Who Are the Real Brexiters?

Who are the people who bankrolled the Leave campaigns during the 2016 EU referendum?

If they were some of the ultra rich Western oligarchs they have certainly achieved the primary purpose of maintaining the UK as the premier tax haven hub outside the new EU tax regulations. However they must be somewhat dismayed by the shambles this government is making of running post-Brexit UK.

If, on the other hand, it was Russians then that is a different matter. It is reasonable to, at least, speculate that it was Russian money that largely paid for the campaign as their interference in the American election is well documented. The team was well chosen and organised and Dominic Cummings may well have been recruited after his years in Moscow. Johnson was and is just an added bonus. He is a Johnny Come Lately, self-publicist and narcissist with a focus entirely on himself. However, the chaos and disruption he has brought upon the UK was unplanned for and must have gone beyond their wildest dreams. Not only has it weakened the EU but they now have nation destabilising the Western power bloc. Money well spent!

Referendums or Even Referenda

The time would appear to be ripe for further government by the people. In spite of being a representative democracy the UK members of parliament have decided to honour the result of the EU referendum whatever their own positions on the desirability of Brexit; this even though the referendum was advisory.

While Westminster is in the mood to meekly accept the result of any referendum how about some more…

• one to ban drinking on Sunday
• one banning Fox Hunting
• another to abolish the House of Lords
• another to bring back the death penalty
• even one to turn the UK into a republic so we can have a Trump like president of our own.

Brexit Casual

I am appalled by the casualness of Brexit from Cameron’s initial blunder to the schoolboy antics of the Brexit ministers.

Brexit whichever side you are on is the most momentous event in the history of Britain for several centuries. It completely alters our post war situation in the global framework. It will take years to complete and  may well have side effects across Europe.

And yet every politician involved right from the start has treated it in much the same way as they would play Monopoly. Not a single one of them is confronting the appalling situation the UK finds itself in. Likewise the Main Stream Media are one and all  acting on their own paltry agendas including apparently the BBC.

History will come  to regard 2016 as the zenith of of madness in a dangerous world, the culmination of years of self-indulgence by the British political elite.

Demagogues as Leaders

Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump are all part of the same phenomenon, the disruption of the status quo. The number of  voters who are unsatisfied with the way they are treated by the system has reached a critical mass and the result has confounded pollsters and pundits alike.

It is unfortunate that the people who have exploited this revolution have proved to be inadequate at least and in the some cases demagogues of the worst kind.

Migrants are People too

The EU and particularly France and the UK have a refugee problem which is rapidly getting out of control. Let’s say that in Calais the French and UK police manage to stop any migrants getting near the Channel tunnel. This will lead to a steady build up of more and more people squatting in and around Calais. The flow of refugees from Africa and the Middle East is accessing the EU far away in the South so stopping the flow at Calais is not going to stop the EU ingress.

However doing nothing will only make the flow increase. Apparently millions of people around the world are on the move filling refugee camps in the Middle East and elsewhere. It is like an unstoppable force of nature. Maybe not stoppable but it can be better managed like the rechanneling of a river. Taking in refugees at one end, preparing them for another life elsewhere and then letting them move on.

I can only tentatively suggest that Europe has to create accommodation for refugees, work with their existing skills and add to them through education and training to make them citizens that other countries will wish to take on. For example the UK is importing huge numbers of nurses from countries which can ill afford to lose them. If the UK created a surplus of nurses through refugee training, those countries might not lose out so badly.

As it is the current UK and French policies are counterproductive, absorbing huge resources of money and manpower and not solving the problem.

Reactive Government

It seems more and more as if this Tory government makes policy as a reaction to any current environment.

The EU referendum was David Cameron’s answer to UKIP but the consequences of that promise have landed the UK in yet another confrontation with the EU and probably months if not years of distractions.

£12bn of cuts is a figured plucked from the air to look good in a manifesto and yet the IFS has stated (reported in the Guardian)

The cuts that the government announces later this year in next month’s Budget and the following Spending Review may turn out to be deliverable. But they certainly will not feel like is just 1% being taken out of each area of spending, nor will it require merely “£13 billion from departmental savings” as the Conservative manifesto described. While not inaccurate, these numbers give a misleading impression of what departmental spending in many areas will look like if the manifesto commitment to eliminate the deficit by 2018–19, largely through spending cuts, while not cutting spending in many areas, is to be met.

But we also hear that George Osborne is keen to sell RBS at a £13bn discount.

Where is the consistency?

#GE15 How Trivial Can It Get?

Both major parties are terrified to expose their real agendas in this campaign. In particular the Tories are throwing up trivial promises to obscure the real issues. The latest “3 paid days for volunteering” linked to the so called “Big Society” is a nonsense. I have volunteered for one thing after another most of my life – I have an MBE in recognition – and I cannot see anybody ringing any voluntary body and saying “Can I volunteer for the next three days?” is going to be welcomed. It would just be a nuisance.

But the Tories daren’t explain

• TTIP which will effectively hands the UK to global corporations
• totally failing to reform the financial service industry as recorded by Ann Pettifor http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Money-Society-Despotic-Finance-ebook/dp/B00HTAI3YY
• their ideology regarding benefits and welfare aiming to reduce them to a minimum and falsely including pensions as a benefit. Why do we pay NI?
• frighteningly naïve foreign policy reported on in the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/07/david-cameron-failure-fuelled-british-jihadism

Why on earth are they not challenged? Perhaps because Labour knows it will be exposed for similar policies.

So let’s both stick to trivia!

Commonwealth Games – Scottish Independence

Watching the opening ceremony last night it struck me how many small nations and regions go to make up the Commonwealth and  how many were never part of the British Empire but have asked to join in recent years.

It would appear that an independent Scotland could do worse than cultivate relationships across the entire spectrum of Commonwealth countries. The UK has been too pre-occupied with the EU and the USA for many years now to pay real attention to the them. As a small nation with great strengths, expertise and agility Scotland could benefit hugely from membership. Just one example, the majority of the Commonwealth population is young and we need to bolster our demographics in that respect. There could be mutual benefits in that area alone.

Of course as Tax Expert, Richard Murphy, has highlighted many Commonwealth countries are tax havens. We might need to avoid contamination in that respect.

Foreign Countries – rUK and Scotland

One of the fears being put about regarding Scottish Independence is that the rest of the UK will become a foreign country like alien, unwelcoming, to be avoided.

There is no need for that attitude. The mature Commonwealth countries like Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada and South Africa regard themselves as part of the British family of nations and many other countries value their membership of the British Commonwealth. In fact countries actually ask to join so there must be some benefits.

There is absolutely no reason why Scotland should not be in exactly the same position vis-a-vis the remaining parts of the UK. I will not think of going abroad if I go on a day trip to Newcastle and I trust that English, Welsh and Irish visitors to Edinburgh or Glasgow will feel equally at home.

In many areas of international relations I am sure Scotland and rUk will have identical goals and aspirations and I am equally sure both countries will support each other in many different ways, big and small.

In fact I would be very surprised if relations between Holyrood and Westminster will not be better in future.