They always say they do to get votes then don't. The number of EU immigrants has decreased since the Brexit vote and the numbers of non-Eu migrants has increased.
I've said it before on this thread, but the idea that European nationals get priority or 'jump the queue' over essential workers in countless other countries doesn't work for me.
We should have a far more global view on immigration.
'Jump the queue' is offensively worded, but it's a shame that it's detracted a view from a good point she was trying to make.
and you probably think freedom of movement is a one way street, or do you think British workers in the EU should be treated with the same contempt?
I can't speak for Theresa May, but I doubt that she deliberately wanted to treat existing EU nationals in the UK with 'contempt' but it was worded extremely poorly and I get the offence it has caused. As far as I've seen EU nationals can apply for Leave to Remain and can stay in the UK. I hope British Nationals working abroad will be given the same opportunity.
But to flip your point, and use your own phrase and mirror your baseless assumptions... 'you probably think' that freedom of movement in Europe is more important than a fairer, global immigration system. Does that make you xenophobic to non-Europeans?
Theresa May is right up there with Boris Johnson for having a tin ear when it comes to making speeches, this is just another painful example. Does nobody ever check this stuff before she delivers it in her tedious, broken android voice? Who the hell ever let her out the door with a speech that praised Geoff Boycott and finished by promising that she'll 'get the runs'?!
But to flip your point, and use your own phrase and mirror your baseless assumptions... 'you probably think' that freedom of movement in Europe is more important than a fairer, global immigration system. Does that make you xenophobic to non-Europeans?
This misses the point of freedom of movement entirely. A worker in the EU has the same rights and obligations no matter where in the EU they work. This is because of the common jurisdiction all the EU states share by virtue of the treaties all the countries are signatories to.
This is simply not the case with workers outside the EU coming into the UK and vice versa. Workers from India or Singapore are subject to our laws and restrictions and likewise British workers are subject to entirely separate employment legislation outside the EU. A "fairer global immigration system" is a nice thought but unless all the countries are able to agree to the same basic rules and principles then it won't work in practice. Wanting to trash EU freedom of movement is completely counter-intuitive to any broader goal of a global migration system. Do you think China, America or Russia want to have a global immigration system where the controls are pooled rather than in their total control? Of course not.
If unskilled workers from the EU are able to easily migrate here but skilled in demand workers from outside the EU have a harder time then that's well within the purview of the Home Office to manage. There was absolutely nothing stopping the Home Office from introducing a fast track points based system for skilled workers outside the EU.
Instead we have a Home Office that is actively operating a "hostile environment" policy and banning plenty of skilled or temporary migrants/visitors (such as visiting scientists/artists/musicians/lecturers) for entirely nebulous reasons.
And no, EU workers do not "jump the queue" or get preferential treatment. We have an entirely reciprocal agreement with the other nations in the EEA that is the result of years of work and negotiations.
Sadly, regardless of party, the required increase in immigration numbers to address the shortfall in (essential) workers would see that party lose power. The current short term political view that our major parties have means it will never happen.
I've said it before on this thread, but the idea that European nationals get priority or 'jump the queue' over essential workers in countless other countries doesn't work for me.
We should have a far more global view on immigration.
'Jump the queue' is offensively worded, but it's a shame that it's detracted a view from a good point she was trying to make.
and you probably think freedom of movement is a one way street, or do you think British workers in the EU should be treated with the same contempt?
I can't speak for Theresa May, but I doubt that she deliberately wanted to treat existing EU nationals in the UK with 'contempt' but it was worded extremely poorly and I get the offence it has caused. As far as I've seen EU nationals can apply for Leave to Remain and can stay in the UK. I hope British Nationals working abroad will be given the same opportunity.
But to flip your point, and use your own phrase and mirror your baseless assumptions... 'you probably think' that freedom of movement in Europe is more important than a fairer, global immigration system. Does that make you xenophobic to non-Europeans?
The words 'jumping the queue' were chosen for the reason that it would be lapped up by certain groups, it's deliberate and meant for effect.
I have no problem with a fairer immigration system, I think the current one is inhumane at best, but I also don't think it's binary that it's one or the other, and as have been pointed out a million times, the government in the past 8 years could have imposed rules on FoM, but choose not to. British people also gain from FoM, but Brexit is about removing freedoms from British people, whilst making the country poorer and weaker.
If unskilled workers from the EU are able to easily migrate here but skilled in demand workers from outside the EU have a harder time then that's well within the purview of the Home Office to manage. There was absolutely nothing stopping the Home Office from introducing a fast track points based system for skilled workers outside the EU.
Instead we have a Home Office that is actively operating a "hostile environment" policy and banning plenty of skilled or temporary migrants/visitors (such as visiting scientists/artists/musicians/lecturers) for entirely nebulous reasons.
And no, EU workers do not "jump the queue" or get preferential treatment. We have an entirely reciprocal agreement with the other nations in the EEA that is the result of years of work and negotiations.
Sadly, regardless of party, the required increase in immigration numbers to address the shortfall in (essential) workers would see that party lose power. The current short term political view that our major parties have means it will never happen.
I am rather ashamed of this country after the Windrush scandal. Not just because of Theresa May being directly responsible for the policies that led to it and then her government's lacklustre response to the scandal, but the rather muted response from the British people in general. The tabloids didn't seem to care and neither did much of the population. I imagine for the same reasons that outrage surrounding the Grenfell disaster was muted when tabloids kept exposing the nationalities and statuses of the families who died.
I've said it before on this thread, but the idea that European nationals get priority or 'jump the queue' over essential workers in countless other countries doesn't work for me.
We should have a far more global view on immigration.
'Jump the queue' is offensively worded, but it's a shame that it's detracted a view from a good point she was trying to make.
When was that?
Tories don't want, and never have wanted to control immigration because it will undermine economic performance. What they have repeatedly done over my lifetime is sound like they want to, because they think there is votes in it.
Its rarer than rocking horse shit to hear a Tory talking of the positive advantages to our country of freedom of movement. The right of my children to work & live in 27 plus, other countries.
Would have been about a month ago now. I had an exchange with Bobmunro about the lack of merit in Tier 2 Visas and the unfairness of them replacing Tier 1 visas.
As for being a Tory. Not so I'm afraid. Happy to admit that I hold conservative views on immigration (I think we should have control over who we allow entry into the UK, just as other countries should have control of their own borders) but liberal views in that once they're here, people should have full, unrestricted access to education, health services and the UK job market which Tier 2 visas don't deliver.
Not to leave, however, it is likely that they would for any future trading relationship (which is why the exit treaty will only include a political declaration, well, that, and the fact that if it also included the future trading relationship, it would take about 10 years to formally leave the EU).
Not to leave, however, it is likely that they would for any future trading relationship (which is why the exit treaty will only include a political declaration, well, that, and the fact that if it also included the future trading relationship, it would take about 10 years to formally leave the EU).
Funny that. I suppose that means member states can refuse to agree to anything that is not in their national interest. Ergo it means each member state is fully sovereign and cannot have any laws or treaties unilaterally forced upon it.
Not to leave, however, it is likely that they would for any future trading relationship (which is why the exit treaty will only include a political declaration, well, that, and the fact that if it also included the future trading relationship, it would take about 10 years to formally leave the EU).
Funny that. I suppose that means member states can refuse to agree to anything that is not in their national interest. Ergo it means each member state is fully sovereign and cannot have any laws or treaties unilaterally forced upon it.
I recall hearing that approval would need unanimous voting thereby giving everyone a veto, although then I heard recently it only needed a majority - perhaps that was the EU parliament though not the council. So perhaps the veto situation is for a subsequent trade deal, and not the divorce..? Can anyone confirm?
If unskilled workers from the EU are able to easily migrate here but skilled in demand workers from outside the EU have a harder time then that's well within the purview of the Home Office to manage. There was absolutely nothing stopping the Home Office from introducing a fast track points based system for skilled workers outside the EU.
Instead we have a Home Office that is actively operating a "hostile environment" policy and banning plenty of skilled or temporary migrants/visitors (such as visiting scientists/artists/musicians/lecturers) for entirely nebulous reasons.
And no, EU workers do not "jump the queue" or get preferential treatment. We have an entirely reciprocal agreement with the other nations in the EEA that is the result of years of work and negotiations.
And we know May was the Home Secretary who instigated that "hostile environment". Now she's playing the "immigration" card as she knows it is a vote winner. Racist? Not half.
If unskilled workers from the EU are able to easily migrate here but skilled in demand workers from outside the EU have a harder time then that's well within the purview of the Home Office to manage. There was absolutely nothing stopping the Home Office from introducing a fast track points based system for skilled workers outside the EU.
Instead we have a Home Office that is actively operating a "hostile environment" policy and banning plenty of skilled or temporary migrants/visitors (such as visiting scientists/artists/musicians/lecturers) for entirely nebulous reasons.
And no, EU workers do not "jump the queue" or get preferential treatment. We have an entirely reciprocal agreement with the other nations in the EEA that is the result of years of work and negotiations.
And we know May was the Home Secretary who instigated that "hostile environment". Now she's playing the "immigration" card as she knows it is a vote winner. Racist? Not half.
Remember the 'Go Home' vans sent round to intimidate migrants?
Regarding ‘full employment’, what do the 1.3 million unemployed in that scenario do that they can’t work - I’m assuming they don’t count people who can’t work through disability?
I recall hearing that approval would need unanimous voting thereby giving everyone a veto, although then I heard recently it only needed a majority - perhaps that was the EU parliament though not the council. So perhaps the veto situation is for a subsequent trade deal, and not the divorce..? Can anyone confirm?
The potential Brexit deal would be agreed by QMV, though the EU's negotiating guidelines specifically stated that “no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom”.
The individual member states can use a veto for the subsequent trade deal, but that would depend on what provisions the deal would include. The expectation is that any new trading arrangement between the UK and EU27 would be a mixed agreement and would require unanimity.
For some reason, the EU Parliament have published a neat little explanation of the processes involved for Article 50: here.
Not to leave, however, it is likely that they would for any future trading relationship (which is why the exit treaty will only include a political declaration, well, that, and the fact that if it also included the future trading relationship, it would take about 10 years to formally leave the EU).
Funny that. I suppose that means member states can refuse to agree to anything that is not in their national interest. Ergo it means each member state is fully sovereign and cannot have any laws or treaties unilaterally forced upon it.
Regarding ‘full employment’, what do the 1.3 million unemployed in that scenario do that they can’t work - I’m assuming they don’t count people who can’t work through disability?
The employment count in this country is a total farce. The official government figures simply cannot be trusted.
- homelessness rising - UC rollout totally botched meaning those that should be classed as unemployed have been waiting months for benefits, not counted in figures - food bank usage rising - poverty rising (20% of households now surviving on less than 16k a year) - zero hours contracts are included as employed regardless of actual time worked/money earned
And yes the government fudge the numbers by discounting the people in varying situations such as disabled and those being pinged back and forth between the job centre and Atos assessments.
A further instalment of my homage to Fintan O'Toole, and the quality of his prose, freed from the ghastly terrors of the Irish Times paywall...
Fintan O’Toole: ‘There is no future in England’s dreaming’ To get to Brexit, a society has to dream itself into an unexperienced condition
On Friday morning, trying to get away from Brexit, I got on an exercise machine to mortify the flesh. Fleeing the radio, I turned my iPod on to shuffle.
Up popped a random song that I must have heard before but didn’t remember: Nic Jones singing a ballad about the disillusioning aftermath of a 19th century gold rush:
“Farewell to the gold that never I found Goodbye to the nuggets that somewhere abound For it’s only when dreaming that I see you gleaming Down in the dark, deep underground.”
So much for escaping Brexit. Only when dreaming could they see it gleaming. Brexit has always existed in the deep dark underground of the English reactionary imagination. And this is what gives it such a strange, hallucinatory quality.
It is hard sometimes to remind yourself that it is really happening, that we won’t awake soon and turn to our partners and say, with Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “I have had a dream – past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.” But if you write about Brexit, this is what you become: an ass who goes about expounding someone else’s dream.
At 5.30 on the morning of Friday, December 7th 2017, I was sleeping soundly in Laurel Villa, a lovely guest house in Magharafelt, Co Derry. In my dream, my mobile phone was buzzing angrily on a bedside table and some mad person with an English accent was saying things about Theresa May and Michel Barnier and Brussels and the withdrawal agreement.
I distinctly remember thinking that it was not a good thing that this stuff was invading my dreams, that, if my sleeping brain was conjuring these invasive images, I really needed to get a life.
And then it struck me that I was in fact awake, that I had actually answered the phone and that someone in London really was asking me to go on the radio and comment on the deal that was emerging after all-night talks. I had experienced one of those eerie moments of befuddlement, probably no more than a second or two, where you hang between two states, one that is imaginary but seems real and one that is all too real but seems like it ought to be imaginary.
I’ve never quite been able to shake off the feeling that this is oddly apt: Brexit does have that weird logic of dreams, where things seem to flow from one another in some rational sequence but also leap from impossibilities to absurdities.
In July, when Boris Johnson, with his usual propensity for walking away from the trouble he has created, resigned from Theresa May’s cabinet, he lamented in his letter to her that; “The dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”
The metaphor is awkwardly mixed – how do you suffocate a dream? – but this dream language was striking nonetheless. It was echoed in a mournful editorial in the Daily Telegraph (where Johnson soon found a luxury lifeboat from which to whine about everybody else’s failure to do what he had so ignominiously failed to accomplish himself), lamenting May’s Chequers plan for Brexit: “This was the weekend that the Brexit dream died . . . the dream has been dashed”.
English Dreamtime I started to think about this dreaming: what is it that gleams in the deep dark underground of England’s dreams? A line by that great Anglo-Irish thinker Johnny Rotten came to mind: “There is no future in England’s dreaming.” But what past is there then? It has to be a kind of counter-factual past, a landscape of dark myths. For how else can we explain the force that underlies Brexit: imaginary oppression?
At some level, in order to get to Brexit, a society has to dream itself into a condition that it never experienced. Indeed, it has to dream itself into exactly the opposite condition to the one it actually did experience.
A great colonial power has to imagine itself as having been colonised by the EU. A country still obsessed by the war it won – the second World War – has to imagine itself as having been defeated (this time sneakily and stealthily) by the Germans. These are very, very strange things for a country to do to itself and they require some explanation.
So after Boris Johnson’s claim that “the dream is dying” I decided to write a short book exploring what I call English Dreamtime, that mental landscape of heroic failure in which loss and grief are somehow more solid than success and contentment.
It became, I’m afraid, a little treatise on self-pity as a pleasurable indulgence, even as it leads to self-harm. In another kind of history this would seem neither here nor there, too far out to have any immediate connection to unfolding political and economic realities.
In another, more rational time, dark fantasies of imaginary oppression would be confined to the pages of dystopian counter-factual thrillers. But right here and now, who can deny that English Dreamtime is a nightmare from which we are all struggling to awake?
Not to leave, however, it is likely that they would for any future trading relationship (which is why the exit treaty will only include a political declaration, well, that, and the fact that if it also included the future trading relationship, it would take about 10 years to formally leave the EU).
Funny that. I suppose that means member states can refuse to agree to anything that is not in their national interest. Ergo it means each member state is fully sovereign and cannot have any laws or treaties unilaterally forced upon it.
Not only do we have that veto today but we have UK MEPs who decide on such matters until we leave. As Nadine Dorries has discovered, after we leave we will have no MEPs. And we will still pay a contribution and still adhere to the rules of the CU and SM until such time as we leave those. But how to leave the CU without smashing up manufacturing etc. etc.
This Brexit process has been most educational and whilst people understandably remain loyal to whichever way they cast their votes back in 2016, it would appear that a combination of the execution and the antics of the Brexiteers ensure that any withdrawal agreement will struggle to secure more than 30% support in the country. Ask the 2016 question again and one gets a similar response but ask a question about the reality of the WA vs Remain and we stay.
So which is more anti-democratic? To ask for a vote on the deal or to refuse a vote on the deal. When the time comes for the Labour front bench to make this point, and that might be next month after the WA fails to pass at the first attempt, we will see how this plays to the gallery.
And what is becoming more and more apparent is that there is simply no guarantee of a deal at the end of the transition - for any of the 27 might block. Given how the European parliament is about to change shape with an additional 100 populist MEPs being elected next year, now is not really the ideal time to be negotiating such a long term deal.
Despite the glib promises of BoJo, Farage and Gove, there really is no upside. Fintan O'Toole is extremely articulate and it will be the lived experience which reveals all to the electorate. That the Tories want to deliver this and continue to govern is testament to their lack of long term view. They really want to be known as the Tory Brexit party! It's not dissimilar to the Lib Dems who continued to back Tory austerity long after it was required. One could write so much more but the point is that we are leaving and nobody will forget nor forgive the duplicity and stupidity which has brought us to this point.
For the irony is that the electorate have to see the outcome and feel the pain before a significant percentage change their view. And before a more progressive government might be elected. Alternatively the Tories double down on xenophobia and may attempt to appeal to the base instincts of the electorate. Those who simply want to go against the 2016 vote are called anti-democratic and it really is a destructive instinct for it essentially calls out millions of our fellow citizens as being wrong.
If we require a different answer to the question, then perhaps it's best to ask a different question?! Something about insanity to expect the same culture and people to deliver a different outcome. So not only is it free to respect other people's long held beliefs but it's actually a winning move. In a practical sense, Fox and Gove and BoJo can go on and on about global Britain and vassal state but the reality is that some 45% of our imports and exports are with the EU. Leaving the CU is a bonkers move
If unskilled workers from the EU are able to easily migrate here but skilled in demand workers from outside the EU have a harder time then that's well within the purview of the Home Office to manage. There was absolutely nothing stopping the Home Office from introducing a fast track points based system for skilled workers outside the EU.
Instead we have a Home Office that is actively operating a "hostile environment" policy and banning plenty of skilled or temporary migrants/visitors (such as visiting scientists/artists/musicians/lecturers) for entirely nebulous reasons.
And no, EU workers do not "jump the queue" or get preferential treatment. We have an entirely reciprocal agreement with the other nations in the EEA that is the result of years of work and negotiations.
And we know May was the Home Secretary who instigated that "hostile environment". Now she's playing the "immigration" card as she knows it is a vote winner. Racist? Not half.
I've said it before on this thread, but the idea that European nationals get priority or 'jump the queue' over essential workers in countless other countries doesn't work for me.
We should have a far more global view on immigration.
'Jump the queue' is offensively worded, but it's a shame that it's detracted a view from a good point she was trying to make.
Always been made to feel totally welcome in Spain, unlike it seems how EU nationals are now being treated in the UK. The whole 'jumping the queue' rubbish is typical playing to the galleries but unfortunately not surprising from the mob behind the 'hostile environment' policy. It all just comes across as so small-minded and mean spirited.
I wouldn't dare suggest that the people leading this process don't fully understand what they are talking about or even might be a bit, well, thick. That's got me in hot water on here in the past. But, honestly...
"David Davis has been ridiculed for suggesting the UK could enter a post-Brexit transition period after leaving the EU with no deal..."
Can't be arsed to read over 170 posts since my last visit.
All I will say is that TM is a,liar & can't be trusted to run a whelk stall. For over 2 years she has repeatedly stated that No Deal is better than a bad deal. Now, when she finally has a deal that is worse than we already have....and pisses all over her "red lines"....all we hear is that it's "this deal or nothing".
Well.......you can piss off & the the rest of the government with you. There will be so much arm twisting, cajoling & bribing over the next 2 weeks it will make Dubai's winning of hosting the 2022 WC look kosher. I expect her deal to get through Parliament as 300 odd Tory MP's will vote for their own future's & not for what the public voted for.
As far as I’m aware, only “leave” and “remain” were on the ballot.
This deal would mean we leave the European Union, would it not? Ergo the Tories are delivering the referendum result.
This is the reality - we were never going to get a deal better than the one we already had. The 52% voted to leave and they’re getting exactly what they voted for.
Comments
This is simply not the case with workers outside the EU coming into the UK and vice versa. Workers from India or Singapore are subject to our laws and restrictions and likewise British workers are subject to entirely separate employment legislation outside the EU. A "fairer global immigration system" is a nice thought but unless all the countries are able to agree to the same basic rules and principles then it won't work in practice. Wanting to trash EU freedom of movement is completely counter-intuitive to any broader goal of a global migration system. Do you think China, America or Russia want to have a global immigration system where the controls are pooled rather than in their total control? Of course not.
I have no problem with a fairer immigration system, I think the current one is inhumane at best, but I also don't think it's binary that it's one or the other, and as have been pointed out a million times, the government in the past 8 years could have imposed rules on FoM, but choose not to. British people also gain from FoM, but Brexit is about removing freedoms from British people, whilst making the country poorer and weaker.
As for being a Tory. Not so I'm afraid. Happy to admit that I hold conservative views on immigration (I think we should have control over who we allow entry into the UK, just as other countries should have control of their own borders) but liberal views in that once they're here, people should have full, unrestricted access to education, health services and the UK job market which Tier 2 visas don't deliver.
The individual member states can use a veto for the subsequent trade deal, but that would depend on what provisions the deal would include. The expectation is that any new trading arrangement between the UK and EU27 would be a mixed agreement and would require unanimity.
For some reason, the EU Parliament have published a neat little explanation of the processes involved for Article 50: here.
http://theconversation.com/brexit-what-has-to-happen-in-uk-and-eu-parliaments-to-ratify-withdrawal-and-future-trade-agreements-107127
- homelessness rising
- UC rollout totally botched meaning those that should be classed as unemployed have been waiting months for benefits, not counted in figures
- food bank usage rising
- poverty rising (20% of households now surviving on less than 16k a year)
- zero hours contracts are included as employed regardless of actual time worked/money earned
And yes the government fudge the numbers by discounting the people in varying situations such as disabled and those being pinged back and forth between the job centre and Atos assessments.
Fintan O’Toole: ‘There is no future in England’s dreaming’
To get to Brexit, a society has to dream itself into an unexperienced condition
On Friday morning, trying to get away from Brexit, I got on an exercise machine to mortify the flesh. Fleeing the radio, I turned my iPod on to shuffle.
Up popped a random song that I must have heard before but didn’t remember: Nic Jones singing a ballad about the disillusioning aftermath of a 19th century gold rush:
“Farewell to the gold that never I found
Goodbye to the nuggets that somewhere abound
For it’s only when dreaming that I see you gleaming
Down in the dark, deep underground.”
So much for escaping Brexit. Only when dreaming could they see it gleaming. Brexit has always existed in the deep dark underground of the English reactionary imagination. And this is what gives it such a strange, hallucinatory quality.
It is hard sometimes to remind yourself that it is really happening, that we won’t awake soon and turn to our partners and say, with Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “I have had a dream – past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.” But if you write about Brexit, this is what you become: an ass who goes about expounding someone else’s dream.
At 5.30 on the morning of Friday, December 7th 2017, I was sleeping soundly in Laurel Villa, a lovely guest house in Magharafelt, Co Derry. In my dream, my mobile phone was buzzing angrily on a bedside table and some mad person with an English accent was saying things about Theresa May and Michel Barnier and Brussels and the withdrawal agreement.
I distinctly remember thinking that it was not a good thing that this stuff was invading my dreams, that, if my sleeping brain was conjuring these invasive images, I really needed to get a life.
And then it struck me that I was in fact awake, that I had actually answered the phone and that someone in London really was asking me to go on the radio and comment on the deal that was emerging after all-night talks. I had experienced one of those eerie moments of befuddlement, probably no more than a second or two, where you hang between two states, one that is imaginary but seems real and one that is all too real but seems like it ought to be imaginary.
I’ve never quite been able to shake off the feeling that this is oddly apt: Brexit does have that weird logic of dreams, where things seem to flow from one another in some rational sequence but also leap from impossibilities to absurdities.
In July, when Boris Johnson, with his usual propensity for walking away from the trouble he has created, resigned from Theresa May’s cabinet, he lamented in his letter to her that; “The dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”
The metaphor is awkwardly mixed – how do you suffocate a dream? – but this dream language was striking nonetheless. It was echoed in a mournful editorial in the Daily Telegraph (where Johnson soon found a luxury lifeboat from which to whine about everybody else’s failure to do what he had so ignominiously failed to accomplish himself), lamenting May’s Chequers plan for Brexit: “This was the weekend that the Brexit dream died . . . the dream has been dashed”.
English Dreamtime
I started to think about this dreaming: what is it that gleams in the deep dark underground of England’s dreams? A line by that great Anglo-Irish thinker Johnny Rotten came to mind: “There is no future in England’s dreaming.” But what past is there then? It has to be a kind of counter-factual past, a landscape of dark myths. For how else can we explain the force that underlies Brexit: imaginary oppression?
At some level, in order to get to Brexit, a society has to dream itself into a condition that it never experienced. Indeed, it has to dream itself into exactly the opposite condition to the one it actually did experience.
A great colonial power has to imagine itself as having been colonised by the EU. A country still obsessed by the war it won – the second World War – has to imagine itself as having been defeated (this time sneakily and stealthily) by the Germans. These are very, very strange things for a country to do to itself and they require some explanation.
So after Boris Johnson’s claim that “the dream is dying” I decided to write a short book exploring what I call English Dreamtime, that mental landscape of heroic failure in which loss and grief are somehow more solid than success and contentment.
It became, I’m afraid, a little treatise on self-pity as a pleasurable indulgence, even as it leads to self-harm. In another kind of history this would seem neither here nor there, too far out to have any immediate connection to unfolding political and economic realities.
In another, more rational time, dark fantasies of imaginary oppression would be confined to the pages of dystopian counter-factual thrillers. But right here and now, who can deny that English Dreamtime is a nightmare from which we are all struggling to awake?
This Brexit process has been most educational and whilst people understandably remain loyal to whichever way they cast their votes back in 2016, it would appear that a combination of the execution and the antics of the Brexiteers ensure that any withdrawal agreement will struggle to secure more than 30% support in the country. Ask the 2016 question again and one gets a similar response but ask a question about the reality of the WA vs Remain and we stay.
So which is more anti-democratic? To ask for a vote on the deal or to refuse a vote on the deal. When the time comes for the Labour front bench to make this point, and that might be next month after the WA fails to pass at the first attempt, we will see how this plays to the gallery.
And what is becoming more and more apparent is that there is simply no guarantee of a deal at the end of the transition - for any of the 27 might block. Given how the European parliament is about to change shape with an additional 100 populist MEPs being elected next year, now is not really the ideal time to be negotiating such a long term deal.
Despite the glib promises of BoJo, Farage and Gove, there really is no upside. Fintan O'Toole is extremely articulate and it will be the lived experience which reveals all to the electorate. That the Tories want to deliver this and continue to govern is testament to their lack of long term view. They really want to be known as the Tory Brexit party! It's not dissimilar to the Lib Dems who continued to back Tory austerity long after it was required. One could write so much more but the point is that we are leaving and nobody will forget nor forgive the duplicity and stupidity which has brought us to this point.
For the irony is that the electorate have to see the outcome and feel the pain before a significant percentage change their view. And before a more progressive government might be elected. Alternatively the Tories double down on xenophobia and may attempt to appeal to the base instincts of the electorate. Those who simply want to go against the 2016 vote are called anti-democratic and it really is a destructive instinct for it essentially calls out millions of our fellow citizens as being wrong.
If we require a different answer to the question, then perhaps it's best to ask a different question?! Something about insanity to expect the same culture and people to deliver a different outcome. So not only is it free to respect other people's long held beliefs but it's actually a winning move. In a practical sense, Fox and Gove and BoJo can go on and on about global Britain and vassal state but the reality is that some 45% of our imports and exports are with the EU. Leaving the CU is a bonkers move
"David Davis has been ridiculed for suggesting the UK could enter a post-Brexit transition period after leaving the EU with no deal..."
https://independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-news-david-davis-negotiations-eu-theresa-may-conservative-home-draft-agreement-a8642526.html
#LARRY4PM2022
All I will say is that TM is a,liar & can't be trusted to run a whelk stall. For over 2 years she has repeatedly stated that No Deal is better than a bad deal. Now, when she finally has a deal that is worse than we already have....and pisses all over her "red lines"....all we hear is that it's "this deal or nothing".
Well.......you can piss off & the the rest of the government with you. There will be so much arm twisting, cajoling & bribing over the next 2 weeks it will make Dubai's winning of hosting the 2022 WC look kosher. I expect her deal to get through Parliament as 300 odd Tory MP's will vote for their own future's & not for what the public voted for.
Shame on the lot of them.
What *did* the public vote for and in what way are this government not delivering on it?
This deal would mean we leave the European Union, would it not? Ergo the Tories are delivering the referendum result.
This is the reality - we were never going to get a deal better than the one we already had. The 52% voted to leave and they’re getting exactly what they voted for.