All that’s left of the pro-Brexit argument is the culture war. And in time, that will simply not be enough to sustain it as a project There has been a lot of Brexit related news lately. For something that is supposed to be “done”, it sure has a way of hanging around as an issue. There was Keir Starmer talking about how he is going to renegotiate the deal with the EU, the Brexiters then going mad and hoping this would hurt Labour in the polls (and finding that it didn’t particularly), the Lib Dems saying no one is talking about Brexit anymore (except for them, at least as far as mentioning that no one is mentioning it), and of course, a march for Rejoin in central London last weekend.
I can't recall exactly what the context was, but I remember ueber-Brexiter Ben Habib on Question Time saying that something that the govt wanted to do that broke international law was "not necessarily illegal in the court of public opinion". That's the giveaway - in the populist's mind there is a higher set of laws, or values, which are not constrained by either formal laws or democratic processes, but exist outside of them, transcending what we would usually see as the framework within which society functions. So, for example, the Brexie populist sees no contradiction between arguing that the 2016 Leave vote was inviolable and can never be overturned, whereas the 1975 (? I think) ref which endorsed the UK's place in the EU has no validity.
Ben Habib's only elected position was in the EU Parliament and of course that has been no longer the case for nearly 4 years. The only MEPs allowed onto the BBC's primary political programme have been members of the Brexit Party ( now Reform UK). The other main one Nigel Farridge, has inexplicably appeared on the programme 50 odd times. How does this figure in the BBC's famous balance?
Habib appeared on Newsnight a few years ago. They put to him that he'd put a piece in a commercial property publication that he had a £55m fund to invest in property and would purchase after Brexit had reduced commercial property value, at the bottom of the market and sell after the price had recovered. Considering that he was driving brexit and selling it as a positive, this must be classic Vulture Capitalism, with spiv-ish twist.
Of course, Farage was playing a key part in shorting of the pound,the night of the stupid vote. An organisation of financial traders had employed an opinion poll company to stand on key polling booths, ask questions, then crunch numbers and figure out the probable result before it was declared. He stated on BBC News that Remain had won. The pound went up to $1.50. Then the real result came in and the pound fell initially to around $1.16. Friends at a trade show who run a musical instrument wholesale and importation business saw the fall and wondered how they were going to pay all the bills in US$ from GB Pounds. Meanwhile the finance traders made £20m+, £30m+ from the shorting.
That was just one example of the Brexits and Disaster Capitalists ripping off legitimate conventional business and the rest of us paying the ensuing higher prices. The motor industry and chemicals have lost millions which could certainly get into Billions. Honda left Swindon and UK vehicle production is half of what it was, yet there are big car and van shortages and second hand vehicle prices have rocketed. This insanity clomps onwards...
Farridge wanted a second Ref when he thought he would lose by 2% (either way). Already, one Ref has replaced the result of another ( '75), so the precedent has been set and a new Ref would still be the will of the people, but the people alive and voting now, not 8 years ago. Isn't that what democracy means, you vote more than once?
A new Ref would have the advantage that the Leave campaign would no longer be able to use every lie it used last time. Those lies have been made transparent by time and events. On the other hand, the Remain side's mainstream economists predicted a 4% loss of GDP permanently. Three Studies show the loss had been between 4% -5.5%.
A new Ref would be like those buyer beware clauses written into Consumer purchase contracts. Instead of 30 days cooling off to retract the sale, after being heavily pressured by Leave salesmen, the voter who bought it will have had a number of years to retract.
Support for leaving the EU keeps falling and getting that support back would be like herding cats with one hand and pushing water uphill with the other.
“We want Britain to be back at the heart of Europe, but we’re also realistic that’s going to take some time.”
Much as I like the idea of the plucky LibDems manning the barricades and calling for rejoining the EU, he and Starmer have the FPTP electoral system to cope with. There may still be a Leave majority or near majority in Labour's target Red Wall seats and the LibDems old heartland of the West Country, plus the Carshalton & Wallingford seat they use to hold. Too much banging on about re-joining would be more likely to lose support than gain it in those seats and they have to try to win under the system that exists.
In any case, the EU is not going to allow the UK fully back inside the EU until the Leave disease is fully purged from the British political body. A Tory Party that remains hard right, dominated by Ayn Rand fairy tales about extreme free markets, sympathetic to disaster capitalism, fencing Russian hot money and exporting the capital of the wealthy to ex colony tax havens, is probably not an acceptable situation for full EU membership because they might just take us out again.
The Business Dept ( incorporating the Board of Trade) or Foreign Office will tell you that there is no such thing as Free Markets. Markets are actually rather like the rules of the road and these are different in many countries. I rather think that our so call elected representatives should be re-educated and made to see how the real world works, preferably with the aid of a ducking stool: "What's that Mr Mogg...didn't you want Singapore on Thames"
The acceptable UK Outcomes that would enable full EU membership:
The Tory Party implodes and is obviously, electorally a spent force for the forseable future. ( This might happen - great! )
The UK adopts a system of proper Proportional Representation for General Elections that prevents unwarranted monopoly power for the Tory Party and anyone else. ( Not impossible as Labour have just appointed a Minister for Democracy who said PR was long overdue in 2020. But Labour ratted on apparent promises of AV+ in '97, took the votes anyway and here we are again! )
The Tory Party is beaten in the next year, most of the recent ministers are gone and with a struggling economy, the rump Tories gradually come to see the error of their ways and adopt a Re-join policy. ( this is more than possible but would likely take two General Election losses plus a period of reflection.)
None of the above can happen quickly and generational shifts that are 80% pro EU will all take years. So there is no point of Starmer or Davey fighting that ghastly battle again, only to lose some little Ingerlunder nutter and Daily Express/Mail & Sun reader votes.
I certainly don't want the Tory party to completely implode - and in fact this would be detrimental to pro European aims and outcomes. The closer Starmer is pursued, the more likely he is to cede to economic pragmatism - which rationally would have to lead to rejoining the S Market - or likely full rejoin in a second term. There are still many conservatives (like me) who are pro Europe and feel their party (the party of Europe from the late fifties to 2016) was ripped away from them by Johnson.
On the subject of the L Dems, perhaps I am missing something here - but they appear to be flatlining on just 11% in all the polls. Okay, Davey and Co have probably worked out this will be a lot better in an actual election due to tactical voting - but I suspect most of these likely tactical voters are very pro EU anyway. Either way, I suspect they are overcompensating for the trauma of the 2019 result, and a more pro rejoin position would be doing better.
Imploding for the Tories, could mean going down to 140 seats, 100 or 60?
I feel they need to feel the wrath of the people, but I don't want to see a Labour government with a massive majority, losing interest in PR again, either. However, at some point of loss for the Tories, the European issue could be on the road to being fixed. It was they that wrecked Britain over it.
The moderate MP's who were openly pro EU were chucked out of the party and the remainder had to sign a loyalty agreement to Bunter and Brexit. It won't be soon that this could possibly be reversed.
I think they are already feeling the wrath of the people. Don't forget, that likely losing an eighty seat majority in a single term is not only unprecedented but was seen by everyone as complete science fiction just a couple of years ago.
If we step back a bit, the perspective of history will probably show that the ejection of Johnson and then Truss were all a necessary part of the great Brexit unwinding process. Johnson himself has said as much, and in this case his knowledge of ancient history might have been pertinent.
It has also been said that the Tories would double down on their extreme free markets fantasy and/or national conservatist hard rightisms after a bad loss. Their membership will be much the same, or of the same views and smaller, possibly with further infiltrations from Kipper parties. Sunak is a Brexiter, Truss and Bunter want back in and they too drank the brexit UglyJuice. Where are the moderates ( once portrayed as Muddyrats ) coming from and who would elect them in the Tory Party. It's so far away.
The problem with all this is that Brexit and free markets aren't the same thing - in fact they they are really in opposing corners. How for example can you be the party of free markets and capitalism if you have gone and completely alienated business (big and small) ? And of course Truss was brought down by the markets. As I've commented before, a lot of Brexit support now seems to come from the hard left - eg Spiked, Tribune, RMT - while the ex Ukippers brought with them a lot of recycled anti-capitalist baggage (eg using "globalist" as an insult).
The upshot of all this is that I feel it's currently impossible to work out how the Tory Party will imminently take shape after losing the election.
That 11% reflects how the BBC have virtually written the LibDems out of the picture. Their excuse being the loss of 3rd Party status in HoC to SNP, losing the guaranteed questions in PMQs. In a General Election, the publicity begins and vote share would be expected to rise. Some of those 19-24% vote shares they had in past general elections or higher in local elections, had them on less than 10% in polls, mid term. When Ashdown started fighting for his west country seat, they were in third place there and one national poll gave an asterix in place of any measurable support found.
The return of tactical voting on the scale of '97 has been suggested by Curtis and will see LibDems in 3rd or 4th places and losing their deposits, but winning scores more seats. They have had a lot of election agents employed in the field in target seats and this is new, as is the focus on winning seats rather than vote share.
Far right and far left could be be useful to the other. Far Left Brexits are small in number and can be traced back to Tony Benn & Michael Foot. They probably provided 2-5%.
Banning some of those financial instruments such as shorting currencies sounds like a good idea but could it be enforced?
Mark, that is an astute observation. However, the Lexits are a small body of Bennite Corbynistas,( plus up to 1/3 of SNP supporters - lefties to tartan tories). They were useful dupes for getting the 51.89% over the line. Outside of their union scopes, they are not very influential now. What fools would want to leave the EU in the hope of raising exchange controls on Sterling, in this day and age and under a Tory Government?
The Kippers who took up globalist as an insult or attack Corporations hold opposite views, Orwell like, in their heads. They also say they believe in deregulated free trade.
The Tory party is not going to recycle it's membership and decide black is white after one election loss. It will take at least two. Hopefully the prosecutions will start soon. A certain Tory Lady took reportedly £102m on PPE and refused any refund for the faulty goods she knew nothing about. And how did the Track & Trace organisation set up by that ex head of Talk Talk, spend £37bn and fail totally?
Both far right and hard left view each other as the "Useful Idiots" - they can't both be right !
We also need to draw a distinction between proper market capitalism and market spivery (of the sterling shorter type you described above). Warren Buffet is a lifelong Democrat who has also consistently and presciently called out the use/misuse of financial derivatives as well as debt leverage and the type of spivery utilised by Trump for example.
I can't recall exactly what the context was, but I remember ueber-Brexiter Ben Habib on Question Time saying that something that the govt wanted to do that broke international law was "not necessarily illegal in the court of public opinion". That's the giveaway - in the populist's mind there is a higher set of laws, or values, which are not constrained by either formal laws or democratic processes, but exist outside of them, transcending what we would usually see as the framework within which society functions. So, for example, the Brexie populist sees no contradiction between arguing that the 2016 Leave vote was inviolable and can never be overturned, whereas the 1975 (? I think) ref which endorsed the UK's place in the EU has no validity.
Ben Habib's only elected position was in the EU Parliament and of course that has been no longer the case for nearly 4 years. The only MEPs allowed onto the BBC's primary political programme have been members of the Brexit Party ( now Reform UK). The other main one Nigel Farridge, has inexplicably appeared on the programme 50 odd times. How does this figure in the BBC's famous balance?
Habib appeared on Newsnight a few years ago. They put to him that he'd put a piece in a commercial property publication that he had a £55m fund to invest in property and would purchase after Brexit had reduced commercial property value, at the bottom of the market and sell after the price had recovered. Considering that he was driving brexit and selling it as a positive, this must be classic Vulture Capitalism, with spiv-ish twist.
Of course, Farage was playing a key part in shorting of the pound,the night of the stupid vote. An organisation of financial traders had employed an opinion poll company to stand on key polling booths, ask questions, then crunch numbers and figure out the probable result before it was declared. He stated on BBC News that Remain had won. The pound went up to $1.50. Then the real result came in and the pound fell initially to around $1.16. Friends at a trade show who run a musical instrument wholesale and importation business saw the fall and wondered how they were going to pay all the bills in US$ from GB Pounds. Meanwhile the finance traders made £20m+, £30m+ from the shorting.
That was just one example of the Brexits and Disaster Capitalists ripping off legitimate conventional business and the rest of us paying the ensuing higher prices. The motor industry and chemicals have lost millions which could certainly get into Billions. Honda left Swindon and UK vehicle production is half of what it was, yet there are big car and van shortages and second hand vehicle prices have rocketed. This insanity clomps onwards...
Prior to 2016, the EU was never a major public concern - yet now we have Farage fulminating that a new referendum will be "forced" on people.
Farridge wanted a second Ref when he thought he would lose by 2% (either way). Already, one Ref has replaced the result of another ( '75), so the precedent has been set and a new Ref would still be the will of the people, but the people alive and voting now, not 8 years ago. Isn't that what democracy means, you vote more than once?
A new Ref would have the advantage that the Leave campaign would no longer be able to use every lie it used last time. Those lies have been made transparent by time and events. On the other hand, the Remain side's mainstream economists predicted a 4% loss of GDP permanently. Three Studies show the loss had been between 4% -5.5%.
A new Ref would be like those buyer beware clauses written into Consumer purchase contracts. Instead of 30 days cooling off to retract the sale, after being heavily pressured by Leave salesmen, the voter who bought it will have had a number of years to retract.
Support for leaving the EU keeps falling and getting that support back would be like herding cats with one hand and pushing water uphill with the other.
Opinion of the week. ( The Independent )
Sir Ed Davey:
“We want Britain to be back at the heart of Europe, but we’re also realistic that’s going to take some time.”
Much as I like the idea of the plucky LibDems manning the barricades and calling for rejoining the EU, he and Starmer have the FPTP electoral system to cope with. There may still be a Leave majority or near majority in Labour's target Red Wall seats and the LibDems old heartland of the West Country, plus the Carshalton & Wallingford seat they use to hold. Too much banging on about re-joining would be more likely to lose support than gain it in those seats and they have to try to win under the system that exists.
In any case, the EU is not going to allow the UK fully back inside the EU until the Leave disease is fully purged from the British political body. A Tory Party that remains hard right, dominated by Ayn Rand fairy tales about extreme free markets, sympathetic to disaster capitalism, fencing Russian hot money and exporting the capital of the wealthy to ex colony tax havens, is probably not an acceptable situation for full EU membership because they might just take us out again.
The Business Dept ( incorporating the Board of Trade) or Foreign Office will tell you that there is no such thing as Free Markets. Markets are actually rather like the rules of the road and these are different in many countries. I rather think that our so call elected representatives should be re-educated and made to see how the real world works, preferably with the aid of a ducking stool: "What's that Mr Mogg...didn't you want Singapore on Thames"
The acceptable UK Outcomes that would enable full EU membership:
The Tory Party implodes and is obviously, electorally a spent force for the forseable future. ( This might happen - great! )
The UK adopts a system of proper Proportional Representation for General Elections that prevents unwarranted monopoly power for the Tory Party and anyone else. ( Not impossible as Labour have just appointed a Minister for Democracy who said PR was long overdue in 2020. But Labour ratted on apparent promises of AV+ in '97, took the votes anyway and here we are again! )
The Tory Party is beaten in the next year, most of the recent ministers are gone and with a struggling economy, the rump Tories gradually come to see the error of their ways and adopt a Re-join policy. ( this is more than possible but would likely take two General Election losses plus a period of reflection.)
None of the above can happen quickly and generational shifts that are 80% pro EU will all take years. So there is no point of Starmer or Davey fighting that ghastly battle again, only to lose some little Ingerlunder nutter and Daily Express/Mail & Sun reader votes.
I certainly don't want the Tory party to completely implode - and in fact this would be detrimental to pro European aims and outcomes. The closer Starmer is pursued, the more likely he is to cede to economic pragmatism - which rationally would have to lead to rejoining the S Market - or likely full rejoin in a second term. There are still many conservatives (like me) who are pro Europe and feel their party (the party of Europe from the late fifties to 2016) was ripped away from them by Johnson.
On the subject of the L Dems, perhaps I am missing something here - but they appear to be flatlining on just 11% in all the polls. Okay, Davey and Co have probably worked out this will be a lot better in an actual election due to tactical voting - but I suspect most of these likely tactical voters are very pro EU anyway. Either way, I suspect they are overcompensating for the trauma of the 2019 result, and a more pro rejoin position would be doing better.
Imploding for the Tories, could mean going down to 140 seats, 100 or 60?
I feel they need to feel the wrath of the people, but I don't want to see a Labour government with a massive majority, losing interest in PR again, either. However, at some point of loss for the Tories, the European issue could be on the road to being fixed. It was they that wrecked Britain over it.
The moderate MP's who were openly pro EU were chucked out of the party and the remainder had to sign a loyalty agreement to Bunter and Brexit. It won't be soon that this could possibly be reversed.
I think they are already feeling the wrath of the people. Don't forget, that likely losing an eighty seat majority in a single term is not only unprecedented but was seen by everyone as complete science fiction just a couple of years ago.
If we step back a bit, the perspective of history will probably show that the ejection of Johnson and then Truss were all a necessary part of the great Brexit unwinding process. Johnson himself has said as much, and in this case his knowledge of ancient history might have been pertinent.
It has also been said that the Tories would double down on their extreme free markets fantasy and/or national conservatist hard rightisms after a bad loss. Their membership will be much the same, or of the same views and smaller, possibly with further infiltrations from Kipper parties. Sunak is a Brexiter, Truss and Bunter want back in and they too drank the brexit UglyJuice. Where are the moderates ( once portrayed as Muddyrats ) coming from and who would elect them in the Tory Party. It's so far away.
The problem with all this is that Brexit and free markets aren't the same thing - in fact they they are really in opposing corners. How for example can you be the party of free markets and capitalism if you have gone and completely alienated business (big and small) ? And of course Truss was brought down by the markets. As I've commented before, a lot of Brexit support now seems to come from the hard left - eg Spiked, Tribune, RMT - while the ex Ukippers brought with them a lot of recycled anti-capitalist baggage (eg using "globalist" as an insult).
The upshot of all this is that I feel it's currently impossible to work out how the Tory Party will imminently take shape after losing the election.
That 11% reflects how the BBC have virtually written the LibDems out of the picture. Their excuse being the loss of 3rd Party status in HoC to SNP, losing the guaranteed questions in PMQs. In a General Election, the publicity begins and vote share would be expected to rise. Some of those 19-24% vote shares they had in past general elections or higher in local elections, had them on less than 10% in polls, mid term. When Ashdown started fighting for his west country seat, they were in third place there and one national poll gave an asterix in place of any measurable support found.
The return of tactical voting on the scale of '97 has been suggested by Curtis and will see LibDems in 3rd or 4th places and losing their deposits, but winning scores more seats. They have had a lot of election agents employed in the field in target seats and this is new, as is the focus on winning seats rather than vote share.
I do wonder how many Brexiteer types are currently revelling in the Ryder Cup victory
Without recognising the irony of doing so
Far right and far left could be be useful to the other. Far Left Brexits are small in number and can be traced back to Tony Benn & Michael Foot. They probably provided 2-5%.
Banning some of those financial instruments such as shorting currencies sounds like a good idea but could it be enforced?
Mark, that is an astute observation. However, the Lexits are a small body of Bennite Corbynistas,( plus up to 1/3 of SNP supporters - lefties to tartan tories). They were useful dupes for getting the 51.89% over the line. Outside of their union scopes, they are not very influential now. What fools would want to leave the EU in the hope of raising exchange controls on Sterling, in this day and age and under a Tory Government?
The Kippers who took up globalist as an insult or attack Corporations hold opposite views, Orwell like, in their heads. They also say they believe in deregulated free trade.
The Tory party is not going to recycle it's membership and decide black is white after one election loss. It will take at least two. Hopefully the prosecutions will start soon. A certain Tory Lady took reportedly £102m on PPE and refused any refund for the faulty goods she knew nothing about. And how did the Track & Trace organisation set up by that ex head of Talk Talk, spend £37bn and fail totally?
Both far right and hard left view each other as the "Useful Idiots" - they can't both be right !
We also need to draw a distinction between proper market capitalism and market spivery (of the sterling shorter type you described above). Warren Buffet is a lifelong Democrat who has also consistently and presciently called out the use/misuse of financial derivatives as well as debt leverage and the type of spivery utilised by Trump for example.