• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Brexit Vote: 51.9% leave, 48.1% stay

Chris Pook said:
I don't disagree with Tony but I challenge Edward.

Consider the origins of Whigmaleeries and Tories.  Or even the role of Freemasons in public discourse and their associations with Covenanters, Puritans and Quakers and all the other non-conformist disestablishmentarians.

You can cite the Gordon Riots and Luddites amongst others but you also have to give credit to the Chartists.

Of course reconciliation is possible, as is adjusting the flow of the mainstream.

I just saw an article describing the secret of Trump as "Pace".  I don't know if I accept that that is a conscious strategy by Trump but I do accept the validity of the concept.  It is a restatement of the Ralph Doctrine of getting to the head of the parade and leading it.    The best way to influence a herd is to become part of the herd, be accepted by the herd and then gently nudge the herd by the application of slow, continuous pressure.  The article suggested that this is what Trump has been doing by taking "outlandish" positions and then slowly moderating them and bringing his new supporters with him back closer to centre. 

I do know that the surest way to come to a decidedly unpleasant end is to stand in the way of a charging herd or a bursting dam and demand your rights.

With respect to the CCF, and the Progressives - they are still with us and their principles are part of the national dialogue.  Pragmatism and time heal.  Currently Wildrose and the PCs in Alberta are coming to the same conclusion.  They can stand on ceremony or they can pragmaticallly accommodate the wishes of the electorate that care less for debates of angels on pins and more about jobs and bread on the table.


I suspect we are, by and large, in violent agreement ... some populist movements do reconcile, fairly easily, with the "mainstream," that's why I mentioned the CCF and the Progressives. The CCF could not, until the 1950s, get beyond their prairie populist roots as a co-op based movement without too much in the way of ideological baggage. It took David Lewis and the Canadian Labour Congress to make them a Canadian analog of the UK's Labour Party with a distinct, "mainstream" (albeit the left wing of the folks under the bell curve) ideology.

But there is, and it's evident in many European parties, in  the American ones, too ~ in the various factions of both the Democrats and the GOP ~ and, I suspect, in some factions of the Conservative Party in Canada, too, that "crude" form of populism that I think cannot be reconciled, not, at least, until it gives up many of its AIMs or we, moderates, surrender ours. The "crude" populism is not confined to the ideological right, the ideological left is just as "crude" in its beliefs and practices, and I do not believe that you can reconcile "crude," ideologically puritanical doctrines with moderate, pragmatic ones, not unless the  moderates surrender.
 
I'll jump in with my favourite hobbyhorse of people seeking new answers to the new questions of the day.

Republicans and Democrats in the US were once wild, totally non-respectable movements with outlandish ideas, but since their outlandish ideas reflected and answered the evolving issues of These United States in the early to mid 1800's far better than the Federalists and the Whigs, they became the governing parties and the Federalists and Whigs are now footnotes to History.

Many issues caused by changing demographics, technology and economic change are no longer answerable by the mainline political parties of today (and indeed many of the social and political structures we have are not suitable for current conditions any more). Since the Powers That Be are set up to maximize their advantages using these institutions and structures, they have no incentives to change, so pressure builds to change things by those of us who are not getting the opportunities and rewards from the system.

First there was the TEA Party movement.

Today there is Donald Trump

Should he lose the election, the next wave will be far uglier and much more forceful (perhaps this is the evolving "Alt Right" movement or oe of the various sub branches?). Even if Trump wins, too many changes are desired and too many new ideas need to be tried. Maybe the "Alt-West" sub branch of the Alt Right is the kernel of the new political movement on that side, and "Occupy and the "Bernie Bros" represent the core of the opposition.

Strange times indeed.

 
Thucydides said:
....

Strange times indeed.

The Revolutions of 1848

And ERC - No violence in OUR agreements. 

My problems with this world are with the supposed adults who prey on young kids and teach them to despair then harness their hormonally challenged, sleep deprived bodies and give them a "legitimate" outlet for their destructive impulses as they correct their world.  Extreme athlete.  Revolutionary. Soldier.  Not much to choose amongst them.  If you can bend them to your purpose.
 
This is an interesting article which goes a bit more in depth as to the sorts of conditions that change to create a "Revolt of the Elites". More ominously, it also suggests that these conditions are responsible for civilizational decline and fall as well. It is well that the people are reacting against this through measures like the BREXIT, voting for nationalist parties and other means to break the hold the "elites" have created, and hopefully the turmoil will be relatively mild as the drawdown occurs:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-12/blame-rich-overeducated-elites-as-society-frays

Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Society Frays
143NOV 12, 2016 1:58 PM EST
By
Peter Turchin
This article was first published in Bloomberg View on Nov. 20, 2013.

Complex human societies, including our own, are fragile. They are held together by an invisible web of mutual trust and social cooperation. This web can fray easily, resulting in a wave of political instability, internal conflict and, sometimes, outright social collapse.

Analysis of past societies shows that these destabilizing historical trends develop slowly, last many decades, and are slow to subside. The Roman Empire, Imperial China and medieval and early-modern England and France suffered such cycles, to cite a few examples. In the U.S., the last long period of instability began in the 1850s and lasted through the Gilded Age and the “violent 1910s.”

We now see the same forces in the contemporary U.S. Of about 30 detailed indicators I developed for tracing these historical cycles (reflecting popular well-being, inequality, social cooperation and its inverse, polarization and conflict), almost all have been moving in the wrong direction in the last three decades.

The roots of the current American predicament go back to the 1970s, when wages of workers stopped keeping pace with their productivity. The two curves diverged: Productivity continued to rise, as wages stagnated. The “great divergence” between the fortunes of the top 1 percent and the other 99 percent is much discussed, yet its implications for long-term political disorder are underappreciated. Battles such as the recent government shutdown are only one manifestation of what is likely to be a decade-long period.

WEALTH DISRUPTS
How does growing economic inequality lead to political instability? Partly this correlation reflects a direct, causal connection. High inequality is corrosive of social cooperation and willingness to compromise, and waning cooperation means more discord and political infighting. Perhaps more important, economic inequality is also a symptom of deeper social changes, which have gone largely unnoticed.

Increasing inequality leads not only to the growth of top fortunes; it also results in greater numbers of wealth-holders. The “1 percent” becomes “2 percent.” Or even more. There are many more millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires today compared with 30 years ago, as a proportion of the population.

Let’s take households worth $10 million or more (in 1995 dollars). According to the research by economist Edward Wolff, from 1983 to 2010 the number of American households worth at least $10 million grew to 350,000 from 66,000.

Rich Americans tend to be more politically active than the rest of the population. They support candidates who share their views and values; they sometimes run for office themselves. Yet the supply of political offices has stayed flat (there are still 100 senators and 435 representatives -- the same numbers as in 1970). In technical terms, such a situation is known as “elite overproduction.”

A related sign is the overproduction of law degrees. From the mid-1970s to 2011, according to the American Bar Association, the number of lawyers tripled to 1.2 million from 400,000. Meanwhile, the population grew by only 45 percent. Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. recently estimated that twice as many law graduates pass the bar exam as there are job openings for them. In other words, every year U.S. law schools churn out about 25,000 “surplus” lawyers, many of whom are in debt. A large number of them go to law school with an ambition to enter politics someday.

Don’t hate them for it -- they are at the mercy of the same large, impersonal social forces as the rest of us. The number of newly minted MBAs has expanded even faster than law degrees.

LAWYER GLUT
So why is it important that we have a multitude of desperate law school graduates and many more politically ambitious rich than 30 years ago?

Past waves of political instability, such as the civil wars of the late Roman Republic, the French Wars of Religion and the American Civil War, had many interlinking causes and circumstances unique to their age. But a common thread in the eras we studied was elite overproduction. The other two important elements were stagnating and declining living standards of the general population and increasing indebtedness of the state.

Elite overproduction generally leads to more intra-elite competition that gradually undermines the spirit of cooperation, which is followed by ideological polarization and fragmentation of the political class. This happens because the more contenders there are, the more of them end up on the losing side. A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions. Consider the antebellum U.S.

From 1830 to 1860 the number of New Yorkers and Bostonians with fortunes of at least $100,000 (they would be multimillionaires today) increased fivefold. Many of these new rich (or their sons) had political ambitions. But the government, especially the presidency, Senate and Supreme Court, was dominated by the Southern elites. As many Northerners became frustrated and embittered, the Southerners also felt the pressure and became increasingly defensive.

Slavery had been a divisive force since the inception of the Republic. For 70 years, the elites always managed to find a compromise. During the 1850s, however, intra-elite cooperation unraveled. On several occasions Congress was on the brink of a general shootout. (As one senator noted about his “armed and dangerous” colleagues, “The only persons who do not have a revolver and a knife are those who have two revolvers.”)

Although slavery was the overriding issue dividing the elites, they also differed over tariffs and cultural attitudes toward immigration. In the decade before the Civil War these centrifugal forces tore apart the two-party system. The Democratic Party split into its Northern and Southern factions, while the Whigs simply disintegrated.

CIVIL WAR
Slavery was an absolute evil and was going to be abolished, sooner or later. But its abolition didn’t need to result in hundreds of thousands of Civil War deaths. (About the same time, Russia banned serfdom without a civil war. The Russian Revolution came 50 years later -- when Russia was hit by its own elite overproduction.)

This U.S. historical cycle didn’t end with the cataclysm of the Civil War. Huge fortunes were made during the Gilded Age and economic inequality reached a peak, unrivaled even today. The number of lawyers tripled from 1870 to 1910. And the U.S. saw another wave of political violence, spiking in 1919–21.

This was the worst period of political instability in U.S. history, barring the Civil War. Class warfare took the form of violent labor strikes. At one point 10,000 miners armed with rifles were battling against thousands of company troops and sheriff deputies. There was a wave of terrorism by labor radicals and anarchists. Race issues intertwined with class, leading to the Red Summer of 1919, with 26 major riots and more than 1,000 casualties. It was much, much worse than the 1960s and early 1970s, a period many of us remember well because we lived through it.

The spike in violence then was relatively mild, perhaps because it fell in an era known as the Great Compression. Economic inequality had started to decline after 1930. The difference between the incomes of the rich and poor was compressed. Elite overproduction was reversed: The number of millionaires (in 1900 dollars, $1 million equals almost $30 million today) declined in absolute terms (while population continued to grow).

The Great Compression unraveled in the late 1970s, when workers’ wages stagnated. We are living in a new cycle of growing inequality, elite overproduction, ideological polarization and political fragmentation.

Today we are seeing not just a bitter struggle between the Democrats and Republicans; the Republican Party itself is fragmenting. Now, as during the 1850s, many of the political elites disdain compromise and are instead inclined to fight to the bitter end. Thankfully our senators haven’t armed themselves with revolvers and Bowie knives. (Interpolation: The Democrat party is suffering the same problem, consider how the "Bernie Bros" are going to interact with the various other wings of the party, for example).

PREVENTING CATASTROPHE
We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s. And because complex societies are much more fragile than we assume, there is a chance of a catastrophic failure of some kind, with a default on U.S. government bonds being among the less frightening possibilities.

Of course, catastrophe isn’t preordained. History shows a real indeterminacy about the routes societies follow out of instability waves. Some end with social revolutions, in which the rich and powerful are overthrown. This is what happened to the Southern elites -- decimated in the Civil War, beggared when their main assets, slaves, were freed, and excluded from national power in Washington. In other cases, recurrent civil wars result in a permanent fragmentation of the state and society.

In some cases, however, societies come through relatively unscathed, by adopting a series of judicious reforms, initiated by elites who understand that we are all in this boat together. This is precisely what happened in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Several legislative initiatives, which created the framework for cooperative relations among labor, employers and the government, were introduced during the Progressive Era and cemented in the New Deal.

By introducing the Great Compression, these policies benefited society as a whole. They enabled it to overcome the challenges of the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War, and to achieve the postwar prosperity. Whether we can follow such a trajectory again is largely up to our political and economic leaders. It will depend on all of us, rich and poor alike, recognizing the real dangers and acting to address them.

(Peter Turchin is the author, most recently, of "Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History.")

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Peter Turchin at Peter.Turchin@UConn.edu

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.net
 
Thucydides said:
This is an interesting article which goes a bit more in depth as to the sorts of conditions that change to create a "Revolt of the Elites". More ominously, it also suggests that these conditions are responsible for civilizational decline and fall as well. It is well that the people are reacting against this through measures like the BREXIT, voting for nationalist parties and other means to break the hold the "elites" have created, and hopefully the turmoil will be relatively mild as the drawdown occurs:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-12/blame-rich-overeducated-elites-as-society-frays

Good find.  I shred it on my FB.
 
Hate to have to add this, but ...
Chris Pook said:
My problems with this world are with the supposed adults who prey on young kids and teach them to despair then harness their hormonally challenged, sleep deprived bodies and give them a "legitimate" outlet for their destructive impulses as they correct their world.  Extreme athlete.  Revolutionary. Soldier.  Jihadi.  Not much to choose amongst them.  If you can bend them to your purpose.
... and dealing with that bit in orange makes it hard to deal to deal with the bit in yellow  :(
 
Evidently, the pressure release valve is stuck somewhere in the EU, as Italy is now embarking on a referendum which could conceivably lead to them leaving or radically redefining their place in the EU. A "NO" vote is considered to be a distinct possibility, and voters in Italy seem to see rejecting the Government's plan with a "NO" vote is a raised finger to their establishment:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/735716/Italy-NEXT-to-reject-establishment-as-protest-vote-set-to-WIN-referendum-shock-poll-finds

Italy NEXT to reject establishment as protest vote set to WIN referendum, shock poll finds

ITALY is set to deal a hammer blow to its government as the latest polls revealed voters will punish Matteo Renzi's administration in the upcoming referendum.
By REHEMA FIGUEIREDO
PUBLISHED: 06:03, Fri, Nov 25, 2016 | UPDATED: 10:25, Fri, Nov 25, 2016

The prime minister's failure to reach out to working class suggest large regions will snub Mr Renzi's plan for constitutional reform.

A Demos poll has revealed Mr Renzi's reforms will be rejected by an 11 percentage point margin in the south of the country - where most of the poorest regions are located - compared with a seven-point margin across the country.

As the nation prepares for a momentous referendum, which could spark an exit from the European Union, Mr Renzi said that he would have no interest in running the country if voters reject the proposed constitutional reform.

Luca Comodo, director at polling company Ipsos, says most voters believe that rejecting Mr Renzi's plans is a vote for change, particularly in southern regions where the economic damage inflicted by the deep recession that followed the global financial crisis hit voters particularly hard.

Mr Comodo said: "The south is where protest and rage are amplified."

If the reform goes through - it will reduce the power of the senate (the equivalent of the House of Lords in the UK) and take back legal power from 20 regional governments.

Those in favour of the change say it will make passing laws easier but those against it say it will centralise power too much.

But many Italians are not voting based on the reforms but on their confidence in Mr Renzi's leadership.

Mr Renzi's response has been to ramp up his campaign efforts in a desperate bid to win over voters in these regions - with visits to Sicily, Sardinia, Puglia and Campania (including the city of Naples).

The embattled prime minister has also proposed tax breaks for companies that create jobs in the south to tackle youth unemployment and stimulate investment, in a last ditch attempt to swing the referendum his way.

Italy is the eurozone's third-largest economy but most ordinary Italians, particularly those living in the south, still struggle to get by.

Emanuele Fusco, a 25-year-old barman, said: "A Yes vote is just a way to fool people. We should send this government packing and let everyone know how much they've screwed us."

Mr Renzi, 41, is coming under increasing pressure as the December 4 vote draws nearer with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement campaigning against him as well as a rebel faction within his own party.

Martina Riccio, a 32-year-old market researcher, said: "I would change some things about the constitution but I wouldn't have it touched by those in power now.

"Many people are voting No because they are against Renzi, without even knowing what this entails."

Italy's rules mean that if the vote goes against Mr Renzi, the country's president, Sergio Mattarella, could still ask him to lead a technical government which would have to amend the electoral system before an emergency election next year.

Related articles
EURO CRISIS: Renzi’s referendum threatens single currency
Italy's nervy PM says referendum wil will be DECISIVE for EU
Eurosceptic party demands fresh election as Renzi faces referendum
 
Thucydides - it's a poll.

Next thing you'll be telling me you believe what you read in the papers.
 
A poll predicting a possible outcome to a referendum. If the poll is accurate (and after having been badly burned by the Brexit, Trump's election and other "unexpected" outcomes I think pollsters are modifying their methodology so their credibility does not sink beneath the waves), then there will be some serious repercussions in the EU.

And it hardly takes a master pollster to see a growing wave of people raising the middle finger to their so called elites.....
 
Thucydides said:
A poll predicting a possible outcome to a referendum. If the poll is accurate .....then there will be some serious repercussions in the EU.

And it hardly takes a master pollster to see a growing wave of people raising the middle finger to their so called elites.....

Agreed on all of the stipulated points.

I wait to see how tolerant the masses are if they find themselves at odds with the courts.
 
Thucydides said:
And it hardly takes a master pollster to see a growing wave of people raising the middle finger to their so called elites.....

Meh.  Let them eat cake.  What could possibly go wrong?


  ;)
 
Scotland discovers complications in trying to leverage the Brexit to Scottish independence:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/12/27/spain-nixes-scottish-plan-to-stay-in-the-eu/

Spain Nixes Scottish Plan to Stay in the EU

The Spanish government has killed a Scottish plan to maintain Scotland’s membership in Europe’s common markets, saying that all of the UK must be either in or out. The Telegraph reports:

Jorge Toledo, the Spanish Secretary of State for the European Union, flatly rejected the First Minister’s proposals for a differentiated deal for Scotland whereby it would stay in the single market even if the rest of the UK comes out.

His intervention is significant as all of the other 27 EU member states have to agree the terms of Brexit, effectively giving the Spanish a veto over any special treatment for Scotland.

It came only 48 hours after Ms Sturgeon unveiled her highly complicated proposals at a press conference, during which she brushed away warnings that the Spanish would oppose the plans.[..]

Ms Sturgeon’s paper argued that Scotland could join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the European Economic Area (EEA) as a means of gaining full access to the single market if the UK sponsored it.

The Telegraph quotes a Scottish academic, Daniel Kenealy, who remarked that this seemed a back-door to the EU, which seems about right. It also would have been a front-door to independence. The Scottish would need to be assured of continued membership in the EU for Scottish independence to be attractive. Since Brexit, the Scottish National Party, which controls Scotland’s devolved parliament in Edinburgh, seem to have been hoping that anger with London would lead to sympathy and a warm welcome from Brussels. (How little things change, the Scots thought: when Scotland was independent in the Middle Ages, France’s perpetual war with England led to a natural and long-lasting “Auld Alliance” with Scotland.)

But a desire to punish the Brits has been only one of many Continental reactions to Brexit—and arguably not even the dominant one. Another important one is a feeling that Continental Europe is lucky to be rid of the frightful headache that was the UK’s membership—with Britain’s different expectations and aims, for the EU, its different history, and enough economic weight to slow up the whole project of European integration. People who feel this way may be in no hurry to welcome a sub-tribe of the British (as they’ll see it) back. And thirdly,
Brexit has shown the Continentals just how serious the reemerging nationalism can be; people who focus on this aspect may be reluctant to fan its flames further by encouraging Scottish nationalists.

For the Spanish in particular, as well as other nations with worries about break-away regions, the second and third combine to argue for putting any plans for Scottish EU membership into deep-freeze. Spain has been hinting at this for years, and it’s something the SNP has signally failed to grapple with: Madrid is arguably a bigger foe to Scottish independence than London. Certainly, it has been a more effective one of late.

Now, the SNP faces a big challenge—one that, whenever the situation becomes sufficiently clear to the Scottish voters, could prove existential. It’s hard to miss the irony: the voters of Scotland strongly opposed Brexit, so much so that the difference in the vote north versus south of the ancient border was advanced at the time as a strong argument for a renewed push for independence. Now it looks like Brexit could do more to keep Scotland in the EU than anything in a generation.

Scottish independence plus membership in a growing EU/common market looked like a smart, future-oriented play in the context of Scotland’s left-wing political milieu. But being the smaller and poorer of two lonely, unwelcome nations on the fringes of Europe looks far less attractive.

The Scots may jump yet; Brexit itself shows that rational calculation in such things only takes you so far. But the SNP’s dreams of being an actual independence movement, rather than just a successful regional party, just took a big hit.
 
What slays me about BREXIT is the reaction to it on this side of the moat, especially down south.  Why is anyone shocked that Britons would prefer to be ruled from Whitehall than Brussels?  It seemed to be a pretty great idea in 1770 something, didn't it?  If the EU would have stayed with the original plan, as a trading block only, it would still be flourishing, but it morphed into something rotten.
 
Kat Stevens said:
What slays me about BREXIT is the reaction to it on this side of the moat, especially down south.  Why is anyone shocked that Britons would prefer to be ruled from Whitehall than Brussels?  It seemed to be a pretty great idea in 1770 something, didn't it?  If the EU would have stayed with the original plan, as a trading block only, it would still be flourishing, but it morphed into something rotten.

:cheers:
 
Thucydides said:
It is well that the people are reacting against this through measures like the BREXIT, voting for nationalist parties and other means to break the hold the "elites" have created, and hopefully the turmoil will be relatively mild as the drawdown occurs:
PREVENTING CATASTROPHE
We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s. And because complex societies are much more fragile than we assume, there is a chance of a catastrophic failure of some kind, with a default on U.S. government bonds being among the less frightening possibilities.
[...]
In some cases, however, societies come through relatively unscathed, by adopting a series of judicious reforms, initiated by elites who understand that we are all in this boat together. This is precisely what happened in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Several legislative initiatives, which created the framework for cooperative relations among labor, employers and the government, were introduced during the Progressive Era and cemented in the New Deal.
(emphasis mine)
I'm not sure how you can reconcile that bolded part with your persistent haranguing of "leftists" and "progressives".
 
You seem to overlook the "New Deal", besides being modelled after the Italian "Fascist Corporate State" also ensured the 1929 depression became the "Great Depression". The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes documents how the Great Depression was perhaps extended by seven years due to the interference of the government in the economy. A different data point is to ask you how the Great Depression of 1921 affected America? America slipped into a depression in 1921, but President Calvin Coolidge restrained then Treasury Secretary Herbert Hoover from intervening in the economy, and the economy shook off that depression in less than a year....

The real issue is we have been force fed "revisionist history" for most of our lives to support a "narrative". No history course I ever took mentioned the depth of the Great Depression was 1938, and in fact, I was taught that the cause of the Great Depression was unknown. Even then, the primary cause of the Great Depression was understood to be the massive debt overhang caused by the Great War (and you notice no Conventional Media ever notes the relationship between the economic crisis of 2008 and the gigantic debt overhang we have created since welfare state explosion of the 1960's and 70's...)

Historiography is a descriptive science, but you have to correctly identify and highlight the events, not retroactively erase them from memory.

The observable events of today can be traced to counterproductive or maladaptive actions the so called "elites" have been undertaking since the 1980's (if not earlier) and the effects these actions have had on the general population. A good introduction (written in 1994) is The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch. The various political classes of the western world, and their enablers in the Bureaucratic State have settled on "Progressivism" as the tool to weild the most power and damp down the potential opposition by buying off the poor with welfare, so breaking "Progressivism" is perhaps the greatest means of toppling the various power structures that have been used to entrench the current system. The fact that Progressivism is now pretty much morally, intellectually and financially bankrupt makes it all the easier.
 
Kat Stevens said:
What slays me about BREXIT is the reaction to it on this side of the moat, especially down south.  Why is anyone shocked that Britons would prefer to be ruled from Whitehall than Brussels?  It seemed to be a pretty great idea in 1770 something, didn't it?  If the EU would have stayed with the original plan, as a trading block only, it would still be flourishing, but it morphed into something rotten.

Spot on. :goodpost:

The British, Scandinavians and most of Eastern Europe is happy with the free trade but the EU is much more than that. It is the 'political project' aspect driven largely by France and Germany that has caused the most unease in the UK. Add to that the EU injecting itself into the judicial and social policy and it was a recipe for a messy ending.  Good fences making good neighbours is sage advice.

Ironically, considering the somewhat sanctimonious tone of the Canadian government on Brexit, I think the UK would be as happy as larry with a NAFTA style arrangement with the EU.

How would the Canadian electorate respond to free movement of people within NAFTA? Would there be greater movement northbound or southbound?



 
I think you can write the whole of European history on the authoritarian road that connects the Vatican to the Ardennes.  Caesar, Merovech, Charlemagne, Salians-Ottonians, Angevins-Capetians, Guelphs-Ghibellines, Hapsburg-Valois, Bourbons, Napoleon, Avignon-Rome, Cluny-Citeaux, Cathars-Catholics, Huguenots-Romans.

The rest of Europe has been victim to the mayhem of that corridor for 2000 years and more.

That is where a "political union" is most needed.  The rest of Europe is much more "accommodating". Their history is one of the Holy Roman Empire (neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire), Burgundy and the Hanseatic League. 
 
Interesting historical comparison between the Brexit and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Sadly, in these times, the political parties who supported the repeal of the Corn Laws are ow firmly against the Brexit:

https://fee.org/articles/brexit-is-like-repealing-the-corn-laws-all-over-again/

Brexit Is Like Repealing the Corn Laws All Over Again
Paul Marshall
Thursday, January 05, 2017

Of all my uplifting reading over the Christmas period, none was more so than John Morley’s great “Life of Richard Cobden”. One great Liberal’s biography of another. It is uplifting not only because of the quality of the writing but also because of the many parallels between the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016.

Germany lacks the military ambitions of 1830s Prussia, but it is following the game plan of the Zollverein in most respects.

Cobden rose from modest beginnings as the son of a Sussex farmer to become a highly successful Stockport manufacturer of calico and one of the co-founders, with John Bright, of the Anti-Corn-Law League.

He was a great traveller, eager to learn from the lessons of rivals and neighbours. In 1838, he undertook a month’s tour of Germany, paying particular attention to the workings of the Zollverein, the customs union established in 1833 under the leadership of Prussia.

The parallels between the Zollverein and today’s EU are striking, especially in so far as they relate to Prussia (then) and Germany (now). Here is what he wrote:

“The effect of the League must be to throw the preponderating influence over thirty millions of people into the hands of the Cabinet of Berlin. By the terms of the Union, the money is to be collected and paid by Prussia; a very little financial skill will very easily make the smaller states the pensioners of the paymaster. Already…Prussia…is said to be two millions out of pocket …owing to her having guaranteed the smaller partners certain amounts of revenue. Besides the power that such a post of treasurer will confer upon Prussia, other causes must tend to weaken the influence of lesser states’ governments…..A common standard of weights and measures, as well as money, is preparing, and these being assimilated….what shall prevent this entire family of one common language….from merging into one nation?”

Ring any bells? Of course the eurozone does not speak one language and it has many more divergent cultures than the members of the Zollverein. So the process will take longer. But the process is the same: first the customs union, then a single currency, then merged sovereignty. What Cobden prescribed for Britain was global free trade and an end to protection.

Germany today does not have any of the military ambitions of 1830s Prussia. But it is following the game plan of the Zollverein in most other respects. Poorer states are guaranteed income transfers (with Brussels taking a commission along the way). The ECB distorts monetary policy to keep alive the most indebted governments. And the “influence of lesser states’ governments” has been weakened to the point of installing puppets in Italy and Greece. We already know that the eurozone will eventually face the choice between full fiscal union or enduring a series of state defaults.

Cobden did not have any animus against the Zollverein. That was Germany’s business. But he certainly didn’t take it as a model. Instead, what he prescribed for Britain was global free trade and an end to protection.

That was also Britain’s choice in 2016. Would we continue to subscribe to a customs union which imposed tariffs of up to 30 per cent on agricultural products from Africa and prevented us from striking free-trade agreements with the developing (and developed) world? Or would we choose to break free and restore our status as the world’s beacon of free trade?

Thankfully we chose the latter.

In 1846, the Repeal of the Corn Laws opened up a new era of unparalleled prosperity for this country based on the expansion of trade. Hopefully, Brexit will do the same as we gain access to the developing world for our service industries in return for opening up our agricultural markets.

Yet the Liberal “Democrats” have set their face firmly, not only against the democratic will of the people but also against our re-opening to the world. Vince Cable, for one, must feel conflicted. In his contribution to the Orange Book (which I edited with David Laws in 2004), he described the Common Agricultural Policy as “an economic, environmental and moral disgrace”.

Not much has been done to reform it since then so presumably his views haven’t changed.

The only disgrace today is that the Liberal Democrats have so lost touch with their roots that they have subordinated all policy making to their infatuation with an undemocratic regional customs union. Cobden will be turning in his grave.
 
Back
Top