Thursday 28 February 2019

Pre-Brexit musings

1.  A letter to the Guardian on 26th February from a Will Taylor of Devon claims that: "this whole sorry [Brexit] episode cranked into place as soon as it seemed that the EU might crack down on money laundering and tax havens." 

 It's not a connection that I've made and I'm not sure that the dates match up.  After all, anti-EU manoeuverers  have been disrupting the Tory party at least since John Major's premiership (1990 to 1997 - he called them "the bastards") and I've no idea if and when the EU decided to get its teeth into money launderers  and tax havens.  However, there can be no doubt, as Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty put it (Guardian 26th February) "Brexit was always a project by the right to enrich the right."

All MPs, and Labour MPs in particular, need to remember this when they use their judgement to vote for what is in the best interests of the people the were elected to represent.

 2. I'm interested that when cabinet ministers and arch-Brexiteers come on the BBC to justify what Mrs May is dong they rarely if ever refer to her by name, but as "The Prime Minister." 

Well, of course, she is, but I'm sure this is a ploy to "big up" her credibility - that this is a serious person in high office doing things in the interests of the country rather than a fallible  individual who doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between determination and obstinacy.  I suspect a Downing Street directive.

3.  Apart from the odd flight of post-imperial fantasy about a world desperate to trade with Global Britain the Brexiteers have stopped making arguments about the benefits of  Brexit and merely resort to pious  assertions that the  2016 "decision" is inviolable, almost sacred, and must be obeyed.

 They refer repeatedly to  to the "17.4 million people who voted for it" without ever mentioning the 16.1 million who voted against or the 13  million who were entitled to vote but didn't, and the several million (EU citizens and 16 and 17 year-olds) most affected who weren't allowed to vote. Or they speak of "the biggest democratic exercise in our history" with out mentioning that it could also be the most flawed democratic exercise, given the lies, illegal activity and possible foreign interference.

Nor of course, do they mention that, given the increased  information now available, along with demographic factors, opinion has now shifted.

The arrogant assertions of "It's decided" is rarely if ever challenged by the media and it should be.

4. Labour MP Stephen Kinnock has "deep reservations" about a "People's Vote" because a) it corrodes the sovereignty of parliament and b) it will be very divisive.

He's right on both counts.

So, on the first count, why did he vote for a referendum in the first place (following his successful election to parliament, in a very safe seat, in 2015)?

 And, given his concern for parliamentary sovereignty, why doesn't he follow the logic of his argument and avoid a divisive further referendum campaign  by voting to revoke Article 50  now, and persuading his colleagues to do the same?

Finally, it's not much to do with Brexit, but an international court has just declared illegal the British  government's action in separating the Chagos Islands from Mauritius in order to retain control of the Islands, deport the inhabitants and enable the US to build a military base there.

There's been no mention in the media that I've seen or heard that Jeremy Corbyn has fought the Chagos Islanders' case for several decades..  He was and is right on that, as on so much else, including the disastrous  invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet the media, and a substantial section of his parliamentary parhave decided he's not fit to be prime-minister.

 He may not be al that successful at managing his party, but his judgement is better than most.

13 comments:

  1. The right wing rags will not report this or any other good news about him, it does not help their cause. It is like the anti-semism push anything that will drag him down even if true.

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  2. Yes, with the exception of Blair they've managed to deemonise successive Labour leaders: dear old Michael Foot in his "donkey jacket," Kinnock the "Welsh Windbag," Miliband, son of a Marxist and a Jew who inelegantly ate a bacon sandwich. I am not fan of Corbyn's style (his hectoring of Mrs May, for example) but when he was first elected as leader he was a breath of honesty and principled integrity.

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  3. "The biggest democratic exercise ever undertaken" would seem to be mainly to do with the size of the current population and the number of people entitled to vote - that's why the totals involved easily beat anything in the 19th century and earlier. The so-called "Will of the People" was still only 52-48 - one might call that rather weak-willed - and that vote is now nearly three years old.

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    1. You're right, and not just the 19th Century. My friend Michael Meadowcroft has pointed out that: "The turnout [for the 2016 referendum] was72.2% - ie 5.5% lower than at the 1992 general election and a huge 12% lower than at the 1950 general election. Even the total of 17.4 million votes for Leave was barely 41 000 higher than the vote at the 1975 referendum on the EU, when there were six million fewer electors on the register."

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  4. 1. I agree the timing doesn't work re: the tax directives, but what does 'a projec tby the right to enrich the right' mean? Most UKIP voters, and then 'Leave' voters, didn't vote to be 'enriched', they voted to regain sovereignty.

    2. Isn't that normal? I seem to recall MPs usually referring to Blair and Cameron too as 'the Prime Minister'. And of course in the USA the president is usually refered to as 'the President' rather than by name, I learnt that from The West Wing.

    3. Opinion hasn't shifted. Henning Wehn got that one right:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxtB8f4WcIw

    4. Why not avoid a further devisive referendum by stopping trying to sabotage the implementation of the result of the last one and keep us in the EU against our will?

    [Jeremy Corbyn] was and is right on that, as on so much else, including the disastrous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.


    And on his support for the IRA, Hamas and Hezbollah?

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    1. 1. I think that is the motive of the leading Brexiteers, and they managed, with the support of the Eurosceptic press, to con large numbers of UKIP and other Leave voters that it was about other matters - sovereignty, especially over our borders, immigration?
      2. Maybe, but I seem to remember a lady cabinet minister assuring us repeatedly in the run-up to the Iraq was that "Tony" was working "flat out" to avoid a military intervention.
      3. I enjoy Henning Wehn and this clip, but the polls show that onion has changed, though not as much as I'd like. And remember, Farage himself said that if the result were close (astonishingly 52/48 but the other way,) there should be a re-run.
      4. See above: along with the changes of opinion, the non-voters and those not allowed to vote, Remaining is not "against our will."

      I think you'll find that Corbyn's stance on these groups was not that he gave unqualified support to what they were doing, but that we'd need to talk to them - as even Mrs Thatcher's government, covertly, did with he IRA, and as we nearly always, eventually, do with "terrorist" groups.

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    2. 1. Well, obviously on any binary question you're going to find people on both sides with a variety of motives. But who do you mean by 'leading Brexiteers'? The foremost Brexiteer of all is surely Daniel Hannan, and I don't see any suggestion that he was motivated by anything other than the most romantic, starry-eyed ideals of national sovereignty — I certainly don't see how he could ave been motivated by riches?

      2. Someone will have to survey the entire media for the relevant periods. I don't have time, I'm afraid.

      3. Best of seven, then?

      4. The non-voters by definition don't mind one way or the other, and 'we' — the British people — is composed of the ones who were allowed to vote (well, plus some Irish and commonwealth citizens), at least, those who are old enough to have properly formed opinions (plus some too young, if it were up to me I'd probably put the voting age back to 21).

      I think you'll find that Corbyn's stance on these groups was not that he gave unqualified support to what they were doing

      I'd love you to find me anything Corbyn said about the IRA where his support was qualified. As far as I am aware he had never done so. He was invited by Stephen Nolan five times to condemn the IRA on air; five times he refused and then he just hung up.

      I'd also love for you to find anything where he suggested at the time that the solution to the Irish question was to talk to the IRA. Again, as far as I can remember at the time the only thing he said would solve the conflict was the immediate and total surrender to the IRA of handing Northern Ireland over to the Irish Republic. At no time did he suggest talking to the IRA as opposed to simply giving in to them.

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