Brexit. How about that then. Well, well, well. Many other writers here have been thinking aloud about this, and so, now, will I.
The London weather was very wet yesterday, and violently so in the late afternoon. But, it then calmed down. Did the violent rain disrupt travel and permanently muck people up, so they didn’t vote? Or, did the abatement of the rain enable Londoners to get out and vote without too much discomfort? I have just got up and look forward to finding out. I took an umbrella to my (very) local polling station, around 7pm, but I didn’t use it. Someone said last night that it would be just typical if Britain left the EU because of the weather, but it looks like it wasn’t that close.
Re the Jo Cox murder. Many Remainers used this horror to imply that voting Leave was like voting in favour of MPs being murdered. (The Remainers who refrained from using this argument were not so audible.) I surmise that (a) some potential Leavers were persuaded, (b) some potential Leavers were angered and caused to vote Leave having only previously been thinking about it, and (c) quite a few continued to move towards Leave for reasons unrelated to the Jo Cox murder, but in silence. When the Cox murder happened, there was a shift towards Leave taking place. I surmise that this continued to flow, but underground, so to speak. Minds continued to move, but people stopped telling the pollsters. But, they’ve told them now.
The above two points were already made by me here last night, in comments on Natalie Solent postings. Here are a few more Brexit thoughts.
My next thought about Brexit concerns the word itself. I don’t know who first started using the word “Brexit”, but the fact that there was and is a recognised word for the thing turned the thing into A Thing, into something that respectable people could think about and be in favour of, more than they could have otherwise. Words matter in politics, and in decision-making generally. The Remainers never found a single snappy word for what they wanted.
Next, I refer honorable readers to these graphs (which I also wrote about in this posting here). These graphs say: (1) that when the government takes charge of something the immediate effects are often quite good, but in the long run less good, and then bad, and then very bad; and (2) that a piece of market liberalisation has the opposite effect, disruptive and unsettling at first, but then better, and in the long run unimaginably better. This explains why people so often vote for the government arrangement, against their long-term interests. Voters often have a short-term problem and are begging for a short-term fix. But these “Alpha Graphs” also explain something else, which is that when voters think that they are choosing between (1) bad now and bad in the future, or (2) bad now and better in the future, they are capable of voting in their long-term interest because long-term interest is all that there is on offer. Once governmentalism, so to speak, gets towards the far end of its graph and things are getting worse, really quite fast, and will go on getting worse no matter what, the decision changes radically. The only question is: Will the bad news ever stop? All of this now seems relevant to the Referendum debate. “Europe” was, for many, bad and getting worse. Brexit will also be bad, but eventually, better. If you think those two things, Brexit wins. And Brexit did win, with the people in a terminally bad way voting for it most heavily, and the people, like these people, who are now getting by or better voting for Remain, because they have something or a lot to lose.
It was assumed by Remainers that every time another London and/or Global Grandee came out for Remain, that helped the Remain cause. But for many, the unhappiness of such persons about the idea of Leave was a Leave feature rather than a Leave bug.
Speaking of London grandees, Eddie Izzard, dressed like a loon on Question Time, did not, I surmise, help the Remain cause. I mean, he really didn’t help. Imagine (as lucky old libertarian me living comfortably in London only can imagine) being staunch Labour but long-term unemployed, in Wigan or some such place. And you see on your TV some London Labour-Luvvie comedian, cross-dressed like a cross between Margaret Thatcher, Victoria Wood and Benny Hill, arguing for Remain. You’d vote Leave just to shove a stick up this thoughtless, frivolous, openly-contemptuous-of-everything-you-believe-in idiot’s arse, no matter how much more unemployed it might make you. (See above about not having anything to lose. If you have nothing left to lose, or if you merely feel this, punitive voting becomes one of your few remaining pleasures. (More Izzard related ruminations by me here.))
Talking of punitive voting, the moment in the campaign when I heard myself saying: hey, we Leavers just might win this thing, was when I read at Guido’s that Labour Leavers were saying to Labour voters: vote Leave and wipe the smile off the faces of Cameron and Osborne.
I’m trying to bias this short list of Brexitery towards things others haven’t been saying quite so much, and I’ll end with a thought about the particular bias of people like me. This I do not have to imagine, because I myself strongly feel the point I am about to make.
For me, the basic, existential horror of Britain in Europe is – was! (it is still only sinking in) – not so much that I am (was) losing all the political arguments that matter, but that it felt ridiculous even having these arguments. This is a feeling that unites all ideologues who dissent from the mixed economy, liberalish, leftish, status quo, no matter in what direction. Ah, the joy of now knowing that whatever gets decided in the next British general election is actually going to matter, again! And the joy, therefore, of knowing that it is, in the meantime, worth arguing about this. Natalie Solent has been saying here for some time, and she is not wrong, that she will happily swap the increased danger of a Labour Government in Britain for the fact that this will later be correctable. But she never quite nailed the point (which I am sure she feels) about the sheer pleasure of having a meaningful argument in the first place, no matter who wins it, a pleasure that of course extended to the referendum campaign itself. If arguing about stuff like this is your main hobby, despite you not being any sort of grandee (just a bod in a kitchen with a computer and a computer keyboard), then Brexit will be like a new lease of life for you – libertarian, Corbynite, Seventh Day Adventist, Islamo-nutter, whatever.
Samizdata, for instance. Writing for Samizdata now makes that little bit more sense. Because what gets said here, and at all the other places like it which shovel out opinions of this or that sort about British politics, can now make that little bit more of a difference.
There’s lots more Brexit stuff swirling about in my happy little head, but I think the above is a good note to end on.
Final, final thing: My telly is now telling me that there is going to be another Scottish referendum. Fine by me. I smell another one way ratchet.
I think the Jo Cox murder cost Leave a few percentage points. Would have been a bigger victory otherwise. Certainly meant many leavers started keeping their mouths shut when in the wrong company.
>Speaking of London grandees, Eddie Izzard, dressed like a loon on Question Time, did not, I surmise, help the Remain cause.
Almost all of the Remain side (in fact most of the Left in general) come across as very unappealing people (not just the leading figures, but also the activists). When was the last time you saw a normal person on that side? Tony Blair? The other side seem much more normal. Even Cameron, who I don’t like, comes across as pretty normal. But the other side? All sour, hard-faced creeps who you would sidle away from if they came up to you at a party.
Polly Toynbee is now talking about “little” England, and Wales, when Scotland scarpers. She really does think this.
But, what will England-and-Wales-but-not-Scotland be called? Not so UK as it used to be?
I don’t think the Scots will be going any time soon. Where’s all the money going to come from? The oil price has collapsed.
And they would have to use the Euro — that’s the condition of entry to the EU now. Do you really think Scottish voters are going to vote for that?
Southern Britain?
As i keep saying, Scotland + North.Ireland should be the successor state to the UK, so that they do not have to be re-admitted into the EU.
Or they could join the Republic of Ireland. (To be renamed Celtic Republic.)
The BBC has an article on 8 reasons why Leave won. The weather is not one of them: perhaps they did not want readers to think that they were making up excuses.
UK Labour- who gives a sh*t?
2/3rds of their voters in the North have gone over to UKIP – they won’t be coming back. For England to keep its independence it isn’t just getting rid of Brussels, but getting rid of all the socialist claptrap they brought with them: unions, “European Rights”, NHS, Euro-Health, National Insurance, requirements for state schools without fees, requirements on banning guns, requirements on banning smoking, the euro-lefty BBC, all that euro-crap that’s been around since Atlee.
UK is now INDEPENDENT! All of that can now be GONE!
I’ve just finished typing out a longish comment about Scotland on my earlier post. Forgive me if I cut and paste it here:
…Look at the comments to this story in The Scotsman in order of recommendations. Those are mostly comments from Unionist Scots, who, don’t forget, won a referendum themselves not that long ago. For instance:
– from a comment by ‘I Presume’
For a view from the Nationalist side look at the comments to this post from the pro-independence site “Bella Caledonia”:
– from a comment by ‘florian albert’.
Personally I think Nicola Sturgeon is making a big show of fighting for a referendum the same way David Cameron did – in the hope and assumption that it will be refused by someone else. She has just had an object lesson of the risks of that strategy but feels she must persist in it to appease her base. Note how ambiguous her actual words are.
Brian, “But she never quite nailed the point (which I am sure she feels) about the sheer pleasure of having a meaningful argument” I had felt the emotion strongly but you’ve put it into words. Which is what you just said. Perhaps some on the Remain side who enjoyed the excitement and sense of purpose while they campaigned are feeling a twinge of guilty comfort amid their disappointment that now, at least, there will be more scope for repeating that pleasurable experience.
Eddy Izzard should stick to running endless long-distance marathons.
Very good analysis, Brian. There is a huge amount to ponder. In my segment of humanity known as the financial services industry, there is a lot of attempt at calmness, and I think this is taking some by surprise. Societe Generale, the big French bank, has already said it sees a big future for London and its business here.
I wrote this comment earlier and got waylaid by Other Things. Many of the points have already been made…
On the Scottish aspect, the thought occurs to me that next time it’ll be a lot easier. The “No” slogans write themselves: “The UK gave Holyrood its powers; Brussels will take them away”. Hell, simply the Union’s own “Ever Closer Union” itself. And with an independent UK, many of the biggest questions of the 2014 campaign are much clearer: there would be an external EU border at Gretna. A Scottish EU state wouldhave to use the Euro. The Colleagues are quite content – for the time being – for the EU to have several internal currencies, but there’s no way they’re going to allow one of their states to use a foreign one.
What the nationalists fail to take into account in all their “Scotland voted Remain!” bloviating, is that Scotland voted for the UK to remain, with all its derogations and special status. Scotland, on its own, in the EU is another question entirely, and what we should all have learned from the four votes we’ve had over the last two years is that what we’re voting about makes a difference, not to the true believers – who have always been about a million and a half strong – but to the opposition. In the elections and this referendum, that 1.5-ish million was enough to prevail, but in 2014 it wasn’t. By quite a long chalk.
Dundee voted “Yes” in 2014. Does it follow that it would vote for an independent city state of Dundee?
I think, when we all calm down (I’m still, as I said in the other thread, absolutely hopping mad at Sturgeon’s sheer brass neck this morning), Scottish advocates of UK independence will actually find there’s a lot to be hopeful about, despite the frustration at having to go through all this yet again.
And hey… apart from anything else, there’s a damn good chance there won’t be an EU for Scotland to join in a few years’ time.
>In my segment of humanity known as the financial services industry, there is a lot of attempt at calmness, and I think this is taking some by surprise. Societe Generale, the big French bank, has already said it sees a big future for London and its business here.
Yes, well, yesterday big business was saying that a vote for Leave would be a disaster, put them all out of business, soup kitchens all around. But today, faced with the reality of a Leave vote, and the desire to stay in business, they are going to change their tune, aren’t they? Exaggerating the efects of Brexit on your business at this point is only going to harm it. Makes sense now to start telling the truth and saying that your business will be fine, just a few snaggles to work out.
“Or they could join the Republic of Ireland. (To be renamed Celtic Republic.)”
I live in the Republic of Ireland and I have for the past 10 years. There’s no way they’d unite with the Scots. Even uniting with Northern Ireland is doubtful.
…
As you may know, in the Republic of Ireland there’s a tax on importing cars. Since you can’t have a tariff in the EU they call it a “vehicle registration tax”. Oddly enough I was paying this tax today on a car I’d imported from the UK. I had to bring lots of paperwork. Somehow it felt a very fitting time to be doing it.
Yes I think Sam describes the Scotland situation perfectly.
I thought the murder of Joe Cox would clinch it for “Remain” – I was wrong.
I still think it gained them a massive sympathy vote – especially as the poor ladies birthday was the day before the vote.
Even I was touched – deeply so.
I think we would have won by a vastly larger margin had it not been for the horrible murder of the poor lady.
Johnathan, I have a similar experience. I was half afraid to come in given that my views are known. Whilst there is a lot of activity, my pro-Remain colleagues appear much more sad than they do angry. As consultants (almost wrote conslutants…Freudian slip) we are aggressively sharing our views with clients. Apparently there ‘may be some uncertainty in the medium term’. Who knew? Anyway, we are British after all, despite the non-British campaign, so everything will be fine.
The Empire is BACK!:-)
Scotland isn’t going anywhere. The oil glut has sunk their economic plans, and what sense does it make to become independent, then submerge that nation into an ever-expanding ersatz political entity called “Europe”?
This referendum is also the nail in the coffin of opinion polls, or at least them being taken seriously. First the GE, now this. It’s fair to say you can add a 5% hidden ‘conservative’ bonus onto any opinion poll conducted in the future.
The Scottish referendum destroyed Labour in Scotland; who will the Brexit referendum destroy south of the border? It’s amazing how much effect these referenda have on the political landscape. They are cataclysmic events.
A client emailed me from France and apparently the locals are all really jealous.
Like Natalie, I repeat a point from another thread: many Scottish Remainers voted remain not from love of the EU but because they thought it the best way to avoid a referendum. (I preached that the best way was to make our leave vote less different than the rest of the UK but the bulk of people were told the opposite and believed it.) Their true motives will rule what happens next, not what Sturgeon tells them to feel.
There won’t be any Brexit. The only way that would happen is if a Government formed that created a Bill and a Parliament were elected that would pass it.
Good luck with that.
There would be rioting in the streets. No, the political momentum is unstoppable. Boris most likely will be the one who steers the ship clear of the coast.
All that is needed is for the PM to invoke Article 50. Even the EU accept that, and want to get on with it.
I reckon if we don’t leave now, slowly but surely, we’d probably be chucked out anyway.
“I reckon if we don’t leave now, slowly but surely, we’d probably be chucked out anyway.”
That’s what I’ve thought for a long time.
German’s population is falling and it’s economy has been on the doldrums for decades. It recovered from the 2008 crisis faster than other European countries, but that’s all. On the other hand, the UK’s population is rising, and has a proven record of growth over the past few decades. If Britain had become too economically important, or too powerful, the Britain would have been chucked out. The vote has perhaps accelerated the process by 10 or 15 years.
A pundit on Fox Business last night put it best — “For American independence, it was no taxation without representation. For Britain, it is now no taxation without competence.”
I am reminded of Gorbachev v Yeltsin after the August coup, with Cameron Gorbachev but not yet Boris as Boris.
As for what I have seen today, in Newcastle, a professional passer-by in jubilant mood spontaneously engaged me in conversation, saying that there had been no power cuts, no crises, the world was still turning and he seemed absolutely cock-a-hoop with the result, as if it had been a wonderful football result.
In Gateshead, some soldiers had two field guns on the Quayside by a Royal Marines base (presumably to start a yacht race), and I heard a senior NCO say something like ‘We can turn them on the Germans now’ to much laughter from his colleagues.
In the run-up, in Sunderland I had heard a man in his 30s in a hospital ward with a leg just amputated discussing the referendum in positive ‘Leave’ terms despite his very serious predicament, and all his family concurred.
And today’s headline the Sunderland Echo ‘Wear Out” (the Wear is the river that runs through the city), noting how their result shook the political world.
It occurs to me that the sensible thing for the UK to do now is to start negotiating a provisional European economic association with other ‘leave-inclined’ EU members. No point in letting the EU continue to be the only game in town, and considerable point in forcing its hand.
>As for what I have seen today, in Newcastle, a professional passer-by in jubilant mood spontaneously engaged me in conversation, saying that there had been no power cuts, no crises, the world was still turning and he seemed absolutely cock-a-hoop with the result, as if it had been a wonderful football result.
In Gateshead, some soldiers had two field guns on the Quayside by a Royal Marines base (presumably to start a yacht race), and I heard a senior NCO say something like ‘We can turn them on the Germans now’ to much laughter from his colleagues.
In the run-up, in Sunderland I had heard a man in his 30s in a hospital ward with a leg just amputated discussing the referendum in positive ‘Leave’ terms despite his very serious predicament, and all his family concurred.
And today’s headline the Sunderland Echo ‘Wear Out” (the Wear is the river that runs through the city), noting how their result shook the political world.
Well, Mr Smugly, I was amongst Professors today, and their lesser acolytes, and they were a-wailing and a-gnashing their teeth, and a-crying horribly. You think it’s merry to laugh at the end of the world? You think tractionited Sunderlonian chavingtons are people to openly sport with over besting their betters?
>It occurs to me that the sensible thing for the UK to do now is to start negotiating a provisional European economic association with other ‘leave-inclined’ EU members. No point in letting the EU continue to be the only game in town, and considerable point in forcing its hand.
Yes. I know some want us to just quietly join the EEA, at least for a while, but that just locks us into more EU crap for years. Screw the EEA. We need to strike while the iron is hot, call the crumbling EU’s bluff, and set up a new trade bloc. It doesn’t have to have many members at first, we can just use the WTO rules to start with. The mere existence of it will be like an American supermarket to a Russian diplomat, dazzling him with its rows and rows of food and goods. Get Norway, Switzerland and Iceland in to start with, and Denmark and Sweden will be dying to join within hours.
Not so sure about Sweden. They have drunk deep from the chalice of poison Koolaid.
Ah, I actually meant to write The Netherlands (hic!).
But Sweden is still interesting… apparently internal polling shows that their apparently strong preference for EU membership reduces greatly when they are given the prospect of a EU without Britain.
I’m just waiting for the next series of Doctor Who, which will feature the Doctor strongly railing against the UK’s decision to leave the EU. It wasn’t just the Sylvester McCoy era when the leftist propaganda happened — remember the Pertwee era, when Pertwee would deliver serious rants about some naughty aliens breaking the Delpha Alliance Agreement on Intergalactic Agression, or whatever, and some UN-type international peacekeeping force woud turn up? (Even as a kid, this stuff grated on me, even despite the UN types being somewhat unflatteringly portrayed). I think that’s (partly) why the Tom Baker era was such a liberation — his Doctor was a genuine individualistic (but still moral) libertarian, and his view was let’s avoid calling in the UN stiffs for as long as possible.
I’m not joking, BTW. This propaganda will happen, either under the slightest metaphorical disguise, or just brazenly and openly (his assistant will gaze at him adoringly as he say this). It’s probably being written tonight as we speak.
The EU was a good idea, but shouldn’t have been modeled on France.
Does this mean you folks get to deport the EUro Muzzies?
>The EU was a good idea, but shouldn’t have been modelled on France.
No, it was never a good idea.
(i) We were lied to right from the start about the purpose — lie: just a trading bloc; truth: supra-national oligarchy — of a power structure that will cling onto power with their fingernails for as long as possible.
(ii) France’s Anglo-Saxon-style efficient capitalism was never compatible with EU-style corporatism… wait…
(iii) EU safety standards are far higher than the UK’s. Everyone agrees on this, except anyone who has ever visited Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, etc.
(iv) A more recent lie is that the EU is what stopped World War III. This is true in the same way as the claim that I stopped Ronaldo’s penalty at Euro 2016 with my mind control, the day after I saw the story in the papers.
(v) The EU is essentially a closed, secret, private organization who have persuaded European countries to hand over much of their power to them, under the obviously appealing guise that it’s better for this secretive private University-educated organization to run things than dirty working-class people.
(vi) Shut up. We know best. Arrest this man for thought crimes.
On Sweden: I recently met a Swedish Goth couple, who were visiting the USA.
It was just after a Swedish city had canceled earth day, or hour, or some such on account of fearing that turning off the street lights after dark would result in mass rape.
I mentioned the story to the chap, asking “it’s not really that bad, is it?” He replied “oh no, it’s worse”.
They weren’t some kind of bigots, so – called “extreme right wingers” or whatever. These were Swedish goths, for God’s sake! If there’s a more “liberal” (in the current American usage) creature on the planet then I’ve yet to encounter it.
So, yes. I can well believe that Sweden wants out.
the other rob: “extreme right wingers”
In the popular press, there is the extreme right, the far extreme right, and the far, far, far extreme right.
On the other hand, there is the beneficent left, the prudent left, and the intellectual left.
No prejudicial language there, eh?
‘Jocklessia’
And the SNP will negotiate treaty terms to secure entry to the EU called the ‘Jockstrap‘.
None at all, Southpaw, hence my use of quotation marks and “so-called”. 😉
Nevertheless, I was gobsmacked at what I was hearing from people who, up until now, I had regarded as the acme of leftism.
If Sweden gets out, they’d do the rest of the EU a favor in this respect (insulating us from their PC fascism). Just as the UK is doing us a favor by making it difficult for Rotherham thugs to move to the Continent — though that is not the main benefit of the UK leaving.
The Danes have been joking for a long time about destroying the Öresund Bridge to insulate themselves from Malmö. Guess what they dislike about Malmö?
Also, i have no idea why goths are supposed to be “left”-wing. They look pretty close to neo-pagans to me; though i don’t know much about these things: i am more of an old-fashioned pagan.
The rush to the exits begins . . . .
Laird
>The rush to the exits begins . . .
*click*
“France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Hungary could leave.
While for the past two months a Nexit has been on the cards after Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected a Ukraine-European Union treaty.”
So, its good to know we have fellow Neanderthal, mouth breathing, knuckle-dragging low intelligence louts with limited command of their native language in other countries as well. Now its just a matter of jostling to get to the front of Obama’s back-of-the-queue. If you throw elbows, you will get yellow carded. This isn’t the English Premiere League. We will have order here.
🙂
The ‘exiters’ were the elderly, the ‘stayers’ were the young, and as I understand it, nearly 2/3 of ‘the young’ didn’t bother to vote, so….they weren’t defeated, they gave up. ‘Perhaps out of apathy. For me, that falls into the “tough shit” category. So stop yer fucking whining! 😉
Yup. I’ve been saying that for months. What’s a poor Fuhrer Merkel to do? Other than, you know, threaten everyone with paper tigers. The ‘EU’ is acting like a scorned ex-girlfriend, “If you leave me I won’t talk to you anymore”.
Really?
Promise?
Southpaw,
Obama is a powerless lout. He’s a lame-duck president with a two-house congress controlled by an opposing party. All he can do at this point, on his own that is, is make “executive orders”…i.e. attempt to legislate from the executive branch, which should be illegal and is in fact groundless when challenged. Obama will be out of office soon enough and will be completely irrelevant to Brexit in any event.
Now…if the career crimial witch gets elected, then who knows.
(Appologies to any actual witches out there).
Thailover:
I was just announced the Dept of Justice cleared Hillary of any wrongdoing in her use of classified emails from her unsecured server — hacked at least twice, by accounts the government is willing to acknowledge. So, nothing to see here, move on please.
My fear is the Russians or Chinese are laying in the weeds, waiting to announce one hour after she is sworn in, “we have everything…EVERYTHING, including the 30,000 emails she deleted.” She will be the most blackmailed President in history, dancing as they pull the strings behind the scenes
.