Xavier Bettel, we can be sure, speaks for the vast majority of European leaders. The United Kingdom’s shambolic handling of its departure from Europe is a serious matter. Not only does this threaten the health and well-being of ordinary people in the UK, it poses a serious risk to the peace and security of Ireland – an EU member state, it promises serious and far-reaching economic consequences for the United Kingdom and the European Union, and creates – by damaging the integrity of the institutions which have preserved peace and coöperation since the end of the Second World War...
Feeling the Love from England
For perhaps the first time in over three centuries the angry man on the street in London has been forced to accept that – in theory – the Scottish people and Scots Law can rip from him his assumption of his dominance over Scotland. In theory, we have the power to derail and stop Brexit, and this has predictably provoked him to rage. The response, if anything, demonstrates the utter lack in England of any semblance of self-reflection; telling Scotland to ‘fuck off’ when the majority in Scotland want to do just that. Outsiders looking in must be awfully confused...
Yellowhammer: The Apocalypse Scenario
At midnight on Thursday 31 October 2019 our open borders with the European Union will close, the free movement of people will end, and every one of the thousands of agreements and common understandings on trade, security, policing, health and safety, and transport will be irrevocably terminated. On and after 31 October food will not arrive into UK ports from any EU member state until, as a foreign state, the UK has negotiated a new set of trade agreements with Europe – a process which cannot begin until after the UK has left the EU and which may take weeks or months to finalise.
How Prepared are You?
A number of senior Conservatives have already voiced their concerns that there are powerful forces at play in the state, working to ensure the hardest possible departure from Europe. In the House of Lords, Nigel Lawson wasn’t joking when he said there is a “real danger that undesirable, but often understandable, insurrectionary forces will feel they cannot trust the British parliament [if a hard Brexit is avoided],” and that as a result “a very ugly situation could well arise.”
Subtle as a Brick
This is not what should happen in a free and democratic society. Our leaders have power only because we consent to be governed. They press the flesh of police officers and soldiers at photo-ops, they do not use them as witting or unwitting props in a campaign of intimidation. Democratic leaders do not politicise the police and the army and otherwise make their members instruments in a partisan conflict in which it is likely some level of force will be used. This is an upsetting development and one we must now all watch closely.
Brexit: Wishful Thinking
On the Remain and the anti-no-deal side of the Brexit debate, we have developed a tendency to magnify even the slightest glimmers of hope into reasons to believe this Brexit won’t happen. This fallacious logic has become a house we have built on the sand of normalcy – the erroneous and dangerous belief that the conditions which prevail at present will remain the same in the future. Together, these beliefs have conspired to create in our various camps a form of political wishful thinking.
Why Corbyn Fears a General Election
This is of course something we should all fear. There’s nothing good on offer in English politics right now. Looking over the options – the so-called alternatives, is like surveying a mediaeval torturer’s work bench; while some of the implements are qualitatively better or worse than others, none of them are exactly what you’d call ‘health promoting.’ There are the pincers, there to rip the flesh from the victim – used to inflict maximum suffering while not endangering the life of the condemned.
Changing of the Guard
In his more sober moments – not that they’re many, even Johnson knows he isn’t driving the Brexit bus here. His mistake is a classic one. Like Cameron and May before him, he thought he could use the racist far-right to his advantage, but the outcome is always and everywhere the same – this particular tail always ends up wagging the dog, and Johnson is being wagged. We all are. The genie is out of the bottle in British politics. The far-right in the guise of the Brexit Party, UKIP, the EDL, and every thuggish messiah of British nationalist street politics is on the march.
Random Public Journal 