Guest essay by Eric Worrall
British Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas has urged members to vote on 23rd June to remain part of the European Union. Her concern appears to be that if Britain leaves the EU, democratically elected British politicians might be emboldened to dismantle EU inspired environmental regulations.
Caroline Lucas has today called on Green voters to back remaining in the EU on June 23rd, declaring the imminent vote a “climate referendum”.
Lucas, who is a board member of Britain Stronger in Europe and Another Europe is Possible, as well as the Green Party’s only MP, warned a vote for Brexit would undermine efforts to tackle climate change and build a greener economy.
“June 23rd is a climate referendum,” she said. “Leaving the EU could wreck our chances of playing a part in the fight against this existential threat – and hand the country to people who don’t even believe climate change is happening. But by staying as a member of the EU we can build on the progress already made in Paris earlier this year and continue making strides towards a fossil-free future.”
She reiterated her view the EU is in need of sweeping reform, but insisted it remained the “best hope we have when it comes to tackling climate change and protecting our environment”.
The latest intervention came as the Green Party launched a new online video urging its supporters to back a Remain vote.
Read more: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2461374/caroline-lucas-declares-eu-vote-a-climate-referendum
Why is Lucas so concerned that politicians elected by the British People, liberated from the shackles of the European Union, might repeal green policies? Is the leader of the British Green Party worried that the people do not want more green? Or does she think that using the undemocratic might of the EU bureaucracy to suppress voter choice, is a more certain route to a low carbon future?
At least one prominent member of the British Green Party has a different view. Baroness Jones thinks the fanatically green European Union is not anti-CO2 enough to deserve her support.
… Writing in the Guardian last week, the Green Party’s Baroness Jenny Jones, set out her reasons for backing a vote for Brexit, arguing the EU has become “a super-sized top-down dogmatic project of endless industrial development and growth” that remains resistant to any attempt to reform it. …
Read more: Same link as Above
Recent polling suggests the leave vote may have developed a commanding lead, over fears about uncontrolled immigration.
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Yes!
Yes of course!
I still would like to be in Union with the British but I guess the British don’t like to recieve commandments from Brussels. Sad that weak EU means stronger Russia, which we who live under constant threat of their invasion don’t appreciate. If Brexit happens, I still hope economical and military unification continues.
What is this constant threat of invasion? I keep hearing about these accusations but although I follow the news in great detail I cannot find any evidence to support these assertions, which sound like little more than attempts to drum up more support for NATO and get the cash registers ringing for the American arms manufacturers.
If NATO states had kept up their promised spending on defense they would have no worries. Britain is the only EU nation really capable of military strength.
Ask the people of Ukraine or Crimea. You will understand invasion concerns.
I do like Europe and Europeans, but if you are concerned about Russia, I suggest that Germany, Holland etc start spending their wealth on defence, instead of relying on the US, UK and France.
Vincent has never heard of Crimea, which had always been Russian, of Ukraine, which had always been Russian, or South Ossetia, which had always been Russian. No way Russia would invade any country…
Once part of Russia, always part of Russia, no matter what the people want or what happens in the mean time.
It really is nice the way some people bend over backwards to excuse the actions of their favorite tyrant.
Hugs, good soul,
Like you I prefer something not on offer – namely a Reformed European Union.
{Massively] Reformed EU, actually – but not on offer
Our Fear Master General – also being paid to be Prime Minister – led a negotiation – or ‘negotiation’ maybe – that produced about the fourth root of diddly-squat – plus an infinitesimal amount..
The EU is reportedly [I saw it in the press or on the BBC News website] a substantial wedge of legislation – covering EU Armed Forces, Pensions legislation which is expected to kill all defined benefit schemes, including those for pensioners about to retire . . . .
There may also be restrictions on the financial centre of London, which will move most of the work, bonuses, employment, and taxes out of ‘Europe’.
Accordingly – never mind the sovereignty issues, which I think are important – we have just had a ‘EuroCourt’ [like presidents, – 5; 7? – there appears to be a superfluity of EuroCourts . . . . – rule that a UK Policy on benefits is ‘justifiable’, due to its importance to national budgets.
But surely a sovereign government should be able to do this without rubberstamping by a Luxembourg based set of lawyers?
Brexit – with some drawbacks, I allow – will allow this.
Auto
Hugs……if there is an invasion it will have been started by the EU and U.S. NATO is doing the warmongering. I am in favor of Russia defending itself from overreach by the regime change actors.
Britain fought in two world wars to support European freedom, long before the EU was thought about.
Defense revolves about NATO, which has nothing to do with the EU.
Hugs,
No reason at all why you can’t be in Union with the British outside the EU.
The EU has no army, it functions solely as a legislative body, and you think Russia is afraid of the EU, think again.
Yes. Europe has really pulled their weight militarily over the last, oh say, 70 years. Most EU countries couldn’t defend themselves from a binge-drinking pack of cub scouts, let alone ISIS. It’s easier to pretend “it won’t happen here”, or smother the inevitable savage events in glorious-sounding rhetoric (Hollande promising to destroy ISIS comes to mind).
Without political will, the bad guys will, sooner more likely than later, come and take all your goodies.
Brexit should also be about national security.
Curious George: “… Which has always been Russian…” –
Is that why Ukranians speak Ukranian, and Georgians speak Georgian? Either you forgot the /sarc tag, or you don’t know history. Don’t give the neo-tyrants in Moscow any more cover than they are already taking.
“Auto June 14, 2016 at 2:17 pm
…kill all defined benefit schemes, including those for pensioners about to retire . . . .”
Not true. If anything is true, it would be the reverse. UK state pensions have increased with thanks to the EU (I don’t agree with it, but it is fact).
Curious George
…had always been Russian
What about the UK, USA? Or China, or Mozambique? Have these also always been Russian? Has Uranus always been Russian?
I can’t figure out if you were being sarc or ironic?
Putin won’t invade. He will work to create further discord and weaken the E.U. With that done he will destabilize and dominate the Balkans and other Eastern Euro countries. To Putin, the cold war never ended. The artificial conflict he aggravates is his power base. Russians think NATO might invade them! All politicians think we do what we’re told when we’re scared and we keep proving them right. That’s how Iraq got invaded. Look at the mess there now because Bush didn’t keep his cool and question the basic evidence. Much like climate change, most of the experts agreed, all the media said it was so; and they were all wrong!
The problem with skeptics is nobody ever listens to them!
I don’t know about the thought that the EU is set to kill defined benefit pensions but the rest of your post is incorrect and utterly irrelevant.
Firstly the incorrect part. State pensions have NOT increased with thanks to the EU. Other than in times of extreme economic stress, the state pension has, for many years, increased in line with inflation. The 2010-2015 government improved this to be the highest of inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. That was a political decision (led by the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner, and nothing to do with the EU.
Secondly, the irrelevant part. The state pension is certainly NOT a defined benefit scheme. It is a flat rate scheme, paid to all who reach the qualifying age and who have paid in sufficient NI contributions. It is, therefore, nothing to do with Auto’s original point.
Reposted because of incorrect email address
Incorrect on 2 counts.
Firstly, UK state pensions have NOT increased as a result of anything the EU has done – for many years they increased by price inflation and now by the highest of price inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. That was a political decision, driven by the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner in the 2010-2015 government and nothing to do with the EU.
Secondly, the state pension isn’t a defined benefit scheme anyway. It pays a flat rate to all, provided they qualify by age and number of years NI contributions. Those with inadequate NI contributions get proportionately less. So your entire post seems to be somewhat pointless.
Sorry.
“Mr Green Genes June 15, 2016 at 3:30 am
Firstly, UK state pensions have NOT increased as a result of anything the EU has done…”
They have. Testimony to the fact that what I say true is the recent retirement of my step-father, who went thru the process, and was informed of the changes. Now, he could be telling me porkies, but I very much doubt it.
Paul…..the wrong people are telling you to stay in
Fully agree! That is the reason the Labour Party and the TUC are pushing “Remain”, they know that democratically their political agenda is unobtainable given the UK’s, electorates’ opinions, and the UK’s electoral system and democracy! They need the more totalitarian regime in the EU to sustain their hopes of a socialist nirvana!
Exactly.
Small side note: How many times does Labour get to wreck your economy before they run out of innings? Got to be the longest, stupidest political cricket match in history, with Labour always looking like the “twits” from Monty Python.
John Harmsworth commented: “…How many times does Labour get to wreck your economy before they run out of innings? Got to be the longest, stupidest political cricket match in history,…”
+1 Socialism/Communism has been the bane of the world since its’ inception and they are still trying to convert everyone.
I remain unconvinced.
The last Labour government had a good record on the economy, they certainly cannot be blamed for the 2008 event. Unless you think they had a hand in the US sub-prime mortgage debt, and subsequent selling of that debt, to others, which directly led to the global “collapse”.
I must admit, I had rather they had allowed the banks to collapse and “rescued” the mortgage holders while allowing the rest to destroy itself.
Sometimes the best thing to do with a broken machine is to scrap it , before it malfunctions badly enough to kill you.
She need not worry, as with the Brexit vote, the left-liberal stance on anthropogenic climate change is totally entrenched across the leaderships of all the political parties, governmental bodies, state media and so on. Brexit will have little effect on our insane, hopeless energy policy until and unless the lights start going out.
Oh, wait a minute, hang on….
She might have a point!
Great! Out! Out! Out!
the left-liberal stance on anthropogenic climate change is totally entrenched across the leaderships of all the political parties, governmental bodies, state media and so on.
No, it isn’t.
UKIP is profoundly climate skeptic and anti-renewable energy. It’s commanding around 18% of the popular vote.
FAR more than Luke-arses Greens.
DECC – the official government energy and climate change doodah, is split down the middle with renewable friendly and renewable skeptic elements in it, and a strong pro-nuclear faction, largely because a lot of us here have been pushing a strong anti-renewable message, and there are some people who are not so tied in to pork barrel politics that they haven’t listened. What DECC says, is ‘strong commitment to renewables and meeting EU directives on Climate change’. What DECC does is serious work on nuclear power and hopefully fracking.
Back to the lab! Time to reanimate Maggie!
Any time a country has the opportunity to escape the tyranny of unelected bureaucracy, I say go for it.
(I’m U.S., but I can root for victory from the sidelines, yes?)
Definitely YES but an equally definitely NO to your incompetent President
Obama didn’t stay on the sidelines. I pay US taxes so he is my employee. I apologize for his ignorance.
Well, to quote the Dixie Chicks, “He’s not my president.”
D.J.
Worst Appeal to Authority Ever.
Appeal to authority? Yer trippin’ dude ; )
The leader of the Green party in England and Wales is currently Natalie Bennett, though I think she has expressed an intention to stand down. Caroline Lucas gave up the leadership when she became an MP.
Baroness Jenny Jones, is totally “barking mad”!
Hmmm…
‘Barking’ Baroness Jenny Jones
at the EU threw some stones.
Thought it good that Britain Brexit
’cause the EU… they can’t fixit.
Mr Law it is worse that you thought (isn’t it always).
From the Evening Standard a couple of years back…
“A Green Party peer and London Assembly member who branded black cabs one of the capital’s “most polluting” vehicles today came under fire for claiming more taxi journeys than all her colleagues combined — including Mayor Boris Johnson.
A Standard analysis reveals Baroness Jenny Jones claimed for nearly three times the number of journeys Mr Johnson did and nearly six times that of the Assembly member with the third highest journeys claimed.
But one Assembly member said: “It does smack a bit of hypocrisy when you consider the way she goes on and berates Boris about doing more over the environment, when it appears as if she could have been doing more herself and cut down on her own number [of journeys].”
This is the Lady who says the EU isn’t green enough for her tastes!
This is so typical of many of the Greens. Perhaps it is some psychological problem: they are unable to perceive they are doing themselves what they condemn in others.
Out,out,out and thrice more out…..
Let’s stand alone tall and proud all the better to extend the hand of friendship to the rest of the world.
EU be gone, we are ready to shed the chains of socialism and reveal the nation that is …. again …. Great Britain.
If BREXIT wins, that will give Cameron a bargaining chip to get concessions from the EU–which it will probably give him. Then he’ll call for another referendum, which he’ll win, probably. So voting to leave isn’t an irrevocable decision.
If Britain does leave, it can find a new trading partner in Russia, now shut out from the EU. A captive market!
@ur momisugly rogerknights. If Brexit wins Cameron will be gone in a thrice. Fired by his own hand or vote of no confidence if he tries to hang in there. He’s toast as is George Osborne.
The new broom will actually be the UK’s best chance to reverse the Green lunacy because the new PM – probably Boris, will be able to say it – AGW / ‘renewables etc, wasn’t his policy.
I hope that you’re right. Those guys have done a Ratner on the UK.
Absolutely.
If, as looks increasingly likely, Leave wins I hope that Cameron will have the integrity to resign almost immediately. Boris did a great job as mayor of London and I think he could be a great Prime Minister who will do his best to make Brexit a huge success. As a bonus, he does seem to have climate sceptical leanings.
Who knows, maybe next year we will have climate sceptics both in No. 10 and the White House!
Chris
That is certainly a scenario, but if >50% of the vote goes to leave, that means that >50% of the population want to, and if he pulls a cunning stunt like that, UKIP is waiting to pick up the protest vote. The way the British electoral system works, is that a party with a broad base of around 20% of the vote across all parts of the country (rather than a regional power base) elects no MPS, but if the opposition – currently a radical Marxist led rabble of unelectable weirdos – represents no threat, then people will allow their protest vote to go where it belongs.
And a UKIP vote up in the low to mid twenties with Tory and Labour polling low thirties stars to make an ‘balance of power’ situation possible.
UKIP won the European elections, which admittedly was pure protest, because European MEPS are completely meaningless and have very little power, but win it they did.
UKIP are poised on the threshold of a major breakthrough. And there is no knowing how many Tories and a few labour MPS would defect if such a stunt were pulled.
Its very interesting for armchair political analysts.
Brexit and the EU is something that wont go away.
And Greece Italy and France are by no means happy – France in particular with its own brand of ‘national socialists’ – Le Front National – led by one of the smartest chicks in politics – Marine Le Pen – is poised for a sea change too.
Its heady stuff, and I dont think anyone knows which way the dice will fall. AS with the collapse of the USSR, it all looked so solid up till the time that some event catalysed the breakup.
Yes, the recent Ipsos-Mori opinion poll was amazing.
In several EU countries, around 60% want a referendum on continued EU membership.
48% of Italians want to leave the EU. There’s an obvious reason for that: since the creation of the euro, Italian GDP growth is a massive – drum roll please – 3%
For most western economies the figure is around 25 to 30%
The EU is a catastrophe, a ship that is slowly sinking. Time to Leave.
Chris
Cameron won’t last the week, if that. He has lied to us, the tried to scare us, and now he threatens us. He has consistently talked Gt Britain down. He is toast.
Once we’re out, we go from a close trading bloc of 500 million to a worldwide trading area of 5,600 million.
Sad to see blatant political rants on this site. Please go elsewhere.
+1 to that steveta_uk
steveta_uk (and Espen)
What did you think it would take to end the green/CAGW nonsense – good clean logic & rhetoric? Discussing Brexit may not be your cup of tea, but this is what shoveling the crap out of the stables looks like – it’s messy, smelly and hard work.
Of course there are political rants.
It’s CAGW we’re talking about.
That makes it 97% political and 3% science.
There is no discussion of CAGW without politics because the watermelons demand the government use guns and bullets to make the freedom lovers stfu.
+10
“It’s CAGW we’re talking about.
That makes it 97% political and 3% science.”
That’s the movement in a nutshell!
Those on the losing side always want the conversation to end.
If the Climate discussion was simply about science, hardly anybody would care. But it is not. It is about political decisions that have or are likely to have an enormous impact on our lives. The politics is much more important than the science.
There are just as heated arguments in many areas of science (e..g the date of man arriving in North America, string theory, the role genes play in behaviour) but because none of those scientists are calling for huge increases in taxes or fundamental changes to our economy, few people care.
What is happening in the UK is FAR more important to the future of the world than which of two people with very bad hair wins a US election.
This is a political event that is being driven by the whole perception of Big Centralised Government as uniquely dysfunctional and unable to react effectively in the 21st century. Climate Change the political agenda is all about Big Centralised Government.
Its happening in Europe first, because Europe is less affluent that than USA, but probably more politically sophisticated. With a long history of having to deal with Empire building tyrannies.
The real question that is being posed here, is so utterly fundamental no one has even realised what it is, and that is “What actually is the purpose of government”?
The (Liberal) Left’s answer seems to be ‘to achieve social justice’
The Right’s answer seems to be ‘to achieve social injustice and fat profits for the Oligarchs’
And in the EU, they combine into what many perceive as an instrument of oppression unmatched since the Third Reich.
Both share a common purpose: More government. The Left because it feels that it and it alone has the moral right to dictate how life shall be lived. And the OIigarchs are quite happy to direct gross wealth generated into their own pockets using lobby created legislation to ensure that its their useless products that are mandated. Viz solar panels and windmills. Climate change is just another weapon like ‘social justice’ and ‘nationalised health services’ to have big fat organisations that are constrained to purchase stuff that is mandated centrally to be the energy source, or drug, of choice.
Note that all these ideas once were genuinely radical and socially beneficial things, until they got subverted into the vast machine that spins propaganda and marketing and legislation to control who buys what, and from whom.
And these days,. Left Or Right, they are as one blunt politician remarked ‘but two cheeks, of the same arse’
[At this point the lights went out, and my computers all died: Due to the magic of persistent history the above post still existed]
What is happening in the UK, is the emergence of something that doesn’t actually quite know what it is. Its anti-the current system, because we know that is broken, but its not yet quite worked out what its for.
Nigel Farage calls it ‘common sense and sound principles, not ideology’ Others call it conservatism with a small C. I see it as really a pragmatic libertarianism. As much government as is strictly necessary to do the jobs only governments can do, applied at the lowest possible level as close to the problem as possible. The USA is better off in this respect as a US state actually has more freedom to operate with the federal united states than a country in the European Union, and there are elections that do elect peole who can do something. IN the EU, elections are a façade only.
What I personally think is happening is a move towards devolution of power authority and accountability to more localised government structures.
And the rise of libertarianism. But the people themselves haven’t recognised that for what it is.
AS long as the EU Titanic sails along, its fun to play at who steers the ship, and leave all the watertight doors open and ignore the designated lifeboats, but post Iceberg, it becomes very imporatnt to have watertight doors between nations, and to have lifeboats that can operate independently, when the big ship of state appears to be holed below the waterline and sinking fast.
The problem is all the chaps in the fancy uniforms are just superfluous baggaqge in the lifeboats, when what you need is not pomp and circumstance, and Zil lanes in Brussels, but people who know how to row, and navigate, and catch fish….which is why they are telling us with every fully paid up organisation that they command, that the ship is fine, and we would be fools to get into the lifeboats. For them, its a shot to nothing. If the ship goes down, there is no room for them in the lifeboats anyway, and they are dead men walking. They have no choice.
We do.
IN 9 days time we will be voting in the single most important election of a lifetime, in an event which may catalyse the breakup of the third biggest political structure in the world. IN US terms, this is our declaration of independence, our Fort Sumter moment.
Some are concerned that we may vote to enter uncharted territory. Those who support leaving the EU, do so because they would say we entered that many many years ago, and we don’t like where we seem to be heading now anyway.
We live in interesting times.
Although, to be fair, our next Prime Minister could have very bad hair too.
“IN US terms, this is our declaration of independence …”
It sure looks like it to me, and what “it” is, appears to me to be centered around “rule by consent of the governed” as our founders put it, Leo. Without that, it doesn’t seem like Britain is even a real country anymore, to me . . just a “collective”.
Or Rational Anarchy as Robert Heinlein put it – the return of individual responsibility and with it, freedom
The facts are that economies across the developed world are debt ridden and struggling to grow, with deflation threatening to create a full on depression. I personally don’t see how we avoid it. Political friction represents the issues of the day. Many of us believe that AGW is in large part an exercise in Socialist undermining of Capitalism. So it’s political!
The EU is communism with new action plan. It is essentially an unelected ruling elite who decide what’s best for us and then makes us follow those plans regardless of our own opinions or what hardships they cause. Capitalism is a nasty means to an end but will be phased out eventually. It’s no co-incidence that the EU has as almost as many former communist countries (Merkel was an East German after all) as democratic ones. Soon to be the majority with a few more additions. UK left wing elite and Green parties love the EU, as does the Guardian and large swathes of the BBC. It’s the nice face of socialism. IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.
No need for unpleasant economics to intrude into airy, fairy plans. The EU just asks for more money. It’s not like it has to account for the money it fritters. If it can’t compete with the outside world, then exclude them (trade barriers). And just like the USSR, it stifles innovation, ambition and achievement and rewards routine and box ticking. Ultimately it will stagnate in the same way. Worse, it promotes corruption and fake compliance. The whole green agenda is a gift to those brazen enough to shrug off a lack of genuine achievement.
But the Greens can’t see any of that. They have a dream of utopia that can be achieved if only nasty capitalism or silly democracy doesn’t get in the way. They’d found themselves very much at home in the EU corridors. No stupid voters choosing on their own world view, rather than for the green, greater good. They’ve been able to move their plans ahead, where they’d never get a chance in the UK alone. Of course they want us to vote to remain in the EU.
The worst thing for Europe was the reunification of Germany. This has allowed the communists in by the back door and explains the policies that are designed to destabilize Europe until It falls apart.
TinyCO2 – I’m not sure that you’re right about the ex-communist countries in the EU still pushing a communist line. They were typically unwilling communists, having communism imposed on them by the USSR. As Vaclav Havel said, no-one who had experienced communism would willingly return to it. I suspect that the communist push in the EU is coming predominantly from powerful well-funded green groups in western Europe. Britain would surely do well to break their shackles now.
True, but most countries are a mix of left and right. New EU counries tend to be less Eurosceptical than the older ones. Hope over experience? The left wing ideas of being looked after and equality are very seductive no matter what political colour you are. People notoriously fall for the same cons but with different faces. Sure, most wouldn’t vote for communism but many do vote for something very similar. The EU is polarising into those who don’t want the all powerful central state, and those that do. However since the EU isn’t democratic, it can’t be voted out, without a referendum like we’re having.
Mike Jonas – Angela Merkel was a fully paid up communist working for the Party as an agitprop specialist. Many in the East benefited from communism, even if it was that it relieved them of the necessity to actually work for a living – ‘jobs’ and housing were state provided.
The EU was set up by a communist, and it started life as a super-Union to protect IIRC the steel industries of France and Germany.
Europe has always had its communists, even in the West. Fascism and WWII itself was partly a war against communism by Franco, Mussolini and Hitler’s fascist parties. Back in the day Bolshevism and Communism were identified as all part of the ‘Jewish Conspiracy’ – echoes of which sentiment can still be found in the more rightwing nut and fruitcake conspiracy websites.
Today we tend to talk of it as ‘cultural Marxism’ instead.
If you want a quick overview of the Eurosceptic viewpoint of at least one person I recommend you to this site
http://www.jamescarver.org.uk/blog.php?id=11
http://www.jamescarver.org.uk/blog.php?id=10
In the end perhaps what is less significant as to who is right and who is wrong about the exact political leanings of the protagonists in the political sphere today, but the fact that they are protagonists at all, and what the agenda has become.
The fact that the US Tea party even exists at all, is salient, never mind that its not an effective political voice. The sheer vitriol between the Liberal and conservative voices all over the West,and the widespread disillusionment with both, shows that something is afoot. Meanwhile the debt crisis has never been solved, stock markets and economies have been relatively stagnant for nearly a generation, and in an example of supreme displacement (or perhaps an example of the Peter Principle’s Utter Irrelevance ) , we are led to believe that a 20% increase in a trace gas that forms the tiniest fraction of our atmosphere, is The Worsest Thing There Ever Was. ( http://www.clarewind.org.uk/events-1.php?event=35 )
Is that in the end, what governments have become? IN a global confirmation of the Peter Principle, they are all promoted to a level of total incompetence, not one actually has a clue what to do, or even what their job descriptions are? And so 90% of the political process, is spent in exercising those very traits so clearly delineated by Laurence Peters, that of pretending to Do Something – anything – because the real job is totally beyond them?
IN the case of the vapid and vacuous Luke-Arse, its perfectly clear that on any question about the science of climate change, or renewable energy, she has less of a ‘cleau’ than Inspector Clouseau. But that doesn’t stop her jumping on the handy career bandwagon and virtue signalling her way into a well paid job pulling the wool over the public’s eyes, supported by a band of faithful hippies, who believe that if Joni Mitchell sang it, it must be true,.
Greenpeace and the European Green party receives a seriously large amount of funding from the European taxpayers, courtesy of the EU.
Cui Bono?
Go figure.
Its not communism – its not anything more than people climbing over each other chasing gravy trains, careers, personal fame, because the real problems are simply beyond their ability to even comprehend.
They borrow and steal any thing from anywhere that furthers narrow selfish ambition, and they lie from the moment their mouths open to when they go to sleep at night. They dont know what to believe, so they choose top believe whatever will make them richer, more powerful, more famous, more acceptable to their peer group, with no thought whatsoever to the consequences of their actions. They have no morals, though they talk about morals endlessly. They have no honour, no dignity, no conscience, and no friggin idea of what is real or what is not, and in the end, they simply do not care.
IN the end, in the parlance of a bygone generation, they have no class. These are not statesmen, or even idealists, these are vulgar grubby little people: selfish, greedy, elbowing their way into the limelight, grabbing what cash is on offer from whoever is offering it, prepared to sell their virtue, their minds and their bodies, for the chance to be on Facebook, Reality TV, or in the media.
Which wouldn’t be a problem, as a spectacle, but is a problem when they get their hands on the levers of power and start tugging in them without actually having studied the manuals…
Adapting the term coined by James Delingpole, this is not democracy, this is not totalitarianism, this is not a meritocracy, or even an oligarchy, or a monarchy.
It is a Wankerarchy.
WE have a civilisation – almost a global civilisation being run by people who are not even competent to change a lightbulb.
Maybe its too complicated for anyone to run it properly, which is in the end the biggest single reason to cut it up into more manageable chunks, that we can run, and let them sort out their mutual interfaces.
Which is why I will be voting to get the heck out. I’m an engineer who knows a bit about system analyst. And I would never ever contemplate designed something as complex as the EU and expect it to actually work, the way its designed now. And that’s before you let the people who are in charge, be in charge.
I leave you with a final cruel joke. Its called Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission (whatever that is)
The EU has three presidents. None are elected by the people
He isn’t even pretending to be anything other than a drunk on the gravy train. He doesn’t have to. He cannot be sacked.
When the left asks for your vote they don’t tell you they’re going to blow billions on goofy ldeas, bribe the public sector labour monopolies with fat contracts and minimal accountability and suppress opposition with over regulation and undemocratic rules. They only talk about how everything is possible with found money. We can borrow enough to all be rich and we’ll never have to pay it back or even work for it.
@ur momisugly TinyCO2. Yup, that’s pretty much it right there.
Us yanks took a whack at it in 1776 with “no taxation without representation”. Then we thought about it some more and decided we didn’t want any of that European stuff.
The Napoleonic era was just around the corner and proved the point.
Capitalism is nothing more than individuals freely interacting.
There is nothing nasty about it, and it will continue as long as individuals are allowed the freedom to chose for themselves.
That’s not how the Left define it though. For them, capitalism is part of the class war, as it is the capitalist that control the capital and thus the means of production.
It is markets that are individuals freely interacting, a point that people who hate markets seem to totally misunderstand.
I’m a fan of capitalism but the left thinks it’s a nasty corruption of human society.
Yes, and Christianity is nothing more than believing in Jesus.
‘Individuals freely interacting’ can involve any number of activities, including some that most of us would agree should be illegal.
In other words, the financial industry owns the finest politicians money can buy … just individuals freely interacting.
Capitalism is a brilliant system but it can be perverted.
I don’t think wiki could be more wrong, but it’s convenient to blame our economic problems on Wall Street. Politicians were ‘bought off’s and the crises could have been handled differently but it had little or nothing to do with income inequality.
commieBob,
“Yes, and Christianity is nothing more than believing in Jesus.”
Not really, a certain other major religion espouses “belief in” Jesus . . and several not so major ones too, but Christians believe he was God in the flesh, so to speak.
“Capitalism is a brilliant system but it can be perverted.”
Of course, but so can any system . . for now ; )
You are absolutely right. I was pointing out that “Capitalism is nothing more than individuals freely interacting.” is a gross oversimplification by comparing it with another gross oversimplification.
Yeah, I thought you made a fair point, and in a sense I was elaborating on it . . my point being that while something like a bank robbery can be classified as a form of capitalism, it’s got a distinctly not-free interaction element, which . . bedevils your point to some extent, it seems to me.
The “Regulators turned a blind eye to a lack of transparency and to conflicts of interest” element in what you quoted, brings up, to my mind, a fox’s guarding the hen-house problem that complicates the matter of what exactly is a non-capitalist system. In a sense, within the lexicon MarkW evoked there, other approaches can be rationally described as pre-corrupted capitalism, since the free interaction aspect is essentially surrendered in advance, in the hope that “the regulators” will be constrained from themselves becoming accomplices in what is essentially large scale theft.
By declaring it a “climate referendum”, I believe she actually created an own-goal. So Brexit it is then. Even uber-greenies seem to agree (though for the wrong reason).
But what about the Bees
https://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/brexit-endangers-britain-s-bees-says-friends-earth_14062016
Read this: https://risk-monger.com/2016/06/08/how-to-starve-africa-ask-the-european-green-party/
Greens, such a caring community. . .
As a congenital sceptic I have come to be suspicious of everything I’m told. I think food security is important for Africans, as it is for everyone. The chronic problem with achieving human development in Africa is corruption. Big organizations like the IMF or World Bank usually prefer to deal with governments rather than managing projects themselves. They believe they have more influence this way but it is a devil’s bargain whereby international money gets played for fools most of the time. Trickle down without the trickle or the down.
One of the arguments for Brexit is that Britain will get control over who enters. Even highly educated, highly desirable people from North America have a very hard time immigrating to Britain. Meanwhile any thieving, unskilled, uneducated scum from Ruritania can cross the border unhindered. Plus, there is a tidal wave of refugees who want in.
Is immigration the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about?
From my perspective it seems to be what everyone wants to talk about.
How much do you think it will affect the vote?
Those who believe the EU is undemocratic are just plain wrong, it is a myth , propaganda, it is a lie. In fact the EU is more democratic than the UK system of democracy where again the myth (that the House of Lords just rubber stamps legislation) is far from the truth. Even Juncker was democratically voted into office, something few Brexiters will admit.
Well, sort of:- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/eu-democratic-bandwagon-juncker-president-wanted
“A catalogue of complacency, negligence, miscalculation and manoeuvring by national leaders over the past nine months conspired to deliver an outcome no one really wanted – Jean-Claude Juncker, Europe’s accidental president.”
Yay, democracy!
That’s strange. I don’t remember being in a polling booth with a piece of paper with the name “Juncker” printed on it, their political affiliation etc, along with a range of others so I could put an “X” next to my choice.
What’s more, I don’t remember reading Juncker’s or any other EU Presidential candidates manifesto and election pledges. Did they forget to notify me?
So? I don’t recall seeing Cameron’s name on any polling slip either.
But Steveta_uk, you did get the chance to vote, knowing he was party leader. In a few years you’ll get to vote for someone else and their party. There are no organised, cross border parties to vote for in the EU with specific leaders. There are only local representatives. No matter how you vote, you can’t influence the tone of the whole EU. It’s like being allowed to vote for independent town councillors but not your government.
steveta_uk
Here’s Cameron’s name on a polling slip (last election)
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Witney-Ballot1.png
Show me Junkers
steveta_uk: “So? I don’t recall seeing Cameron’s name on any polling slip either.”
Unless you were in his parliamentary constituency you probably wouldn’t have.
But he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Witney, taking 35,201 votes, being 60.2% of the total votes cast.
Are you entirely unaware of the way that the British parliamentary system functions?
It would certainly appear so, from that post.
The EU presidency is rotated. The EU political system is nominally modeled on the Swiss, which is the longest running and most successful continuous democracy in the world. All the EU president (or swiss chair of the Bundesrat) has is a casting vote, they don’t make or lead policy.
Don’t really recall that vote was it on a Saturday night?
It seems that we have a different view of how democracy should work.
According to many that I have talked with, democracy means, my side wins.
Anything else isn’t democracy.
(-; yes, two wolfs and a sheep had vote on what to eat for lunch.
Don’t know what you’re taking, stevmap, but it isn’t doing your head any good.
Brexit, secession fever in Britain. A Limerick.
Secession is brewing in Britain
from EU they’ll vote to be quittin’
More than half to secede,
a reliable read.
No wall, yet the handwriting written.
https://lenbilen.com/2016/06/13/secession-fever-in-britain-a-limerick/
Ienbilen
“No wall, yet the handwriting written”
Got to love that line
Eugene WR Gallun
Leaving the EU will cause contortions of untold agony for so many Liberal loons it will be worth it for that alone. We’re about to witness the world’s biggest political dummy-spit meltdown in history from the UK Left and it will be utterly hilarious to behold.
Yes, the look on Labour faces when the Conservatives won the last election was priceless. The look of the Europhiles if we vote for Brexit would be even better. ‘But, but, we stitched the election up so tight. What went wrong?’ Ah a nice dream but I still fear that it won’t happen.
Finish the job! If you tear it down, they will go away?
It sounds like Lucas is more worried about her job than anything else. Heaven forbid she might have to go back schlepping her own bags like the rest of us.
Fog in Channel – Continent Isolated!
This UK newspaper headline from the 1950s, possibly apocryphal, summed up the prevailing attitude of the times. Britain has always looked out to the world, not just Europe.
Our greatest export has always been the English language. It is now the world’s language of business, diplomacy, commerce, maritime and air traffic control, and computers.
We dont need Europe. Let’s Leave.
You also exported an attitude towards government.
It’s not a coincidence that Britain’s former colonies are doing much better than the former colonies of the other European countries.
Correction. We probably do need Europe, if only as a place to have a second home. What we dont need, and the Europeans don’t need, but haven’t realised yet, is the EU…
What did the EU ever do for us?
A lot less than the Romans…
“This UK newspaper headline from the 1950s, possibly apocryphal,”
It was from 1939 and supposedly from The Times. In reality it was German WWII propaganda trying to convince potential allies that we British could occasionally let our self effacing mask slip a little (in other words we could be arrogant). I’m sure they needed convincing 🙂
Excellent! Blame Jerry, wot?
According to the Harvard International Review the actual headline reads:
‘Heavy Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off’.
It was published as a headline in the London Times on October 22nd, 1957. It could not have appeared on the front page; only personal announcements (BMDs) were published there, until 1966.
Whatever the wording the sentiment remains the same – Leave.
Nexis media archive turns up the following:
CHUNNELVISION: By William Grimes, New York Times, Sep 16, 1990
“On a wall in the office of Alastair Morton, Eurotunnel’s British deputy chairman and chief executive, hangs one of Britain’s most famous newspaper front pages: a copy of The Daily Mirror from 1930 with the headline “Fog in Channel: Continent Cut Off” – not Britain, proud in her splendid isolation, but the Continent.
and
ONE LAST SHOUT AND WE’RE THERE: Sir Alastair Morton, The Times (London), May 6, 1994
He also has the famous “Fog in Channel Continent Cut Off” headline from the Daily Mirror in 1930.
then there is
ENGLAND AND FRANCE NOW A TRAIN TRIP: New York Times, May 7, 1994
“In some ways, such attitudes underscore Britain’s “splendid isolation” as an island nation, a state of mind reflected in the 1930’s headline from London’s Daily Mirror: “Fog in Channel — Continent Cut Off.”
Of course they could all be wrong, as can I, however the following gives corroboration that the headline (or at least the story of such a headline) is of prewar vintage, though it’s attributed to the Times rather than the Mirror
TOPICS OF THE TIMES – WET BRITISH SUMMER: New York Times, Aug 29, 1936. p. 12
“It is the lonely-furrow weather policy summed up in the famous London Times weather report:
“Heavy fog over Channel. Continent isolated.”
So The New York Times of 1936 refers to it having been printed earlier in The (London) Times. I suspect this is where the German team found it.
One last thing before I shut up, I recall a cartoon in Punch around 1948 which depicted the headline within the cartoon.
Maybe a prize to anyone who can come up with an image of the original, if it actually exists.
None of which really matters; when all is said and done I agree with you re the sentiment.
Phil’s Dad – Thanks for your excellent research on the origins of that headline.
I stand corrected and much better informed.
Now we just need to Leave the EU. Then the fun really starts: Lay in stocks of popcorn…
There is an interesting similarity between the current Brexit referendum and the much longer -standing dispute concerning the role of CO2 in climate change – In both arguments the protagonists start from exactly the same point.
In the AGW debate both sceptics (most of them) and warmists acknowledge the role of CO2 in radiative transfer. The difference is that sceptics believe that the effect , with increased CO2 levels , is minor ,often obscured by natural variabiity , and easily mitigated , if necessary , by the use of modern technology and the human genius for innovation. Warmists on the other hand believe that the effect of CO2 will accelerate beyond our control unless harsh restrictive measures are introduced.
Now look at the Brexit debate : both sides start from the realisation , as Lucas says herself ,that the EU is a hopelessly bureaucratic and financially incompetent structure which can . and probably does , enable the hiding of corruption. The Remain side says that that reform is best done by modifying the rules of this club from within , although the recent attempt to do so by Cameron ended in such a humiliating fiasco that it has not reappeared as a factor in the debate. Those advocating Leaving believe that reform is impossible , because there are too many influential snouts in the trough and our future will, in the longer term , be better outside what appears to be a failing organisation.
If anyone in US is lulled into the false belief that the EU is a European version of the US, I suggest you watch this video:
https://youtu.be/Gu53Z9HDPb8
We are more than half way to Soviet style dictatorship – not because we lost the cold war – but because the EU bureaucrats used stealth to take away our democracy with the complicity of our gullible policians.
That’s why the EU is known as the EUSSR.
Self-reinforcing Lysenkoism via backdoor NGO funding will be terminated.
The Green Party, including Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas, like the EU because it gives them the opportunity to impose their minority views on the majority without any democratic mandate or scrutiny. If the EU were a right of centre, free trade, capitalist oriented organisation they would be squealing like pigs.
Dr Caroline Lucas is, of course, a “climate change expert”. She is well qualified, holding a first class honours degree in English Literature from the University of Exeter and a PhD in English Literature from…the University of Exeter. Her thesis was entitled “Writing for Women: a study of woman as reader in Elizabethan romance”.
Trying to get MP’s Stringer and Lilley thrown off the UK Energy & Climate Change committee for daring to dissent, she wrote in a letter:
“However, in light of your criticism of the Prime Minister for having climate deniers in his Cabinet, and your comments about the harm caused to our country by delay and dither on climate change, it was especially disappointing to see Graham Stringer, a senior Labour MP, join forces with Conservative MP Peter Lilley in an attempt to undermine the findings.”
Graham Stringer has a degree in Chemistry
Peter Lilley a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge – I believe it was Physics.
So the only two dissenting voices on the committee were the only two actually to hold science degrees, a rare commodity in the Houses of Parliament. Caroline Lucas may be able to string good sentences together but on matters of science I think I’ll get my advice elsewhere.
Perhaps some of this rejection is due to a desire to regain British sovereignty, but from what I have been seeing, there is a STRONG objection to the open borders that are allowing an influx of people who reject the rule of law in favor of the tyranny of religious ‘leaders’.
Although the referendum question is about membership of the European Union many people see this as a revolt of the people against the oligarchs. The entitled have been running the system for their own benefit, for example using the AGW scare to award themselves enormous subsidies for building windmills, and many people have decided that it’s time to remind them that in the UK is a democracy.