Sunday 27 December 2020

Unreconstructed Remainers: The Last Outing

There are those Remainers like Grayson Perry who after 2016 acquired a modicum of reflective humility about how little they probably represent those whom they once thought they spoke for. 

But there are plenty who did not.  The Graun, which these days rarely opens its CiF pieces for BTL comments (which itself speak volumes) has today seen fit to open the floodgates under a Brexit piece.  And what a deluge it is; some 2,000 gobbets of turgid Remainerist bile, deposited in a mere three hours on a Christmas Sunday morning.

The Comment piece that sits grandly above it is from none other than Will Hutton, the man who destroyed that once estimable institution the Industrial Society, a story for another day.  Funnily enough, while predicting we'll be back to the EU on our knees within the decade, even Hutton is obliged to acknowledge a list of detailed achievements the UK made in last week's trade agreement.  No such qualifying remarks in the bilge below, which as a body of unrestrained online echo-chamber emotion could serve as a data-source for a psycho-sociological thesis on the low intellectual content of metropolitan *progressive* thought.

What's perhaps most striking is the sheer raging impotence of it, what with Starmer whipping in for a supportive vote in Parliament.  That'll be the next major belly-laugh on offer in this bleak Covid midwinter.

Although many of these people will still be fuming in their smart progressive sitting rooms and their rancid progressive bedsits for years to come, I can't see there being many more outburst-outings quite like this one.

ND  

20 comments:

dearieme said...

Quislings.

Sobers said...

One suspects that the Remainer Sulk will rival that of the arch Euro-enthusiast himself, Ted Heath. A suitable way to top and tail the UK's failed experiment with grand European ideals.

Don Cox said...

There were similar reactions when Henry VIII threw off the rule of Rome. And we may well see a remainer like Bloody Mary in power at some point.

It took over a century and a half to settle -- James II was perhaps the last remainer then, unless you count Cardinal Newman.

Being an island nation not far off shore is an insoluble geopolitical problem. It's easier for the Japanese as they are much further from China than we are from France. You can't (I think) swim from China to Japan.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

James II was the legitimate British monarch, overthrown by a foreign (Dutch) invasion force, which was invited to invade by traitors who wanted a Dutch ruler instead of a British one.

So identifying James with the remainer cause is a bit odd.

-- EC

Anonymous said...

Being an island nation not far off shore is an insoluble geopolitical problem.

True. Time to bring the Martello towers back into use then.

Don Cox said...

James was a Catholic. The English were determined not to be ruled by a corrupt bureaucracy in Rome (or Brussels).

Certainly it was a coup, but a welcome one.

As for the millions of colonists in Britain today, I think the movement is driven by their own ambitions and fears rather than by a political plot. The colonists that I meet are almost all good people; it's just that you can have too much of a good thing. The Huguenots and Jews who came here in previous centuries have been entirely beneficial, but they came in much smaller numbers. Likewise the Poles after WWII.

Don Cox

jim said...

Rarely look at the Graun website and even more rarely the articles - the begging distresses me. Thanks for the link though, Hutton explains Brexit fairly well. We have been sold a pup. Brexit was not a football match to be decided on a coin toss, it is a serious change to all our lives. No credible economic case has been made, the sovereignty argument is still nonsense. We are stuck with the same old economic realities and told to suck it up and like it. Reasonable people may object.

Not as if Boris can wheel out some shiny new engine to drop into the UK economic machine. We still have an overstuffed House of Lords, we still have too many MPs all located in a crumbling Victorian Gothic pile. A glance at speeches in the HoC shows clearly the paucity of debates, just an elaborate gameshow.

We have not located a new source of intellectual genius to help us, all we have is the same old faces. No change is in the offing and those same old faces are looking to be take the greatest possible advantage of their positions while the music still plays.

By Wednesday Boris will have his Brexit and we can all look forward to levelling up with seamless trade blah blah blah. The curry combed unicorns can be let out of their stables and the arc lights on the sunny uplands turned on. As if, instead the long boring reality of Brexit begins. Snag is that it has no economic or logical foundations, it must necessarily fall apart.

The promises cannot be kept, they will drift away as will trade and money. Our systems have not changed and likely cannot change. Over the next few years the impossibility of the Brexit project will become clear and the dissenting voices will get louder and more confident and even make it to the Mail and dare I say the Telegraph.

Sobers said...

" We have been sold a pup. Brexit was not a football match to be decided on a coin toss, it is a serious change to all our lives."

The same could be said in 1975.......when all those in favour swore blind that it wasn't a serious change at all. If the EU of 2015 had been visible to the voters of of 1975 they'd have run a mile, so all the Brexit vote of 2016 did was right the wrongs of the lies of 1975.

DJK said...

The Graun comments were just sad. Imagine being consumed by that much hatred.

As for being sold a pup, the EU has always been a work in progress. The status quo was never an option, since the EU is constantly evolving. (Coming next: EU army and direct fiscal transfers from the richer to the poorer.) The Brexit vote was as much about a rejection of the direction of travel as it was about dislike of the EU as it was in 2016.

Nick Drew said...

Very fair commentary, Jim, but

@ it has no economic or logical foundations, it must necessarily fall apart

That's like opposing a declaration of war, on the grounds that trade will be disrupted. It's true, but it's not the point

On another tack:
@ the dissenting voices will get louder and more confident and even make it to the Mail and dare I say the Telegraph

certainly! - the Telegraph ran for weeks, through the autumn and early winter of this year, with long special-pleading articles clearly written by/for UK industrial lobby groups bemoaning their fate under Brexit of any but the most BRINO nature

and the Mail is capable of reverse-ferret manoeuvres as nimble as the Sun, when it so decides (and, which is often even funnier, accommodating two-headed ferrets pointing in different directions in the same edition)

andrew said...

Sadly both rabid remainers and rabid brexiters are both sadly mistaken and correct at the same time.

This is real life and not an experiment. There is no other uk that remained in the EU or exited on WTO terms.

On soverignity:
When you make an international agreement you give away some sovereignty in return of some rights (to sell to) another country.

We have (re)gained some freedoms from leaving the EU. What will we do with those freedoms?
As a trading nation the easy answers are to become more american, or more Chinese (there are other -better- answers out there but i doubt we have the wit or the ability to pull it off*)

On will we be better or worse off:
Probably a bit worse off, but not so much anyone will notice (unless events)

There can be on triumphalism or bitter recrimination here.

Only more argument.

Happy new year.

(* suggest a post on theme of now we are free, what will we do with it?
As i am sure us BTLers have better ideas than most of HMG)

E-K said...

"Not as if Boris can wheel out some shiny new engine to drop into the UK economic machine. We still have an overstuffed House of Lords, we still have too many MPs all located in a crumbling Victorian Gothic pile. A glance at speeches in the HoC shows clearly the paucity of debates, just an elaborate gameshow."

True. Hopefully our votes now mean that we can change all of that.

Brexit didn't come out of nowhere. The People sent warnings time and time again - mostly in polls and in voting for manifesto pledges which were quickly dropped on election.

Old BE said...

Hoping that this will be the end of the tortuous debate. Out, and hopefully only with a whimper of customs faff.

I voted Remain (as if you didn’t all know) but immediately put the result first. If a country votes to leave then doesn’t or can’t then it proves that democracy is dead. The Will Huttons of this world could not and still apparently will not accept that being a democratic society trumps any particular policy choice made by the electorate. The alternative would be madness.

I was frustrated because voting to Leave almost inevitably seemed to lead to a chaotic No Deal departure because of EU attitudes to Empire, and the shrill twattery of the Hard Remainers.

So let’s applaud Boris and his team for finding a way out which doesn’t result in huge change on day one, but also allows us to drift apart in areas we decide we might want to - democratically. This is the Hannan Brexit deal, in effect.

I suspect the vast majority of people (outside the commentariat) will look forward to starting 2021 thinking ahead, not to the past.

Old BE said...

Back? They were basically obsolete by the time they were built. And don’t easily convert to AirBnbs either....

Nick Drew said...

Andrew - @ suggest a post on theme of now we are free, what will we do with it?

am already compiling some interesting prognostications BTL on several recent posts here

Anonymous said...

Oh, that isn't the last outing. There are still enough sour grapes about to produce some vintage whines.

As for if we're economically better/worse off out, no one knows. All depends on the UK government here on out.

From a political position, we've exited at an odd time - the notion of imperialism is coming back in vogue, and there are debates as to just how beneficial frictionless trade is. Like a delicious choccy bar, there's a nice hit, but there are questions as to what overindulgence will do, and boy have we overindulged over the last few decades.

I'm intrigued how we'll act towards China and the Saudis (are we just trading who we are supplicant to?), and also the internal UK economy. Are we going to reduce our reliance on imports? Or are we going to increase reliance on cheap imports?

How about increasing education across the nation? Ramping up new technologies? Protecting existing ones? How are we going to play the Commonwealth into this?

And how are our politicians going to handle no longer having a continent of human shields to hide behind?

And how are we going to play the various sides getting their Risk boards out? We're in no position to take a seat, but that doesn't mean we can't have influence.

The ten-a-penny Cassandras on either side can predict what they like, we'll get a clearer view in another 5 years or so, until then it's just a large amount of questions.

CityUnslicker said...

well Brexit means Brexit and we have now done brexit.

With the pandemic getting worse by the second the next 3-6 months are not going to be about brexit, which is a terrible thing becuase it means a lot of us not making it, but a good thing in political terms because it means the heat will just start to go out of the fire.


The Andrew Adonis of let's get back in as quickly as possible is a very minority sport, as the Lib Dems found out.

Anonymous said...

Not quite OT - this is the sort of thing that makes you wonder if Gates microchip paranoia is so irrational after all.

"Spain is to set up a registry of people who refuse to be vaccinated against coronavirus and share it with other European Union nations, the health minister has said."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55471282

Nick Drew said...

passporting - positive or negative - is bound to be registry-based: no paper chitty or even QR code is forgery-proof

Anonymous said...

Now they tell us!

https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/12/20/study-investigates-effects-of-covid-19-vaccine-on-male-fertility/

Inshallah old boys should have done their reproducing by now, but it would be bad to render sterile all our young male medics.