Westministenders: I can't believe it's not butter

[RedToothBrush]

Nigel Farage @ Nigel_Farage
Cannot believe we're seeing Nazi salutes in 21st century America.

Yeah, that's what we said on 16th June 2016, when some dickhead stood in front of a poster.

The thing is, what Farage says with faux surprise isn't unusual or isolated to him. It's widespread. It's perhaps the norm rather than the exception in many circles.

It's represents a total lack of self awareness. It represents the disconnect that what comes out of your mouth tends to have an effect on the people around you, whether intentioned that way or not when you talk about 'others' or 'not belonging'.

It's a direct effect of nationalism.

Patriotism seems to be something that people have totally lost the plot with and don't understand. It's used as a defence for nationalism. It is the last defence of the scoundrel. Patriotism and being pro-EU or not being a racist dick are not mutually exclusive, though you'd be forgiven for thinking differently these days.

I think a lot of people will sit and go, "Look at America, that is awful. I'm glad we are not like that".

Except we are far more than we realise. Grenfell says much about that.

There's an phrase and Southern Wolves and Northern Wolves when it comes to racism in America. The UK is like the Northern Wolf. Sly and silver tongued to justify and hide racism because 'Look they are worse than us. We are the good guys'.

A bit like saying, you talked to an EU citizen and they were just as racist as me, so Brexit is ok.

It's the twisted desperation to justify the othering rather than take responsibility for enabling and emboldening racism. Then dressing it up as some legitimate political cause which actually you have zero understanding or comprehension of the consequences of.

Brexit has some deep roots in Nazi type fantasies. You can not separate the idea that Britain is superior and Brits are better than Europeans from too much Brexit logic. The Empire was not a pretty thing for much of the world. It's worrying.

Not to mention we've had a right wing attack on a group of people outside a mosque in this fashion before the US had that attack yesterday.

Let's not think that because we haven't had blokes with tiki torches providing a photographic opportunity and theatre for the TV producer that we are somehow 'better'. Or not as bad as America.

The only real difference between them and us is the brash openness about it and the fact they have a bunch of guns.

This was predictable. Indeed I expected and I expect more. There will be more and it will get far, far worse in the US. Yesterday was just the start. Trump wants it. He will fuel it. He will capitalise from it. Yes your mate Donald loves a bit of bigotry, Nig.

There no guarantees it won't happen here for various reasons. It just is characterised in a slightly different way because we are British and don't really do brash in anything as it's not our way.

It's too easy for Farage. Or Johnson. Or May. Or whoever to just walk away and innocently say they are shocked and bear no responsibility because they don't wave Nazi flags about.

You don't have to do that, to share the same values or believe the same thing. Salutes and flags are just branding. A repackaged version for the 21st century is even more dangerous.

We won't forget who Farage hangs out with or courts for publicity and attention. Farage only says and does what he thinks he can get away with. That's part of the ugly truth.

We still have not even started to confront the relationship between racism and Brexit. Indeed, much seems to be happening to suggest that after blaming EU, that there are a Brexit opportunities for scapegoating opening up.

For me yesterday was depressing not because it happened, but because we saw it coming and because our country is in denial about being the same.

Farage is the very personification of it.

If that account is genuine, it's very worrying. For lots of reasons.

Could be fake?

Wow, the James Chapman saga has escalated rather suddenly!

Bigly, yes, I'm thinking too fast to be true? (surely...?)

I'm skeptical, mostly because it would involve a degree of competence on the part of the government that is mostly lacking.

Don't want to scare you or anything but...

The Leave Alliance‏
@LeaveHQ

1. We would point out that the Minford nonsense is not actually government policy - it's just a Tory wet dream.

1. Government policy is still a negotiated settlement where it wants most of the benefits of the single market.

3. But as yet it does not realise what that actually entails, the obligations that come with it, and the limits of EU flexibility

4. So the government is learning on the job - learning things it should already have a grasp of. This is inexcusable.

5. That makes the A50 talks a tedious dance of the seven veils - as each layer of reality is revealed to Mr Davis.

6. At some point, probably too late, he will realise that the EEA is not a model that Norway stumbled upon by accident

7. The groundwork for a comprehensive relationship with the EU has already been done. We are reinventing the wheel to no useful purpose.

8. By this time we are forced to beg for an extension, which the EU may not be in any mood to grant. They want this mess over with.

9. That means we will get Minford's wet dream whether we want it or not. A body blow to the UK economy.

10. That means all of the changes, all at once - creating such chaos that commerce simply ceases to function.

11. Business would be screaming for guidance on what new customs processes are and government would be unable to respond - it doesn't know.

12. Effectively all formal relations with the EU would stop dead. Britain would not have a legal personality in customs affairs either.

13. This isn't "project fear". This is just what happens when a state has no formal relations. All deals with RoW end too.

14. The EU has very specific protocols for third countries - and those are the rules with which we must comply - or no trade happens.

15. We do not have the systems nor facilities nor software in place. We are looking at a major national humiliation.

16. Chances are that means a lost decade of trade while we rebuild the basics - but with a permanently tarnished reputation.

17. There is a good chance the UK would never fully recover and lost business will likely not return.

18. Effectively we are looking at austerity on steroids - and a weaker position globally.

19. This scenario should be avoided at all costs - but is increasingly looking like default destination. We have crossed the event horizon.

20. Davis is wasting time we don't have. We are out of time - and we will pay for his incomprehension.

I'm skeptical, mostly because it would involve a degree of competence on the part of the government that is mostly lacking.

I'm also extremely sceptical, but I would observe that there are other parties than the UK government which have a vested interest in brexit.

The new account may be fake (though the photos take some explaining), but nevertheless his sudden silence is a mystery and an injunction the most likely explanation.

cailleach that most definitely is a threat, and iirc, it's the second time to make it. Is anyone in Westminster at all concerned about the cost to the reputation of the UK that this clear hint of repudiation of an agreement between two sovereign states might entail? This is the same UK government hoping to sit across the table from several other governments in the next few years and sign binding trade agreements...

So the Leave Alliance has almost exactly the same grievances about the Brexit process as many on this thread? I wonder if this is a way of backing away from Brexit while maintaining one's dignity/integrity - it's a brilliant idea and all that but the bloody government were just too useless to pull it off

The Leave Alliance is Peter North, isn't it?

In which case the above is hardly surprising. The Norths are not impressed with the Government's handling / mishandling of Brexit.

It is, yes. But he's getting a lot more attention recently as considered to be actually thinking. I know that's not news on here but his relatively low number of followers suggest he (they?) are still, somewhat, below the radar in general.

COST ! Richard North thinks the UK will have to pay the EU for the huge infrastructure costs that willl be necessary to enable post-Brexit trade with them

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86577

"On the continental mainland, national politicians are at last beginning to appreciate that manning a hard border with the UK has considerable resource implications,
while the necessary infrastructure will require huge investments.

There is talk, therefore, of Macron punching numbers into a special, wide-screen version of his calculator,
ready to present the UK with a bill that will dwarf the amount expected from Brussels by way of a financial settlement.

By the time all the Member States have added theirs (not forgetting that air freight also has to be processed), we are looking at three figures, with a billion attached to it."

The UK govt plan seems to be to continue after Brexit as if Brexit had never happened !
That's for trade, NI, flights, Euratom, medicines agency and everything the UK wants to keep
(but not FOM or ECJ)

So the UK govt can and will blame any problems that arise on the EU

• and wrt NI on the RoI

The UK position has never budged from "cake & eat it"

Irish Times: UK’s Brexit trade stance is madness without method

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/chris-johns-uk-s-brexit-trade-stance-is-madness-without-method-1.3192282

A similar theme emerges in the paper that grapples with the Border.
Again, the British position is that nothing will change on the day of Brexit:

the Border, from their perspective, will remain exactly as it is today with complete freedom of movement of both goods and people.

This approach allows the British to claim that if anything goes wrong, it won’t be their fault.
Any problem at the Border will be the consequence of Brussels and Dublin putting up obstacles.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this as an empty threat.
Just imagine the day after Brexit – particularly the rock-hard variety, the one that involves the UK crashing out without a deal.
Imagine the British living up to their promise: no border controls, no customs checks, no change at all.

As a matter of EU law, all of the infrastructure necessary to police this new customs frontier between the EU and the rest of the world
would have to be placed on the Irish side of the Border.

Think about that for a second and appreciate the ironies,

the discomfort and the expense.
All of the border checks inside the Republic.
Nothing on the UK side.

Somebody in Whitehall is willing to bet that the Government will put pressure on Brussels to compromise, to do anything to avoid this outcome.

Have the British finally discovered some negotiating leverage?

< UK Brexit strategy: to bully & blackmail the RoI
Would the RoI govt & public ever roll over like this , Math and other Irish Westministenders ? >

The conclusion of the Irish Times article:

That’s the ship of fools, the one Socrates eerily described millennia ago,
where everyone wants to steer the boat, no one knows how,
but all stand ready to cut down anyone who actually can navigate treacherous waters.

Mutiny and madness are the inevitable results.

Frances Coppola - Tariffs, trade and money illusion

www.coppolacomment.com/2017/08/tariffs-trade-and-money-illusion.html

Richard North is saying what I have thought for some time.

Sadly.

All the PR shit, is just to try and make themselves look not quite as bad when the shit hits the fan.

Greece will suddenly look sane by comparison to us. As for stopping immigration, well yeah, who the fuck is going to want to come to this shit hole? It won't be Europeans. There will be no welfare state.

No one will be able to afford to go on holiday to Spain anymore. Blackpool might get a boost from that.

Nothing is changing my mind that it will get any better.

I have numerous friends who are taking the attitude that 'it will all work itself out in the end'.

No. No it won't. That's the point.

Next target for vilification and marginalisation?

The fat and unfit.

Plus we want to introduce a system where we track people using the NHS as the reason behind it, incentivised with rewards. There is nothing AT ALL sinister about this.

Nothing.

Except the government tracking you to ensure you have done your exercise for the day. (Next stop, fining people for not meeting their target and charging them for their health care accordingly. Of course the New NHS is fully integrated with the Home Office. And we no longer have the right to privacy as we fuck off out of the EU).

This article has script for a BBC dystopian drama written all over it.

Thanks Maily Telegraph.

As for the ongoing ridiculous Big Ben saga.

It has to be said that its quite something seeing politicians having an actual bell end meeting...

Although Leavers, the North's have consistently argued for the EEA arrangement. As of course, did Farage and Co at one stage.

Bell end sketch

If you don't laugh...

BigChoc I think that the Irish have long suspected that this is what would happen While there is no appetite for a hard border I don't think they will roll over and take threats from the U.K. lightly.
ONe Irish MEP said "The U.K's Brexit proposal regarding Northern Ireland is an attempt to have its cake and eat ours".

Would the RoI govt & public ever roll over like this, Math and other Irish Westministenders?

Well I know the hand gesture I would personally respond with, certainly.

The Irish govt has already put forward an Irish Sea border as a retort to the idea that Ireland would do the UK's dirty work. I see no reason why that should change.

Back to the threat of removing freedom of movement, which seems to be part of the very aggressive and offensive and tone deaf approach to the issue of NI and handling Ireland - think for one minute about the GFA and in particular the section dealing with holding an Irish passport if you identify as Irish in NI. Would NI Irish individuals be denied access to the 'mainland' if freedom of movement was stopped?

The irony of refusing to allow people from one side of the border to enter the UK as they have done up to now (including the north east part of the island of Ireland, where many have relatives, or work, or businesses to run) while insisting at the same time that people who identify as Irish must remain part of the UK whether they like it or not - is that not a ludicrous situation?

There is inherent to the threat of unilaterally (or otherwise) stopping freedom of movement from Ireland to the UK a completely barefaced contempt for the GFA and the concept of the 'totality of relationships' between the two states of Ireland and the UK (to resurrect the old Charles Haughey-Margaret Thatcher era fundamental starting point for forward looking dialogue).

Bridge burning is the opposite of statesmanship and will come back to bite the UK in the bum in no uncertain fashion.

But to answer BigChoc's question, burning bridges with the UK would be well worth it for Ireland, which has a solid Plan B and an American wing in place. I think Ireland should hang tough and insist on the UK squaring this circle itself.

but all stand ready to cut down anyone who actually can navigate treacherous waters Including Grexiteers, Golden Dawn, apparently, and what did/is happening in Cromer?

As for the ongoing ridiculous Big Ben saga

Twitter campaign to rename it as Big Brenda and :

@RemainiacsCast
And rename The Tower of London as "Barbara Castle"