We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
The Liberal Democrat party, with its host of 6 MPs (much reduced in 2015) have pledged to ignore the Brexit referendum result and to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU.
“Nigel Farage’s vision for Britain has won this vote, but it is not a vision I accept”, declared Lib Dem leader Tim Farron yesterday. “Even though the vote was close, the majority of British people want us to leave. But we refuse to give up on our beliefs”, he said.
Mr. Farron argued that his party’s proposition was justifiable in a democratic society as older people’s votes were somehow less valid and because a vote against the EU was really a vote against Westminster.
“This was not a vote on the European Union alone”, he said, but a “howl of anger” against politics.
So, once the votes are counted, and if that ‘fails’, they are then ‘interpreted’ and in line with socialist logic, they don’t mean what a plain reading might fairly be taken to show that they mean. But is he not also saying that the vote was against him, as a member of the Westminster Parliament?
I would like to contrast this attitude with that of General Pinochet, well-known ‘strongman’ of Chilean politics from 1973 to 1990, who held a referendum on his junta (well, him) continuing to rule Chile in 1988, and who respected the outcome rejecting his continued rule, with a little prodding perhaps from General Matthei, the Air Force member of the junta (and friend of the UK in the Falklands War), who called for the result to be respected.
I suppose what we are seeing is a political auto-endoscopy by the Left, each trying to get further up their own arses than the other, with Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister indicating that the Scottish Parliament may have a veto on Brexit, a surprising interpretation of constitutional law from someone who is a solicitor.
I am confident that the bulk of people will see through all this, and see the Left, in all their shades, for the totalitarians that they are.
And yet just because the establishment failed, that doesn’t mean the demos have won. Not fully, anyway. We must stay vigilant. For there will now be a concerted effort to thwart our democratic statement, to weaken it by calling into question its legitimacy. This is already happening. Apparently the demos behaved rashly. We ‘voted emotionally rather than considering the facts’, says Labour MP Keith Vaz. We were in the grip of fear, say others. Or we were making a xenophobic statement, they claim, overlooking the irony of their pontificating about prejudice while suggesting that the 17.5million people who said No to the EU, this vast swathe of people, is a tabloid-poisoned blob given to disliking foreign people. Demagogues ‘injected poison into the nation’s bloodstream’, commentators are already saying, the implication being that we were brainwashed, made mad by evil men. We know not what we do. We’re children.
The efforts to rebrand this vote as a kneejerk thing, an emotional thing, a racist thing, are already underway. And others will no doubt argue that because the vote was very close, perhaps we shouldn’t take drastic measures; perhaps we should reform our ties with the EU rather than sever them. We must stand against all this, and insist that the people have spoken, and the people are sovereign, or ought to be. Indeed, that is fundamentally what the referendum was about: do you think Brussels or the parliament in London should be sovereign? The people voted for themselves.
The Brexit vote has been an event of massive political importance, but what really fascinates me is that this has clearly not been a party political event.
The day before the vote I was chatting with a group of congenial LEAVE campaigners in Dover, and they were evenly split between Labour and Tory supporters. And as we nattered, the nastiest things I heard said about Corbyn were from the self-described Labourites… and the cattiest remarks about Cameron came from the self-described Tories… and both groups laughed as they listened to the others trashing the leaders of their own parties, as if it was a competition who could heap more expletives on their own nominal leaders. I must confess I have never seen the like in all my years.
The long term fallout from this will be very interesting indeed.
Brexit. How about that then. Well, well, well. Many other writers here have been thinking aloud about this, and so, now, will I.
The London weather was very wet yesterday, and violently so in the late afternoon. But, it then calmed down. Did the violent rain disrupt travel and permanently muck people up, so they didn’t vote? Or, did the abatement of the rain enable Londoners to get out and vote without too much discomfort? I have just got up and look forward to finding out. I took an umbrella to my (very) local polling station, around 7pm, but I didn’t use it. Someone said last night that it would be just typical if Britain left the EU because of the weather, but it looks like it wasn’t that close.
Re the Jo Cox murder. Many Remainers used this horror to imply that voting Leave was like voting in favour of MPs being murdered. (The Remainers who refrained from using this argument were not so audible.) I surmise that (a) some potential Leavers were persuaded, (b) some potential Leavers were angered and caused to vote Leave having only previously been thinking about it, and (c) quite a few continued to move towards Leave for reasons unrelated to the Jo Cox murder, but in silence. When the Cox murder happened, there was a shift towards Leave taking place. I surmise that this continued to flow, but underground, so to speak. Minds continued to move, but people stopped telling the pollsters. But, they’ve told them now.
The above two points were already made by me here last night, in comments on Natalie Solent postings. Here are a few more Brexit thoughts.
I have been in Dover for the last week and a bit, and it is like a different world compared to my usual haunts in London (and by the way, I heartily recommend the Allotment restaurant).
And as I walked down the street wearing my LEAVE badge, I was constantly getting nods of approval or thumbs up gestures from complete strangers. As I headed back to London yesterday, the chap sitting behind me patted me on the shoulder and launched into a friendly diatribe about “accountable government!”, and the driver of the bus (rail replacement service actually) grinned broadly and gave me a thumbs up as I entered the vehicle! And I found myself doing the same to others when I saw them wearing a similar badge.
And yet the media was constantly telling me we had already lost, and we might as well not bother, and thus I went to bed last night with a heavy heart.
I should have believed what I saw in the streets with my own eyes, and not what I read in the media.
And as before, the huscarls and fyrd shouted the battle cry: “Out! Out! Out!”
The enemy were not my Norman ancestors this time, but rather David Cameron in the role of William the Bastard, with his knights arranged around him with names like Jean-Claude Juncker, J.P. Morgan, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, and oh so many other members of the global establishment who disdainfully ordained that the order of things must not be upset, and snouts must be left undisturbed in the troughs to which they have become accustomed.
But this time… oh this time… it was not the embodiment of England who took an arrow in the eye but rather Dave the Bastard. This time just enough of the fyrd refused to take the bait, declining to rush forward off the hill leaving the huscarls exposed. This time they stood fast behind a forest of spears and a wall of shields, against which the forces of Dave the Bastard charged and died. We shall not be moved!
And in this glorious re-match, who has been cast in the role of King Harold Godwinson? It is hard to say, for he is wearing a helmet, but I have a sneaking suspicion when he takes it off, he will have very blonde tousled hair.
Britain has just angrily shrieked two words and they are: FUCK YOU!
Political Betting.com. Sample headline “The results so far have developed not necessarily to Remain’s advantage”. A student of history, then.
*
First thoughts:
– THE UNITED KINGDOM WILL LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION.
– The working class did it. The issue was immigration. It wouldn’t have been my choice for main issue, but I am not ashamed to have been in a broad alliance. I’ll gladly bear the next election being won by a party I don’t like in exchange for elections mattering again.
– Talking of which, who will win the next election? Which parties will fight it? When will it be? No idea.
– Shy Leavers. And I hesitate to say this, but the atmosphere of blame following the murder of Jo Cox will have been perceived by many as moral blackmail.
– The EU is holed beneath the waterline. People worldwide have seen that impossible things can happen.
– President Trump? His visit to these shores is spookily well timed.
– Prime Minister Cameron? – 2010-2016
– Don’t assume that the SNP actually wants another Scottish independence referendum. Right now a second indyref would have the same result as the first.
Simon Gibbs, who will eventually have his own proper samizdata by-line that does not run across the Atlantic and back, has something else to say:
News from the front line. This comes via a brace of energetic libertarians and their allies who were giving out Libertarian Home branded leaflets today on Oxford Street. The office-worker demographic which was missing from our previous visit was back in force and so the tone of the crowd became much more hostile. Not just taking the other stance in greater numbers, but becoming rude and a little shouty. It seems anyone more removed from the coalface than a shop owner is much more inclined to be a Remainer, and perhaps less friendly too.
This may be hearsay, but the Remain camp were apparently out elsewhere on Oxford Street giving out croissants this morning. We had picked up news (from the ice-cream salesman next to Charing Cross) that the Remain camp had also been out there giving out cakes a week or so earlier. The lady selling Lion King tickets – in the same spot – had apparently feigned agreement and claimed an illegitimate hot-dog. Main course, pudding and a bonus breakfast all served up by the Remain camp.
From where does the money for large quantities of free-food come from?
The statistics to hand have 47% of the population clearly in the second category, where our direct experience had ~90% voting Leave. It seems there is a pivot point somewhere in the range of C1 or C2 where Remain begins to out number Leave. Just as there is apparently a pivot point at age 43. Where exactly the pivot points are will determine the result, but I fear we will find it was a wealthy elite that keeps us in Europe. Divisions like that have consequences.
And now a word from Simon Gibbs, who will soon have his own by-line on Samizdata.
We’re nearing the date of the EU referendum we’re having in this part of the world, and a great many people are fed up of being lectured to, or frightened, or lied to. Understandably, people are beginning to have a moan about this atmosphere of negativity – but this just adds to the gloom.
To change the mood you have to go out of your way to do something positive – set appropriately in context but nevertheless positive. It takes effort to think of what positive would look like when the subject is so dangerous and horrid. Ayumi, one of my colleagues at Libertarian Home (which is now very much a joint effort) had an idea about how to do it. We backed her to the hilt.
So here, thanks to Ayumi and to Devika and Richard and little James and teeny tiny Abigail (and dozens of people whose names I quickly lost track of) is a little bit of positivity. Making this was seriously hard work, but it was really very satisfying.
When the government (i.e. Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne – they are the government) supported the Labour Party continuing to get automatic payments from trade union members (i.e. no need to “opt in”) and supported eleven more years of the BBC tax – I knew the “fix was in”.
Now we hear that Baroness W. has “left Leave” – the lady was never a supporter of the Independence of this country. Actually Baroness W. is a typical member of the “chattering classes” – endlessly going on about “discrimination against Muslims” and “the politics of hate” (look in the mirror dear lady – you will see someone who practices the “politics of hate” all the time). The idea that this lady was ever really in favour of getting out of the E.U. is absurd.
As for the chattering classes in general – they are wrong about just about everything (I say “just about” as even a stopped clock is correct twice a day). Their ignorance is only matched by their arrogance.
Asked on BBC One’s Andrew Marr show if there was any kind of upper limit to the numbers coming into Britain, he said: “I don’t think you can have one while you have a free movement of labour – and I think the free movement of labour means that you have to balance the economy so you have to improve living standards and conditions.
“And so that means the EU’s appalling treatment of Greece… that is a problem. If you deliberately lower living standards and increase poverty in certain countries in south-east or eastern Europe then you’re bound to have a flow of people looking for somewhere else to go.”
I do not know what “balance the economy” means and I doubt Mr Corbyn does either. But at least he is not a weasel like Cameron. In a TV appearance allegedly aimed at persuading us to vote to stay in the European Union Corbyn resignedly says that the main claim of the other side regarding the most hotly contested issue, immigration, is correct. Then he says that the EU’s treatment of one of its member states is “appalling” and deliberately aimed at lowering living standards. Why he wants to stay in a union that wants to impoverish people is a mystery… or it would be, if he did.
My sunken hopes rise a little, given added lift by the fact that the dear old Guardian had this story on the front page for about a minute and a half before someone realised. It now can only be found if you already know it is there. For its part the BBC has clipped the key words off the beginning of the relevant clip from its own programme. Mr Corbyn answered a straightforward question in a straightforward fashion. That media organizations in favour of Remain seek to hide this rather than boast of it speaks volumes.
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