The left are keen to redefine the Brexit voters and the Trump voters as part of the world’s poor, left behind by the shiny new globalisation mainly left of centre governments like the US and France have brought them. They say they get it. Apparently the UK’s wish to be independent was no more than a protest vote by former steelworkers and low paid workers.If only we had left it to the civil servants, teachers and lawyers we would have got the right answer. The vote for Trump was a howl of anguish from the “Rustbelt”, a disobliging phrase used to describe swing states that voted the wrong way. Successful parts of the world were dismissed in a throw away description because one or two core industries had experienced a painful decline.
They extend this analysis to Brexit voters in the UK and AFD voters in Germany. Apparently we were all low skilled, down on our luck and uneducated. If only we had done as well at school and got to College as they did, we would not conceivably have voted the way we did.
This is of course self justifying nonsense. For every out of work steelworker who voted for Brexit there was a well qualified professional also voting for it. And why are they so scornful of the out of work steelworker, whose vote is worth the same as the lawyer and whose judgement may be better? For every low paid worker backing the AFD there is also a wide range of people who are far from struggling voting the same way. In order to get to 52% in the UK and to 48% in the USA for Mr Trump you need to do far more than mobilise the people who have lost out from globalisation.
Nor is it true to say all Brexit or Trump voters are anti all features of globalisation. Many of us are happy to work alongside talented people from other cultures, to have open borders for tourism, student exchange and business travel, to enjoy the benefits of good imports and to share technology around the world. We do not want to put the clock back to a world where there is little international trade in ideas and services.
The main features of globalisation which many dislike are the result of supra national government. There is a widespread feeling that too much is now dictated by the EU and by international Treaty. This prevents democratic engagement over our laws, and stops elected governments making changes people want.
There is also a widely held view that allowing in too many migrants year by year drives down wages, creates shortages of homes and public facilities, and changes communities too rapidly. This feeling is strong in many parts of the USA and Europe. Taking too many talented and skilled people from developing countries into unskilled work in the west also makes the economic progress of developing countries more difficult to achieve. It is related to the excessive international government, which insists on free movement to the higher paid places.
Most of the people who want a slower pace of inward migration to the US or UK are far from being racist. They do not wish to pick and choose people based on race or origins. They simply want fewer people overall. The extraordinary thing is how tenacious the elites are in trying to keep government away from people, by doing more and more through unaccountable global institutions and by treaty. As Labour implied in the UK, if the politicians do not like the way people vote in elections and referendums, then they set out to change the people. That is why both sides get so angry with each other.
November 22, 2016
Excellent analysis JR.
“The extraordinary thing is how tenacious the elites are in trying to keep government away from people, by doing more and more through unaccountable global institutions and by treaty.”
Yes, and this needs to be called out for what it is – plutocracy, a society ruled or controlled by the small minority.
P.S. Your site and some others were not accessible over the weekend in parts of Europe. I half-wondered if the new EU Border Agency was testing out its powers…
November 22, 2016
“Through unaccountable global institutions and by treaty”
… and through collaboration with multinational companies, fixing the rules to increase their grip on power.
November 22, 2016
After watching Claire Perry, Tory MP, today I would say she is as good an advert for not liking the establishment. She would not accept her failure to deliver a balanced budget making all sorts of excuses and exaggerations over what had been achieved moreover still wanted to blame Labour! Takes credit does not crept responsibility for failure. She smeared Farage about Blokey politics, getting her facts wrong, Trump suggested him to be ambassador not the other way around. If a man made such a comment she would undoubtedly claim it sexist. Presumably as May is PM she is bringing in girlie politics? She made similar unsubstantiated claims and fears about Brexit without any substance to support her claims/remarks. No wonder she worked with Osborne. An ideal fit. Her performance was pitiful but spot on for establishment think that we all reject.
November 22, 2016
JR, you also forgot quangos. This is the way to introduce EU regulation and directives without fuss or notice to the public and then speciouslu claim it is not EU law!
Let us also be clear May is responsible for the record amount of immigration in UK history, she is also responsible for allegedly losing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants- I submit they were not lost but deliberately let go. She is also responsible for record numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. What has she actually done to curb or prevent any of these categories entering our country since becoming PM? The current useless Home Secretary sent some staff to look for children in Calais and came back with more adults! We were told this would help human traffickers by Cameron and that only people from established camps would be allowed in the U.K. Our navy acting as a ferry service for the human trafficke to save them fuel!
How do these issues rest with your blog and your party’s actual position and action on such matters? Good to read Trump suggesting Farage has a role with US UK relations. Will May be too proud to give him a role that would help our country?
November 22, 2016
“Apparently we were all low skilled, down on our luck and uneducated. If only we had done as well at school and got to College as they did, we would not conceivably have voted the way we did.”
JR you have almost quoted verbatim what was said on the BBC and Sky News about Trump. They showed charts “proving ” college educated people voted Democrat and white working class as they bravely said, with no academic qualifications, voted for the outrageous, nasty racist Trump. A watered down version was stated for why British people voted for Leave. They blamed it…yes blamed it… on people Up North..even right up to Sunderland…JUST industrial workers.
The media here and in the USA plus Democrats and Remainers are quite OK with saying outright that ignorant and prejudiced people alone vote for Brexit and for Trump.
Well it is an education indeed. We should be grateful, I know I am, to learn we can vote the right way: the good way, if we study for at least a year classic books like Peter Pan ( with a Companion book explaining the subtle meanings ) . That it was misogynist in that Wendy was painted as a bit naive and Pan refers to male dominance. Also racist because they were fighting foreigners. Elitist too, for there was a nanny..the rank of a dog. Typical bourgeois literature of British colonial days! Also as Mr Corbyn says critical of disabled people, insulting, as is evidenced with Captain Hook. Poor man!
Yes they do this especially on American campuses..really! Some have already banned Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. and other “white-privilege” books. The list covers most of English literaure.
November 22, 2016
Indeed, it is all classic Frankfurt school style cultural marxism – set in motion to indoctrinate children from an early age to rely on state approved views and break the familial links wherever possible….
Perhaps the rebellion votes this year have genuinely surprised them in that they thought that they had a critical mass of voters who would eschew any non state approved (EU big government supporting) views….. They were clearly wrong as there is a far higher covert number of people who do not agree with the ‘agenda’ and are now prepared to admit it and vote against it despite the tentacles of the politically correct thought police and pervading behavioural ‘norms’ which we are bombarded with on the TV. One of the reasons the global elite, or ‘shiny left of centre governments’ as John puts it, are so venemously against Putin and pro sanction, is not because he is the ‘Russian menace’ (laughable anyway when you compare the disparity in military spending and foreign bases with USA) but because he does not go along with their ‘agenda’ (as HRC once quaintly put it) and supports the family structure…..
zorro
November 22, 2016
Yet do not forget that Captain Hook went to Eton!
November 22, 2016
Floreat Etona
November 22, 2016
Trump at a recent press meeting called the media present deceitful liars. I think they were under no illusion what he thinks of them and what they did during the election campaign. Good for him especially calling out CNN.
November 23, 2016
The public sector is infected with liberal lefty ideas. Today Nottinghamshire police in the papers advertising for recruits, leaving people to ask if white heterosexual males are allowed to apply.
Why should anyone have to disclose their ethnicity or sexual orientation. How about leaving it to thier potential ability to do the job? People will make up their own minds if they want a career in policing or not.
November 22, 2016
As we see it it isn’t the Leave campaign denying us of the £350m a week at the moment, it’s Mrs May who’s doing that.
What we certainly aren’t seeing is the disaster predicted by Leave. So let’s call it quits on the differences, eh ?
I never took it to mean that £350m would be going to the NHS every week. That was not what was said.
November 22, 2016
This was to Sam Stoner’s comment at 6.07
November 22, 2016
You write: “In order to get to 52% in the UK and to 48% in the USA for Mr Trump you need to do far more than mobilise the people who have lost out from globalisation” and of course this is correct, but you do not get to 52% in the UK and to 48% in the USA for Mr Trump without mobilising the people who have lost out from globalisation. And both LEAVE and Trump mobilised them by making a great many promises about how things would improve that were simply not and never could be true – 350m for the NHS and building a wall were simply the most eyecatching examples. People will grasp they’ve been taken for fools. That’s when things will get really dangerous.
November 22, 2016
Why do you think those 17m people are so dim? Sure there were foolish claims on both sides in the referendum – £350m pw for the NHS if we leave, but also recession and 3m jobs at risk if we dare to do so etc. The simple fact is that what has support in the U.K. is friendly political and cultural relations with the EU, easy travel for business, tourism and study, and of course free trade. The reason Remain lost was they failed completely to explain why all that requires ever more powerful supra-national government.
November 22, 2016
Indeed a supra-national and profoundly anti-democratic.
The savings from leaving the EU could be far more than the £ 350M per week if we had a sensible Pm who went for huge deregulation, low simple taxes, a much smaller state, no HS2, Hinkley, lagoons and cheap energy.
Alas we seem to have another interventionist Libdim ditherer so far. Hopefully a sensible direction tomorrow, but I will not get my hopes up.
November 22, 2016
Still waiting for my immediate recession and punishment budget with income tax increases for all ….. still waiting …..
November 22, 2016
Brexit hasn’t happened yet (if ever it will) so please be patient!
November 22, 2016
The only “fools” that I have seen are the ones who keep drumming on about a promise of 350 million for the NHS which was never made. I worry with their inability to be able to read a simple sentence who they get to fill in official documents and job applications.
November 22, 2016
@MickN: The infamous battle bus only featured a simple sentence with only one priority – the NHS. Very deceitful. Even your own Nigel Farage confessed that this was a campaign mistake.
November 23, 2016
Peter v L
Yes and that simple sentence said “We send £350 million per week to the EU lets fund our NHS instead”. That sentence does NOT say lets spend ALL of it on the NHS .
Lefties call leavers thick………
November 23, 2016
‘Let’s’ is a suggestion not a promise, guarantee or commitment either. Seems many people cannot understand English.
November 22, 2016
They are trying to improve the situation, unlike you who is quite happy to accept it, and do nothing except wring your hands and berate people for not making politically correct choices…. The swamp needs to be drained. Can you fit through the plughole?
For the umpteenth time, there never was an explicit promise to spend exactly £350m on the NHS….. It could have been more, and that would have been up for our national government to decide. That was the point. The bus said that our entry fees to the Customs Union were £350m per year….actually, it was £362m at the time. It then said that instead we could fund the NHS better than it was at the moment. It is you and your ilk who come up with the specious £350m for NHS argument. That’s called a ‘strawman’ argument…..
It must be concerning for you to know that not so many people follow your ‘agenda’. If you don’t like it, maybe you need to find a ‘safe space’ or ease your frustrations by lobbing a few hashtags at ‘them’……
zorro
November 22, 2016
“Get to” means ‘count up to’ not ‘persuade’
The problem for those of us who want Brexit is persuading politicians to do as they are told.
(I could, but I won’t, put some letters after my name)
November 22, 2016
Really. So have Osborne “threatening” us with a post-Brexit budget designed to punish us is OK then? If Brexit was likely to cause World War III (according to Cameron) then why did he call it in the first place? Shall I tell you what is really dangerous? When Parliament and the Judiciary decide to ignore the democratic will of the people. We had a Civil War for less reasons than that. I’ll tell you what won it for Leave. People were never consulted about uncontrolled immigration, not once. When it drives down wages, and negatively impacts on local services then people get upset. When they raise the issue. they are ignored, which makes them angry, and when they raise it again they are called racists, xenophobes, islamophobes and any other “ist” or “phobe” you care to mention. When people like you. come the old “uneducated and gullible” lark, it only serves to make people do the exact opposite of what you want them to do. Did nobody think that insulting and generally traducing your electorate was and is a bad move?
Through their sense of entitlement, snobbishness, and treating us mere plebs as scum of the earth, they have created the very result they feared the most. Time I think to start listening to people, don’t you?
November 22, 2016
£350m pw to the NHS was never a ‘promise’ of the Leave campaign – you’ve been taken in by the anti Brexit media! Spending more on the NHS using our current EU subscription was only ever portrayed as an option for a future post Brexit democratically elected UK government.
November 22, 2016
@MPC: Your battle bus mentioned only one priority for spending the 350 million pounds a week. Pretty deceitful.
November 23, 2016
PvL
Try reading the battle bus slogan again , it does not say all of it will be spent on the NHS
By the way the agreed budget for the NHS for next two years is to spend an extra £3 billion , so by the time we’ve left the EU and got our money back they will probably not be far off that target anyway
November 22, 2016
Correct.
November 22, 2016
The NHS can never work efficiently as structured, it is an anti -competitive, badly run, death causing disaster area.
May said yesterday that she believes in free markets, yet the NHS kills nearly all competition by forcing people to pay for it, use it or not. The plonker Osborne also put a 10% tax on any private insurance too. Already paid for out of taxed income at up to 45%.
November 22, 2016
Here we go again – we were lied to.
When will people like you begin to understand we voted to leave the EU simply because we want our country back, it has nothing to do with what was said about more money for the NHS but EVERYTHING to do with leaving a failing, unreformable, corrupt, undemocratic and authoritarian EU.
November 22, 2016
Correct.
November 22, 2016
Some people believed Heath when he told us that free movement hadn’t occured between ‘The Six’ and wasn’t expected to happen in the future. Then the EEC became the EU and the poor countries of Eastern Europe were roped in.
Some people continue to believe that the preamble to the Treaty of Rome doesn’t exist and that the EU has no desire for ‘ever closer union’.
November 22, 2016
Sam Stoner
I and every single person that I know who voted to Leave ( and I know an awful lot of people, specially in business ) did not vote that way because of the alleged £350 million . The fact that you want to be believe such incredulous nonsense shows which side of this debate the not very bright reside on.
The fact that you and the liberal left dont know there IS already a wall and the fact that you can’t tell the difference between gross and net figures hardly qualifies you as having voted based on a superior knowledge . I haven’t heard ONE SINGLE leave voter say they have been misled…. not one….. So maybe you might like to give evidence. Meanwhile the Remain side through their spokesperson James McGrory were caught bang to rights first by Andrew Neil then even further by Guido Fawkes falsifying video clips . Sadly I can’t predict that the remain side will be angry about this because they dont really like facts anyway the remainers prefer Post Truth news
November 22, 2016
Correct.
November 22, 2016
I bet ‘LEAVE and Trump’ didn’t mobilise all the people who have lost out on globalisation any more than were the REMAIN and Clinton supporters all from the white liberal college educated elite.
A lot of us ‘LEAVERS’ voted precisely for the reason Mr Redwood says – because we have no wish to be governed by unelected third-rate bureaucrats operating in a multi-state institution.
Incidentally, Sam, I was never ‘fooled’ by either the £350m or by George Osborne’s £4000 per family and I don’t think very many people were.
Just because you disagree with us doesn’t mean that we’re all fools, you know.
November 22, 2016
What’s this “£350m for the NHS”? Have you heard that somewhere?
Here’s a moderately interesting report today: Liberal Democrats whining that councils in Scotland could lose out by £46 million of EU funding a year:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scots-councils-to-lose-out-on-46m-of-eu-funds-after-brexit-1-4295656
Nowhere in the article is it pointed out that this is just a part of UK taxpayers’ money being returned from Brussels with strings attached; so how would you describe that, as a “lie” or a “deception” or just an “omission”?
One of the good things about the referendum campaign is that more people now understand that, even if there can still be disputes over the numbers – incidentally, if you look at pages 3, 13 and 14 in this Treasury report:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/483344/EU_finances_2015_final_web_09122015.pdf
you will see that for 2014 the number corresponding to the official description “Gross payments” is £18,777 million, which works out as £361 million a week; would you want to quibble over that £11 million difference?
So when I look at the comments added to that LibDem propaganda piece in the Scotsman I see that the “omission” has been spotted by readers, for example:
“For every £1 we get from the EU we have to give £2.30. It gives us nothing but our own money back minus a hefty commission with a set of conditions on how we can spend it.”
November 22, 2016
No-one promised anything on the Leave side. They weren’t in power and they weren’t running for it. People are not as stupid as remainiacs like to make out. They worked it out for themselves after many years in the EU and listening to and reading various arguments.
It would have been a good thing if the government and civil service had given more actual figures, for example how many EU passport holders had come, how many were on benefits, how many in prison, how many in council houses and flats, how many on top up benefits, how much money was being sent back etc, etc. Also how many extra cars, vans, and lorries were on our roads. But we were never going to get those figures.
It would also have been good to have had a discussion about what was the optimum population for these islands from the long term environmental point of view, not the short term plutocratic one. But population, such a popular subject pre-Blair, is never mentioned now.
People used their common sense. They were practical. They could see for themselves what was happening and they remembered it wasn’t always so. When, for example, pre EU, did a British PM have to crawl round 27 countries begging permission for his chancellor to alter the tax on tampons?
People knew we had been independent in their lifetimes or the lifetimes of their parents and that independence was better and more efficient than foreign rule. Unlike for the plutocrats, money was not the main consideration. For example, many farming communities voted for independence knowing they might lose their EU grants. This was not stupidity or lack of university education, but a higher sense of what matters.
November 22, 2016
Another figure the civil service might have given was how many people from other continents had come in on EU passports and the aforementioned figures for them.
November 22, 2016
The trouble is that people have already grasped they’ve been taken for fools by the establishment just ousted, and the ones who have been doing the fooling can’t face up to reality.
November 22, 2016
Utter nonsense.
Where have you been for the last twenty years? Don’t you speak to anyone? Don’t you have normal conversations?
Get out and about and meet people. Not the public sector but people who actually work for a living and pay for everything that the state happily fritters away – because they’ve been dissatisfied for decades.
November 22, 2016
I think we have actually reached the tipping point where the western public know they are being spoon fed propaganda by the media, legacy party politicians, corporations, and the institutions. The lies and project fear have been shown to be absolute lies and the credibility of the establishment is shot here and elsewhere. They just haven’t caught up with the public yet or the conversations going on in the real world! When is Carney being sacked?
The biggest lies were told by the remoaners who could not justify a federalist Europe/our democracy, so didn’t mention it or justify it.
November 22, 2016
You remainers won’t let go of the slogan on the bus will you?
Is that all you have?
November 22, 2016
Sam Stoner, to believe that the infamous £350million per week would be spent on the NHS you would have to believe that a) Vote Leave as distinct from Leave.EU, Ukip and every other campaign group for leaving the EU was an alternative government, b) that you were voting in an election, not a referendum, and c) that there wee no other demands on the public purse. What kind of naive idiot would believe that, the kind that believes ads claiming you can’t tell margarine from butter, that Omo washes whiter?
Second, the claim was made only by Vote Leave, never by Nigel Farage who publicly disowned it on BBC TV, but the Remainers persisted in attributing it to him – a lie.
Third the error in the statement that £350 million a week is sent to Brussels is technical. Cash is not actually sent and it is s gross rather than net figure, ergo somewhat misleading. Only somewhat because the amount of Britain’s rebate and grants from the EU is not decided by Britain but by the EU. It is negotiated, true, but there is no way Britain can refuse the EU’s final offer. So the truth is that the £350 million a week is no longer Britain’s money but is owed to the EU, and some of it the EU in its benevolence allows to be returned to Britain.
Of course we never heard the Remainers explaining that the EU not Britain decides how much rebate and grants Britain gets back. So the Remainers were just as, if not more deceitful.
November 23, 2016
The rebate is not like an upfront discount applied to each year’s contribution, it is instead reimbursement of over-payments in previous years. So the full unabated amount is credited to Brussels each year, and only after the end of the year does it become possible to calculate how much has been over-paid and should be rebated. Most of the reimbursement for a given year is made in the next year, but some may not be paid until the following year or even later years as adjustments are made and the calculations are refined. It is hellish complicated, needless to say, and even Andrew Tyrie the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee got it wrong when he criticised the Leave campaign over their claim.
November 22, 2016
I agree with you entirely. And No the red bus didn’t promise 350m to NHS. It wouldn’t have mattered to me what anyone said I would still have voted to leave and so did the people who voted for David Cameron at the last election. The Remain side could say nothing positive about the EU they just bullied and threatened. The Leave side were just so relaxed, kind and calm. It was a quiet revolution. The attitude of the Remain side has shocked me. Their language has been insulting and supercilious which has shown not a very pleasant side of their character. I was so proud of those people who voted to leave against all the threats but that feeling has gradually turned to anger at these people and I have to say some of my tweets have shown that which isn’t very good. A lot of people are angry and when I hear that Tony Blair/Richard Branson and others are forming a group to fight for a second referendum knowing that another layer of brainwashed students will be voting to remain, I am even more angry. At 73 I will not be marching but I am concerned, because if I’m angry many others will be and this could end badly. I am of the opinion that Theresa May should invoke A50 asap. I appreciate the Government are endeavouring to work out how best to fulfill the wishes of the referendum whilst still being friends with Europe. The BBC, Guardian and pro EUMP have been frustrating this process whilst not coming up with any ideas themselves. They are just grumbling, sitting and waiting and spreading rumours and moaning to the rest of the world and their friends the EU. It’s just sickening. Finally they are calling Great Britain a fascist state which has shocked me, because to me that is what sThe EU is.
November 22, 2016
It’s comical. The bloated media people. They said Farage was a racist. Also hypocritical because he has German relatives and he is rich. Mr Trump is rich. Also telling lies that he is rich. Can’t be so rich. They fear speaking about foreigners and ethnic minorities in his family. There are so many. Afraid to speak of his education, superior to their own . Frightened to show his audiences on camera because of their vast number and because of their ethnic and religious diversity. In panic they never show the veterans, able bodied and walking wounded, many, many, who voluntarily people his huge audiences, appear on stage with him at their own request. Never show the religious leaders of all colours at the beginning of his rallies urging people to vote for him.
It would be nice here in the UK if the Remoaner crybaby thumbsuckers and their media would simply accept the democratic “X” of Leave. Of course it is hard being thoroughly roundly beaten in a vote. Made to look like clowns and jesters of yore. The subject of public ridicule and silly pub jokes. But none of us is trying to rub in that most famous of defeats when they were so soundly and completely wiped off the UK political agenda for all time. Erased as it were from the narrative of sensible democratic discourse. As if they had suddenly become unimportant and useless.
The truth does not fit into the mire that is the news coverage of the BBC and Sky News.
November 22, 2016
Good morning.
An excellent piece from our kind host today. Thank you.
Essentially this is about empowerment. The people, when they finally get a chance to be heard, use it ! And this is perhaps one of the many reasons those that live in the ‘bubble’, whether that be government, media or academy simply do not understand why something has happened. It is because they have become so removed from ordinary people and their lives and surrounded themselves with similar and like-minded people that they cannot fathom an alternative thought other than their own.
November 22, 2016
Here in the UK, in Germany and in the USA the answer is simple. No one asked us.
No one asked us …if we should have a Juncker, or an EU army, or if we wished to live, work, go to school with people from other parts. We were not told about Ms Lagarde of the IMF and that she should dare to tell us, advise us what to do. That the German, Dutch and French leaders thought they should advise us. No one asked our say so.
Most of us like foreigners. They are interesting, tell us all kinds of stories. Are attractive. Beautifully mysterious. When they don’t come, two million of us set off each year to go visit their countries to eat drink and party.
But, no-one asked us if we wanted to see them for more than a holiday. We could very well have said “You bet! . But no-one thought they should ask us. As if this is not our own home at all. Not polite! Not democratic! Not British!
November 22, 2016
With Mr Farage soon to be the UK ambassador to the US, no doubt the “special relationship” will flourish, globalization will be stopped and immigration reduced!
November 22, 2016
I heard a better one today – that Nigel Farage should be made the US Ambassador to the EU !
November 22, 2016
Sarcasm the lowest form of wit and the highest form of ignorance. Your comments do you think them up yourself or do you refer to the book ” How to deal with unpalatable truths” authored by socialists and progressive? Chapter one I believe deals with insulting the source. Other chapters deal with shouting it down, name calling fascist being the preferred one of choice when all others fail, not to forget to belittle them as is the method you have chosen this time. In the event of none of them working then there is always the protest marches where with a bit of luck a few of those who do not agree with you can be given a bit of a duffing up. All for the cause of course.
November 22, 2016
PVL, as we say here – “Cat among the pigeons” – should get somebody’s feathers ruffled.
I wonder what a young Dutchman will do in the sandy countries this weekend 🙂
November 22, 2016
Not up to your usual standard. Both relevance and provocation quotients slipping.
You seem to be trying too hard. Why are you so interested in what is essentially an internal British debate?
November 23, 2016
@James Matthews: Mr. Trump is world news, nothing internal British about it, my dear judge and adjudicator! Why not counter the argument itself. Why snub your Mr Trump if you are keen to build further improve this special relationship and many people apparently want this.
November 23, 2016
@ Peter Van Leeuwen. Whatever the importance of Trump, you comment above has close to zero relevance to the post above from Mr Redwood. It is just a bit of random teasing of British Eurosceptics. Basically a pseudo-clever remark for its own sake..
My question was much wider. You constantly comment on matters related to Britain leaving the EU on this blog. Britain leaving the EU is essentially a matter for the British, not the Dutch (and the special relationship , in which I have no great interest ,is a matter for the British and the North Americans, not the Dutch).
An occasional comment from the Netherlands might be understandable, but the amount of time and effort you spend tweaking the tails of Eurosceptics in another country is not.
What are trying to achieve?
November 25, 2016
@James Matthews: The people “who are against the world establishment” are largely the people who are against globalisation and uncontroled immigraton (need protection). This sufficiently simplifies the relevance for you, I hope. OK, I chipped in “special relationship” – because ambassadors deal with relationship and the Trump suggestion was breaking news that day (it took a little longer to have my remark posted in this blog, not the moderators fault though)
The Netherlands is very much part (if not victim) of the Brexit divorce procedure, that should not be difficult to understand either. I don’t give more than an occasional remark (but value and respond to interaction), and mostly when there are anti-EU posts. I’m not trying to achieve anything.
November 22, 2016
PvL
Then do what you need to do. Take away democracy in its present form and give it back to only those people who are educated and intelligent enough to support the Hive Mind. Some in the CofE are already calling for this reformation.
But you cannot – simply cannot – expect to impose uncontrolled immigration upon a vote-holding population and expect there not to be consequences through the ballot box. Especially when your class sticks what you think are cleverly disguised barbs in them every time they question policy.
November 22, 2016
Its unlikely that Farage will be given the role but perhaps Geert Wilders could apply? However, it looks increasingly likely he’ll be in charge soon in the Netherlands! One more nail in the EU coffin.
November 23, 2016
@Timaction: Apart from not being British, I doubt that Wilders would serve British interests in such a role, Farage would.
November 22, 2016
PVL: nothing you ever post is supported by fact. ‘Fact’ is not part of your understanding about anything!
November 23, 2016
@R De Witt Jansen: “Fact” is that this appointment was suggested my the president elect himself. Fact is that the Trump-Farage relationship is excellent. Fact is that Farage is a true Brexiteer, even more faithful to the doctrine than your own PM. Need more facts?
November 22, 2016
Talking sense at last!
November 22, 2016
Establishment ??
So who appoints British Ambassadors?
The Queen, Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary or even parliament?
NO The President elect of somewhere and his pal !
Perhaps our parliament should suggest an out of work steelworker !
Sovereignty ???
November 22, 2016
Is anyone going to challenge this 20th century neoliberal throwback? I’m concerned that you don’t look at both the Brexit situation and Trump’s election in the round. It sounds like demagoguery to dismiss the concern that Brexit and Trump were to a large extent protest votes about feeling powerless with the status quo. There were obviously a range of people – professionals and low skilled manual alike – that voted for different reasons, but what all would agree on, and there is ample empirical evidence for, is that successive governments, in which you have been a participant to greater and lesser extents since 1988, have overseen a massive increase in income inequality. Many voted for Brexit and Trump in order to address the powerlessness to do anything about this increasing disparity in prosperity. Where’s your blog post about that truth, Redwood? And where is your evidence that any of your proposed solutions over the last 30 years have every worked to increase the prosperity of the majority of UK citizens? There is none, that’s why you cannot produce any. However, as a politician with scant regard for things like evidence and fact, your post does have a somewhat superficial entertainment value designed to hoodwink “the people” that you are on their side and not on the side of your upper middle class rich City mates. I challenge you to allow this comment through this time – go on, it’ll make you look statesmanlike to have something other than sycophancy in your comments in response.
November 22, 2016
The subversion of our decision to leave is becoming clearer. Mrs May is hinting that we can have a soft interim deal and Mrs Merkel seems to be relenting on the control of movement. last night on LBC an EU bureaucrat phoned in , about 7.45 to explain that a group had worked out a deal which would be legal and terribly helpful to the UK and the EU.
We leave and have our sovereignty back applying movement control, but we have a transitional arrangement where we keep trading as at present and sort out all the details over many years. What the presenter forgot to ask was- ‘aAnd do we keep paying for your futher integration and problems caused by it, while having no vote?’. They are becoming really worried about losing their second biggest mug. perhaps they think we are as thick as Lord Kerr the Bilderbuger does. Mrs May seemed to too when she told us we already had control of borders and that she counts numbers by interviews about staying a year.
The Sunday Times had a short piece on the Kerr view. We need immigration to allow us to top up. Perhaps, judging from some of the interviews and judgements from our best legal brains, he is right.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news-review/the-week-that-was-5vqv68n6d
November 22, 2016
Exactly they want to change the people or they just ignore them by anti democratic means. One vote every 40 odd years on the EU and one every five for the least bad option as an MP and the Lords stuffed with dire establishment Libdem think unelected toadies does not make a real democracy.
Counties that are more democratic such as Switzerland do rather better in economic and lifestyle terms. Wealth follows good democratic structures in general. So long as they do not elect lefty, Corbynite, magic money tree people too often that is. But they can usually see through these types as they did with Ed Miliband.
True the Scot and Welsh do seem to get it wrong quite often and do seem like these empty promises of other people’s money and the evil politics of envy.
November 22, 2016
@Lifelogic – “True the Scot and Welsh do seem to get it wrong quite often and do seem like these empty promises of other people’s money and the evil politics of envy.”
More than 1 million Scots voted for Brexit despite the “Leave” campaign being pretty much invisible up here. We are not all seduced by the politics of envy/magic money tree economics/blame Westminster for everything, but are rarely heard above the cacophony from the SNP.
November 22, 2016
John,
If we (the white working class) are so stupid and easily mis-informed then a large number of us must have voted Remain surely?
My relative voted Remain believing her savings were at risk post Brexit, forget that she’s been a lifetime BNP voter, for her, the vote was about her retirement fund.
November 22, 2016
I’ve not met a Remain voter who voted Remain for any reasons other than totally selfish short-term ones, like having houses abroad or a holiday booked where they might want to use data roaming.
I haven’t met a single one who has said:
“I wanted to remain in the EU because I believe in a Federal European superstate in which traditional cultures are consigned to history. Because I believe that the proletariat is too stupid to be productive by itself, and I think a group of bureaucrats should tell everyone what to do because they know best. And I believe that the governing class should work entirely on behalf of multinational corporations who have everything already but still want more, and will take it at any cost.
“I voted Remain because I believe we should all give up our future generations’ birthrights to whoever the governing class decides to invite to our homes, and I believe we should pay for it in every way conceivable. I voted Remain because I want my kids to be part of an EU security force which does nothing but keep its own citizens in place because the EU is too naive to formulate a coherent foreign policy”.
If anyone ever came out with that I would have considerably more respect for them than someone who voted Remain for the reasons stated in my first paragraph. Those who fit in to the short-term selfish category are the ones who are the truly stupid because they cannot see that that is what the EU is heading towards.
Globalisation is not about everyone singing and dancing in the daisies.
I couldn’t give a monkey’s about £350m a week to the NHS. As long as it doesn’t go towards Juncker’s lunch fund you can throw it in the North Sea as far as I’m concerned.
November 23, 2016
Very well said. Absolutely agree about Remainers who voted for selfish short-term motives or misinformed idealism (thanks, BBC). Most knew very little about the EU, its history and political motives.
If it helps at all, I also know many very intelligent Leave voters, successful business people with second homes across Europe who took the scare stories with a huge pinch of salt. Mainly because they know how business and travel works, and weren’t entirely motivated by self-interest but by principles and a genuine wish to seize the chance to remake a country – a continent, even – that was not sliding towards undemocratic authoritarianism and was more accountable to all.
We’re The Missing, though, in all the propaganda fests that pass for news and debate in the media, especially on TV and radio. You won’t see us being interviewed about Brexit because we might just be persuasive and eloquent. And the BBC etc can carry on with the insulting premise that all Leave voters are troglodytes.
November 22, 2016
People on low wages simply do not pay enough into the system, for all the services that they use. They need houses, school places, roads, police, health ……. and might only pay in £3000 a year in NI and tax. Much of that might even come back in rent and rates reductions, free school dinners, free prescriptions, childcare, family allowance …..
So others have to pay for the house and all the rest for them.
November 22, 2016
You who are so “scientific” and able with numbers should have realised that you are discarding about half the UK population. £3000 tax corresponds to about a total income of £26,000/year, just below the UK median income.
I am not sure you would ever make any type of politician with such a ridiculous comment.
November 22, 2016
They set out to change the people but they constantly lie about them too.
One or two on this site are always resorting to accusations of ‘xenophobia’. This is dishonest, hurtful and extremely frustrating and is why we get angry.
In fact we have been the models of patience and restraint but this goes completely unacknowledged.
This is understandable, whereas the likes of Newmania gets angry because people dare to think and vote differently to him.
November 22, 2016
They set out to change the people but they constantly lie about them too.
Should read:
One or two on this site are always resorting to accusations of ‘xenophobia’. This is dishonest, hurtful and extremely frustrating and is why we get angry. This is understandable, whereas the likes of Newmania gets angry because people dare to think and vote differently to him.
In fact we on the Brexit side have been the models of patience and restraint but this goes completely unacknowledged. 5 months, no movement on Brexit and no riots. Imagine if the reverse situation applied. Perhaps that’s why the Left always get their way.
November 22, 2016
Some Conservatives are that way too. Had the misfortune to hear some Today in Parliament last night
regarding the Abuse enquiry with the multiple resignations and women in their 60s suddenly having to wait extra years for the state pension.
One can imagine Trump or Farage just seeing what is ridiculous and doing something about it. Almost cheered on Labour for their passion. P. Bone was the only Con who sounded human.
November 22, 2016
It’s amazing how many foreigners , especially Europeans , fail to understand that Brexit was about reverting to being self governing .
Why do the same liberal progressives who go overboard when a developing world country becomes independent accuse patriotic Britons of being racist and xenophobic ?
Regardless , this is all a red herring .
Unfortunately the establishment has managed to associate Brexit with specific , unreliable personalities like Boris who never really believed strongly in the first place .
Civil servants won’t be much help with Brexit and a failure of the MP’s charged with implementing and negotiating will be used as a reason for not going through with it .
The Brexit euphoria was great whilst it lasted but every day it is becoming clearer that Brexit is dead in the water .
November 22, 2016
The remoaners are desperate to rationalise Brexit, Trump, and any other gesture by the people. They cannot accept that what they have created has been rumbled by large swathes of the UK, USA, and increasingly, European people. It was and still is, in the case of Europe, a totalitarian power base that treats the people as milch cows to supply the labour and taxes to feed their philosophy of liberal elitism knows best.
I still maintain that the thinking behind it stemmed from Bilderberg, which incidentally has not gone away. It has lowered itself below the parapet to lick it’s wounds for a while.
For sure we in the UK need to think carefully about how we operate democratically. At the moment we only pay lip service to the idea, and I do not think the current system is fit for purpose. Elections every five years and top down, quangoised, lobby group rule will not wash in future. Let’s think about how we further involve the people. So in response to your headline, “The People”.
November 22, 2016
The establishment – whatever that really means , has so often it wrong and failed the voters . Globalisation has also ridden rough-shod over local enterprise . National identity is the real key to democracy , it singles out the values and integrity of a country and makes clear to all citizens and residents that what is cherished will not be modified .
Such messages uttered by Churchill during the 2nd World War , rallied this country into a degree of determination to resist outside forces that were intent on dominating us . The cry is the same today ; we will not water down our values and we will not be interfered with . Our innovators , producers and service operators have much to offer the world ; these standards are a beacon to challenge keeping us on our toes and making others look up in envy . Keep bureaucracy at bay and individuality alive .
November 22, 2016
As ever you tell it as it is! However it is worth reflecting on how we got to the position you describe and a great deal of the reason must be the reluctance of the other side to promulgate the case for freedom and market forces in an effective way. Hayek’s ‘The Road to Serfdom’ should be required reading for every schoolchild. The message will get through if someone at the top believes in it and delivers it as Mrs Thatcher found; she may not have convinced many in her Government, but she found a ready audience in the electorate and Mrs May and her crew would do well to ponder this.
On a positive note, it was good to see Oliver Leftwing when interviewed on the TV yesterday evening making it clear that although he had voted remain he was now working to help achieve Brexit in accordance with the popular mandate.
November 22, 2016
Excellent article, John.
On a different matter, please could you explain to your boss that all the ‘damage’ of Brexit has already been done, almost all of it by the BOE, the Treasury and the BBC. What we need now is a fast, clean break so we can start to build our country, build our global trade agreements and relationships, striking while the iron is hot in the USA. A ‘transition Brexit’ is the worst idea I have heard, and seems a fearful and dishonest way to move forward.
November 22, 2016
I agree, lojolondon. In giving notice of his intention to reject the TPP provisional agreement, the President-elect said he wanted instead “fair. bi-lateral, trade deals”. If the US can negotiate such deals, we should be able to do so too. The opportunities are limitless. Let’s just get on with it……
November 22, 2016
A final or long term treaty with transitional provisions would be OK, as explained in my as yet unpublished comment on the last thread.
If as the CBI worry there would be a sudden need for more warehouses to store goods and more supply roads then the answer it to make sure that it would not be a sudden need which could not be fulfilled at short notice, instead any such need would only arise some years later when the agreed transitional period came to an end.
November 22, 2016
Soft Brexit (no Brexit) it is then.
November 22, 2016
There’s another thing and it goes to the heart of it.
Whether you’re educated or not, instinctively people felt it, gnawing at their sense of innate decency, common sense is not common in many well educated men and the British felt that their system of governance was becoming utterly imbalanced, distant and aloof thus, belief, their equanimity was being shaken, wherein accountability, equity, even justice – had gone walkabout and we didn’t like it, not at all.
Hence, those Supranational bodies, making more rules and reg’s, is just taking the micheal, what’s worse we were not sitting at the top tables of these bodies drafting laws and making diktat sending them down unto us – lowly mortals in the UK.
Britons abhor duplicity, this overt casuistry and being taken for a ride, because the game is skewed and Brits hate that with a pent up fury our executive and indeed the commentariat, punditocracy, corporate blob, investment banksters, lawyers and legal establishment, the UK Socialist intelligentsia still seem to be blithely unaware.
Aye, the best that they can do, to call us as thickos – how puny a retort is that, does it not shine a light on the critics themselves and their paucity of cogent analysis?
It truly can be boiled down to a basic right, those brave lads in Boston Massachusetts knew all about it and battling an alien [as they saw it] entity. Indubitably this is not common to just our generation – is it?
Now, if memory serves, as was and still is their pithy way with English, they had a motto which summed it all up:
“No taxation without representation”.
November 22, 2016
One problem with the media Lie Swarm is their tenacious adherence to an agenda tends to mislead them. The ‘rustbelt’ is actually a 1980s term which, until 2 weeks ago, had been replaced by the Blue Wall (until it crumbled like the Berlin one). The media narrative is obliged to exclude Ross Perot’s 19% of the US vote in 1992 (and 8% in 1996) on an anti-NAFTA ticket. Without him we would probably never have enjoyed the Clinton era (what a loss!)
Globalisation is a factor, but macroeconomics needs to find a convincing answer for what has happened in the 21st century. Labour’s share of National Income is way down and this is before taking into account unrealised gains on financial assets (wealth). Monetary policy is surely a part of it. If a Republican president had presided over the past 8 years, the Lie Swarm would be screaming very loudly. As it is, they have paid for their blue wall around Obama with their credibility. But the present economic setup is everyone’s problem and distracting with diversity/identity political gimmicks is probably not going to cut it.
November 22, 2016
Many of us ‘hold our cards close to our chest’ and find it rude or intrusive, when asked about how we will vote, or our political opinions.
Politics can often divide friends and family, rather than unite them.
I have said this before here.
I am university educated, live in the South of England and during my career I held highly paid and responsible management jobs.
In conversations with many other people, since the Referendum, I was absolutely shocked, surprised and delighted to find, just how many people I have known for years – were ‘quiet Leavers’!
These people include Managing Directors of companies, and people across a range of jobs and professions.
From our point of view, we just laugh at all the “It’s the thickos that won it!” nonsense.
My son is 30 and along with a significant number of his friends they all voted to Leave. It wasn’t just older voters that voted to Leave.
Until the anaysts and pollsters try harder to work it all out, and stop going down their dismissive and patronising route, they will never understand, which is probably a good thing.
November 22, 2016
Nor is it true to say all Brexit or Trump voters are anti all features of globalisation.
===================
We’re anti being the victim of fraud.
Namely we have handed over 10s, 100s of thousands of pounds to the state for our old age. That’s real wealth given to the establishment.
The establishment has spent every penny using that to try and service its debts.
In the process, it creates more debt. We are owed that retirement income.
The establishment then go and hide that debt off the books and only report what they owe to the bankers. What’s owed to the public they won’t reveal.
So are we at risk, or have we lost money? Yes, we have lost money. The government cut state pensions by 2 trillion, and that’s a real loss.
The 2006 Fraud act states this
======================
Fraud by false representation
(1)A person is in breach of this section if he—
(a)dishonestly makes a false representation, and
(b)intends, by making the representation—
(i)to make a gain for himself or another, or
(ii)to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.
(2)A representation is false if—
(a)it is untrue or misleading, and
(b)the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.
(3)“Representation” means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to the state of mind of—
(a)the person making the representation, or
(b)any other person.
(4)A representation may be express or implied.
(5)For the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anything implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention).
======================
I’d be interested John in why you think not reporting the debt isn’t fraud?
I’d also be interested in how you are going to pay the debt that’s been run up. If we look at state spending now, 30% of taxes go on debts.
November 22, 2016
Also to be deemed ‘privileged’ and penalised for having dared to defer gratification by putting handy amounts of money into a private pension.
Sometimes I think the Jamaican approach to life is the best in Britain. Living for anything other than today, it seems, is now a mistake.
November 22, 2016
Well said, JR. There’s a ‘strong delusion’ hanging over the minds of those who thus characterize decent, ordinary, common-sense folk. I doubt they’ll ever get it, which is why the Brexit vote was such an amazing turn of events (yet to be honoured). Trump’s success, likewise: the two events, though different issues, are politically related, and even mutually affirming. But beware the backlash – these are earth-shaking events, which we hope will prevail for the good of all in due course.
November 22, 2016
It would be very difficult to prove that “For every out of work steelworker who voted for Brexit there was a well qualified professional also voting for it.”,
But it seems likely to be true, as I read that officially employment in the UK steel industry has dropped from 320,000 in 1971 to about 20,000 now; of those 0.3 million whose 1971 jobs no longer exist many will no longer be alive, and not all of those who are still alive will have voted to leave the EU. I’m pretty sure that there will have been more than 0.1 – 0.2 million well-qualified professionals among the 17.4 million who voted to leave.
One of the recurrent fallacies advanced by the bad losers is that Leave voters tended to be poorly educated, and that is why they could be duped into voting the wrong way. Well, it’s certainly true that they tended to be older, and therefore many of them went through the education system at a time when far fewer children stayed on in the sixth form let alone went on to higher education. But that doesn’t mean that they were stupid compared to youngsters now for whom education to 18 is more or less the norm with getting on for half going on to university or college, or that they have become stupid now. On the contrary they may have the advantage of the wisdom which can come with age and experience of life, and especially experience of deceitful politicians.
November 22, 2016
I don’t think it is true that “The main features of globalisation which many dislike are the result of supra national government”. I think they are mainly the result of global businesses making decisions in their own interests, not giving much attention to their employees. The decision to close the steel factories in Wales for example was not taken by a supranational government but by an international company.
One of the reasons for staying in the EU was that it was potentially able to exert greater control over companies than individual countries can. Remember for example Mr Maxwell’s comment that he could always get the leaders of the UK to listen to him, but the same was not true of the leaders of the EU. Think of how the EU forced Apple to pay tax which the Irish government had not felt able to do. Google is going to be based here: I wonder how much tax it will pay.
Now one businessman – Mr Trump – has actually taken over a government. This will be interesting. We live in interesting times.
November 22, 2016
JR- ”As Labour implied in the UK, if the politicians do not like the way people vote in elections and referendums, then they set out to change the people.”
– This is spot on, and why politicians and the undemocratic EU are failing to grasp that THEY are the ones that need to listen to the electorate and change THEIR ways accordingly and NOT dictate to us what THEY want. They then might succeed.
Incidentally I’m from ‘up North’ – so leaving the EU is all my fault is it ? because I’m an ignorant, racist, uneducated industry worker that doesn’t ‘know’ any better than to vote Leave !
Just for the record I was a very well qualified Heathcare Professional who ran the very busy operating theatres in a local Hospital for 25 years and I would vote the same way again because I still don’t know any better !
November 22, 2016
We should not be surprised at any of the statements in this excellent piece.
We are all familiar with the terms “Within the Beltway” and “The Westminster Bubble”
I guess there is an equivalent term for every seat of power around the World but the most extreme example of a detached ruling enclave must be Brussels.
It is an almost inevitable result of a system where the majority of power is concentrated in one place and amongst a small group of people, all with a similar background.
However there is one important factor that dictates exactly how undemocratic and unrepresentative a system can become : The tipping point is whether those involved actively work to concentrate power at the centre and even more important, develop a disdain for those outside it and tell lies and half truths to achieve their ends.
After Project Fear, the most obvious example here is again Brussels. Various comments attributed to Juncker confirm all our worst fears about the direction the EU has taken :
On EU monetary policy
“I’m ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious … I am for secret, dark debates”
On French referendum over EU constitution
“If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No we will say ‘we continue’,”
On British calls for a referendum over Lisbon Treaty
“Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?,”
These are all taken from here :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10967168/Jean-Claude-Junckers-most-outrageous-political-quotations.html
You could not ask for more proof than the inconvenient outcome of the Dutch referendum on closer ties with Ukraine. It seems almost unbelievable that the agreement has now been ratified with the Dutch vote being deliberately ignored by Juncker with the direct collusion of the Dutch Government.
It is a clear indication of just how insignificant a smaller member state actually is in the EU. Would a referendum result from Germany have been similarly ignored ? A hypothetical question because the German people would never be asked.
In the UK I don’t personally know any senior Civil Servants but I have no doubt that a majority have exactly the same attitudes to the public as the infamous Sir Humphrey Appleby.
Their elitist education and their stellar IQs makes it almost inevitable. These people simply think they always know what’s best for the rest of us. “It’s for your own good, Don’t you know”
The position in Paris is even worse :
Almost everyone who rises to a senior position in Government or the French Civil Service have been educated at a very small group of “Grandes Écoles” : one of just ten Institut d’études politiques (IEP) or the École Nationale d’Administration conveniently located in Strasbourg.
It almost makes you wish for the reintroduction of Madame La Guillotine !
I don’t pretend to know what the answer is for the UK but one thing is certain. Unless Parliament and the Civil Service contains a substantial percentage of people who have real world experience and are not from an public school and Oxbridge background, this kind of elitism is inevitable.
Our political parties and Labour in particular has a lot to answer for here. There are, for example, almost no ex-Trade Unionist or ex-military MPs left in the 21st Century House of Commons and the typical route to a seat now seems to be Intern/Political Adviser/Candidate/MP/Minister. As a result, so many of our representatives have no real life experience whatsoever.
This is the situation that has led to the kind of revolt that has brought us Brexit and President Trump. As a result, the ruling class is now justifiably running scared and we are seeing a slight change in emphasis, particularly from Mrs May who has appointed a more balanced cabinet, 70% of which have been state educated and, significantly, seven Ministers are from a Grammar School background.
Typically those in Brussels have not yet taken any of this on board. It might be the fall of the Italian government, the Austrian or French Presidential Elections, another Dutch referendum on the EU-Canada trade deal or the next Greek Bailout. But their time will come.
November 22, 2016
I believe the instinct of most people is to be governed in small groups rather than whole countries. Hence the continual push for devolution or independence. This is not just in the UK, but world wide where most countries seem to have groups seeking independence for regions. Most of us recognise that all things can’t be done locally, we have to have national arrangements for defence, etc, but as far as most people are concerned, the more local, the better.
National politicians and big business would disagree. Politicians, and the associated civil servants like the power whilst big business finds it easier to get its own way.
Typical is where my daughter lives, a well known builder wants to put up about 100 houses which is opposed by the local and county council. At a public meeting, a representative of the company said to my son-in-law words to the effect that “I don’t know why you are wasting everyone’s time and effort. Whitehall will approve the development because it fits in with their plans”. And they did.
National Government is bad enough, Global interference is far, far worse.
November 22, 2016
I agree with your analysis. The appeal of the supranational organisations, such as the EU and the UN, to those who wish to manipulate the rest of us is their remoteness and relative lack of accountability. Measures and policies are put in place about which most people are completely unaware even though it is their taxes which is paying for it all. These arrangements appeal to the upper echelons of the political class because of the lack of accountability, and the fat, low tax or even tax free salaries and generous expenses on offer when their more lowly national political duties are done. They appeal to large business corporates because they provide an easy route to access and influence away from the public eye, otherwise known as crony capitalism. That easy access is also dreamland for NGOs; they exploit it ruthlessly. This clearly evident in the promotion of the climate change agenda through the UN.
November 22, 2016
The answer to this is to make the supranational bodies democratically accountable, not to do away with them. We need these organisations to run the world efficiently (or indeed at all).
Climate change is actually a good example of where international cooperation is needed.
November 22, 2016
And the more,in the age of funny money, the people at the top of the apex can artifically inflate GDP with debt-funded waste,the more they can siphon off.
November 22, 2016
I often hear the “Left Behinds” comment on the BBC.
It suggests that we have missed out on something good.
Apart from being patronising I believe it is misguided and I would put it down largely to education.
People who avoided further education also avoided the brainwashing that came with it. They have a more rounded and tolerant view of the world whereas our ‘education’ system produces a narrow viewpoint, aided and abetted by BBC propaganda.
Not every further-educated person fell for it of course – perhaps most didn’t. However, there is a large hard core who are stuck with a narrow reference point and little knowledge of the real world and many of them are in charge of the non-democratic institutions such as supra-national structures, charities, civil service, judiciary and media.
Far better to be unwashed than brainwashed imho.
November 22, 2016
The main purpose of the education system in much of the Liberal West is to churn out the latterday equivalent of the Homo Sovieticus,that creature which staffed the vast Soviet bureaucracy.
November 22, 2016
“…non-democratic institutions such as supra-national structures,charities,civil service,judiciary and media”
The second of the great historian/sovietologist Robert Conquest’s three laws of politics:-
Any organisation not explicitly right wing sooner or later becomes left wing.
November 22, 2016
Kenneth
Absolutely agree one hundred 100%
I occasionally lecture LSE MBA students on entrepreneurialism. They often ask what one thing helped me be successful in business. My reply always, I had no formal education and therefore I’m not brainwashed into thinking the same way as those in academia. The ability to see beyond the accepted is the key to innovation, creativity and business success
November 23, 2016
That’s a very interesting statement which I fully agree with.
Just watched Jay Leno on TV where he visited a Californian company 3D printing basic cars from CAD designs sent in by students .
No tooling costs.
One day to print the strucure and just a few hours to assemble.
The company owner who was an ex Marine was told by experts he was wasting his time.
It was ever thus.
November 23, 2016
And strange how the “ill-educated” oldies have a much firmer grasp of grammar and spelling, too!
Seriously, this insulting “Left Behind” line from the BBC, is pure massaging of statistics to suit their game. Even thirty years ago only around 8% of young people went to university, though many more took excellent courses (technological and otherwise) at colleges of further education or were apprenticed. Those who use these ‘less educated’ figures are simply not comparing like with like. Not that it stops them!
Not all those of us with Oxbridge degrees and professional careers are self-interested Remoaners. Mad though it seems in this upside-down world, though I have always been a small ‘c’ conservative, I now feel like a counter-revolutionary for advocating common sense like stopping the slide towards an authoritarian Euro-federalism that benefits almost no-one but big business, lobby groups and unaccountable politicians.
November 22, 2016
Labour politicians didn’t like the way some Brits voted so they conspired to import some amenable voters.
November 22, 2016
‘The left are keen to redefine the Brexit voters’ – you mean the liberals not the ‘left’ – the left are really, generally, anti Brexit.
‘They say they get it.’ – Wall Street Journal and Forbes suggest Trump’s tax policies will cripple the poor / working classes and benefit the top 1%. Maybe Trump gets in terms of rhetoric and winning elections but not in actually carrying out what he proposes.
‘For every out of work steelworker who voted for Brexit there was a well qualified professional also voting for it’ – yes but not necessarily for the same reasons!
‘There is a widespread feeling that too much is now dictated by the EU and by international Treaty. This prevents democratic engagement over our laws, and stops elected governments making changes people want’ – Sorry, but this is the major flaw in your argument here. Yes, everyone to a degree is concerned by this. But then lots of us would like more money. To look more attractive. And be more intelligent. The reality is that this is NOT a priority for most people. What is a priority for MOST people – both Leavers and Remainers is IMMIGRATION + THE ECONOMY (with both being interlinked). Most leavers voted for immigration thinking that it was hurting their job prospects and standard of living. But if immigration hadn’t been an issue, these people would have voted remain. And Brexit wouldn’t have had a chance – no chance – of winning. Not a chance. This is the reality.
Eventually, the concerns and the will of the people will be made clear – 0ver the years, whether via elections and/or future referendums. Which means we’ll end up with something like the UK being in something like the EU with restriction on immigration – and perhaps with the whole of the EU being reformed to become like the UK in time.
November 22, 2016
Its up to people and who they vote for, voting for parties is really voting for institutional take over, one leader of any party with the three line whip and your voted into anything, the only safe guard going forward is independent MPs who take their q from the people, at the moment every time the people turn round their MPs have been taken over by something or some group, the people MPs is never theirs, the MPs never specks for them, that’s the majority and always champion things the people do not really understand.
November 22, 2016
John,
“The main features of globalisation which many dislike are the result of supra national government”
This really is an elitist view in itself. Most people that I know who supported Brexit did so because of the inequality in the UK – it could equally be argued that this is nothing to do with ‘supra-national government’ but is much more a result of successive government policy closer to home.
“They simply want fewer people overall.”
I would fully support a population control policy, which encourages families to have no more than two children until it can be shown that our ecosystem (raw resources, air pollution, CO2 concentration) can be shown to be able to support the population. The two should go hand-in-hand: population and immigration control.
November 22, 2016
The government had a policy of encouraging family planning to limit the growth of the population, until that policy actually worked so well that the government turned around and said that we had had too few children and so they would have to import large numbers of young people from abroad. Now almost all the growth of the UK population is the consequence of that treacherous immigration policy, with fresh immigration each year plus the recent immigrants starting families.
By coincidence this week’s edition of our local paper looks back to when one of the five state secondary schools in the town faced closure because of the success of the government’s population policy:
“1986: Altwood School was battling for survival 30 years ago this week following a decision by Berkshire County Council to close it due to a declining number of pupils at Maidenhead’s comprehensive schools.”
The article ends:
“The fact Altwood remains a thriving school today shows they obviously won the argument.”
but that does not make clear the extent to which the 1986 situation has now been reversed, and almost entirely due to the direct and indirect effects of the policy of mass immigration which the government subsequently adopted.
November 22, 2016
@David
‘I would fully support a population control policy’
– I think that’s a rather cold and cerebral approach and frankly gives me the creeps a bit.
The problem with our world, regarding this, is that we’re basically consuming stuff in the wrong way and that we don’t get on that well as a species overall. Short-term approaches like yours don’t address the fundamental problems of our world, and just end up making people a bit more suspicious of each other, adding a new level of control over people’s lives that we can do without it.
Regards
November 22, 2016
‘I would fully support a population control policy’
– Also can i remind you that our grandfathers fought in WW2, under Churchill, against this kind of stuff (mild compared to what was going on at the time, nevertheless the kind of thing most Britains, then – i am sure – would have disagreed with on ethical grounds).
November 22, 2016
Without immigration I believe our population would be in slight decline. I think it’s something like 1.92 children per couple. Maybe if we weren’t burdened by mass migration we’d manage to hit the magic ‘2’ and have a stable population.
November 23, 2016
Our population would have fallen to 35 million when it was at 50 million. That would have been sustainable and pleasant though still the size of Canada’s population and 7 times the size of a Nordic population. Mass immigration changed the prospect and now we may go over 100 million.
November 22, 2016
David Lister
……………….
You might like to google who it was that implemented open boarders, you might like to google who it was that enabled transfer pricing and tax avoidance , you might like to google who it was that imposed overly rigorous employment legislation making outsourced jobs far more attractive. I think you’ll find that the elements of globalisation that affect Europeans the most are ALL products of the supranational rulers the EU
November 22, 2016
“The main features of globalisation which many dislike are the result of supra national government”
Many people are indignant that the running of their country has been passed to a foreign power without their ever having been consulted.
Being unable to control the country’s borders follows on from that.
November 22, 2016
JR says ‘The main features of globalistaion which many dislike are the result supra national government.’
Tue enough, but who controls this? Is it the politicians like Mrs. May, Mr Holande, Mrs Merkel? Of course not, they are just parochial and are merely used as pawns for the big corporations. The real power lies with the unelected unknowns such as those who run the EU, Bilderberg etc. rRgardless of gender or politics, the result is always the same – laws passed for the big money people to keep down competition from smaller enterprises and to make ever higher barriers to admission to trades.
The banks are the prime examples. No-one can just open a bank any more. Remember the tv series about ‘Bank of Dave’? Here was a successful entrepreneur who tried to set up a challenger bank to give better service and what’s more was profitable in 6 months, and was given the endless runaround by officials and government doing their best to stop it.
This is why we are not likely to leave the EU as voted for. Already Mrs May is going on about watering it down and saying we will have a transition lasting an unknown number of years and costing an unknown many billions of pounds. The EU is not going to give up its membership fees easily, if at all, and unfortunately we do not have anyone with the strength or the will to go against it, least of all a basic EU supporter. As usual the Tories have backed the wrong leadership horse and I predict we are all going to be the losers.
November 22, 2016
If we wanted to lower ourselves to their level we could say that they are all media study graduates. Unfortunately they probably would not understand the sarcasm or the derogatory implications of that statement. In fact they wear their degree as a badge of pride not recognising that for most it is of no use and denotes their inability to achieve a more demanding and useful degree or much else in the real world.
Us the uneducated are willing to embrace change but we have to be convinced that it is necessary and that it will be managed in the least disruptive way. As we are generally alright from our own current endeavours but are open to ways of improving our lives. Sometimes the changes foisted upon us go further than we believe acceptable and we resist. Then perversely find ourselves on the same side as those who wish us to change more and more quickly.
Those who we join sides with, the left can hold two views of change that are in opposition to one another. On the one hand fighting locally to preserve our economic and social rights and on the other trampling on them by demanding a new economic and social system “globalisation”. Thus we the uneducated find ourselves in a dilemma. To hold onto to what we have now or give it up for what may be on offer later and accepting how that is achieved.
I believe we will accept globalisation (on offer later) but we have a different vision to progressives on what that concept looks like and we certainly do not accept the manner and pace that they wish us to achieve it. We wish to arrive there by consensus and democratic means not by being bullied or coerced into do so. The progressive elite disdainful of that fact have forged ahead regardless and now we are retaliating. Brexit and Trump are a sign of that and hopefully will not be the last ones.
November 22, 2016
What truly disturbs me is the number of academics and intellectuals, both here and in the USA, who are beginning to question the worth and future of democracy and universal suffrage, as voters are overturning the established order.
They appear to be blaming people like me (non-University educated) for voting the ‘wrong’ way because I/weobviously could not understand the issues and consequences. Rather than deduce from this that either the ruling classes were not communicating well enough, or were doing a seriously poor job, they conclude that the ‘proles’ should be disenfranchised.
November 22, 2016
The very same drippy liberals and left wing intellectuals that claimed to speak up for and defend the working class, the perfect virtue signalling opportunity. The bourgeois left and the working class have completely misaligned views.
Notice how Corbynista ground troops never resemble the Essex roofer or the Bolton welder, indeed they would be most uncomfortable in the company of everyday working class people.
I’m going on the Farage march and my placard is going to be along the lines of pointing out liberal, middle class hypocrisy – notice the expensive Glastonbury crowd are all white, middle class, what happened to their ‘diverse’ social scene, when it comes to meaningful actual socialising?
November 22, 2016
I think the problem with our democracy at the moment is that those in politics are using spin to gain power, misrepresenting things and/or promising things they cannot keep (everyone from Tony Blair and Boris Johnson to Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen). I don’t know what the solution is. But it’s certainly to support democracy where we can, and challenge those in politics and the media trying to spin things to win power / influence.
November 22, 2016
The Leninist take on these issues is interesting:-
“The co-opting of the idea of “One World” government by the bourgeois intelligentsia from a number of dreamers and pacifists is used as a tool to press for ideological disarmament of peoples who stand up for their independence from encroachments from the direction of Anglo-American imperialism.
As Lenin pointed out “internationalism does not mean anti-nationalism”.This observation of Lenin is of fundamental significance,because he is talking about the fact that proletarian internationalism does not have anything in common with bourgeois cosmopolitanism,today being the banner of ideological reaction.
If,at it’s heart,internationalism is respect for other peoples,it is impossible to be an internationalist without respect or love for one’s own people.With it’s preaching of indifference to the destiny and interests of it’s people and fatherland,by it’s mockery of authentically patriotic feelings of peoples,bourgeois cosmopolitanism is only able to cultivate contemptible betrayers of the Motherland.
All the preaching of cosmopolitan ideas,exported from the USA of “world citizenship”,”universal government”,and the supranational state are called to serve in their own way as an ideological disguise for Anglo-American nationalism.
Leninism revealed the sources,the roots of bourgeois cosmopolitanism.V Lenin wrote”the union of imperialists of all countries,the union naturally and inevitably,for the defence of capital,knowing no homeland,proved by many of the most significant and greatest episodes in world history,that capital puts the keeping of it’s alliance of capitalists of all countries against the workers higher than the interests of the fatherland,of the people or of anything else”.
The above is extracted from a 1949 article “Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism & it’s Reactionary Role” by one F Chernov that appeared in one of the official Soviet papers at a time when Stalin had launched a tirade against the “rootless cosmopolitans”
Whilst one might disagree with some of Lenin’s prescriptions,it’s not hard to agree with his analysis.
Interestingly I note that the man from Breitbart that Trump has just appointed to a senior role (can’t remember his name)has described himself as a Leninist.
November 22, 2016
Steve Bannon I think is his name.
November 22, 2016
Without wishing to be unduly alarmist I am concerned that if governments continue trying to circumvent democracy it will not end well.
If the younger generation ever escape the effects of their indoctrination the backlash could be a violent one as they wake up to what they have given away in the name of political correctness.
November 22, 2016
Off-topic:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/22/brexit-deal-could-end-eus-top-court-warns-europes-senior-judge/
“Brexit deal could end up in EU’s top court, warns Europe’s most senior judge”
That’s because the ECJ was not excluded from having jurisdiction over the exit process, neither all of the procedure nor any part or aspect; it could have been, in the same way that the ECJ is expressly excluded from any jurisdiction over most aspects of the common foreign and security policy, Article 24 TEU; likewise another paragraph could easily have been added to Article 50 saying:
“The Court of Justice of the European Union shall not have jurisdiction with respect to
these provisions”,
but it wasn’t. Which was actually pointed out right back in 2003, when the substance of Article 50 first appeared as Article I-59 in the draft EU Constitution:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/LT/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52003XX0718(01)
And that was authored, we are told, by a Scottish chappie, then Sir John Kerr, who was Secretary-General to the European Convention:
http://european-convention.europa.eu/EN/secretariat/secretariat2352.html?lang=EN
and who is now in the House of Lords as Lord Kerr of Kinlochard:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-37852628
The same one who says we need immigration because we are “bloody stupid”:
http://metro.co.uk/2016/11/19/we-need-immigration-because-native-brits-are-bloody-stupid-says-peer-6269840/
But not the same Lord Kerr who is a judge on the Supreme Court.
Anyway I think this reinforces the case for the Article 50 notification to include the words “without prejudice to the general right of withdrawal under the 1968 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties … “:
“Dear Donald
As you know the British people voted to leave the European Union in the referendum held on June 23rd. In accordance with the promise made by the government before the vote I must now inform you that the United Kingdom intends to leave the Union.
This letter may be taken as the formal notification required by Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, without prejudice to the general right of withdrawal under the 1968 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties … “
That is if the Article 50 notice is ever served, which is looking increasingly unlikely as a UK government led by Remain supporters gets bogged down in one legal complication after another, probably just as that shyster Cameron intended when he double-reneged straight after losing the referendum.
November 22, 2016
Actually the EU have lent a helping hand. They have violated the treaties by excluding the UK from formulation of policy to be implemented currently in the EU. This is illegal and consitutes constructive abrogation of the Treaty for the Functioning of the EU by the EU itself.
http://facts4eu.org/news_nov_2016.shtml#eu_exclusion_of_uk_-_is_uk_out
November 22, 2016
‘While some judges may take the rather purist view that it conflicts with their judicial oath, I think there is much to be said for the view that, in some cases where a judge does not feel strongly and where a dissent would add nothing useful, he should go along with the majority opinion.’
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3959286/Top-Brexit-judge-warns-Supreme-Court-justices-quiet-big-cases-Lord-Neuberger-lays-law-crucial-Article-50-ruling.html#ixzz4QjoQRzBe)
I thought judges were supposed to leave their feelings out of judgement and just use their reason.
November 22, 2016
The main problem is categorisation. Labour voters , poor workers , brexit or remain voters , the educated dumb or the uneducated rich , the educated poser or the non educated loser all have individual lives. Knowledgeable people are always a threat especially when they can ‘do’ as well . I was messaged ( a new word in the English language) by a New Yorker last night who could speak many languages but wanted to know me “more betterer” and when I responded in my school girl French , didn’t understand…….!! bluffers !
November 22, 2016
The number one go-to Liberal weapon is to claim their view is based on evidence. Listen careful and you hear them constantly mentioning evidence. In my long experience liberals tend to be peculiarly naïve and far from possessing evidence, their world view is built on layer upon layer of misunderstanding.
A classic example was Ken Loach on QT resorting to the old line that less than 1% on benefits are misclaiming, when of course what he refers to here is the percentage CONVICTED. This is akin to concluding less than 1% of drivers use their phone whilst at the wheel, as that’s the proportion caught!
A Letting Agent worked out my office until recently and I saw daily the reality of endemic benefits culture, for example the same old characters loudly organising 48 hour PlayStation parties, none of whom have ever worked, all of whom are able bodied and seem to have no problems working in the cash economy locally.
I arrange complex finance for a living and as such get approaches from all sorts. They have to come clean with me up-front otherwise any advice I give would be misaligned. I see countless people that own takeaways and such like that buy properties for cash which they rent as rooms for cash, and where they pay next to no tax despite being very well off, and often their spouse is on benefits.
This is the real world naive liberal never glimpse.
November 22, 2016
O/T but D Express has just reported this comment by David Davis to MEPS (reporting on meeting with Guy Verhofstadt):
“….Mr Davis apparently told MEPs at the meeting that the Government is committed to staying in the single market. …”
Is this true or just inaccurate/lazy reporting? If true, what a scandalous betrayal.
November 23, 2016
If the UK government was so inclined it could draw up a list of breaches of the EU treaties over the years and set out to demonstrate to the world just how untrustworthy these people are. The only problem is that the UK government has been complicit in some of those breaches in the past.
November 22, 2016
It will not be long before this gov is looking for another EU to wed you to.
November 22, 2016
Boris answered questions in Parliament today. He remarked that those questions reflected the “mood” of Parliament. Well that’s one way of putting it.
Mr Trump had tweeted: and I copy and paste: “Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!”
It was in the framework of a Tweet; in the framework of the populist vernacular characteristic in politicians’ tweets.
It was merely a popular observation of a fact. Not a suggestion Farage should be Ambassador. Politely he typed, in effect, that if it were the case, he would do “a great job”
Listening to some Parliamentarians..well, they should be beyond “mood”, so to speak, in their education. They are not, unfortunately. Except perhaps one or two, as one MP suggested, were “virtue signalling” in their apparent condemnation of Trump.
If Trump were anywhere near or in anyway like, the fantasy of most of our Parliamentarians then the UK would be in severe difficulties. Very senior politicians here attack and have attacked most inappropriately and quite frankly incorrectly and stupidly, our closest ally as personified, democratically, through their President- Elect Mr Trump.
Boris says we already have a great Ambassador to the USA. I dare say we have. But in speaking with Mr Trump his expertise is an over-qualification. Speaking with the Democrats would require all of his energies, however.
November 22, 2016
Plainly there is something big going on across the Western world. Brexit was just the beginning, like the first firework on Bonfire Night. It’s early days, but I suspect that 2016 will be, like 1789 and 1917, a year which historians see as a major turning point.
The issues at stake are nationalism, globalism, immigration and political correctness. On one side stands the politicians, the media, ethnic minorities, academia and, of course, the lawyers. On the other side stands most of the rest of us. The first group seems unable to see why, despite their advantage in position, they are losing this battle. In my opinion, it’s quite simple; they are heavily outnumbered.
The next domino to fall could be Austria where the presidential election is being rerun at the beginning of December. Last year the migrant crisis added 90,000 migrants to Austria’s population of 8.6m. That’s more than one per cent, or the equivalent of the UK taking nearly 700,000 people.
Brexit was bad and Trump was simply deplorable, but according to the mainstream media, Norbert Hofer could be the most right-wing European politician since 1945 to be elected. If he is, will the penny finally drop for people like Merkel?
November 22, 2016
“The extraordinary thing is how tenacious the elites are in trying to keep government away from people …”
Is this the sort of thing you mean?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-news-richard-branson-virgin-group-eu-referendum-a7430396.html
“Richard Branson’s Virgin to bankroll secret Blairite campaign to stop Brexit”
“One source said the aim of the campaign, which will launch formally in the new year, is to secure a second referendum on Brexit. The group is likely to work alongside Open Britain, the successor to the Stronger In official Remain campaign in the referendum, which now aims to ensure a soft Brexit in which Britain would remain in the European single market.”
I wonder how often it has to be pointed out that the EU treaties do not refer to a “single” market, anybody who chooses can easily check that with a word search here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/228848/7310.pdf
It’s the EU’s “internal” market, and that is what we should always call it.
Article 3 TEU:
“The Union shall establish an internal market.”
Article 3 TFEU:
“The Union shall have exclusive competence in the following areas:
(a) customs union;
(b) the establishing of the competition rules necessary for the functioning of the internal market … ”
Article 26 TFEU:
“The internal market shall comprise an area without internal frontiers in which the
free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured in accordance with
the provisions of the Treaties … ”
And so forth.
Under the EU treaties “remain in the European single market” necessarily means “remain in the EU”; and I thought that on June 23rd we voted against remaining in the EU?
November 22, 2016
John Redwood: telling it like it is. Superb. Thank you.
November 22, 2016
As a reluctant and now repentant remainer (and middle-class graduate), I have been very impressed by the cogent arguments made for leaving that I have heard in post-referendum chats with the excellent carers, none of them with much more than basic education, who help me care for my disabled husband at home. Not one of them has uttered a racist comment. Indeed, a couple of them are of Afro-Caribbean descent. Most were concerned about sovereignty, though they would not have used the term; they recognised how distant and disconnected the EU elite had become from ordinary people. They were worried about waste and corruption in Brussels. They were worried about immigration, not in a xenophobic way, but felt anxious about the pressure on schools, hospitals and GPs in certain areas was causing. One of them told me that she was concerned that the ‘deal’ Cameron did with Brussels was in fact, subject to ratification by the EU after the referendum and the terms were not set in stone. I didn’t know this but I believe she was right. The assumption by the ‘enlightened’ elite that the common herd are ignorant and ill- informed is snobbish in the extreme. They might not be highly articulate but they considered the issues and voted according to their judgment which was sound.
November 22, 2016
A big problem with modern Conservatism today is that there is a lack of belief in God.
Mrs Thatcher was a God-fearing Christian. That was part of her great strength. She feared no-one but God. And believed that her strength and vision came from God. And that it was ultimately her duty to try and make this world a bit more heavenly. (Not saying Mrs Thatcher was a saint, but I still greatly admired her).
We need more Conservatives who believe strongly in a loving God – the Christian God (and both soft and tough love). In Heaven (and creating the heavenly here on Earth). In sin. And not to be afraid to talk about the Devil and Hell (God forbid for us all). To be liberal ultimately means to be afraid to talk about these things.
Conservative Christianity is about allowing the strong to use their talents and do well but not to forget their responsibility to the poor and the vulnerable. To have a strong defence force. To support the arts. And to get on well with our neighbours. As well as to oppose abortion, gay marriage and so on.
So if we want what’s best for British Conservatism, our country (and ourselves as individuals), let’s please, at least, think more about the need for God in politics (and whether He exists or not, happy to debate).
Regards.
November 22, 2016
I am lucky. I live in an area where Leave is the Obvious/Sensible. However,such a commonality of opinion lessens and almost eliminates the ability seeing the point , now, after the vote, of Remainers
Who are they really addressing in what seems an extended and silly moan? “Well I voted Remain” they predicate their every moan.As if we needed reminding every single hour and day for the best part of SIX MONTHS after the June 23rd vote.
They had at least a month more than the Leave side and with taxpayers’ money in making their case. Then another period of time equal to the Leave side in trying a win. All they can do now is moan and talk about what was written on the side of a red London Double Decker bus! They have such a low opinion of the minds of Leave voters that it is a wonder they do not become dizzy looking down upon us from their great supercilious height.
One is minded to tell them they will have to go to bed without their suppers if they do not behave. But our enlightened parental education blesses us with wisdom not to so do. Perhaps we should look to each variety of their meals, note if anything is a key factor in their misguided hyper-activity.
November 22, 2016
Your Government failed to reduce immigrants from non-EU countries under Home Secretary Teresa May. In the months since the referendum there have been no indications from this government that measures have been taken to reduce the numbers – nor any indication of a new EU agreement except that the once popular Australian Points System is a non-starter. So has the Brexit vote led to what you describe as “fewer people overall”? You have the control of non-EU migrants and what have you done with it? Nothing. People who voted Brexit may not have been stupid nor racist but boy were they fooled by you and your smooth talking fellow travellers.
November 22, 2016
“Dissolve the people, and elect another”, Die Loesung, Bertold Brecht, 1939.
November 22, 2016
A favourite preoccupation of the Establishment, an obsession even, is Diversity. They can’t get enough of it. Now Ms Diversity herself is to sit in judgement of Brexit.
She likes to go on a lot about the Supreme Court not being diverse enough, and holds herself up as fulfilling more than one Diversity Requirement criteria: she is a woman and her parents didn’t pay for her education. This is contrasted with the men at the Supreme Court. But who is to say what is Diversity? Wasn’t she uniquely privileged in being brought up by parents who were both head teachers? Having just one parent as a teacher is usually regarded as a big advantage. For example Enoch Powell and Neil Kinnoch. And what of Lord Neuberger? Isn’t he allowed to be considered as belonging to a minority? One which has been discriminated against in the past? Apparently not. He is just Male, Pale, and Stale, and has recently announced his retirement. The pressure to appoint Ms Diversity in his place will be enormous.
November 22, 2016
Are all the hardly making it people in such a state because of supranational entities?
I won’t deny their role and impact in the present situation, but it is a bit too easy to limit the analysis to just that. Isn’t it the result of policies over years and years accepting the take over of UK industries by foreign-based industries, which after a short or longer while decide it more economical to move the industries elsewhere.
Similarly the UK is quite brilliant at research, and produces and register a lot of patents, but how comes that more often than not the actual development of such ideas is done elsewhere, or at best by hardly British companies?
I would be interested in a more balanced view on the topics, but I do not hold my breath, I do not expect it from JR, of all men.
November 22, 2016
This quote from Lord Kerr, a former British ambassador encapsulates the remain campaign “We native Brits are so bloody stupid that we need an injection of intelligent people, young people from outside who come in and wake us up from time to time.’
Setting aside the fact that “from time to time” is an entirely inaccurate description of what has been happening for several decades, I suppose he has a point. If we are willing to tolerate the appointment to our legislature of those, like Lord Kerr, who hold us in such undisguised contempt, we are either showing a level of tolerance which would put the meekest of saints to shame, or a bit dim.
Not so dim, however, that we haven’t noticed and won’t react appropriately.
November 22, 2016
Mr Trump is the “strong man” required for the USA. No “strong man” is in charge of the UK government at the moment. The purpose of a “strong man” or ” Strong Leader”in history is in a way to do the almost impossible…to bring in array what is becoming or is a disarray.
The Brexit vote, the madcapped ideas of the US Democratic Party, its bought media, has weirdly influenced educational practices and has created disarray and noticeable mass hysteria amongst the elite and their followers. An inability to accept their present reality and group lack of acceptance are but some of the signs of the need of a proper leader.
Cameron did great harm to running away from his leadership position which was cemented strongly in place in the minds of everyone even those who disliked his brand of politics. Firm strong leadership is required in times of great change. We are in times of great change
If you can keep your head…..
November 22, 2016
Is the Henry Jackson Society, uk neocon division anything to do with it ?
November 22, 2016
Imagine that everything you had been told was a lie. Imagine that the world you believe in, was nothing more than veneer displayed to you by the media you consume. Imagine that the people you surround yourself with all consume the same media, and for fear of being called horrible names and castigated as outsiders, choose to toe the line as you do. Imagine that your status depends on how virtuous you appear to others, even if it only means saying it rather than doing anything about it.
Now imagine that you find out in reality, just as many people outside your circle think something completely different to you. They don’t blame the Tories for all the ills in society; they want to get on with work, keep the money they make to spend on the things they want; they want their elected representatives to represent them, not the more vocal special interests who command the most attention; they want to be left alone from government meddling and intervention; they want people who work hard to be able to achieve success and not be brought down to the lowest common denominator; they want politicians to stop using tax payer’s money to serve their own virtue-signalling.
Imagine the feeling of tumbling down that rabbit hole. Imagine how you would scream and lash your fists wildly at the realisation that the world isn’t how you saw it. Imagine the anger you would feel toward those people who dare say that everything you care about, just doesn’t matter to them. How greedy those souls who just want to earn and keep their money!
You might call them ‘unwashed,’ ‘under-educated,’ ‘bigoted,’ ‘greedy,’ ‘xenophobic,’ ‘racist,’ ‘foolish’. You might decide your message wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t strong enough. You might decide that the nuances that you tried to get across were just too difficult for most people to grasp. You might decide the old are against you and the young would have a better understanding of the way things are.
You might just grasp at any excuse to come to terms that everything you believed in wasn’t just a lie.
November 22, 2016
Power is always I. The hands of the people, how you use it is the key.
November 22, 2016
Fear of Trump seems to concentrated amongst groups like students, teachers, BBC employees and so on who have never worked in the private sector. I have worked for several companies, including in the FTSE 100, whose CEO was similarly outspoken and eccentric and effective.
November 22, 2016
Excellent article – I am fed up hearing that Brexit voters are – old/ poor/ uneducated/ racist/ bigots/ didn’t understand what they were voting for/ now regret voting for Brexit. Branding Brexit voters in this way makes it easier for the Remain camp to seek to thwart the Brexit vote on the basis that they know what is best for us.
Off topic, or perhaps a little premature ahead of the Autumn Statement – a few weeks ago, you mentioned that Mr Hammond approved the latest round of QE without any debate in the House of Commons. Given that QE and near-zero interest rates have been beneficial to some groups (banks and asset holders) at the expense of others (small savers, pension funds) – I would have thought this merited some discussion in the House?
November 22, 2016
Excellent article John, on the ball and succinct.
The Left are too blind to notice their own failings …
‘we don’t live in a collective state where we should share our income’
but the Left or let say Liberals think they speak for everyone
Remainers try to bindside everyone to their way of thinking …
‘businesses still expect Joe Public to support them by turning a blind eye to migrant cheap labour while they continue to enjoy the conveniences and and all the other freedoms of the EU’. This is what Remainers take for granted and are now horrified that Leave voters are changing their comfortable business world with Brexit. What Remainers seem to forget 17 million pay into a system that allow them to afford these businesses benefits at the expense of 17 million Leave voters who are also impacted by the freedoms predominantly (free movement)
November 22, 2016
Just who are these “The left are keen to redefine the Brexit voters ” people – Let’s name and shame and provide real retorts.
Of course they have it wrong, the left always dub in partial truths with outright lies – we all know this, but they should no longer be allowed to get away with it, nor hide away – they should be shown up for the liars they are and made to confront the real truth.
November 22, 2016
“The main features of globalisation which many dislike are the result of supra national government. There is a widespread feeling that too much is now dictated by the EU and by international Treaty.”
Well maybe you can do without the EU but you can’t do without international treaties. Treaties bind successive governments and by definition chip away at your sovereignty, at least in practical terms. If people can enjoy free trade, student and business travel, tourism and so on, then at some point some of them also will want to move elsewhere – see Brits in Spain. You can’t turn back the clock.
November 23, 2016
There are treaties and there are treaties.
Negotiations have not yet started, and maybe they will eventually change their tune, but what we are still hearing from the eurofanatics on the continent is that any new treaties with the UK must continue to grant every one of 450 million foreign citizens in 27 other countries the automatic legal right to come and live and work and settle and start their families in our country, and failing that they will impose economic sanctions on the UK.
No self-respecting nation could give way and agree a treaty under that kind of duress unless they were a conquered people, and we are not.
November 23, 2016
Outside the3 EU we would be able to reclaim our seat at the top table of many global organisations, instead of being represented by the EU, which in turn represents the “common position” of all 28 MS (and often that is not in our interest). We would therefore be in an influential position once more with regard to representation in a “globalised” world, in contrast to the situation at present. So, the Leavers are looking forward, not backward, and embracing a powerful future for the UK.
November 24, 2016
“You can’t turn back the clock.”
Oh yes we can! Many of us did precisely that about four weeks ago. We can also repair things and make them as good as new.
Why do some people persist with these blatant inanities? They’re on a par with “lowest common denominator” as a pejorative, where the allusion is to precisely the opposite. Incidentally, that’s one politicians and other arrogant opinionators seem particularly to like. No doubt it correlates well with their struggles in numeracy at primary school where the expression has its sole use. Such arrested development! Tsk! Mostly of those wanting to remain in the EU, I’d say.
“…then at some point some of them also will want to move elsewhere…”
No doubt, but you present that as if it were some kind of argument. So that’s all there is to it — what they want? No one else gets a say?
“… – see Brits in Spain”
They were free to invest wherever and in whatever they liked, even their own lifestyles, and indeed their lives. They certainly never included me in on the deal or compensated me for any risks they took. I feel under no obligation to bale them out if their ‘investments’ underperform.
November 24, 2016
Trump and Brexit are a backlash against political correctness imposed by a remote liberal elite. To pretend that PC is ‘all about politeness’ is just more deluded thinking.
It would be welcome if JR would finally admit the extent to which the orbit of the political world has been moved by politically correct thinking.
It has nearly destroyed his own party, led to several bloody and un neccessary wars, cost thousands of lives (Liberal nation building), and left us crippled by debt (politicians virtue signalling with taxpayers cash is ruinously expensive). ….Sacking coal miners and steel workers so that the liberal minded can feel better about themselves is about as idiotic as it gets.
So onward Mr Hammond goes towards a national debt of 2 Trillion pounds…..strange that I thought the Conservatives were supposed to be the party that could control spending ?. What part of the lesson about overspending provided by Gordon Brown who failed to buy an election does he not understand ?