Monbiot adds four dots to get five

Notwithstanding the scepticism just mentioned and aired on Newsnight, the liberal conspiracy theory about Brexit found another spokesperson to day in the Guardian -- G Monbiot. Monbiot has been quite sensible lately and has even come near to an adequate grasp of the sources of inequality in Britain, but the old liberal fears are hard to dispel.

In a large feature in the Journal section (so what are the other sections?), he uncovers a sinister network of funding that might exist, connected to various Leave campaigns. The novelty is that some money might have been conveyed through the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland. The DUP have just agreed to support the minority Conservative Party in exchange for £1bn of funding for Northern Ireland.

Apparently, rules about publicising political funding are less strict in Northern Ireland and for good reasons -- the past paramilitary conflict meant any prominent supporter of either side might be at risk. But a suspicious amount of money went through that conduit to UK Leave outfits, and some of it is unaccounted for.

Monbiot then lets the final stages develop without his usual thorough investigations.This funding MUST have influenced the Referendum result. As a result, the Referendum could be null and void. We must find out via a public enquiry (which will take years) and until then Brexit must be suspended. 

He has a petition we can sign on his website. [it seems he is waiting for a new petitions system] . If we sign it and if lots of others do too, Parliament might inaugurate a public enquiry and might suspend Brexit. Monbiot has become one of those Graunida cranks who write letters calling for some national campaign to restore red telephone boxes or dog licences and invite readers to join them.

If we all vote for happiness while we are there we can bring about world peace.

He describes himself as a 'Eurosceoptic Remainer'.

Newsnight shows scepticism!

A pretty good item on Newsnight yesterday for a change. G Gatehouse investigated the old Cambridge Analytica (CA) story already puffed a good deal in Graun and Observer by one C Cadwallader (see blog item below). Cadwallder appeared, but Gatehouse got an interesting last word

This time, the connections between the various bogies like Breitbart, Farage, and Trump did not quite all converge on Cambridge Analytica, although some suspicion remained (sic) about dubious flows of money. 

However, some sceptics appeared on the programme too. CA had initially supported T Cruz's run for US President, and that fizzled of course. Only then did they transfer to Trump, and the CA CEO adnitted they had not had time to develop their instruments very well for the Donald. A member of Cruz's team expressed some disappointment about CA's claims to deliver effective voter profiles --he said they offered bullshit.

An endorsement from famed UK psychologist B Gunter was also a tad ambiguous. He explained how it could all work very well -- you do personality tests and then correlate these with preferences expressed on things like social media, so you can then target likely voters. It was just asserted that 'personality' affects actual voting behaviour, and no-one asked how you get the information about social media use --belonging to Facebook groups was one suggestion, but then you hardly need CA to tell you to target FB groups that openly support your cause.

However, even Gunter parted with CA. He was a bit vague but it was something to do with their lack of rigour in either devising or applying the tests.

Overall, Gatehouse was able to suggest to the 'old Etonian' founder and CEO of CA (his schooling was mentioned several times) that the whole thing was a con -- indignantly denied of course, but the possibility is in the air at last. Or on the air.

Well done Newsnight!

Larry nails it

The Guardian's great asset is L Elliott and it is a real shame he gets relegated to the middle bits amid all the dull biznews. If the Graun wants to restore expertise to public discourse it could well start with him.

I have cited his reasons for voting Brexit before, but here he is with an implication for Labour: 

Labour’s approach has thus far been one of studied ambiguity. To put up a decent show in the general election in June, Corbyn needed to hold together a coalition of leave voters in the north and Midlands with remain voters in London and the other big cities. So the line was that Labour accepted the result of the referendum but would seek to secure access to the single market in any negotiations....

Should Labour simply oppose or abandon Brexit, which many Remainer media folk wanted?

There are, though, one or two drawbacks to this approach. One is that quite a lot of the 17 million people who voted leave in the referendum were cheesed off with the status quo and don’t want it resurrected. A second is that many of the measures that a Labour government might want to introduce to remedy Britain’s structural weaknesses – increased state aid, infant industry protection, public ownership – would be harder to implement, or actually prohibited, inside the EU. A third is that it would be profoundly anti-democratic...the direction of travel for decades has been entirely in the opposite direction, towards a destination where budgets have to balanced, where countries have to deflate their way back to growth, where the nation state must bend the knee to market forces and competition and where neoliberal ideas hold sway. A Corbyn-led government could make a success of reform and remain, but only if it could win the support of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and a Council of Ministers, none of which are exactly awash with kindred spirits.

Elsewhere there are also signs of renewal.with this article that actually attempts to set out pros and cons of Brexit for the food industry. There is possibly a slight leaning towards the cons, and a rather uncritical repetition of a constant remainer 'lie' -- that it is the EU that provides subsidies somehow by itself with its own money. 

But it's a start and an improvement on the constant lament about the price of British strawberries if we can't persuade hapless migrants to break their backs picking them for crap wages.

And Elliott idicates a choice for Grauniadistas too -- Remain or end austerity, beause you can't have both.

Grist to the Mill

This article in the Grudian says it all. A Labour supporter teaching in a London school is worried about the 'echo chamber' his school is developing with lefty teachers in a lefty area incapable of representing other views as required.

The key passage for our purposes is this: 

Views that fall outside the accepted liberal-left spectrum get short shrift in my staffroom. I have watched teachers react incredulously – almost to the point of tears – when colleagues have tried floating a reasonable case for Brexit. This would be harmless enough if it did not put in doubt their ability empathise with views opposed to their own.

and, echoing (sic) my own teaching philosophy pretty much:

I see evidence for this every week when I hear otherwise bright and articulate students justify their political opinions with vague, lazy arguments. As John Stuart Mill foresaw, since they have never learned to defend value judgments that seem entirely natural to them, they will struggle to respond to their opponents beyond the school gates.

I have had to mention more than once this argument that JS Mill is much needed in current debate -- especially by lefties whether teachers or journos. 

While I'm here,I might also mention Max Weber's arguments for 'value neutral teaching' (or substitute 'journalism'), or, if we must only consider those of a marxist disposition, Theodor Adorno on activism:

'For the sake of political commitment, political reality is trivialized: which then reduces the political effect' (Adorno in Arato and Gebhardt 1978: 308)
 

Burgeoning consensus convinces Guardian editor

Remainer tails are up as a result of May's dreadful performances and various appearances by EU spokespeople about  how Brexit need not actually mean Brexit after all. We can still stay!

J Freedland's article is worth reading in full as a summary of the case for abandoning Brexit, but here are the key quotes. Afterr a view that May is too weak [isn't this good for Remainers  though?]:

[Leave's] central, winning claim – that exit would bring £350m a week for the NHS – lives on now only as a punchline and case study in Trumpian dishonesty... Leave’s other big pledge was a fall in migration, but this week’s UK population figures, with a 5 million increase in a decade, confirm that EU migration has only ever been part of that story. Meanwhile, farmers and hospital managers alike warn of dire consequences if they cannot bring in essential workers from the continent. Already the numbers, whether of fruit-pickers or nurses, are in steep decline..."The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro"..the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer...if Britain truly changed its mind, Europeans would open their arms. Donald Tusk, president of the European council, was asked on Thursday if it was too late for Britain to stay. The EU was built on impossible dreams, he said, before turning lyrical. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”' ... Labour may be able to embrace a more anti-Brexit position without paying too high an electoral price. That could, for example, be an insistence on staying in the single market... A paper calling for a new “continental partnership” has prompted much interest in pro-European circles: it envisages a two-tier Europe, with Britain sitting in an outer tier, enjoying a form of single market membership that nevertheless allows for limits on free movement.

The editorial has a similar line, including: 

Mrs May likes to say that 85% of Britons have recently voted for parties committed to Brexit. But this is another clunky line she should stop repeating. The 85% of Britons who voted Tory and Labour on 8 June did not all vote for a Brexit that prioritises heartless immigration controls or spurns the European court of justice. They have certainly not, as Philip Hammond rightly warned this week, voted to become poorer, less secure, or to treat Europe in ways that risk the economy crashing if the talks reach impasse....The events of the past 12 months, and of the last 48 hours in particular, have provided a vivid lesson in the folly of Brexit. For a year, Mrs May has expended most of her leadership of the Conservative party attempting to forge – the word is appropriate – a new deal with the EU that will be worse than the one we now have in every significant respect: economically, socially and culturally. On 8 June, the voters pulled the rug from under her feet. The upshot is a Brexit process that was wrong in the first place, has been badly mishandled, and now lacks credibility at home and in the EU. There is an overwhelming need, and perhaps a burgeoning consensus, for Britain to change its Brexit priorities. 

It is worth noting that Remainers have also revised their demands to just partial membership. The whole Freedland piece is full of ifs and slightly misleading if not exactly 'fake' arguments - -the decisive 'lie',engraved for ever on Remainer hearts; the view that immigration is inevitable and unalterable;the blurring together of EU and other migration, nurses and fruit pickers (the two categories luvvies worry most about); the strange view that the UK has already done a Brexit so the fluctuations are not the result of uncertainty but definite Brexit; a fantasy about Labour becoming more like the Liberals, a failure to grasp or reveal that the popular Labour national investment plans would be forbidden by EU rules; a belief that an EU Jesus will arise to save us with a compromise to avoid all this nasty confrontation.

Incidentally, the latest G Osborne attack on May is separately reported. Osborne, now magically transformed from a duplicitous and manipulative Chancellor into a journalist like Guardian staff , had his editorial quoted:

"Last June, in the days immediately after the referendum, David Cameron wanted to reassure EU citizens they would be allowed to stay,” the paper said. “All his cabinet agreed with that unilateral offer, except his home secretary, Mrs May, who insisted on blocking it.”  

That editorial comment appears in the Guardian news section and is repeated in the Guardian editorial cited above:

George Osborne revealed that Mrs May had unilaterally prevented a fairer and more serious offer immediately after the referendum last June because that would strengthen her leadership election chances..

However, the news section attempts some sort of balance: 

May, when asked about the Standard story, said: “That is not my recollection” ... One former senior minister told the Guardian they didn’t recollect any discussion of the issue around the cabinet table at the time.. 

These balancing comments are not repeated in the Guardina editorial though. Editorials become news which become editorials. So much for the sacred split between news and opinion.

Revenge of the Nerd

The BBC a couple of nights ago sent E Davis to Brussels on the occasion of a visit by May. On display was the usual pettiness of the EU that insists the UK is still in the EU when it comes to paying in and obeying EU law for now, but excluded May from the room when they were discussing her proposals to give rights to EU citizens.

Those proposals were dismissed as inadquate by the EU which has, apparently, now simply guaranteed the rights of UK citizens living in the EU -- although when this actually happened is unclear and you can't always trust the news these days (!).

'EU citizens' (marvelous how they have organized themselves in a group with a spokesperson) were also reported to be unhappy because their rights were guaranteed under provisions in immigration law not EU law. So the requirement for the European Court of Justice to remain to guarantee these rights still seems to be the issue?

Anyway, little Evan Davis of the BBC was delighted to be in Brussels where he reported that everyone agreed with him, which at least saved us another hissy fit. He discussed the progress of the Brexit talks with the usual balanced panel -- an EU spokesperson and a journalist (?).The latter managed to be a bit more objective than the BBC and it was actually difficult to judge his own opinion. Fancy!

However, ED retained his broad smile with a summary that must have thrilled nerds everywhere -- 'we' all agree it is a lot more complex than it appeared to be.

[Perhaps I should confess to my own biases here -- I have said that many times]

BBC coverage also showed EU persons conspicuously moving on, with their new love -- Macron

Watts up doc?

The Government seems to be in difficulties forming an arrangement with the small DUP which will help them govern. Much joy and schadenfreude ensues in luvvieland because they have nearly convinced themselves a couple of straws will bear their weight, and that this will mean no (hard) Brexit

The egregiously camp N Watts on Newsnight tonight claimed to have been told by various Remainer plotters in the Tory party that they will force an amendment, if necessary, to the Repeal Bill. This will involve exempting from the repeal the legislation of 1972 that established the process whereby the UK joined the EEC as it then was.This obscure manoeuvre will apparently force the Government to abandon hard Brexit. 

And how was Watts defining hard Brexit in this particular case? -- leaving without a deal. This was always a tough negotiating stance rather than a policy, I insist --but luvvies don't like confrontation (except when EU spokespersons do it). Successful amendment would force the Government to ask the EU for an extension to the negotiations (and then what?)

Usual key role played by 'ifs' in all this, of course.

The other main straw for Remain optimists is that the opening talks led to a 'win' for the EU. The UK wanted to get on to trade right away but the EU wanted to discuss things like citizen's rights and the 'divorce bill' first. They got their way, although as Davis said, the whole thing has to be agreed as a package so in a way the order doesn't matter -- but it was taken as a key 'demand' and 'losing' is seen as a sign of weakness (not as petty tantrums or willy waving).

So what are the Remainers hoping for now? It can surely only be Project Fear Mk 2. The EU makes things so difficult and expensive that the British people come to their senses and call the whole thing off.

We'll see...

Hope dominates reaction to General Election

The amazing events in the Election, that saw the Tories lose their majority and need to form a coalition with the Ulster Unionists, is the subject of a lot of soppy stuff in the Guardian today about the importance of the youth vote in Labour's success. The rag, the Labour leader (Corbyn)  and some of the young themselves are using a borrowed US slogan and seeing it as the 'election of hope'. Rather a backsliding compared to the solid, rather Keynesian, economics in the Labour Manifesto that got my vote.

I was only ever remotely likely to vote Tory to consolidate Brexit, but was reassured by Labour's slow realization that they would not be able to renationalise the railways or subsidise industry (probably not HE either) if we were still in the EU.

Of course, luvvies saw it the other way around. For them, it raised new hopes for a 'soft Brexit' (ie not really a Brexit at all), because the Tory policy of 'hard Brexit' had also been defeated at the polls. In what a later comtributor to the programme called a 'typical BBC love-in', Newsnight luvvies E Davis and N Watt were slyly and smugly nudging and winking that Brexit might be over.

'Hopeful' discussion also turned on whether the EU would be prepared to delay talks (clinging to straws) but the answer seemed to be no. The EU leaders seem as childishly hurt and vengeful as ever but also in their own acceptance phase of bereavement.

Overall, this election is hard to interpret, of course. You might have expected the BBC and the Guardian to have discussed some of these other options. People might have voted against Tory austerity as well as Tory Brexit. The Tory weakness in Parliament might actually deliver more power to the real Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party -- any small group will now be able to threaten the Government. A former darling of the Remainer luvvies was N Sturgeon, leader of the Scot Nats, who was very pro-EU -- Scot Nats lost a third of their seats, mostly to Tories. Was that a vote against anti-SNP policies, a new Scottish Independence referendum, or the EU? (There was a sizeable minority for Brexit in Scotland, of course, although you would never know it.)

As always, we can now expect an ideological struggle to hegemonise the situation... (NB I would use terms other than 'hegemony', blighted forever for me by its association with 'designer Marxism' and Britiish Cultural Studies), but Guattarian terms would take too long -- perhaps 'discursivisation of materio-signaletic expression, semiotized via a tensor of consistency')

Staggering fake news

Even the New Statesman is at it (not really surprising -- it has been Remoaning throughout).

Here is the headline:

Vote Leave got it wrong - Brexit will cost the NHS £500m a year instead

It seems that:

Nearly 200,000 British pensioners currently receive healthcare under an EU reciprocal scheme.  If these pensioners all turned up in British hospitals, it is likely to cost £979m a year - or £500m once British spending on EU citizens is removed

It contrasts this possible? likely? 'bill' with the usual claim about the £350m a week 'lie'.

However, even if all the ifs come to pass, and there are enough of them to raise doubts about this as 'news', £500m a year is hardly comparable to what even the Remoaners admit is a bill for being in the EU that amounts to £285m net a week