Tag: Brexit

Where Did We Go Wrong?

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Is it possible to talk about anything else right now? Covid-19…Palestine…god forbid people remember Brexit is just around the corner…the spectre of climate change looming around the other. Our newsfeeds have been taken over by the finals of some political sports tournament which has forgotten to include a referee in the rules. The people have been given the honour apparently but we all know the fallacy behind that. It’s ticking along though. Georgia has just swung for Sleepy Joe, others will likely follow. This was always going to happen as the Democratic heavy postal vote count was done. It feeds into The Donald’s narrative but nobody except his support take that or him seriously. Unfortunately his support is seventy million people but lets not think about that. Actually we probably should.

It’s good to start on the point that even though Biden is on something like seventy-three million it doesn’t mean the country is split fifty – fifty. It’s not even my country but it has such a reaching influence we treat it as such in these moments. Of course not everyone with a political opinion votes and voter suppression is very real. Trump himself has been quoted as saying that if the entire country voted it would likely be the end of the Republican party. That doesn’t say much for conservative values, in fact it suggests these values are held by an active minority. The same accusation applies to the UK as we endure our own version of Trump with our departure from the EU. An unknown future of extreme neoliberalism, not that the EU isn’t neoliberal because it very much is, and tax haven UK. Not paying taxes sounds great until public services become underfunded and it’s never the lower or middle earners who ever really benefit from tax cuts.

But seventy million people believe he has done well. That is serious. To break it down some will just not like Biden, some the Democrats, a large number who have simply voted Republican for generations, some through economic hardship are desperate and of course those who see The Donald as some cult like demi-god. Regardless of their reasons, they’re still willing to vote for someone who is perplexing in his corrupt self-serving lies. I don’t think highly of centrist politics, of Democrats like Biden or Clinton, but Trump? How do you get in the head of people willing to support him to understand where the left have gone wrong. Because ultimately it comes down to that. Biden scraping over the line against someone like Trump isn’t a success, it should be the bare minimum. Has it got so bad we’re willing to celebrate the bare minimum as some kind of great success. Is that all we have left?

In the UK working class Labour heartlands are switching to a Conservative party that will only ever look after it’s own. Where have the left gone wrong, because they have. We have Trump and Brexit as proof of that. Yes the media are corrupt and capable of manipulating, think Sanders and Corbyn, and while they have the money to get their message further, maybe we just need a better and new message to counteract that. Something is not working. We need to find out what this is otherwise it will just repeat itself, or likely next time be far worse.

The Big Vote

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Today is the day. The calm before the storm. It may feel a million miles away from our lives, and in many ways it is, but for the sake of politics as a sport you’ve got to root for something. It always feels a little strange, or like it’s none of my business who votes in another country. I’m not American and doubt I’ll ever live there but with it’s tentacles in a lot of pies worldwide it is something that will have a lasting affect on us all. That isn’t to say one is a good guy who warrants support and the other the bad, this isn’t Hollywood or the Bible, but it’s clear there’s an issue of morality involved. The deeply immoral one versus the one with a politicians sense of morality. It is also unclear whether voting one way will have a beneficial influence upon the politics or economy of my own country. Our government are on their knees begging not to be screwed over too much in a trade deal with the Americans but there’s little reason to suspect the outcome will vary greatly depending on this election. What it will affect though, is who has been emboldened these last four years.

It is clear that around the world we have seen dramatic shifts to the political, cultural and economic right. In some countries they have succeeded, think Trump, Brexit, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Bolsonaro in Brazil. In others they didn’t quite manage it, think Marie Le Pen, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Matteo Salvini in Italy and following recent elections, Bolivia too. What Trump does is embolden not just the right, American politics in general is right wing already, he gives belief to the previously dismissed fringe elements outside his own borders too. The idea of Brexit had always drifted around the edges of British politics but more like a threat, even those campaigning for it seemed surprised by the outcome. You can’t blame Trump on something that occurred before his election, but it is important not to dismiss the influence his election has had since and on the belief of those who previously believed such things as impossible. There may be differences between Biden and Trump regarding healthcare, renewable energy and foreign policy, or at least on the surface, but Trump must not be elected because his mere existence in politics empowers those who should never even believe themselves capable of power let alone holding it. It may be easy to belittle and ridicule the crazies of the world but their current existence in world politics is having a lasting effect on us all.

This will not be resolved today by voting him out. Likely the election itself will not even be called by this time tomorrow. With Trump spending the last few months convincing his supporters postal voting lacks legitimacy, his approach to the post-election is already clear. The possibility that he has a lead denied him as these votes trickle in is very real and it’s a very believable line for him to take with a support already firmly entrenched in the world of deep state conspiracies. This is set up perfectly and he is not a man to go out with a whimper. Even if he accepts initial defeat, imagine for a second his Twitter feed is currently in someway shackled by those around him, can you imagine how a free unhinged sore loser Trump is likely to start behaving. With the passing of this election he is not going to simply disappear and could in theory become even more dangerous as he desperately tries to court an ever diminishing but increasingly devoted core support. He may be a ridiculous man but he’s dangerous too and stepping further into the unknown with such a person is a worrying prospect for us all.

Subsidised Injustice

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Marcus Rashford is kicking arse again. Well Tory arse. And sort of. They don’t seem to be doing as his star appeal demands which was inevitable, they couldn’t be seen to bow to him or anyone in his position too many times. While that was inevitable, it was also always going to be the case in doing so they would be shamed in the process. It isn’t even him shaming them though, he’s just making a series of valid points, it’s their reaction, they’re shaming themselves.

They’re shaming themselves because they deny children food, they let innocent children go hungry when they spend and waste not just millions but billions of pounds. The money wasted during the pandemic on them being ill prepared and then on them continuing to behave in a manner which could only be described as incompetent. The twelve billion pounds wasted on a failed test and trace system. The contracts given out to friends, associates and Tory donors, many of whom had none or little experience in what they were being paid to do. We could discuss Brexit and the utter bankrupting shambles that it has inevitably shown itself to be. We could discuss the HS2 vanity and cronyism project that does nothing to improve the infrastructure of another failed privatisation experiment. We could go on and on but this isn’t a dissertation, I haven’t enough words.

Rashford is simply stating the obvious and the Tories are doing everything else to themselves. There have been photos going around social media this week of the menu for the restaurant in The House of Commons. Whether this menu is accurate is not important, the truth is that this is a subsidised restaurant, a restaurant taken advantage of by millionaires who happily allow their lunch to be subsidised by the tax payers. This is a link to a website with a long list of the Tory MPs who voted against feeding hungry children. There are three MPs who claimed over eighty thousand pounds in expenses this last year. That is the equivalent of over four people on the minimum wage and doesn’t include the basic eighty-one thousand pound salary MPs are paid. What on earth do they need to claim that much on. Interestingly my local MP The Right Honourable John Lamont claimed seventy-six thousand pounds. He may just be due a letter from one of his constituency. I wonder why he doesn’t feel the need to feed hungry children. Interestingly Jacob Rees Mogg claimed nothing. Doesn’t change anything though, he still thinks kids should go hungry.

They say the existing benefits system is in place to compensate for and cover these costs and to feed the children. That would be fair enough if the current benefits system hadn’t been obliterated in the last ten years of Tory rule, resulting in over four million children finding themselves in poverty. That is between a quarter and a third of all British children which is just remarkable for a country that prides itself on being at the forefront the developed world. You may not see things with your own eyes but the numbers are staggering. It’s not supposed to be this way. Steaks should not be subsidised when young bellies remain empty. They certainly shouldn’t be subsidised for the ones actively keeping those bellies empty. This, this is an injustice and it’s subsidised by us.

The Sun Shining Out Of It’s Own Arse

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Are you ready for me to state the obvious, because I’m going to. I’m going to do it now. The Sun newspaper is full of shit. Yes I know everyone knows it but some forget and it allows them get away with things. The danger with them getting away with things is that they are the number one read newspaper in the UK, owner Rupert Murdoch is a scumbag and also unfortunately people both believe him and vote the way he wants them to. The reason I bring this up is because Facebook‘s algorithm decided I might like to read this article on a man at a school who “could be 40”. To confirm the success of the algorithm I clicked on the link because it sounded ridiculous and because sometimes I have dreams that I’m back at school in sixth form and my mind related becoming curious in the process. It turned out not to be the silly article I originally thought it would be.

The headline – “Worried parents demand answers over new pupil who ‘could be 40’ joining school after moving to UK” – was not on the original link but the nature of the story becomes clear with it. The article goes on to pander to a narrative that child refugees or child migrants are not actually children or more precisely under eighteen. It would be worth mentioning that sometimes this does happen. I don’t deny it but it is important to understand that it’s not rife and it should not discredit the claims to refuge that minors, many of them unaccompanied, make. The article brings up the story of some Iranian who wasn’t under-18 who spent six weeks at a school in Stoke in 2018 before tests confirmed he wasn’t a minor. Without any proof it then uses this example as evidence of guilt in regards the second person with a thinly veiled implication that feeds racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Confirmation bias is a very real thing. We pay more attention to information that confirms our pre-existing understanding of the world. It is very hard to avoid confirmation bias because we’re all susceptible to it’s subtly. This unfortunately is simple and blatant propaganda. It reaches millions of people and the end result is things like Brexit and a majority Conservative government. The people voting for such things will not benefit from them but owners of newspapers like The Sun will. The independent media and the people are at war with powerful vested and influential interests, and themselves. You can’t overcome real power without the people, but first we need to overcome ourselves. I don’t just lay the blame on others, we’re all to blame. Just please don’t buy or believe this crap.

Coffee & Ambling

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Today was a remarkably contemplative day. I went for a long walk. There is nothing like a good amble when we need a think. I can’t remember the book, but I remember reading about various people from history who in their journals used to write about having their best ideas when walking. I feel compelled to agree with them. Contemplation isn’t always easy, in fact it can be a real challenge. What it is is unclear but perhaps the movement involved allows for the removal of stagnant energy clouding our thoughts. As we’re refreshed from the walk, which is also not too energetic that we’re distracted, or thoughts are refreshed with it. I also had a bamboo cane I found on the beach as a walking staff. I’ll make a good contemplative old man one day.

In other news brexit brexit brexit, covid covid covid, corruption corruption corruption. If it wasn’t for the fact it had such a potentially life threatening affect on our lives it would be so mentally beneficial to just block it all out. Such energy always clouding our minds. I did watch football last night though and it was a good result. An hour prior to kick off I started looking at the football news and seeing what was going on. Prior to that I hadn’t looked at a single football related thing since I suggested I would give up football news a few days ago. The interesting thing was that I got bored after half an hour of reading about stuff and just wanted to start watching the game. I don’t miss it. I love the game but I don’t miss all the other stuff.

Unfortunately my procrastinating is no different. I have given up the football and found myself binge watching a series. That’ll pass, admittedly only when I finish it or run out of data but it’ll pass. Importantly when it does pass I won’t have football to fall back on. I’m still so full of excitement about all the things I’ll replace football news with. Although as I said yesterday we only have now and I should probably take that into consideration and not this addictive series. Do I just need a vice? Maybe I should just become an alcoholic instead. I’m not designed for a life of purity I suspect. I’ve given up giving up coffee, maybe I’ll just stick to that. How boring life would be though if coffee was your worst vice. Surely life should be slightly more reckless than that. Might get in the way of all the ambling though.

Anger & Despair

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Tonight was very nearly going to be a little rant. It’ll likely still contain elements of one of course but there is now more calm in the mental air surrounding my mind. Anger and despair. This was what I was feeling. Anger and despair at the immediate and direct consequences of political decisions made by the people masquerading as the leaders of my country. Anger and despair that my passport is now useless. Of course that’s not entirely true and I will not cry at my own limited suffering when people can still not enter Europe despite escaping war, violence, poverty and the early affects of a future climate catastrophe. We need perspective and my complaints pale into comparison and I’m aware I sound like a spoilt child having his special privileges taken away but the fact they’re clearly only privileges in the first place shows how utterly wrong the whole thing is. It’s just so completely pointless and self-inflictingly stupid.

Yes I’m taking about Brexit. And no I don’t believe the EU is some kind of beacon of hope and goodness, but I do think it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative on offer. There is still time and today’s little video by a remarkably happy looking Boris Johnson is likely part of negotiations. It still makes you worry. Mainly because this mob have given every indication so far that they would actual prefer a no deal Brexit. Come the end of this year and with no agreement in place British people will be able to spend no more than ninety days in every one hundred and eighty within countries in the EU. This is how it is for Americans, Canadians and others outside of the Schengen or EU and those fortunate enough to be able to get holiday visas for Europe. I spent time in Greece with friends who had to go to Turkey for a few months before coming back or who just stayed illegally. I generally spend more than half the year within European Union countries. This is a direct and immediate consequence of Brexit.

That’s the thing, when we put aside ideas of what will happen from leaving the European Union, be those positive or negative and be those coming from leave or remain, they are simply ideas. It’s all hypothetical. People may have a fair idea but unexpected events can alter the moment very easily, look at this last year for example. We must understand things by real and measurable events. Freedom of movement is gone. The pound is getting weaker, thankfully we’re dragging the euro with us but that won’t last forever. The general economy has nosedived. Brexit has already cost us more money than we have ever put into the EU since we first entered, that’s not even counting the divorce bill. The benefits are only going to be seen in the long term they’ll say but long term is only an idea. Their dreams are not my dreams. All I know is the direct and completely unnecessary repercussions I can see, experience and measure. So yes I am still feeling a little anger and despair. But you know what, England, you can have yourself. Enjoy your American canned whole chicken and pig shit sandwiches, not to mention the chlorine and hormones. 58% and rising in support of Scottish independence. If it carries on like this there’s no way we’ll be stupid enough to believe the lies a second time. You’re on your own lads.

Another Covid Ramble

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This virus eh, what is coming next. I was feeling a little tired today and this evening felt my arms and neck a little sore. Strange I thought, am I ill? For the best part of an hour I felt myself getting weaker by the minute until I remembered I had been waxing the bottom of a catamaran for a few hours and that holding the waxing machine up while looking up had understandably left a little strain. What a silly boy. I laughed a lot, much of it at myself and the rest in relief that I wasn’t about to become another statistic. I wonder if there’s anyone left out there in the world who hasn’t at some point worried that they may have caught it, just a moment of weakness. Of course there will be but undoubtedly there’ll be more who have had that moment. Even those who think the whole things a scam will have for sure had a little moment. Good luck getting them to admit it though. I wonder too how many people have still not heard anything about it. There will be some interesting stories getting released in a few years.

Checks the news

The Queen has had her first official public engagement today in nine months. I forgot about her. Ninety-four years old and still going strong. Why she felt the need to be out and about meeting some scientists though is beyond me. Does she really need to be doing that, what’s the point. Seems like an unnecessary risk for a very old lady to be taking while there’s a virus running around taking very old ladies.

There seems to be some kind of tier system going on in the UK. Not everyone’s happy about it though. Liverpool and Manchester seem to be in full on tier three but are then being left to rot. It doesn’t seem too unfair to give a little support if you expect people to give up everything. Seems like something you would do if you actual gave a shit about helping people through this.

In unrelated Covid news, the Tory’s are still arseholes. Actually that’s also Covid related. It turns out Wetherspoons, that chain of pubs made famous for being cheap and shite as well as being run by a major Brexit supporting Tory donor, have been reclassified as eating establishments. In Liverpool then while all the pubs are forced to close they’ll be allowed to stay open. This mob are becoming less legitimate by the day. They’re not even pretending to hide anything either which is an actual genuine concern because it means they feel untouchable. Judging by the response of the media and the opposition, they seem to believe it too and are quite happy with the situation. It’s not that we’re going to morph into Nazi Germany, of course we’re not, but we’re looking more and more like Viktor Orban’s Hungary with each thing. You won’t get a Nazi Germany again and people will use this extreme example to delegitimise the debate, but Orban’s Hungary or Erdogan’s Turkey, genuinely these are becoming distinctly possible. Anyway, this is probably better saved for a full piece.

A Covid Ramble

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Well it appears with winter on the horizon the world is settling for a miserable one. If we thought enduring lockdown while Britain basked in what was likely the warmest April and May on record was hard just wait until we hit January and the recently lifted Christmas restrictions are firmly smashed back into place. Thankfully I’m not in the UK now, in Greece you wouldn’t even imagine there was a virus, not where I am anyway. They’re handling it the most Greek way possible and just getting on with things. Saying that despite my ridiculously ignorant attempt at national stereotypes when they did have a lockdown it was a hard one apparently. It allowed them to open up for the summer and despite a few flair ups wherever the Brits like to holiday, the country has remained reasonably virus free. Last weekend in Thessaloniki the guy working in the hostel told me Thessaloniki had about five cases a day and Athens had two hundred. I think I may have mentioned that at the time but looking at the rest of the rates around Europe, well into the thousands, that is quite remarkable.

In that knowledge leaving this country, which I’m likely to do, seems a little silly. It’s like seeing prison and deciding you would like to go spend some time there. I never fully experienced lockdown the last time because I was working delivering bread and being clapped every Thursday like a hero. This time I would be going full power and disappearing for a couple of months. At least I may find the time to read those books I had for so long complained I was too busy for. Sounds quite exciting. I might study something too. There is so much to study. Look at me getting all excited about something everyone else is dreading. In truth I am too I’m just not sure what I’ll be experiencing enough to dread it.

I can’t wait to read the literature that people put out in a few years about this time. There will likely by films or television series in 2021. Perhaps the aftermath will be more of an interesting topic. Stories set during lockdown would likely focus on the psychological elements of the experience, but events after would likely be either on human versions of flowers opening up in Spring or will be about system change as Brexit flounders, the economy crashes and people overthrow the government and create peoples assemblies.

Either that or I’ll just be gloating about how I finally put in that application for Irish citizenship. Twelve to eighteen months and then probably another one or two for me to get off my arse and apply for the passport. That’ll be it. I give up on the Scots for being the only country in history suffering from Stockholm Syndrome bad enough to reject independence and the Brits for being a typical version of a people incapable of accepting their glorious history of domination and empire is now nothing but an illusion. If it were ever anything else. Fuck it the Irish seem like they’re having fun, I’ll go see what they have to say for themselves. Apparently too Covid rates below the border in the Republic are a fraction of those in the British controlled North. Well that’s telling. Handling it well are you Boris. I hope history is harsh on you.

Boris Johnson’s Dystopian New Jerusalem

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As Boris Johnson talks about building a ‘New Jerusalem’ I remind myself of any dystopian story I have ever read. I’m not sure I want to be part of his New Jerusalem. Anyone professing to be the architect of a new society makes me instinctively cautious. Someone with his track record for incompetence and general indifference to the wellbeing of the populace is someone whose Jerusalem reeks of inevitable failure. These are the type of people who will hoard the lifejackets as the ship sinks, or who in actuality are already hoarding the lifejackets as the system sinks.

I haven’t been getting caught up in cries of fascism and autocracy by the state but this lot in power at the moment are not playing by the rules of old. If they were anarchists decentralising and creating community I would be fine with it but when they’re right wing wannabe despots in the making it is more concerning. Teachers can’t teach about anti-capitalism anymore. The police have been given draconian powers to enforce their will on the people. Powers are rarely given up once they’ve been received. The opposition exists in name only. There are real and concerning things going on in the UK at present. Once we leave the EU this power grab will only be intensified.

Talking of the ‘opposition’, only twenty of them, one of whom was Jeremy Corbyn, voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill. Officially this “authorise(s) conduct by officials and agents of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement, and certain other public authorities, which would otherwise constitute criminality”. In layman’s terms the state and it’s enforcers are now above the law. Effectively this allows the government a license to kill whoever it deems a danger to it’s existence. The US and Canada have similar laws but they specifically exclude certain crimes like murder and torture. This one rushed through Parliament omits such exclusions. Remarkably the bill extends these powers to various government bodies such as The Competition and Markets Authority, The Environment Agency, The Financial Conduct Authority, The Food Standards Agency and The Gambling Commission.

The bill allows for state actors to break the law in three scenarios – in the interests of national security, for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder and in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. What is clear from this though is the ambiguity involved. ‘Preventing disorder’ seems as all encompassing as ‘breach of the peace’, what exactly is classed as disorder? And someone can be killed to protect the economic interests of the UK. Does this mean I can sign up for the police and kill the leaders of Brexit? But seriously if we think of the new teaching rules on sugar coating capitalism and then this, it’s clear who and what this mob represent.

Former Tory leader and Brexit Minister David Davis and former Tory Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell have even called the government out on there being a “whole series of weaknesses in (the bill), which at the end of the day will impinge on innocent people” and on the dangers of “granting such powers in a free society” respectively. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Unions such as Unite have also heavily cautioned about the dangers involved with passing such legislation. As ever the media have been silent. Not even a mention of Keir Starmer whipping his MPs into abstaining against the vote. Love or loath Corbyn, at least he was a man of integrity and one who actually acted as a real opposition. Like I said, I don’t usually get caught up in genuine despotic outcries but this is concerning and this is a system looking increasingly less capable of maintaining and standing up for itself by the day.

The Post-Post-Brexit Phoenix

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Boris Johnson today suggested he was attempting to break international law in an effort to protect Britain’s “economic and political integrity”. For those who have travelled outside of the UK and actually had a conversation with anyone whose first language is not English, it has been pretty clear now for about four years that we as a country have little political integrity left. In 2016 shortly after the fateful day I was surrounded by utterly bemused Greeks, Spanish, French and Germans unable to make sense of what we had done to ourselves. For them, like most people I’ve met who are not of a particular ideological standing, the reaction has generally been a bemused one. Today, while I like to think I understand this Brexit issue from all angles, the truth is I too remain bemused. Since the referendum I haven’t felt compelled to jump on the “EU is perfect” bandwagon because firstly it isn’t, and secondly this level of fervent belief doesn’t appear to be that far removed in structure to the Brexiteers we’re fighting. The truth is always in the middle. Sort of.

I have recently been discussing the financial ramifications with a Brexiteer. I won’t go into particulars but this person has seemingly lost a rather large number of digits on the value of their wealth. This is mainly down to the falling value of the British economy and market in these last four years. With others I know losing in real time half the value of their estates, Brexit is very much something they can tangibly measure. I remember a few months ago reading about the cost of Brexit so far being the equivalent to all the money the British state – us – had so far paid to the EU since it’s inception, this loss is felt by all. The money the NHS was going to receive never existed, it was always a lie. Covid-19 will likely mask, or be used as a mask by the government and the media, the full extent of what is likely a no deal Brexit but it’s something no mask will manage to cover in our own life. While Boris attempts to convince his chums to embrace their inner teenager and break the law, we’re all left to pick up the pieces.

Make no mistake all we have left is pieces. The hardcore admit the economy will take a hit but that it will be worth it in the long run. Well what is the long run? For my generation, and the one after that, if not the one after that and possibly even the one after that – fifty years until we really see the benefits as Jacob Reece Mogg suggested last year. Great, I should be eighty-three years old by the time the country has fully recovered. Is ideology really worth that much? Myself and god forbid if I have children, them too. At least we won’t have to deal with the bureaucrats in Brussels as we fill out forms for bread.

There is so much lately that I just struggle to understand. Attempting to look compassionately from the other perspective seems completely futile now that the other perspective is hell bent on persevering with such a suicidal approach. Do we accept defeat and leave. Learn Mandarin? All this proves is that not only have we as a people failed to accept the defeat of our own empire roughly one hundred years ago but that we’re willing to go down with the worlds current self-defined ‘only’ superpower. Not only is it confusing it is depressing. We need to reinvent ourselves. Thankfully the ashes don’t appear that far away.