Superb article. We can argue to the cows go blue on what type of Brexit we get and the process will evolve but the big picture is were still f***ed because of the underlying energy issue.
Tim Morgan wrote: Once this essentially economic dimension is understood, what follows is pure tragi-comedy. The Conservatives chose, in succession to David Cameron, to put in charge of the “Brexit� process a leader who believed that the voters’ decision was the wrong one. Still unaware of the deterioration in prosperity, Mrs May called a general election, seemingly believing (along with the ‘experts’) that this would give her a Commons majority of well over 100, when the outcome was that she lost even the slender majority inherited from Mr Cameron. Meanwhile, the EU side opted to posture on a claim that they held all the high cards, and Mrs May and her officials fell for this line, going to Brussels as a supplicant, and so, necessarily, returning with an agreement so flawed that it had no real chance of Parliamentary acceptance.
What the British electorate are watching now is a culminating shambles. Having lost a referendum they expected to win, and been battered in an election they expected to be a triumph, Conservatives have opted now to challenge a leader who, because of her stance on “Brexit�, they should never have chosen in the first place. This has happened at the worst possible time, between the cup of a botched agreement with the EU and the lip of a departure date at the end of March. Some think that the leadership challenge process can be compressed, and it’s probably fair to say that one might as well make a mess of things in three weeks as in six.
Where this leaves the public is with a political class which doesn’t understand the fundamental issues around prosperity, and really believes that either ‘liberal’ or collectivist economic orthodoxy can restore “growth�. It seems hardly necessary to add that a ship of fools remains foolish, whether or not the captain is thrown overboard.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools - Douglas Adams.
RevdTess wrote:....it often feels to me that the majority of society are moving culturally towards a more individualistic worldview hostile to outsiders, reducing funding and sympathy for those who struggle, and leaving a very few volunteers to pick up the pieces.....
No, you have got that back to front. The world is moving, or at least showing the first tentative signs of moving, towards a more localist based sensibility based on REAL COMMUNITIES of PEOPLE YOU KNOW or are likely to know, and away from an abstract notion of "community" which has only ever been a bullshit bourgeois cover for neo-liberal globalism. A neo-liberal globalism that has killed real communities on the ground - in other words, WHERE IT ACTUALLY MATTERS - that you claim are being lost.
Little John wrote:
No, you have got that back to front. The world is moving, or at least showing the first tentative signs of moving, towards a more localist based sensibility based on REAL COMMUNITIES of PEOPLE YOU KNOW or are likely to know, and away from an abstract notion of "community" which has only ever been a bullshit bourgeois cover for neo-liberal globalism. A neo-liberal globalism that has killed real communities on the ground - in other words, WHERE IT ACTUALLY MATTERS - that you claim are being lost.
I agree the abstract neoliberal notion of community was only something you could categorise and sell products to. And I'm very involved in supporting and encouraging new expressions of real community 'on the ground' as you put it. My disappointment is that a lot of these communities are picking up the pieces of an individualistic society that doesn't care for those who struggle financially and socially. And culturally, I still hear more angry conversations about how we're justified in excluding others from our communities than I do about working together to include people.
Localisation is definitely a good thing imo, but not as an excuse to be hostile to outsiders. It's when anti-globalisation became a right wing isolationist cause that I stopped being able to go along with it. It turns out local communities are not automatically a good thing. They can be fascist and racist and homophobic and transphobic etc too.
Lots of talk about a remain vs deal referendum as "the only way out of the quagmire". Seems to be gaining traction.
In which case, brexit might be dying, because there's no way May's deal wins that.
EDIT: what seems to be happening is that there is a significant chunk of tories who, whichever way they voted at the referendum, had accepted the result of the referendum, but had also assumed that May would eventually get some sort of deal over the line and consider no deal to not be an acceptable outcome. Those people are now having to confront the reality that May's deal is dead. And for them, the least bad way out now is to have a referendum between May's deal and remain, which everybody knows remain will win. They also know this will be viewed as a stitch-up and worsen the tory civil war, but if May's deal is dead and no deal isn't an option, it really is the only way out.
Crucially, legislation for such a referendum would almost certainly get through the commons. It's an attractive proposition to most Labour MPs.
"And culturally, I still hear more angry conversations about how we're justified in excluding others from our communities than I do about working together to include people." - do you want to include anyone, regardless of their values? For example, if other 'communities' hate your views, despise homosexuality and treat women poorly are you still keen to reach out to them?
Interesting noises coming out of Ireland. It seems the penny is starting to drop that trying to impose the backstop on the UK might have been overplaying their hand. Now they are realising that they may have to face the consequences of no deal, and they don't like it one bit:
Meanwhile, right now, in this country, the BBC is engaging in overt, unadulterated propaganda. Right now, the BBC news is pushing out a narrative of how parliament is going to "rescue" Brexit by tabling "emergency legislation" which will force a second referendum where Leave on WTO is not going to be put on the second ballot because, obviously, now "we know more of the facts", an option that is "impossible to deliver" could not be included. Instead, there will be two options, a terrible "deal" or "remain".
A coup is currently being enacted by the political class against the people. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean a real actual coup.
Every one of us has to pick a side on this now and if it aligns with what the political class is doing, it really is time to stop bullshitting yourself and others about what it is you are supporting.
A coup is currently being enacted by the political class against the people. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean a real actual coup.
Is there? What I see is Theresa May trying to stop the tory party from splitting, forcing a general election that Corbyn would probably win. It's chaos, not a coup. Or at least it will be chaos when she is finally removed. She can't keep going like this until March 29th. Can she????
The establishment doesn't know what to do. Her deal won't go through parliament, and the establishment sees no deal as a catastrophe. But there's no majority for a second referendum in the commons either - not when you specify exactly what is on the ballot paper.
The political system is deadlocked. Even the coup-plotters can't break that deadlock. We are heading for no deal unless there's a general election that the establishment absolutely don't want. They'd like the UK to just revoke A50, but the tories can't do that without a referendum because it would be the end of them.
