Remainers rally

It's been a good few days for the Remainers. The Supreme Court ruled, as expected, that an Act of Parliament was required to leave the EU (which I agree with). The prospect of filibuster was back on, led by feisty Scot Nats, annoyed by the Court ruling that they did not have the right to discuss the Act in their chamber (because they are NOT a nation in law -- when will they get that?). So the Nats threatened to wreck the Act with endless amendments,but apparently the UK Government can design a bill in such a way as to prevent that -- we shall see. There will also be a White Paper setting out the Government's plan for Brexit -- May is riding high at present.

The Guardinista Tendency were also encouraged by a piece from J Steele arguing that the Leave vote was 'not sacrosanct' :

Few people appear to appreciate that, contrary to widespread assumption, paragraph three of the Lisbon treaty’s article 50 says that the two-year timetable can be extended by the European council. There is no inflexibility here. Similarly, paragraph five of the same article raises the option of a member state that has left the EU deciding to rejoin. In other words, Brexit does not slam the door. Britain can come back in again provided the political circumstances are right.

All that was needed was for a majority of MPs, led byLabour (!),  to vote against and/or campaign for a rerun. OR an incoming Labour Government could just go ahead and re-apply. There is nothing particularly binding about a referendum, Steele argues, and if a general election can lead to changes in policy generally, so it can overturn referendum results (quite right). Steele realises that this would be unpopular, since joining also means joining the Euro and Schengen: so the UK would have to rejoin, under the same terms as before . So it is best just to delay and hope voters will change their mind to vote in a rejoin EU party:

Public support for Brexit is more likely to diminish than increase as Brexit’s costs and job losses become clearer.

So Remainers are hoping for economic downturn, and, if it happens, that this will somehow drive people to rejoin the EU! And Labour is going to make this its policy! 

The letters page this morning was full of hopeful Remainers agreeing with Steele. There were also unmistakeable Guardian comments -- one bloke said that, after all, £350m a week contribution is only £6 per week per household (he obviously had not got the memo that says the £350m figure is a despicable lie). Others said they were renewing their passports now to make sure they still had the EU flag on it.  One contributor said Labour MPs would be valued by their constituents if they spoke out against Brexit because their constituents would eventually come to see that only misery had ensued, so they would be chaired back to Parliament shoulder-high. 

Generally, though, the Guardian line seems also to seek consolation in Art, in this case the speech from the new Trainspotting, which might be repurposed to make it anti-Trump. It seems paranoia is deepening and they are now detecting messages in mass media none of the rest of us can see -- God will soon be speaking to them in code on the Ten O'Clock News

Sad day

Depressing discussion in the Guradian today n the new film about D Lipstadt here

Lipstadt is a tue hero, stanidng up to the bully David Irving in an important libel case  turning on whether Irving was or was not a Holocaust denier. The court found he was, and that blew his whole careful schtick about being just a bona fide historian with another view of the evidence.

Most of the interview was about the case and Lipstadt's courage. Then we shifted to the need to get at historical evidence whenever possible. I started to feel uncomfortable as the topic turned to the 'post-truth' era.

Then we got this:

“I am very worried that there is a general sentiment out there that you have your facts, I have my facts, and whoever yells loudest wins,” Lipstadt says. “You had it in your country with Brexit. What was that bus with £350m a week on it? In America, we had it with our election.”

I just think this is appalling that a famous historian should be quoted like this. Ironically, Lipstadt cited no evidence for her claims that the Brexit debate reached some new low of 'post-truth', andnor did she test the liberal view that the £350, claim was some particularly pernicious lie and not just routine political rhetoric. She must be aware of the dangers of equating Brexit with the Holocaust by ideological association? And can she seriously think of THIS era as'post-truth' compared to the era of Nazi Germany?

Guardian news values

Today my print version of the Guardian led with two big stories on the front page. One announced that economists were sometimes (quite often) wrong in their predictions and had failed to predict either the Great Crash of 2008 or the relative lack of crisis following Brexit.

The second story featured the case of a man who was born in Britain of German parents and had lived all his life in the UK but was inelegible for a UK passport. It seems he could not prove his mother was actully in the UK when he was born. He is being required to take a citizenship test.

What makes these items important enough to splash on the front pag? Economists being wrong is hardly a news item, and of all the hunan interest stories to run with, the choice of the UK resident unable to just get a UK passport is hardly up there.

Both these items were pulled from the front page, it seesm,as news developed, but the choice of putting them there in the first place is revealing. They are only 'news' if you still think Brexit is the main news story evenif they fail to hit all the right notes for a news story - -being topical, relevant and so on

By comparison, the Times led with the row between Trump and his intelligence chiefs