BLACK LIVES MATTER - LESS THAN $20

“Most of the times when patrons give us a counterfeit bill they don’t even know its fake so when the police are called there is no crime being committed, they just want to know where it came from and that’s usually what takes place"

 By Mel Cooper - 26 June 2020

BLACK LIVES REALLY DO MATTER!

The slogan, BLACK LIVES MATTER, has led to some people saying there should be a footnote acknowledging that ALL LIVES MATTER. I can see why; but you could also interpret the ALL LIVES approach as taking away the energy and importance from a movement that has been deflected and ignored for far too long, diluting the impact of the BLACK LIVES MATTER campaign.

What is going on around the world on this issue seems to me, after all, to be about focus, not exclusion. If something matters it doesn't imply that nothing else matters. You have to put it in context or ALL LIVES MATTER will appear to be dismissive. And after hundreds of years of treating black people first as chattels and then as inferior human beings to be exploited, it is time we all face up to how insidious racism can be, even infecting all kinds of people who cannot see how they are being racist.

And, unlike Dominic Raab, I would be happy to “take a knee” – even though I am too damned old and arthritic. I guess someone would just have to help me up afterwards! Or I could lean on my cane? And, unlike Priti Patel, I think that the hostial environment and its impact not just on Windrush people but also so many EU citizens, is a shameful and despicable approach to the immigration issue and distressingly ignorant about what immigration and freedom of movement has done for this country since WWII.

To rephrase something I read reacently: Anti-black racism is hardwired into America's DNA, and it touches Black lives every single day—from cop killings to predatory lending by banks, to poorly-funded schools. To say ‘Black lives matter’ acknowledges that history in many ways we never did—and does not to suggest that anyone else matters any less.

Meantime, several other matters matter:

MAKE AMERICAN SANE AGAIN

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN is Trumpian code. The true underlying message is: MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN. 

That is what those crowds of white supremacists are responding to. Sadly, it is also what is behind the Hostile Environment approach in the UK: clearly that is saying: MAKE THE UK WHITER AGAIN.

And the people who feel threatened, scared, the people who are bullies and cowards, will follow the Coward in Chief, Humpty Trumpty, or the Excluder in Chief, Priti Patel, unquestioningly. Trump may not get the great fall that he should. Which will mean, after four more years of his Presidency, the definitive end of the American ideal. Trump is corrupting and picking away at the Constitution daily. Trump has also already done things to the courts of the USA that it will take years to undo.

People are notionally swearing allegiance to the Constitution when they swear allegiance to their flag in the USA, not to some trumped up bully-boy autocratic demagogue. And we in the UK swear allegiance of the Queen, not to the Prime Minister who constantly complains these days about being challenged to explain himself by the Loyal Opposition. The whole point for the Founding Fathers in the USA was that they did not want someone to become another kind of king. And so they set up various systems for removing anyone causing peril to the Constitution. But the entire Republican Party seems to be determined to swear allegiance to King Donald Trump and be his courtiers and reap their rewards. They, like Senator McCarthy of old, have no shame.

STARVING CHILDREN AND STUDENT NURSES

The treatment of first the starving children of this country (the UK), the need to make that U-turn about actually making sure they do not starve this summer; then the dismissal of the needs and the contributions during the Covid Crisis of the student nurses: all this simply proves that the Conservative government and probably, by now, rather like the Republicans in the States, the majority of supporters of this Conservative excuse for a government, are deaf. They are not listening. They are still primarily focused on the narrow interests of the rich people of the UK who do not give a damn.

These are the same kinds of people that Jonathan Swift was thinking of when he wrote A Modest Proposal. What has changed? Yes, some progress may have been made — we did abolish the slave trade, though we had to pay off the slave owners and that debt was only cleared around 2015 — but clearly not nearly enough is different.

If you are worried about finding food for the starving children of the UK or the cost of subsidizing medical training for nurses and doctors, is it not time to bring back the offshore money of UK citizens (never mind whether they are residents or not?) so that it can be properly taxed?

Is it not time to join forces with the rest of the European economies to get the major global companies to pay proper taxes? 

But, oh no, we Brits cannot do that because we have left the EU and we must not do anything with them because it is essential that we are independent and ready to make the best and fastest deals ever made in the history of mankind for trade with all the rest of the world who are all queuing up and gagging for trade deals with us as their top priority. If you believe what the Government tells you …

So, just as after WWII and the Marshall Planning, we are not in any way a part of the European deal. Which means we don’t have to contribute anything, we have not obligations to anyone but ourselves, we are not members of that community and we have no moral obligations whatsoever to the rest of Europe — just as we didn’t under the Conservatives government of 1938. And we all know what a great idea that was!

STATUES ARE REPLACEABLE, PEOPLE AREN'T

Finally, stop going on about the damned statues. Statues are replaceable, people are not. And that one of Edward Colson in Bristol. Who got hurt? There was no riot. It was actually a rather positive event, as far as I could see, with people finally doing something important that should have been done years ago. But of course Priti Patel and the government of Boris Johnson can only see vandalism. To them it is another Boston Tea Party. It is like that guy in the Doctor Strangelove film who was unwilling to break into a Coca Cola machine to retrieve 25 cents that could be used to make a phone call that might save the world. Why? Because it was private property and you cannot mess with private property!

If I were a black person, probably in the UK because descended from slaves who had worked the plantations of the Caribbean once upon a time, I too would find it pretty painful to walk past that statue in Bristol and also Colson Hall every day. So the guy gave a lot of money to the city of Bristol? Good for him. Do not deny that. But do not deny, also, that the money came from owning human beings as livestock and that the livestock human beings were worked harder than any horse or dog, refused any kind of education or chance to widen their understanding of the world, and often treated with contempt and sadism, except maybe for a couple of privileged house slaves —who were cossetted sort of like the Kapos in the Nazi concentration camps, keeping things in order for those in power. It was illegal in many states to teach slaves to read. Think about it.

And while we are on the subject, apply some of the thinking about these things to the anti-Semitic racism of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. Not to mention the anti-Muslim problems of the Conservative party. Muslims and Jews are telling you something. Are you listening? Racism is not just the nasty, overt stuff that everyone decent can abhor. It is also a lot of insidious acceptance of attitudes that perpetuate the system and without even knowing it or noticing a lot of us probably are colluding much of the time. That is how the accepted and “acceptable” attitude towards Jews in Europe from about 1880 grew into death camps. That is how policemen in the United States feel they can murder black men in their custody and not be held to account.

JUSTICE

Rebecca Long-Bailey seems to have discovered the World Jewish Conspiracy. Or had she been informed about it already by Jeremy Corbyn, that great political theorist of international repute? How interesting: the police forces of the USA have been sending their recruits to Tel Aviv to learn about choke holds in all their variety. I see. And there is no instiutional anti-Semtism in the Labour Party to deal with. Of course … Well, it would seem that Keir Starmer, unlike his predecessor and also unlike Boris Johnson, can actually be trusted to do what he says he will do and act decisively. He has fired Ms Long-Bailey from the front bench. He seems to know anti-Semitism when he sees it. Meantime, however, the Department of Justice in the USA is effectively introducing the Divine Right of Presidents into the mix.

Ah, what a lovely world we do live in. 

I propose, therefore, that instead of Fred and Ginger movies the BBC iPlayer should have a season of classic Frank Capra films. He deals with the impact on life of the wicked and the greedy, but they are always secondary characters motivating the actions of the good people, and the good people always win in the end. And sometimes the bad people even reform! Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Jean Arthur – those characters you played, where are they now?

BREXIT AFTER TORY LANDSLIDE

BRITISH ELECTION 2019

Johnson wins large Tory majority. 

My fear is that Machiavellian Dominic Cummings will run the government. He, with other anarchists and opportunists in the Tory Party seem to be intent on wrecking the EU. They are probably paid or zealous-unpaid agents of Putin (Russia wants to divide & rule Europe) and of Trump. (The USA wants to impose their model of world-trade. The EU is the strongest check on US trade-power). 

My deeper fear is that this surprising right-wing revolution is, as in the USA, a fascist revival that is promoting sinister sociopathic people into power. I guess that Cummings, a man outside the Party system, is one such. Serial-liar Johnson, who famously said "Fuck business", simply wants no legal or any checks on his naughty-boy behaviour - a characteristic that his old school masters have recently published. So, sweeping aside the governing UK institutions will be his knee-jerk reaction. Lying to the Queen; shutting Parliament; hobbling the Judges; Decimating the BBC; and selling the NHS, are just for starters. Comparisons with Hitler's crazed but effective tactics in the 1930's are unavoidable - and terrifying. 

BREXIT. As this blog has warned for years, any Brexit will bankrupt the UK and break-up the United Kingdom. We are now a lone, wounded, tired, rich, old island nation. A perfect victim for a merciless mugging. Our past Empire ensures there is much simmering hostility; even from our closest friends, once our Dominions - Australia, New Zealand, N. America, India, Canada, swathes of Africa, and patches of Asia. etc. "Dominions" says it all. No significant trade bloc will finalise trade deals on our 70,000 trade items and The City's services - until they know and understand our future trade-deals with Europe. BMW, Oxford, a German manufacturer, has today, 17th Dec, closed for Christmas and sent the workers home on reduced pay. What terms will BMW want from Britain to make their electric-vehicles here? What will our billionaires and millionaires, such as Rees-Mogg MP, demand to keep their capital here and pay UK taxes? The flights out might be full already. Doom, doom, doom. 

At least Ex-Labour Leader, sly Jeremy Corbyn, has won what he has wanted for 30 years. To quit what he sees as the capitalist conspiracy that governs Europe. He can retire to tend his vegetable allotment with an easy mind.

Here is a non-paranoid, balanced analysis by one of the UK's staunchest and most admirable and worthy citizens: 

17th December 2019.  GINA MILLER Writes:  Thursday’s election result was a seismic shock to our politics, and to the future political complexion of large parts of our United Kingdom. There has been and will no doubt continue to be, much analysis of the effects of tactical voting on the outcome of the General Election. It is self-evident that many of the pollsters fairly accurately predicted the overall vote percentages. But they were less consistently good at predicting individual seat results, or the Conservatives’ overall majority. My own view is that the election result was primarily attributable to tactical voting by significant numbers of voters in key swing seats. But we should be honest and admit that many, including ourselves, underestimated the "anti-Corbyn effect" and the tactical voting this predicated, particularly along that “red wall” of Labour-held seats running from North Wales, through the Midlands and up to the north-east of England. In other constituencies, for example Canterbury, one can see that tactical voting ensured strongly principled Labour candidates hoovered up most of the Remain alliance vote. Elsewhere, and particularly in the South-East, we witnessed individual hard-line Brexiteers – for example, Dominic Raab, Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa Villiers – limping home with vastly reduced majorities as a result of tactical voting. As Peter Kellner wrote in The Guardian, “The big lesson is that tactical voting needs not just a common enemy, but a broadly common vision, shared by the Labour and Lib Dem leaders. This was the case with Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown in 1997; it was not with Corbyn and Swinson last week.” I agree. My own experience, and that of my colleagues at Remain United, bear eloquent testimony to this. I can assure supporters that my team and I could not have worked harder during the Short Campaign.  But deep-seated fears about the patriotism, economic security, national safety and competency of a Corbyn-led government, and a dislike of both Jo Swinson and her election campaign, were twin headwinds that were too strong for any campaigning organisation to be able to overcome. So what do I take away from this sobering, general election result? In the absence of a robust, effective – and, for the time being, credible – parliamentary opposition, we should encourage Mr Johnson to use both his heart and his head to manage the competing and conflicting hopes and aspirations of different groups of voters in a thoughtful and pragmatic way. This also means harnessing the personal credibility and franchises of his cohort of newly-elected MPs in northern seats, in order that our great country can move forward together, harmoniously and purposefully. Only time will tell how successfully the Prime Minister navigates the challenging journey that lies ahead. It is not in the interest of any of us that he should fail, as we all yearn to see the Government bring a deeply divided country back together again; deal with the undeniable, and stark, inequalities between a rich south and much poorer, post-industrial north of England; and, somehow, keep the Union together when the results of the General Election in Scotland and Northern Ireland could conspire to make that much harder to achieve. If Mr Johnson uses his enormous parliamentary majority to start a spirited and purposeful programme to reverse the effects of austerity that has divided communities and devasted so many families’ lives, he will deserve all our support. There is absolutely no doubt that the new majority Conservative Government under Mr Johnson will pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill before Christmas, but there is a long way to go to negotiate, much less still complete, the future relationship and trade agreement with the EU, against a backdrop of EU-inspired skirmishes on fisheries and financial services, and an uncertain global macro-economic landscape. We must now, all of us, face up to reality. For some of us, that will inevitably be tinged with resignation and regret. But we need to have a laser-like focus on the detail of what is being agreed in our name and make sure that it does not roll back on the rights, equality and enhanced democracy and transparency it has taken decades to achieve. A revolution is coming: the balance between the rights and prerogatives of the Executive versus the freedom of the individual is now a crucible of change, under a newly invigorated government with a large parliamentary majority. The courts, litigants and media outlets, alike, could all be early casualties of the Executive seeking to assert itself. We have already learnt that government advisers are urging on major machinery of government changes across Whitehall; these include change in MoD procurement processes, and a completely new department for borders and immigration. It is also likely to mean a greater role for the private sector in the procurement of public services; a re-balancing of spending to the North and towards infrastructure capital spending; and, by no means least, further centralising of power and patronage in the hands of the Prime Minister and his future Cabinet. These are times of enormous change, and my perception is that this profusion of changes is going to come with startling speed and impact. With the principal opposition parties in disarray, we must stay vigilant to ensure our progressive politics and the open, tolerance that makes Britain a beacon of democracy the world over, are not placed at risk.  We must all stand ready to speak out if ever this newly-elected majority government threatens to abuse the trust that voters have given it or uses its parliamentary strength to railroad legislation through Parliament that poses a threat to our communities and way of life. I, for one, will not stop using the campaigning voice I have developed over the last 30 years. I will continue to speak out against injustice, inequality and the abuse of power, whenever I see it. But if great opportunities lie ahead, just as much as threats, I will also be open to opportunities for reform and change that materially improve the quality of life for our families, our communities and our country, as we usher in a new decade with new challenges. They must not be discussed through a narrow ideological lens. To those of you who supported me and Remain United – through donations, sharing our recommendations and materials and, most of all, in sending your kind messages – we are hugely humbled by your belief in our work. We are sorry that, together, we were unable to achieve a different result on your behalf. We all played a part, and that’s what democracy is all about. Thank you for your incredible support, and my best wishes to you all.

MC on JC - Mel Cooper on Jeremy Corbyn

RABBI EPHRAIM MIRVIS          LABOUR LEADER JEREMY CORBYN

Mel Cooper on Jeremy Corbyn

 MC on JC

I have been watching Jeremy Bore-byn and Andrew Neill. I think that the press is overdoing the Car Crash interpretation of the interview, but I do have my misgivings about it. I can see why he feels he needn’t actually “apologise” to the Jewish Community, at one level. That is the level of not accepting or believing or noticing that the Labour Party has become more overtly anti-Semitic under his leadership which everyone else seems to have spotted.

On the other hand, if EVERYONE is telling him they are worried and alarmed and 87% of Jews don’t trust him, maybe he needs to think about being so scrupulous about insisting he has no need to apologise? Also, he has spent decades talking to people like Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA to name a few, and calling them his “friends”. For Jews, it is very simple: at least some of his most prominent friends insist that they are committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth and driving all Jews that live there into the Dead Sea. He may argue this is only hyperbole, but it does make this Jew uneasy.

Also he has been invited by the Labour Party of Israel to come and talk to them. He says that he only talks to the others because everyone must talk. And I can understand not wanting to talk to that Brooklyn Thug who runs the country, Benjamin NetanYahoo. But then how does he justify not talking to the left wing people in Israel to get dialogues going? He not only has not accepted their invitation, he has never even answered it. And … How does he justify 3 years of not kicking Ken Livingstone out of the party when the man was interpreting the history of the 1930s in Germany as being essentially supportive of Zionism? That is a pretty weird interpretation, all things considered. And in the end Livingstone was not disciplined by the Labour party itself, instead he resigned to save the Labour Party further embarrassment. There is something there that just doesn’t add up.

My conclusion about Corbyn is that essentially he likes to be a bystander who complains about what everyone he is observing is doing wrong. It is a weird kind of superiority complex. it makes his act calm and avuncular, but I sense some pretty potent hostility in him as well. And ultimately I think the explanation to Corbyn may be a very simple one — he is just not all that smart. He lacks serious, in-depth intelligence. He is, ultimately a lightweight. So though I would agree with people that say that there is a right-wing press unfair attack mode in place against him; that the right-wing press rather overdoes it; I am also seeing some very uneasy-making things about his leadership and his opinions. I find him rather tricky, too.

Finally, he says all the right things to please his constituency, and they happen to be left wing right things. But he does not seem to have a definable position on anything, so it makes me uneasy that he is either without integrity - or that he is hiding his real positions. All in all, I just do not trust him any more than I do Boris Johnson, that other bore. The trouble with Corbyn on Neil’s show last night was also that it was totally predictable. Not one answer that was a surprise, not one reaction that was new or unusual. They called her the Maybot. But Jeremy comes across to me as the Cor-bot a lot of the time, equally with Boris never going off script.

Vote Lib Dem1!!

**********

Dear Mel,

Of course JC is no Jesus Christ, and will save none of us.

 It’s the combination of:

• His personal ineffectiveness - he does really appear to be the  hard-core Labour marionette
• His lack of dynamism and charisma (like him or loathe him, these are not accusations you can level at BJ)
• His inability to hold his party together so as to able to compete effectively in this General Election
• His attitude (wilful or stupidly negligent, there can be other possible explanation) towards antisemitism
• His up-in-the-clouds, though probably well-meaning, set of policies in the Labour Manifesto, several of which hark back to the days of totalitarian communism, which (perhaps he hasn't yet realised) led to tyranny, poverty, colonial expansion and - antisemitism - hm,  I might be going over-the-top on this one
• His unacceptability as a coalition, or less formal, partner in the eyes of the other parties - which has prevented a coordinated campaign to keep BJ out of No 10 (a place that he, BJ, was never elected to except by a few thousand Con members, and whose previous political and personal life make him unfit to inhabit).
• His inability to see that all of the above appear to be handing over the government to the Cons for yet another 5 years.  We know the havoc they will wreak on the country - politically, socially, economically - with the promise of ‘Getting Brexit Done’ as the most shameful lie of all, as it is transpicuous that we will have to wait for perhaps a decade or more for this to happen.

 More in anger than in sorrow,

Brian

THE MOTHER OF PARLIAMENTS SHUT DOWN BY THE FATHER OF LIES

PROPAGANDA EVIL-GENIUS JOSEF GOEBBELS
PERSUADED HALF OF EUROPE TO SLAUGHTER JEWS & MINORITIES
 'Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it'

We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem... We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we.  GOEBBELS (WW2 CAUSED 60 MILLION DEATHS).

9 Oct 2019: Letter to UK colleagues who fear the collapse of the Euro.

Should we short the Euro? 

Reviewing the statistics and economic graphs – there are no obvious signs that the EU or the EURO are about to crash. Brexit and the China-USA arguments pose a threat to the rate of growth of the global economy – via changes in tariffs. Yesterday’s UK.Gov publication of likely post-Brexit IMPORT tariffs poses threats to world trade; but are not the central factor. Some UK industries will be wiped out by dumping of inferior goods. 

Far more important to the UK, and to the EU because we are the 2^nd largest EU economy after Germany being 16% of EU GDP, are the UK’s EXPORT tariffs. No-Deal will force us, the UK, onto WTO tariffs ranging from 5% to 48%. These are added to our export prices. Pre-Brexit, most of our exports to the EU are tariff free, and via the EU-deals with other blocs, tariffs are low (not WTO imposed).

ALL major forecasters predict loss of trade/sales equivalent  to the increase in tariffs. This is why tariff wars are so damaging. On the UK’s 77,000 products and services, No-Deal Brexit will cancel all current agreements. They will take 10 to 20 years to renegotiate – meantime it’s WTO rules. As a solo, relatively small power, the UK is likely to be the loser in such arguments. UK industries are afraid of all the usual threats – dumping, supply-interruptions, poisons, etc. that we have settled over the past 60 years. Bloomberg say:

Brexit negotiations are hanging by a thread. A no-deal outcome would be a major blow to the U.K.’s trading relationship with Europe, according to Bloomberg Economics. A less severe Brexit is possible, with the U.K. staying in the single market. At a minimum, there will be a period of uncertainty as talks come to a head. In total, about 0.9 percent of global GDP is exposed to Brexit trade risk. No surprise: the U.K. is the most vulnerable major economy, with 10 percent of GDP at risk. Ireland isn’t far behind, at 9.7 percent. For the euro area as a whole, 2.7 percent of GDP is exposed.

So, the UK’s risk is immense (10% of our GDP = 5M to 7.8M jobs or equivalent wages). The EU’s risk is 2.7%. The world, incl. the USA will suffer 0.9% GDP decline. My guess is that the world will rapidly and happily fill-in our lost exports with their own trade. So, we will not recover the 10% of GDP. The EU will replace our 62M population with new members and will recover their 2.7% loss of GDP – not least by grabbing our City-of-London business.

Other than this suicidal tariff war – Europe is as sound and solid as the other major blocs. Don’t short the Euro.

“We survived the Blitz – and Dunkirk - and The Falklands”  - “Into the Valley of Death rode the 600. …Ours is but to do AND die” (not as misquoted by lazy, fornicating Boris – “…to do OR die.”  If we DO Brexit, we will DIE.  

Noel

ALL the latest Opinion  Polls show Remainers are in the majority. Why aren't they reported in the UK media?  Possibly because all media barons and VIPs are making fortunes out of Brexit. e.g. How much has Rees-Mogg made by betting against Sterling? The People, the many not the few, are already losing £900 a year each - and their jobs, from 5 million to 7.8 million jobs, are at risk. 

Matthew Goodwin

@GoodwinMJ

Latest 2nd EURef polls

SURVATION SEP 25   Leave 45%          Remain 51%       Don't know 4% 

YOUGOV SEP 20         Leave 37%          Remain 46%      Wouldn't vote/dk 17 

KANTAR SEP 9            Leave 34%          Remain 37%       Wouldn't vote/dk 28% 

DELTAPOLL SEP 4       Leave 40%          Remain 46%       Dk 14%  

PANELBASE SEP 6      Leave 45%          Remain 52%       Dk 3%

3:46 PM · Oct 1, 2019·Twitter Web App

"The Mother of Parliaments shut down by The Father of Lies." 

Aidan O'Neill QC - 18th Sept 2019

Mel Cooper, Oxford, 3 Oct 2019 -  writes:

The problem is that the Leave Campaign was run by Dominic Cummings based on his understanding of the Fascist Propaganda Handbook. He loves it because he is, at heart, a Disrupter, and his rule book says quite clearly that all you need do is find a strong, emotive slogan, preferably one that is as simplistic a lie as possible, and that appeals to the basest fears and bigotry of a simple plurality.  The fearful and angry do not wish to think; they prefer to be blinkered and they want a target or focus for their anger and misery. So unify them and get them to give you the votes you need. They will outvote the splintered liberal parties and groups every single time!

The overarching slogan that Dominic “Josef Goebbels” Cummings came up with was: Take Back Control. 

His promise? We will take back control of our sovereignty, our money, our borders and our laws. Keep repeating this as a mantra. This implies and even assumes that we have not got control over those things and no one, not one witty, intelligent person on the Remain side challenged this nonsense directly. The liberal papers and the BBC never said to Nigel Forage, who will have his 33rd appearance on BBC Question Time on 4th Oct (why? who invites and pays him?), “but what you are saying is a lie and based on false premises”. Even now, no one points out that we are about to do what the EU wants least, which is to withdraw from the EU without even having a withdrawal deal. If we did not have our Sovereignty, then how would we be allowed to do that? Scotland and Ireland have not got their sovereignty, it would seem, because they do not want to leave the EU - and by large majorities. But they have no veto in our system that is supposedly the most democratic in the world and more democratic than the EU.

So, demonstrably, the UK as an entity did not give away or lose control of our Sovereignty, folks, we pooled it. Just the way the UK is supposedly made up of four pooled sovereignties — for the moment.

If you do not accept, approve of or understand about pooled Sovereignties, then I think you might as well wait until Scotland or Ireland or Wales wish to break away and be independent to figure it out. Meantime, the money we are going to get back control of that we send to the EU annually is, guess what, about 1.3% of our annual budget. Boy, have we lost control of our money! Imagine, the EU membership fee means that we only control around 98.7% of our annual budget! Or do we control the remaining 1.3% as well since we choose voluntarily to send our fee for membership to the EU?

Not only that, no one bothered either to challenge the Money Control False Premise nor did they ever point out that we are the third biggest contributor to the EU budget because we are the third largest economy in Europe after Germany and France. Instead of being angry about this, we should be aching to be the biggest contributor because that would mean we are the richest economy in the EU! But that would require us to be doing a bit of analysis, a little bit of thinking, and that is out of the question. Need I go on? 

Of course, it did not help that Jeremy Corbyn is a Eurosceptic and was a lazy, intolerant, irritable and largely absent figurehead for running the Remain Campaign for the Labour Party. He single-handedly, prematurely enabled Article 50. He has also become the darling of the Momentum cult. 

And, by the way, the most important historic precedent for forming a Party of National Unity to run the government in a time of crisis is not that the leader of the Opposition has to be the leader of such a government; especially when that leader has the leadership skills of an intellectually narrow-minded, blinkered and tribal slug. In the days everyone likes to hark back to, i.e. the days of World War II, a certain Labour leader named Clement Attlee supported the leadership of a government of unity by Winston Churchill and was a committed supporter and Deputy Leader of that Prime Minister. 

So maybe we should look for a solid, experienced leader like Ken Clarke or some other figurehead that everyone can get behind and actually trust. 

Whatever you think of Jeremy Corbyn, it is very clear that a lot of people distrust him. So we need to factor that into the plans. We need someone demonstrably honourable, whom everyone trusts and who is more interested in the good of the nation that the good of his or her party or his or her power. That is what unity would mean. Even the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, even the acolytes who sincerely believe that he has an almost divine integrity, must recognise that theirs is not a universal reaction to the man; and that it would be a good idea to back off insisting he has to lead the government of unity. If they do not, then a government of unified opposition MPs will simply not happen and we will crash out of the EU on Hallowe’en, 2019. That is what I predict at the moment, because Momentum and Corbyn simply do not seem capable of putting the good of the nation and national unity ahead of what a lot of people fear is just a cynical power grab.

They tell me it is the Will of the People to leave the EU because that is what the people narrowly voted for in 2016. Of course, another way of looking at this is to suggest that 37% of the people who were eligible to vote, voted to leave and that means that 63% did not — the 63% being made up of those who actively and consciously voted Remain and those who did not choose to vote because it was raining. The 63% were totally convinced Remain had to win so there was no urgency (were they targeted on Facebook by some tricky Cummings algorithms do you think?), they were feeling lazy or they were just plain irresponsible. But you ask me to respect this vote? Yet this vote is the result of what was clearly a propaganda campaign misinforming the people so that enough gullible, angry folk who hated David Cameron because of his loony, economically illiterate and damaging austerity obsession, would not support him in anything, even if it meant not thinking about what further damage they might be doing to themselves in this instance. 

So there we are. The Will of the People is to make Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and their cohorts even richer and hand over to them the power to evade or change EU laws that benefit working people, and also to sell off the NHS to the USA with crocodile tears in their eyes because what else will we be able to do.

We voted for the easiest trade deals ever. We voted to be gods. We voted to rule the seas again. We voted never, ever, never, ever to be slaves. We voted to Take Back Control — well, for the Eurosceptic Conservatives to have control anyway. And we never talked about the moral issue of betraying the central dream of Europe that helped create the EU by little steps over the past decades: to create a forum for talk and diplomacy that would obviate the necessity for extreme competition and even war. We also voted to create a large trading block that would help each of the countries in the union punch above its individual weight in an increasingly global world. We never talked about the betrayal that leaving the EU would mean for the Good Friday Agreement based so heavily on the alignments between the UK and Eire because both were in the EU. We voted for bombs in Birmingham again, I fear. It was the EU that was part of the reason we could calm the Irish problem. It was the EU that gave us 45 years of peace and prosperity such as we had not really known before. We have voted to dismantle that prosperity, most probably; and possibly that peace too.

As for the myth that we have lost control of our borders, at the moment the EU entrants have fallen dramatically and so we have to take far more people from places like India, Pakistan and the Philippines to do the work. We still need those people, so the overall immigration to the UK has not fallen by all that much. But the people coming are not EU therefore they have to get through the nets created by Theresa May’s Hostile Environment. Even before the EU immigration fell, it amounted to no more than 20% of entrants into the country. That means that even before the Referendum we were not being overwhelmed by European people with a free pass to come. 80% of the people who came were non-EU and had to have visas and permission. We had overall control. And whatever happened to the millions of Turks poised to come here and destroy our culture and rape people? Who said that was about to happen? And by leaving the EU, we also, of course, sacrifice our reciprocal rights to travel, study, work and live in Europe with ease. But hell, isn’t that all worth giving up – for our “freedom to starve” in glorious independence and sovereignty?

As for our laws, I note that Priti Patel wants to reintroduce the death penalty. And I bet that many Leavers will applaud that, so let us go ahead and do it. We voted for that too. We also voted for the pound to be 23% less valuable today than it was before the Referendum and for the knock on effects of that to close down businesses but up tourism from countries with stronger currencies. Well, that’s good business, I suppose.

We also have to leave the EU so that we can redo one at a time the 170 or so trade deals (on 77,000 products) that we now have through our membership of the EU club, one at a time, individually, from the position of being a market of about 60 million instead of 550 million. Guess who will have the upper hand as we redo each of these negotiations with some of the strong economies of this world? Chlorinated Coronation Chicken! Yum yum! I can hardly wait! And American medical insurance is waiting in the wings to charge us double or treble the price for health-services.

So Good Luck, Brexiteers! We also have to leave the EU because David Cameron didn’t bother to take any time to explain the positives of the EU. He tripped off the Referendum prematurely (he could have done it 3 or 4 years later after some proper debates), with no real preparation, and with no thought of countering 40 years of anti-EU propaganda from the Right Wing Press of the UK. He ran a totally negative campaign about the damage leaving would do; he appealed to thought and intellect; and there was no leadership debate to inspire confidence in our membership of the EU. 

My own fear is that the Conservative government of Boris Johnson really wants to gain authoritarian control so that they never have to worry about EU laws making them bring their offshore money back so that it can be fairly taxed. They also want to exploit situations that EU laws now prevent, laws we often introduced, asked for and even wrote. And hey, did you know that we have a veto in the EU system? How’s that for being able to exercise some sovereignty?

Sadly, I am beginning to think that the only thing we can do now is stop complaining that it was all a truly appalling con job - because the media will not listen to the 63%, any more than the anti-Dreyfuards would respond to logic or evidence - or any more than the McCarthyites in the USA in the 1950s could be convinced that the Reds were not hiding under all our beds. But I do have to keep on protesting because my conscience tells me to; and like Lillian Hellman before me, I find that I cannot cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashion.

The real witch hunt and the real betrayals are all on the Leave side. As in the actual play by Ibsen, these are the ones who are "the enemies of the people". But I guess we have to go through with it just so that the poor, benighted believers in the Cult of Brexit are finally disabused and have their eyes opened. Of course, they will blame it all on the EU for a while because it could not possibly be Boris Johnson’s fault, despite the £350 million per week bus that everyone knows was one of the more obvious propaganda lies. No, let us go ahead. Do not listen to your experts. Do not listen to all the nations of the world wondering what has happened to the British. And do not listen to your young people who, by and large, might want a more open society and future!

Or perhaps we should have another vote just to check again? In case there has been a change of mind and heart? 

Or maybe not …   Mel Cooper, Oxford, UK 3 Oct 2019

COSTS OF BREXIT - 9 OCT 2018 - BLOOMBERG

UK SHUTS PARLIAMENT - FORECAST - WHAT NEXT?

NO HORSES NO DRIVERS.
REDUNDANT
BORIS DEPOSES ELIZABETH THE LAST

"REVOKE ARTICLE 50 to stop Brexit." Jo Swinson MP Leader of the Lib-Dems wins standing ovation at the Lib-Dem Conference. 

At last a leading politician speaks up for the majority of UK voters. Has the anti-Remain gag on UK media been torn aside? The UK Murdoch media, including The Times  (the popular channels) is still hammering-out the bullshit message that "The Will of the People" demands us to quit Europe. The BBC and ITV and some local newspapers seem to have at last woken to the threat of a fascist invasion and takeover. Article 50 is the letter sent to the EU giving notice of the UK leaving Europe. It can be reversed by another letter, of revocation. Quick, cost-free and efficient.   

18 Sept 2019 - 9.30 am - Desperate Times: UK waits for The Supreme Court. Will the eleven judges licence the Fascist revival as demanded by the offshore billionaires who own the UK media; and demanded by those traitors gambling against Sterling? 

Lee

The Lib-Dems (Revoke Article 50 and STOP BREXIT) are the only effective REMAIN party. Corbyn and Boris are for LEAVE.

Leaving is so damaging (5 million+ UK job losses) that I will support any and all serious initiatives to REMAIN.

What alternative do you see? – Noel

PS – 16.8 million voted remain. 6.2 million signed the petition. 1.2 million marched through London. I and they will not be gagged by the right wing, offshore billionaire owned media and the bullying fascist revival. Dangerous times.

Noel

10 Sept 2019 UK SHUTS PARLIAMENT - WHAT NEXT?

Our one-month old Prime Minister, serial liar Boris Johnson, and his ex-Cambridge Analytica/ Facebook data scandal, sociopathic sidekick, Dominic (evil genius) Cummings, have effected a cunning scheme (proroguing) to send the 650 UK Members of Parliament home, to prevent them from questioning The Government. The House of Commons shut down at midnight on Sunday 9th September.

Where will the 650 MPs meet in September and October? 

Astonishingly, so far, UK judges and courts have said the closure has nothing to do with them - so, to date the closure is deemed to be legal - or at least not illegal. Appeal Courts might change this.

These tactics and the lukewarm responses from lawyers, MPs and the media, are rightly being compared to Hitler's tactics in 1933 to create his crazed dictatorship, using his gangs of psychopathic killers, recently released from prisons and lunatic asylums, to rule Germany. What next, a Reichstag Fire and a weekend of book-burning in Westminster? 

"The Government" or Number 10, now consists of about 20 dimwit or self-profiting (shorting Sterling) Ministers, sworn to quit Europe on 31st October 2019; and the Civil Service that is presumed to be taking their orders and making Brexit happen. Effectively the UK is being run by Cummings with Boris as his puppet. Number 10 is being "ruled with a rod of iron" by Dominic Cummings. Boris is as baffled and waffling as ever - and has moved into Number 10 with one if his young mistresses (the UK's First Lady?). He is accused of lying to the Queen to make her sign the papers to shut down Parliament. 

If underlings refuse Boris's orders - he and and his gang are helpless. 

Boris vows to ruin his country (I say his country, even though he now claims to be a Turkish Muslim emigre) by forcing a Do-or-Die (the phrase is actually Do-and-Die) Brexit on the 31st October 2019. Spookily, that date is Halloween; more shades of deranged Nazi myths and ideologies. Any Brexit will cause chaos and bankruptcy. Boris's No-Deal-Brexit will cause 5 million job losses as WTO tariffs, from 5% to 45%  are added to our export-prices to the 500 million EU citizens and globally, and thus restrict our sales.

Assuming that something close to normality is restored, what will happen to politics? The main parties are: 

311 TORIES (Boris and Co "Leave") 

248 LABOUR (Corbyn and Co "Leave") 

17 LIB-DEMS (Jo Swinson and Co - "Stop Brexit") 

0  BREXIT PARTY (Farage & Co - no MPs but vociferous) 

35 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY (SNP wanting Scotland to quit the UK and stay with Europe) 

10 DEMOCRATIC UNIONIST PARTY (DUP, N. Ireland's angry-leave gang, the 7 IRA MPs refuse to attend Parliament) 

43 WELSH NATIONALISTS - Plaid Cymru ("Leave") 

And last but not least 38 INDEPENDENT MPs (mostly "Remain" who have quit the Party System but still sit in Parliament. 

After an election, I think that another two months of Boris's lies and tom-fooleries and of Corbyn's slippery, sly smoke-filled-rooms tactics will result in:

170 TORIES "Brexit - Do and Die Suicide Pact"

120 LABOUR  "Maybe some sort of Brexit - and the Soviet Republic of Britain"

213 LIB-DEMS  "Bollock to Brexit - Stop Brexit"

40   SNPS "Quit the UK - Stay with Europe"

17  N. Ireland "We won't agree on anything, ever." 

40 WELSH  "Maybe Leave - but now we are not so sure."

50 INDEPENDENTS "Leave a little bit" 

650 MPs

The INDEPENDENTS might all migrate to the Lib-Dems. 

The proper course of events is: 

Recall Parliament

2nd Brexit Referendum

New Election.

Monday, 5 August 2019

BREXIT - STERLING COLLAPSE

IS BREXIT A CULT? By Mel Cooper

A REMAINER BEING PERSUADED TO VOTE FOR BORIS

IS BREXIT A CULT? By Mel Cooper  - 26 July 2019 - Oxford, UK

  

For me subscribing to Brexit is like falling for that other cult, Scientology. It’s a pseudo religion and it promises to solve all your problems. It was also set up cynically to generate power and money for L. Ron Hubbard. Does anyone ever question about Boris Johnson or the others what is in it for them? About time someone did.

Like Scientologist and orthodox religious fanatics, Brexiteers also demonise anyone who does not join the cult or who tries to question the cult in any way. The trouble with all Brexit supporters is that they do not question the soundbites. Getting back control? Of what? We have control. We control our money and send 1.5% max of our annual budget to the EU for good and sufficient reasons, that include getting rebates and access to a pot of money that has done far more for farmers in this country, and the infrastructure, and several other institutions, and also medical and other kinds of research, than an economically illiterate Conservative party that was warned ages ago that they were cutting too much and not paying enough attention to borrowing cheap money to kick start various aspects of the economy. We needed a New Deal style FDR leader, not that intellectually challenged David Cameron with his sense of entitlement.

Speaking of which, for me the new Boris-Brexit Cabinet smells very much of trying to reintroduce Feudalism into the world, with themselves as the Feudal Lords. Which makes all the rest of us the peasants that will serve them. And there is no point in trying to talk to the subscribers to the Cult of Brexit because they will not listen any more than the Spanish Inquisition could question its own beliefs that burning people at the stake was good for their souls. They are that far gone!

And I blame Jeremy Corbyn and Seumas Milne and the Labour élite Stalinists just as much. Apart from anything else, does it not occur to Brexiteers and the Labour Party that it is bad for the country that there is no vocal, strong opposition? That no one is really questioning the basic premise that this farrago is really the Will of the People? If you vote for Conservatives you get, guess what, Brexit. Vote for Labour and you are going to get, guess what, Brexit. What a choice!? One day when history looks back on all this they will rate Brexiteers with the anti-Deyfusards and the Fascists. Not the Nazis. So far I cannot see that anyone has genocidal ambitions. But Donald Trump does run concentration camps near the Mexican border and it is all always someone else’s fault and his attack on those four women of colour in the US Congress is racist and he does hold Hitler style rallies, so I am not too sanguine about that. And we have done pretty well with Theresa May’s Hostile Environment and demonizing various groups for all the woes of the UK.

I just met an economist friend in the park while walking the dogs. He is about 35, very bright, and from Brazil originally. His wife is from France. France pays the second largest amount of money into the EU coffers and we pay the third largest. Guess what? France wishes it were paying more because our contribution is based upon our wealth and if we paid more that would mean we are generating more wealth. So why are Brexiteers moaning that the UK pays the third largest amount into the EU? I guess because they are incapable of reasoning.

Meantime, my friend and I are everything that the Conservative current grandees seem to hate. We are immigrants. Imagine, being non-pure British! It’s therefore all our fault. Makes you feel proud to have taken out British citizenship?

Anyway, as a young and thriving economist he cannot believe what the UK is doing to itself and cannot figure out any reason why. And that is more or less what most of the rest of the world that bothers to think at all is also wondering about. Perhaps it is down to this: that we had 45 years of peace and prosperity in the EU and so it was time for the cycle of bigotry and racism and xenophobia to reappear. I agree that the EU has its flaws. But you aren’t going to fix them by abandoning everything about it that is good, sane and working so well for us. And I am getting tired of having to “respect” the biggest act of stupidity this country has perpetrated since it thought it was okay to give Hitler the Sudetenland. I cannot believe this is truly the Will of the People. Eventually there will be blowback. But the sad thing is that everyone else, who can see with clarity what a lot of nonsense this all is, is going to have to suffer too. And it is happening all over the world. It seems to be the Zeitgeist.

So I guess it does have something to do with an ineradicable flaw in human nature that causes us to throw the toys out of the pram like frustrated children every generation of two. And we start by believing in false prophets of a new cult who tell us that Brexit will give us back our sovereignty when, in fact, we have our sovereignty but have merely pooled it. And when we get it back free and clear? We can start diluting it like crazy to satisfy the needs and whims of the USA and other nations with which we will have to do individual trade deals and a small island located just off the shores of a united Europe that has ten times more population to trade with.