The news on this fine first morning of April is that Britain’s parliament, after friendly all-night talks, has agreed to give the British people a second vote, as millions have requested, on whether to cut themselves out of Europe. Parliament and government have recognized the emptiness of the argument that laws should not be repealed (if bad laws couldn’t be repealed we’d still have the poll tax, hanging, slavery, Prohibition, and the Corn Laws – which for thirty years shut European food out of Britain by high tariffs so that landowners could sell their produce to the helpless poor at exorbitant prices). Parliament and government know that Brexit has turned into a godawful mess; that a majority of the population now regrets it; that there have been multiple expert warnings of its grim consequences for the country’s food, economy, employment, security, medicine, education, research, environment, unity, and influence; that at the time of the first referendum nobody knew what the complicated details would be and voters had been given little information other than lies; and that the Leave campaign, with its pseudonymous Facebook scams, was funded by dark money originating from a power that wants to weaken Britain and Europe and all liberal democracies.
Alas, the day is colder than yesterday, and you’re no April Fool. You know that this hasn’t happened yet. Fools still have too much power at Britain’s top levels, as fools, bigots, plutocrats, warmongers, and tyrants do in several other countries at this time.
One option the European Union is considering is to allow Britain an extension for making up its mind till April 1, 2020. I’ll let you compose the concluding sentence.
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This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
One more argument in favor of another Brexit vote: It’s been almost three years since the original vote. A whole cohort of young Britons have reached voting age during this time. They will have to live with the consequences of Britain either leaving or staying in the EU longer than those who voted, but they weren’t old enough to vote three years ago. They deserve to have their say.
I thought Great Britain already voted in favor of Brexit? Sounds like the minority is trying to undo the results of an official election because they disagree with the result. There’s another group of “fools, bigots [and] plutocrats” on this side of the pond who have been trying to do the same thing by attempting to overturn election results in the USA ever since the 2016 national vote.
You may want to read my post again. Its point is that bad decisions can and should be open to repeal. Polls show that a majority now favors remaining in Europe (even though so many get their news from dodgy websites and Murdoch-owned newspapers rather than from fact-checked newspapers). More than a million people marched – London’s largest demonstration ever – calling for a new people’s vote. More than six million signed a petition calling for Brexit to be revoked, by far the largest petition ever submitted to Parliament. The initiator of the petition is receiving death threats, a symptom of the quality on the Little England side.
I’m sure you are more in touch with the situation than I am since you reside there, but as I commented in a previous post, I think the 2 major arguments in support of Brexit is to limit German control of England (the EU is mostly controlled by Germany), and to gain control of borders. If I’m not mistaken, the EU is in favor of unlimited immigration.
Immigrants that integrate into the host society have traditionally been welcomed because they pay taxes and produce wealth with their talents and work efforts. But a substantial number of Muslim immigrants do not wish to integrate, but rather live in segregated areas and keep Sharia law. This changes the culture of the host country. I have heard that gay clubs in East London have closed because they fear retaliation from Muslims communities in the area.
So there is a Germany conspiracy theory? Re-united Germany is the healthy core of the European Union. Having the strongest economy, it has been relied on by countries in economic trouble such as Greece to bail them out. At a reunion of friends of my generation, one who had settled in Germany made a little speech suggesting we all do the same: Germany has better health care and food and social systems, and there was more to his enthusiastic list of ways in which it was doing better than England. The headquarters of the EU are in Brussels (Belgium) and Strasbourg (France). The president of the European Commission (Jean-Clause Juncker) is from Luxembourg, the president of the European Council (Donald Tusk) from Poland, the Brexit negotiators (Michel Barnier, Guy Verhofstadt) from France and Belgium. Germany under chancellor Angela Merkel has had the most humane policy toward asylum seekers. German tolerance is endangered by backlash against immigrants, as in other countries, most of all Hungary, which least deserves to remain in the EU and receive its many benefits.
Integration does not need to be assimilation. My ideal society would be a variegated one in which people retain their own costume, speak their inherited languages in their homes, enjoy their beloved literature and music, besides functioning usefully in the local language and society. Central London looks quite like this, and some countries have approached it, perhaps mostly ancient ones; India is amazingly varied, Iran has Turk and Arab and Baluchi tribes, pre-Israeli Palestine was a mosaic of religions and ethnic groups, but tolerance is easily sabotaged. Minorities are precious. When we see Yazidis and Assyrian Christians being stamped out in Iraq and Copts terrorized in Egypt, it is amazing that minorities like these have survived for so many centuries as they have. As for Britain, immigrants bring in more net value, produce more and pay more in taxes, than they take in benefits. British hospitals, hotels, restaurants, farms depend heavily on them and are expecting real difficulty under Brexit. I could tell you stories of what is owed to a doctor from Korea and another from Kashmir.
The quantity of refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean has actually decreased, but of course it continues to provoke the backlash. Germany backs and others reject the fair response, quotas to be received by the 28 countries. The long-term solution is an end to the causes of desperation in the source countries, a tall order since those include poverty, sadistic regimes, and climate-change desertification. A start would be George Soros’s proposal of an EU Marshall Plan for Africa.
Guy – Thank you for your point of view; very eloquently stated.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t mean to sound argumentative, rather I was just trying to understand both sides of the Brexit debate.
I like your point about an ideal society being variegated. The U.S. is enriched by such variegation, though I think that peaked back in the 20th century. Most major cities had their Little Italys, Chinatowns , Slavic neighborhoods, etc. Yet at the same time the immigrants learned the language and respected the rule of law of their new country.
Your analysis of the source countries was well spoken. I would add that the population drain in these source countries further increases their poverty (less people to buy goods, and less people to manufacture the goods). As you know, the U.S. also has a refugee crisis caused by authoritarian governments in Central America. But our situation is compounded by ruthless gangs involved with drug cartels and human trafficking, as well as infighting in our government about how to deal with it.
We agree more than I thought we did. And you’re right about the situation being compounded by the drug trade. I am persuaded, by what I’ve read,
http://universalworkshop.com/guysblog/2016-07-20/not-a-crime-but-a-misery-reliever/
that making drugs medically available to those who have become addicted to them could put the cartels out of business.
Cardinal Robert Sarah, seen by some as a possible successor to Pope Francis, has some interesting thoughts on mass migration, the EU, and culture:
https://www.foxnews.com/world/catholic-cardinal-calls-mass-migration-a-new-form-of-slavery-says-bible-shouldnt-be-used-to-justify-it
Excellent. That sums it up.