Get Brexit Done

GET BREXIT DONE

 

Boris Johnson’s outstanding victory.

in BBC News at www.bbc.com/news

The Conservative Party won a crushing majority in yesterday’s election. The Labour Party went back to 1935 figures. Unlike Theresa May, Boris Johnson took a risk and was abundantly rewarded with the election of 364/65 Tory MPs, the largest Westminster majority since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 victory.

Finally, one sees the light at the end of the Brexit tunnel. It is really incredible the dragging of this vital issue which was formally set off on 30^th March 2017, over 30 months ago. Hopefully, Boris Johnson will wrap up this annoying issue asap, enabling the United Kingdom and all the rest to move forward.

A final word to the sore losers of the Brexit referendum. They got their cherished second referendum and…they lost again and they lost it big time. Hopefully they will finally get over it, too.

Hubris and Intolerance

HUBRIS AND INTOLERANCE

There is a significant segment of people (including groups, parties and media) in Europe and North America who seem to be convinced that they are the guardians of truth in political and social life. According to these people, Democracy is fine as long as their views, policies and candidates prevail. The rub is when they do not. When they do not, all hell breaks loose.

The recent referendum in the United Kingdom and the United States’ presidential election, as well as, EU-related referenda in the past quarter-century, are the starkest examples of these displays of anti-democratic hubris and intolerance.

The arguments presented are mostly stupid, or futile. Here are some examples.

1- The electoral system is a major culprit in the USA, because Hillary Clinton got more votes and yet she lost the election to Donald Trump. However, the American electoral system has been well established for 200 years and everyone knows (or at least they should) that what matters in these elections are the electoral votes garnered in each of the 50 states. You win when you reach the 270 vote threshold, regardless of your name or party. Obviously, anyone can dislike the system, but you cannot contest it after the deed is done.

2- In the UK, some people in Scotland and Northern Ireland claimed they were not bound by the referendum’s results because in those regions the majority voted “Remain”, whereas in the country as a whole the “Leave” vote prevailed. However, the referendum was a countrywide vote and so was the outcome, which is valid and binding to everyone, from the Shetlands to Dover. If things actually worked in this absurd way, countries would split their way out of existence after a few elections and referenda.

3- The winning candidate/party/policies/ideas are bad; we do not like them, so they cannot win. Well, tough. Welcome to Democracy.

The bottom line is that the people who are looking for tricks, schemes and pretexts, or are resorting to violence to subvert the electoral outcomes in the UK and in the US are, first and foremost, intolerant, arrogant, hypocritical and they just cannot stand the idea of losing an important election/referendum.

I have been through many elections, some of them as a candidate and I have been unhappy with the results many times, especially at the local level, but I have never questioned the legitimacy of the winners, much less have I tried to subvert the elections outcome. In Democracy there are no winners by design.

It is highly ironic that people who portray themselves as tolerant and enlightened are neither. They just act as if they were only to the extent that their views prevail. When they do not, the thin veneer cracks and their true selves emerge: arrogant, intolerant, sore losers, full of rage, in one word, non-democratic.

These self-entitled holders of the truth are the ones who, above anyone else, subvert Democracy with totalitarian thoughts and actions.

Sore Losers

SORE LOSERS

After a long, lively, disputed and sometimes acrimonious campaign, the people of the United Kingdom chose to leave the European Union. Over seventeen million people (52% of voters) stated their will to leave the euro-mess and go it alone. Understandably, many of the 16 million who voted to remain in the EU are frustrated, sad, or even angry with the outcome of the vote. However, elections and referenda come and go, they are won and lost, and life goes on.

This time in the UK, things went a little differently: some of the losers do not seem to come to terms with the fact that they lost. Fair and square.

 

A Sore Loser, of sorts.

in “BBC NEWS” at http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/36619203/vote-remain-this-is-how-not-to-be-a-sore-brexit-loser

There are three (3!!!) strains of sore losers:

SORE LOSERS, BAD PEOPLE: Comments criticising the supposedly short sighted and selfish vote of the elderly people, the majority of whom voted “Leave” is totally unacceptable.  To ask “how long they have to live with the decision, on average?”, written in a site that belongs to “The Independent” is despicable, shows a gross disrespect for the aged people and demonstrates a total absence of the basic democratic notions. Maybe the writers in 40 years-time will be ditched in the sewer by some 2050’s youngsters.

SORE LOSERS, INTOLERANT PEOPLE: The drive to repeat the referendum based on previously non-existing rules smacks of intolerance, not to speak of blatant unlawfulness. So, these people did not like the results, so let us repeat the exercise until they like the outcome. It shows intolerance for the others’ creeds, it shows arrogance and, again, it shows a strong anti-democratic streak. Never mind that they are trying to change the rules of the game after the fact. Sore losers, that’s what they are.

SORE LOSERS, OPPORTUNISTIC PEOPLE: The leader of Scotland and the leader of the second party in Northern Ireland are trying to use the referendum results as the foundation of claim to secession. The argument goes that the “Leave” prevailed in England and Wales, but not in Scotland and in Ulster. The problem with this line of argument is that the referendum was a national one, a United Kingdom referendum, with a single binding result: that of the entirety of the United Kingdom. Some people will do just about anything to twist the results, their meaning and their consequences.

Until people do not admit that other people have the right and legitimacy to think and vote differently, until these people do not realise that the rights of young and old, right, centre and left, urban and rural, more and less educated, are the same, they will continue to exhibit intolerance in the name of a self-proclaimed enlightenment and progress. And they will keep being sore losers.

The UK Leaves the EU

THE UK LEAVES THE EU

 

in IP Watch at http://www.ip-watch.org/

After a long, lively, disputed and sometimes acrimonious campaign, the British people chose to leave the European Union. Over seventeen million people (52% of voters) stated their will to leave the euro-mess and go it alone.

Here are some notes on the referendum:

1- David Cameron is the most visible loser. He set the bar high when he committed to revamp the United Kingdom’s relationship with the EU and then to put the British membership of the bloc up for a vote. Negotiations with the other 27 Member-States soon proved to be difficult (Treaty change was quickly set aside) and Cameron chose to settle with relatively meek concessions. The fact that he considered these were relevant enough to defend the “Remain” vote, showed that he was more committed to staying in the organisation than to bring home some substantive reforms. This way, he lost credibility among Conservative euro sceptics and did not acquire any from other sectors, such as Labour supporters. On the day after, he naturally resigned.

2- The Leavers (Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage) were the big winners. They assembled strong, focused and appealing campaigns in which the EU bureaucratic non-democratic behemoth, the recovery of sovereignty and national identity and immigration were the main messages hammered away. This message cut across the political and geographical spectrum, from Tories in the South of England to Labourites in the North and in Wales. Johnson and Gove can conceivably be the architects of the actual exit and their day-after posture was serious and reassuring.

3- Fearmongering and Foreign admonishments were among the main tools of the Remain campaign. I always found it incredibly stupid to use foreign meddling for domestic political gains. It is a tried and failed tactic. Most people are not keen on having foreigners tell them how to vote. Notwithstanding, this was used ad nauseam in this referendum: the EU, the Commission, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the OECD, France, Germany, the United States, all chipped in with dire warnings of an impending apocalypse. This was obviously construed to be a gross self-interested exaggeration. Actually, this exorbitant concern scantily hid a more sincere worry: the impact of Brexit in their own countries. As the stock exchange downturn in Milan, New York, Paris and Frankfurt (all considerably sharper than in London) showed, this fear seemed to be warranted. Anyway, most voters did not buy into the notoriously overblown forecasts. This, eventually, undercut even the more realistic negative analyses.

4- Labour and Jeremy Corbyn were the outsiders of the referendum. The party still battered by last year’s devastating electoral defeat and the leader mostly aloof and ambivalent on the EU question. So much so, that the ever fundamentalist and intolerant “The Economist”, accused Corbyn of sabotaging the “Remain” campaign. The fact is that a great share of the Labour voters voted to leave and Jeremy Corbyn is already facing a leadership challenge.

5- In the UK, for the time being, most of the turmoil is political with both the Conservative and the Labour parties facing leadership change and challenge, respectively. Although that is a bit unsettling, it is not really out of the ordinary.

 

in “The Guardian” at http://www.theguardian.com/international

The British people’s decision to leave the EU is one of the most relevant events in International Relations in the 21 Century. Like most events of this magnitude, they entail risks, challenges and opportunities.

Going forward, it is clear that the risks are multilateral and not confined to the UK. However, even outside the EU, the United Kingdom has many assets and advantages which, coupled with some reforms to make her more competitive and shedding some of the more stifling European regulations, could make Brexit more of a winner than a setback.

I believe it to be more unlikely that the EU will be able to implement the huge changes it needs to leave the stasis it finds itself in.