Politics has always been a mean and dirty business. It’s what makes historical tales of power and passion so fascinating. Think Caesar, the Plantagenets, the Tudors, the Kennedies….pick your favourites.
So of course the Brexit issue is a messy, manic business – even dirtier than the US primaries will become. So many individual reputations are at stake – but truth be told, little else. Yes, I mean it.
‘Markets’ will wobble, governments will fall and rise again, but otherwise Brexit will be less risky than Remain. Why? Because unelected oligarchies mean trouble, controlling economies without popular choice. Because for every Remain argument there is a balancing reply in the real, non-political world.
So there.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Should the UK vote to leave the EU would not merely lose a single state. Rather, the Dutch, Czechs, Hungarians and perhaps even the Poles would be emboldened to kick the EU to the kerb. The French and Italians are also getting seriously sick of the EU’s all-controlling tendencies and most want more control over their own affairs again. Even in Spain there is growing disgust at the amount of control that the EU exerts over domestic affairs that do not concern them.
The EU represents a lost opportunity. If it had been composed of nation states retaining their sovereignty and currencies but having a central forum to discuss matters of common interest, it could have been something great.
J, Christopher and Jazz: I agree with you all. I rather suspect that Project Fear will backfire and what was a probable win for the Remainiacs looks far less likely now. I have returned the Government taxpayer funded propaganda leaflet to the Conswervative Party Freepost address that has become widely known of the Web with a suitable comment on it. I doubt it will get read, but it might help to deplete the Conservatives of 70 pence. I hope lots of others do that as well..
Jazz: Ludwig Erhard, the second chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, proposed a Europe that was a mile wide but an inch deep. He promoted free trade, cross-border projects that could benefit border regions such as integrating electrical grids when there were stations on the border that could be used by both and more cheaply, etc. He also advocated trying to get as much of Europe as possible to share a common forum but he did not support scrapping national currencies or growing overly homogenised. He was, of course, ignored by Eurofanatics in Germany and by the French.
FEEG: I’ve read that millions of Britons have done the same. It seems that the more the government attempts things like this the more undecided voters are supporting Brexit. I spoke to one mate today, a traditional social-democrat who supports Brexit. He was accused of being Faragesque by someone who thought that EU rules prevented a qualified Indian doctor from being put behind a Dane or Romanian for consideration! This is the calibre of the “remain” side.
I woke this morning to this steaming pile of ordure reported on the Dark Side and elsewhere.
“The NHS, schools and defence will face billions of pounds worth of cuts and householders will be £4,300 poorer a year if Britain votes to leave the European Union because of the economic impact of a Brexit, George Osborne will warn.
The Chancellor will on Monday publish landmark Treasury report which is expected to warn that a Brexit will lead to a possible recession, plummeting exports and rising prices.
It will state that the economic impact of a vote to leave the European Union in June is likely to be “permanent” and could leave Britain worse off “for decades to come” and shrink the economy by 6% by 2030.”
Etc., etc.
I am sick to the back teeth of the deceit of the ‘Remain’ campaigners, particularly when government resources such as Treasury civil servants are used to prop up Dave and Georgie’s Project Fear and taxpayers’ money usurped to fund the blatantly biased mailshot .
I am particularly frizzed by two elements of the Remainiacs’ (thank you, FEEG, I like the word) campaign.
Firstly, the claim that a vote for Brexit is a leap into the unknown. Cynical bolleaux, says I. Back in ’75 we were conned into voting to remain in the ‘European Community’, an entity which bore no relation to the European Union into which it subsequently morphed. Who knows then what the EU will look like in the next forty years – probably a single federal state if the shadowy supporters of The Project are anything to go by.
Secondly, and this one really gets my goat, we are to be blessed later this week by a visit from a lame-duck, here-today-gone-tomorrow Septic politician whose pilot has unusually been able to locate Europe on the map. This visit will be used by said Septic to interfere in the UK’s sovereign domestic issues by issuing dire warnings of the consequences of Brexit. Tell you what, Barack, my old mate, when Murica has been suborned into a pan-American pandemonium with the Bolivar as the coinage, run by Brazilians and Chilean bureaucrats based in Bogotá with the US military under the command of a Panamanian general and no borders with Mexico or anywhere else, then I might be prepared to listen. Otherwise do not presume to foist your self-serving hypocrisies on me or mine.
OZ
And another thing! Pollies are squeezing into ever tighter corsets. Corbyn states that Britain does NOT have too many immigrants! Does that mean….? Don’t ask. Osbourne calculates that the UK will slide straight down the tubes after Brexit. So if we Remain and the slide starts willy nilly (comma)…….?
Sorry OZ, i was writing while you were posting. Your eloquence nails it! (Gets your goat…tehehe)
Spot on, OZ! Osborne cannot predict anything, since Brexit will be a one-off. He seems to have forgotten the £50 million per day the UK will no longer be shelling out to the EU, which can be redirected to worthier causes like schools and hospitals, which may no longer be overcrowded with immigrants.
Janus, since the eurozone in particular seems to be well down the tubes already, I think the sooner the UK removes itself from the EU before it gets dragged into pouring more of our cash into that black hole, the better. As for Corbyn, I’m still waiting for someone to explain his stated belief that this wicked Conservative government is just waiting for the UK to leave the EU so that it can then set about destroying workers’ rights. He also obviously has not noticed that this wicked Conservative government is doing its damnedest to get the UK to remain in the EU, thereby destroying any plans to send small boys up chimneys again.
George is now threatening us with an 8% increase in income tax! If he believes that, he’s mad enough to join LibDem.
Good piece in the Spectator.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/the-deceptions-behind-george-osbornes-brexit-report/
Thanks, Jazz. The Beeb has some respected pundits. Why aren’t they doing what this article does? A Hard Talk interview would also be revealing.
Thanks for the link, Jazz. I watched George on his hind legs this morning with the whole weight and resources of the government and the EU establishment behind him. Hardly a fair fight as far as Brexit supporters are concerned, but also hardly a convincing performance by him either. All it did for me (and hopefully many others) is further to alienate those who still remember the last betrayal of ’75 and maybe a new generation too.
OZ
Stop press: it’s over. No need to worry. Juncker says the EU is addressing the problem of over-regulation, which is eroding support.
Comforted? I knew you would be.
Janus: this is like an alcoholic saying that he has a drink or two too much on occasion. He’ll still drink himself to death, but “he’s in control”.
Juncker has himself admitted that he lies when he thinks it necessary.