Britain

Brexit: The (Animated) Movie

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

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A clear, concise and grown-up case for Brexit, in under three minutes

If you do nothing else today, watch and share this video.

Once again, the hard work and inspiration of independent citizen campaigners puts the official Leave campaign to shame in this EU referendum. This video, created by Piffle (real name Matt, a British animator) does a better job summing up the pro-democracy, pro-trade, pro-globalisation case for Brexit in three short minutes than most of the main Leave campaign figureheads put together.

The transcript:

Hello, Britain.

This EU referendum has been made to look really rather confusing, but it’s actually all quite simple. Britain, as a part of the EU, is in a free trade area that spreads from Iceland to Turkey. Free trade is great as it makes trade easier. However, not all countries in this free trade area are EU members, and no one is proposing we would ever leave the trade bloc if we exit the EU – least of all Germany, who earns billions selling us their cars.

Britain voted to join the EEC back in 1973 [Note: Britain joined in 1973 but the referendum was actually in 1975] when it looked like regional trade blocs were the future. This was long before the internet or mass container shipping, and the Soviet empire was in full swing. Technologies have since made the idea of local trading unions completely obsolete, as it is now as cheap and easy to do business anywhere in the world.

Britain’s future is way beyond the EU. Remaining an EU member means we can’t negotiate favourable trade or business deals – we’re stuck with whatever the unelected EU commissioners think is best. In the past decade, our trade with the EU has fallen from 55 percent to 45, and this idea that we must merge our political institutions for the sake of this shrinking minority of our commerce is just frankly stupid.

But is Britain too small to compete? Britain is the fifth largest economy in the world, has the fourth largest military budget, is a founding member of NATO, a permanent seat holder on the United Nations Security Council, the G8 and the G20, has the world’s most widely spoken language, the world’s best universities, and has a cracking history of maritime trade and independence. If Britain isn’t big enough to compete on the world stage, who the bloody hell is?

Those wanting Britain to remain in the EU are using uncertainty and doubt to spread fear. They claim that each British household could lose as much as £3000 every year by leaving. But even if we pretend this idiotic claim were true, would £750 really be all it takes to purchase your democratic rights? Is the ability to hire and fire our lawmakers, democratic freedoms fought for over hundreds of years, now only worth two month’s rent for a studio apartment in Glasgow and a packet of Wotsits? If 28 unelected British plutocrats tried to pull this crap, I’m sure we’d tell them to bugger off, too.

However you vote, everything is going to change. The EU Commission has made it quite clear that they are on the path to closer financial, legal and border integration. Staying on that bus will lead to us having to ditch the pound sterling, our entire common law judicial system and our borders for the euro, bench trials and Schengen in due course.

The Union is of course desperate to maintain its control, but I don’t think that a few measly threats mean we need to commit our future to this authoritarian regime. Besides, we have been getting on wonderfully well trading, emigrating to and allying with other countries without needing to give their government control over our laws.

So let’s use this one chance to wish the EU the very best, be their trading partners, business colleagues, military allies and friends, but let them know we’ll govern ourselves from here on out – thanks all the same.

My emphasis in bold, minor corrections in brackets.

It is almost as though the creative mind behind Piffle is a reader and admirer of eureferendum.com or The Leave Alliance …

 

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Video:  “Brexit: The (animated) Movie” created by Piffle

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It’s Local Election Day. Who Cares?

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

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Zac Goldsmith or Sadiq Khan for London? Who cares?

“I think voting is great, but if I have to choose between a douche and a turd, I just don’t see the point” – Stan Marsh, South Park

Apparently Thursday 5th May – local election day across the UK – is being dubbed “Super Thursday“.

Except that unlike the Super Tuesdays of the American presidential primary calendar, there is nothing remotely exciting about these local elections, with the partial exception of the Scottish and Welsh assembly polls.

In London, we are bestowed with the awesome privilege of choosing between two leading candidates for mayor – Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan – neither of whom have any meaningful executive experience and both of whom fail the first test of competence and political courage by failing to support the immediate expansion of Heathrow Airport. For this dismal failure alone I cannot bring myself to vote for either man.

Depressingly, the only remotely praiseworthy recent act of English localism – the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners – has been badly administered and (with a few honourable exceptions) increasingly captured by the same mindless party line approach to voting seen elsewhere. And the scheme does not even apply to London – here, the mayor holds the powers of police commissioner, meaning there is no possibility of a New York style Giuliani-Bratton double-act to crack down on crime. Nobody in London specifically responsible for crime can be removed at the ballot box.

Granted, “Super” Thursday carries a little more weight if one is hugely invested in how aggregate tallies of local council seats reflect on the leadership of the main political parties. But with all the parties committed to campaigning for Britain to remain in the European Union (save UKIP, who often may as well be fighting for the Remain camp) again there is little incentive to specially reward or unduly punish one of the parties currently engaged in the process of selling out our democracy more than any other.

Besides, if you are choosing the person to represent your local ward or district because of something that David Cameron or Jeremy Corbyn said on TV or because everyone in your family/workplace/pub votes a certain way out of tribal loyalty, then you probably don’t understand how local politics is supposed to work. But then I cannot really fault those who do so, for in nearly all cases local authorities have so little real power in over-centralised Britain that it doesn’t much matter who controls the council anyway.

So, if you are a hardcore Sadiq Khan or Zac Goldsmith supporter (assuming that a human watercolour painting like Zac Goldsmith actually has any hardcore fans) – good luck today. May your man win, and may you dance in the street in celebration.

To those pundits waiting to pounce on the results as they come in, and speculate feverishly about whether significant council seat losses for Labour will bring forward the much-anticipated coup against Jeremy Corbyn – knock yourselves out.

To my bloggers-in-arms, fighting the good fight to make the thinking person’s case for Brexit and the restoration of our democracy – keep doing what you are doing. Working alongside you is an honour and a privilege.

…and may all your Super Thursdays be bright.

 

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Bottom Image: The Guardian

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The Seven Deadly Sins Of Pro-European Union ‘Remain’ Campaigners

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

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Zealotry, pessimism, denialism, idiocy, treachery, materialism and sloth – the Seven Deadly Sins of those campaigning for Britain to remain in the European Union

The Financial Times reports on German moves to bring long-simmering plans for an eventual European army back to the boil with the submission of a significant new white paper – the release of which has been conveniently deferred until Britain’s EU referendum is concluded:

Germany is to push for progress towards a European army by advocating a joint headquarters and shared military assets, according to defence plans that could ricochet into Britain’s EU referendum campaign.

Although Berlin has long paid lip-service to forming a “European defence union”, the white paper is one of the most significant for Germany in recent years and may be seized by anti-integration Brexit campaigners as a sign where the bloc is heading.

Initially scheduled to emerge shortly before the June 23 referendum vote but now probably delayed to July, the draft paper seen by the Financial Times outlines steps to gradually co-ordinate Europe’s patchwork of national militaries and embark on permanent co-operation under common structures.

[..] At the European level, the paper calls for “the use of all possibilities” available under EU treaties to establish deep co-operation between willing member states, create a joint civil-military headquarters for EU operations, a council of defence ministers, and better co-ordinate the production and sharing of military equipment.

“The more we Europeans are ready to take on a greater share of the common burden and the more our American partner is prepared to go along the road of common decision-making, the further the transatlantic security partnership will develop greater intensity and richer results,” the paper states.

This is not shocking. This is not surprising. This is what the gradual creep toward European political union looks like. Proposals like this are raised before being quietly deprioritised, seemingly dropped in the face of political backlash, only to be resurrected and advanced once more, each time gaining a little more ground until the end result is achieved – not necessarily by its original name (as with the Constitution) but always in practical effect. No never means no with the European Union. It simply means brief retrenchment before pressing ahead the same thing with a slightly different label.

At this point I do not know what more can be said, what further evidence can be presented, to convince people that the European Union is not the benign, happy-go-lucky club of friendly countries occasionally coming together on a super voluntary basis to fight crime, Save the Earth and braid each other’s hair that they are so desperate to believe it to be.

The EU is not shy about its intended direction of travel. None of the EU’s “founding fathers” were remotely shy about what they wanted their creation to become. For all of its bureaucracy, the Brussels machinery is usually quite transparent in its workings, for those with the patience to look and discover what they do in our name. And yet there persists a massive disconnect between the European Union’s own self-declared purpose and the way in which it is perceived and portrayed in Britain.

I once ran for the train at London Euston station, intending to go to the city of Wolverhampton (don’t ask why). But I didn’t look closely enough at the departure screen, and accidentally boarded the service to Manchester, engrossed on a phone call, only realising my error when the train first stopped at Stoke-on-Trent. But crucially, once I realised my mistake I did not stay on the train in the forlorn hope that by staying in my seat I might still somehow end up in the West Midlands. No – I got off the train and rectified the error. I did so because like most people, on matters of travel I am capable of perceiving and understanding objective reality – in this case, the reality that I was sitting on a train taking me at great speed to somewhere I had no wish to go. My destination and that of the other passengers were irreconcilably different.

As it was with my ill-fated train adventure, so it is with Britain, currently being borne along on the semi-fast service to European political integration. It should now be abundantly clear to everyone that the destination is not “friendly trade and cooperation” as the EU’s desperate apologists claim, and yet many wavering voters still believe that if they close their eyes, ignore the mounting signs and stay fearfully on the train, it will take them somewhere acceptable.

And I don’t get it. I just do not understand those of my fellow countrymen who are educated people and not hardcore European federalists – people who do not want Britain to become subsumed into a European political union or cast aside as the rejected half-member with no influence on the periphery – but who nonetheless intend to vote Remain in this EU referendum. I’m not being dramatic. I have tried very hard to put myself in the position of a soft Remain supporter, and I can no longer do it. Clearly I have passed the Brexiteer event horizon and can no longer turn back, not that I wish to. And I speak as a former hardcore euro-federalist (back in my student days).

Basically, to vote Remain in this EU referendum, one quite simply has to either:

1. Be a committed euro-federalist, eager for a United States of Europe

2. Understand that this is the end goal, abhor it, but think so little of Britain’s prospects as an independent, globally-engaged nation that being part of such a European state seems like the “least worst” option

3. Summon enormous powers of denial in order to ignore the EU’s trajectory and accept at face value David Cameron’s fraudulent assertion that he has secured meaningful concessions from Brussels

4. Be incredibly ignorant of recent history and basic, easy to research facts

5. Actively wish harm to one’s own country and democracy

But perhaps that is not entirely fair. As I wrote recently, I can see how some voters – particularly those from my own Millennial generation – might choose to prioritise short term financial stability over long-term democratic health, though I think that such people seriously underestimate the risks inherent in surrendering the last vestiges of our democracy to an unaccountable supra-national government. And of course some people are just incredibly apathetic.

So there are also the further two possibilities:

6. Self-centred materialism

7. Laziness and apathy concerning an issue of fundamental importance

That’s it. Those are the choices. Zealot, pessimist, denialist, idiot, traitor, materialist or sloth.

If you are planning to vote Remain in the EU referendum, which one are you?

 

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What Hath Social Justice Wrought?

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It is our duty to fight.

It is our duty to win.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

 

So chant thousands of students at rallies and protests in universities all across the United States of America.

Except that none of these students are oppressed. Not a single damn one of them.

None of them are chained.

They are all students attending university in the most powerful and prosperous country on the face of the Earth.

An ocean of possibility stands before each and every single one of these young students, the likes of which can only be dreamed of by millions of children in war torn, impoverished or otherwise benighted parts of the world.

This is a cult.

These people are cultists.

This is what the Cult of Social Justice and Identity Politics hath wrought.

 

Postscript: To be fair, from the smirks of some of the students in the last video it does appear that they realise deep down that this is all a fraud, that none of them are “chained”, and that this huge collective tantrum from the most privileged generation in history is nothing but a massive insult toward previous generations who really did have to fight, win, and yes, even cast off their chains.

 

More Tales From The Safe Space here.

 

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h/t Sargon of Akkad

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On Brexit, Nigel Lawson Should Stick To Being A History Professor

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

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When it comes to the history of the EU, Nigel Lawson actually has his facts straight. It’s a shame he also feels the need to weigh in on the political and economic aspects of Brexit

When he isn’t single-handedly torpedoeing the thinking Brexiteer’s case for leaving the European Union with fatuous and cavalier pronouncements on the economic aspect – or wrongly whipping up fears that Brexit would mean border controls with Ireland – Nigel Lawson can sing quite a nice tune on the issue of democracy and the unabashedly federalist imperative of the EU.

From Lawson’s OpEd in yesterday’s Telegraph:

On the European mainland it has always been well understood that the whole purpose of European integration was political, and that economic integration was simply a means to a political end.

In Britain, and perhaps also in the US, that has been much less well understood, particularly within the business community, who sometimes find it hard to grasp that politics can trump economics.

The fact that the objective has always been political does not mean that it is in any way disreputable. Indeed, the most compelling original objective was highly commendable.

It was, bluntly, to eliminate the threat to Europe and the wider world from a recrudescence of German militarism, by placing the German tiger in a European cage.

Whether or not membership of the EU has had much to do with it, that objective has been achieved: there is no longer a threat from German militarism.

But in the background there has always been another political objective behind European economic integration, one which is now firmly in the foreground.

That is the creation of a federal European superstate, a United States of Europe. Despite the resonance of the phrase, not one of the conditions that contributed to making a success of the United States of America exists in the case of the EU.

But that is what the EU is all about. That is its sole raison d’être.

This is a condensed and fairly accurate restatement of the EU’s underlying purpose, more fully laid out in “The Great Deception” by Dr. Richard North and Christopher Booker – though this essential book makes the additional important point about just how much of the EU’s evolution has taken place by stealth, cloaked in deliberate secrecy.

Anyone still labouring under the illusion (or burying their heads in their sand to convince themselves) that the EU is nothing but a happy-go-lucky club of countries coming together voluntarily to “cooperate” and solve common difficulties together should read “The Great Deception” and let the scales fall from their eyes. For all his other faults, Lawson does at least have a firmer grasp of history than most starry-eyed EU apologists.

Does this OpEd make up for everything else that Lawson has unfortunately done to retard the case for Brexit? No. But it does show quite starkly the positive case for Brexit which the main Leave campaign is throwing away by refusing to commit to an anxiety-soothing EEA-based exit plan and then, once the public’s understandable economic concerns are neutralised, letting the case for democracy speak for itself.

 

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Top Image: The Irish News

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