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Samizdata quote of the day – Labour still don’t understand why so many voted for Brexit What is still so lacking in these arguments [about Brexit] is even a smattering of emotional intelligence. No one fully understood the implications of Brexit but when so much of the establishment, the great and the good, the entire culture industry, told everyone to vote Remain then it was obvious that many would stick two fingers up.
This was described as a monumental act of self-harm, but I always understood the Leave impulse as coming from an England that would not do as it was told.
That England never went away. That England is still continually being ticked off for expressing its identity incorrectly. Yet, as we have just seen in the local elections, both the Scots and the Welsh have voted for their own nationalist politicians. The Leave vote was an expression of cultural identity.
– Suzanne Moore (£)
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Right now – over the last year, certainly – England appears to be doing what it was told.
It’s hard to understand something when you refuse to listen.
I was still a member of the Labour Party when the BRExit campaign was just starting back in 2016. Although there were many within my local constituency party that followed the party line, there was a significant minority that wouldn’t, part of the old Bennite faction (the late Tony, not the current idiot).
They saw such things as free movement of Labour, not through the lens of new freedoms, but rather through the old lens of class warfare. This was an attempt to undercut the wages of the working class by bringing in a cohort of foreign workers who would accept lower wages than the locals.
I had the temerity to actually campaign for Vote Leave, the Dominic Cummings anti-BRExit vehicle, not the Leave.EU campaign headlined by Nigel Farage. This caused a massive hoo-ha with my local Labour Party and eventually led me to leave the party in 2019.
So yes, Labour are delusional to think that their membership are all on message with a campaign to rejoin the EU. A significant minority of the membership will actively vote against it and another section will nod and smile and Vote “No” to rejoin at the ballot box, although I doubt Labour would risk that opportunity for rebuke, given the example the Tories were given.
Today, I work as the personal secretary to a Reform UK MSP in the Scottish Parliament and I’m happier than I have ever been.
Life is change.
Ignorance is a choice.
You must not follow UK electoral politics 😀
@Ragnar – Yes. I myself was wondering how that could be true in any real sense. Electing 1,500 Reform UK councillors* doesn’t seem to align with that at all.
* – Don’t have the figures to hand.
I stupidly comment on pro eu membership posts. I suppose it at least let’s me understand what the other side believe.
Almost universal is the argument that you can be in the eu and still govern yourself. If you point out that the eu creates law, you hear comments that we didnt have to obey them. Every fact you point out is denied. Its like grabbing an eel. They say we can veto but have never heard about qmv. Its a never ending litany of denial. Lying to themselves.
My viewpoint being no one other than the British people have the right to govern britain. Absolute.
bobby b – when people resist they get sent to prison, as many people were, even for just saying “the wrong thing”, in 2024 – the establishment made it very clear that they would use any means – any means at all, to crush the public. And the very highest member of the establishment gloated about this – Christmas broadcast 2024.
However, General Elections still exist – and it is possible (possible) that the United Kingdom will still be saved in the General Election of 2029 – although voting for a party is not enough, that party (if elected) would have to utterly clear out the officials and “experts” – no more Bank of England power and all the rest of it.
As for the basic principle – that the people of a nation should be able, if they wish to do so, to peacefully remove those who govern them – and accept no edicts (regulations) that come from an external source or from unelected officials…..
This was outlined by, for example, George Buchanan in Scotland in the 1500s. It is alleged that the thinkers of Ancient Greece and Republican Rome came from a society that was “dependent upon slavery” – but this can not be said of Scotland in the 1500s (or England, or Wales, or Ireland) – not dependent on slavery or serfdom.
Buchanan and others did not hold that the public should engage in street violence every time they felt like it – they held that the public must have the right to peacefully remove a government they believed to be oppressive, and that violence should only be used if peaceful means were forbidden. And, indeed, they held that laws should not come from outside the nation – and should not be made up by priests, officials and other unelected persons and imposed (by the threat of violence) upon the people of the nation.
That the people of the nation should rule themselves used to be something that the Labour Party understood – for example Labour Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell understood it – hence his opposition to the United Kingdom joining the European Economic Community (as it then was).
A person can not be a patriot, a supporter of the independence (self government) of the people of one’s nation, and be a supporter of the European Union – I am sorry if writing that angers some people, but it is the truth.
If you demand that your nation (the people of your nation) obey the laws of the European Union – you are not a patriot. The laws the people obey must only be laws made with their consent.
It was amazing how many remain articles at the time went along the lines, “The EU isn’t very good, you must vote for it.”
By the way – the majority of people in Wales also voted for independence from the European Union.
And people did vote for independence – to live under their own laws, not the laws of the European Union.
People did NOT vote for this meaningless “Brexit” thing – which Prime Minister Theresa May (and the rest of the establishment) claimed gave her the right to deny the British people independence, self government.
We voted for independence – if people will not even use the word independence, they certainly will not support it in practice.
Patrick Crozier – yes indeed Sir.
At the time, 2016, few people pretended that the rule of the European Union was any good – but the establishment still insisted we vote for it.
And even when they lost the vote on independence – the establishment then said we had NOT voted for independence, we had voted for “Brexit” – a word that meant whatever they wanted it to mean (including continuing to be ruled by the European Union and the rest of the International Community).
This is why, for example, Mr Andrew “Andy” Burnham can say that he accepts “Brexit” but still wants rule by the European Union – i.e. for us to be ruled by their laws.
Perhaps we should encourage Scottish independence. If they then intend to join the EU we can watch their accession process problems, and then see how well their loss of sovereignty goes down.
Oh, but I do. Y’all did that anonymously. And I’ve watched y’all elect a lot of Tories, too. I’ll take your correction when something happens out of it. 😉
Discovered Joys – you point out a strange thing, no one wants Scottish independence.
Some people want Scotland to be part of the United Kingdom and some people want to Scotland to be ruled by the European Union – but no one wants Scotland to be independent.
It is the same with Wales – some people there want to be part of the United Kingdom, and some people there want Wales to be ruled by the European Union, but no one wants Wales to be an independent country.
Yup. I point to the relative post-Brexit GDP growth of Britain vs comparable EU nations (Germany, France, Italy) and they tend to come back with, ah yes but Bullshit Thinktank in the Guardian said our GDP would be x% higher if we’d stayed in. Really? Why did these benefits not accrue to Germany?
Like the Net Zero madness, it’s a matter of faith.
In part, yes. But there does seem to be a deliberate refusal among much of the political class to employ Occam’s Razor. The Leave vote was a vote to leave the European Union.
One in five Scots actively voted for the nationalists (about the same proportion of the electorate as voted for this hugely popular Labour government in 2024, oddly enough). Now, sure, this translated to almost 40% of the vote, because half the country doesn’t give a flying toss about the “expression of national identity” that is the “Scottish Parliament”.
DJ:
I’d rather not. It would a fustercluck of epic proportions, especially when you consider the nonentities who’d presume to negotiate on our behalf.
Paul,
Have read Richard North’s blog since around 2004. He stated the EU is anti democratic given it straddles people who dont form a natural demos.
Marcus,
Im afraid my arguments are nothing to do with money or gdp. More blood and soil i suppose.
England doing what it is told:
https://x.com/DailyMail/status/2057446400971952198
(My problem is, I can find similar examples in my neck of the woods. Fewer, but similar.)
Stuart North,
I agree that the EU is anti democratic but the idea that this is because it straddles people who don’t form a natural demos strikes me as being rather academic. In my view the founders of the EU gave it only the trappings and superficial appearance of being democratic because they blamed democracy for the rise of Hitler. Accordingly all the real power rests with the Commission and the Parliament is an almost entirely ineffectual talking shop.
Stuart Noyes – agreed Sir.
But it is also the case that the institutions of the European Union were deliberately designed to be anti democratic – to appear democratic whilst making sure that ordinary people did NOT decide important matters – “the people voted for Hitler” being the (private) excuse for the rule by bureaucracy and “experts” (Hegelian).
It is much the same with international human rights “Declarations” and “Conventions” – they are drafted in such a way as to appear to be defending basic liberties, whilst NOT actually doing so.
Our rulers wish the appearance of democracy and the appearance of liberty – whilst, in reality, the substance of both is prevented.
“Under God the people rule” (the State Motto of South Dakota) is exactly what they do NOT want – and “Live Free or Die” (the State motto of New Hampshire) gives them nightmares – remember the British state will arrest you for carrying any weapon to defend yourself and others, unless you are part of an ethnic group they favour.
Stuart Noyes,
My apologies for carelessly getting your name wrong.
David
I agree about the EUs structure. The Commission has sole right to create law. Its an appointed government that never publishes a manifesto or stands for election. As you rightly say, its undemocratic and was created to be just that.
I believe however that the fact its a government presiding over multiple people’s who dont hold cultural, language and many other requirements necessary to share such institutions means that the whole organisation is completely contrary to democracy. How many European countries split apart that had been created by the Soviet Union? Even the uk has its problems with Scotland.
Stuart Noyes – correct on the institutions of the E.U.
It is true that Switzerland is a multi language country – but it has (or had – it is changing) in many ways a common culture – in terms of religion and shared ethnic background.
The European Union is increasingly made up of people who have nothing in common – as you have pointed out Sir.
Sadly the same could now be said of England – the demographic change has been extreme, and is continuing. It may well be that the United Kingdom will break up over the next few years (given the state of politics in Wales – and even more so in Scotland), and that the story of England (the English people) will also come to an end over the next few decades.
Treason, treason, treason – that sums up the actions of the British establishment over many decades now.