philosophy, politics, education, economics, stupid politicians, atheism, secularism and religion
I think that’s about it
The sight of those silly school girls & boys skipping down the road away from their political parties was just sickening.
Who do those adolescent MPs, who have never created anything of worth, think they are? It is simply not about them or their failed political parties.
It is about us, the 17.4 million of “We the People” remember them / us / we?
Most of our MPs are obviously ignorant of business, economics, democracy and history, yet they are given all the air time, on the damned BBC, to spread their unfounded opinions. But it was nice to see them firmly criticised, by the audience, on last week’s Any Questions, ;-).
Most of our MPs are completely unrepresentative of the people’s referendum result of 2016 and are trying their deluded best to reverse that referendum result.
They are so upset that OUR decision to leave bypassed them; that is what this is all about. For the future we need MPs who have done real jobs before they are allowed to stand as an MP. (Ed: what a good idea!)
Please read the first 9 of the 260 pages of the Maastricht Treaty – it will take you 3 minutes, after which you will understand what I have been banging on about for the last 7 years! Fine but meaningless words – the reality falls at every post.
Our Executive (our so-called government) have been talking about the wrong thing and to the wrong people, for over two years.
Anyone who has actually started and run a business for more, than ten years, would have told the EU politely but firmly where to go!
A withdrawal agreement (who owes what to who, security collaboration, joint funded projects etc.) should have taken our civil servants a maximum of six months to sort out, had they been so instructed.
Then our civil servants could have started working on our import / export arrangements and would have finished those a year ago, had they been so instructed.
Our businesses would then have had the clarity they desperately needed a year ago. They would have had the time to prepare properly.
But faced with our career party politicians, who have never had to smell business reality, the EU just stuck to their desperate guns, firing blanks.
No real shots were fired and yet our pathetic negotiators capitulated!
What utter crap! I can feel Churchill and Atlee (and yes, even Margaret Thatcher) rolling over in their graves.
This last year should have been about putting people and mechanisms in place to cope with the EU’s intransigence.
Instead, our loopy PM, Theresa May, rolled over and agreed to spend two years talking about an agreement that the EU told us we had to sign, or else. (Ed: Or else what, we wonder?). That agreement was never needed and means NOTHING!
We do not want to be part of a federal Europe run by Germany, again. They tried twice last century using force and are trying again using political and economic bribery.
The simple fact is that the EU is bust. The level of debt in Greece, Italy, Germany, France Portugal and Spain is simply eye-watering.
The debt was created by the EU creating Euro cash and calling it loans, rather than the bailouts*1 as they most assuredly were. They did it several times, twice to Spain and three times to Ireland.
Those loans bailouts will never be repaid, a simple fact that will inevitably finish the EU project once and for all.
The EU Central bank (ECB) actually charges its customers to put their money in; unbelievable! They started negative interest rates in 2014 and they are still doing it now(currently -0.4%)!
The EU is a failed project that is fighting for its life using smoke and mirrors and your money.
We must leave on the 29th to save our own economy first, or else I will invade Brussels!
Acknowledgements: Peter Brookes for his ever spot-on cartoon commentary on British poli-bollocks.
*1 – Bailouts are specifically ruled out in the Maastricht Treaty, “but never mind – lets call them loans đ and nobody will notice“.
“âNo bail-outâ clause Article 125 of the Lisbon treaty makes it illegal for one member to assume the debts of another. It has led to fears that Germanyâs constitutional court could strike down EU bail-outs.” My source is the Financial Times
MPs are now so disconnected from the public that the current situation echoes events just prior to PeterLoo* in 1819. I saw the film PeterLoo last Friday and the political & economic similarities are hard to miss. Parliament and the Prince Regent (the King was mentally ill and incapable at that time) sent cavalry into a crowded Manchester square. Sixteen people were killed and seven hundred were seriously injured. The discontent of the people? Pah, send in the cavalry!
Today, the Tory, Lib Dem & Labour parties are arguing amongst themselves and the 2016 referendum result has been twisted into polibollical claptrap.
MPs may not have sent in the cavalry but being ignored is worse!
Every facet of our so-called parliamentary democracy is at stake here; our self obsessed MPs will destroy it if they manage to remove No Deal as an option.
MPs should not be the issue here. That view is ignored by the, once upon a time impartial BBC and is bypassed by all those with a voice.
The voice of ‘We the people’Â is being ignored by our deaf MPs, BBC journalists and the government.
The responsibility for the Brexit decision was passed from the government, by the government, via the 2016 referendum, to ‘We the people‘.
‘We the people’ then made that decision, not you.
The executive (i.e. the elected government, not you MPs)Â promised to implement it.
I know that’s annoying for you, but you are, or should be, largely irrelevant to the process of Brexit.
But, that is exactly what the consequences of that referendum should have been.
Sadly, the 2016 EU referendum result was not legally binding on the government. David Cameron implied that it was binding and I’m sure most of us thought it was, back in 2016; most probably still do.
Interestingly, well OK not interesting at all really, the previous, and entirely stupid, referendum held in 2011 was binding.
Remember that one?
No, nor do most people, because it was an irrelevance to all but a few Lib Dems. They actually wanted a referendum on the introduction of PR(Proportional Representation). They had to accept the nonsensical compromise of AV (Alternative Vote) because that is what powerless politicians have to do.
Dear MPs, take two months unpaid leave and give the government, what’s left of it anyway, some peace to sort out this incompetent and pathetic mess.
You might then begin to earn back some of the respect that the office of Member of Parliament once had.
The government could then use that two months of peace to sort Brexit, avoid our lights being turned off next year, cancel the ill conceived HS2 and use the money saved to nationalise the railways, the National Electricity grid and reclaim our water supply.
But it won’t. Grr.
THE END
* The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000â80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
Growers of corn and wheat were being allowed to charge extortionate amounts for bread while imports of cheaper corn were banned by the protectionist landowners, many of whom were MPs. The people were quite rightly angry and, were we more like the French, would have made revolution, chopped off the heads of the Prince Regent and many of those landowners.
Irish wisdom
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.
I have collected a few of the best arguments supplied by these well hidden voices below.
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:
Acknowledgements:
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
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 đ
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 “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.
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))
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.
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?
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:-
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.
Instead smoke screens were created to avoid the real work they were supposed to be getting on viz.
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 đ
*1 “Brexit” is replaced by most spell checkers with the word “brevity”, to which one can only add, in quiet desperation, “rofl”
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 EUâs customs union would be catastrophic for a trading nation like Britain. Itâs 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, itâs 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-Ă -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 Indiaâs equivalent concessions would apply only to the EU 27, not to Britain. The UKâs home market â the fifth largest in the world â 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 âwould be Brexit in name only,â 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 EUâs trading partnersâ matching concessions. Labourâs 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.
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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:-
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