Saturday 16 April 2016

Watching the Referendum Fix Go In

A straw in the wind.

Sir Alan Duncan MP, of colourful career, has had an unexpected epiphany.  From being a lifelong euroskeptic he's decided we're stronger safer better in.  His constituents are surprised because they recall him taking a rather different line, really quite recently.

But these things happen, don't they?

In other news; Sir Alan is very concerned at the thought that MPs might be judged by how wealthy they are, be required to publish their tax returns etc, because if high-achieving people had to worry about that kind of attention they wouldn't go into parliament at all.

As things stand, I would have though his tax return is a matter between him and the HMRC.

ND

32 comments:

Blue Eyes said...

I do not know what you are suggesting. Surely once the pressure becomes too obvious it loses some of its effect? Nobody likes being told what to do, especially voters...

Electro-Kevin said...

I've read the newspaper clipping. He makes basic mistakes:

"No convincing picture of a post-EU Britain"

- John Redwood offers that vision and makes a compelling case for Brexit almost daily

- The facts4eu site uses government data to argue for Brexit and the damage the EU does to us

He makes two rather insulting assumptions:

- that we are suffering from a 'post-imperial feeling of hurt pride'. Utter tosh.

- that many are wholly against Polish workers. (I hear this a lot) No we're not if they're bringing skills to our economy. The issue has always been uncontrolled and unselective immigration.

Yet again we have a supposed conservative telling those who want slow change in their country that they are motivated by racism. And in common with many of his type he does it in a snide and indirect way.

- Leaving the EU will not change the asylum situation. Well actually it should send a strong message to the leaders of the EU that we are not happy with their handling of it. The problem with migration has not been asylum anyway, but the the stepped up rate of legal migration from the EU.

[The housing crisis 'has nothing to do with mass migration'. Ah. So old people are responsible for the lack of school places too then.]

And finally. Our ability to shape Europe's future will be affected. Look at David Cameron's recent 'negotiations' with the EU to see how that works.

Is anyone on Capitalists at Work a Brexiteer (other than CU) ? Any more epiphanies to come ?

I'd like to know when Alan Duncan first felt like a Remainer. I suspect it was a long while ago. I hope a good UKIP candidate wasn't sacrificed at the last general election.

Electro-Kevin said...

I get the tax issue. This has to be argued at face value, I'm afraid.

Nick Drew said...

Kev - FWIIW, until the fatuous 'renegotiations' of last year I was entirely open to persuasion either way, with a basic inclination for Remain, on the long-held grounds (as schooled in boyhood by my father who knew of what he spoke) that trade & constructive engagement is very much better than war

and indeed another underlying feeling that voting Out would be essentially rather juvenile and vandalistic

but the epic and criminal wasted opportunity which the miserable 'new deal' episode represents; the sheer emptiness, lack of ambition or creativity in what Cameron even asked for (let alone 'achieved') causes me to take the Exit side

reinforced by almost everything that has happened since (the single factor in the other direction being George Galloway)

there is so much that could have been obtained (and still might be, IMHO) by a really forceful power-play

Bill Quango MP said...

I'm on the out Train EK. That's a conversion since, about 2000.
But I'm not a strong outer. I could live with an IN result.

But the last time the UK cut free from the EU, with the ERM, there was a great boost for the UK. Seen as a disaster at the time, and largely sinking John Major, it did allow the UK as a nation to operate as one.

I think the leaving 'shock' would prove in time to have been a great benefit.

Electro-Kevin said...

I am slightly autistic, which may explain a few things - my inability to read between lines being one. Thanks for the replies.

I know the fear of war played its part in forming the EU, Nick. But who was going to start that war (yet again) ? It wasn't us, was it ! It wasn't the French or the Belgians.

So the EU was designed to keep the Germans happy and well tempered, was it ?

We have to put up with all this just to tippy-toe around Germany, it seems.

They (the EU) have been very clever as dressing their new nation up as the sophisticated option, and very clever at making people in our nation despise their own and give it up freely. So of course any Britisher wanting out seems juvenile and vandalistic.

Is the word Britisher something you would be proud calling yourself ? Or would it embarass you. If so then why ?

James Higham said...

One would hope so.

Blue Eyes said...

ND you are not pure enough! Splitter!

Bloke in Brum said...

I dont hold with this post-colonial guilt rubbish and I dont know anyone else who does either.
Having German relatives (and being partially German by blood) as well as having lived in Germany, I dont have anything against our European cousins. I would have been quite happy to remain in if it were shown by Cameron that a meaningful influence could have been exerted on the European superstate by those ruling Britain.

What is absolutely clear though, are how utterly useless Cameron, the main political parties and the Civil Service are at looking after the interests of the British people.

Compare and contrast with Trump in the States: he says he is going to build a wall to keep immigrants out, and not only that, he is going to make them pay for it too. Talk about an aggressive negotiating position!

What did Cameron ask for? Not much.

What did he get? Even less.

Considering how powerful our current negotiating position is, this is pathetic. If we vote to remain now, we will be constantly on the back foot in any future negotiations or votes.

The European salami slice tactics are eroding our historic freedoms bit by bit. Our Common Law legal system is being undermined daily and left leaning activist judges and human rights lawyers are busy removing what rights we have left to live our lives free from the interference of the state.

There is not much now that the ordinary voter can do now to influence how our lives are run.

Voting Out, is one of those things.

Electro-Kevin said...

**Edit**

Blue - I'm trying to point out that if there is even the slightest hint of embarassment in calling one's self a Britisher (and I am embarassed) then this is an indication of just how effective the indoctrination and alienation process has been.

Such introspection is needed to realise the paradigm shift that enables us to see the EU's grip on our psyche.

I am not, in any way, questionning ND's purity. (If that's what you meant)

Though I would say to him 'welcome to my world' if he felt that his words were being used against him. It is so SO difficult to express the Brexit view under fire of 'xenophobe', 'thicko', 'odious' or 'RACIST !'.

In most cases I don't believe these accusations to be to further an agenda. I believe them to be a default reaction in the Remainer's brains. Part of the mental defect which makes them think the EU is a good and sustainable idea.

It's me that's the individualist here.

Both Nick and BQ have offered here some cogent and sober reasoning to counter your claims that there are no convincing argumets to leave the EU. I offer you further reading on the subject in my first comment (by all means offer me yours.)

Anonymous said...

To Bloke in Brum .
Well said.

Nick Drew said...

Is the word Britisher something you would be proud calling yourself ?

I think this came up during the Scotty vote + other earlier threads, e.g. here (& if I can be arsed I might scroll back to find some more)

to recap my position: when I was a soldier - particularly in Germany, which was crawling with troops of all the NATO countries - it meant something to be a Brit

I had a job which caused me to drive around a lot in my trusty LR half-ton lightweight: when you drove into a Scottish or Welsh regiment's barracks the feel was very Scottish, or Welsh - but only like Cambridge feels different to Oxford. Any BAOR camp felt utterly different to a German or American outfit - we were Brits, and it meant something

there are dozens of other things non-military which evoke the same ethos for me

(as I said last year the Scotties are to blame for eroding some of that feeling)

So yes, Brit and proud to say so: - but if it has to be English, OK, that'll work

Steven_L said...

I must admit I' confused by politicians tax returns. I mean George Osborne only had enough savings to pay £3 tax. And Nicola Sturgeon zilch. Where does all their money go? Are they all crack heads or something?

Jan said...

I'm definitely an outer. I voted in in the original referendum but since then the EEC/now EU has morphed into something completely different from what we voted for back then. It was supposed to be about being able to trade more freely with European countries. Since then there has been more and more encroachment on our laws and sovereignty bit by bit so we wouldn't notice.

It's nonsense to say the relationships built up over the past 40 odd years will be wiped out. We are much more European now than we were then because of increased travel and increased contact with Europeans both here and on the continent. None of the treaties/trade arrangements etc will be wiped out overnight either so we probably won't notice much difference for ages.

Financially we will be better off too and be able to spend our money how we want to rather than on the whim of the EC.

Blue Eyes said...

SL maybe their savings are in ISAs and investments?

I have Premium Bonds, an ISA, a SIPP, and a current account which pays no interest. My tax return for the last couple of years has had a big fat zero in the interest earnings box.

Electro-Kevin said...

ND - Saying I'm proud to be British or English feels risky. I was not questionning your patriotism nor service here, Nick - but there must be some *polite* company in which it would not go down too well. I've certainly experienced it and would be braced for the "So. What is British/English ?" question, so I avoid the subject.

It would be one of the rare occaisions where I would answer a question with a question. "You tell me what is NOT British/English ?" and the response would have to be a one-world-anything-goes description in which, actually, NOTHING is exclusively British/English.

Thus the country is nullified without vote nor mandate and I am effectively silenced by someone who doesn't believe in British/English as can be proved. (They dare not say any race or culture is NOT B/E)

This is a vital point. It is at the root of our absorption into a supranational body. It is at the root of the abolition of Britain. It is at the root of our doors being flung open to whomsoever can get here. The "What is Englishness ?" question (with the velveted fist of political correctness behind it) is unanswerable if one wants to keep one's job or even avoid arrest - it neutralises the Brexiters and makes patriotism something to be ashamed of.

Add this to the list of things we can't say truthfully that was compiled by Sebastian Weetabix a few days ago.

The only way I can see out... is Out !

Peter S said...

EK: very well put in your last comment (in all of them really, but the last one especially). Thanks for the thought-food.

Electro-Kevin said...

Thank you, Peter

It is thus that the issue of sovereignty is removed from consideration.

You kill nationalism, then you can take sovereignty. Nationalism is a dirty word because the Germans had a problem with it - not us.

There are two competing issues. Economics and sovereignty. The issue of economics cannot ever be proved until events have passed and so the Europhiles draw the fight to that territory ceaselessly.

Sovereignty, however, is indisputable (you either have it or you don't) unless they lie about us being able to be ruled equally by two governments, which they do all the time.

So they tell us nationhood and our culture is all in our head and that sovereignty really doesn't matter anyway.

Steven_L said...

SL maybe their savings are in ISAs and investments?

The things is BE, I bet people though that Paul Flowers 'crystal methodist' chap was the sort of bloke who had ISA or two and a SIPP, then next thing you know there's photos of him toking on the crack pipe in his underpants, with a rent boy.

Are we really supposed to believe they aren't all at it? Those tax returns hardly inspire confidence!

Nick Drew said...

Kev - I don't think he blogs anymore, but someone who could have a very good crack at answering your B/E questions would be 'Newmania' (once of Islington, latterly of Lewes (did you ever meet him?)

nationality, ethnicity etc - he wrote well on them all

his wife is black and he is white but he gives an excellent, highly intelligent account of why she's ethnically British: he strikes a clear, well-reasoned distinction between ethnicity and race

personally I have never tried extensively to articulate my own feelings on these matters much beyond what I wrote above

but I have all manner of odd circles of friends & acquaintances from a bizarre range of contexts (school, military, business, political - people of several parties, including Labour activists - church, residents associations, sport etc etc) and I can't immediately think of any where I wouldn't be relaxed & happy to assert my Brit-ness in much the terms I did above)

to be fair, I have never been a member of a Union ... (and I'm also pretty relaxed & happy at having a verbal dust-up when the occasion demands)

Thud said...

EK, I must move in the wrong (right) circles as I've never had a problem identifying as English/British. As I think you know my family are Viet/Chinese by origin and yet all proudly and in some cases loudly proclaim their Britishness.

Anonymous said...

Pt I.

Was, Duncan ever a democrat at heart? I would aver that, there's very good reason to believe, not.


I've said similar elsewhere, but what gives people (like that jerk Duncan) the idea that, anyone in Brussels has even the remotest sympathy for British requirements and if he's worked that out, then what is he still doing in the job he's paid to do? Forsooth, just another Tory charlatan playing at representative politics and representing nobody but his own interests and isn't that the way of it?

Homogenizing Europe into one size fits all is a bloody awful policy, premised on some damnable Cultural Marxist, Socialist delusion.


But then the popinjay, eejit Empire builders of Berlin, Paris and Brussels are imperious and too set, it's beyond my comprehension.

Chivvying up, as they do to the Fascist nutters in Kiev and where they court and fawn at the feet of the Wahhabist barbarians of the Gulf states but in the same moment name Vladimir Putin as some sort of demon because, he does not sign up to the Internationalist inspired gay rights 'love in'. Where's the logic, where is the consistency in perspective of the Brussels Kommissars and Mangie Erkel's policies, attitudes and judgement? Alack, there is none that I can take note of.
400,000 deaths caused by poor air quality in the EU, some surely attributable to the insane policy of encouraging diesel motors over the petrol car engine because CO2 is somehow deemed to be the greater pollutant - the Nomenklatura knew it but still allowed the German car industry to dictate emissions test procedure - incredible, gross negligence and yet no one but no one is accountable and therein is the real failure.


Anonymous said...

Pt II.

Now, in today's Times, a small article on, EU requiring the Prosecution of whistleblowers anyone who blows the whistle on companies, large organizations will be criminalized. A new EU edict where those passing on 'Trade secrets' can be prosecuted under EU courts.................someone tell me, who thought that one up (NHS or Volkswagon?)? Attack on the free press - you flamin' well betcha.....TELL ME How can that be promoting those oft quoted words in the Stasbourg parliament: "Freedom and democracy" oh FFS....

Throw in, another. The EU shutting down of public information and right to know......or, the 'right to be forgotten' idiocy, where the likes of Max Moseley types can scrub their sordid sexual predilections from the public record and who knows what else EU bureaucrats can get up to...but we'll never know now, will we?


Censorship, is the trademark of authoritarian regimes and in the Paris/Berlin/Brussels axis - we are seeing the formative shaping of a truly Godawful totalitarian monster, it happens because good people do nothing, they are slack jawed as they watch it unfold but do nothing and the technocrats and megalomaniacs know it well.

Aye, it happened before in the Fatherland, in Russia and in China, there is not much to stop it happening again, the grip of the Empire building nutters in Paris/ Berlin/Brussels is tightening, as the erosion continues of the nation states which are being washed away by a human tsunami of immigration, it is planned replacement demographics.
A tide did I say, most of them are adherents of a creed which is non compatible, not to say inimical to the European tradition, it will mean death and blood on the streets, towns and capitals of Europe, it is hard not to conclude that certain elements in the Brussels politburo desire conflict and violence to cement the elites' hegemony.

I don't know about what it is that a fuckwit like Duncan sees in being part of this corporate-statist stitch-up, no doubting that, his vested interests need protecting.
But feigning Euroscepticism and then showing your true colours when it actually cuts to the chase is revealing as it is, quite appalling, Duncan always struck me as a big girly dilettante posing in Westminster bubblehead politics but then he is just one of many.
Resorting to mumbling something about Empire and guilt, substitutes a confused non sequitur as some sort of attempted justification, also typical of his sort of guff.

Out, out for Freedom, voting 'in' means you're for authoritarianism and desire the end of Britain, oh and............better not say that.

Blue Eyes said...

SL I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that because someone doesn't earn any taxable interest they must be on crack ;-)

Having said that, we have all seen that photo of the Chancellor from university days......

It is hard not to be quite proud to be British - this island is up there with the best places to live in the universe! Generally great food and drink, the best city on Earth, amazing countryside, history, culture, a thriving economy, the occasional decent sunny day.

I especially like that anyone can be a Brit by deciding to be one. It is more an attitude and state of mind than a birth trait. And best of all we can still be Brits in a federal Europe, if we choose to be :-)

Electro-Kevin said...

Thud - I've been questioned on it on this site in recent days. I was questioned on it on a guitar site in the run-up to the general election (someone else raised the issue of UKIP and I defended them.)

In the mess room anyone who dares speak about mass immigration is hounded down with "What is Englishness anyway ?" and so I am doubtless that the closer one gets to the Islington set the more taboo the subject becomes.

Nick - Newmania. A blast from the past ! His site was my first forray into blogging, where I was encouraged to start blogging myself. A good man indeed.

I am of the Ska/Northern Soul generation and have never known any other than mixed race Englishness. It was my generation that made multiculturalism work in London.

New Labour utterly ruined it !

Blue Eyes said...

On this site, you said that we needed cultural protectionism, citing with approval a Peter Hitchens article. I asked very simply what it is about our culture that you think is under threat, what needs protecting, and the third possibly unasked question was "how".

My reasoning was two-pronged. First, I do not think that our national culture is in decline. Secondly, as culture in the form of tastes and practices is entirely voluntary, I am interested in how culture might have been undermined by or could be protected/nurtured by government policy.

I did NOT challenge anyone's patriotism nor their right to express their patriotism. I am very patriotic myself. I just don't know what it is I am supposed to be worried about from New Labour/immigration/whatever else.

andrew said...

The thing that May tip me into the brexit camp is Merkel agreeing to prosecute the comedian for taking the piss out of erdogan.
There is sharing sovereignty and then there is betraying your countries core values

Anonymous said...

Up to date on the police ARV (Armed Response Vehicles)

Expected deployment time to anywhere in the county is 30 mins.

The rifles are Glock G36s on a max setting of semi auto to prevent the muzzle rising

CS gas was discontinued ten years ago because of contamination issues and replaced with pepper spray.

The cars are also equipped with Enforcer door rams and Hoolie bars for enabling armed entry.

(Apropos previous thread)

-----

Blue - That you're not worried is what makes me worried. You are prone to insinuate xenophobia on the subject of mass immigration.

E-K

Blue Eyes said...

Andrew, Merkel has allowed the prosecution to go ahead as a test case. The whole point of the sketch was to test the law. Merkel has already said that she intends to repeal the offence that he is being charged under. She is allowing the prosecution to go head precisely because she wants the courts to make it clear that there is freedom of speech in Germany.

EK thank you for your concern.

Electro-Kevin said...

Don't mention it. Almost a pleasure.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at part 1 and 2
You have a wonderful way with words.

Anonymous said...

Alan Duncan is the chap who IIRC while already a millionaire arranged to pay for the elderly chap next door to buy his council house - on condition it went to him on the buyer's death. The property was in the wonderfully named Gayfere Street.

I'd always assumed Thatcher's idea was for working people to become property owners, not to further enrich wide boys. The fact of his continuing career and elevation in the party tells you all you need to know about the modern Conservative Party.