Why is the Prime Minister not being dragged over the coals for this? Whilst she and Boris Johnson blather on, the fur is flying practically under their noses! How can Her Majesty’s Government be trusted to manage Brexit and national security if they cannot prevent employees at the very heart of government from acting like soccer hooligans?
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October 22nd, 2016 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
– The prayer of Horatio Nelson, commander of the British fleet, written on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar, the following day. For those interested in this period of naval warfare, I strongly recommend this excellent book by Sam Willis. Roger Knight’s excellent biography of Nelson, which I read about three years’ ago after it was published, is also a brilliant study of the man. (Being an East Anglian, as Nelson also was, I am somewhat biased.) I leave it to Samizdata readers to elaborate on the potential parallels between Nelson’s destruction of the French/Spanish fleets on that day and the recent far less violent assertion of UK independence on 23 June, 2016. October 21st, 2016 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
What looks like a contradiction – being anti-Brexit, but pro-Sexit – makes perfect sense: underpinning both positions is a loathing of the largely English demos. That’s why the cause of Scottish independence feeds into, and reinforces, the anti-democratic tendency of our present moment. Scotland is being turned into a utopia for those seeking refuge from the people. The irony to all this, of course, is that Scottish independence is itself now being shown to be a misnomer. There is no real talk of going it alone, of ensuring that the Scottish people have control of their own affairs. Because those arguing for freedom from the UK want nothing more than to immerse Scotland in the even greater union of the EU. Which is no kind of independence at all. October 21st, 2016 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Ben Chu in the Independent describes 5 possible Brexit outcomes. The only interesting ones are 4 and 5. Brexit 4 is, “Leave the single market and customs union with no free trade deal in place and trade with Europe under World Trade Organisation rules.” Brexit 5 is, “Leave the single market and customs union with no free trade deal – but unilaterally scrap all import tariffs.” He thinks 4 will make us poor, and 5 is politically impossible because the exporters will make a fuss. I think we will end up with something between 4 and 5, with lots of bluster and threats but ultimately low-ish tariffs because British and EU politicians are not completely self-destructive. But I am a very optimistic person. Of course the tariff structures will be ridiculously complicated and riddled with special interest exceptions. This is funny, from Brexit 3, which is a comprehensive free trade deal that will somehow require a strong customs border: “There would additionally have to be a customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, with potentially serious political consequences.” I think any such border would be for appearances only and eyes would be blind to any goods moving across it. This is because trade deals are not really there to improve anyone’s economic prospects. They are to win favour with voters, so only outward appearances matter. They do not need to be properly enforced. Nobody in charge actually cares about smuggling. Incidental note: I was thinking of this song when I wrote the title. Postscript: Further to that, and with apologies to anyone not familiar with the best Megadeth album: Give me sov’renty, give me liberty, I master five Brexits, I master five Brexits I’ll get my coat. October 19th, 2016 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
Labour really is circling the drain, the obsession with JEWS is like late senile dementia settling in, and there ain’t anyway back from that. So much so, it’s time to figure out what opposition politics in Britain will look like. UKIP might or might not disintegrate but all those voters will still be there: if it does blow up completely, something will fill the void. If it doesn’t, then that’s probably the core around which Her Majesty’s Opposition will coalesce. But it’s looking more and more likely that won’t be Labour, because it’s coming close to the point someone needs to stick a fork in ’em because they’re done, just another hate group loony tunes fringe party. – Samizdata commenter ‘Marcher’ October 17th, 2016 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
I find this headline bizarre as clearly the Labour Party has been working tirelessly on the subject of anti-Semitism, so much so that they have moved support for anti-Semitism into the mainstream (sometimes under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism’ but increasingly Labourites are not even bothering with that fig-leaf). In my opinion the last thing we need is the Labour Party doing even more on anti-Semitism! 😉 October 16th, 2016 | 63 comments - (Comments are closed)
950 years ago today in 1066, after arriving in England a few days earlier, my ‘migrant’ ancestors rode up Senlac Hill to introduce themselves to the waiting locals 😀
October 14th, 2016 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
John Stuart Mill, 1848:
The Guardian, 2016:
October 12th, 2016 | 57 comments - (Comments are closed)
Because it’s being made very clear to us that the Single Market is Brexit. We are being told that if we want membership of that trading area then we’ve got to accept free movement of people (not in itself a bad idea but not really what people voted for), all of the regulation of the economy which the EU imposes, must pay into the EU budget and so on and on. Essentially, it is being made very clear that membership of the Single Market comes with all of the costs and responsibilities of full EU membership. That is, single market membership is a denial of Brexit itself. We do all know that a majority of MPs are against the very idea of leaving. Which is exactly why they shouldn’t have a vote on the matter. For accepting single market membership is tantamount to not leaving, it would be a reversal of the referendum by the back door. October 10th, 2016 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
Bouattia argues that a ‘Eurocentric’ curriculum is problematic because BME students ‘don’t see themselves in what they’re studying, and can’t relate to it’. According to her, any body of knowledge produced solely by white people is inaccessible to BME students. Presumably, this includes the plays of Shakespeare; the ancient literature of Suetonius, Tacitus and Plutarch; the political economy of Adam Smith and Karl Marx; and the science of Pythagoras, Archimedes, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. BME students cannot relate to these classical authors, she says. But there would be no point in BME students going to university if they refused to learn anything that didn’t relate to their immediate lived experience. If it were applied, Bouattia’s approach to education would limit the potential aspirations of BME students, leaving them without access to the necessary historical, philosophical and intellectual grounding they need to develop as thinkers. October 7th, 2016 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
My lack of enthusiasm for Theresa May is long on record, so there were no real surprises for me in her typically Blairite speech. But I am very happy is was poorly received (and predictably so).
Never forget that May opposed Brexit and has been consistently terrible on pretty much every issue. But once we are out of the EU (and realistically long before then, as the underpinning assumption on all sides of the spectrum have now shifted to trying to shape the post-EU realities), there is one less massive Brussels-sized shield between the British state and the people who wish to roll it back, compared to the situation on June 22nd of this year. The battle we won over Brexit was not the end, it was merely the end of the beginning. It was essential so that we can now fight on a battlefield where the arrows we shoot rain down on our real enemies, the ones in Westminster. And sooner rather than later, one of those arrows needs to end up in Theresa May’s eye, ideally whilst the disarranged Labour Party is still lead by an unelectable anti-Semitic Worzel Gummidge clone. October 6th, 2016 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
This New Statesman article argues that while the proponents of Brexit were libertarian, what we are going to end up with is more statism. I happen to think that we would never have reduced the size of the state inside the EU, so leaving it was a necessary first step. But it was never going to be all that was needed. Theresa May does seem to favour some particularly odious policies. On the other hand, there has been talk of reducing corporation tax and VAT. Trade could still end up being free-er on net. We might eventually get rid of May, or new political factions might rise to dominance that offer more hope. Am I right to be at all optimistic? October 6th, 2016 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
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