Five Tangible Benefits of the EU

Rhetorical tricks don't always work the way you want them to.  Early on in the referendum campaign, before I had started thinking about it much, Nigel Farage was on the television. At this point I still found him refreshingly different from other politicians so I listened to what he was saying.  He said to imagine we were outside the EU.  Would we want to join?  It was a clever way of putting it because it implied that we obviously wouldn't.  It was very effective because it meant you had to either accept his  assertion or come up with a positive reason to join the EU.  So it was harder work to disagree with him than to accept his premise.

What if we Brexit and nobody turns up?

Pro-Brexit Campaigners Failed to Fill Parliament Square

As I write there may still be some pro-Brexit supporters in London but it is already clear that a protest that I have seen promoted on leaver blogs and groups online for several weeks now has been a complete flop.  The Sun and the Express are talking it up but the more reliable media are suggesting that attendees only just got into three figures.  This is pretty pathetic.  I have always felt that the whole anti-EU thing was pretty shallow and was only kept going by increasing hysterical coverage in the media.  But even I thought they could muster more than a church hall's worth of activists.

The True Farage Revealed - A Quisling.

Quisling collaborating with Nazis

I suppose if you aren't very old and don't read WW2 history books you might not have come across the term quisling.  It comes from the major who fronted the puppet government of Norway during the German occupation.  His name for some reason became the generic term for anyone who collaborates with the enemy in this way, with the extra implication that the motivation is to exert some power over their fellow countrymen on the back of occupying forces.

Labour's 170 Questions

The Labour Party has quite enough problems of its own without Brexit to add to them.  But as it happens Brexit is a major challenge to the party.  Although it is exaggerated, there is no doubt that a lot of the working class people who Labour is supposed to represent voted for Brexit.  But the majority of Labour voters, and a large majority of Labour members voted against it.  It is a tricky situation.  Even though the popularity of Brexit is beginning to decline, it might still be an issue that could alienate people that Labour needs.  But it isn't going to be easy to come up with a message that might be acceptable to this group of people without offending the many people who are very strong supporters of continued membership.

Fatties Voted Brexit

Is Voting Brexit Like Eating Cake?

I have wondered from time to time what it is that makes some people left wing and some right wing.  I have a pretty well developed radar and can usually guess someone I met's politics before the subject comes up.  But I have taken a long time to put my finger on what it is that gives the game away.  I have never thought of being pro or anti the EU as being something that was particularly left wing or right wing, and there are plenty of very left wing leavers and and very right wing remainers.  But nonetheless there does seem to be some kind of affinity between leavers and a particular kind of conservatism.  And I think that Brexiters in general have the same general qualities that a lot of right wingers have.

Never Mind Leaked Memos - Keep An Eye On The Job Adverts

Leaked memo reveals the bleedin' obvious

Today's Brexit story is that a leaked document reveals that there is as yet no coherent plan for Brexit.  This is not too much of a revelation.  This far in, had a plan been in operation it would be obvious.  Even it were to be kept secret or partially secret it would be possible to get some idea of what was going on from what the government were actually doing.  As it is, it is clear from their actions that there is as yet no plan and no strategy.

Could Blair Block Brexit?

Love him or hate, nowadays you probably can't afford him

I don't think that Tony Blair has any plans to do anything remotely like this, but I did wonder if he might be able to use his rather unique position in British politics to do the apparently impossible and actually stop Brexit.  This is how I think it could be done.