We seem to forget too easily that the single market was created by Arthur Cockfield, aided and abetted by Margaret Thatcher (who also understood the science of global warming). The modern Conservative Party has seriously lost its way- Dacre, Murdoch and the loons at the Telegraph and Express, have a lot to answer for.
I have thought for some time that at some point, a Labour Government will have a moment when it says they have tried everything to make Brexit work and it just doesn't. Britain will be continuing to bump along the bottom of the growth league, with tax revenue flat and Labour in danger of it's support collapsing. The big uncertainty is whether this happens in a first term or in a second.
If Labour cannot generate at least some respectable growth, they will be into hung parliament or non working majority territory. Starmer had better continue to stay on good terms with Ed Davey as he might need the 30-60 seats they might retain in a 2nd Labour term.
If Labour get through to a second term ahead but with the Tories and their client media angrily snapping at their heals over a mature but damaged economy that stubbornly refuses to spark up, they cannot afford to mess about. It has to be Single Market and Customs Union, plus real PR voting to support a new relationship of progressive and pro European parties working together. My own view is that the Tories will not change to being pro European in a single term, but that it will be a case of going quiet on the issue and gradual realisation after they have been either been assigned to the scrap heap or that events and opinion polls make EU opposition untenable. By then most of the present anti EU politicians may be long gone making the switch less embarrassing for the poor dears.
The Tories are ruthless enough to say black is white if it wins them a position closer to power and the British electorate have been conned so many times before by lying Tory politicians and their manifestos with repeated lies, that they can largely be duped again, in any direction. PR would mean they can no longer get an overall majority on 40% of the vote, a travesty which has enabled Britain to be brought low by their endless incompetence.
Rejoining will take a generation and that generation will have lost out on so much. I will never ever forget or forgive the shitferbrains who voted for this. Every shithole Northern town, every bleak fishing village. I hope they enjoy their pathetic lives becoming worse due to their own stupidity.
a)don't use the expression "tax burden" - it's a hard right neo-liberal trope. Taxes are our fees for living in a civilised society, not an outrageous imposition
b)as NT and Parcel say, the Tories may well pivot to Rejoin. But the EU would almost certainly insist on democratic reforms within the UK, including PR, as conditions for rejoining. I can't see the Tories ever going along with that, as their whole shtick is ruling with a parliamentary majority on a minority vote share
c)I wish Labour would just be honest, but then I'm not a Labour member or supporter, largely because of their dishonesty about Brexit
This is why I love your blog, Nick. You can see a way though.
Brexit will die because no one will be in power to service it - but I’d like to know, how much danger do you think Labour will be in of being accused of not trying hard enough to make Brexit work? My personal feeling is that a lot of people don’t want to admit it could never have worked because that means they were fooled, definitively. This links back to my argument last week that only an admission of political responsibility for the negligent referendum and taking the heat off the public - i.e. via a Public Inquiry- is truly capable of killing the beast.
As I have said before here, proving that Brexit cannot work by trying to make it work is a death trap. Labour need to say now that Brexit cannot work, that it is product of lies, fraudulent spanding and foreign interference and needs to be undone, as far as is possible, toot bloody sweet
I don’t live in England and might be completely wrong but « The people who really run the Conservative party are a relatively small pool of extremely wealthy individuals who just want a Tory government in place » strikes me as unduly optimistic. The base and membership are increasingly ‘dark-shirted’, on the MAGA model. Just as the lunatics have taken over the Republican madhouse, the Tories might well follow.
I now force myself to read the telegraph so that I am not wrong footed by a calamity such as brexit happening in the future. The comments especially does my head in.
Anyway, in the DT today, apparently Skegness is the worst seaside in the UK. Reading the article and the comments, it occurs to me that many of these down and out seaside locations were heavy brexit voting. Yes they have a high density of OAPs, but also of being deprived. Could these same hotbeds of brexiters become the future hotbeds for Rejoin. They have been more adversely impacted by brexit than other places. Perhaps we should help them pivot to being Rejoin epicentres by pointing out how they have been taken for a ride by brexit and start the bandwagon rolling.
All Kabuki theatre. The City of London wanted BREXIT and it got it. Yes, they have lost a little in the EURO trading, and the London Stock Exchange is taking a bit of a pasting, but that doesn't matter.
The largest business in the world, by far, is the drug trade. The City make enormous commissions laundering black money for drug kingpins, arms dealers, human traffickers, and assorted crooks worldwide. That is the core business of the City. The last thing they want is bureaucrats from Brussels poking around in their nefarious activities.
They control Parliament through the Remembrancer. Starmer is a weak establishment stoolie, he will follow orders and gratefully take his peerage.
There will be no rejoining of the EU. The UK will break up, England will revert to complete feudal status. The working class is broken, unrepresented, destined only for unending poverty.
The rich establishment will get richer.
This is the trend now and has been for many years.
"And that’s Brexit in theory, forget about the fact that it hasn’t worked in practice. " The distance between theory and practice in theory is always smaller than the difference between theory and practice in practice.
Much as I appreciate your blog the problem is it focuses almost exclusively on Brexit which is yesterday’s news. Brexit trials and tribulations will continue and probably mount but that doesn’t mean it will be seen as the problem. So many other matters will be of far greater importance.
What is the chance that UK rejoining could be vetoed? Our leaving was highly disruptive. Is it a qualified majority + EU may demand a high price (possibly part of Labour thinking?)
I believe what the EU will require even before any rejoining talks start is a demonstration that there is a significant stable majority to be in the EU. I don't know what would be considered "significant" but let's say over 60% of a referendum vote.
Starmer I am sure is well aware of all this and he will likely make sure this is the case by allowing our fellow EU citizens, with settled and pre-settled status full voting rights as well as a reduction of the voting age to 16. Commonwealth countries' citizens, which include Malta and Cyprus can already vote in all UK elections and referendums without having a British passport. But before any of this he needs to lance the boil of the toxic brexit backing media by widening the broadcast impartiality laws to the print media and their websites. The media laws must be enforceable by a regulator which can bring criminal prosecutions.
We seem to forget too easily that the single market was created by Arthur Cockfield, aided and abetted by Margaret Thatcher (who also understood the science of global warming). The modern Conservative Party has seriously lost its way- Dacre, Murdoch and the loons at the Telegraph and Express, have a lot to answer for.
I have thought for some time that at some point, a Labour Government will have a moment when it says they have tried everything to make Brexit work and it just doesn't. Britain will be continuing to bump along the bottom of the growth league, with tax revenue flat and Labour in danger of it's support collapsing. The big uncertainty is whether this happens in a first term or in a second.
If Labour cannot generate at least some respectable growth, they will be into hung parliament or non working majority territory. Starmer had better continue to stay on good terms with Ed Davey as he might need the 30-60 seats they might retain in a 2nd Labour term.
If Labour get through to a second term ahead but with the Tories and their client media angrily snapping at their heals over a mature but damaged economy that stubbornly refuses to spark up, they cannot afford to mess about. It has to be Single Market and Customs Union, plus real PR voting to support a new relationship of progressive and pro European parties working together. My own view is that the Tories will not change to being pro European in a single term, but that it will be a case of going quiet on the issue and gradual realisation after they have been either been assigned to the scrap heap or that events and opinion polls make EU opposition untenable. By then most of the present anti EU politicians may be long gone making the switch less embarrassing for the poor dears.
The Tories are ruthless enough to say black is white if it wins them a position closer to power and the British electorate have been conned so many times before by lying Tory politicians and their manifestos with repeated lies, that they can largely be duped again, in any direction. PR would mean they can no longer get an overall majority on 40% of the vote, a travesty which has enabled Britain to be brought low by their endless incompetence.
Rejoining will take a generation and that generation will have lost out on so much. I will never ever forget or forgive the shitferbrains who voted for this. Every shithole Northern town, every bleak fishing village. I hope they enjoy their pathetic lives becoming worse due to their own stupidity.
A few things
a)don't use the expression "tax burden" - it's a hard right neo-liberal trope. Taxes are our fees for living in a civilised society, not an outrageous imposition
b)as NT and Parcel say, the Tories may well pivot to Rejoin. But the EU would almost certainly insist on democratic reforms within the UK, including PR, as conditions for rejoining. I can't see the Tories ever going along with that, as their whole shtick is ruling with a parliamentary majority on a minority vote share
c)I wish Labour would just be honest, but then I'm not a Labour member or supporter, largely because of their dishonesty about Brexit
This is why I love your blog, Nick. You can see a way though.
Brexit will die because no one will be in power to service it - but I’d like to know, how much danger do you think Labour will be in of being accused of not trying hard enough to make Brexit work? My personal feeling is that a lot of people don’t want to admit it could never have worked because that means they were fooled, definitively. This links back to my argument last week that only an admission of political responsibility for the negligent referendum and taking the heat off the public - i.e. via a Public Inquiry- is truly capable of killing the beast.
As I have said before here, proving that Brexit cannot work by trying to make it work is a death trap. Labour need to say now that Brexit cannot work, that it is product of lies, fraudulent spanding and foreign interference and needs to be undone, as far as is possible, toot bloody sweet
I don’t live in England and might be completely wrong but « The people who really run the Conservative party are a relatively small pool of extremely wealthy individuals who just want a Tory government in place » strikes me as unduly optimistic. The base and membership are increasingly ‘dark-shirted’, on the MAGA model. Just as the lunatics have taken over the Republican madhouse, the Tories might well follow.
In a country without ‘checks & balances’.
I now force myself to read the telegraph so that I am not wrong footed by a calamity such as brexit happening in the future. The comments especially does my head in.
Anyway, in the DT today, apparently Skegness is the worst seaside in the UK. Reading the article and the comments, it occurs to me that many of these down and out seaside locations were heavy brexit voting. Yes they have a high density of OAPs, but also of being deprived. Could these same hotbeds of brexiters become the future hotbeds for Rejoin. They have been more adversely impacted by brexit than other places. Perhaps we should help them pivot to being Rejoin epicentres by pointing out how they have been taken for a ride by brexit and start the bandwagon rolling.
All Kabuki theatre. The City of London wanted BREXIT and it got it. Yes, they have lost a little in the EURO trading, and the London Stock Exchange is taking a bit of a pasting, but that doesn't matter.
The largest business in the world, by far, is the drug trade. The City make enormous commissions laundering black money for drug kingpins, arms dealers, human traffickers, and assorted crooks worldwide. That is the core business of the City. The last thing they want is bureaucrats from Brussels poking around in their nefarious activities.
They control Parliament through the Remembrancer. Starmer is a weak establishment stoolie, he will follow orders and gratefully take his peerage.
There will be no rejoining of the EU. The UK will break up, England will revert to complete feudal status. The working class is broken, unrepresented, destined only for unending poverty.
The rich establishment will get richer.
This is the trend now and has been for many years.
"And that’s Brexit in theory, forget about the fact that it hasn’t worked in practice. " The distance between theory and practice in theory is always smaller than the difference between theory and practice in practice.
Much as I appreciate your blog the problem is it focuses almost exclusively on Brexit which is yesterday’s news. Brexit trials and tribulations will continue and probably mount but that doesn’t mean it will be seen as the problem. So many other matters will be of far greater importance.
Brexit is the fons et origo of much of many of the UK's problems. Dismissing it will mean that the problems are not solved.
Surely, that sentence: 'a two party system who are pro-Brexit, both of them are anti-Brexit', ought to read the other way around.
Thanks.
What is the chance that UK rejoining could be vetoed? Our leaving was highly disruptive. Is it a qualified majority + EU may demand a high price (possibly part of Labour thinking?)
I believe what the EU will require even before any rejoining talks start is a demonstration that there is a significant stable majority to be in the EU. I don't know what would be considered "significant" but let's say over 60% of a referendum vote.
Starmer I am sure is well aware of all this and he will likely make sure this is the case by allowing our fellow EU citizens, with settled and pre-settled status full voting rights as well as a reduction of the voting age to 16. Commonwealth countries' citizens, which include Malta and Cyprus can already vote in all UK elections and referendums without having a British passport. But before any of this he needs to lance the boil of the toxic brexit backing media by widening the broadcast impartiality laws to the print media and their websites. The media laws must be enforceable by a regulator which can bring criminal prosecutions.
The EU would (rightly) demand the end of FPTP, as a minimum