Ends justifying means

Word of Russian ‘black cash’ financing leave campaigns is fast becoming a torrent. As the inquiries pile up, hard evidence could delegitimise the EU referendum

An interesting opinion piece in the Guradina today. A Putin-led conspiracy to influence Western politics by means of 'black cash' is given a further airing. Normally directed against Trump's campaigns, this time it is given currency and space in a still (just about) sensible newspaper because it connects with the running theme of anti-Brexit hopes and fears.

Russian cash might have funded Brexit campaigns claims Dr Mark Galeotti, 'a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague and head of its Centre for European Security'. Galeotti cites himself writing for the European Council on [sic] Foreign Relations to claim that Russia is actively attempting to interfere with European politics using a number of techniques. And 'Brexit may prove the perfect case study.'

Evidence? Well, 'Russia'  was apparently delighted with the Brexit vote according to a Guarnida article which did a roundup of international reactions, although Putin was not really that enthusiastic himself. Luckily 'the West' is now on its guard though.

But:

A steady trickle of hard information and soft rumour about Russian support for Brexit [from where?] risks becoming a torrent. Some of this support was, frankly, of questionable impact. Too much is often made of the alleged influence of the English-language Sputnik news agency and RT television channel, or even of the online trolling and disinformation campaign. Evidence that they actually changed minds – rather than just pandered to existing prejudices – is still lacking. 
However, there is a growing likelihood that later this year or early next we will see solid evidence of financial support for the Brexit camp, too [and this is likely to have been more effective?]

The evidence that excites Dr Galeoti here is an increasing interest in the finances of A Banks, a prominent Leave supporter, and the recent arrest of a Farage aide on money-laundering charges in the US. There will be more...

 according to US intelligence sources with whom I have discussed Moscow’s activities [bound to be objective then], there are other cases of what the Russian spooks call “black cash” supporting pro-Brexit campaigns and campaigners, likely to be revealed over the course of the several inquiries taking place on the other side of the Atlantic. Of course, assessing the impact of these operations will require careful study and scholarly rigour [not terribly evident so far] . But when has this stopped anyone using eye-catching allegations for political advantage?

The 'political advantage'  might accrue to the Remainers, thank goodness, so that's OK then, even if it is not actually supported by 'careful study and scholarly rigour'  :

Hard evidence of active, covert Russian interference would delegitimise the original vote, given the narrow margin of victory. Hardcore Brexiteers will risk looking like Putin’s “useful idiots”. This would allow the government to re-run or even disregard the referendum without looking as if it is admitting a mistake or challenging the popular will. It would also smooth the way to allowing article 50 to be revoked or ignored with no penalty [apparently,some EU folk would want us punished even if we cancelled withdrawal]...It is possible that his [Putin's] active measures helped tip the balance in the Brexit referendum. Even more likely, they will help tip the balance back.

So naive and virginal are the British electorate that it would never dawn on them that Russia might be trying to influence public opinion in Britain? Nor the USA or the EU?  They would be so shocked to discover the 'facts', and so easily persuaded by Dr Galeoti and the Remainers' pursuit of political advantage that they would abandon whatever other reasons they might have had for voting Brexit and demand a reversal of the vote

What a dog's breakfast  of self-supporting comment, supposition, and reedy straws glued together with die-hard Remaining and ideological paranoia. If the object of this stuff was to argue that the moon landings were faked or that Russia had already contacted alien visitors, I doubt the Guraun would have even read it.

But any old tosh will do if it supports Remainerism

Disciplne and punish

M Bloomberg, ace financier, thinks Brexit is a bad idea and said so at a conference. Naturally, this became news for the Guardian. If reporting remarks at conferences like this is news, it must make journalism very easy and cheap.


There was one odd phrase that reminded me of some issues though:

But what they are doing [Brexit]  is not good and there is no easy way to get out of it because if they don’t pay a penalty, everyone else would drop out. So they can’t get as good of a deal as they had before.”

This policy of 'pour encourarger les autres' has also cropped up in many EU spokespersons' accounts of the talks, and for Remainers it just seems entirely reasonable and unworthy of comment. But it is odd. Other countries have to be threatened with punishment to stay in? Only the threat of punishment keeps them in?

So it is not just economic self-interest that provides the solidarity but something extra, something moral in the sociological sense, something that will invoke a punitive reaction from the guardians of that morality if there are any attempts at autonomy. It's a rather early form of morality at that.

There are unmistakable undertones of such morality in the hurt and vengeful Oedipal willy-waving that we have seen from EU spokespersons especially Juncker. He usually articulates it via lame analogies -- the EU is a family or gentleman's club bound by mutual obligation and honour. He even tried a more populist example by suggesting the UK was somehow ducking out of standing its round in a pub. At its most dignified, the argument is that the EU has prevented war in Europe -- nothing to do with NATO of course. They used to add that it had brought unparalleled prosperity too -- not so easy to claim these days.

These are feeble moral arguments that could be modernised by even basic liberal/social democrat arguments about a role for a State -- as referee, guarantor of economic stability, representing something above the petty conflicts and narrow self-interests of economic life, something like 'civil society', to use the liberal terms. JS Mill would do. But of course, neo-lilberalism has scornfully torpedoed all these arguments. The State is now openly partisan, imposing policies for the benefit of finance capitalism, and to hell with civil obligation. 

So the EU has to reach further back to archaic moralities. We'll be hearing arguments from the Church or the crowned heads of Europe next.

EU obiter dicta=news

Classic Guradina news coverage today after the joint statements about the progress of the latest round of talks with the EU on Brexit. The EU line is the same old same old that insufficient progress has been made because there are issues unresolved, like the price of the absurdly-named 'divorce bill' . Technically, the other issues like the Irish border and the rights of EU citizens are unresolved too: the British side says these are minor administrative matters as indeed are trade tariffs which can just be agreed to be equal. Citizenship rights have also been seen as technically straightforward --existing EU citizens get automatic rights of settlement -- but the sticking point there is the role of the European Court of Justice in overseeing the exercise of these rights.

However, there still seems to be willy-waving on both sides. The EU is playing the mandate card discussed by Varoufakis and used to frustrate the Greek referendum (not on exit but on demanding better credit). Regardless of any particular claims, the EU claims it has a bigger mandate, from the whole 27 ( but only via their spokespersons, not a referendum or anything) , to proceed in a particular way, in this case to insist that their specified issues of separation are settled before any progress can be announced. No-one doubts for one moment that the EU Council of Ministers and or the Presidency could ignore or manipulate this 'mandate' as they do in so many other areas. The prioritising of the actual demands seems pretty arbitrary after all.

British willy-waving seems to be focussed on the European Court. Surely no-one expects it to confront the UK Government in a major way over any disputed rights of EU citizens? The mostly likely outcome is substantial agreement on matters based on the habitus shared among legal elites in all European countries?

The whole thing just seems like the sort of posturing you always get in negotiations. The standard ploy is to raise the stakes by threatening all sorts of dire consequences, and the Brexiteers have been unleashed to give interviews about EU intransigence hardening the resolve to just walk away. But this has frightened the Remainieri. Poor old E Maitlis on Newsnight last night was in a real flap panicking because 'no deal' suddenly seemed actually possible and her interview turned into a counselling session --for her.

El Graun reports the statements in the usual way, outlining the EU view in the headline and on the front page while offering the UK version on p.16 (There is a different form to the story on the website and a new angle with a demand that Government release some anxious views from 'business' ). The whole thing is seen as threatening chaos, deepening the [moral] panic, by combining the EU statement with additional domestic stories about a tide of amendments put down for the next discussion of the Brexit Bill (as if amendments meant actual defeat), and internal plots against the Chancellor by 'hardline' Brexiteers (they could only summon up a long-retired former Tory Chancellor).

One interesting consequence has been that el Garubdia has had to put some support behind not only the Chancellor, but T May of all people.Having slagged her off for weeks as an incompetent robot (unusual combination but not unknown to fans of Marvin the Paranoid Android), they now see her as the only bulwark against hard Brexitism. It doesn't matter what else she may have done -- Remainers must pack in behind.

To my loyal reader

I just posted my 100th blog. I seem to have attracted one reader. Thanks a lot whoever you are. Please comment, anonymously if you wish.I hold no grudges and would like some feedback. Emojis will do if you're busy. I accept any spelling of 'bollocks/bollox'.

Guardian readers show the way (again)

Marvellous clash of understandings of ideology to day in el Graunidio. The paper itself has a piece admiringly profiling one L Kuenssberg,Chief Political Editor for the BBC. The overall tone is that L Kuenssberg cannot be 'biased' because she upholds journalistic values and is generally a very intelligent and overall nice person. a 'titan who would die for impartiality' as the subtitle puts it. 

The old charge of residual misognyny is trotted out (one reason for the withdrawal of a petititon to protest her actions -- although subsequent investigation, of unknown provenance, found not a single misogynistic comment). Kuenssberg has had to have a bodyguard to attend the Labour Conference it seems --although no-one has said what the threat actually is.

There is the old 'if both sides hate us we must be right' schtick:

Laura has hit a nerve with her reporting, quite rightly, because she has every right to hold everyone to account.”[said a friend -- but in whose name?]  ...Kuenssberg’s impartiality is constantly questioned, though she is accused of being both left-biased and pro-Tory [I have never seen an accusation of pro-left views -- but I have a limited reading of the news myself]

Then a hint about the methods modern journalists use (by another political correspondent also accused of bias -- and who was once a Tory candidate, I believe):

"if she says something, it’s not because it’s a hunch, it’s because she knows it’s true because she’s talked to people"

'True because she's talked to people'! How thorough! What an easy issue, truth is!

Another friend adds : "[she is] not one of those pain-in-the-arse type people you think are too much.”

Not one of those pesky experts then, who might not fit in with the mediocracy or cause dissent among the smart set (who have always hated experts) . The mediocracy have absolved her from criticism, of course, despite an unpleasant finding by the BBC Trust that she hasd 'misinformed 'people. That issue is highly illuminating in showing how journos can indeed avoid personal bias but still misreport (as below). The BBC seized on the first point to absolve Kuenssberg but ignored the second.

The Graun profile is rounded off with tributes to her hard work, competitiveness, desire to be right, but also her humorous side. A hard-working honest pro like us -- move along .

Years ago and far away, a group of troublemakers at the Birmigham Centre for Cultural Studies argued that personal qualities and personal adherence to journalist values is not the issue. The issue is the ideological context in which these values are set -- the unconscious and self-evident  notion of a valid grounding consensus about politics, for example that 'balance' is maintained between 'reasonable' positions only. That is only 'common-sense'.  Other terminology points to the 'habitus' journos share, as members of an elite -- their beliefs are unconsciously held (so accusations of bias are genuinely resented) , and capable of infinite extensions to new cases (their journalistic expertise and their unguarded comments).

As we have seen increasingly stridently, anyone who does not share that consensus can be mocked and bullied.The consensus is spelled out for the rest of it in horribly patronising summaries (a Kuenssberg speciality). Conversely, the journos claim to be speaking for the consensual 'silent majority' (a Newsnight speciality). The whole thing is a delightful 'mirror-structure' as a notorious French marxist once said.

Compare this to a set of readers' points about 'bias'. I would use different terminology of course, but they raise some relevant points.

The BBC should properly weigh up the rights of marginal voices like Lord Lawson to mislead its audiences about the risks they face against the rights of its audiences to receive accurate information about those risks.

...does political coverage really offer diversity?...A journalist’s life experiences offer foundations for their querying minds. A balanced media should be representative of all parts of our society.

the real problem is that across the board, mainstream and alternative, we have almost completely lost the idea of journalism as the first draft of history.

... I recall, a TV interview [Nick Robinson] had with David Cameron shortly after Cameron became PM. Cameron rolled out the Tory mantra that Gordon Brown’s Labour government had caused the global financial crisis. The camera panned to Robinson who merely nodded at this claim and made no attempt to question or dispute it. This falsity was repeated more recently by Andrew Marr in respect of his stated view that a Labour government couldn’t be trusted to manage the national economy ...Corbyn corrected Marr, pointing out that the global financial crisis was the direct consequence of irresponsible speculation of the US mortgage market by several US financial bodies, which collapsed as a result, and not the Labour government of the time. Marr, visibly irritated at being corrected in this way, responded with: “It doesn’t matter who caused the global financial crisis.” A remarkable response from someone claiming to be both a journalist and a historian.

The BBC’s importance in explaining complex subjects is constrained by the time allocated to the main news at 6pm and 10pm. Difficult subjects get snippets without time to provide context. Political and business reporters show little understanding of economics so are unable to explain that, for example, the monthly figures they have just enthused over have a wider context that is less positive ... Where are we to get a proper explanation of serious subjects on the BBC?

Spectator gets involved

An item in the Spectator (or rather its blog) -- an unrepentant piece by a Leaver, one Brendan O'Neill,  on the Geat Bus Slogan Debate. I say unrepentant -- it could have been written by me!

It claims:

1  Hardly anyone voted Brexit because of the bus slogan: 'The idea that that bus swung the referendum, that it duped the voting hordes, has become one of the great, and nasty, myths of the Brexit era'.

2. Johnson actually said in his Telegraph article that:

leaving the EU will give us more control over ‘roughly’ £350m a week, and it would be good ‘if a lot of that money went on the NHS...he didn’t say leaving the EU would boost NHS coffers by a tidy £350m a week. He said it would give us say-so over a certain amount of money, and we could choose to spend that money on health if we like.

3. Remainer media, including the Staggers, rendered that as a' one-line summary of Boris’s comments — leaving the EU would ‘result in £350m a week for the NHS [but this ] is directly contradicted by his actual comments' 

4. I have to get balanced here myself and say that the Boris comment is NOT exactly a direct contradiction of the Staggers summary --but it is a different emphasis, still, of course, a bit of spin. The blogger is right to say:

I know standards are slipping in the media, but journalists surely understand the word ‘if’? It’s a conjunction that signals something will happen if something else happens first. In this case if we make a choice to spend that wad of EU-released cash on the NHS. ‘If’ is not ‘it will result in’; ‘if’ is ‘it might result in...Even the bus, which I think was naff, didn’t make a cast-iron cash promise.

4.And

It’s remarkable that the kind of people who usually insist that public spending be well-aimed and used to assist the less well-off can be so cavalier about our pumping of 200 million a week into the EU. This Brussels black-hole suck on British cash will remind many Leavers why they voted against the EU: they see it as a distant, uncaring, filthy-rich oligarchy. Some people, I fear, don’t appreciate how ridiculous they sound to the struggling, everyday Brexiteer when they scoff: ‘Actually, I think you’ll find we only give the EU £200m a week…’

5. Finally:

The reason [Remainer media]  elevate this bus above all else, above all the other BS both Leave and Remain spouted last year, is because they genuinely think it turned voters. That it dazzled our little minds. That it duped the throng. It is so deeply patronising. And it is also a lie.. . Some people obsess over this bus because they cannot face the truth: huge numbers of people voted against the EU, not because they want more hospital beds, but because they wanted to upturn the arrogant establishment and revolt against politics as we know it. 

'Free' movement

The 4 great freedoms of the EU, that are so crucial and so indissolubly bound to the liberal connotations of 'Europe' include freedom of movement of people, perhaps the most 'liberating' of all for many Remainers (and, happliy, a major factor in easy tourist travel and the legendary cheap strawberries, this blog, passim).

I have always thought of Marx's sarcastic remark about the 'freedom of movement' the Scots crofters experienced in the C18 and C19 when they were 'liberated' from old feudal customs by the HIghlands Clearances. They were now 'free' to 'choose' to go to the slums of Glasgow, work in a sweatshop or starve on the streets. Or pack up and emigrate to the colonies, of course -- cross-border freedom of travel.

An article in the Grudina today by H Moir points to another dimension -- the wealthy can buy EU citizenship, in effect, and enjoy their version of freedom of movement, including freely dodging across national jurisdictions to escape tax and the law. They can buy all sorts of other citizenships too.They do this by investing various amounts in the country concerned.

The Cypriot government has raised more than €4bn since 2013 by providing citizenship to the global super-rich, giving them the ability to live and work throughout the EU in exchange for a cash investment. We know that among those who have availed themselves of this right are billionaire Russian oligarchs and Ukrainians accused of corruption. For the financially well-endowed, the deal is a bit of a steal: the Cypriots merely ask for €2m in property or €2.5m in company or government bonds....All we [Brits] ask is for a £2m investment. You can buy citizenship in Greece for €250,000, while Portugal’s “golden visa” scheme lets non-EU citizens gain full residency and unfettered travel rights across the 28 EU nations by spending €500,000 on a Portuguese property.

Other countries, like Grenada will do you a deal too, so you can enjoy reciprocal rights with lots of other countries. As a good liberal, Moir reminds us there are definite economic advantages in attracting inward investment, of course. Inhabitants of London, well used to such 'free movement'  might well also speak of things like the upwards pressure on housing and demands for services from having dodgy oligarchs roaming the streets.

Moir extends the analysis to make a point about ideology too: 

The very rich, the high net-worthers, don’t just see themselves as opportunists using their fortunes to gain themselves maximum flexibility. They see themselves as nomads for whom borders and nationality have little significance...In 2015, when complaints about our offer to high net-worthers led the British government to tighten diligence checks on who was applying and make it more difficult for them to plough funds into property for their own rather than societal advantage, applications plummeted. 

He ends the piece with this welcome note of realism amid the romance about moving about freely as a citizen of the world: 
 

Be wary of high net-worthers’ romantic notion of a world without borders. The benefits aren’t mutual, and the super-rich don’t like too many questions asked.