RDQ 3/12 - Brexit prep

The key word there is "feel". They "feel" that way in many cases because that's what they were told year after year, decade after decade, by those for whom this is an ideological quest. 

Perfectly understandable that someone who thinks their life is bad will vote for something they are told will improve it. Problem comes if they are being told lies. It's those lies that I thoroughly object to.

In my view anything good that comes out of Brexit will come from the sheer national effort that will need to go into clearing up the mess. Not the mess itself. But that will all get lost in more lies.

I'm sure that there are many UK companies rushing to try to finish and ship ordered goods to EU customers before the end of the year when import/export taxes may kick in and significantly impact on their profit margins. Some may even find that key staff who were furloughed earlier in the year now have so much holiday to use up by 31 December that they don't have the people and expertise that they need to pass smoothly through the remainder of December. Aaaaaargh

Quite. And in the cold hard light of day it matters not even slightly whether that is right, wrong or even fair on Britain.

What matters is that it was entirely predictable, was indeed widely predicted by those of us who thought Brexit a bad idea, but Britain went ahead anyway. And is now complaining about the predicted outcome happening.

That's just a frustratingly moronic state of affairs for a nation such as ours to find itself in.

Any nation. Even Baffin Island would be embarrassed.

Regardless of our position, the EU is hardly setting themselves up in a position of glory

Fuck them, I say. The whole situation is a disgrace.

Hence my point regarding holding talks on Brexit under such blanket media coverage to keep the spotlight off other ailments. A bit like the COVID death rate hiding the UKs statistically bollocks cancer survival rates compared to other developed nations.

Urgh. Just urgh.

Us and the French, eh?
Except they never did the cut their nose off part, they simply did what suited them.

I would say that is going too far and BB's comment about the EU being a Western (with some members having less Western views) Soviet Union being more apt. Both were products of The Cold War and not fit for the challenges of the 21st Century.

I grew up in a family with a dislike for the EU, although my brother, sister and I were of a different generation and embraced the single market and the benefits that brought about. However, I was surprised when my mother said she'd voted Leave (my brother was furious and didn't speak to her for a month) and when things calmed down a bit I asked her why. She explained that her and my grandparents had felt the Remain campaign lied to them in the 1973 referendum. They'd been sold a Common Market when what was really being sneaked through was a political and monetary union. They'd realised too late afterwards and had harboured resentment ever since of the lies and falsehoods they'd been fed. The day after the 2016 referendum she'd gone down to her parents graves and put Union flags on them and told them she'd righted that wrong. I still don't really agree with what she'd done but I do recall a BBC documentary about the 1973 referendum and how, after the vote to stay in the EU was confirmed, Ted Heath and his fellow Europhiles went back to Downing Street and he played the European anthem on his organ and she spent all night congratulating themselves over the sleight of hand they'd pulled off. 

Anyway, on a positive note, it's just been announced that Blyth up the road will be the site of the UK's first battery gigafactory, employing some 3000 jobs direct and up to 5000 in the supply chain locally. It's the biggest investment in the North East since Nissan and will produce between 300,000 and 500,000 battery packs a year. It'll be the 16th largest building in the World and the 4th largest in the UK. 

 

I knew my Fourth Reich comment was a bit provocative. EUSSR is a better name. 

I think the response of your mother lies at the core of what has always been the UK's relationship with the EEC, then EC, then EU. Reading any political history of the UK post WW2, the entry into the EEC was always said to be completely about trade. There was no referendum in 1973, we joined on a vote in Parliament. The referendum was in 1975, held by the new Labour government to "reconfirm" the UK's membership. Rather like the 2016 vote, much was made of Harold Wilson renegotiating a few aspects of our membership and then the whole referendum was pretty much about trade rather than what might follow.  I remember the leaflets (I was 15). The UK economy was not in the best shape in the 1960's and 70's. Post war destruction was still easily visible, money was tight, debts were huge. Therefore trade with a growing Europe was seen as the answer to many ills. 

Every house was sent a leaflet that laid out the yes argument and the no argument. Yes got more space as that was official government policy.  In fact if you go back and look at the official leaflet (I've included a link) the arguments both ways have an all too familiar ring to them. Apart from the free movement of people arguments both ways, you could just change the dates to 2016 and have re-used it!

link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-1-349-24652-6%2F1.pdf

Except that in 1975 the future direction of travel of the EC (as it was by then then called) was not laid out. People voted to trade with Europe. So 2016 was the first opportunity that people had to revote on something that they felt had been mis-sold to them in 1975. That can explain the older generation voting leave. But how to explain younger people who either did not vote in 1975 or were not even born then? They saw that what the EC became was not something that they wanted to be a part of. It is as ever the same sovereignty v trade balance that was there in 1975 (but not really discussed) and still there in 2016 (when it did get discussed), added to by the subsequent Maastricht and Lisbon treaties that moved even farther away from a trade relationship and meant that discussions about sovereignty could not really be avoided. 

And basically the debate even today is still the same. Leavers talk about sovereignty and remainers talk about trade. 

Well we won't be able to afford to import the bloody things so we will just have to make them ourselves!

I will never understand the argument about sovereignty or why anyone gets so unbelievably hot under the collar about it.

Julia Hartley-Brewer, a woman who for me really personifies the arch "Brexit at all costs" tendency and who so deeply pleased with herself that she makes Kanye West look like a picture of self-doubt, was on Question Time last night curling her lips smugly, getting hoity-toity about sovereignty and generally managing to argue for the controversial position on every topic that came up, whether it was Brexit, Covid or footballers taking the knee.

I am constantly astounded at how one person can be so deeply reactionary and so utterly unwilling to see any side of any argument other than her own. I stick to my arguments but I at least see and understand the other side's arguments, even if I think them mistaken. She just doesn't even countenance the possibilities of alternatives to her world view. Ghastly human being.

Surely the essence of a nation state is its sovereignty or it ceases to be a nation? 

If there is ever to be another was in Europe it will be caused by the EU's insistence on moving East, drawing more former Soviet Block countries into its orbit. There will be a time when Russia will decide enough is enough and act to reduce the threat before they are surrounded. I don't have a problem with EU countries working towards more integrated forces if it makes them more effective (and they spend more money on them) but it is extremely foolish to think that the EU can continue to grow unopposed.