Monday, 6 June 2016

Panic is an Ugly Spectacle. Bring On Merkel

That's it, really.  Project Fear is failing and panic has set in. 

And I'm not sure the Remainders know how to parley their panic into anything more attractive.  Running focus groups would be a good line of business to be in right now - they'll be commissioning ten a day from here on in.  ("... and how would your feelings change if we told you George Galloway would be Prime Minister if we leave?  Kim Jong-un?  Bill Cash?  Richard North?  Fred West?")

Can't wait for the promised intervention from Merkel!  (Or was that it ..?)



Nil Desperandum said...

I despair of the the whole farce. On one side you have a privileged elite who are telling us things will be better if the man in the street were to believe them.


And 40 years ago we had another privileged elite who told us things will be better if the man in the street were to believe them.

Understand Mr Daltry he of "Won't get fooled again" is adamant this time, he won't get fooled again, having been fooled.

andrew said...

Remainers are panicking because they are currently unable to properly counter a truth-free campaign.

Making borderline racist comments (obama), Offensive comments (major is a loon), Flat lies (we will be 350m a day better off), Straw Man comments (Cameron says the EU has guaranteed peace ... he didnt say that)

Spending that 350m many times over.

That we will have access to the EU common market without freedom of movement will just not work. No. they wont let us.

I feel sorry for Farage etc as the antics of Johnson/Gove/etc have simply poisoned the well of debate.

The remainders are not much better but have stopped short of flat out repeated lies (so far).

There are many good reasons for brexit, and for staying. For an average person as mentioned before I don't see a lot of difference as the country is already over-centralised. A decision made by a faceless functionary in london is not much different to a faceless functionary in Brussels if you live in Bristol.

Personally I will vote in not because I have any faith in the EU - in fact I do think we will be slightly (but not much) worse off if in in the long term.

I will vote in because handing a victory to those who peddle lies and make things up that sound good at the time -
Letting them get away with it because they bluff, are amusing, are allowed to answer the question they wanted to be asked -
is more corrosive to the proper long term democratic running of the UK than being in the EU.

Elby the Beserk said...

All we need now is to Erdi to tell Mutti to get stuffed and Remain is stuffed. Onwards Christian Soldiers!!!

Thought. We keep being told we will/won't be liable for future bail outs. No mention of the fact that EU law states that bail outs are illegal. Laws? Like taxes, just for the little people

Demetrius said...

There are Merkels at the bottom of your Cameron.

dearieme said...

I imagine that by now most people view Merkel as a daft old bat. All for one teensie-weensie mistake. It's so unfair.

Still, for those who enjoy Roman history there's an ironic pleasure that this time it's the Germans who've invited the barbarian hordes in.

DtP said...

I think a lot of people have become disillusioned so much that there may be quite a few votes for Brexit just to make it stop. I hope so.

I think we should leave just for kicks.

Anonymous said...


So they're going to wave their 80Bn trade surplus they have with us away?

BMW/Mercedes are going to let Merkel throw away 10% of their turnover in pique?

Yeah there might be some hard negotiating - but they have more to lose than we do.

Any the trade issue isn't the main one - its about democratic accountability.

andrew said...

I think we should leave just for kicks.

... one of the better reasons for going.

It really seems it has come to "Whose career do you want to end - Camerons or Johnsons"

As which point many will ask "what do I do to get rid of both" (me too)

Because of the nastiness and lies for many, it is not about the EU anymore.

And that is why I feel sorry for people with principles like Major and Farage.

Anonymous said...

Sterling is looking a bit soft against the $ and Euro. Buy now or take a position?

DtP said...

@Andrew - yeah, I know it's terrible and unworthy but I've been a Tory now for just over 7 years and the thought of having to compete with all these Europeans if I accidently get promoted is unacceptable. Sure - would love to make a go of it but if we only get asked every 40 years then I'll be slightly dead probly by take 3 so...gets the popcorn out (well, Champers and pizzas - having quite a decent party hopefully)

Bill Quango MP said...

I'm still voting out. Because no harm can come from it.
A successful Leave vote on the 23rd will only result in the start of fresh proposals from the Eu for a much better UK deal on the 24th.

They won't want to. But will have to.
And the market shakes and economic dip will convince enough to vote 'stay' on the second referendum on the new, improved, EU membership of 2017.

Y Ddraig Goch said...

I find the Remainiacs collective meltdown a bit puzzling. It's obvious that we won't actually leave - there's no majority for it in Parliament and Whitehall will sabotage any attempt in that direction even if someone tries. So what's the problem? If we vote in, they have their way and if we vote out they still have their way.


Well, you are a lot closer to this than I am, however, my impression is that the EU, and their UK cronies, will simply re-double their efforts to fabricate "consent" with absolutely no concessions of any kind. So we are more likely to see something like: a deliberately orchestrated stream of economic bad news (with a large side order of BBC I-told-you-so); gerrymandering the electorate to make it more EU friendly (eg lower the voting age to 16); and lots of finger-wagging from Brussels, Washington, the IMF and the rest, that any and every crisis that flares up in the world after the 23rd has been caused by the Brexit vote.

I'm still voting out though.

Graeme said...

Andrew, I am curious that you do not think that the Remain team have just been parading a stream of bullshit/lies. They are no more factual than the Brexiteers.

dearieme said...

Here's the real gen. Cameron thinks we should leave.

Threats and blackmail, however, from the EU and USA have obliged him to claim otherwise. The hysterical shrieking from his camp is just his way of letting us know that he believes not a word of his case. It must be frustrating for him that so many of us have failed to interpret his frantic signalling correctly.

Nick Drew said...

dearieme - I wonder, if you are right abt Cameron, whether he might (just might) be exactly the right person to carry out post-Brexit negotiations ...

... nah

Michael said...

I decided to leave years before we were lied to by Cameron. I suffered the Grocer's heinous lies in the seventies as well, but I was much younger then.

My county is overrun with problems being closest to the continent, and I'm fed up with every Tomas, Dich and Hari coming here first and buggering up my roads and Dover in particular. And I don't even live there!

And I'm 69 next month, and I want my grandchildren to have a country with something to be proud of, not a lousy EU passport, run by unelected idiots.

And another thing...

And bollocks to the EU trade issues, they're all crappily presented and untrue. And stuff the BBC as well, they're so bad at wanting to remain in the sort of environment we all really loathe.

Jim said...

" I feel sorry for people with principles like Major and Farage"

I didn't see Major piping up about lies when the Remain team came up with the '£4300 worse off' statistic.

Major has no more principles than any of the other pro-EU traitors. It was him that got us into this mess in the first place by forcing through the Maastricht Treaty - that was where the EU changed from a trade body to a prototype State.

DJK said...

The same impulse that makes Americans vote for The Donald will make people here vote for Brexit --- sod the lot of them. As Bill says, there will be a serious EU offer on the day after a Leave vote, and another referendum to endorse it.

As for John Major, his credibility as an economic forecaster was destroyed on Black Wednesday 1992 --- and the same goes for the usual suspects (CBI, FT, LSE, etc) who all said it was vital to remain in the ERM, and later said we should join the Euro.

Electro-Kevin said...

Andrew 12.23

The £350m claim is correct. It is the gross amount per ONS figures. The rebate is not guaranteed and it is granted to us with strings. And then we must put the EU flag on projects to publicise the munificence of the EU - to the extent that Wales and the managers of The Eden Project honestly think that the money comes from the EU and not the British taxpayer.

A big lie is the £4700 impact on households by Remain on pages 18/19 of this House of Commons Treasury Committee report: "Roger Bootle described the figures that come from such analyses as '...verging on the intellectually dishonest' "

A range of figures should have been presented rather than a hard and fast number.

See the full statement here:

Had Boris been racist towards the leader of the free world we can guarantee that he would have been prosecuted for it. If not then we must presume innocence. With crime there is no 'borderline' about it. You either are a criminal or you aren't and commenting on what might motivate a politician is a perfectly valid (if imprudent) thing to do. Especially when he's just threatened the citizens of your country.

Electro-Kevin said...

Andrew - Not even the BBC claims to know what deal would be struck as regards access to the single market post Brexit. So how do you ?

Last year we had a £68bn trade deficit with the EU so are in a strong negotiating position.

Electro-Kevin said...

Nil Desperandum - Michael Gove was adopted by a fish plant manager and his laboratory assistant wife. Hardly a privileged start.

(Gove was brilliant against Faisal Islam)

Nigel Farage was raised by a single mum and Priti Patel is the daughter of Ugandan refugees.

Electro-Kevin said...

Andrew - Another big lie from Remain is that "9 out of ten economists say that Brexit will be bad for the UK economy."

Well this shows that only 17% of the 3000 odd economists invited to participate bothered to reply.

But the biggest lie of all is by Cameron himself. Only a year ago he told us that he'd campaign for Brexit if he didn't get the deal he wanted, yet today it's "Brexit will put a bomb under our economy."

andrew said...

EK, v.v. good report

In the committees words on the 350m pw claim

...Vote Leave has subsequently placed the £350m figure on its campaign bus, and on much of its recent campaign literature. The public should discount this claim. Vote Leave’s persistence with it is deeply problematic. It sits very awkwardly with its promises to the Electoral Commission to work in a spirit that reflects its “very significant responsibility” and the “gravity of the choice facing the British people”

my interpretation is - it is a bare faced lie that they persist in using.

On your 4,700 claim

Indeed, the limitations of the Treasury’s approach are exposed by some counter-intuitive results from their analysis, buried in
the appendices, such as the finding that EU membership does not act as a significant draw for inward investment from outside the EU. The Treasury is, however, clear about how the £4,300 figure is derived

The recommendation is that the chancellor should have said that the likely reduction in household income will be in a range of 3,200 to 5,400

my interpretation is - a bit dodgy, but not completely out of line with other mainstream studies on the same issue.

There is a nice picture on pg 19 showing the various estimates and they are overwhelmingly indicating a loss of income.

On access deals post brexit

So far, free movement has been a non-negotiable part of the single market and EU membership. Just as Boris Johnson and others are almost certainly mistaken to think that the UK could retain unfettered access to EU goods and services markets while ending free movement after leaving the EU, so the Prime Minister was almost certainly mistaken–as is indicated by the contents of the new settlement–to have concluded at the outset of the negotiations that he could succeed in substantially restricting free movement while remaining in the EU.

my interpretation is - no, they wont let us.

Underneath it all, it is the russian approach to politics.
You start with a weak hand, so you put forwards barefaced lies, when called out, call the others liars too, add some personal insults and strawman arguments.
After a while all the public hear is people shouting abuse at each other and appealing to the public's baser emotions, no-one believes anything.
You now have about a 50% chance.

Anonymous said...

What all the EU elite do not seem to realise is that the majority of the population of Europe is getting pissed off with their antics.Hence the rise in the smaller and generally more extreme parties.Those governing, whether elected or appointed, should remember and take lessons from history, if you piss off enough people for long enough, they get violent,and it never ends well for those at the top. Just ask Marie Antoinette .

Sebastian Weetabix said...

@Andrew: figures, figures, figures. It's all supposition and all wrong. And i also don't care. It is not about economics, it is about being able to fire the stupid dangerous bastards who set our laws.

Cameron, Osborne, Major and the rest of them are just a bunch of lying Quisling shits.

Electro-Kevin said...

Andrew. A few days ago I asked a well regarded commenter what he thought of the £350m quibble and he sent me this reply:

"In my view the Treasury select committee was wrong to home in on the mere mechanics of payment and criticise the £350 million a week figure because the refunds from previous years are deducted from the payments for the current year before they are made, arguing that therefore the money never leaves the country."

Half way down the page. It is complex and boring and that's because it's meant to be complex and boring.

The PM didn't just fail to directly restrict free movement in his recent negotiations - he failed to limit the obviously unfair (to us) benefits that act as a draw to free movement.

This on the eve of a referendum demanded by our people because of immigration. When he should have been at his strongest.

This issue is all about sovereignty. Our right to decide for ourselves. Migration has drawn attention to our loss of sovereignty and it is now taboo to bang on about migration - but you try selling a concept to people, so instead it's '£350m' and 'NHS' on the side of the battle bus, to take it to the front line of the Remainers' campaign.

Leaves' don't have the biggest problem with the truth - Remain do and the public seem to have rumbled it according to polls.

I can't see a reversal in Leaves' advances because there aren't any big guns left to be fired and bad news from the Med (and now the Channel) is just going to keep on coming.

Anyone who is intending to vote remain ought to be doing so enthusiastically and ought to be at least as familiar with EU politics and the characters in it as our own. The EU is not in a steady state or finished form - it has a lot of changes to undergo yet and thus far it is not going well. A leap in the dark to stay.

Electro-Kevin said...

Andrew - Mr Cameron didn't ask for direct restrictions on free movement because Mrs Merkel told him not to even go there.

Nick Drew said...

there aren't any big guns left to be fired

Kev - I very much agree with you that there are more deeply unhelpful Events in the pipeline for the Remainders to try to spin away: but no more big guns?

OK, they've enlisted all the personnel they can drum up (Ali and Mandela being dead), but Guns are exactly what they've got

if (as I expect) ISIS lets rip at Euro2016, you watch what happens then

Nil Desperandum said...

As well as in despair, I'm now confused as there appears to be two schools of thought here.

The first is a total exit for the EU and never return. The second is vote Leave to get a better deal as the EU is not bad, it's just not fair.

If the former are in the majority, then it will all be over on 24th and life can get back to normal. If it is the latter, it appears there will be some form of EU groundhog day when the arguments will be going on ad nauseam.

Should I slip my wrists now?

andrew said...

You forget the pope - we have not heard from him yet.

James Higham said...

Getting a bit nervous here.

Elby the Beserk said...

YouGov survey notes that folks thinks the politicos will still try to stuff us even if we vote Leave. I have to say, I would be very surprised if they don't, and am currently investing in pitchforks, piano wires and tumbrils.

One of the huge bonuses of the referendum is that it is making plain that most of us are sick to death of these shysters running the shop - here and in Brussels.


dearieme said...

"You forget the pope - we have not heard from him yet."

He just wants the Falklands surrendered.

Jim said...

Re the £350m a day 'cost' of the EU: look at it this way - if you belong to a club that costs £X in subscription, but you can go and have a free dinner there once a week if you like, plus they put on a free bus that takes you to the hospital and local shops, what is the cost to you? Is it the actual cash outlay, or the cash outlay minus the value of the 'free' services you could avail yourself of? What if you don't really want a bus service, and don't fancy their cooking? You might prefer the cash cost to be less up front and pay for your own transport and meals.

Don't forget one of the largest amounts of money the UK gets back from the EU is farm subsidies - can one honestly say that there are not more popular ways of spending several billion pounds in the UK than giving it to farmers (and I am a farmer)?

If you don't decide how money is spent, its not really yours, regardless of whether someone else decides to let you benefit from some of it. Anyone who thinks otherwise can give me all their money and I will give it back to them straight away. Honest, I will. Well for a while anyway, there are costs to running this club you know........

Blue Eyes said...

Great comments and a proper discussion here, and no personal attacks! What is going on?

I don't have any children yet, but I am appalled by the nonsense on both sides. My once-high opinion of Dave and George has crashed. In November Dave said that the UK could thrive outside the EU, now he says that leaving would put a bomb under the economy. Was he lying then or is he lying now? Does he think we can't see the scenery moving?

George says we will be poorer in the long-run, but his assumption is that he will be incompetent if we vote to Leave.

On the other side Boris and Gove claim to be pro-immigration and yet are hammering the anti-immigration drum.

I am voting to Leave, for various reasons, but O don't really mind if we stay. What I do mind is how our domestic politics has been totally crashed by this discussion. It could have been so much more high-minded...

AndrewZ said...

An intervention from Merkel is more likely to help “leave” than “remain”. Firstly, because a German leader telling Britons about their future in Europe will push a lot of emotional buttons among some sections of the electorate. Secondly, because Merkel is now so strongly associated with the migrant crisis that it would only remind people of the “leave” campaign’s claims about unrestricted immigration from the EU. The only way Merkel could help “remain” would be if her intervention provoked such a furious response from some “leave” supporters that the reaction became the story. But since “remain” have been smearing “leave” as xenophobic little-Englanders from the very beginning, most people would probably dismiss the story as more of the same so it wouldn’t have much effect.