The Consequences of Brexit (part 2)

[iansheff 88]

We know now that the reasons why people voted for Brexit are fake: no massive windfall savings; "sovereignty" was never with Brussels; immigration is likely to be little different; globetrotting trade deals are little more than fantasy.

 

Blair is concerned about how history will portray him. If he saves the country from being tricked into the Tory party's loony hard right's agenda then he judges that history will present him as a saviour.

 

 

All this in the hope that the people who believe he is a war criminal along with Bush, will forget and call him a saviour?

Edited February 17, 2017 by iansheff

[The Joker 10]

All this in the hope that the people who believe he is a war criminal along with Bush will forget and call him a saviour?

 

What's in it for Tony Bliar, they ask.

 

Simple.

 

Bliar still wants to be EU Commissioner.

 

Bliar gave back Le French our £4billion EU rebate that Maggie the Wicked Witch of the West had fought for, on the understanding that Le French would support Bliar to head the EU.

 

Of course, it didn't quite work out like that.

 

Bliar and Le French fell out after Gulf War part 2, but Bliar still wants his personal slice of the £350million we might or might not pay the EU each week.

 

£4billion a year.

 

That's the price of Bliar's ego and vanity.

 

It's enough to make me join the Leave campaign - and I speak as a diehard Remaniac

[sgtkate 10]

We know now that the reasons why people voted for Brexit are fake: no massive windfall savings; "sovereignty" was never with Brussels; immigration is likely to be little different; globetrotting trade deals are little more than fantasy.

 

Blair is concerned about how history will portray him. If he saves the country from being tricked into the Tory party's loony hard right's agenda then he judges that history will present him as a saviour.

 

“Our challenge is to expose relentlessly the actual cost, to show how this decision was based on imperfect knowledge which will now become informed knowledge, to calculate in ‘easy to understand’ ways how proceeding will cause real damage to the country and its citizens, and to build support for finding a way out from the present rush over the cliff’s edge,” the former Labour leader said. “I don’t know if we can succeed. But I do know we will suffer a rancorous verdict from future generations if we do not try. This is not the time for retreat, indifference or despair, but the time to rise up in defence of what we believe.”

 

"we have moved in a few months from a debate about what sort of Brexit, involving a balanced consideration of all the different possibilities, to the primacy of one consideration – namely controlling immigration from the EU – without any real discussion as to why and when Brexit doesn’t affect the immigration people most care about.”

 

He will also highlight the risks of the possible breakup of the UK and a destabilising impact on the Northern Ireland peace process.

 

In an unprecedented swing, the polls show 88% support for Brexit.

[The Joker 10]

In an unprecedented swing, the polls show 88% support for Brexit.

 

Exactly what I thought. . . Is he purposely trying to sabotage the Remain campaign by supporting them ?

 

Or is it all just a dastardly plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn ?

 

Then I remember Bliar's vanity and ego and I think to myself No, he really does believe he can save the Remain campaign.

[iansheff 88]

Well that was something I thought would never happen, that I would agree with something Boris Johnson said. But he has got it spot on about Blair.

[L00b 441]

I see from the BBC news Tony Blair has said it is his "mission" to persuade Britons to "rise up" and change their minds on Brexit. I wonder what is in it for him.

Dyson will have slipped him a few quids to take centre stage and arm-wave for a bit, whilst this comes out in the background.

 

After Dyson backed Leave, it's a bit embarrassing y'see

[Litotes 63]

In an unprecedented swing, the polls show 88% support for Brexit.

 

A recent survey showed that 99.9% of statistics are untrustworthy...

[dillm 10]

Also statistics vary on a daily basis

[NigelFargate 10]

I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're quite right that the euro is, first and foremost, the most spectacular failure to date of Robert Mundell and his "supply-side economics".

 

[unless, that is, you accept the argument that Mundell and his plutocratic pals deliberately engineered the euro to fail, in order to destroy the idea of the welfare state in Europe.]

 

Interesting points.

 

I don't think Mundell engineered the euro to fail, deliberately or otherwise, as the euro-federalists were quite capable of doing this themselves, through excessive hubris and willful blindness. I don't think Mundell is evil, although he is guilty in my view of naivety and wishful thinking (as were the European economists who championed the euro currency idea, such as Otmar Issing, Padoa-Schioppa and Wim Duisenberg).

 

I have just re-read Mundell's original paper advocating a European currency and, although he seems aware of the need for fiscal integration, he skates over how this might come about. Like the European economists mentioned above, he appears to think that political and fiscal integration will be a logical and inevitable consequence of the move towards a single currency - a classic example of putting the cart before the horse.

 

These 'architects' of the euro project seem to have been influenced in their thinking by the neo-functionalist models of European integration which were popular at the time, i.e. that ever closer union would come about through a series of incremental and mutually reinforcing steps, i.e. that the Customs Union, the SEM, monetary union and political union constitute successive building blocks, with one project leading logically and inevitably to another.

 

The flaws in this approach were pointed out at the time (even by other right-wing Economists, such as Milton Friedman and by many other American and indeed British Economists) who pointed out that Europe is not ready for fiscal federalism and the political union it would imply. Moreover, the other main requirement for an optimal currency system i.e. flows of labour across national boundaries, also never happened in the ways envisaged by Mundell and others.

 

What all this goes to show is that the even most elaborate theory underpinning economic policy is worthless (or even worse, dangerous) unless it is grounded in political realities.

Edited February 17, 2017 by NigelFargate

[unbeliever 10]

New ICM poll (full disclosure: commissioned by "Change Britain")

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2cPQPBjL3MCZlVpM3RkRjhvU2s/view

shows that 68% of the people want the government to "get on with Brexit" and are not interested in reversing the result of the referendum (15% disagree).

This includes 42% of remain voters.

 

Those hold out remainers (sometimes unkindly referred to as "remoaners"), who claim to be speaking for the 48%, you're doing nothing of the kind.

You speak only for the 15% who reject the outcome of the referendum and the mandate it gives the government.

 

Of course you carry on rejecting the result if that's what you think is right. However I shall be reminding you that you are supported by about 1 in 7 voters in that effort (probably more than once).

Edited February 18, 2017 by unbeliever

[El Cid 216]

You speak only for the 15% who reject the outcome of the referendum and the mandate it gives the government.

 

Of course you carry on rejecting the result if that's what you think is right. However I shall be reminding you that you are supported by about 1 in 7 voters in that effort (probably more than once).

 

There are parties with much less support than 15%, and you would not stop believing in them because the public were not convinced in sufficient numbers.

[unbeliever 10]

There are parties with much less support than 15%, and you would not stop believing in them because the public were not convinced in sufficient numbers.

 

Quite so.

But those party leaders and parliamentarians do not speak for the 48%, only the 15%.