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.

Brexiting

BREXITING

And the OUT vote won. With a high voter turnout (72%), the United Kingdom voted 52%-48% to leave the European Union.

 

Regardless of the pressure, the threats, the fearmongering and the blatant foreign attempts at interfering, the United Kingdom is Brexiting the EU.

Although I am not British, I welcome this process and this decision.

First, it was a demonstration of free democratic exercise that, most unfortunately, has been denied to most Europeans in a deliberate fashion to enable certain elites to pursue their own agendas without the explicit stamp of approval from the citizens.

Secondly, the British showed their courage and resilience, voting with their hearts and minds and resisting the unacceptable meddling from foreign countries, dignitaries and bureaucrats from international organisations.

Finally, this will be an opportunity to show that there is life beyond the EU and it will be an opportunity for the EU to face and tackle its shortcomings, its limitations, its malfunctioning, its authoritarian and intrusive ways and its gross overstretch. The former will certainly prove a difficult but attainable challenge for the British. As for the latter, quite honestly I do not believe that the Brussels octopus and its masters will, relent in any significant way.

These are, without a shadow of a doubt, Interesting Times (Tempos Interessantes).

 

All Unequal

ALL UNEQUAL

Many people who live in a world of make-believe and others who are just uninformed, plus many others who have vested interests in maintaining an illusion, have long subscribed to the idea that in the European Union all countries are equal. More than that, they are all best friends. Some even defended that nation-states were fading away and soon would be nothing but unpleasant memories.

 

No alchemy, just a poor Luxembourger commissioner adrift.

in “THE ECONOMIST” at www.economist.com

So, one can only imagine the shock the first group must have felt when Jean-Claude Juncker, the archetype of Euro-federalist-Brussels insider-EU fundamentalist, declared that France will NOT be punished for exceeding the 3% budget deficit ceiling, because…. It is France: The European Commission has given France leeway on fiscal rules "because it is France," the president of the EU executive Jean-Claude Juncker said (…). (In “REUTERS” at http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-deficit-france-idUKKCN0YM1N0 ) Serves them right.

Not that it is something that new or surprising. If one follows History, International Relations and Geopolitics, one will know that countries are NOT equal and they are frequently NOT friends and very seldom so for life.

Actually, the Portuguese may remember that in 2002 the EU opened an excessive deficit procedure against Portugal and when the fine looked inevitable, the process was dismissed, because….it turned out that France and Germany has incurred in the same violation and of course they could NOT be punished. No, Brussels would NEVER do that. NOT then, NOT now and NOT ever.

And the Danish may remember to have voted “NO” to the Maastricht Treaty and finding out that quite a few people, including foreign politicians and opinion makers were advocating Denmark’s exclusion from the European Community. However, when France (and The Netherlands) blocked the Constitutional Treaty in their referenda, no one pointed the exit to Paris and Amsterdam. No, they just froze the Treaty.

So, let us all shred the fanciful talk about equality and friendliness. The EU is about power and influence: those who have, use it; those who do not, suffer the consequences. They may have scrapped the tanks, the bombers and the cruisers, but when the major powers want to have their way, they can and they do inflict pain. Just ask the Greeks. Or ask the Portuguese, for that matter.