Tuesday
Jun282016
by 
Josh
Josh Bremorse - Josh 377
I think Brexit might need cartoons, so here is one plus some reading. A hilarious post by Julie Birchill in the Spectator and something a bit more sensible from 'futurist' Patrick Dixon:
Ignore 96% of what you are reading and hearing in the media, which is on the whole pompous nonsense.
Reader Comments (94)
I would agree with oakwood that the issues of AGW and Brexit are not obviously linked directly , but there is a curious , but inverted, symmetry about the 2 debates .
Consider AGW , where both sceptics and warmists share the same starting point , namely that the spectral properties of CO2 have the potential to raise global temperatures in the long term . However the 2 sides differ in the response . The sceptics might say that the effect is minor , sometimes obscured by natural effects and in any case harmful effects can be mitigated by human ingenuity and resourcefulness. The warmists claim that the effect is uncontrollable and will lead to extreme climate change unless drastic measures are taken.
Now consider Brexit . The starting point is again common to both sides of the debate and has been simply put by Caroline Lucas , the Green MP . The EU , she said must be reformed because it is badly managed . Where the 2 parties differ is again in the severity of response. The Remainers think that the corruption and political mismanagement of which the EU is accused is minor and easily overcome by simple reform . The Brexiters (like me) are like the warmers of the AGW debate . We think that the EU is beyond any form of reform and to protect the UK we need to take the drastic measure of leaving it.
As I say , a symmetry between the 2 arguments , but( in my personal case) inverted in terms of required response.
Tell it like it is Nigel !
If you have not seen this then I recomment you give 6 minutes to view it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlN9o3g-yuA
I am appalled by the way the Brexit elite have tried to sideline Nigel when they owe everything to him. He knows the EU well warts and all and should be given a prominent roll if only to " hold the feet to the fire".
Oakwood said "All you are achieving is to feed into the propaganda message that AGW-sceptism is driven by political belief, rather than facts and science"
Sorry but it's the other way round. Some Climate Scientists predict Armageddon, Climate sceptic scientists suggest it won't be so bad or might be good or neutral. Whatever turns out to be true it is politicians that determine how a nation responds to such AGW advice and the balance between mitigation of the actual and precautionary principle regarding the possible.
Mike Waite and oakwood both make very good points.
I would add that there is another analogy between the two that oakwood hints at.
Some people are interested in the big picture (the money and power) but others really do care about little things that are important to them - their principles.
AGW relies on feeding in assumptions to models and then saying the models approve the assumptions. It's ant-science. Junk. That is offensive to some of us regardless of if the models are correct or not.
The EU relies on diminishing warlike nationalism by diminishing democratic accountability of nationalist elites (thus diminishing purely nationalist elites - like feudal kings kept their subjects in check by giving interests, land, in each others kingdoms).
But, good intentions aside, it is undemocratic.
Most people ignore the hardcore who will not abandon their principles. But in the long-term it is the principled who cannot be removed.
If anyone really cares about the truth of the great subsidy myth they could start here;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16477990
"Put it another way: Scotland provided 9.4% of total UK revenues and got 'only' 9.2% of UK public spending in return."
"If you apply the same kind calculation to the UK as a whole, the net 'subsidy' for the average person was well over £2,000 last year."
Of course there is no educating the wilfuly ignorant. Or to put it in a Game of Thrones context; "there's no cure for being a c**t".
ie numbers from the UK.gov accountants are about as reliable as their inflation and unemployment numbers - or the Treasury gravity model that produced the infamous £4300 black hole from rank bad assumptions. Some of us are well used to project fear and numbers pulled straight from someones rear end. This time the boot was on the other foot though.
The deep fried mars bar is another convenient myth. In reality Scottish meat, fish & seafood are feted in France & Spain and given the quality label "Scottish" in the UK. Meanwhile English cooking is derided all over Europe: "les pauvres anglais sont nul a la bouffe" is a common refrain. Whilst deep fried fish is regarded as a mere Friday night takeaway snack in Scotland, in England it is top of every pub grub menu and promoted as if it were haute cuisine - alongside the execrable steak & kidney pie with no actual steak and a vomit-inducing gelatine-filled snack called a 'pork' pie.
JamesG
And then there's haggis, even tiny baby ones for breakfast and made from animal ingredients others would throw away and grain only fit to be feed to animals. I must say, however, that I have enjoyed the few I have eaten and we do have our own garbage food - blood sausage.
I could recommend a butcher in Stanford, who made excellent pork pies.
"There is no official mechanism for leaving the European Union whatever you may have heard:"
Patrick Dixon needs to do some reading: "Article 50 the only lawful route available to withdraw from the EU".
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86048
The massive efforts to return to June 22nd are appalling and reminiscent of the Lisbon Treaty, where the will of the people was not accepted, ref Ireland:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2122654/EU-referendum-Ireland-rejects-Lisbon-Treaty.html
"Irish voters have thrown the EU into disarray by rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, the government conceded.
Mr Ahern added: “At the end of the day, for a myriad of reasons, the people have spoken.”
The decision places massive doubt over the future of the pact designed to bring more European integration.
All 27 European member states have to ratify the treaty for it to go come into force next year. So far it has been approved by 18 members including Britain, but Ireland is the only country to put it to a public vote.
The leaders of the 26 other member states watched with dismay as Ireland voted “no”, a decision that will inevitably lead to much infighting and bickering across Europe.
Libertas argued that the Treaty would undermine Ireland’s influence in Europe, would open the door to interference in taxation and enshrine EU law above Irish law.
All the main political parties, aside from Sinn Fein, had supported the Treaty and made strenuous efforts to win the referendum."
Now Sinn Fein want to stay in Europe, Lisbon Treaty and all.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/03/ireland-votes-yes-lisbon-treaty
"In a dramatic political U-turn, Ireland has voted decisively in favour of the Lisbon treaty just 16 months after it first rejected the European Union reform plan.
The outcome was lauded by the Irish taoiseach, Brian Cowen, who said it pointed the way towards rapid improvement in the European Union's effectiveness and Ireland's economic recovery.
He has thanked EU chiefs for offering Ireland generous assurances, with the EU president, José Manuel Barroso, describing the result as "a great day for Europe, a great day for Ireland"
Richard Green, a leading figure in the anti-Lisbon Coir movement, issued a direct public appeal to the Conservative leader to hold a referendum on Europe in the next British parliament.
Speaking at the main Dublin count in the RDS conference centre, Green told the Observer that the onus was now on Cameron to halt what he and other Irish no campaigners saw as the drive towards an EU superstate."
They must not be allowed to "do an Ireland" on us. Get on with Article 50.
DennisA: IIRC, it was the EU's largesse to Ireland - with unscrupulous carpet-baggers cashing in on it - that did for Ireland in the first place. Now it seems they just want another dollop of it.
As for the reasons for Brexit, I read on WUWT they report a story that Joe Rom blames Brexit on AGW. His reasoning is that global warming caused the Syrian refugee crisis and that, in turn has caused Brexit. Weird, or what?
No change imminent on UK's climate change policy, according to Amber Rudd as reported in the Telegraph earlier today:
"While I think the UK’s role in dealing with a warming planet may have been made harder by the decision last Thursday, our commitment to dealing with it has not gone away," she told the Business and Climate summit in London.
"However we choose to leave the EU, let me be clear: we remain committed to dealing with climate change."
Ms Rudd said that on Thursday she would confirm the Government's "fifth carbon budget", the target covering steep emissions reductions required in the period 2028-2032.
Harry Passfield, for me, Joe Romm is correct, but for the wrong reasons. The attitude of the EU towards the unproven threat of Global Warming, and the impact on UK policy is what made me realise that enough was enough.
Climate Scientists caused fear, and punitive panic measures. This led to me favouring Brexit.
The level of desperation demonstrated by Romm's latest claim, that defies all scientific evidence, means I wish Trump well.
Project Fear ( or Project Whinge ) didn't work with Brexit.
Project Fear won,t work with AGW either.
Congratulations, Brittania, on deciding upon the euectomy. I hope the surgery goes well and that the Greens don't come by eat your grapes or cause your stitches to break. It will be painful for a few weeks, but you'll soon be back on your bum.
"Everyone within earshot - thinking , four weeks in Australia. for ordering paper clips. sixty of them ???" --EternalOptimist
They're the virtual sort of paperclip, requiring computer skills to order.
"A whole generation of Britains finest clueless idiots has seen the EU as the best guarantee of a job for life." --golf charlie
"Great fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite 'em. And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum."
"What is the sentence for EU Apostasy?" --stewgreen
Haemorrhoid replacement surgery.
As temperatures plummet and the pause reinstates in short order, Amber Rudd pushes away the proffered fig leaf and doubles down on stupid.
No excuses for her when the cold light of forthcoming days compel a reckoning.
Consider the alternative to invoking Article 50. The EU wrote Art 50 and that means it is likely to be of benefit to the EU, not the nation attempting to leave. The alternative is to use our own law-making body, the House of Commons, to repeal the ECA 1972. It is this act which makes EU law legal in the UK. We would have to repeal the ECA anyway if we invoked Art 50. So .... much the same so far.
EU Directives have already been translated into UK law, but EU Regulations "reside" in Brussels (hence the 14%/60% argument). If we just repealed the ECA tomorrow we would lose those EU Regulations, throwing the running of the UK into chaos (yes, that's how extensively EU laws have taken over the UK).
The solution is breathtakingly simple: pass a "son of the ECA" act to "patriate" the EU Regulations to the UK. The new act would make the Regulations into ordinary statute law rather than the constitutional law that they currently are by virtue of the ECA (see the Metric Martyrs Appeal judgement). The Regulations would be "frozen" at a suitable date (say, 23-06-2016) and subsequently modified or repealed at our leisure. Thus there would be no delay in leaving the EU.
Now for trade. The EU has forced us to trade with the rest of the world using mainly WTO tariff levels (apart from a few of the EU's own trade deals). Even so, our exports to the rest of the world exceed those to the EU by a healthy margin, and despite our proximity to the EU. It is therefore not going to be Armageddon to trade with the EU using WTO tariffs. Trade deals are better, and about a dozen countries are already clamouring at our door to get them. A trade deal with the EU would also be preferable, but not to the extent of us losing sovereignty, or control over immigration again. So trade deals need not hold up leaving the EU either.
There is no necessity to negotiate with the EU on the assumption that they can metaphorically hold a SM gun to our head, as the Remoaners excitedly insist. In fact there needs to be very little negotiation at all, unless the EU is willing to talk as equals, and without threats. We could be out in a couple of weeks, but it would be polite to give 12 month's notice.
Budgie: good plan – simple, effective, workable, and of considerable benefit to this country (and possibly others). All good reasons for them never to implement that sort of plan.
Unless we can get a true leader in (Andrea Leadsom? How about involving Nigel Farage? – after all, it was his efforts that caused this ray of hope), the most likely scenario is that our exit will be a right dog’s breakfast of a plan.
Budgie, RR. Wrong! There are heavy duty treaties involved. You don't unilaterally break treaties you voluntarily signed up to, and expect to be treated fairly ever again by anybody. Let's stay within diplomatic norms and work our way through this.
I'm with Mervyn King on this issue. ie In a couple of years everyone will wonder what all the fuss was about, that both sides exaggerate the benefits of their position, world trade will continue regardless and markets and currencies will continue to go up and down from fear and greed. Alas I'm surrounded at work by angry, educated Remainers who have suddenly decided, like the Patricians of ancient Rome, that the Plebs don't deserve democracy because they are just too ignorant to know what's best for themselves.
I don't like Boris much but he was bang on here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/03/tory-candidates-need-a-plan-for-brexit---heres-mine-in-5-points/
Like him, I'm wondering what the trigger was for trendy lefties to switch so suddenly and overwhelmingly from EU-is-bad to EU-is-good. Do they now just decide their politics by just automatically opposing anything that Tories like? It reminds me of the 'coal-not-dole' tee-shirts during the miners strike. I suppose the answer is in the moniker 'trendy'.
Meantime the LibDems are debating whether to drop the Democrat part from their name. Having announced that the Lisbon treaty warranted a referendum many have decided they don't like the result of it. This comes after the fracking debacle where the rank & file are in favour but the leadership decided to undemocratically ignore them.
Alan Kendall, Wrong!
The UK, and almost every state in the world, is signed up to the Vienna Convention 1969. All the way through Vienna the powers (or sovereignty) of States are explicit or implicit. Such powers would be meaningless if, once signed, a treaty could never be abrogated. Times, politics and regimes change so treaties are not for all time and states do abrogate them. Recent examples include: when the USA abrogated the ABM ballistic missile treaty in 2001; and when the Czechs exited the Warsaw Pact in 1991.
Vienna offers an alternative to the use of TEU Article 50 to exit the EU since withdrawal may take place "At any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States." (V. Article 54). Moreover in Vienna Article 56 1b: "a right of denunciation or withdrawal may be implied by the nature of the treaty." The nature of all treaties signed by the UK is on the basis that "No parliament may bind its successor" - that is part of the UK's sovereignty which is itself necessary for valid accession. So the UK must abide by a treaty whilst it is force, but we do retain the right as a sovereign nation to abrogate any treaty.
"I'm wondering what the trigger was for trendy lefties to switch so suddenly and overwhelmingly from EU-is-bad to EU-is-good"
I didn't think there was any great mystery to this. I thought the catalyst for the about-turn was way back in the late 1980s when Jaques Delors spoke at a Labour Party annual conference and painted a picture of the EU (it would have been the EEC or possibly just EC back then, can't remember which) re-imposing the kind of social and work-place policies that the Thatcher governments were doing away with; thus at a time when Labour was still at an electoral low point, they suddenly saw the EU/EC/EEC as a route to achieving their goals over the head of the Tory government. Labour soon became as vociferous as anyone in their support for the UK to join the ERM.
Much right and much wrong in Dixon's article. The sole issue is we have left the Eu and are now negotiating the terms. What has changed ? - nothing except hyperbole and nonsense. Most people will notice almost nothing save for the short term effects of a cheaper pound, that is rising fuel prices but probably falling food and other prices as importers no longer have to carry EU costs. Long term we shall grow substantially while the EU contracts and metamorphoses into two smaller units with perhaps four in the Eurozone and the others picking up fast by using their own currencies.
Budgie. I do not deny what you write. What I deny is that a country can just act as if the treaties do not exist, they have to be legitimately abrogated and that takes time. Talk of settling everything by Christmas (starting September or October) is hopelessly over optimistic. I still think that if the UK unilaterally abrogated the many treaties, our international reputation would suffer. But perhaps that doesn't matter to you in your headlong rush to achieve sovereignty.
Alan Kendall, First you said unilaterally breaking the treaties, now you are saying unilaterally abrogating. Which is it? Breaking a treaty is not the same thing as abrogating a treaty, they are near opposites.
As for the word "unilaterally", you seem to be using the term in a slightly pejorative way. In fact only the UK has the power to abrogate the treaties, the EU cannot do this for us. And why should they? And why should we want them to? Only the UK parliament can repeal the ECA, the lock on our subjugation to EU law. It is perfectly legal, responsible, and honourable to unilaterally abrogate the EU treaties (or any treaty), giving reasonable notice.
Indeed as I originally said: "there needs to be very little negotiation at all, unless the EU is willing to talk as equals, and without threats." I continued: "We could be out in a couple of weeks, but it would be polite to give 12 month's notice." (italics added). In doing so I was attempting to explain that the mechanical detachment of the UK from the EU (given WTO trading) was straightforward and quick, contrary to the consensus view. We do not need a trade agreement, or a decade to replace EU laws.
Budgie. You are quite right, I misspoke. What I meant was that the UK's reputation will be irretrievably(?) damaged if it abrogated treaties without consideration of the damage a non negotiated separation might do to our former partners. I still think a rushed exit will cause unnecessary damage to everyone concerned. Without an Autumn election I cannot see how the present largely pro Remain parliament (even with a near paralyzed Labour Party) would speed things along.
Dear sourpuss, Alan, what rush?!!
Ayla. "Sourpuss"? 0Yet another insult today*, I've lost count. My cup runneth over.
* But wait, is it all that it seems? Ayla never writes what she means. And I was arguing against rushing, yet she questions why I rush. But then there is the "dear Alan", does this mean the opposite? I am out of practice interpreting the wisdom of the halo-ed one. Woe is me.
Now, now. You and I are moon-buddies. Turn that frown upside down.
So... contrast the urgent reasons that allegedly provoked the secession (on paper) with the utter absence of any hurry whatsoever when it comes to carry it through.
Ayla
A bit like Midas, you're eternally afflicted. You by the belief of others here that what you write is the polar opposite of your true meaning. This renders even sympathy into its counterpart. Poor Ayla.
Back from sabbatical, I am now free to service your needs.
Pleased that you seem to understand Turkish and the "halo" thing. Or perhaps you are a child of the Earth. Please don't explain, I would have trouble interpreting it (see above).
Ayla (halo be her name). So very clever. The inverse of "Turn that frown upside down" is "turn that smile rightways up" and means exactly the same thing. Kudos.
Hold on a minute. If someone is going to define Ayla, that someone is Ayla.
So let Ayla do it and see how it's done.
(that made me feel so Brexit)
Ayla (halo be her name)
We await with trepidation
Your definitive definition
Of self.
We presumed
Treading upon your oneness
Trampling your singularity
Idiosyncrasy was compromised.
The problem we face
Oh child of Earth
Is when or if ever
Enlightenment arrives?
We have been away
Sabbaticalizing
What be this Brexit
That made you feel?
A laxative breakfast cereal perchance?
You missed it. Re-read.
Ayla.
Forthwith you wish to known as Brexit?
Oh! the horror?
Say it isn't so?
Did the change hurt?
Did your druid authorize it, or are you apostate?
Brexit (fka Ayla)
Our community is in turmoil, house prices have crashed, our monetary acorns have lost 20% of their value against cowrie shells, and our governing bodies are revolting. Our EU brethren are fearful of approbation and shout Aya Ayla at any opportunity. We are under siege.
Have you already filed your article 50 change of name/status form or is there an opportunity for a re-think?
Some here think you have sold out to Kelloggs.
Alas, the joke that can be explained is not a joke.
Darn! That too made me feel so Brexit.
Ayla (or whatever!)
You created such structural economic damage to our fair community for a joke!!!
For a JOKE!
A harsh mistress you be
You are being instructed in the dark arts by your druid?
And we victims of your examination?
Your sole regret is the joke explained?
To anyone else, SHAME.
For you, submission.
[I expect the MPFC Colonel any time now. Silly me]
Description is altogether different from intention, explanation, or destination.
Perspective is key here. There is no other exercise for Ayla.
Ayla
OUR perspective on this is "simples"
You're doing our heads in.
We no longer have abilities or the will to disentangle your skeins of deliberately obfuscated logic
Cut the cr*p and get back to what we understand -
Flagellation of the climate heathen
There are enough here to keep you occupied for a millennium.
And Brexit has afforded them hope.
If only.
Unfortunately, the blog has seceded too and, with it, its purpose.
Ayla. Could be Lazarused or pheonixed perhaps. Fire damped at present. Purpose remains. Sad.
Ya wanna slip the Mars Bar inside a Twinkie before the deep fat frying. I like to roll 'em in powdered sugar post hot dipping.
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Now Abrogate? Haven't we enough 'gates' for awhile?
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Where is the cartoon??
Very good post.
Kumo
Myanmar tourism
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