Heroes speak at last

Some unsung heroes are appearing even in teh Grudni:

G Stuart,the forgotten woman and Labour party MP who campaigned for Leave and then disappeared:

In 20 years’ time it will be seen as more remarkable that we joined the Common Market in 1973 than that we voted to leave the European Union in 2016. If ever there was a mismatch of intentions, needs and aspirations, it was our 47-year membership...
One [post-War association] was based entirely on trade – the European Free Trade Association (Efta); the other used trade as a means to achieve political integration – the Common Market... 
When the in-out referendum was announced, I asked myself what it would take for me to vote remain. If the EU had acknowledged that the institutional architecture should have changed to accommodate euro countries, which required deeper political integration, and non-euro countries, which needed a looser framework, I would have said: “OK, let’s give it a try.” Not a case of British opt-outs, but an EU that recognises two kinds of membership: a core and a periphery...
Britain originally joined a political project for economic reasons, and the remain campaign made the case for continued membership on economic grounds. But for once, it wasn’t the economy, stupid. People voted to leave for reasons of community, identity and belonging. Our organic constitution has at its roots the principle that we vote for individuals who represent particular policies, and they operate within a set of rules that can be changed by the people via elections. These deep emotions are more powerful than money. It is wrong to ignore them, and even worse to sneer and belittle them.

Then the blessed L Elliott 

[The] argument [for optimism] is threefold: the British economy is malfunctioning and needs to be rebooted; Europe isn’t working either; and it will be easier to make the necessary changes outside the EU.

As far as the UK is concerned, between Brentry in 1973 and Brexit there have been four recessions, three boom/busts in the housing market and a gradual erosion of manufacturing capacity. Periods of sustained growth – first in the 1980s and again, more enduringly, in the 1990s and early 2000s – culminated in painful slumps. North Sea oil has come and gone, its proceeds squandered.

The creation of the single market in the 1980s did not lead to an acceleration of Europe’s growth rate, in large part because the thrust of economic policy – obsessed with the control of inflation and budget deficits – held countries back....

Waiting for the EU to sort out its deep-seated problems could be a long process. Little progress has been made on creating a banking union or having a centralised budget presided over by an EU finance minister.

Germany, comfortably the most powerful player, fears that speeding up economic integration – one way of making the euro function more effectively – would leave it bankrolling the rest of Europe.

the prime minister floated the idea during the election campaign that the government will use the freedom from EU state aid and procurement rules to help manufacturing...This was one of the arguments deployed by Tony Benn when he was attacking the EEC from the left in the 1970s. Not much has changed.

In other webpages, M Gove has boiled down the case for Brexit quite neatly. Why didn't he do that before?:

Asked for the top three changes that will be notable for the UK once it leaves the EU, Gove replied: “The first thing is that we will have control of our borders and that means we can decide who comes here, we can safeguard the security of British citizens, and we can also make sure we attract the brightest and the best.
“And we’ve already made clear we’re going to have a much more attractive regime for scientists, mathematicians, technicians, the people who will shape the future.

“And the second thing, related to that, is that we can escape EU laws which have restricted innovation. So there are a huge range of areas where we can develop the technologies of the future, which ensure that we can feed the world’s poor, that we can develop the technologies that will enhance all our lives, and will be able to do so without the bureaucracy that the EU imposes.

“And the third thing, which I think is going to be critical as well, is that we are going to use the power of government and the private sector to make sure that those parts of the country that have not benefited properly from economic growth in the past see the benefits coming to them.”

Why didn't we hear a left version of this from Labour?

Universities likely to promise to rewrite Mission Statements

Signs of a nervous scramble back to the claims for lofty authority in HE today in the Times Higher Education (THE):

Letting go of acrimony is not easy after three years of trench warfare. But post-Brexit Britain needs academics and their evidence-led approach [!]

It is a day that most in UK universities hoped would never arrive, and which many have fought to resist in the three and a half years since the referendum result rocked remainers’ world....So should remainers in higher education embrace the situation the country now finds itself in? Or should they dig in and continue the trench warfare that has dominated the past three years?

For Simon Usherwood, professor of politics at the University of Surrey, academia has been characterised in the popular mind as a sector of “obstructive remoaners” who have sought to frustrate the “will of the people”, and this week is the moment to “change the debate and show the value of the sector to society as a whole”....By focusing on evidence and impartial expertise, and ensuring that the values of respect, understanding and collaborative endeavour are at the fore, universities can step back from the toxic political division, shore up their own position and better fulfil their role in delivering for the greater good.

How long ago and far away all that last bit is. The THE reminds us of some heroic interventions (and, of course, some academics have produced blogs like Briefings for Brexit or The Full Brexit --often anonymously):

Sir John Curtice, one of the country’s most respected political scholars, [had] argued in 2018 that universities had made a mistake by nailing their colours to the mast in the run-up to the referendum....“Their intervention in politics compromised their staff’s ability to act as a source of policy expertise,” he said.

He doesn't only get polls right. But the universities would not have dared remain [sic] neutral, it seems:

universities would have faced huge criticism from within had they not argued to remain, and had the vote gone the other way, what is now seen by some as excessively partisan positioning would have been interpreted as strength and leadership.

What shameful admissions! They wanted docile students who would just pay up, and hoped to assume the leadership of the new petite bourgeoisie.

[Now the unis fear] the punishment beating that could, in theory, be delivered when the Augar review’s recommendations on funding are finally dealt with at the next spending review....Cuts to funding would accelerate and worsen the impact on institutions that are struggling, and the argument that universities and tuition fees are some sort of pyramid scheme is an easy sell for those culture warriors pushing it.

In a pathetic attempt to undo the damage:

But perhaps we can agree [over dinner no doubt] that their power is best exercised through a reinvigorated [!] commitment to core values of non-partisan and evidence-led expertise....That is the way to avoid the populists' trap, in which they continue to be characterised as agenda-led, activist organisations that reflect the interests of some rather than all.

Modern university management would not have a clue about these 'core values', except as copy for the Mission Statement,nor believe for one minute than any HEI should actually commit to them in practice. Most of the lecturers in my field would dismiss the whole idea as aggressive male colonialism. Students would claim they had been damaged by examining any evidence contrary to their views. Management would cringe in the background or use complaints to settle scores.

Universities, like other 'national' institutions, have a long way to go to repair the damage caused by their ridiculous stances over Brexit. A tweak to the mission statements will not do it. We have seen how cynical and partisan many academics have been, and any commitments to 'non-partisan and evidence-led expertise' will be seen as more cynical PR, prompted by Augur, as the THE almost admits. Populist and commercialised marketing and spineless compliance have led us here, and it is no surprise that the amateurs now in charge have failed to grasp the consequences.

See also the piece in Briefings for Brexit/Britain

Great day arrives!

Too much coverage in the news today.The Times has a whole insert,and the Graun this:

The papers are full of stories,potted histories and opinion pieces. So what to choose? How about this by G Hinsliff:

As Britain reaches the point of no return, it’s the deeper gut feelings of being European that are bubbling up

Hinsliff's own imagined Europe began with memories of her mother working in Geneva (alone? -- we don't know):

In winter, her colleagues reportedly went skiing at weekends, which sounded unfeasibly glamorous. There was even the suspicion of a cigarette in some of the pictures, although we had never seen her smoke at home. Abroad, which she had apparently discovered just by answering an ad on the London underground, was evidently somewhere rules could be broken. It’s no accident that I went for foreign languages at school....[she had] a gut sense acquired in childhood that foreign isn’t frightening, and lives opened up to the world will be more exciting than ones shut away from it.

More or less my feelings too --it's the towering neolib bureaucracy promoting globalisation I have always disliked. I think most of the European writers I have read would agree with me.

People who backed remain made and lost their case on more practical, hard-boiled economic arguments, steering clear of this muddier emotional territory [really?]. But as Britain reaches tonight’s point of no return from Brexit, it’s the deeper gut feelings that are bubbling up...[So the issue now is] how to keep the door open, preserve the social and cultural ties that bind, prevent Britain becoming a crabby and shrivelled country alienated from its own continent

I'm all for that. I'm trapped in English (and schoolboy French) but most of my reading, fiction and non-fiction, is still Continental:

[we should] resolve to learn or brush up on European languages, follow European voices on social media, keep up with European novels, films and exhibitions, or occasionally pick up the European newspapers (in English-language editions if necessary) [unthinkable for we who have cultural capital but even you plebs can muddle along if you force yourselves, as a duty]

The only consolation, on a bleak day for anyone who got unexpectedly weepy [get a grip fer Chrissake] watching MEPs link arms and sing Auld Lang Syne to their departing British colleagues, is that this is one of the lamentably few aspects of Brexit over which ordinary citizens still have some control...each of us still has a personal choice to make about how close we stay culturally and emotionally to the neighbours who cannot help but feel rejected ...we are all free as citizens to choose how we treat the 3 million-plus EU citizens still living in Britain, who cross our paths every day as friends, neighbours and colleagues, and have been made to feel gratuitously unwelcome

As usual, it's Britcringe -- we have sinned, we have upset people with our misguided and irrational insistence on autonomy, so we have to atone . We even have to apologise for any imaginary hurts to anyone who looks foreign.

T Garton-Ash goes for the statesmanlike::

...only the most selfish, vengeful ex-remainer would wish those who voted for Brexit to suffer as a result. We are as patriotic as any Brexiteer,...At the same time, we emphatically do not want Brexit to damage the larger European project. If Brexit goes very badly, producing an unstable, angry, resentful country, that will be bad for the entire EU. But the EU would also suffer in the unlikely event that “global Britain” were to fulfil the dreams of the Brexiteers, becoming such an attractive advertisement for independence that other member states might eventually follow suit....In the long run, a “successful” Brexit will therefore depend on other nations not following the British example. It will be parasitic on the continued existence of the EU.[something in that, I will admit]

Luckily, there is business as usual to fall back on:

At Oxford University, we will be working to ensure we remain fully engaged in European intellectual life, as we have been for the last 800 years. The Guardian – which every month has more than 20 million monthly unique browsers in Europe (outside the UK) and is one of the most popular news outlets across the continent – will be reinforcing its European presence and coverage. Comparable steps can be taken by everyone from museums to football clubs, astronomers to zoologists....Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will: such is the perennial brief of the liberal realist [actually more often associated with Islington's favourite marxist A Gramsci]

And what of da yoof? The Graun update bit has this:

Here are the thoughts of some young people who’ve contacted the Guardian to give their take on Britain’s departure from the EU.

A 21 year-old student:

“I have a British mum and a Dutch dad. Having grown up living between Portugal and the UK (but having only a British passport) my identity has always been that of a European Brit. Today that identity feels like it is no longer allowed by what I thought to be my country...“So I feel deeply sad and hurt by what is happening today and can only hope for the best, and the speedy resolution of my application for a Portuguese passport!

An 18-year old

“I’m going to a vigil tonight to mark our exit from Europe, and I’m going to campaign for our re-entry from day one. I’m terrified we will fall further into the American sphere – I’d take Europe over them any day.  

A 21-year old Guardina reader from Newcastle [probably the only one]

“I feel sad and a little sombre; I feel like I never had a voice, as I was frustratingly just one month too young to vote in the 2016 referendum. My maternal grandparents were Italian and emigrated to the UK in the 1950s. Although this was before the EU existed in its current form, I feel that if they were alive today, they’d be disappointed, as the EU was originally formed to prevent wars ravaging Europe and ultimately, stamp out the fascism which my grandparents tried to escape.

A bit calmer than before, and at least they now have something to do -- go on vigils, campaign for re-entry, apply for a Portuguese passport, imagine what their grandparents would have thought. Imaginary cultural politics seems as fruitful as ever.

Immigration -- three years after

I began my blog with an argument about the shallowness of 'free movement' and how it meant importing low cost,precarious and non-unionised labour. The Government has now announced plans for its 'points-based' system to accept skilled immigrants wherever they live. The Graun has been totally hostile up to now, in that aggressive moralistic liberal way, but now seeks higher ground and journalistic respectability, as argued below:

When Boris Johnson and Priti Patel promised an “Australian-style points system” last year, their plans were largely vacuous. The Conservative government subsequently commissioned the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to advise on the shape that Britain’s future immigration system should take. Johnson and Patel probably didn’t expect the MAC’s outgoing chair, Professor Alan Manning, to dismiss talk of their Australian-style points system as, aptly, “pointless”. For good measure, the report also notes that the UK has far more to learn from Austria – where skilled migrants are generally required to have a job offer – than it does from Australia, where many are not.

some in lower-paying sectors such as hospitality and food processing, especially outside London, will still face a big shock.  [And care work]...the problem is that care workers aren’t paid enough because the care system has been persistently underfunded and that the government shouldn’t use immigration as a way of dodging these issues. [says MAC]

Businesses (particularly small ones) will suddenly find there are Home Office forms to fill in, fees to pay, and time-consuming bureaucracy to navigate

[Overall] will we move into a new era, in which global Britain will benefit from skills and talent from all over the world, rather than simply sucking in cheap labour from the rest of Europe? The answer is likely to be somewhere in between....For some people, at least, ending freedom of movement - and hence restoring “control” over immigration - may be more important than guaranteeing lower numbers of migrants....So there are grounds for at least cautious optimism. Contrary to the hopes and fears of many, Brexit looks less like it will make a decisive turn towards restricting immigration. Instead, consistent with the more benign aspects of our history, it may signal a different form of openness.

Boomers to blame--for everything

Occasional Grud writer EM O'Hagan sniffs the zeitgeist ( or however you detect zeitgeists) to maintain victimhood among the woke:

The social liberalism of the 90s is crumbling, and the people who hated it all along are finding their voice again

Fox [ an actor who rejected a claim on Question Time that his opinions arose from his white and privileged social position] was not the only person in that studio who was weary of contemporary antiracist discourse, and he wasn’t the only person willing to show it.

O'Hagan asserts that;

recent political developments suggest that there are millions of Laurence Foxes up and down the country, and that their views are mainstream. 

How does she know this?

Note, for example, how David Walliams’ joke about Fox went down at the National Television Awards. Walliams implied that Fox would find himself friendless following his appearance on Question Time, presumably expecting laughter and not the chorus of “oohs” that came instead

Pretty compelling I think you will agree. She soon identifies

a growing “anti-woke” backlash that deserves closer examination [by watching the National Television Awards again?]

As examples of this close examination:

The new received wisdom [post Thatcher] dictated that women and LGBT+ people were equal (sort of), and racism was to be condemned (unless you were a Muslim)[! is this sarcasm?]. The reason liberals still believe this consensus holds is that the politics New Labour ushered in was so dominant and all-encompassing that almost every opinion that existed outside of it was dismissed as the view of cranks...social liberalism was not merely a popular point of view: it was the new normal. It was also fundamentally modernising [that is more promising -- fully compatible with advanced capitalism is how I would put it]...Now that same political consensus is collapsing across the world [from some members of a TV audience sighing to world collapse]

[There is a growing] group of people (primarily older, white homeowners and pensioners) [why not just say 'boomers'?] who had never bought into the consensus in the first place, and are aggressively hostile to its newer, more radical iteration.

We all know a member of this demographic: alienated by the modern world and displeased by change, they are fond of complaining that “You can’t say anything any more!” – even as their opinions are widely reproduced in the nation’s print media. Perhaps they spent the 2000s retreating into the Daily Mail columns of Richard Littlejohn and his contemporaries, or simply feeling lost altogether. They are the people that have enabled Brexit and Donald Trump [now we get to it] to succeed, and have since transformed themselves into the base of a potent political movement....Progressives need to wise up to the fact that they are losing this argument and decide what they are going to do in response. If they don’t, they may soon find that the future they always assumed was theirs is being made without them.

Elsewhere, el Grun is strangely puzzled by the returns from one of its 'callouts':

British citizens living in the EU remain confused and worried about their post-Brexit healthcare and pension provision, despite the fact that both issues were settled satisfactorily in the withdrawal agreement, a Guardian callout suggests....Much of the confusion has arisen because of announcements last year about the rules that would apply in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The signing of the withdrawal agreement, a legally binding international treaty, means these are no longer valid....“People have been focused on these no-deal arrangements and many are not aware of what’s in the withdrawal agreement,”...“The settlement for healthcare provision and state pensions is actually quite satisfactory,”

The new issues -- stents and new 50p coins

The GRaun is trying for a new stance, having lost horribly with its virtue-signalling rants. It consists of taking a mildly loftier and detached style, leavened with a bit of nearly self-deprecating humour. It is still personalised but less focused on emotions.

R Behr has had a heart attack, and, while recovering, he saw a political analogy. It won't surprise anyone to read what that was

I was still hooked up to cardiac monitors and full of morphine, barely an hour after the insertion of two stents, when the metaphorical comparisons first presented themselves. The Labour party had ignored vital warning signs for years, failing to change course when avoidance of calamity was still available. So too had Britain’s pro-European campaign. I won’t stress the point too hard, being on doctor’s orders to minimise stress of all kinds. The compulsion to turn even my own medical emergency into a political analogy flagged a lifestyle habit in need of healthy adaptation [well done]

It pushes the metaphor too far to say that Brexit broke my heart. I was culturally and emotionally attached to the European project. 

Has anyone checked P Toynbee lately? Genuinely. Now a familiar line, but even here, not mentioning emotions, not even the simple patriotism of the Northern pleb.

Remainers lost the argument with arch, eye-rolling negativity. In 2016 the pro-European case was made exclusively in terms of loss – forfeited growth, shrunken prestige, jettisoned jobs – while the leavers advertised gains....Johnson’s winning formula was to downgrade the promise of Brexit from reward to relief, which was easier to deliver and still sounded marvellous.[quite astute here]...Pro-Europeans got stuck in a quicksand of nostalgia, rosily tinting the epoch of unchallenged EU membership as a golden age of moderation.

On other (web)pages, a piece on culture wars:

The weird thing about Pullmangate [furore over the missing Oxford comma on the new 50p piece] is that it both divides and amplifies all the voices of Brexit at once, in a way that is both completely fascinating and utterly irrelevant, and most of all, absolutely, undeniably, embarrassingly British.

A bit self-congratulatory, perhaps? We Brit eccentrics, eh? The whole Brexit thing was just eccentric, undeniably, embarrassingly British.

Alastair Campbell tweeted, “I for one shall be asking shopkeepers for ‘two 20p pieces and a 10’ if they offer me a 50p coin pretending that Brexit is about ‘peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations’,” and you can imagine the former Blair attack dog directing a tired newsagent, who’s stoically watching a queue form behind him, to open a fresh bag of 20 pences and empty them into the till because Big Ali Campbell doesn’t like Brexit. These are the people who lost

But then a plague on both your houses for getting so worked up about nothing

...in getting sucked into a culture war over a coin, both Remainiacs and Brexiteers create the illusion of Brexit being “done” in a single moment on Friday, when, really, it isn’t....this is what Brexit boils down to: a grey week in January where we’re all waiting for an endless payday and getting furiously mad about a 50p. It is simply stunning that any country ever respected us.

Some quite promising bits, but still very parochial. The issue might be dividing the Guardian common room, but have any normal voters got worked up over the 50p wording? Perhaps they are just too nastily brutish and insensitive.Perhaps the npb require the Graun to set the agenda so they can line upon the right side?

We must see if el Gruno develops any further and ever manages to shake off that residual sneering cultural superiority stuff

Fish for banks, as the UK turns beige

The Graun  has the egregious L Varadkar who has recovered a bit and has some new lines from the EC. Strangely, it is no longer about the Border, and now seems to have a French accent. On the issue that seemed to cause so much trouble earlier, he said:

there will be checks required at ports and airports in Northern Ireland. But it is absolutely our wish and our desire that they should be minimised.

  In the up-to-the minute Graun coverage:

The BBC’s interview with Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, was thorough and candidate [sic -- their speech recognition kit must be worse than mine! ]... Varadkar suggested that the UK would fail to get a trade deal allowing its banks access to the EU’s financial services market unless it agree to let EU boats carry on fishing in its waters...He said he thought the EU would be in a stronger position than the UK in the forthcoming trade negotiation. 

 A bit lower down, it is symbolic politics after Jan 31st and Garunistas will be mortified. If you admired the way the French Army humiliated Dreyfus -- tearing off his epaulets and breaking his sabre (after it had been specially weakened) -- you'll appreciate this :

[In Brussels] On Friday evening, flags will be taken down, British access to EU diplomatic cables will be switched off, the UK will go beige on EU maps – the neutral colour of a foreign country....Technicians are working to update hundreds of webpages to update references to the UK, from updating technical points on EU law, to the educational output aimed at teachers and children, such as online quizzes and the commission’s “Europe and you” activity book for children under nine.... miniature models of British MEPs are to be removed from mock-ups of the parliamentary chamber....Passes and keys must be returned.

 Some people will be sad, apparently:

“I think it will bring back the feeling of the day of the referendum. The sorrow, it was tangible, it was almost something you could hold.”...On that grey midsummer morning in Brussels, some EU officials, British and non-British alike, cried in their offices, several EU sources have said. 

An 'emotional rollercoaster' is reported by a LibDem MEP, but then they spend their whole lives on one, while other UK MEP opinions are mixed:

The European parliament’s ecologically costly two parliaments policy – protected by the French presidential veto – is the only thing that unites British MEPs in complaint....For the Brexit party MEP Nathan Gill, the job has become a way of life. “The travel is nice and you get to meet lots and lots of people and have experiences you would never normally have".

Elsewhere there are still chances simultaneously to flaunt cultural capital and demonstrate the barbarity of Brexit:

Philip Pullman calls for boycott of Brexit 50p coin over 'missing' Oxford comma

Critics fume over the omission of Oxford comma from phrase ‘Peace, prosperity and friendship’ as new coin enters circulation

“The ‘Brexit’ 50p coin is missing an Oxford comma, and should be boycotted by all literate people,” wrote the novelist on Twitter, while Times Literary Supplement editor Stig Abell wrote that, while it was “not perhaps the only objection” to the Brexit-celebrating coin, “the lack of a comma after ‘prosperity’ is killing me”...when it was erroneously reported that the Oxford comma was being dropped by the University of Oxford style guide, one punctuation lover asked: “Are you people insane? The Oxford comma is what separates us from the animals.”

Existential therapists for Remain

This is the study referred to in N Cohen's Observer piece (see blog below) 

The author of the study begins with a statement that illustrates her commitment to what passes as validity and objectivity for existential therapists:

From my perspective it seems as though our leaders appear to live in a daze of self-deception and denial, exhibiting a strange determination to continue burning bridges that we have spent many decades constructing and that are essential to our connectivity and survival.

Then, with a collaborator, (s)he:

did a short survey of 1300 UK citizens [selected how?], who had voted to remain in the EU...The results are depicted in a word cloud [dubious coding and lazy, weak quantification] and show... Theirs are strong and deep emotions. They feel devastated, angry, depressed, betrayed and ashamed, nearly two years after the referendum....This is intense and intimate stuff. What has happened to them is personal. They feel their lives have been totally changed by what has happened. The vote has struck at the core of their identity and continues to dominate their everyday experience.

we should also remember that, in addition to the 16 million who voted to stay, there were at least 5 million potential voters who were disenfranchised from the vote and who would have been likely to vote remain as well [EU citizens in the UK and vice versa] ....As a psychotherapist I have worked with many people in this position and some of them are truly devastated because they have nowhere to turn. Not everyone can obtain settled status and many people have no home or family in their country of origin. They are British to all intents and purposes and should have been offered the sanctuary of dual nationality straight away. They feel as if [!] they have lost their identity and their human rights.... hundreds of thousands [well --some in that 1300 in the 'short survey' anyway] are so deeply hurt and upset that they have either already left the UK or are planning to do so after Brexit.

And a sales puff for the existential therapy business (although this bit of it is free) :

the Existential Academy (a community interest company) created the Emotional Support Service for Europeans (ESSE)in the UK, which provides prospective clients with up to ten sessions with a qualified therapist/psychologist who has chosen to volunteer their services...a free service provided via phone and online. It is run and supervised by registered existential therapists and aims to provide support to those whose mental health has been adversely affected by the current climate of unrest and uncertainty.

It is not clear if that is unrest and uncertainty just down to Brexit, nor is it clear if the therapy involves telling people to calm down and carry on rather than developing paranoia (say in the spirit of the Graun advice 25th January below)

The author notes tell us that 

Emmy van Deurzen is a philosopher, psychologist and existential therapist with sixteen books to her name. She is the principal of a postgraduate College of higher education [anything to do with the Academy or ESSE?] , in partnership with Middlesex University, with whom she is a professor of psychology and psychotherapy.
She is Vice Chair of New Europeans and Founder Chair of Voices for Europe. She has spoken at a dozen rallies, marches and protests all over the country [about Brexit?] She is known on Twitter as @emmyzen

Party poopers wag their fingers sadly at the plebs

Several pieces in the Observer today to whinge against anyone thinking of celebrating Jan 31st too boisterously

First up M Heseltine who is afraid there will be triumphalism

Lord Heseltine has accused Boris Johnson of trying to “rub the noses of Remainers in their defeat”

Triumphalism includes:

3m special 50p coins bearing the words “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations” will enter shops, banks and restaurants from Friday with a further 7m coming into circulation by the end of the year. Union Jack flags will also line Parliament Square and the Mall on Friday and the public will see government buildings in Whitehall lit up in red, white and blue.

Seems pretty routine and a little tacky rather than swaggering and boorish,but
'politicians who fought to remain in the EU said the events were deeply inappropriate.' Well they would wouldn't they? What does the majority think?

Next the unsinkable W Keegan at an agreeable conference in Venice

The UK faces economic upheaval on a vast scale if it is not, after all, to pursue ‘Brexit in name only'

Last year [his fellow attendees told him], the hope was that this country would have second thoughts and recognise how much it stood to lose by honouring a referendum result that principally reflected dissatisfaction with many things other than the EU.

The government’s own internal studies and analysis point to a severe threat from abandoning the single market, which was one of the key attractions for foreign companies, not least the Japanese, to invest in those parts of the Midlands and northern England where “getting Brexit done” has proved such a compelling slogan. (By the way, there is nothing new about working-class people voting Conservative!)

Already a study by Bloomberg finds that the cost to the economy of the very approach to Brexit taken over the past three years has equalled the entire accumulated cost of our contributions to the Brussels budget [what since 1975?] – contributions that often flowed back to us via funds from the European Investment Bank [sic!]

Good old F O'Toole next. It's very witty in that aristo Irish way:

For the great problem of Brexit is that it is a populist project without a people, a nationalist project without a nation....Britain is not and never has been a nation state. For most of its history as a state, it has been at the heart not of a national polity, but of a vast multinational and polyglot empire. And the UK is itself a four-nation amalgam of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland....the parts of the UK that have actually “taken back control” into their own local democratic institutions reject Brexit; while the parts that support Brexit have no such institutions. The Scottish parliament, the Welsh Senedd and the Northern Ireland assembly have all voted overwhelmingly in recent weeks to reject the withdrawal agreement.

There is no doubt that Brexit has worked in the way that nationalist movements try to – it has united people across great divides of social class and geography in the name of a transcendent identity....the voters in England who actually want Brexit are not recognised at all as a “people” with a voice of their own. They are nationalist revolutionaries without a political nation. They are creating a country for themselves, but it is one that dare not speak its name.[But the contradiction is] Brexit sets in motion the logic that shared sovereignty is unnatural and that all “peoples” must return to the pure dominion of their ancient nations.

So really the same old same old about the threat to the sacred Union. There's no reason at all why this should appear as a contradiction to anyone but an Irish litterateur/smart arse. Celtic nationalism probably has been most important in encouraging EngNat -- and they are all equally imaginary and faintly ridiculous communities unless you believe all that romantic stuff about only Celts being a proper people, with their own bagpipes and prolonged sense of martyrdom. Who thinks it is 'natural'?

But best of all is N.Cohen (there last night but demoted on today's website):

listless acceptance [of the Jan 31 event] extends to those who believe that leaving the European Union is an act of monumental folly. Brexit’s inevitability, the possibility that we are in for another decade of rightwing rule, is leading opponents of the status quo to retreat into private life, as the defeated so often do. Perhaps they are almost grateful for the chance to concentrate on their friendships, family and love affairs: these are in the end what matter most to everyone except obsessives....On this reading, the country has not been wholly deceived by Johnson and his propagandists. The British are just exhausted.[especially by npb identity politics and virtue signalling]

Then a rehearsal of impending doom stuff. Then a marvellous hint of martyrdom mixed with revenge -- schoolmarms through the ages have done this. They are not angry, just disappointed.

The liberal elite, the chattering classes, the remoaners, call them what you will, once worried about the fate of car workers [really?]  ...Yet at the moment they need support [favourable comments in th Culture Section of the Observer?]  they will be met with indifference. They will hear educated voices [ as if they haven't heard enough of them] say that they voted for Brexit in 2016 and then voted for Johnson in 2019. They were warned and chose not to listen...I fear that the most damaging effect of the languid complacency that has infected the national mood is the collapse of any notion of solidarity [!]. The most characteristic gesture of Brexit Britain will be a shrug of the shoulders.

Best of all, Cohen cites a psychological study of thwarted Remainers -- see blog above

Huge relief -- no blue passports yet

In the first of what I hope is a series, the Graun looks at what Brexit means to you. First -- forget all that Project Fear stuff

It is important to know that when commentators talk about a “no deal” still being on the table at the end of December, this is not the dramatic cliff edge that people referred to last year.

The Withdrawal Agreement is a legally-binding treaty, and one of its provisions

means that the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens settled in the EU are protected for life, beyond the 31 December negotiation deadline....Pensioners who have already retired to an EU country – with Spain the most popular – can heave a huge sigh of relief.... I also hope that the next phase of Brexit will agree reciprocity [protecting pensions for those who retire to Europe after 2020]  by end 2020.”

Moreover

The common travel area is a free movement convention between the UK and Ireland that predates the UK joining the EU.

However:

 Arguably the one thing even the most rabid Brexiters will miss, is how the EU’s roaming rules have allowed mobile users to use their handsets “as if at home” while travelling in another EU country....From 1 January 2021, there is nothing legally to stop roaming charges being reintroduced for UK travellers. The mobile operators have indicated they are working to keep the existing regime, but this is not guaranteed.

And:

After 31 December – and the end of the transition period – drivers permits and green cards will be required, unless an agreement is struck by the government and the EU. A mutual agreement recognising driving licences/insurance between the EU and UK is likely, but by no means guaranteed

The Graun would like there to be all sorts of continuing problems, no doubt, so they can say they told us so, and will be lobbying for these rights to be enshrined in law, no less. They suggest we might even have to join the plebs queue at airports not the EU queue. They say the same about other things like driving or attending EU unis. Apparently, attending a uni in Holland, say, will not only put you at the forefront of European cosmopolitanism and demonstrate your commitment to a Much Nicer World Without Prejudice, but save a few bob too. 

I suspect the real relief comes with this:

Will I need a new blue UK passport?

No. There will be no change to the British passport, though the UK government has started replacing the EU burgundy covers with blue ones.

Thank goodness -- if I renew mine now I might avoid the terrible stigma of having to carry a blue one.

Ignore real politics -- boycott Wetherspoons (for now)

Rather minimalist coverage of this in the Graun:

Sombre EU leaders sign Brexit withdrawal agreement

Followed by a lengthier piece on this

Revealed: complex post-Brexit checks for Northern Irish traders

They told us so. Expect much more delighted seizing upon complaints.

Elsewhere feisty zeitgeist interpreter R Lucy Cosslett reveals her priorities:

Maybe, as on the day after the referendum result, I’ll head to my local cheap and cheerful Italian for a Birra Moretti and some clam spaghetti and sit there, miserably, to a soundtrack of Andrea Bocelli like the filthy, sentimental remainer I am. Maybe I’ll get completely off my face. All I know is that I definitely won’t be in Wetherspoons, which is cutting its drinks prices to celebrate, in a campaign it is calling “Let’s stay friends”.

Cosslett has had a colourful life, it seems:

I’ve drunk buckets of wine in Wetherspoons pubs – some of it from a tap  ...It was cheap, and a bit filthy. It did the job. It felt like home....we would consume a bottle of Aldi’s finest Badger’s Creek wine, before stashing the other bottle in our favoured shrub and heading inside, where everyone from school would be waiting. The Wetherspoons was in an old Catholic church....In fact, it was one of the few places where you’d often see people with disabilities. Lots of older people too, and people who clearly didn’t have much cash. Wetherspoons’ prices have kept it inclusive, like an informal community centre....I was irked by [a critic's negative] review becauseit felt like she was implying something negative about my family and our tastes, our lack of money, possibly our class...Wetherspoons seems to have become another front for a proxy culture war that’s about so much more than just Brexit. It’s infused with our ideas about social class and belonging, and who we ultimately are.

But as a sign of how important Brexit is to the identity warriors:

[the] rabidly pro-Brexit stance has alienated me, and it feels weird giving him my money. I still think Brexit is colossally stupid, and often underpinned by bigotry 

She still seems a bit torn:

[I] know that isolating ourselves from the rest of society is not going to heal the deep divisions in this country. You can’t escape where you are from, though at times I’ve tried. It’s true that I live in a bubble, surrounded by remainers.   Yet I knew enough of my brother’s North Wales constituency to understand that it would switch from red to blue in the general election...[So]  it won’t be long, I’m sure, until I’m back in the Coronet on Holloway Road 

A sign of how important urbanism is to the identity warriors? It reminds me of the remarks made (by J Hunt), that if we just reassured remainers that their urban and cosmo lifestyles would persist they would give in.

GUardian shows signs of return to real politics

S Moore has been one of the better Graun commentators (still not saying much). After years of peddling virtue-signalling utopian Islington cultural politics, she takes a new turn:

Boris Johnson is a chameleon, constantly changing. Shouting about austerity and neoliberalism is no way to defeat him

For all the thousands of words I have written criticising this ruthless, amoral being, it is stupid not to recognise what he has achieved....The left’s response that [his policy] is simply a retread is an insult to voters’ intelligence. [She has argued this before, to be fair]  It is also a refusal to deal with the present. Shouting about austerity and neoliberalism may have felt righteous, but it was never policy. 

And this

parts of the left and the remain crew really misunderstood the pull of Europe. There are the holidays in Tuscany – and there is the Europe of the far right and mass youth unemployment. Even the laudable Erasmus scheme really only involved tiny numbers of people. The EU never meant to one constituency what it did to others.... Talking down to voters really doesn’t cut it.

She displays an unusual interest in military strategy and conflict. It's normally Sun Yat-Sen, whose greatest hits have long been available bite-size, but this is someone more classical --Sun Tzu. Wikipedia tells me that '[His] book has also become popular among political leaders and those in business management.'

As the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu said: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear … but if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”

Overall -- not bad, bit New Agey, and still much too focused on political personalities.

Thank goodness for signs that hte Graun is not entirely abandoning us altogether:

Please, stop putting weird products like crocheted tampons in your vagina

Graun recycles old data yet again

Some people seem to find it impossible to grasp the issues even now. D Conn (sic) a 'Guardian writer' is still in denial:

New Tory MPs have promised to transform the region, but its greatest threat will come in days, when Britain leaves the EU

 The north is promised bounty from the “shared prosperity fund” – the cynically named, back-of-an-envelope replacement for EU structural funds, which for decades have invested billions in Britain’s regions to encourage economic revival....Efforts have been made over three decades to regenerate deindustrialised areas – including investment, consistently, from the now-disappearing EU funds that are specifically targeted at deprived areas of Europe.

What can you say? Is it possible he still thinks the EU has magnanimously given us its own funds? Is this along-term play to rejoin in 2030?

He recycles the impact costs warnings of January 2018 once more:

The impact assessments found that [the North-east], with its high-quality manufacturers principally exporting to Europe, faces losing the most: an 11% hit even with a trade deal, if Johnson achieves the incredible and strikes one by the end of this year. If there is no deal, and full barriers and tariffs are erected with Europe, the projected hit is 16%....The north-west – where Leigh, Burnley and Blackpool South voted for Johnson but where there are still strong chemicals, machinery and transport export industries – faces an 8% economic decline, rising to 12% if there is no trade deal. The damage to the West Midlands, east Midlands, and Yorkshire and Humber is projected to be at least 5%, and up to 13% for the West Midlands if there’s no deal.

I could hardly bear to revisit the impact assessment documents again but they are really quite good, suitably cautious and quite authoritative in the warnings they give about the lack of reliability of calculations over 15 years. The key point for we laypersons is developed on p. 16, where overall the UK is presumed to grow by 25%, but the various scenarios reduce that rate --but never to anything negative. If the worst case scenario is enacted, the UK economy still grows by 15%--17% . Obviously, the documents do not consider the impact of any new Government policies, so Conn is assuming,in effect, [sic] that they will have no effect. 

Interesting to juxtapose the impact predictions with the votes -- maybe the voters think that even if it is all accurate and nothing is done, the price is still worth paying?

There is only one explanation for Grunistas, of course:

The efforts of UK business organisations, trades unions and other experts to explain the EU’s benefits and the risks of leaving have been bulldozed by three-word slogans, preceded by years of misinformation, all gleefully fuelled by the current prime minister.

The real point might be in his argument that 

And the chancellor Sajid Javid’s insistence that Britain will diverge from EU industrial and social standards puts the risk to the regional economy at the more serious levels calculated by those assessments.