On Thursday, which I think the EU requires the Brits to call quartidi, the subjects of England vote on whether or not to remain in Europe. The vote to leave, in theory, will compel the British government to negotiate an exit from the EU and paddle the island further into the Atlantic. The timing of the exit and the terms of the deal are not contemplated in the text of the referendum. There may be something in British law that determines these things, but I can find nothing to support that claim.
That is not an unimportant bit in this discussion. It is no secret that the ruling class of England not only wants to remain in the EU, but they dream of a day when Britain is just another administrative zone of Europe, sort of like how the Romans treated Britannia. It is not just that the idea of separate countries has become a heresy. The ruling elite seems to think the time has come to exterminate the British people entirely, at least as an identifiable tribe. As former Lord Chancellor Jack Straw put it, “the English as a race is not worth saving.”
Looking at the polling, the way to bet is that Brexit falls short. There has been a surge in support for leaving and English nationalism bubbling under the surface often goes unnoticed in polls. On the other hand, vote fixing and browbeating do not always show up in the polls either. There is also the fact that people perceive the status quo as the safe choice. Humans are funny that way. Any change meets some natural resistance, even when there is no logic to resistance. Roll it all up and Remain most likely carries the day.
Let us assume, by some miracle, that Brexit wins, what then?
In theory, the British government will begin negotiations with the EU on the formal withdraw of Britain from the EU. In reality, there has to be some political theater first. David Cameron will come under pressure to resign by members of his own party. He staked his reputation on this referendum so a failure to deliver would damage his standing. Plus, the people that really run things may want a scalp to send a message. As the saying goes, kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.
Of course, ousting a Prime Minister is no small thing and it could lead to all sorts of turmoil in the ruling party. Usually when this happens there is a group within the party that has coalesced around a new leader, they are ready to install, once they have deposed the old leader. But that is not always the case and all hell could break loose once the Cameron is gone. Britain could end up having early elections, which would put things on hold until after the election. In effect, Britain would have a do-over referendum on Brexit.
If we assume that the political fallout is limited to the theatrical, the next step is the process of implementing the intent of the referendum. That will most likely take years as neither side will be in much of a hurry to get on with it. Parliament will surely pass some legislation as a stop gap to keep the current arrangements in place until a deal is done. The EU will set off on a long drawn out process of forming a committee to study the process of forming a committee to appoint a board to review Britain’s exit request.
The hope for all concerned is that the English people, having blown off some steam in the referendum, will go back to their affairs and forget all about it. From time to time the public will be notified that negotiations have taken place in the south of France during the winter or in the Alps during August, but otherwise nothing much will happen. There will no doubt be tales told to the British press about the long hours required to address the millions of details involved in actually leaving the EU.
Polling outfits will be surreptitiously dispatched to keep measuring public sentiment regarding the EU and the referendum. The hope being that opinion will swing the other way and Parliament can then pass an act overturning the referendum. The pressure to reverse the results of the referendum will slowly build over time until either the opposition is worn down or some crisis allows the rulers to act. A recession will be blamed on Brexit and it will be quickly “fixed” by overriding the referendum.
This probably seems like cynicism. After all, Britain is a liberal democracy where the will of the people, as expressed at the ballot box, is respected by the politicians. Our rulers invest a lot of time telling us this and then spend even more time getting us to come out and vote. Then there is the bizarre obsession with getting foreigners to vote in their own lands and come to our lands so they can vote in our elections. You can be forgiven for thinking that voting is important and respected by our rulers.
That has not been the pattern in Europe, or anywhere else in the West, over the last few decades. The voters vote and the political class does whatever it likes, coincidentally in line with the will of their donors and sponsors. The French people voted against the EU Constitution and the rulers promptly ignored them. Other EU countries then cancelled their referenda. The Greeks kept voting for change, only to get more of the same after each election. Despite the rhetoric, voting counts for little.
The reason for this is that what we keep calling liberal democracy is actually corporate democracy. The political class serves the function of the management group in a corporation. The buccaneering billionaires of the global elite are the board of directors, who hire and fire the politicians, based on their performance. The voters are just the minor shareholders who are mustered every once in a while, to endorse the actions of the board as represented by management. The vote is never binding.
Whenever there is shareholder revolt, the board takes it out on management. In theory, the shareholders could overthrow the board as well as management, but this always requires leadership from a large shareholder who is, in most cases, on the board. It may feel like the shareholders are taking control, but in reality, the board is always in control. It is just that the individuals members of the board may make war on one another.
In the case of Britain remaining a sovereign state, the board is of one mind, regardless of what the minor shareholders do tomorrow.
My act of supporting my country is done, for now. I have put my X in the Leave box, but I guess it is up to the traitors to count the votes of the Remain sheep.
@ UKer – Good luck! I hope the majority of your countrymen, like you, have the sense to vote “Leave”. There are many here on the continent who are cheering you on.
Bravo!
God bless you and your freedom!
They have the vote. Brexit wins. Nothing happens, or as the Brits would say ‘Get on with it now!”
Will the UK citizen whose pub was closed because it was to close to a newly built mosque, whose son is forced to recite the Shahada at school ‘For Diversity’, and whose daughter is gang raped but the police don’t want to push ‘That Community’ to hard, is he going to just …wait?
If the men of Britain have become so civilized and peaceful, then in fact it is over for England.
Nothing happens? I don’t think so. See this below, it is what millions of Brits are telling the oligarchy. Millions. Nothing happens? The fact they are trying like drowning rats to suppress recession from their tyranny, is hardly nothing.
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You’re right. The model is Greece where they voted for the party they weren’t supposed to, and voted the wrong way on their referendum, and all it led to was them getting the same deal as before, but a little bit worse.
Let’s assume, by some miracle, that Brexit wins, what then?
They would have to be destroyed. If England intends to set an example, then the globalists will ensure that it’s a bad one. If they were to succeed then who else might get some ideals?
Let’s be serious here, the little people will not be allowed to democratically decide their own destinies. They might hurt themselves.
Let’s be serious? OK. If you never stand up or fight for your destiny to begin with, then you ain’t gonna have self determination at all. All your gonna get is being a slave of tyrants or a tyrants dirt nap. At least if you try, it is at worst destiny you made on the spot. At least you withdrew your consent for the sonofabitches. That is a whole hell of a lot more noble and virtuous than giving up without trying.
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Am reminded of the exchange between Charles I and Oliver Cromwell in the underrated 1970 movie.
Charles I: “Democracy, Mr. Cromwell, was a Greek drollery, based on the foolish notion that there extraordinary possibilities in very ordinary people”
Cromwell: “It is the ordinary people who would most readily lay down their lives in defense of your realm. It is simply that being “ordinary”, they would prefer to be asked and not told”
Well, we know how the play ended for Charles….
“Where there is smoke, there is fire.”
While we have to wait and see how BREXIT fares, it is apparent from near wins in Spain, Duterte, a Manila outsider, winning in the Philippines, the fight put up by Hungary and other countries to fight the immigration pushed by the EU in order to maintain their nationality and sovereignty, that many countries and peoples are fed up with our so-called “betters” abusing us. They have reached a tipping point and are pushing a bad position.
Whether or not BREXIT wins, people are speaking up in greater numbers in opposition to the manner in which both elected and nameless, faceless bureaucrats like those of the EU, trample on their liberties and their lives.
I always get back to the saying “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Lost among our leaders is the goal of making people better off by their efforts. What counts to them is making themselves better off. With more power, more money, more of everything just like the kingdoms of old while the serfs slopped the pigs and grew their meager gardens of which they had to pay their tax to the Lord who owned the land. The result … ragged survival.
Just as regimes have done throughout history, they are eliminating educated, thinking people from the mix but doing it on a generational basis with education camps touted as the Dept. of Education, etc., making everyone dependent on the government, taking away people’s ability to defend themselves (America STILL allows so many guns to be owned by those right wingers??). And they have established a security state that knows everything about everyone from the time you get up, to your morning dump, your brand of toothpaste, coffee our drink, and what you think about as you go about your business and they track you minute by minute monitoring your mood by the speed you go, the path you take, your cell phone use, your facial expressions at stop lights, etc.
The point is, people are fed up with this shit. And while the powers that be might foil efforts in the short term, to me, the writing is on the wall. And while the Betters are busy migrating barbarians into people’s homes, they themselves will soon be facing a new breed of barbarians at their own gates … the people they despise.
You must be right. If Brexit passes it will simply die on the vine. It would seem that in a democracy ideas both good and popular have no traction without leaders determined to see them through. That is what Britain lacks and as we have seen time and again it is what the US lacks. The political class has captured every route to power. Trump, bless him, although he hardly has one thought in his head connected to another, has demonstrated that there is a great well of civilizing power to be tapped and directed which is but milling about without the men willing to lead and join the political circus in opposition. That is the final trap of popular democracy.
Tocqueville, on the future of popular democracy–“…it reduces daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice; it restricts the activity of free will within a narrower range and gradually removes autonomy itself from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all this, inclining them to tolerate all these things and often even to see them as a blessing. They derive consolation from being supervised by thinking that they have chosen their supervisors.”
In eVery EU country that has held a referendum, the people have voted for exit, France, Holland, and Ireland. The Brussels Bureaucratic Tyranny ignored the first two and browbeat the Irish people into capitulation. With One-world govt in sight( to the true believers,…..um, Germany) the Brits will not be allowed to delay the inevitable.
Excellent piece, as usual. There was this guy in Italy, Mussolini or something, who believed everybody should be part of a corporation — farmer’s corporation, actor’s corporation, welder’s corporation. The EU elite have taken that idea to its next step, eliminating the commoners from decision-making membership.
I think you are speaking of the guilds, which pre-date our modern unions, back into medieval times.
I have said plainly before, Out Without A Doubt. Having made the mistake in ’75 of voting In (because I believed, as told, it was merely a trade agreement) but seeing lie after lie piled up on each other since I have at least set myself the task of balancing the books by voting Leave. A small crumb, even if it is all I have.
But I am under no doubt the outcome will not be anything like as expected. Since Britain became a minion of the EU we have not only pages of legislation (actually, whole thick weighty volumes of the stuff) to sort out and, even if departure was instant — which it won’t be — it will take as long to iron out the mass/mess of laws. Actually, we will probably keep a lot of them as they have proved convenient to the ruling powers, so sod us little people. Therefore the majority may want out but as the Toadies and Liebore have campaigned so furiously to Remain, you can guarantee they will develop some sloth-like condition if we vote Leave. Westminster has never been noted for its speed of reaction even in good times, and these are definitely not that.
I do believe however that irrespective of the outcome — and no, I don’t believe the heavily-orchestrated ‘the polls say’ deceits being pedalled — we have seen two related things here, although most of us were slow to realise what they were (and far too late, admittedly, but it was fun knowing briefly). Essentially, we have come to understand we can no longer trust either the MSM or the political parties at the helm. While we may have suspected that they weren’t entirely honest it was easy to cling to the belief that there was still a semblance of honesty in there.
That illusion, in the UK anyway, has finally been stripped bare. The pols and the journalists have been revealed as our enemies and now we know they have been all along, so it will be interesting to see what will happen in future elections. If Remain win, they will not be happy and the EU has promised to punish Britain if it leaves, so it is a reasonable bet Brussels will be punishing us for even daring to think of leaving.
There is still the matter of Turkey joining the EU, of course, and if Remain win they will soon find that the happy outcome they dream of will be about to turn very sour. I hate to say it, but we may yet see the beginnings of a second English civil war though the ability of our ‘leaders’ to rapidly import whole divisions of muslims could swing the battles to come. I really don’t fancy hearing the chatter of AK47s down my High Street but that may in the end be better than hearing the chatter of Arabic.
It used to be that everyone knew the politicians were crooked, but no one thought they were traitors. We have a new class of politicians who is willing to sell his countrymen into bondage just to make an ideological point. That’s what is scary about some of these people. It’s not money that drives them. They are true believers. A Jeremy Corbyn would gladly fill up Britain with sword wielding Muslims just out of spite.
I beg to differ. It is “always” about the money. The means they employ to enriching themselves is another matter.
Always follow the money. Sure there are a few truly sick psychopaths in positions of economic and political power, but regardless, money is what greases the skids of politics and corruption. And the more power, the more grease required.
This vote in England is similar to our current presidential campaign. The Brexit people and the Trump people are the last remnants of once great countries. They are howling against the madness, probably one last time.
…and unfortunately, perhaps a bit too late.
Resistance to tyranny and tyrants is never futile
“…one last time.” That was painful. Truth is often painful, isn’t it?
It is, but maybe Doug is right about resistance to tyranny. We can at least hold our heads up.
Never Say Die.
I’m old enough to understand the value of standing up to tyranny, unto death. Perhaps that’s why they’ve been waiting for my generation to die out so the dumbed down ones, who’d be more pliable, could make the transformation easier. But, alas, they’re aging too so they’re taking their shot now. At least that’s how it seems to me.
Lot of truth in what you are saying Meema, lot of truth. Kind of says everything.
A crazy idea sovereignty of the people, shall not be infringed, and unalienable God given rights of liberty and self determination is wrong and not possible? Heh… All I know is resistance is never futile, that it is always the dirt people who rescue humanity from itself, from tyrants and tyranny, time and time again, and always will be the dirt people, it’s not rocket science that it all begins with each of us, and what is really happening is not a revolution because of arms or civil war, but an evolution in honesty and first principles that never ends, that without virtue, without integrity of the man first, without facing the harsh realities of the predicament we are in this country, we will never be freemen until we do, we will be just a bunch of mouth breathing isolation domestic terrorists. Is that what any of you my fellow Americans really want? I sure the fuck don’t. We can only have our liberty and the primal freedoms, the component parts of living as a sovereign man, if we become that man who not only looks the truth straight in the eyes and never flinches, but goes after the truth with a bone in our teeth and a rifle in our hands, and in this way we all become leaders, ambassadors of liberty, and then we set the bar, the standard for others to aspire to and follow or become leaders in each his own way… or be left in the dust bin of history. This is the indomitable thing, it can not be stopped, it is called winning.…..The only thing more dangerous, or what is to be afraid of, fighting our tyrannical corrupt government that has amassed unlimited resources against us freemen, or this tyrannical corrupt government facing an awakened citizenry, which must face the unlimited power of and truth the dirt people have their liberty and freedoms within their hands, because they always have…?
“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” – Joseph Stalin.
Given the idiots in EU are now trying to create a social security tax on robots, it’s time for this charade called the EU to end. But I guess the real question is, just how many people is too many for a single governmental body to effectively manage. Is 300 million in the US and 700 million in the EU just too big to be effectively managed and represented by a collective federal government?
That is a question mankind never contemplates. What is plainly evident is that no government can manage a highly diverse population. The Swiss understand this well, having had to deal with a sizable Latin minority. In the US, we used to know this, but that’s another sad tale for another day. So, assuming social stability comes from a high degree of homogeneity, at what size does the amount of diversity in a society exceed the manageable level?
Then there is the density question. NYC is a dense area with loads of diversity, but it is relatively peaceful. America has solved its diversity problems in the past by distance. It’s a big country with lots of elbow room.
It’s an interesting question, but I’m not sure there is a way to answer it.
The Swiss are probably the best at real-time, participative democracy which goes all the way down to each canton deciding what it wants. There isn’t a single issue they can’t petition for and have put on the ballot. Voting here is as common as new apps for a smartphone.
Only in Switzerland is buying new fighter jets decided by democratic vote. Want to keep minarets out? There’s a vote for that. Want to kick foreigners out of Switzerland who are found guilty of committing crimes? There’s a vote for that! How about a national income? Yes, there’s even a vote for that too. I think we could learn a lot from little Switzerland and its 8-million inhabitants. There’s more to it than chocolate, watches and little pocket knives.
An alpine country of 8 million, mostly Alemanni, people is probably not a great example for a continent sized country of 330 million of every conceivable tribe on earth. That said, there is a strong tradition of localism in the South and Appalachia that has been suppressed for generations, but may be poised for a revival. It mirrors the Swiss localism in many ways.
But, it may require us to hang a whole lot of neo-Puritan Yankees.
Can I stick up for the Yankees for a minute here? I’m half New England Yankee and real old WASPs are a very staid, down to the earth, hardworking and SMALL group of people. They’re hard working, frugal, traditional and relatively conservative in their private lives. My father is a Reagan Democrat who is as baffled by anyone with this SJW bullshit today. New England has been getting hammered by immigration waves for two centuries now, many of whom fused the worst aspects of Puritan cultures with the authoritarian tendencies of their home countries. There is very little Yankee culture left, even in its traditional bastions and people with English surnames are really underrepresented among the SJW set. It’s not the great-great-grandchildren of the Cabots and Aldens and Standishes driving this.
Yet they vote time and time again for the same statist who create specious diktat that deny’s them the primal rights of self defense, property, wealth and self determination?
Something inherently wrong here with this picture.
Most people in blue states are not the unbroken heirs of the original English Puritans. Absent the most rural and least populated parts of New England, there aren’t any counties with predominately English or American (generally that means Borderers/Scots Irish/English) ancestry. The numerically dominant ethnic groups in the Northeast are the Irish and Italians and the culturally dominant are Jews and a mixture of other European ethnic groups. Previous immigration waves hit the Northeast before anywhere else. Very, very, very few of the Northeast’s voters are descendants of the original settlers.
https://upworthy-production.s3.amazonaws.com/nugget/5228fb810fe612794a001236/attachments/USethnicities2.jpg
It’s also worth pointing out that the institutions that Yankees actually did found and fund have been totally subverted. Even the schools like Exeter and Andover now mostly service the same cohort as places like Harvard where non-Jewish whites are the most underrepresented ethnic group, relative to their share of the population. It isn’t Yankees that are driving the bullshit coming out of the system today.
Yankees can’t stand anyone not doing things their way and they never miss a chance to tell everyone else how to live. If we didn’t have Yankees we wouldn’t have mass immigration, affirmative action, de-segragation, strong Federalism and if they could get it taking everyone’s guns. After the civil war they ran the country and they are wholly responsible, along with their leaders the Jews, for the mess we’re in.
But even the Swiss have “their” vote counters, don’t they?
@ theZman – I think there’s something to the idea of smaller populations doing a better job of managing themselves. We see it in corporations and business too, which his why small companies usually have much lower levels of corruption. I would agree that the Swiss model wouldn’t translate well into a country of 300-million, however, it’s one reason I am very much against the EU.
Countries should remain sovereign and the citizens should control their own governments based on the rule of law, their own culture, customs and language. The EU experiment has proven that this scientific model of utopia is a failure, with only France and Germany (mostly Germany) coming out ahead. The days of Germany invading France, or Spain Portugal are ancient history. Even Russia isn’t a threat to Europe and never really has been despite the demonizing of the Americans. Again, it begs the question of why the Americans are so terrified of the Russians and not the Chinese. Europe, despite it’s may faults, it not about to break into WW3 anytime soon. The only real threat, is as it is in America – from the south.
Now, if the EU wants to be a clearing house for common business practices like UL, TUV or CSA, ASME, ISO, etc. (product safety, compatibility and harmonization) that is a very different discussion. But the EU has proven it’s intention is to go well beyond what it was intended to do through the removal of leaders who were voted into office by their own people as we saw in Italy and Greece.
@ Infidel – I can’t really say if there’s any serious voter fraud. Voting, like everything else in Switzerland, is very well controlled.
Sorry – forgot to make the comment about your “…mostly Alemanni”. Today, roughly 25% of the Swiss population are foreigners; “auslanders” and expats like myself. It is not uncommon to find people from Ireland, UK, France, Italy, Croatia, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Romania and the occasional American, Canadian and a Mexican. While the Swiss hate to admit it, most of the work that really drives their economy is done by professional foreigners like myself who are engineers, chemists, doctors or other skilled professionals. They don’t like it, but they can’t live without us.
The European Common Market always made sense to me; the EU not so for the very reasons we see today with respect to immigration controls, security interests, etc.
@ Wayne Parker – Yes, very good point. I think this is what the pro-EU people fail to realize; the EU in it’s current form isn’t necessary at all. The Common Market worked quite well in the past and can continue to do so without direction from the incompetent fools in Brussels.
The bottom line truth is, the scum oligarchy will do whatever it takes to quell any act or form of secession and abolition of its corrupt power by the dirt people. Everything else is utter bullshit. They despise the dirt people, yet at the same time they need the dirt people because they need wage slaves to keep the money that feeds their greed flowing. Who else will supply the labor and productivity that creates the wealth to begin with they steal, “Syrian Refugee’s”? It is when it begins to dawn on people they don’t need the oligarchy that serious shit begins to happen, because then the oligarchy begins to do extreme and desperate things in order to quell resistance to its tyranny and corruption.
@ Doug – What we are seeing is a reaction to what I refer to at work as the MDL or “Maximum Dirt Level”. This is the point at which you finally decide to tidy your desk or clean up the workshop. Europeans and Americans have reached their MDL with respect to their current government situations and are now doing something. Thankfully, people are not static, and bad situations can be reversed.
A most salient observation Karl. Could not agree with you more.
Well that sums up the Brexit charade pretty nicely.
The roots of tyranny the Fabian’s and Jacobin’s planted run deep.
One World Order. And you’ll like it bitchez!
Those of the west who presume to rule souls, never get the dirt people. It is the crisis of legitimacy, and the timeless Chinese axiom of the Mandate of Heaven on Kings, rolled into one. While they strive to deny their subjects of the spiritual and plural nature of the dirt people and their connection between the dirt and heaven, they themselves become blind to consent, profound nature of consent, how it is something that can never be taken, or coerced, it only can be given. It is their blind spot. Hubris before the fall. Don’t mean it ain’t gonna hurt before it is over.