It is rare that I agree so strongly with a fervent supporter of the European Union. Nesrine Malik of the Guardian argues that “the Brexit reckoning must happen” on the grounds that
A humbling must come to pass. From the beginning, Brexit created its own momentum. Once the question was asked – in or out? – all the grievances, justified or not, could be projected on it, with “in” being widely seen as a vote for the status quo. Within this frame, nothing else matters – not economic predictions, not warnings about medicines running out, nor threats of the need to stockpile foods. The remain campaign could not have done anything differently: it lost the moment the question was asked.
And so, maybe, in the end, we will finally believe that immigration is necessary for an economy and an NHS to function, that the inequality between the south-east and the rest of Britain is unsustainable, that our political class is over-pedigreed and under-principled. We might even believe that other crises, such as climate change, are real, too.
Maybe, in the end, the country outside Europe will find its stride by confronting its issues rather than blaming them on others, and forging its own way. But there is only one way to find out. What a shame Brexit is that path – but better to have a path than none at all.
She is right about our political class being over-pedigreed and under-principled, right that unless Brexit happens the country will be torn apart by claim and counter-claim as to what would have happened, and right that a humbling must come to pass. Let us go forward together and find out whose.
Alternatively,
The latter quote is from Dominic Cummings. (I commented recently on some related points here.)
I don’t think the people who explained they were sure to win until they lost, and who now tell us they lost by asking the question (so “could not have done anything differently”), do self-humbling; they think humbling is for others (us, for example).
Sadly it seems very unlikely that independence will happen.
Mrs May’s “deal” is independence in name only – as “regulatory alignment” would mean that the laws of the this land remain the same as the laws of the European Union (which is the same thing IN EFFECT as the laws of the European Union being the laws of this land) – and we will also stay under the European Convention of Human Rights (at one time totally separate from the European Economic Community, as it then was, but now joined at the hip).
And the “Remainers” will not even accept a token independence – they want us to prostrate ourselves before them as they grind their boots into our heads.
So there is the choice – fake independence under Mrs May, or no independence under Mr Grieve and co.
I must confess I find myself less horrified by the lies and deceit of Mrs May – at least she PRETENDS to give the people what they voted for.
Under Mr Grieve and co the dictatorship would be open – essentially the establishment elite would say “you, the British people, are SLAVES – we could burn you all alive if we felt like it”.
“But Paul there could still be No Deal”.
Yes – and tomorrow I could wake up and find I was 21 years of age.
We are conducting a political civil war and there will be only one winner: and the loser will lose utterly and completely because after that there will be a constitutional change to make sure this never happens again.
“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.”
Both Prime Ministers Blair and Major know that the winner writes the history and they know what their fate will be if they lose.
Of course we have been here before:
George Canning set out his “most serious, vehement and effective onslaught in verse” on the values of the French Revolution in a long poem, New Morality, published in the last issue of the Anti-Jacobin (No. 36, 9 July 1798). Canning considered these values as “French philanthropy” that professed a love of all mankind whilst eradicating every patriotic impulse. He described anyone in Britain who held these values as a “pedant prig” who “…disowns a Briton’s part, And plucks the name of England from his heart…”:
“No – through th’extended globe his feelings run
As broad and general as th’unbounded sun!
No narrow bigot he; – his reason’d view
Thy interests, England, ranks with thine, Peru!
France at our doors, he sees no danger nigh,
But heaves for Turkey’s woes the impartial sigh;
A steady patriot of the world alone,
The friend of every country – but his own”
George Orwell from his essay The Lion and the Unicorn:
“….the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box…”
George Orwell from his essay The Lion and the Unicorn, H/T tph:
Except that nowadays we take our cookery from Asia, Africa, and Mexico and dump it all in the blender.
That is some bizarro shit there. There are countries with close to zero immigration who somehow manage to function. South Korea’s economy doesn’t seem to need hordes of unqualified immigrants. Or even qualified ones, for that matter.
They’ve gone from thinking that immigration is an economic boon — which it arguably is — to a necessity.
Just Remainiacs believing their own agenda.
Only the Remainiacs believe that Brexit is only, or even principally, about immigration.
There is no reason at all for there to be any change in immigration post-Brexit. Or there may be. The crux is it will be chosen by the UK Government answerable to the UK electorate.
The Swiss Professor researching Cancer treatments, the Polish builder, the Romanian seasonal crop-picker, the Filipino nurse: all immigrants, all making rational economic decisons and the UK hiring them in a free market. Excellent, why change?
(Although the latter case is effectively the NHS parasiting on the 3rd world…)
But the illiterate half savage with no work ethic, no concept of civil obligations or the rule of law, who preys on others and settles things with knives and acid….now those are migrants we could, post-Brexit, choose to do without. And the downside being?
Truth is, the EU and Remainiac shills are absolutely desperate for a humbling, else other countries will wake up and follow. And who will fill the trough for these unemployable EUcrats then?
I would have written “over-credentialed” where she wrote “over-pedigreed”. I suspect her putting it that way was no accident. The guardianistas love to think of themselves as critics of the ruling class, but avoid phrasings that might appear to criticise the chattering class. ‘Pedigree’ conforms much better to the PC narrative.
So, we have to plunder developing countries of their precious educated human capital to make the NHS function? This is Progressive and ethical, is it? Why not free it from State control, allow it to offer salaries and working conditions that will attract British citizens? How can an advanced industrial country of 65 million people not be able to staff it’s health service?
As for the economy, what is the wisdom of mass low-skilled immigration into a society automating low-skilled jobs out of existence? The depressed wages might defer that automation for a bit longer, but it is coming. Then what?
Because some political philosophies require a large badly-used-and-resentful lower class?
Large-scale immigration of low-skill people who regularly serve as society’s roadkill might bump up the overall economic numbers of a society, but at the expense of constantly maintaining that roadkill status of the bottom layers. The normal libertarian claim that unregulated immigration helps our economy might well be quieted if we limited that immigration to bankers, government managers, and journalists.
This touches on something that bothers me. Here in Thailand the middle class pay for their own children’s education, yet in the rich countries only the rich can. And, yes, Baumol, but it makes me wonder if you can’t get so rich you can’t afford to get anyone to do anything?
I suspect there is a paper somewhere on why rich countries need poor people.
We might even believe that other crises, such as climate change, are real, too.
What an abject sentence that is. The author is stating that after more than two decades of relentless propaganda by various international organisations, including the EU, that the benighted citizens of EU member states still haven’t bought the alarmist case, are still uncertain whether reversing or downgrading the fruits of the Industrial Revolution are worth it, whether the taxes, the regulations, the endless AGW messages injected into nature documentaries, corporate press releases, etc, have made a difference.
To the extent that there is a north/south divide, rather than it being yet another cliche, one could argue that all the EU grants, initiatives etc have made zero difference to it. Well, how about that?
Is immigration necessary for the NHS to function? Well, if it is, surely the very structure of the NHS – a state monopoly that is free at the point of use and financed via taxes – is the issue. What happens if, even if they want to come here, the sources of immigration run dry? What will those who worship at the altar of the NHS do if or when other poorer nations get richer, and that instead of immigrants being relied on as source of labour to run our hospitals or serve behind coffee counters, that they build more prosperous countries instead? The whole assumption that we need ever more immigration to power an offshoot of 1940s central planning Fabian thinking proves that the NHS model needs to change. If Brexit provides the catalyst for such an understanding, it is a further sign that Brexit is worth it.
The OP is right though in noting that Brexit has brought a lot of views to the fore, but I fear that the author of this linked article has got a lot more work to do in understanding what is actually happening. Decades of an education system that Paul Marks of this parish regularly condemns have brought us to this point.
“The NHS is the envy of the world”. In your dreams, comrades.
If immigration is necessary for a nation’s health service to function how do other countries manage when their nationals leave to come and work for the NHS?
Do they import aliens from other planets?
Or do they train enough doctors, nurses and administrative staff?
Except that nowadays we take our cookery from Asia, Africa, and Mexico and dump it all in the blender.
Don’t forget Denis Leary’s take on Irish cuisine: http://www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=19663
No, this will not happen.
If we Leave and Bad Things happen then Leavers like me will allege that those Bad Things are a result of leaving being controlled by unimaginative/idiot Remainers.
If we Leave and Good Things happen then Remainers will allege that those Good Things pale in comparison to the scale or frequency of Good Things that would have happened had we remained.
This argument will never be settled because whatever happens we will be comparing a measurable reality with an imagined alternative.
WillS.
The article buys into the well-worn line that Brexit wasn’t “really” about leaving the EU, but an expression of “grievances about .. ”
From there it’s a simple step to say the grievances were about austerity etc etc, therefore government should tax and spend rather than actually leave the EU, and also feeds the narrative that Leave voters didn’t know what they were voting for.
Leaving a sclerotic, corrupt, profligate, tyrannical Superstate becomes more State meddling and spending. May is no better than Labour, with her “burning injustices” twaddle.
@Pete:
Not making nursing such a hurdle by:
– Making it graduate only
– Doubling down on mandatory indentured servitude during “training”
– Introduction of student loans for a low wage job
– Removal of assistance such as bursaries or even parking at hospitals
I’m sure that the 25% who never finish their nurses training is a lot higher in 2019 than it was even back in 2015.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nursing-applications-ucas-course-drop-nhs-grants-funding-debt-tuition-fees-costs-a8191546.html
But no, let’s just blame BRExit, because all “Leavers” are elderly, low IQ, racist, homophobic bigots.
CAN WE LEAVE ALREADY?
http://daystobrexit.co.uk/
Indeed, and both the unelected technocrats of the EU and our own “useful idiot” Remainers have agreed that the humbling must be the wider electorate for having the temerity to vote against the united advice of their betters.
It sometimes feels like we live in some Schrödinger’s cat-type reality where Leave both won and lost at the same time. In which we are simultaneously free of the EU and not free of the EU until such time as Treason May decides whether she can shaft us and get away with it or not.
The fix is in and all that we’re waiting for not so much the actuality of treason, but simply the nature and extent of it. I suspect the big reveal is coming sooner rather than later.
Welcome to Clown World.
These 100 Tory twat MPs wanting a delay and the end of No Deal look like trouble. The negos are already a farce and delay just gives the EU spew what it wants. I have a Yellow Jacket handy.
It will lead to the end of the Tory Party but these Tory turds seem to think they are unflushable. They aren’t but stupidity is a mental defence it is hard to get through.
Composed 2001 – ’03 under French ex-premier Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the EU’s never-ratified “Constitution for Europe” was a 1,200-page bureaucratic-Statist dog’s breakfast: Contradictory, convoluted, unintelligible by any benign construction whatsoever.
This bizarre-o exercise in dirigiste futility was not meant to fail, but rather to succeed by invoking whatever arcane, self-dealing provisions d’Estaing’s Enargue camarata might see fit.
“The carpenter said nothing but ‘Cut us another slice. I wish you were not half so deaf; I’ve had to ask you twice.'” (Lewis Carroll, 1871)
Aha! Johnathan, re Denis Leary: We’re having Roast Irish today!
LOL
Ecks,
It occurs to me that the reason the EU does not use its proper name, i.e. the European Union of Socialist States, is because it would be embarrassing to supposed conservatives who happen support it.
“They’ve gone from thinking that immigration is an economic boon — which it arguably is — to a necessity.”
Defenders of slavery made a similar progression of thought.
Will they use the actual humbler?
(nsfw)
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+humbler%22&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFiZyCnNDgAhVB5awKHeIMBnQQ_AUIDygC&biw=1295&bih=693
they had the advantage of the status quo
This is why the Leave vote was astoundingly relevant, people don’t like change, and for Leave to win is a momentous argument for why it should happen. Whilst we can talk about a “narrow” margin, the combination of long hard years, decades even, of campaigning for a referendum, then getting both main parties to support it, then having one, and then finally winning against the status quo, is a massive achievement, and should not be disregarded lightly.
What matters to me is whether the laws (regulations) that govern this land remain the same after “independence” as they are in the European Union.
If the answer is “yes we will have the same laws here as in the rest of the European Union” then we may have “Brexit” (an utterly meaningless made-up word), but we will NOT have independence. We will remain under the rule of the European Union.
For the fishermen – they do not even have to look up the regulations. If E.U. fishing boats are still in British waters after March 29th, then the fishermen will know that all this “Brexit” talk by Mrs May and co, was a LIE.
Even Iceland (a country that is tiny compares to the United Kingdom) has independence – so why not us? The only reason is the utter disloyalty of the “liberal” establishment elite.