Article in TIME.com
Category: Brexit
The End of Empire
It seems inevitable that a once too proud empire would shed its client states like old skin. The UK is the rump of a spent empire that is trying to protect its old-money rather than using it to make new wealth. What it is not noticing is that its fear of the other will continue to extend to whatever it at its event horizon or boundary of its awareness. It seems that Brexit is designed to continue this process of self-destruction.
The reason it has to be like this is the drives inherent in the conservation of wealth and domination. The lesson of literature is that leaders with too much power corrupt into wraiths frail and afraid as the anyone that they are. The media writes “how history will remember” a world leader as a future judgement, the last word, the dying insult. Which side of history will a leader end up on? Will it be to have their likeness carved into a mountain, or to be forgotten or reviled?
Not that history matters. Except if we can learn from it. And if the riches of the powerful may fuel corruption, the ravages of poverty do not grant inherent grace. The person at the centre of a myth is not necessary the main protagonist but the one with the best story.
Brazil – the film by Terry Gilliam should have been the salutary lesson. As a fiefdom of the great consumer America, we will become their administration, their slaves in civic obscurity as they enforce a red tape emporium of wonder upon our hapless souls.
Big mistake, Mrs May. Big mistake.
The EU is more liberal than the States. Exporting our souls may make us the cheapest source of quality labour to an overheating economy, but there are other things to consider.
We would have been wise to allow more generations of integration with our brilliant neighbours, instead we do not know the thousand year headache of administrative compliance that awaits us!
Or, we could do the wise thing, and let the people decide their fate.
Continued Brexit – the EU accept whatever deal the Government can agree on with a 100% risk of the firestorm that would be hard Brexit if the EU will not agree to it.
or
Continued EU Membership: Cancel the Article 50 letter and agree to remain in the EU being at the top table in actively demanding new rules to benefit all, so that while people’s rights are more universally respected an emphasis on building the wealth of each region by shared efficiencies of the whole commercial effort.
Brexit is just the beginning
The Government, led by a woman who really can not dance, is making sure that Brexit goes ahead, come what may. Why?
It is not good for the EU, it is bound to break the United part of the UK.
Meantime, Trump lies to his power-base. He belittles women and there they are in the audience applauding him. He could be saying anything and they would support him, in fact, the more outrageous he is, the more they applaud.
And it is the same in the ranks of the Conservative party. Theresa May throws scraps to the power hungry and they lap it up while plotting to take power. Her razor thin grasp of power perversely protects her grip. But her deal with the DUP threatens to undo it, so watch out for more compromised positioning that can only mean a united Ireland in the EU. And the DUP are beginning to
What the UK really faces is becoming a branch of Trump-land. After Brexit, the UK will have to replace the international trade agreements of the EU with the rest of the world, with their own. This will logically cause a recession as businesses relocate to the EU. Japan has already said that they see the UK as their gateway to Europe. No more. Notwithstanding the fact that the UK has proven itself an unreliable business partner, it has demonstrated how awful they are at negotiating.
Brexit is the start of something far worse. It will enable the Tories to indulge themselves in their awful, rotten and detrimental “solutions” like their treatment of the Windrush generation, the Grenfell tower calamity, the hostile environment policy May invented, the weak and ridiculous environmental policies of culling badgers and increasing the price of plastic bags instead of removing plastic (there is far more in food packaging than bags).
This is nothing short of a Right Wing revolution. People, it is time to rise up!
British Human Rights Abuses
The UK government has not done enough to prevent another Grenfell style disaster. They appear to leave this in the not as important as Brexit basket, and unfortunately for the citizens of this once proud country can expect the same kind of disregard for Human Rights in all (in)actions by this horribly ineffective Government. They have demonstrated how they have no concern for the citizens they rule over, except where it comes to removing human rights by not only departure from the executive functions of the EU (the British contribution is a
The commission said it was concerned that the consultation omits any reference to the government’s duty to protect lives under article 2 of the European convention on human rights and schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998. “This paramount duty requires the state to take appropriate steps within its power to effectively protect the lives of individuals and groups in situations where there is a known real risk to life, or where the authorities ought to have known that,” the commision said in its response to the consultation, shared with the Observer. The response continues: “Unfortunately, over a year after the catastrophic loss of more than 70 residents’ lives, many of the very systemic failings that led to the Grenfell Tower fire still exist now, giving rise, in our view, to an ongoing violation of article 2 ECHR/HRA by the state.”
Changes
Why did Trump win? Why did the UK vote to leave the EU? Is 2016 s year of change? It is, and that is the reason, people are voting for change. It is a stage of life – they need risk and danger. They need exposure to the new.
Racism in UK
The levels of racism stimulated and seemingly legitimised by “Brexit” have risen to levels that can only be described as irrational criminality.
The latest report, maybe not as awful as some of the terrible violence toward “immigrants” by awful idiots, highlights now some people seem to prefer the behaviour of Nazis to civilisation.
Foreign ownership and democracy
Comments on this article: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/22/britains-economy-shrinking-at-fastest-rate-since-2009-says-survey#comment-79670273
nalex
If they are buying British companies at a super discount due to the lower than actual value UK£ – the effect is a disproportional reduction in British Sovereignty. The FTSE100 is higher, indeed, when measured in UK£.
And we just keep selling our ARM shares for less than we could have. Does it matter? Not to anyone (other than the British).
ID5708273
What, do you mean all those foreign based companies making massive profits within the UK but paying no or little tax here whilst gaining considerable income from us as consumers meaning that there is a double whammy of our money going offshore whilst we are left with less to pay bigger bills!
No – I don’t think most people would get their head around that.
It would be like trying to understand all those years of being told our Government is not competent enough to run our utilities and railways as an excuse to sell them to companies owned by foreign Governments who apparently are more competent than ours!
nalex
I doubt the “nationality” of a company that services our needs really matters as much as if they are more efficient or effective at providing a service. We run a heavily import oriented economy, so of course we are more prepared to purchase than produce. It is exactly our own policies and activities that create that imbalance, not EU membership or where a company pays its taxes. Foreign ownership and the floating currency are both part of being part of the world. Does it matter? If they are better at running our utiities, building our power stations and distilling our petrol, then we import their services/products. If not, then we buy them back. I think our dominantly conservative economically oriented governments prefer not to be involved in producing electricity or running trains. So they sell to the highest bidder and provide laws to qualify which companies can compete in that market place. The alternative of us owning them ourselves does not seem like progress to me. Do you think we can run things better ourselves?
ID5708273
You are correct but only to a point.
Where the wealth ends up matters if it is outside your economy. That is why being in the EU is better for us, and why moving towards a global State to match the Global Economy is better.
Currently the drain outwards of British earned wealth and unpaid taxes reduces the internal cash flow and also the investment funds available. This draws upon more investment ultra our economy hastening the drain down terminally.
On the privatisation model you are correct again about the Government position, but again fail to consider the implication in reality. Instead of a single tier of trading, so cost represents the service plus management costs there is a multi tier contractor and sub contractor arrangement. This increases what we as consumers must pay without increasing the service we get in return. The extra cost converts to wealth received by the various tiers now engaged, which mostly means drained outside of our economy again.
nalex
The ownership of companies in private hands is supposed to incentivise the reduction of wasteful costs: so does foreign ownership work the same way as private ownership vs Government operation of public assets?
When there is a local sub-contractor, there is economic benefit to our tax base, but if we “must” sell assets into “foreign” hands (to satisfy the political order of the day) it follows that we are better connected into that consortium as you say, being in the EU has its benefits by creating a greater stabilisation of forces that result in real growth than a more isolated democratic fluctuation that may build and destroy in tandem.
The Brexit vote appears to me to have been excited by a need to blame forces out of our own control for our own problems. We are just as good at making inefficient models but without the massive buffering effect of a larger entity, we are going to become more exposed to the effects of rapid shifts of capital.
Sometimes democratic choices are wrong, and this one is also not fully democratic.