Desperate for copy

One of the most contrived bits of banging on and on to day in the Graun.Things have been quiet lately, maybe because there are rumours of a deal, and certainly more confidence over the Government's ability to get on with something.

Faced with that, today's story is a marvel of the moral entrepreneur's opportunism, written by Charlotte Higgins...' the Guardian’s chief culture writer':

The new 50p has echoes of the first, disastrous Brexit 

This won’t be the first time a British coin has celebrated a schism with the rest of Europe

The news of a new coin clearly assumes that Brexit is a fait accompli and works on a symbolic level that must have depressed with Remainers. The Guardina spin is of course rather sour:

"Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”: what a curious motto for the new 50p coin that the Treasury has announced will commemorate Britain’s exit from the European Union. It has an air of playground desperation about it – the neediness of a kid who, having wilfully pissed off all 27 of his friends, is slinking nervously back into the schoolyard looking for someone – anyone – to play with.

Then we warm to the main theme, based on the author's own research:

[a Roman officer] Carausius was given command of a fleet whose job was to rid the Channel of Saxon raiders. But, accused of colluding with the pirates, he was sentenced to death. His response, in about AD 286 or 287, was to seize control of the Roman province of Britannia, along with a chunk of France around Boulogne.

As usurper he struck some coins of his own:

One declared him “the restorer of Britain”, another “spirit of Britain”. Another was inscribed with words that translate as “Come, awaited one” – an adaptation of a phrase from Virgil. [Other phrases and acronyms have remained mysterious until recently] ...Carausius’s “Brexit” coins, then, can plausibly be seen as a claim that he will preside over the rebirth of Britain – coupled with a bold, not to say shameless, assertion of legitimacy.

Seasoned Graun readers, noting the textual shifters in the headlines will anticipate the closing remarks in this otherwise quite interesting story:

It strikes me that the leading Brexiteer Boris Johnson, for one, might like nothing better than to have himself minted on to a coin wearing a toga and surrounded by quotations from Virgil announcing him the harbinger of a new golden age. [And, after a quick reassertion of control by Rome]... Britain’s first Brexit, as far as we can tell, was a short-lived and unhappy affair – whatever the coins might have claimed.

The hope that Leaving will be short-lived seems to be a final consolation, like believing in a reunion in eternity at the end of a bereavement process.. A Facebook post  by a Remainer translated an article by G Verhofstadt saying, after clear signs that he is still badly hurt, that he was sure the UK would rejoin,maybe in 20 years when the new generation comes to political power.

A former remainer speaks

Briefings for Brexit has a number of excellent pieces, including a link to a piece by a young peson who voted Remain in 2016 but has since changed her mind. It seems to follow a simple narrative about  how reality dawned when she left uni, but my interest is , as always, what she saw in the EU in the first place:

Devastated. Absolutely heartbroken. I will never forget it. That sombre walk to work on the morning of 24th June 2016 and the furious discussions that I had with people that day. Continuous mourning into the weekend, and the apprehension and genuine fury at the prospect of seeing my Leave-voting grandparents for dinner that Sunday night...

I had voted Remain primarily based on values: I liked what it stood for – its aims of liberalism, globalism and international cooperation resonated with me...I admired other European countries and the progress that they had made on issues that I cared so passionately about. From drug reform in Portugal to gender equality in Sweden, I admired their work and I saw sharing our decision-making powers with them as nothing but a benefit...The EU had its flaws, of course, but on balance I felt it better to be reforming on the inside with a guaranteed seat at the table. Besides, leaving would no doubt cause disruption to several sectors, including my own, so why bother taking the risk or rocking the boat? I simply hadn’t been sold on any of the arguments for Leaving. Either that, or I chose not to listen to them.

I didn’t know many people who voted Leave – and for those few that I did come across, I was so set in my own echo chamber that I wasn’t willing to enter into the debate with any real sincerity.

Identity politics and PTSD

Not a source I consult routinely, but the Daily Mail US has a story about the apparent effects on millenials of excessive emotional commitment to political issues:

A quarter of students found the 2016 [US election] so traumatic they now report symptoms of PTSD, according to a new study...Researchers surveyed Arizona State University students around the time of President Donald Trump's inauguration in 2017, and some had stress scores on par with that of school shooting witnesses' seven-month follow-ups...Twenty-five percent of the 769 students, who were an even mix of genders and races and socioeconomic backgrounds, reported 'clinically significant' levels of stress...The most severe cases were seen among women, black, and non-white Hispanic students, who were 45 percent more likely to feel distressed by the 2016 run between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

However, some people on Twitter also added:

It’s not parody, but it is truly terrible reporting. The study they wrote about did not diagnose or even screen students surveyed for PTSD- the Daily Mail came up with that all on their own. The study was an analysis of stress levels post election.

Very poor study - shouldn't have been published due to selection bias. Study of only students enrolled in psychology classes. Not at all generalizable to other students, millennials or any other larger population

Remainers -- feel the power*

The Graun's ever-insightful Z Williams has a piece on the politics of the Remain/PV march which helps a bit on my endless quest to find out what inspires Remainers.

They are passionate -- about something:

Remainers are also angry and determined; also patriotic [this is good now?] ; and more convinced [do they need evidence for this -- and see Davies below?] than ever that there is no available Brexit, on paper or in anyone’s wildest dreams, that delivers to their country anything but hardship, disempowerment and hassle, in varying proportions....The endless bother – civil servants running about to produce agreements exactly like the ones we already have, or manufacturers figuring out new ways to do the same thing while clearing bureaucratic hurdles... has interrupted all other business of government the most, and dissolved, perhaps permanently, the image of the Conservatives as a safe pair of hands [isn't that good too?]

There is some poorly-articulated stuff on generations/social classes, explored by Williams's marvellous insight into discourses and signifiers:

anti-EU proponents from left and right both cast themselves as defenders of the “left behind”, heroically battling the faceless institutions that have stripped agency from ordinary citizens. In this discursive context, anyone found arguing against Brexit, who does not themselves qualify as “left behind”, is explicitly allying with the elites against the masses,...It is true too that there are people at the centre of the remain camp who wish, more or less explicitly, for a return to the normality of our old post-political landscape, where nothing was ideological and all decisions were no more or less than any reasonable person would make.

Williams offers a rather tepid rebuke:

Brexit, in its rhetoric and all its iterations, is a far-right project. Explicitly and stridently anti-immigrant, it nevertheless is happy to accommodate rich migrants [so how anti-immigrant are we being?]: the word “skills” is used, transparently, as a proxy for salary, giving us a brave new world in which an early-career banker has higher skills than an academic with three degrees; and any given MP has almost twice the skills of the most qualified nurse. [the EU's famed Bologna Declaration made all universities address the skills agenda] ...It is a programme of systematically rebalancing power – towards the wealthy, the employers, the mass producers, and away from the workers, the consumers, the ordinary citizens ... [the EU will help us do this?].All progressive sinews should strain against it, and not care whether this puts them on the same side as Anna Soubry or Labour centrists.

Her position seems to be to embrace the neo-liberalism of the EC where everyone has an abstract freedom of movement instead, happily continuing the policy of encouraging a large influx of unskilled gastarbeiter. Sliding off this rather vague ground:

Rejecting the aspersions cast over its legitimacy, the real question about this protest is practical: if it could influence our course on Brexit, what would that look like? Will it be a subtle effect, in which growing numbers of MPs start to express a duty to their remain constituents with the same commitment as colleagues do in leave areas? Or will it be a more seismic shift, in which Labour changes course, rescinds its promise to deliver a better Brexit, and becomes explicitly the party that will take the decision back to the country?...The march itself doesn’t scotch the idea that Labour can negotiate its own deal (though that, on time constraints alone, is fanciful): but it does capsize the raft that’s been keeping its resigned ambiguity afloat. Remain might once have looked like an elite conspiracy against Corbyn and his agenda of radical change: now it looks like a grassroots social movement [Lots of Labour MPs in Leave-voting constituencies  will know different, of course]

Then there is the usual resort to emotions:

As sociologist Will Davies points out, in his recent book Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World, no march is representative in any real sense: “If crowds matter at all, it is because of the depth of feeling that brought so many people into one place at one time.”

So let's not bother with issues of how representative the march was or how effective it might be, after all -- lots of good and emotional people turned up and enjoyed it. The banners! The crowd! The media! Truly was F Parkin right, years ago, to suggest that middle-class protest delivered the same emotional satisfactions as football fandom did for the working classes.

Actually, though, the (very long) article by Davies to which the link points seems rather more critical about how feelings are connected to politics :

As we become more attuned to “real time” media, we inevitably end up placing more trust in sensation and emotion than in evidence. Knowledge becomes more valued for its speed and impact than for its cold objectivity, and – as studies of Twitter content have confirmed – emotive falsehood often travels faster than fact....The threat lurking in this is that otherwise peaceful situations can come to feel dangerous, until eventually they really are....Rather than criticise people for a lack of self-control, how might we understand the historical transition that has turned feeling into such a potent political force?...two distinctions – between mind and body, and war and peace – now appear to have lost credibility altogether, with the result that we experience conflict intruding into everyday life with increasing regularity....The information feelings convey in the moment can conflict starkly with the facts that are subsequently established....The elevation of reason above feeling was hugely productive, indeed world-changing in its implications....[but]...Modern warfare creates miasmas of emotion, information, misinformation, deception and secrecy...The ideology of entrepreneurship is a contributory factor here... [we cannot go back but] this new era needs to be traversed with unusual judgment and care.

Changing times

Even the Guardian reports the latest hubris from the EC. They want to abandon the practice of changing GMT to BST and back again. Personally I would have no problem with a permanent BST, but it is a revealing story.

Initially we are told:

The move follows research that found the practice was unpopular and will require EU countries to choose to adopt permanent summer or winter time....Current rules mean every EU state has to switch to summer time on the last Sunday of March and switch back to winter time on the last Sunday of October, but Brussels proposes ending this across the bloc.

And there was me thinking this was a UK decision!

Lower down the column, we get more of a glimpse of the mechansims of the actual move:

The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has said millions “believe that in future, summer time should be year-round, and that’s what will happen”. The move requires the support of all EU countries and backing from MEPs to become law.

It has been greeted with opposition in the UK:

[Peers on the EU internal market sub-committee] Committee chairman Lord Whitty said: “The European commission’s proposal to end seasonal time changes goes beyond its remit and is not in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.”

A particular irony is that the entirely pro-EU ScotNats have always opposed the extension of BST on the grounds it would mean their Northern residents not seeing winter dawns until past 9 o'clock. Will they now object to the wishes of 'millions of people' in more southerly climes who 'stand behind' the President of the EC?

Still no answers II*

The BBC talked to two young women on the PV march and asked for their views. One broke off her answer to howl loudly and passionately with the crowd.The other said she was furious at 'all this mess'. Yet another said it was awful that factories were closing. So--not much help there then.

Another Observer piece has more voxpops with marchers:

Kevin Macken, 67, retired [obligatory old person to deny it is a generational issue?]

“I don’t normally have strong opinions on politics. The only time I’ve been to a protest before was 47 years ago, while I was training as a teacher in London, to demonstrate against Margaret Thatcher’s education cuts....This time, I’m doing it for my grandchildren: my eldest daughter Ellen has two, and my youngest, Becky, has one on the way [generational/family politics again?]....For the past 45 years we’ve been an active part of Europe, and have benefited from it massively, [!] but the next generation is about to lose all that...“A second referendum is essential because were lied to by the Leave campaign. The fact that Boris Johnson supported them says it all; he’s a comedian, not a politician. He doesn’t take anything seriously and that has ruined people’s lives – a British mother, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is still in prison in Iran because of him [nothing to do with the Iranian Government then?].

Dave Disley-Jones, 51, NHS communications worker; Jenny Disley-Jones, 46, copywriter
“[The original Remain campaign pre Referendum stressed economic propsperity but that]  didn’t resonate with many people who don’t view their lives as prosperous. It was a missed opportunity to make a strong case about the jobs outside London that rely on free trade with the EU, such as car manufacturing in Birmingham.”...[but people still don't feel prosperous?] Dave says his home town of Birkenhead has benefited hugely from EU investment, but many people didn’t see it that way....“The EU has not been great at publicising its successes [hints of an early theme, now abandoned, here about how much the EU spends on projects in the UK -- Remainers didn't realize that it was UK money of course, one reason why they are so cross about the £350m issue] . I understand the concerns about uncontrolled immigration, but the conclusion that we should therefore leave the EU seems flawed because the net benefits of that migration have been positive.”[so you don't really understand the concerns with immigration at all?] [You can tell he is a 'communication worker' -- he knows just what to say to show 'concern']

Ella Thrush, 14, GCSE student; Ruth Thrush, 18, gap year; Fiona Cottam, 53, languages teacher“I’m angry that my age group didn’t get to vote,” said Ruth. “We’ll be the most affected if Brexit does happen. If there was a People’s Vote now, then I would get a proper say....Fourteen year-old Ella agreed: “If Brexit happens I won’t have the future I always dreamed of. Since I’m 14, demonstrating is the only way I can get my voice heard. A lot of people my age haven’t got fully formed views on politics yet, which is really frustrating [So where did she get her views from exactly?]. This is our future!” [and the rest of us can fuck off and die]...[Fiona says]...this is the single most important issue that I’ve faced in my lifetime, particularly for my children and the children I teach...“I’ve seen the numbers of students doing languages at A-level drop year on year. Who can blame them, if the message is that we will no longer engage with Europe?”[where do you start with this?]

Still no answers

The Observer is pleased at the turnout for the People's Vote protest yesterday -- 670,000 according to the organisers.  A certain T Adams ( a stringer?) was on a bus carrying supporters of PV (or Remain, to be precise) and chatted while they went. I perused the piece in the endless search for reasons to explain Euroenthusiasm:

Remain voters here have come to feel something like foreigners in their own land; most had come, they explained to me, because they felt they had no voice, either in their own city, or in the wider country. “Will this change a blind thing? Probably not,” a sanguine history teacher said, “but of course I had to come.”... If they shared a perspective, it appeared simply one of urgent concern...

 At the front were several couples who had found themselves caught up in the plight of those three million, suddenly unfortunate souls from another EU country living in the UK....[One] couple have considered moving to Sweden, but that might well leave Davidstate [sic] feeling like an exile [so EU membership somehow reconciles this family's internal politics?]...Julia Hoult and her German husband, Dieter Krapp, were sitting a few rows back. Having raised three children in the UK and having lived and worked all over Europe, they moved to Lincoln from Austria a couple of months before the referendum, and now have reason to wish they had not.[ What the reasonis is unexplianed]...[Another German woman] seems close to tears when she describes how she has watched attitudes harden: “England no longer seems like home to me,” she says. She is bemused by the fact that acquaintances and neighbours seem so often these days to reference the world wars.[never saw the Fawlty Towers joke at the idiocy of Brits who can't avoid talking about the War then?]

Then:

Many of the older people announce themselves determined to prove there was no simple generational divide in the demand for a second vote....[generational or family politics again then?]...there is genuine anger about the “blatant lies” that the Leave campaign told that made the solutions to complex historical social problems seem so simple.[ Remaining also looks like a simple soultion to me -- and have the activists of Project Fear always told the absolute truth?]...That anger is perhaps most clearly expressed by [another person]...“I don’t think we realise how lucky we have been – all these years of peace [sic] and relative prosperity [sic!] ,” she says, “but I really fear we are about to find out.”...[A nun] phrased her opposition to the “utter misdirection of our politicians” in slightly more measured terms, calling not only for a second vote but also for a government of national unity. [under God,no doubt]

The Observer editorial returns to abusing Leavers:

[Hard right Tory Brexiteers have] a grossly distorted, sentimental view of history that portrays this country as a unique exemplar of enlightened governance, swashbuckling enterprise and imperial endeavour that rose, by right, to be first among nations. [They ignore the] the collective peace and security that increased European co-operation has brought.[where have these people been?]

What does Remain mean?

it means the chance to travel, study, work and live abroad [none of these will be possible after Brexit?]. For [the PVers] , Europe means inclusiveness, shared values and laws, mutual tolerance and a joyful openness to the majestic richness of myriad lifestyles, languages, traditions and beliefs [not what the current polls in the East indicate] ...Europe is where many of our young people, this country’s future, already dwell, spiritually, culturally, politically and aspirationally [so its an imagined identity again?]....Many of Britain’s best and brightest may simply up and leave.[unlike current practice then?.I thought the Observer thought travel and work abroad would be threatened?]

No word of any criticism of these cliched fantasies, of course. They would be laughed at if they were about the supposed virtues of just Britain, an argument which is close to what has been condemned just above. Every country imagines it represents these virtues,of course, but it is stillhard to see how 'Europe' has become a focus for them. Instead of askingany questions, the Observer goes back to attacking Brexiteers:

stick-in-the mud reactionaries... an imagined nirvana at the apogee of the Victorian age? And how will they achieve it? On this, for more than two years, they have never, ever been clear or honest....all they seem to know, and what they seem most to enjoy, is whingeing from the wings [rich from people who lost the Referendum] ....[class distinction again]

And, on an interesting constitutional note:

Britain is on the brink of a historic calamity, for which the country’s entire political class must share the blame. Brexit, on any currently available terms, will be a disaster. No deal will be worse. The politicians have failed, so the people [ie the metroplitan new petit bourgeoisie] must take charge. We must have a second referendum.

And if Remain wins that one -- what next, as an interesting blog asks?

Another strange silence

The Gurdina follows the simplest ideological tactic of all by seeming to simply ignore any news that might reflect badly on the EC, as we saw with the failure to report the scandal over the bent appointment of Juncker's deputy ( below).

Yesterday, the Times carried a letter from senior defence staff complaining about the behaviour of one Oliver Robbins, a senior civil servant heading the Brexit negotiations in Brussels. Brexiteers have long suspected he is a closet Remainer or has gone native. He is suspected of leaking UK plans to the EC in advance, and there are dark rumours about May preferring him to her own Brexit Secretary at the time, D Davis.Last weekend her current Brexit secretary, D Raab, apparently had to go to Brussels to tell the EC directly that a deal cooked up by Robbins to 'solve ' the Irish border question, by keeping the whole of the UK in the customs union indefinitely, would not get through Parliament.

However, the Times letter concerned Robbins and his team working quietly to involve UK defence forces in a scheme for a wider European Army. The Guardian explainer had tried to reassure us: 'Claims from the leave side about moves to unify Europe’s armed forces are nothing more than fantasy'.

But the armed forces people are not so sure:

Olly Robbins and his defence adviser Alastair Brockbank have serious questions of improper conduct to answer — Brockbank for the now infamous “Kit Kat tapes” on which he was secretly recorded seemingly advocating hoodwinking the 17.4 million Britons who voted Leave while covertly working to lock UK defence and security under EU control after Brexit; Robbins for failing to control him and, it appears, sanctioning the “technical note on external security” of May 24 that echoes the tapes...Veterans for Britain has just published a full analysis of how the prime minister’s proposals put the autonomy of our armed forces in jeopardy and risk fatally compromising our “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance. It is by far the worst aspect of the Chequers deal and hitherto has not been made clear to the British public... The withdrawal agreement and proposed defence treaty would keep the UK under EU power permanently after the transition period. 

Major-General Julian Thompson RM, chairman, Veterans for Britain; Sir Richard Dearlove, former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service; Rear-Admiral Roger Lane-Nott, naval board member VfB; Professor Gwythian Prins, academic board member VfB

It seems the KitKat tapes were leaked in a Sun exclusive in March :

Bombshell tapes passed to The Sun reveal senior civil servants secretly pledging to continue spending taxpayers’ cash propping up Brussels defence and foreign projects — including the controversial “EU Army”...EU military officials would be based in Whitehall forever...Senior Brexit Department official Victoria Billing sparked mocking laughter by describing the defence and foreign policy deal sought by the UK as a “KitKat” – a “cover” hiding the depths of the continued agreement...Alastair Brockbank - who works for top Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins - told the diplomats that Britain stood ready to continue paying “significant contributions” to controversial common EU defence and foreign policy projects adding: “We are interested in it all.”...And he claimed that Britain could yet fund the Permanent Structured Cooperation that will see 25 EU countries merge their armed forces...Mr Brockbank boasted that it was civil servants who “are negotiating the detail of that at the same time as we are discussing the political high-level fluffy bits that will go into any declaration that gets made public.”

Yoof speaks

The Guardian  has an article by a yoof spokesperson, a 'co-president of Our Future Our Choice' today, demanding a(nother) say on Brexit -- a PV.  The headline is typical:

Young people won’t forgive those who deny us a vote on this botched Brexit

We refuse to let politicians create a more isolated, insular nation and destroy our futures. We demand a final say 

There is what might be called dog-whistle stuff on generational struggle. Explicit rebukes of the elderly are denied: 'This is not a war on the old'. The promise of endless resentment is entwined with attacks on the 'ageing activists' of the Tory Party who could not deliver at hte Tory Conference. The young claim to speak for the future -- so the rest of us can just go away and die? The age at which one loses the right to have a future is not clear, however.  

As is the case with activism in general, generational politics also induces reaction among the futureless, of course. I am not a young person, so why should I support what they apparently want and not what I want? The appeal at the end of the piece seems unlikely: 'Join us. Bring your friends. Bring your parents. Bring your grandparents.'

More interestingly, and as usual, I read the piece to try to find out exactly what is so good about the EU for the young. The subheading might help There might be the bones of an economic argument in the remark about a destroyed future? There is the common view that a Brexit Britain will be more isolated and insular -- politically? Culturally? We will never travel to Europe, read any Europeans or watch their films and TV programmes?

In the article itself, there is a clue in the opening paragraphs: 

During this time ['for years'], we were priced out of housing, had our tuition fees trebled, and were told to be grateful for the gig economy – because our failure to take part in democracy meant we did not deserve any better.

This is a retort to some imagined or real scolding parent perhaps? The writer thinks the economic woes would be stopped by continued membership of the EU? There is a slightly more specific anxiety about any possible Labour policy:

Many young people believe Jeremy Corbyn offers hope and change. But we know any grand social pact will be near-impossible outside of the EU and in a new decade of austerity. With economic uncertainty and a more isolated, insular nation, idealism will turn to cynicism if all those visionary words fail to address the towering challenges of our time.

It is hard to see what sort of 'grand social pact' they have in mind -- sounds a bit like the Social Contract of 1970s Labour designed to manage industrial militancy. Economic uncertainty and austerity might be more secure issues -- but Labour's ability to address those with old-fashioned social democracy and State spending will be easier outside of the EC?  The EC is the home of financial austerity and its absurd 'freedoms' entrench inequality.

Finally,there is an appeal: 'for a politics in which we can engage meaningfully. We want our leaders to listen to us by giving us a final say on the issue we care about the most.'. And this is more likely in an organization with a massive democratic deficit?

The manifesto of Our Future Our Choice is slightly more explicit. The subhead claims to be speaking on behalf of 'the very people these crises [social and economic] affect', but the focus soon narrows

Our European identity is the only one most of us [so -- young people] have ever known. Many of us have been fortunate enough to travel around Europe, to work in Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris hassle free [really? They mean students on gap year?] . All of us, so far, have enjoyed the right to do so. Many have met loved ones abroad, and settled either here or there [requiring a multilingual capacity? There seems to be an ever shrinking group being represented]   ... it is only younger Brits, who desire these opportunities the most, who are to be deprived of them...Our generation wants the opportunity to lead in the world, to write history - not just read it [the old mass media myth of youth as progressive and future-oriented]. We want to solve the problems we care about, like climate change, cooperating hand in hand with our most important friends and allies on the continent...We fear Brexit will deprive us of these opportunities - to be the engaged, outward looking [there will be no phones after Brexit? No mail? No internet? No travel? Do they mean opportunities to apply to European funds --some of them are young academics?]

What makes their European identity 'the only one'? What does that mean exactly? Is it something those settling from outside Europe will lack? Are there any problems with 'European identity'?. Clearly being young, affluent, of European descent and cosmopolitan in the English sense (ie also monolingual)  is also important.

73% of young people voted to Remain. We are overwhelmingly pro-EU, and yet our country is continuing on its current isolationist path regardless....[yet] ...To be sure, the youth vote is worth just as much as anybody else’s. We are not campaigning to disenfranchise anyone, and we wholeheartedly support British parliamentary democracy. But this is an issue which demands generational sensitivity,...We will soon confront the reality of what we have been left, and if we do not like it we will simply reverse it. [The tone getting increasingly millenarian if not millenial] If it is a soft Brexit, which represents nothing but a minor and ironic loss of sovereignty, then we will return to our seat at the table. If it is a hard Brexit, we will be so furious with the wanton destruction inflicted on us that we will knock down [silly posturing -- but so much for liberal tolerance] any and all of the barriers imposed between us and Europe.

Much to discuss here.Their views will stay the same when they age? They will deny any future young generation a voice if they disagree? They will demand another PV before they knock down the barriers? This is a politics designed to replace one perceived gerontocracy with another as soon as millenials come of age.

Britain does not have the time or energy to cope with the demands of Brexit....Our country is plagued by several social and economic crises - crises which pushed some into voting leave in the first place....But we cannot realistically achieve [some unspecified programme of reform]... while Brexit diverts precious attention and resources away from the issues which really matter.

A lovely idea-- that the only thing standing in the way of substantial social and economic reform is the effort put into Brexit.

I can't help but get a bit pedagogical and suggest that some debate with Brexiteers might help here. That is rejected on generational grounds I suppose. What remains is only the politics of rather unfocused affect in a generational framework. Any generational split is likely to deepen? Are the travelling young an actual constituency?

Doughty defenders of democracy speak

A piece in the Guardian today from well-known peace-loving democrats M Hessletine, N Clegg -- and T Blair. Each of those alone is good value for consolidating Brexiteers' beliefs but together they are priceless. If only Bob Geldof could have signed up too.

It is the usual stuff attacking Brexiteers:

the fundamental importance of Britain’s integration into the European-wide economy and failed to explain the sacrifices that Brexit inevitably involves...[advocates of blind Brexit are either] naive optimists...who believe that once the UK is out, the EU will suddenly decide it is willing to overturn its legal and constitutional order to give us a licence to do what it likes about the customs union, the common commercial policy, and product and environmental standards inside an enduring relationship...[or]... cynical pessimists [seeking] the hardest of Brexits and believ[ing]it is worth agreeing to a flimsy, non-binding deal that gets them over the line in March 2019, because they know they could simply tear it up as soon as the UK is out. This would provide the pretext they have always wanted for their programme of extensive labour market deregulation and corporation tax cuts.

Thank goodness none of the trio themselves advocated labour market deregulation or corporation tax cuts! Thank goodness that none of them ever required sacrifices!

So I am a skilled politician but you are either a naive optimist or a cynical pessimist. At least this gives Brexiteers some standing as shrewd political operators not just liars or racists, but they are also accused of living 'in a fantasy land of denial. They believe that, sooner or later, the EU will capitulate'.

At this point the article gets a bit uncomfortable, and seems to think the EU might do just that. It warns the EU as well against opting for a blind Brexit, surely unnecessary if that is a fantasy:

For the European council, the temptation to concede a blindfold Brexit must be strong. Getting the British out of the EU and into the transitional period with the minimum of fuss and disruption might seem like a worthwhile goal, but it will not settle the Brexit question.... This would send a dangerous signal to the destructive populists inside the EU and to those who wished Europe ill. The precedent of leaving the EU with no arrangements in place for the future would now be set.

Surely only British racist and fantasists would want to leave the EU though, so who are the trio afraid of exactly? People who might vote out Macron? The EU needs their advice in this matter?There is the usual plea for a new referendum, offering some comfort for the EU to hang on.

Is there nothing more positive about Remaining that the three sages can offer to persuade us?

there can be no denying that a strong European Union will remain in the UK’s interests. Its ability to bring such a diverse group of states together and bind them under law and in support of human rights, free markets and free trade is a magnificent achievement and one that should never be sold short or undervalued... our [the three of them] support for democracy, the rule of law, free expression and free trade – are also fundamental European values and they are all worth defending.

Pretty abstract stuff, really. The magnificence of 'binding' different countries 'under law' depends entirely on who sets the laws, of course.Generally, it echoes a fading imperial notion, if not fantasy, of central dominance -- all empires claim all that. Support for human rights, free markets and free trade are also rather two-edged achievements if the whole thing is framed in that abstract neo-liberal framework of the 'four freedoms'.

Play me again the old tune about white racism.*..

Classic Guardian headline, linking Brexit to both hate crime and terrorism:

Hate crime surge linked to Brexit and 2017 terrorist attacks 

Once busy Remainers had got their immediate hit and were busy distinguishing themselves from hate criminals and terrorists, the Guardian went on to modify, as ever:

The Home Office said the increase was largely driven by improvements in the way police record hate crime. But it also noted “spikes in hate crime following certain events such as the EU referendum and the terrorist attacks in 2017”....

More details followed:

Religious hate crime increased by 40% in the two years to March, to 8,336 incidents representing 9% of all hate crimes...likely to be due to offences following the terrorist attacks on Westminster, London Bridge and Manchester Arena....Race was deemed to be a motivating factor in 76% of recorded hate crime, or 71,251 incidents in the year to March, while sexual orientation was a factor in 11,638 or 12% of incidents. A further 7,226 (8%) incidents were recorded as disability hate crime, and 2% (1,651) of incidents were classed as transgender hate crimes.

The Home Office must have been quick off its feet to define and classify transgender people in order to record crimes against them:

officials announced a major review of what constitutes a hate crime. The Law Commission will consider whether to include misogyny and misandry, as well as antagonism towards alternative lifestyles, such as goth subculture, as part of a broader definition of hate crime.

 

There are further complications too:

Findings from the separate Crime Survey for England and Wales, which tracks the public’s experience of crime, indicate a drop of 40% in hate crime incidents in the past decade.  

So in the middle of all this, where exactly does Brexit fit? A Remainer MP is brought in for comment:

David Lammy MP, part of the pro-Europe Best for Britain campaign, blamed the rise in hate crime on the rhetoric of Brexiters. “The extent to which hate crimes have risen in recent years is shameful. It comes from the very top. Divisive, xenophobic rhetoric from politicians and leaders trickles down into abuse and violence on our streets,” he said...“It is no surprise that Islamophobic attacks on Muslim women who wear veils rose in the days following Boris Johnson’s ‘letterbox’ insult. Similarly, it is no coincidence that the type of anti-immigrant language used by some mainstream politicians has corresponded with spikes in hate crimes.”

So mostly the story is D Lammy embroidery, and work by the Guardian headline writer who chose to bang on and on rather than summarize the actual story. The Lammy quote is classic: trickle down from leaders to the gullible plebs, xenophobic rhetoric , argument replaced by the old 'it is no surprise' or  'no coincidence' tropes. Overall, a smear connecting B Johnson's remarks with Brexit, and, presumably, pro-Brexit remarks with 'xenophobia' and 'anti-immigrant language'?

 

Ditch the luvvies?

Not many gripping ideological developments -- the options seem to have run out -- but a busy week for politicians wheeling and dealing to compromise over the Irish border question, with kites flying daily -- will May ditch the DUP? Will she propose an indefinite extension of the transition process in order to postpone having to implement a backstop which would split the UK and NI? The Graun seems to relish this latter prospect for winding up the Brexiteers All this together with an important article on whether the new trend will be for men to wear makeup -- business as usual for  the Graudian.

Some hints of desperation too in a couple of articles. I Jack uses the old dodge of taking a contemporary story to bang on about Brexit:

Like Banksy’s artwork, the United Kingdom is shredding itself in public 

Actually, the article is an odd piece for a Grduniasta -- Brexiteers are not patriotic enough for Jack. In particular, they don't seem to care for the Union any more. This is threatening the cosy view of a United Kingdom that Jack remembers from his childhood,complete with memories of steam trains and the coronation.There's a bit of smearing (maybe deserved) of the DUP as fanatical Presbyterians and Orangemen. Then of the Brexiteers who will risk the Union to get Brexit. The fanatical traitors! Worse, they are not necessarily in the minority:

Polls conducted in June for the universities of Edinburgh and Cardiff – the latest in a series known as the Future of England Study – show, to quote this week’s press release, that “self-professed unionists, most notably leave-voting Conservatives, were largely unconcerned about the risks to the union posed by Brexit”. ..If the price of Brexit was Scottish independence, 77% of English Conservatives would be willing to pay it. If the price was the collapse of Northern Ireland’s peace process, 73% of them would likewise be content; among leave voters in Northern Ireland, who are overwhelmingly unionist, that figure rose to 87% 

Poor Jack concludes that: 'Meaning is certainly hard to find.'

The bafflement of Remainers is revealed in another comment piece, this time by J Harris In advance of some celeb promotion of a new march for a People's Vote, in London it goes without saying:

Millions – including me – will instantly agree with what its cast have to say...But, God, there is a problem here... [it] shines light on an increasingly inescapable problem: the failure of the range of forces now pushing against Brexit (from Open Britain, to Scientists for EU and the student campaign FFS (AKA For our Future’s Sake), and Britain for Europe) to do much more than working up their own side, and get anywhere near shifting the balance of opinion in the country...Clearly, Brexit remains a terrible idea...[but]... the public continues to be as split on the issue as it was two years ago, and the huge constituency of leave supporters who wonder why we haven’t left already far outweighs the number of repentant Brexiters who would now back staying in the EU.

Harris says:

[Remain campaigners] cannot seem to break out of the stereotype of remain voters as metropolitan and largely middle class, nor push beyond the impression of the anti-Brexit cause as something led by representatives of some awful ancien regime, commanded by Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and Bob Geldof (with supporting roles for, say, the former minister Andrew Adonis and the philosopher AC Graying, both of whom perhaps ought to tweet less)...you run the risk of simply reminding millions of people why they voted to exit the EU in the first place.

Instead:

it is high time they changed tack. So: ditch the celebs and faded politicians. Be seen pitching up in the places that voted leave, and finally listening. Find everyday voices with a clear sense of the nitty-gritty calamities that await.  

Luckily, the prescient and 'venerable' G Miller spotted this at an earlier march:  '“It’s time we took things back to the streets and the lanes, the towns and the villages, the meadows and the squares of this country,” she said. So why haven’t they done it?'

Well the answer might be interesting -- Remain enthusiasm is confined to the new petit bourgeois bystrong class ties. Their cultural interests are symbolised in a rather empty way, by 'Europe' (and by other moral panics too, of course). Their cultural conservatism makes them long for a time when Blair and Clegg were always on the telly, and Geldof chugged for the starving in an acceptable way. They have no interest in actually talking to anyone else. The non-metropolitan population are there only as raw material for social distancing -- as Bourdieu found with taste generally, what the ordinary people are assumed to want has to be reversed to claim distinction. The Brexit campaign seems to have mobilised those who now know how to do cultural politics right back.

EC luvvies

Poor M J-C Juncker, President of the EC has been having a hard time from the British press more or less from his appointment. The UK Government opposed it, for example, and lost in the ensuing struggle (our objection was to his sharp financial practices when he ran Luxembourg -- the UK has never upheld that kind of thing!).  The Guardian reports some of the gossip about him drinking and about his father fighting for the Wehrmacht in WW2. His response is classic:

Jean-Claude Juncker has insisted that there must be limits to the freedom of the press as he accused British media of trampling over the human rights of politicians.

This is an excellent example of the inequalities at the bottom of neo-liberal notions of freedom and equality as noted before -- even powerful persons or eltites must be treated equally, as if they were not already enjoying the fruits of massive inequalities and using them to limit the freedom of everyone else. Juncker seems not to have got Brexit at all. From his lofty position, we seem 'pitiful':

the European commission president also lamented that the former prime minister, David Cameron, had blocked him from campaigning during the 2016 referendum...“If the commission intervened, perhaps the right questions would have entered the debate,” Juncker told a group of Austrian newspapers. “Now you discover new problems almost daily, on both sides. At that time, it was already clear to us what trials and tribulations this pitiful vote of the British would lead to. I am always amazed about what I am always blamed for.”

Cameron perhaps wanted to keep the very unpopular Juncker out of the limelight because it might have swung even more votes to Leave? The EC's helpful clarification of the right questions to ask might have been seen as a direct intervention on behalf of Project Fear  and blown the gaffe? The more cross and petulant he gets, the more we think we were right.

I welcome the appearance of some Remainers on TV because, every time they appear, hostility to them and to the causes they uphold increase. Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair are good value, especially when they remind us of their own merits as forecasters and their own civilized cosmopolitan values. Gina Miller is a plus. Vince Cable. Obama's folksy sermonising helped in the campaign. Recent interventions by the RBS CEO (below) or any other Remainer banker or industry fatcat are good. 

Guardian columns or diatribes on Newsnight or C4News could be even more valuable if anyone on the Leaver side bothered to read or watch.

Forget the 4 freedoms -- follow the money

The Irish border issue is still being weaponised,and the Irish Republic (popn. 4m) still have a veto, it seems, and their First Minister can even cheerfully speak on behalf of the whole EU.. There is a leak that May will propose a compromise, that the whole of the UK stays in a temporary customs union, but the issue is still whether the UK will be able to make new trade deals. Perhaps that has been the issue all along. As the Graun reports it:

Varadkar poured cold water on the UK’s proposals. The EU could not accept a situation, he said, where British companies had access to European markets but were able to outcompete European rivals by lowering labour, product or health and safety standards. “To do free trade you have to do fair trade as well,” Varadkar said in a nod to deep concerns on this issue that have been raised by France, the Netherlands and other member states.

At last, after all the hurt talk about divorce, the lofty refusals to compromise on the four freedoms and the desire to punish the UK, we are talking turkey, if not chlorinated chicken. Fair trade is rather an underspecified goal for the EC. It wants to protect its members from competition. Competition is feared and loathed as only possible by lowering standards (bypassing all the other protective red tape), and not, say by greater efficiency or technological innovation.

The customers in the EU are being treated as pretty dim too. They are not forced to eat chlorinated chicken, but the old neo-classical model of Economic Man says otherwise, of course, that consumer behaviour is based only on price. That model also underpins the four freedoms. Have the Remainers realized they are also useful idiots for neo-liberalism?

Home truths and nearly a discovery

Times diarist J Russell has realized that Brexit will not go away even if there is a second referendum and even if Remain wins. If Leave wins again, of course, the 'chaos' will definitely not have gone away. Russell thinks it will be close again. Like a lot of Remainers (including the EC), she thought Project Fear Mk2 would frighten people but:

The change in polls has been marginal. Most of that shift isn’t even due to people switching opinions, but to non-voters saying next time they’d vote Remain. Which means a second referendum that voted to stay by a small percentage could leave half the country feeling cheated and enraged...Suppose a new vote ended as recent polls suggest: 52:48 to stay. That would mean 48 per cent of the electorate would twice have voted to leave, and yet had been denied. Why would they accept this vote as final? They were told the original one would be decisive. The government’s leaflet promised “this is your decision — the government will implement what you decide”. There were no caveats. Nobody said, as would have been sensible, that if we voted out the country would be asked for final approval when we knew what the future really held.

Introducing something that could have been quite insightful, Russell cites:

An entrepreneur I know [who] employs hundreds in a deprived area. The business exports to the EU, and will be damaged by any Brexit. Yet the staff overwhelmingly voted Leave. They feel proud of having had their voices heard for once. They feel they have achieved something tangible that may improve their lives. They would be shocked beyond tolerance by its being snatched away.

There is a glimpse at last in this that the little people are actually not that easy to frighten or bribe. They might not be driven simply by short-term gain either. God forbid, but they might even have political views that extend to beyond where the next paypacket is coming from. And finally, in this slide to heresy, which Russell has so far resisted, they might even have a good case for Leave.Thank goodness Russell can rely on the old argument about lies told during the campaign

Other straws in the wind might suggest the heresy too. The egregious E Macron, still popular in the UK but not in France,'believes Brexit can be reversed', according to a Times report of a UK Cabinet meeting. He expounds what we all knew for years:

the French president is playing a dangerous game that could result in EU leaders offering Mrs May a package that she cannot sign up to, in the misguided hope of reversing Brexit entirely...Some in Downing Street think that if there were a second referendum in such a scenario the public would blame the EU and vote to leave without any deal at all.

This stance,backed with a threat to boycott any meeting to decide a final deal, is what prompted J Hunt to compare the EU to the USSR in that it wants to punish anyone who leaves, the Times says. Another Cold War term suggests itself for Remainers bleating on about reversing Brexit -- useful idiots. The Graun will not let up, for example, and today's issue even contains a warning about the costs of Brexit from 'The chief executive of the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland [who] has warned a no-deal Brexit could tip the UK into a recession'. The RBS! Precipitator of the whole 2008 Crash! You have to admire the brass neck!

Meanwhile even the Gudrian was persuaded to include a story (now reduced to the equivalent of the web backpages) that EU spending has risen dramatically, with obvious consequences for all those would be still left paying in:

Brussels committed to €267bn in 2017, almost twice the size of the union’s annual budget

The figure has soared in the last decade, as the EU has splashed out on big infrastructure projects, such as motorways and bridges, in central and eastern Europe...The report also showed that EU staff pension liabilities rose to €73bn up from €67bn in 2016. EU budget guarantees – loans to EU member states for economic development, as well as loans for foreign countries – increased to €123bn, up from €115bn.

The Gudrina, of course, uses the story to imply snarky attacks on all those mugs who thought the UK 'divorce bill' would be a mere £39bn. Apparently, the EC now thinks this sum can be increased as EU spending increases and thus so does 'our share'. Happily so far the UK Government has said '“The UK cannot be made to pay for additional spending beyond what it has signed up to as a member.”'