to HMRC. Stop them laughing at the UK for its damn stupid tax regime
- Don’t worry about UK businesses, they will sort themselves out, as the successful ones always do.
- Population control. That requires a 50 year plan and some careful wise thought processes…
- NHS, educashun, HS2, Northern Ireland government self rule and so many more it makes my teeth hurt.
- Your legacy might then mean something …
There are so many more important issues for any government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain to be worried about. far more so than the ridiculous EU.
Acknowledgement: Thank you Christian Adams for the cartoon
Brexit means Brexit? May rubbishes the referendum
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So now we know why she said and did nothing for the last two years.
Saying nothing meant she avoided lying to us until the very last moment, she was always a remainer.
“Brexit means Brexit” was always a shallow lie hidden behind her meaningless words.
Instead of accepting the referendum result, she is supporting big business, bankers, hedge funds, the bankrupt EU who are all shouting, at her, louder than we can.
She is supporting anybody it seems, other than we who voted for Brexit, who won the vote but lost to the politics.
Don’t forget dear reader, “politics” today means “party politics” but the referendum bypassed the party bit and the MPs in parliament.
And, boy, they did not like that at all.
We now need the hard Brexit which probably does mean a bit more pain for a year or two, but businesses will soon sort themselves out, that’s what they always have done!
Then we can all watch as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain fail to repay their bailouts to the bust central German European bank.
Come on Jacob, unsheath your sword, swash your buckle and take to the streets of Westmonster just outside your new £5m house.
You are our last hope.
PS: Hurrah for Gareth, his waistcoat and his beautiful English footbal team.
PPS: If you have not heard it, please, please use iPlayer to listen to Dead Ringers episode 5 broadcast today on Radio 4. Brilliantly funny. Click here for the best laugh of the summer
Anti-Semitic, its meaning and a history of its misuse
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The words anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic suffer from obfuscation (lies), misdirection and at its very heart, an absence of a rational definition.
The current row about Anti-Semitism, and what most people think it means, is flawed and dishonest. It is made far worse by sensationalist journalism. Truth and a rational debate is almost impossible to find and to quote almost all the media, “We are all very upset and angry about all those nasty people who are anti-Semitic, particularly those in the Labour party.”
The current issue of anti-Semitism is confused and is being manipulated by some very clever people. In the main, those people are career politicians & journalists. The Israeli government misuse it too, see below and in photo opposite.
The BBC is failing to inform us, as it should do, because whilst journalists are talking about anti-Semitism, none preface their statements with an explanation of what they understand it to be. What is very clear, the BBC says, is that anti-Semitism is very bad! But nobody is actually dealing with it honestly.
What follows is the result of my listening to Jewish voices, Israeli voices, Zionist voices, Corbynite voices, Momentum voices, Palestinian voices, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia and my own “still small voice”.
We all think it means, but without actually saying it, “anti Jew”; as opposed to anti-Judaism or anti-Israel or anti-Israeli government.
However, even anti-Jew is completely inaccurate, as we shall see later, even though the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA ) re-defined the word “anti-Semitic” in 2016. The IHRA felt it necessary to explain that “… criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”
Shulamit Aloni (pictured above) was an Israeli cabinet minister and a minority Jewish voice pointing out the misuse of the word by the Israeli government. She makes it quite clear that the word was used by the Israeli government to deflect criticism from itself. Please click on her picture to see more detail of her statement.
The UK government was one of the first governments to adopt the fallacious IHRA definition. History and truth is corrupted yet again. The IHRA definition is deeply flawed in that it conflates any criticism of Israel to be be anti-Semitic.
The simple fact is that the word anti-Semitic did not exist before the late 19th century and was then *2 as now, used by journalists and politicians as a euphemism for “Anti Jew”.
However, the very use of the word outside the study of ancient languages is deeply flawed and intentionally misleading.
Why? Because many Arab Muslims, certainly those living in the prison camp called Palestine, and many other peoples originating from the Middle East, are also Semites, and yet they are not seen as the targets of the word anti-Semitism.
Semitic refers to a language group, which includes, in small part, Hebrew amongst five or six others, but does not infer race or religion. (See *1 below)
Furthermore, the International snowflake generation of political worthies agreed with the IHRA definition of the word in 2016 so that nobody had to say “Anti-Jew”.
The term is a political smoke screen and apparently targets the Jewish religion rather than the Israeli government. Who, by the way, are currently guilty of the flagrant disregard of at least 45 UN resolutions instructing them to stop their land grabs in Palestine.
All 45 of those resolutions continue to be ignored or side stepped by the USA using its veto. The UK is a bit quiet on the issue too.
Israel’s latest murder of 60 or so Palestinian stone throwers has been almost ignored in the UK, the EU & the USA.
Shame on us, shame on them and the so-called impartial, informative BBC!
What then has Jeremy Corbyn actually done to deserve his almost total vilification in the press? Well, he has stood up for Palestine consistently over the past 30 years and has criticised Israel for their inhumane and illegal land grabs in contravention to those United Nations resolutions.
So then, calling him anti-Semitic is just stupid because most Palestinians are Semites too!
But, it is what Corbyn has not done which does deserve criticism. He has not removed or criticised the minority of loony members of Momentum who really are quite nasty, ill informed Twitter trolls. The evidence is out there if you wish to find more detail.
By his inaction, Corbyn reveals himself as a weak leader, a self serving party politician, greedy for votes however gained. (Ed: Gosh? I never heard that before.) My opinion of Corbyn has changed dramatically from when he first appeared on the scene.
What can we learn from this deliberately confusing issue?
- That an unhealthy fear of criticising religion is curtailing freedom of speech and our ability to think rationally.
- That religion is, yet again, being used by powerful corporate interest groups to protect politicians who, of current necessity, are financed by them.
*1 I quote the Encyclopaedia Britannica:- “Semite, person speaking one of a group of related languages, presumably derived from a common language, Semitic (see Semitic languages). The term came to include most Arab speaking peoples, Akkadians, Canaanites, some Ethiopians, and Aramaean tribes including Hebrews.
*2 Encyclopaedia Britannica again: “Anti-Semitism, hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group. The term anti-Semitism was coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns under way in central Europe at that time. Although the term now has wide currency, it is a misnomer, since it implies a discrimination against all Semites. Arabs and other peoples are also Semites, and yet they are not the targets of anti-Semitism as it is usually understood. The term is especially inappropriate as a label for the anti-Jewish prejudices, statements, or actions of Arabs or other Semites. Nazi anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust, had a racist dimension in that it targeted Jews because of their supposed biological characteristics—even those who had themselves converted to other religions or whose parents were converts. This variety of anti-Jewish racism dates only to the emergence of so-called “scientific racism” in the 19th century and is different in nature from earlier anti-Jewish prejudices.”
Click here to read more on this from the same Encyclopaedia Britannica article.
Brexit & British Blue Passports
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There are no funny cartoons in this post, there are no jokes either.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse it did! The humiliation for the United Kingdom of Great Britain is now complete.
If anything exemplifies the disconnectedness between “we the people” and the inhabitants of the Westminster bubble (politicos & journalists) it is these two “stories” separated by 35 years.
Story Number 1 (March 22nd 2018): (Ed: surely April 1st?)
The new blue British passport is to almost certain to be made by a French company in France.
Donald Tusk, Macron & Juncker must be crying with laughter into their coffee and croissants, this morning. Theresa May’s resignation should be demanded by both all journalists and Tory & Labour parties immediately.
Who will stand up for the United Kingdom of Great Britain? Please step forward.
Story Number 2 (1983):
Who wrote the paragraph below, in 1983? Answer at the foot of this post.
Britain and the Common Market
“Geography and history determine that Britain is part of Europe, and Labour wants to see Europe safe and prosperous. But the European Economic Community, which does not even include the whole of Western Europe, was never devised to suit us, and our experience as a member of it has made it more difficult for us to deal with our economic and industrial problems. It has sometimes weakened our ability to achieve the objectives of Labour’s international policy.
The next Labour government, committed to radical, socialist policies for reviving the British economy, is bound to find continued membership a most serious obstacle to the fulfilment of those policies. In particular the rules of the Treaty of Rome are bound to conflict with our strategy for economic growth and full employment, our proposals on industrial policy and for increasing trade, and our need to restore exchange controls and to regulate direct overseas investment. Moreover, by preventing us from buying food from the best sources of world supply, they would run counter to our plans to control prices and inflation.
For all these reasons, British withdrawal from the Community is the right policy for Britain – to be completed well within the lifetime of the parliament. That is our commitment. But we are also committed to bring about withdrawal in an amicable and orderly way, so that we do not prejudice employment or the prospect of increased political and economic co-operation with the whole of Europe.
We emphasise that our decision to bring about withdrawal in no sense represents any weakening of our commitment to internationalism and international co operation. We are not ‘withdrawing from Europe’. We are seeking to extricate ourselves from the Treaty of Rome and other Community treaties which place political burdens on Britain. Indeed, we believe our withdrawal will allow us to pursue a more dynamic and positive international policy – one which recognises the true political and geographical spread of international problems and interests. We will also seek agreement with other European governments – both in the EEC and outside – on a common strategy for economic expansion.”
Answer: Tony Blair in his 1983 election manifesto strategy for Britain, his legacy is now complete.
We have been, and continue to be, led, lied to, administered by hypocrites and vision-less, self interested, myopic ignoramuses.
Message: to any MP left in Westminster with a half a brain, any conscience and a vestige of common sense – WAKE UP!