Brexit: Britain at war!

I've often complained at how depressingly binary most issues have become. Brexit especially. The nuances always fall between the cracks. All too often people triangulate their opinions to be the opposite of the opposition. It's almost arbitrary. To be in the game you have to pick a side and you have to conform.

This is not generally something I do. But then of course, there are times when you do have to pick a side no matter how odious your bedfellows are. I'm well aware that I'm in the same camp as Ukip, Breitbart and the Brexit blob when it comes to the EU. It can be no other way.

I sometimes forget this is more than just about leaving the EU. This is as much a war against the political creed who did this to us in the first place. Blair, Major, Brown and all the latter day europhiles like Adonis and Umunna. As much as I detest the likes of Rees-Mogg and Farage, the remoanoids make my skin crawl. It's a values thing.

As a rule it's leavers who are painted as thick - largely because we have the temerity to vote against what the establishment deems as our own best interests. Now there are plenty of leavers who still believe all the economic warnings are little more than remoaner histrionics and can't be persuaded otherwise, but the "don't care so long as we leave" crowd is not small.

Here there is a base instinct and it's far from "thick". I actually think the progressives of this world are the thickies. Time and again they've been told it's not the economy, stupid. And they just don't get it. They think that their economic projections are grounds enough to disregard the authentic voice of the people. And don't say it's not authentic unless you can show me evidence of ballot rigging. People voted for their own complex reasons which are still not fully understood and perhaps never will be.

What we can all agree on, though is that there is a very serious cultural disconnect between the London metropolitan "progressive" establishment and people from pretty much everywhere else. The metros have had the rug pulled from under them - and though they are not presently in office, they do have power - and they're using it. They feel absolutely entitled to reverse the vote in a way that betrays their overweening belief in their own right to rule. It is that very obnoxiousness that came oozing out of the remain camp during the referendum and has not abated since. That most likely, in my view, what took leave over the finish line.

If there is now any doubt about Brexit in the minds of leavers, it is not an endorsement of the EU, rather it is a balk at the upheaval and economic disruption. The remainers are waving placards with the words "is it worth it?" - which is certainly a fair question now that we know more than we did. Some remainers believe the constant demoralising barrage of Brexit negativity might have pushed opinion back into their camp. And they might possibly be right if polls are to be believed.

But to prove that they would have to put it to the test - which isn't going to happen, but if it were, we would have to go through the rigmarole of a new referendum, with an equally long campaigning period in which their general unpleasantness would once again come to the fore. Leave would be starting from a stronger position than it was in 2015 and there is no reason to believe it would play out any differently.

But then we leavers would have to really answer that question - is it worth it? I certainly think so. If there's one thing that stands out among the legacy remain crowd, it is that ever present contemptuous sneer at leave voters. We can't have a system of government that essentially locks in the politics of people who do not trust us and actively despise us.

Most notable about the remain crowd is that they trade mainly in platitudes. They worship Macron as the new leader of the free world, despite him having less substance than the holy ghost. Everything the EU does at the top level is a giant virtue signal where none of the rhetoric matches the reality. Not in a domestic sense or in its murderous external action. It is a giant pyramid of hypocritical cant.

I have often remarked how Westminster is the result of putting 650 narcissistic sociopaths in one room, but the EU is what happens when you take the worst of the preening hypocrites and have them congregate in Brussels. The EU is as much a symptom of our political malaise as it is an indirect cause. It's a toxic closed loop.

I am often asked by demanding remainers if there are any tangible benefits to Brexit. I can name one but they are not going to like it. The newly formed Independent Group could not have happened without Brexit and now the worst of the mediocre progressives have been vomited out into that particular dustbin with more to follow. When we are out of the EU, they are then an irrelevance with no instrument by which to subvert democracy. Marginalising these people - ridding politics of their presence, will be one of the greatest things to happen to British politics in more than two decades.

It is at that point we can get down to some proper politics - and have a real debate about how the UK is going to adapt to the encroaching new age. The "new politics" that The Independent Group talk about is politics that doesn't have them or their ilk in it.

Y'see, the right didn't start the culture wars. What this is, is a fightback by people who have been overruled and belittled for certainly all of my adult life. People whose voices have been excluded from the political arena whose views are labelled "vile" and "racist". The code of decorum they seek to impose on us, manifested in their renewed attempts to control the internet, is an attempt to put that genie back in the bottle. It's no coincidence that the EU has also taken an urgent interest in "combating fake news".

What they don't want is people like me and you having a voice - and they certainly don't want us having a voice more powerful than the legacy media through which they set the agendas. One by one they pick us off if they see us as a threat. Voices vanish from Twitter, Facebook pages disappear, Youtube channels are deleted. They are de-platforming public resentment. And that's what makes the whole pack of them dangerous.

And we know why they are afraid. We are talking about all the things they find too politically inconvenient to address. The things far outside of their comfort zone. More to the point, they fear that if we do take power we will do all the things they have flinched from doing as we clean up their mess.

In respect of this, you will notice of late that I'm not talked too much about the trade aspect of Brexit. It's important, but it's not paramount. Whether we sign May's deal or there's no deal at all, the paramount concern is sorting out domestic politics and if there is an economic price to pay then so be it. We are not moving forward as a country until this unsustainable division is resolved.

The country is divided roughly into two. There are those who would rather suffer the status quo, choosing to believe the empty promises of the establishment and there are those who demand far reaching change. These two positions are irreconcilable. One side has to lose and the real disaster is if it's the latter. If the remains win then UK politics has effectively rendered leavers voiceless once more. I am certain that doesn't end well. There is nothing they could ever do to placate the resentment while we remained in the EU. No funding bungs and no token changes to freedom of movement.

I'm quite certain that Brexit is not going to be pretty. I think it's going to cost us in a big way - especially without a deal. Sunlit uplands there are not. But this is not and never has been about GDP - this is about the sort of country we want to live in and having a say over what is done to us. We need to settle that question once and for all. Is Britain a home or a free for all borderless business park?

The real thickos are not leavers. It's the remainers. There are plenty of articulate hacks with a reasonably good handle on what is going on with Brexit talks and the potential fallout of it, and that is their reason for remaining when they're not penning doe eyed tributes to Emmanuel Macron. They can think only in two dimensional terms, but all the real thinkers I know of are leavers - the ones who recognise that democracy and sovereignty are not intangible valueless concepts. Not that we ever see them in the media.

There is a distinct relationship between liberty and wealth. Under the current regime we have certain economic liberties licenced by the state and the EU, but for as long as we remain under that regime, a whole raft of policy is considered off limits - out of the reach of democracy. Your average remainer is generally unaware that Brussels has competence over such areas and at the more extreme end, is only too happy that the people we elect cannot change or repeal law. The progressive agenda is enshrined in the EU system of rights, targets and quotas. The EU is their backstop against being voted out of office. Blair knows this better than anyone.

That is what makes this not just a battle to leave the EU. It is a battle for democracy itself. It is a never ending struggle that requires ever present vigilance, and the fact we are so deeply enmeshed in the EU is precisely because we collectively took our eye off the ball, and let the politicians roam free while the going was good. But now the going is not good and now we recognise there is a penalty for our collective political negligence.

Politics as it has evolved under the EU regime has degraded now to the point where politicians barely even understand their own role. With matters of substance far removed from their shop, they have been conditioned to believe their function is to either ban, subsidise or tax things. State craft and governance doesn't even come into it. We have lost touch with that art and it is going to take time to reconnect with that instinct. We can only do that as an independent country. We cannot consider ourselves a democracy if we must grovel to Brussels to change our laws. That is why this war needs to be fought - and yes - it is worth it.

The worst case scenario

Brexit has all but slipped off the agenda. Brexit fatigue has set in. We are winding down the clock until decision day and nobody wants to hear any more unless something is concluded. We are twenty four days away from Brexit and we still do not know the terms of our departure. Though there is a degree of activity still going on, activity is not productivity so comment seems wasted effort.

There is still the usual trench warfare going on over on Twitter, but none of it can or will influence the outcome. I tuned out of the endless bickering about customs processes some time ago. No doubt there are alternatives to what is on the table but it's a matter of political will (of which there is none on the Brussels side) and the question of what is practical in the real world. Suggested alternatives tend not to factor that in.

Meanwhile we are today getting a taste of what could happen on our side of the Channel if we leave without a deal. French customs officers are on strike to demand greater resources to deal with the impact of Brexit, resulting in snarled traffic for a second day, leading to queues of trucks measuring several miles. "Customs agents began their protest on Monday to press their demands for higher pay and demonstrate what will happen if greater controls are put in place once Britain leaves the European Union, planned for later this month".

It's unclear whether this is precisely what will happen given the measures taken this side of the Channel. The real problem is outgoing traffic and the the veterinary checks are yet to come. Until that operation is up and running, UK exports won't be cleared. Large numbers of orders have already reportedly been cancelled in anticipation.

The truth of the matter is that we don't know exactly what will happen. We can take a best guess and much will depend on how well prepared we are, but the obvious point here is that this little demonstration highlights just how vulnerable these supply chains are - which really ought to have been a registered concern irrespective of Brexit.

Should it unfold this way, there will be the obligatory told you sos from all directions. At last the media will have something to do. But then as much as the ERG will have some explaining to do, (and obfuscate they will) this will really be the failure of parliament as a whole. Just about everybody outside the bubble recognises that no deal is the default and the only sure fire way to rule it out is to do as instructed and agree a deal to leave the EU.

Ultimately it is those politicians with other ideas, who think there is still a window to remain who will tilt the balance. We are getting mixed signals from Brussels but without a purpose for extending, and without a signal from parliament that they will back a deal, there is little incentive to grant an extension. The smart money is now on no deal because it's always a safe bet to assume parliament will screw up.

This is a scenario I had hoped to avoid. I've been clear throughout that no deal is not desirable. But then in swoops Macron to remind us that it is far from the worst case scenario. Remaining in the EU has consequences of its own. The Lisbon treaty was never going to be the end of it, and now we see their ambitions aout in the open. As ever, their tone deafness is absolute. It is yet another call for "More Europe" right about the time when yellow vest protestors are burning EU flags on the streets of Paris.

As much as Brexit has revealed the inadequacy and dysfunction in our own politics, it caused the EU to come out into the open about its authoritarian destination - essentially taking control of the internet. I can think of nothing more chillingly Orwellian than a Europe-wide agency "for the protection of democracies". It's like Reinhard Heydrich running a diversity seminar.

Macron essentially buys into the comforting narrative that the only possible way you could find fault with the EU is because of foreign interference and falling under the influence of "fake news". How every convenient. It absolves them from blame and gives them a pretext for massive incursions on free expression. This is the next battlefield. Globally the progressives are losing and they will not let go without a fight. That is particularly what makes Brexit (partly) a culture war. No dictatorship ever goes quietly, not even a benign one. Between this and the upcoming Services Notification Procedure, there can no longer be any doubt. The EU is not a democracy and has no intention of ever becoming one.

Ultimately the EU is something I want no part of. The European project is the plaything of authoritarian progressives and for as long as we remain a member of it, we will be forced to pursue the kinds of policies that further entrench their power. It marks the death of British and European democracy. As worst case scenarios go, it makes a queue of lorries seem relatively insignificant. If no deal really is the only way we can leave - so be it.  

Noncegate revisited

What's the difference between AC Grayling and a Grenfell fraudster? Well, it turns out, not a lot. Sharife Elouahabi, 38, falsely said he was living in the building when fire ripped through the tower block. He said he was staying with relatives in a flat on the 21st floor of the block, where a family of five is known to have died. He was in fact living at a different address in Kensington and had no links to Grenfell Tower.

Basically all you have to do is make up a sob story, fill in the forms and file it with the right bureaucracy. Sometimes you get away with it, sometimes you don't. The main difference here is there are different channels through which to abuse the system.

For the already well-to-do there's the British libel system. Regular readers will already be familiar with "noncegate" whereupon Grayling has taken it upon himself to take weaponised mob offence taking to the next level. Grayling padded out his case with bogus claims about the harm done to him by a solitary tweet made in jest about him. The full violin works. 

In mine and your world, if someone tweets something unkind to or about you, you simply block them and move on. If it's a bit more serious (which this isn't) you can approach that person before taking further action. That's how I play it anyway. I'm often accused by lunatic remainers of taking money from the Russians or being employed by shadowy corporate interests. Grayling, though, did not. Instantly came a demand for a sum of around five thousand pounds. Naturally I told him to go and fuck himself. 

That he did not do. He instead set upon a wholly futile course of action by taking me to court in what is essentially a case of politically motivated vexatious legal harassment. I could have taken this seriously and employed the services of a legal practitioner at enormous expense, but if I didn't have £5000 for Mr Grayling then I don't have it for an ambulance chaser either. As to legal aid, there's just too many forms to fill in and I don't have the time - assuming such assistance is even available. 

Y'see for an already well-to-do chap like Grayling, the point of this is to get me to jump through hoops and waste my time and money - in a case where a technical precedent means that any defence is largely futile. Had I bothered to turn up he'd get to watch me lose and suffer a condescending ticking off from a pompous judge who is oblivious to how he and his court is being abused. This is not the first case of its type and it won't be the last until the law is repaired or reformed.

The problem for Mr Grayling, however, is that his shyster lawyers saw him coming. That's what you get when you're a graceless pensioner pushing a petty political vendetta. His lawyers, Lee & Thompson LLP, know the drill and they can't not have done the basic research on who and what I am, ie. a total nobody. The best they can muster is "ex-UKIP candidate" which was nearly twenty years ago.

It takes only a postcode search on Google Streetview to hazard a guess that the occupant of a rented band D property is not going to yield a payday. Somebody is going to have to pay the exorbitant and grossly inflated legal fees and it's not going to be me.

In respect of that, I need to make it clear that I will not part with a single penny - not just because I don't have it and never will, but also because I do not yield to this kind of cynical performance and whatever they take from me they are going to have to take by force. Good luck with that! Presently this consists of a collection of Normandy era plastic model tanks and a collection of 90's death metal CDs. They won't even cover the bailiff fees and somehow I doubt Mr Grayling is interested in the early works of Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death.

As to my legal obligations as per the judgement, I make no promises that I won't take the piss out of AC Grayling ever again, though his total insignificance probably means I have bigger fish to fry. As far as an apology goes, I will never apologise for taking the mick out of public lunatics - especially leaders of political campaigns. 

Ultimately Grayling was hoping to scalp a "lead campaigner" from the leave side in order to taint the cause by association - hence the attempt to link me to Ukip. As it happens the Brexit blob in London has nothing to do with me and I am very glad of it. The most this will do is clutter up my Twitter notifications for forty eight hours before the mob moves on to the next target. I'm afraid that's all you get for £25,000 in lawyers fees. I'm just not that interesting. As far as political assassinations go, this couldn't be more ridiculous. But what else would you expect from a such a ridiculous, petty little man? And we're still leaving the EU. So there's that. 

The death of centrism is long overdue

Every now and then you catch a remark that encapsulates the key difference between leavers and remainers. Generally speaking, of course. Yesterday I caught this little gem on Twitter.

I want to go back to a time when the big parliamentary decisions involved people paying 5p for plastic bags or how much pig should be in a fiver. All this is way too much responsibility for them.

The first question you have to ask here is that is politicians are indulging in virtue signalling trivia, who is actually running the show? If this is the trivia that similarly occupies our media, then there's a lot of important conversations we are not having.

But this is also indicative of a politics in a state of intellectual decline. These are far from isolated incidents. A while back I happened to tune in to a long debate about what should and shouldn't be allowed in children's packed lunches. It tells us a lot about what politicians thinks they are there for. They seem to think that it's their job to ban things, tax things or subsidise them. It tells us that they feel entitled to boss us around.

What makes it corrosive is that this mentality scales upward into the important things where they think little of chasing after expensive white elephants never thinking twice about the costs they add to our energy bills. They speak blithely about green taxes as though they had no real world implications for businesses and the individual. To a large extent these people are sheltered from the consequences of their misrule in that they are grossly overpaid and whatever they don't feel like forking out for, they can put to expenses.

Were that we had already solved all of the difficult questions then we could perhaps understand how they find time for such trivialities but we haven't. They have time because much of the work is done for them. In education the civil service is pretty much running the show with minimal input from politicians (perhaps correctly) but in terms of the structure of our economy, trade and foreign affairs, this is increasingly the domain of Brussels where there is next to zero scrutiny.

As long as Brussels and the Civil Service were running the show, the politico-media nexus could get away with it. They did the show-biz while the work went on regardless.

Here we shouldn't be at all surprised if the 2016 referendum turned into a an outright rejection of the establishment being that it occurred not long after a general election. For me that was certainly a turning point in British politics. It left and indelible mark on my psyche. The unedifying spectacle of a leaders debate featuring Caroline Lucas, Leanne Wood, Tim Farron and sundry others. The only non-kosher offering was the odious Paul Nuttall of Ukip. The establishment in a nutshell.

These are the people who think it is their role to shape attitudes and behaviours through interventions. These are the people who denounce rather than debate. These are the people for whom any remotely controversial view is "far right". These are the people who would rather debate a green tax on carrier bags than an epidemic of child sexual abuse in the shires. These are the people who would have us stay in the EU largely out of convenience.

Their arguments for remaining in the EU were based on a narcissistic projection of what they believe the EU to be. They deal only in platitudes of cooperation and internationalism - holding the qualities of being "progressive" and "outward looking" even though their horizons stop at Brussels and seldom do they ever look that far.

Progressivism (whatever that actually means) has become a byword for sanitised cellophane wrapped politics which produces the androgynous clones like Chuka Umunna designed for maximum media inoffensiveness. Like Ken dolls one wonders if these people even possess genitalia. The political version of morning TV magazine show presenters. And as repellent as they are, these people don't actually know anything.

This much has been made abundantly clear during the course of Brexit. They have no idea why we voted to leave, and no idea how we got where we are, or indeed how to get ourselves out of it. Instead of seeking to understand what is upon us, they have invested all of their energies into sweeping Brexit under the carpet with a view to going back to their consequence free normality where they soak up media attention but take on none of the responsibilities and obligations.

It is telling that the new Independent Group have elected to promote themselves on a handful of recycled populist slogans. They speak of a "different way of doing things" under the "ChangePolitics" hashtag, with all the self-awareness of a diarrhetic hippo. Chris Leslie in all seriousness went on BBC Question Time to tell us "The big political parties want to keep everything as it is" when this bunch are the very essence of the establishment - the rotting corpse of centrism.

There is no ambition or vision to this kind of politics. No idea of a destination and no will to take on the large and difficult questions. This is perhaps why our politics has adopted climate change as its central obsession. It serves as a proxy for politics of substance - and gives them the pretext for demanding that we turn over ever more sovereignty and surrender more of our individual freedoms to them.

I'm often told that of the many pressing issues we face, Brexit provides little remedy. I freely admit will in some cases exacerbate the problems. Brexit never was a remedy though, nor is the EU a direct cause of our problems. The EU, or rather our membership of it, is merely a symptom of the political malaise, and allowing the status quo to remain is certainly no remedy in that we have seen how they choose to occupy their time. We now see which of them are not equipped to handle something of this magnitude precisely because they have abdicated from their function.

Brexit is not guaranteed to make anything better, but I'm also certain that nothing is going to get better until we address the intellectual and moral stagnation in our politics. Already Brexit has broken the back of our politics and Labour has vomited out its Blair era throwbacks. In respect of that the Independent Group has done us a great service not only in exposing themselves as values-free flip floppers, but also showing us what is left of the Labour party. A burnt out talentless husk.

Doubtlessly there will be more defections in the near future and it is unlikely that the Tory coalition can hold together in its current form. There will need to be a further realignment before we can get down to the real business of politics. We are soon to have problems of urgency and complexity that wipes the generic timewaster politics off the board. They will have to understand their way out of the mess and the non hackers will be drummed out of politics.

There is an obvious cost to this. This is going to cost jobs and it is going to cause disruption - especially if we leave the EU without a deal. I'm told we can't afford to do it but I'm left with the question of whether we can afford not to do it. I don't think we can. There are too many deep rooted structural problems with the country which aren't going to be addressed by politics as we now find it and certainly not by the narcissistic dross that calls itself the centre ground.

It's tempting to look back to 2015 when our politics was absorbed with trivia and look upon it as a time of relative political stability but that was a time where we were collectively ignoring a volcano of problems and doing all we could to suppress them. Now we are paying the price for their moral cowardice. It may well be falling apart now, but it's been a long time coming.

Politics is broken. Here's how to fix it.

There have been several articles entitled "Politics is broken. Here's how to fix it". There will be many more of them. All of them will be wrong and only this one will be right.

If you want to fix anything you must first understand what is broken and why. It starts with perceptions. There is a perception that politicians are lazy, narcissistic, venal and self-serving. To a very large extent this is true.

As one tweeter put it recently "Politics is no longer about policy-making, it’s about media-making. The sum total of what MPs do now is manufacture messages and manage media. There is almost no listening, all is broadcasting. This is why they’re so keen to outsource policy/technocracy to EU. More time for Sky".

This explains Jess Phillips's lip wobbling performance in parliament this week. It is also partly why Prime Minister's Questions has turned into feeding time at London Zoo. This is the ugly side effect of putting cameras in parliament. MPs want their moment on camera so they can tweet it to their followers. The closer we get to election time the more questions we hear concerning what are generally local matters, dropping in the name of a cancer hospice or some other good cause.

Ultimately it is the system that produces these behaviours. People very often complain that they want "people like us" rather than careerist politicians, but actually, of the 650 MPs, we only hear from about two dozen of them. The rest of them you would struggle to name in a line up. When on occasion they do put their heads above the parapet, it becomes clear that a great many politicians are "people like us" - ie we could just as easily have dragged them in off the street. 

Here you have to wonder how they make it through local selection - which perhaps suggests a lack of quality control at the local level. This is largely because old style party politics has all but collapsed. Most people's fullest engagement in politics is turning up to periodically vote and usually they vote for brands not candidates. They shouldn't but they do.

We know this is true because of the eleven defectors to the new Independent Group, none of them are prepared to resign and stand for re-election. None of them are there on personal merit and those who hail from seats that would elect a hatstand if the rosette was the right colour would stand no chance at all.

Here we need to be honest. We're not going to fix those voting habits. Politics is tribal because humans are tribal. For sure we could tinker with the voting system which would allow other brands to compete, but that doesn't really do anything. Whoever you vote for you still end up with an MP who inevitably conforms to the rules of the system. They go native often without realising.

For sure, first past the post has a lot to answer for. It raises a high bar of entry so that a brand has to establish national recognition before we see breakthroughs and in the case of Ukip, a party can be dominating the agenda yet sill fail to score a single MP. But then supposing we had proportional representation, what would it change? It's not like Ukip views are not represented in parliament. the grunter wing of the Tory party is virtually indistinguishable from Ukip.

The real problem is Westminster itself. We put the power into the hands of the few which then becomes the focal point for all the think tanks and media, creating a grubby little circlejerk where policy is largely recycled matter originating from London's inner suburbs. The result being a system where dross votes on a procession of bad ideas - many of them the result of lobbying.

Being that London has become the central focus of the national debate, we then ponder why local newspapers and radio are dying out. The simple answer is that nothing of consequence is decided locally. Health and education policy tends to be set by Whitehall and anything beyond that is decided by Brussels. Brexit brings little remedy in that the faceless unelected bureaucrats of Whitehall will take over where Brussels left off. Certainly remaining in the EU would make it a magnitude worse but without major reform of our domestic democracy, Brexit is value neutral.

Here there is some recognition for the need for greater localism, and just about every MP and think tank wonks mouths the usual platitudes but their idea of devolution is to establish yet more elected offices to run regional quangos. All the while our local democracies are falling away as councils merge into mega councils. What little power they have is licenced power from London rather than power in its own right. The capacity for local political action to actually change anything is minimal.

A few things need to happen here. Firstly we need to scale back the remit of Westminster by way of a new constitution placing limits on what it can do. The less power it has the less damage it can do. Secondly we need to recognise that people vote for brands and leaders rather than individual candidates. This is why we need separation of powers and a directly elected executive.

We have seen how the media has turned elections into televised game shows with unedifying leaders debates. Sadly they are here to stay even though we may wish it otherwise. Our media driven politics has turned it into presidential style elections when we do not have a presidential system. If then, people are going to cast their votes on the basis of leaders then they need to be elected separately from MPs and at a different time.

that then means we have two elections. One where we select the executive - an election based on brands and personalities, and one where we have to select on a local basis thus making it more candidate centric. This has the merit of potentially improving the quality of government. Part of the reason we have such a lightweight cabinet is that the recruiting pool comes mainly from the commons. Garbage in, garbage out. Separation of powers means any PM can look outside of the bubble to recruit people who can get things done - subject to parliamentary confirmation.

Real separation of powers then means the executive proposes and parliament acts as the referee. The government does not then have the ability to create new cabinet nonjobs to buy the allegiance of MPs. They are then free to vote more often according to their own conscience.

Politics as we currently know it does seem to attract all the wrong sorts. Consequently parliament has lost much of its gravitas. All too often they indulge in trivialities and "virtue signalling" on matters best decided locally. If politics in Westminster isn't working then we need to take as much of it out of Westminster as possible. Parliament should mainly concern itself with matters that can only be decided exclusively on a national level be it trade, defence, foreign affairs and criminal law. More or less everything else should be shunted out to local authorities where it belongs.

All too often when politicians and hacks talk about democratic reform, the fullest extent of their imaginings is tinkering with the voting system. They are not going to do anything that breaks their grip on power. And that is what this is all about. Power. Who has it and how it is wielded. For there to be meaningful democracy the people themselves must have the power.

Presently we have a system whereby we can elect our dictators for the next five years. Beyond that we don't get a say and we become passenger of politics without a people's veto on what is done to us. This is why we need to make greater use of referendums local and national. The origins of Brexit lie not in austerity but of a rogue political class who see us as their plaything whereby they will impose their agenda with ruthless zeal if they think they can get away with it.

This is how we ended up with freedom of movement. This is how we became so deeply enmeshed in the European project. This is how we ended up with so many destructive national policies from the original nationalisations through to the privatisation of the 80's - stealing and selling that which was not theirs.

It is unrealistic to expect that we will ever turn out decent politicians. We have wildly inflated expectations which largely ignore human nature. Plenty of good people go to London to do good but the system changes them, their priorities change and they become addicted to the lifestyle. We all think things would be better if only they were people like us. But they were once people like us. What matters is not who we send. It's our ability to direct them and where necessary get rid of them.

To have a functioning democracy real power needs to be in the hands of the people and we must have constitutional restraints on what politicians can do to us - especially when they have so brazenly given away powers that were not their to give away. We can tinker with the system this way and that, but without addressing the central question of who has the power and where it resides, all attempts at reform are missing the point spectacularly.

Over the last few months we have seen calls for new parties but we have been here before. they all make their wishlist manifestos, usually written from a position of issue illiteracy meaning that were they to come to power, when their ideas clash with the real world, they part company with their election manifestos. Promises to tinker with policy this way or that is really just more of the same where we delegate politics to politicians in London. What is it they say about doing the same thing over and expecting different results?

What ails Britain is the cultural and moral disconnect between the rulers and the ruled. London metropolitan politics is imposed on a far more conservative country. The fact that we are ruled at all is the central issue. It matters not whether it is a king or a parliament or a European parliament. For as long as we are subject to the top-down diktats of London then we can't call ourselves a democracy. Exchanging unelected bureaucrats in Brussels for occasionally elected idiots in London is hardly much of an improvement. Unless we are prepared to radically rethink the distribution of power, any talk of reform is yet more hot air.   

A nation yawns

I normally get cross with people who say Brexit is boring. What is boring, though, is watching our braindead MPs playing their wearisome little games. More frustrating than boring is still not knowing which way this goes. All the major questions remain unanswered.

In this, it is no longer fair to single out the Brexiteers for having unworkable and undeliverable plans. they are all at it. There's the second-reffers who cannot tell us how they would obtain a public vote, when in the sequence it would happen or even what the question would be. It is a non-option.

Then there are the George Freeman types who now believe that if May's deal is voted down then we can simply scrub it and start afresh with their Common Market 2.0 nonsense. As much as the Efta avenue is long extinct, the best we can now hope for in terms of single market participation is a shadow EEA setup but we won't get anywhere near such a thing without a withdrawal agreement - and one which looks very similar to the one on the table.

If the UK wanted an Efta outcome then it needed to be a decisive flagship policy rather than a fallback. The notion that we can barge in on a whim having failed to secure agreement with the EU speaks to a pervasive exceptionalist mentality that runs right through British politics. The Brexiteers don't have a monopoly on that. British politics would struggle to be any more self-absorbed than it currently is.

Between now and decision day there is nothing that need occupy our time. Procedural shenanigans and pointless amendments add nothing to the process. What we're witnessing is a parliament in a state of total denial. The singular fact all sides are unwilling to entertain is that they have no choices left. It's May's deal or no deal. They will do almost anything to avoid confronting that singular fact of life.

This renders further discourse completely redundant. They are going to have to work it out for themselves. It's now a question of when or if the penny drops. They can attempt to extend Article 50 to kick the can down the road but eventually it comes down to making a decision about the non-amendable deal on the table. If they won't make a decision then the calendar will.

Some, though, are now starting to question whether Brexit will happen at all. Here I struggle to imagine any sequence of events where Article 50 could be rescinded. Mrs May isn't going to do it nor can Parliament force her. It could only happen in extraordinary circumstances and would require a coherence and resolve not presently found anywhere in parliament.

Then again, things do keep happening that confound any of our best guesses which brings us back to the original observation that with only a few days left to go we still have no idea what will happen. It is something of a relief that we need not wait long to find out. Then things will get interesting.

The trend of Brexit is that things go from being eye wateringly tedious to highly consequential and then back to months of speculation and tedium. On Brexit day, though, all of that changes where we will live in interesting times. As observed previously on this blog, our politics does not do preemptive work. Our politics is wholly reactive. Reacting to events is all they know how to do. Brexit will give them an event to be going on with for some time.

Until they have something useful to do, our politicians will continue to flounder, inventing their own little distractions absorbing the attentions of an equally clueless media while the rest of us look elsewhere for stimulation. Until they reconnect with our reality, you are now perfectly entitled to say that Brexit is boring. Enjoy it while it lasts. 

One way or another, we are leaving the EU

I sat and watched Mrs May's statement to the house this afternoon. She seems to have played a blinder. She has sucked the wind out of the sails of those seeking to tinker with pointless amendments while insulating herself from blame. MPs will get a vote on ruling out no deal but they will have to vote down a perfectly viable deal to do it. This time it will be parliament kicking the can down the road.

We can only speculate as to the duration of an extension but the default is still no deal if they then do not vote for whatever non-improvements Mrs May can then secure. If then MPs take us in this direction they will find that we spend a while longer having the same circular arguments only to end up back where we are today.

I suspect the more clued up remainers will be well aware of this but the intransigent TIG and their commons sympathisers will take us there in the hope of somehow derailing Brexit altogether. They are hoping to somehow force a revocation of Article 50 which Theresa May has ruled out - and to do it, every remainer would have to unite in an act of open defiance against the public verdict. I doubt they could pull it off and one would hope they would have more sense.

This looming threat though, may cause a few of the ERG types to reconsider voting against the deal. I suspect May will lose but not by such a wide margin this time. Somehow she's going to have to resurrect it for a third outing if she is forced to extend. We won't know the circumstances so speculation seems futile.

What's driving up closer toward the cliff is an unwillingness to comprehend that ruling out no deal is not within the gist of parliament. No matter how many votes and amendments we have, we cannot re-write the rules of Article 50 unilaterally. To an extend, though, this is wilfully obtusity. If they won't ratify the deal and have then secured a political obligation not to leave without a deal, knowing that the ERG will never ratify, revocation then comes back into play. It is upon this forlorn hope that they steer us closer to the edge.

Being that neither side has a hope of having it their way, it is hard to envisage any scenario where we leave with a deal. The ERG are not going to be satisfied with the backstop and anything that isn't remain will not satisfy the opposition. May's deal might come back in the final hour as an emergency ultimatum but the threat of imminent departure to WTO terms is by no means guaranteed to secure May's deal.

As a leaver I could now fill space with bloviation about MPs defying the will of the people etc, but that point is made, and it is not productive to re-state the case. We can hardly accuse the remainers of insincerity when the leave goalposts have shifted so many times. the ERG have done everything to antagonise and make compromise impossible and in the final days it has come down to all our war between the factions. I suppose it was always going to come to this eventually.

It can, though, be argued that the MPs on the remain side now blocking May's deal (without good cause) never had any intention of respecting or honouring the vote. The ultra remainers don't see why they should since they have convinced themselves that the vote was not legitimate and given the way in which the ERG propaganda machine has lied through its teeth, I suppose, were I a remainer, I wouldn't go without a fight either.

If I said I knew which way this was going to go, I would be lying. I have no idea. This is a total failure of politics from start to finish and I won't be in the least bit surprised if we leave without a deal purely because parliament cannot reach a consensus. Though I am anxious to avoid such an outcome, if that's how it must be then so be it. If our politics is that broken then let the chips fall where they may.

By far the most dangerous outcome, though, is remaining. I struggle to imagine the circumstances in which that would happen. It would certainly involve toppling Mrs May and the formation of a new government - but I think there would have to be a general election along leave/remain lines for them to get away with revoking Article 50 - and as much as there isn't time, there is then no guarantee what parliament would look like after the election or who would be in control. If it were simply a remainer coup, revoking article 50 without a referendum or election then yet again it would be another example of parliament doing as it pleases in respect of the EU.

Either way, if we end up remaining then our politics goes into a full blown civil war and we see widespread civil unrest. I don't see any remainer MPs being safe to walk alone at night. The only way then to lance the boils is for a a coalition of populist parties to take over the Tory party and leave the EU unilaterally. I just don't see any scenario where we don't leave the EU eventually. It's only a question of what price we pay politically. It looks like May's deal is the cheaper of all the options.

Thrilled to bits.

In a bid to stem further resignations from the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn has committed to backing an amendment for a second referendum on something (we know not exactly what) in the event on another amendment failing to pass. Or something. Or at least that is as far as I can be bothered to understand it. They're fumbling around trying to keep various factions on side with no idea how to usefully influence the process. Riding two horses going in opposite directions.

This, though, is not about achieving anything. This is purely about sending signals even though they are utterly meaningless. The media naturally loves this as it gives them something to do. It gives the Brexiter tribe a bit of outrage fodder and gives the remain sphere something to chew on. Tribal politics being what it is, the overall incoherence of this move does not register. Only the signal matters. This is why Westminster persistently exists in an alternate reality. This is why a customs union continues to have magical properties.

Meanwhile, the PM held a press conference today to basically say nothing at all. She has been all round Europe to waste the time of foreign leaders and now she is wasting ours. We knew well in advance there would be no breakthrough and nothing of substance to announce so the actual point of it escapes me save to stop the media getting carried away with the idea that we may seek to extend Article 50. The game in play is still her deal or no deal. There is still bog all to get excited about.  

Possibly the most important contribution to today's Twitter debate, though, was this GIF of a cat playing table tennis with Steve McQueen. Between that and making progress on an Airfix Sea Harrier, I've had quite a dramatic day by recent standards. I may need a lie down. 

May's deal is the only way to take no deal off the table

When I look at the more extreme end of the Brexiter movement I start to think they have a pathological need to be unhappy about something. I've seen plenty of reasons good and bad for not supporting Theresa May's deal, but if they didn't have a reason they would invent one.

This is probably a lot to do with how humans do politics. It's almost arbitrary. Most of us inherit our politics from our parents and as we we grow up we first rebel but then revert. We're given a naked christmas tree and we decorate it with confirmation bias fodder. Either way, once we settle on our politics it becomes a cornerstone of our identity subsequently influences our relationships. Politics is tribal because humans are tribal.

This is now problematic for leavers. We've spent decades as the politica underdog with no voice and nothing going our way. Much like the left we draw our power and identity from our respective gripes and grievances. Now we are leaving the EU our main whinge is front and centre we have less in macro terms to whinge about. We now have to invent a wholly new set of whinges to ensure the survival of our underdog identity.

This is ultimately why trying to appease Brexiters (or any faction in politics) is futile. We will always demand more. We have no shifted the goalposts where a relatively pedestrian proposition like leaving the EU has morphed into a full blown culture war where nothing short of terminating all formal EU relations will do.

Now I'm not saying there aren't good reasons to question the withdrawal agreement. Were I so inclined I could probably come up with a few new good reasons to oppose it and probably better reasons than those currently in circulation. That, though, does not make the central dilemma go away. The deal on the table is as good as it is going to get and we get to choose between that and no deal.

Here is where I part company from Brexiters. There are a litany of complex regulatory and trade issues that cannot go unaddressed and we need to tie up the loose ends. More than that, the world turns on formal relationships and we need an FTA and much more besides. Being that both sides have their own demands and red lines the deal was never going to wholly satisfy anyone.

What it does do, though, is formalise our status as a non-EU member. That alone, irrespective of the details, is a seismic event and in terms of international statements, it's huge. It marks a parting of ways and as much as we will be a non-EU member, we will be treated accordingly both by the EU and the rest of the world. To a large extent the details do not matter. Had we never joined the EU we would still have a thousand binding stands with our neighbours.

The Brexit puritans want a year zero relationship but this is neither realistic or necessary. Had we never joined the EU there is a strong chance that we would still be in Efta and very possibly a member of the EEA or we would have taken up a role similar to that of Switzerland with hundreds of separate accords. Over forty years we would have accumulated a lot of EU baggage, most of which wouldn't even register with the public.

In respect of that, this perhaps points to the follow of the EU. Had they set about building a relatively anonymous organisation like the WTO then there's a good chance the EU would be churning away in the background with little public attention. But no, they had to give it a flag and a parliament and all the bells and whistles.

Since we did join it, though, what we have on our doorstep is a trade superpower holding most of the cards and any relationship with it is going to be asymmetrical. I accepted that when we voted to leave. It's why I preferred the EEA Efta route because it has better safeguards and Efta with the UK would, to a point, even up the balance of power.

Moderates, though, lost that argument. British exceptionalism won out. The various Brexit propagandists have convinced themselves that not only do we hold all the cards, we don't need formal trade relations or cooperation agreements and it will be the EU begging us once we are out.

In terms of the leverage we hold, the no deal leverage is overstated. If we pull the plug then it is a body blow fore Ireland and creates a number of major headaches for the EU - weakening it substantially and exacerbating a number of its own internal stresses. It makes for a decade of sour relations. I have no doubt that the UK is capable of inflicting enormous damage on the EU. The problem being, though, that we suffer a magnitude more.

This is not a particularly credible threat. The EU has been quite clear that it prioritises the sovereignty and integrity of its customs and regulatory territory and if Brexit is to be a zero sum game it will keep us out in the cold long enough to cannibalise UK market share in Europe and make damn sure it hurts us more. Since the effects for the EU are distributed and manageable, our need is greater than theirs.

To a large extent, though, Brexiters are none to bothered about this. Whatever concern you raise, there's always a pre-prepared argument or excuse waiting in the wings. It doesn't matter how flimsy it is or how many times it has been debunked, just so long as there is cover. More than anything this is a domestic dispute between the hard right and the so-called progressives. In more ways than one, Brexit could not be less to do with our future relationship with the EU. That is just a casualty of war.

As far as the hard right are concerned, Mrs May's deal is a plan for remain sewn up by Ollie Robbins and the remain establishment where soe even tell me they would rather remain that fall into the "trap". This has been a recurrent theme from the beginning. the referendum was a trap. Article 50 was a trap. The backstop is a trap. One self-pitying conspiracy theory after another. There is no end to it.

When it comes down to it the Brexiters don't want a solution. I'm not even sure if they know what they do want. They are addicted to ideological trench warfare and they have been going at it for so long that it is now a way of life. They will push us over the cliff them blame somebody else for the consequences.

On this I don't really have a dog in the fight. If somebody has to lose then I prefer it be the "progressives" but that is still a lose-lose proposition. It is for that reason alone I support Theresa May;s deal because that is the only sure fire way of taking no deal off the table. It clears the air and allows us to start afresh a wholly new debate about the shape of our future relationship. As much as it removes the threat of no deal it also removes the threat of remaining as we will be formally out of the EU.

Whatever the pitfalls of Mrs May's deal, most of them are issues with a natural expiry date - not least citizen's rights. For the remainder, for all that we might stamp our feet about provisions within the deal, they don't go much further than a great many of our international obligations and there's really not much point in complaining unless we have a coherent and deliverable idea of what to do instead.

The militant wing of the Tory party don't want a deal because they know that we are politically obliged to come up with something that obviates the need for the backstop and ensure it is never activated. Whatever that may be, they know full well that it comes with certain regulatory and customs obligations that dampen their "fwee twade" ambitions. They would rather crash out and then work toward an FTA from a blank canvass.

This, though, is not going to happen. To restart talks the EU will make many of the same demands it is making now and it will not tolerate the legal limbo that then exists in Northern Ireland. Being that the situation will be a good deal more urgent, we will have to submit to a permanent backstop without even a political declaration to replace it.

So it ultimately comes down to who is right. Is it worth all the upset in order to chase after the free trade unicorn? The simple answer is no. The ERG have no grasp of how the system works and none of their proposals withstand the barrage of scrutiny applied over the last two years. It is a wholly flawed enterprise that never had a hope of working.

Ultimately, if we want to leave we simply have to navigate the process as best we can and then see where we are at the end of it. The destination will likely be suboptimal but there is no final destination because bilateral relations are always a continuum. Playing the game at least ensures we are still in the game and we don't lose all of the assets we have. From there we can work to optimise and stabilise the relationship.

For all that parliament may dither, the politicking to and fro has little bearing on events. Ministers can have their little tantrums and wail all they like but leaving without a deal is the default. The EU can maybe grant us an extension but will only do so on their terms and for their own convenience. Whether the decision time is mid-March or mid-July, the dilemma is still the same. All the while the UK hemorrhages jobs and capital. If they want to put a stop to that, their only option is to bite the bullet and back the PM. 

Still missing the point on no deal

I keep tabs on Spiked Online because usually it's benchmark idiocy and that is the one function it serves. I still have some residual respect for Rob Lyons though. Finally Spiked is at least attempting to apply themselves to the issues albeit three years late. The piece is a little more sophisticated than BrexitCentral propaganda but then on recent form that is not saying very much.

Lyons argues that a no deal Brexit will not be Brexitageddon. "Most people seem to think that the UK is only just starting to plan for leaving with no deal and the EU really isn’t worrying about it at all. In reality, none of this is true. While flipping suddenly from ‘being in the EU’ on 29 March to ‘being completely out of the EU’ on 30 March would provide some headaches, there is good reason to think it won’t be an unmitigated disaster". He goes on to list the unilateral contingency measures taken by the EU.

The truth of the matter is that nobody is entirely certain how the system is going to work. We know that the UK has taken steps to offset problems with customs formalities but there is little confidence this system will work well because users of the system will be unprepared and unfamiliar with the process. 

In terms of what happens on the other side of the Channel, it helps to read properly what the EU has said. "In a no deal scenario, all relevant EU legislation on the importation and exportation of goods will apply to goods moving between the EU and the UK". The means the full array of official controls in respect of animal products and given that there is not presently a border inspection post at Calais, freight normally travelling through that route must make alternative arrangements.

On that basis we assume that the refrigerated trucks will not pass through Dover meaning that much of the anticipated logjam does not happen. Even so, that's not a bet I would make since there is a general complacency in industry and their own industry bodies are prone to getting it wrong. Assuming all went well in the event of no deal and we avoided chaos at the ports that would largely be to do with a significantly reduced volume of trade. 

As to air traffic, when concerns were first raised, few in government had even anticipated there would be problems since MPs are wholly ignorant of what the EU actually does. It was, therefore, reasonable to assume that if we walked out (as the ERG were advocating prior to the contingency instruments) then aeroplanes simply would not fly. Now that the EU is legislating for these contingency measures we can be assured of "basic connectivity" but that still cuts the industry out of the EU air services market which is a major blow to the UK sector.

It is conceivable that the initial headline impacts could be avoided. That, though, does not mean we are off the hook. There is no contingency provision for a number of regulated markets from farm animal waste to pharmaceuticals. Some of these will be affected immediately and others will run into problems in the following weeks and months. The problem is that this saturate the absorptive capacity of government, interrupting the normal functioning of the state.   

These are short to mid term issues, and Lyons correctly assumes business will adapt but gives no thought to what it is adapting to. It is adapting to a state where business has vastly inflated logistics costs, a mountain of red tape, and few participation right in the European market. Engineering and financial services especially take a hit. 

That is not the end of it though. In terminating all formal bilateral relations with the EU, much of the interagency cooperation stops dead, as do academic programmes, animal transport, maritime surveillance, anything to do with Galileo and litany of obscure and arcane issues that will require a rapid and effective response from government at a time when its capabilities are stretched to the maximum. There is then the matter of our third country agreements, only some of which can be rolled over and only on a temporary basis.

The cumulative effect of all this is unknowable. It is that exact uncertainty that will see an immediate halt to investment decisions - right about the time when we are already on the cusp of a global manufacturing recession. Investment remains on ice until a new normal is established. We not know, however, what the new normal will be, what new conditions will be demanded of us in restoring trade functionality with the EU and the rest of the world and what regulatory frameworks look like.

As much as this is going to cost business it is also going to hammer government finances putting a number of government functions on hold or scrapping them entirely. It might be more than a year before we have established even an interim normal where the UK still looks precarious due to heightened political instability.

The multinationals have already taken a number of steps to offset the impact - notably Rolls Royce moving its design approvals work to Germany and a number of Airbus functions and suppliers already switched over to continental facilities. These such corporates are unlikely to make bombshell announcements in the way that Honda has, rather they will quietly dismantle most of their peripheral business functions and abandon any future expansion plans.  

This then has a ripple effect through the economy. If you're not paying graduate engineers a decent salary then everyone from the local BMW garage to the mobile dog grooming parlour takes a hit. So does the sandwich shops, the local pubs and the wider high street. Not forgetting that many of these high skill jobs in Airbus and Rolls Royce are contingent on authorisations not covered by EU contingency measures so we will see job losses even in the first week since many of them are employed on a contractor basis - as is much of the defence/aerospace sector.

Unemployment tends to be a trailing indicator so it will be a while before we get the complete picture but the losses will snowball down the months. Pretty soon local authorities are screaming for cash as the housing benefit claims double and triple. That money has to come from somewhere. 

Now you could afford to take a punt on something as mindless as no deal if you at least had an idea of what you are going to replace those jobs with and an idea of how to offset the loss of a £270bn a year trade relationship. Being that we already have a number of FTAs via the EU with most of our relevant trade partners, the "fwee twade" delusions of Mr Rees-Mogg are not going to save us, nor are the crackpot theories of Professor Minford - which will more than likely destroy British agriculture and take a lot of tourism with it.

So when looked at as a whole, given the rapid drop in tax receipts, major devaluations, a downgrade of our credit rating, a wave of bankruptcies and major decline in living standards, even if we manage to keep the ports running smoothly, by most people's definition that is a catastrophe. But then Lyons gets around that by glibly redefining the word.

It makes one wonder if people have forgotten the meaning of the word ‘catastrophe’. What’s happening in Venezuela is a catastrophe; not being able to make ratatouille because there are no courgettes on the shelves is not a catastrophe. Maybe they have been watching the excellent Channel 4 sitcom Catastrophe, in which an American man and an Irish woman have a six-day fling in London, only for her to discover later on that she is pregnant. He moves over to the UK and marries her so they can raise the child together. A major hassle and a life-changing situation. The result is that they are generally happy, both end up in well-paid jobs, they have some more children and live in a nice house that most Londoners would sell their granny to own. If that’s a catastrophe, I’m looking forward to No Deal.

You have to hand it to Spiked. They always find a way to take boorish crassness to a new level. Certainly I do not anticipate foraging for scraps from a bin or eating the dog, but if, say, you're a design engineer with a large mortgage and car payments to make and a family to support, and you're told that morning that your job no longer exists and all the similar companies in the region are in the same boat, that's a major catastrophe for them. Generally these things lead to long term unemployment and family breakup.

If you're a farmer having to then dump your export stock on the local market for a fraction of price, knowing that the next batch of livestock is not commercially viable and you have to sell your land for less than it's currently mortgaged for, then that's a catastrophe too. If you run a feed mill and the local livestock sector is done for then so are you. If you run a farm services company then you're also pretty stuffed.

As to what happens in the banking sector, the City is optimistic that it is resilient but from what we have seen, there is a grave complacency and longer term, they are exposed to the wave of defaulting loans and mortgages. This is going to have serious ramifications for pensions and savings and car insurance, the latter then inhibiting individual mobility. 

Being that there are few areas of commerce and regulation that are not in some way influenced by or dependent on EU membership, the absence of a replacement relationship means that the secondary effects could be far greater than the disruption of Brexit day. We are likely to see major inflation which will in turn force rationing of some medicines and NHS services.

In respect of the scope and breadth of the problems, ensuring the ports do not fall into chaos is really only the bare minimum - and for all the noise made about it, even this government in its current state of dysfunction ought to be able to get a grip on it. That, though, is far from mission accomplished nor does it prove that the warnings were "project fear". The little that it does accomplish is essentially window dressing for a failure of government that will see the UK slide in every known league table. You are, of course, entitled to pick your own definition of a catastrophe, but by my reckoning, this qualifies with room to spare.  

The Brexit trench war is over

Predictably my inbox is full of irate Brexiters this morning. Leavers, it seems, are not meant to criticise Brexiter MPs. And I did rather a lot of that yesterday. One is not supposed to point out that Nadine Dorries is thick as a box of hammers or that Kate Hoey is light bendingly dense. One is not supposed to point out that Daniel Hannan is a liar and thief. One is not supposed to call Steve Baker a crook and one really shouldn't say that Jacob Rees-Mogg is a malicious worm.

As ye know, I am prone to grumbling about the minimal returns I get for my efforts on Twitter - and generally people tell me it's because I'm caustic and negative. That, though, is not the cause. I've seen plenty of long standing blogs give up over the course of the last year because the effort to reward ratio is too low. As it happens, I suspect the legacy media is having similar problems. People might retweet an article but they do not necessarily click on it.

It's taken me a long time to fully understand it and it's so simple that it should have occurred to me sooner. what Twitter is, is ideological trench warfare. Content producers who succeed supply a demand. The demand is for ammunition. I've noticed how a generic anti-EU post will do the rounds when more analytical posts do not.

Twitter trench warfare is mainly about shoring up a narrative. It is no less tribal than Westminster politics. The Brexiter MPs and their propaganda vessels built their narratives and we as good little sheep are supposed to hold the line and tell the Emperor that his new threads are snazzy. They transmit, we receive.

But of course, this blog, and this blogger, is not in the business of propaganda. That is for Breitbart and BrexitCentral. My mission is to understand what is happening and why and to do that I have to be entirely up front about it and not allow myself to be deceived or comforted with what I want to hear. I stepped off the propaganda production line in 2016. Some would say I was never on it. They are probably right.

Here is ultimately where the problem is. The demand is generally for narrative reinforcement and comfort. If a factory closes down Brexiters want tract that proves why it is nothing to do with Brexit. If someone on our side is attacked, I'm supposed to defend them rather than stick the boot in. Since I don't do that, readers don't know which side of an issue I'll land on so they are wary of me. I don't do remainers or leavers any favours. The decision to keep me at arms length is pure cowardice.

This, in part, is why The Leave Alliance was marginalised from the beginning. We attacked Vote Leave because it was not competent and it did not tell the truth and we weren't prepared to ignore them and let them do it. The Brexit blob have since circled the wagons and written us out of the script. Since the media does not look outside of the bubble we may as well not have existed at all.

This, though, is all now somewhat redundant. The battle for Brexit is over. We won. I do not feel obliged to shore up the leave case and I certainly feel no obligation to back or support the London leave blob who have done more to undermine the case for leaving than I ever could by attacking them. I do not owe these people anything. My only obligation is to report things as I see it. Trench warfare is not a productive use of anyone's time.

I think probably the most important function of this blog is less to argue the case for Brexit, but to point out the manifest inadequacies of our politics and media, an in doing so I can show no favour to any particular side. I want people to realise how and why they are being used by forces who don't care about them. If you have a problem with that, you know where you can go.

It's time to call out the Brexit zealots

A Brexit video blog in which I am somewhat pissed off.

No dog in the fight

Were the eight Labour defectors, now joined by Anna Soubry and two other nonentities, to be joined by Caroline Lucas and Yvette Cooper you would have a party that embodied pretty much everything I voted against in the referendum. We are loosely describing it as centrism for want of a better term, but these people represent the pinnacle of Westminster banality. Vapid, conformist. slippery careerists who jump on every passing politically correct bandwagon, always believing that their narcissistic worldview, echoed by the BBC, is the view of the majority.

As Paul Embrey remarks, though, "One of the joys of following politics over the coming months will be witnessing the reaction of the 11 defectors as it slowly dawns on them that, far from representing 'millions', they represent no-one". They are exactly what we are all sick of - politicians who are infinitely interchangeable and could just as easily serve on the front bench of either hollowed out shell of a party.

In many ways this new independent group is largely an excretion from the old parties which have now been colonised by their extremes - both of whom are equally unappealing. Not in a billion years would I vote for the Labour party which I generally find objectionable whoever is leading it, meaning that the Tories, as foul natured as they are, are still the default option. 

The Conservative Party, though, is nothing I especially recognise as conservative. The Tory right are jingoistic ignorant reactionary grunters who mistake knee-jerk right wing posturing for conservative values. But then the rest of the party are social democrat wets. We don't have a conservative party in the UK.

We are told that the tory party has drifted to the hard right - which it has if you only view it through the Brexit prism, but on everything else, it is largely businesses as usual. Whatever crosses their desks, they either ban it, subsidise it or tax it. There is nothing else in their toolbox. 

So then as far as Westminster politics goes, I no longer have a dog in the fight. For a time it looked like the EEA option was back on the table but has no been co-opted by the likes of Boles and mangled to the point where it is neither deliverable or desirable. It's no longer an argument worth having. My only political hope now is that we do not leave the EU without a deal - and if May's deal is what we have to put up with  then so be it. 

One would think that with most MPs being opposed to a no deal Brexit that May's deal would pass without much obstruction. Still, though, the parliamentary arithmetic at last examination, was not in its favour. Parliament remains atomised, incoherent and wholly inept. One simply hopes that the departure of Honda, though little to do with Brexit, is viewed as a portent. Until the penny drops, not a lot else matters.

Bigger problems than Honda

In case yesterday's post didn't depress you enough, it prompted some further discussion about the direction of travel for the UK and the West more generally. Basically, we are a nation living beyond our means, on the basis of an economic and social model that is completely outdated.

There are several crucial contradictions right at the core of our existence, and we are not going anywhere until you address them. The first thing is the fact that you only need a very small number of human beings to provide for the physical needs of the population as a whole. Thus, the world is split into producers (a tiny minority) and consumers.

The problem there is the economic model where, in order to be a consumer, you need access to an income which derives mainly from production. And as long as wealth (of a nation) is measured in the capacity for physical production, we will be striving to produce things which people either don't want or need (or should not have), simply to earn them an income.

At the same time, as long as people have to buy things in order to generate wealth, they have to be produced at a cost people can afford, which means that either they have to be produced by machines, or cheap labour in developing countries. We cannot afford to make the things we want at a price people can pay, in order to earn a living wage. Therefore, we end up with a small body of highly efficient producing people, supplemented by machines, in order to provide goods to an increasing number of unproductive people - who must then be given jobs so that they can "earn" the money to buy the goods to keep the productive people in work.

These "jobs" can't be producing jobs because we don't want or need the goods that they would produce, so they have to be in the service sector. The trouble is that there are either not enough "services" to keep the non-productive population occupied, the people are too expensive, or they are services which people don't want to provide (or any combination). This means it is "cheaper" in our economic model to bring in immigrants and keep an increasing sector of our economy unemployed or under-employed.

We do this in many ways - keeping children in full-time education for longer and longer, or the gig economy, longer retirement, relative to overall lifespan. The only trouble is that we can't afford those options either.

All this is against a background of individual expectations which are also unaffordable. The meanest of British citizens has material wealth beyond the wildest of imagining of my father's generation. Only the very richest of people could afford carpets, much less fitted carpets which were regarded as unimaginable luxury. There was only one radio in the house and no television. Nowadays, people have expectations of acquiring consumer goods which are simply unaffordable. The costs of these goods is deflated to well below the actual cost of production. A car used to be a multiple of annual earnings - now it is a fraction of them. That is unsustainable.

The trouble is that there is no politically sustainable answer. We once put up with impoverished lives because we didn't know any better, and many of the consumer goods that we now take for granted simply didn't exist and everyone was in the same boat. We once lived in cold, draughty houses because that was the norm. Not even rich people could afford central heating. Even a water heater was a luxury. For many people, having a hot bath meant heating the water over the fire, and sharing the water.

People simply won't tolerate this any more so we effectively have to make them poor by stealth, except that they then can't afford to buy the things we need them to buy, or to pay the taxes the state needs to keep functioning. The whole of society is built of false expectations that cannot be sustained. Hence, much of fiction today is of a dystopian future.

We know in our bones that our lives are unsupportable but we can't admit it. We can't disinvent human productivity, or abolish the industrial revolution and go out tilling the fields with hoes. We have developed into a cul-de-sac - and even global war is no longer an answer as the risks of nuclear war are too great.

We are, therefore, in a bit of a pickle. Government is wholly reluctant to destabilise the status quo because they don't have any answers and the ones who claim to have alternatives don't actually reside on this planet. We need some serious alternative thinking right about the time when very little thinking is done at all.

For whatever reason Honda is departing from the UK, it won't be the last and every town dependent on a large multinational is facing serious questions about its viability. The labour market does not have the absorptive capacity for simultaneous departures, but by leaving the single market that is a near certainty. If your sole concern was slowing the rate of migrant workers then your wish is about to be granted. There's no work for them.

It may not be Brexit that does it, but I think we have started something that could very well be the beginning of a cascade failure for society as we now know it. There are too many imbalances, far too much is overextended and it will take only a small shock to start the ball rolling.

As far as Honda goes, the reality is that the car industry is going through a shitstorm at the moment. Many will say it is a much needed industry contraction. Unfortunately, it coincides with Brexit but, from the look of this, it was going to happen anyway. Current production levels are a bubble and can't be sustained. The Honda factory is only running at 60 percent of capacity.

One of the main factors seems to be the rapid expansion of car leasing, which has artificially inflated demand for new cars on the back of cheap credit. Everyone wants a nice shiny car that's nicer then they can really afford and the banksters have contrived to let them have what they want. Which is something of a problem.

That demand bubble, though, has run its course and the market is now saturated with good quality second-hand cars which are going to be a drag on the market for some years. All car manufacturers are looking to a contracting market and increased costs, with limited opportunity for business expansion and something has to give. Brexit may have had a role in pricking the bubble but this was going to happen anyway. There is massive oversupply in the market and there are too many damn cars on the road.

This blog has long maintained that the UK is a zombie economy and the problems are structural. Remaining in the EU would have allowed us to continue ignoring them and allow us to keep our illusions rolling for a few more years - very probably worsening the problem. We were always going to need a full scale market correction on everything from houses to cars. This house of ours was built on a foundation of sand.