EU referendum: Is Putin betting on a Brexit?

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ESSAY Why Europe Wins Everyone writes off the European Union as dull and prone to fracture. But the last decade shows that Brussels is smarter than Beijing, London, Moscow, and Washington.
Several months ago, when COVID-19 struck Europe, headlines portrayed overflowing hospitals in Italy, policy mistakes in Britain and Sweden, mismanaged senior care in Belgium, and misbehaving youth in Spanish discos. Two months later—after European governments imposed lockdowns, mask-wearing, testing, and tracing—the incidence of new cases plummeted. By July, vacationing Europeans were strolling through Piazza Navona in Rome, attending the opera in Salzburg, and dining in Paris.
Americans are not welcome to cross the Atlantic, however, because the United States has failed to match Europe’s resilience. Instead, new cases trended upward through the summer, leaving the average American 10 times more likely to contract the coronavirus than the average European.
Europe’s success is not coincidental. Studies show that countries with higher income equality and sound expert-based government regulation—areas in which European countries excel—tend to combat disease better. They are also desirable paces to live and do business: In a global poll, European countries grabbed seven of the top 10 spots on Forbes’s 2019 list of the nations with the best reputation for social, economic, and political success, whereas the United States barely cracked the top 40.
The coronavirus pandemic is only one of many examples of a general tendency among journalists, analysts, diplomats, and politicians to underestimate Europe.
The coronavirus pandemic is only one of many examples of a general tendency among journalists, analysts, diplomats, and politicians to underestimate Europe. For a generation, observers have bet against Europe’s future, arguing that it lacks the high growth, centralized political institutions, domestic legitimacy, and hard military tools required to have an effective global presence. Many observers confidently predicted that the euro would collapse, enlargement from 15 to 28 members would fail, and voters would reject European ideals. Yet the pundits were proved wrong: None of this came to pass.
Nowhere is Europe’s ability to confound the skeptics clearer than in foreign policy. Over the past decade, Europeans have faced four epochal foreign-policy challenges involving the strongest great-power competitors and most powerful forces of globalization in today’s world. In 2014, Russia attacked Ukraine. In 2015, waves of migrants flooded across the Mediterranean, and the next year, amid rising populist Euroskepticism, the Brexit referendum threatened to dissolve the European Union. And since 2016, Donald Trump, first as a candidate and then as U.S. president, has challenged NATO and trans-Atlantic trade.
In each case, newspapers published lurid reportage and think tanks issued dire predictions of Europe’s imminent collapse while politicians in Washington, Beijing, and Moscow wrote Europe off as strategically irrelevant. But in each case Europeans quietly prevailed.
Europeans have succeeded by deploying nonmilitary capabilities that they wield more effectively than anyone else in the world today: foreign aid, trade and employment agreements, the imposition of regulatory standards, the cultivation of international law and organization, firm but quiet diplomacy, and the promotion of democracy. Europe’s distinctive pragmatic use of civilian power may be too dull, slow-moving, and technocratic to attract attention. Yet in the end, it gets the job done more cost-effectively than other means employed by rival great powers.
In 2014, Russia attacked Ukraine, annexed Crimea, and covertly supported separatism in two of its eastern provinces—a flagrant violation of international law that posed the most serious security challenge to Europe in a generation. Since Russia enjoys unquestioned local military superiority and accords Ukraine greater historical, cultural, economic, and strategic importance than any other country, traditional realists such as Henry Kissinger and John Mearsheimer counseled Europe to let Ukraine go. Moscow, they warned, would respond ruthlessly, leading inevitably to a Western defeat.
European leaders ignored the naysayers and, instead, led a Western effort to face Russia down in its own backyard. Just six years later, the result is as favorable as is realistically possible. Ukraine—minus the 7 percent of its territory occupied by Russia and its sympathizers—is now an independent country forging an ever closer relationship with the West. The war in its eastern provinces is winding down: After more than 9,000 deaths by the end of 2015, Ukrainian military and civilian fatalities have dropped to around 100 per year. While Russia seems determined to stay in Crimea, negotiations over the eastern provinces inch forward, achieving an effective cease-fire and prisoner exchange this year.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is enjoying robust economic growth. Its democracy continues to consolidate: The election of Volodymyr Zelensky in early 2019 placed the country’s presidency in the hands of politicians far less tainted by corruption, oligarchy, or Russian ties. In separate polling, nearly 80 percent of Ukrainians now have a favorable view of the EU, and almost two-thirds believe that further external cooperation should be directed at eventual membership.
While primary credit lies with Ukrainians themselves, who sustained high military casualties, their sacrifice would have been futile without massive Western backing. Europe alone possesses the nonmilitary instruments needed to prevail against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For decades, EU officials had been quietly helping the Ukrainian government integrate with the West by adapting its market legislation to EU standards—a process meant to culminate in an association agreement with the EU in 2014. Fearing that such an agreement would tie Ukraine to the West in perpetuity, Putin pressed then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to reject it. What no one could have foreseen was that, in response, pro-Western protesters would occupy Kyiv’s Independence Square for three months, many waving EU flags—ultimately triggering a revolution that ended only when Yanukovych fled to Russia and a pro-Western president took office.
If the soft power of European values helped spark the revolution in Ukraine, Europe’s coordinated economic, political, and legal aid sustained it.
If the soft power of European values helped spark the revolution, Europe’s coordinated economic, political, and legal aid sustained it. EU and member state aid has kept war-torn Ukraine solvent, providing about $20 billion since 2014, compared with less than $2 billion in economic aid from the United States. Europe supports about twice as much aid as the International Monetary Fund does as well. An estimated 4 million Ukrainians work abroad, most of them in Europe, remitting back nearly $16 billion annually—10 percent of the country’s GDP—whereas only a few thousand go to the United States. Under the EU association agreement, Ukraine has expanded trade with Europe, which now takes nearly $25 billion annually in Ukrainian exports, more than 20 times that which goes to the United States.
European governments have voted unanimously every six months to renew trade, investment, and travel sanctions on Russia despite Moscow’s punishing countersanctions. They do so despite the fact that while the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia all imposed common sanctions (and faced countersanctions from Moscow), 90 percent of the costs fall on Europeans, who are the ones with a traditional trading relationship with Russia.
The EU’s European Neighborhood Policy provides an extensive integrated program of economic, political, and legal reform, aimed at aligning Ukraine over the long term with the West. The EU Commission wields competition law and infrastructure spending to limit the power of Gazprom, the Russian fossil fuel monopoly, and to ensure continued energy supplies to Ukraine. Working through the Normandy Format, French and German leaders have led the diplomatic effort to defuse the military conflict—initiating, according to one study, eight times more high-level diplomatic communication with Russia and Ukraine than their U.S. counterparts.
To be sure, the United States does provide most of Ukraine’s military aid, yet such assistance totals just a 10th of EU civilian aid discussed above—and the Ukrainian government is constrained to spend it on U.S.-produced conventional arms, training, and medical supplies largely available on the open market. The Trump administration’s much-heralded sale of lethal military equipment—Javelin anti-tank missiles—to Ukraine arrived only in 2018, long after Russian forces had pulled back, unlikely to return. And the United States has imposed the explicit condition that the missiles must be stored almost a thousand miles from the front and cannot be used in combat. In contrast to European aid, U.S. military assistance is more symbolic than real.
In 2015, just over 1 million irregular migrants arrived in Europe—an influx higher than in any period since the immediate aftermath of World War II. Many were Syrian refugees seeking asylum. Hundreds of millions of people across the globe desire to migrate, and European countries remain some of the most desired destinations, leading many to view such waves of mass migration as inevitable and irresistible. Conservative pundits proclaimed “the death of Europe.”
Yet Europe’s spectacularly swift and successful response demonstrates that mass migration can be controlled. Since 2015, the flow of irregular migrants has declined by 88 percent—from just over a million to about 123,000 in 2019—and has continued to trend downward this year. Since fewer people brave the journey, fewer die at sea: Last year’s total of 1,319 dead and missing is lower than any year on record—though, of course, this calculation ignores the fate of those stuck in transit camps.
Europe’s spectacularly swift and successful response to the migration crisis demonstrates that mass migration can be controlled.
European governments achieved this goal by adopting tough but effective policies. They constructed walls, fences, and high-tech sensing systems. They criminalized the transport of migrants, even on commercial ferries or aircraft. They removed EU policing and rescue boats from the seas. They cracked down on NGOs that assisted migrants (and, allegedly, helped coordinate their movements) by placing police on their vessels, impounding boats, and initiating prosecutions. When European navies spotted migrant vessels in international waters, they towed them back to an uncertain fate in Africa or Asia.
Europe struck deals with transit countries such as Turkey, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. All have agreed to police their shores, house millions of potential migrants, and work with the EU’s border control agency, Frontex. In exchange, they receive foreign aid, trade concessions, visa-free travel, and border control equipment. Further EU migration missions are now dotted through Chad, Mali, and the rest of Africa.
European idealists and migrant rights activists accuse European governments of hypocrisy: Are they not betraying the spirit of their ethical and international legal obligations to permit any refugee or migrant to seek international protection? Conditions in European detention areas are indeed often overcrowded and uncomfortable, as attested by the images that recently circulated from Greece’s burned-down Moria camp. Extra-European detention camps are especially troubling. This year, even before the pandemic, the United Nations suspended operations at its transit center in Tripoli, Libya, because it could not ensure safety. Ramona Lenz of Medico International—a public health NGO funded in part by the German government—has criticized European governments for enlisting neighboring states to serve as the “bouncers of Europe”—and then averting their gaze as those states abuse the human rights of migrants.
Yet European governments have remained unsentimentally resolute. Donald Tusk, then-president of the EU’s most important decision-making body, the European Council, declared when the policy was adopted: “We may not agree on everything, but we agree on the main goal, which is stemming illegal migration to Europe.”
European governments chose this strategy because they are pragmatic. Their citizens consider immigration the most important issue facing Europe, with majorities of up to 10 to 1 opposing more migrants, even before the 2015 wave. Migration threatens the stability of Europe’s moderate political systems: No government would last long today if it supported uncontrolled entry from culturally dissimilar regions. This would undermine other policies. In Britain, for example, citizens listed migration as one of the most important political issues facing the country in every year from 2001 to 2016, with a substantial majority of those polled wanting to reduce the number of migrants—a trend that eventually helped fuel the Brexit vote.
In the long term, European leaders view the reduction of uncontrolled migration, brutally if necessary, as the only way forward. Yet there is a silver lining. Doing so can create the political space to admit more migrants on selective economic and humanitarian grounds. Recent polls suggest that this may be correct: Public concern about migration is slowly declining.
Over the past two decades, extreme-right populist parties with anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-terrorist, and anti-Europe appeal have increased their vote shares across Europe. They now participate in government in six countries. In Britain, they spearheaded Brexit. And in the last two decades, scholars—and, it seems, journalists—have written more about extreme-right populist parties than all other European parties combined.
Leading foreign-policy pundits argue that homegrown extremism in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere—and not rising great-power challengers—now poses the greatest threat to the post-Cold War liberal international order. In Europe, many fear that extremist governments might win more EU exit referendums or join Trump and Putin in adopting protectionist and pro-Russia stances.
Yet this proved to be journalistic hype. Rather than panicking over populist threats, European leaders calmly drained their energy by dampening migration and terrorism and hanging tough in negotiations with Britain—to which they can now add the political benefit of managing the coronavirus pandemic well. Today, European unity—in any case, a practical necessity for small and highly interdependent states—is more popular than at any time in recent history.
In fact, populists were never as powerful as headlines made them seem. Consider the case of Marine Le Pen, who heads the French extreme-right National Rally party. When she ran for the French presidency in 2017, newspapers across the globe proclaimed, as one New York Times article put it, that “the next president of France will be Marine Le Pen” and speculated what her administration would do once in office. Yet her campaign was clearly hopeless from the start. All of her potential rivals, polls showed, could defeat her by comfortable double-digit margins, and Emmanuel Macron eventually did so by winning twice as many votes. Today, the National Rally holds just seven of 577 seats in the National Assembly.
Outside of Britain, extreme Euroskepticism enjoys scant support.
The impotence of the extreme-right in France is no exception. Outside of Britain, extreme Euroskepticism enjoys scant support. Of 27 EU members (plus Britain), 12 have no extreme-right or Euroskeptic party at all or none that scores above 10 percent in national elections. In 10 more countries, including France and Germany, other parties consistently exclude extremists from government coalitions. In three more—Latvia, Estonia, and Bulgaria—extremists participate only as minority coalition partners, which reduces their influence close to zero.
Only in Britain, Hungary, and Poland does an extreme-right or Euroskeptic party actually lead the government. Of course, their extremism poses threats to the quality of democracy and rule of law, as in the United States, but their effect on foreign policy is slight. Migration is the only EU issue on which policy has moved in a direction extremists favor—but this, as we have seen, is only because the position held by extremists happens to be that of large majorities of moderate voters in nearly every country. Otherwise, Poland and Hungary, both of which are among the biggest beneficiaries of EU policies and have exceptionally pro-EU populations, follow their neighbors on nearly every aspect of external policy, from sanctions on Russia to development aid to Africa—dissenting occasionally only on symbolic declarations. That leaves Brexit as the only major Euroskeptic achievement of a populist party in recent years.
Yet Brexit is, at best, an exception that proves the rule. That it happened at all reflects a perfect storm of astonishingly unlikely circumstances unrepeatable elsewhere. Britain is the only European country where Euroskepticism attracts more than a tiny fringe of the electorate. Even so, Brexit could happen only because a prime minister overruled his advisors to call an unnecessary referendum, which happened to fall at the only brief moment in the last five years when a majority of Britons opposed EU membership. Brexit was later ratified by an election in which a 44 percent vote share gave Boris Johnson a comfortable majority: Without Britain’s electoral institutions, the most biased in Europe, a pro-EU majority would have ruled instead.
Today, Brexit remains stalled. Britain is much smaller and dependent on Europe’s good will to gain access for nearly half of its exports, particularly of services like banking. This allows Europe to take a tough stance in negotiations over the terms of the U.K. withdrawal. British Brexiteers once hoped that Trump would bail them out with a quick trade agreement. Yet U.S.-U.K. negotiations have gone nowhere after the United States badgered the British about agricultural imports and aircraft subsidies. Trump embarrasses prime ministers on his visits, remains unpopular among the British public, and is struggling to be reelected. Britain is running out of options.
These realities, combined with the more general lack of support for their Euroskeptic views, have led populists elsewhere to moderate their ideas rather than follow London’s lead. Five years ago, 15 extreme-right parties, including Le Pen’s National Rally, advocated a Brexit-style withdrawal from the EU or the eurozone. Today none do. Even so, the most worrisome populist challenger in Europe, Matteo Salvini of the League party, is hemorrhaging popular support to the Brothers of Italy, a new and less Euroskeptic right-wing party. The wave of populist Euroskepticism seems to have crested.
Among Europe’s major geopolitical assets is its close partnership with the United States, which has formed the bedrock of Western defense and economic policies for 75 years. In 2016, as a presidential candidate, Trump called all this into question, declaring NATO “obsolete” and threatening to withdraw if Europeans failed to meet their informal pledge to spend 2 percent of their GDPs on defense—a threat he has repeated often since. He seems obsessed with Europe’s bilateral trade surplus with the United States—especially that of Germany.
Yet as president, Trump has been more bark than bite. European defense spending has risen only marginally, with just the United Kingdom and a half-dozen Eastern European countries likely to exceed 2 percent anytime soon. Nonetheless, within three months of entering office, the new president took credit for the problem being fixed and declared NATO “not obsolete.” Vice President Mike Pence, backed by cabinet officials, assured allies that Washington’s commitment remained “unwavering.” The most Trump has done was to approve plans in July to remove about 6,000 of more than 60,000 troops in Europe. But commentators agree that this bit of pre-election theatrics is unlikely to result in real policy change, which would take years to execute and cost billions of dollars and would be strategically insignificant even if it did.
Longer term, Europe need not worry that the United States will leave NATO. European countries remain America’s most trustworthy and capable allies. U.S. Defense Department planners, important domestic constituencies, and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress favor both defending Europe and deterring Russia. Moreover, more than half of U.S. forces stationed in NATO countries are not there to defend Europe from Russia but to provide indispensable logistical support for the projection of U.S. power in the Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa, and Eurasia. They man Air Force bases, transport hubs, headquarters, and hospitals in Germany, as well as the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet, based in Naples, Italy. U.S. Africa Command, for example, is headquartered in the German city of Stuttgart because the United States was unable to find an African country to host it. Without NATO, every delivery of troops or materiel, evacuation of a wounded soldier, naval mission in the Mediterranean, rapid reaction action, multinational training exercise, heavy bombing mission, or trip to headquarters would require an extra 6,000-mile trip to or from the United States.
Trump also took aim at European economic interests, grabbing headlines by repeatedly threatening to impose tariffs on EU exports. Pundits worried that trans-Atlantic disruption might upend the global trading system. Yet the administration has provoked only two small squabbles: In 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on European steel and aluminum, and last year he blocked a bundle of goods in response to European subsidies to Airbus. Neither was new. All but one U.S. administration since that of Richard Nixon has placed special tariffs on steel—a large unionized industry concentrated in U.S. swing states. And the World Trade Organization fully authorized the compensatory tariffs on Airbus products in October 2019 as part of a settlement of a 15-year dispute.
When Trump imposed tariffs, Europe swiftly retaliated with sanctions carefully targeted at voters in U.S. swing states.
Yet these two sets of tariffs targeted just $7.5 billion in European exports each—minuscule compared with the $300 billion in Chinese products hit by Trump tariffs. As a result—until the COVID-19 crisis—trans-Atlantic exports and affiliate sales continued to increased more than 20 percent after 2016, whereas U.S. trade with China declined significantly.
No trans-Atlantic trade war erupted because Trump did not dare provoke it. The backlash would be fierce since U.S. and European firms are far more heavily cross-invested than firms in any other part of the world: 61 percent of total U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) is in Europe, and 68 percent of FDI coming into the United States comes from Europe, so U.S. corporate interests are inseparably linked to Europe. Even when EU and U.S. economic interests diverge, Trump must tread even more carefully than with China because the world’s largest trading bloc with a population of almost 500 million is a powerful adversary. Trade authority is centralized in Brussels. When Trump imposed tariffs, Europe swiftly retaliated with sanctions carefully targeted at voters in U.S. swing states.
The EU plays offense as well. Quietly taking advantage of Trump’s diffidence toward globalization, Europe concluded ambitious trade agreements with Japan, Mexico, and Canada, with Australia, Brazil, and other countries to follow. Exploiting the threat of exclusion from the lucrative European market, the EU has become the world’s de facto regulatory authority—something the Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford calls the “Brussels effect.” Farmers in Nebraska, for instance, grow pesticide-free products so that they meet EU standards. Europe recently imposed tough privacy standards on U.S. tech giants and is considering new digital taxes. The Trump administration objected, but Europe did not back down. Instead, it helped convince California to adopt similar regulations, which went into effect in January.
Journalists, pundits, and politicians overlook Europe’s record of success because it is, in a word, dull. Europe’s quiet and patient style of foreign policy lacks the flash and charisma of old-fashioned crisis diplomacy conducted in the shadow of coercive force. Unlike Trump’s America, Europe does not grab headlines by precipitously launching trade wars—or real ones. Unlike Putin’s Russia, it does not subvert elections and pollute the internet. Unlike Xi Jinping’s China, it does not incarcerate ethnic minorities or provoke military clashes along its borders. Old-school geopoliticians are baffled (and often bored) by decisions taken by Brussels-based institutions where it is difficult to tell who is in charge—or even, as Kissinger once quipped, whom to call.
Europe’s pragmatism also often frustrates idealists. European leaders, knowing that they cannot solve all the world’s problems, pick their battles carefully. They eschew precipitous actions and hopeless causes that in retrospect so often seem ill-judged, such as toppling Saddam Hussein or ejecting Russia from Crimea. Instead, they slowly advance, often for decades, workable solutions to problems such as European enlargement, Iranian nuclear weapons, or climate change, punctuated by setbacks. In a case like Belarus today, it is perhaps overambitious to ask whether Europeans can topple the current authoritarian government tomorrow—but it seems reasonable to ask whether they can create incentives for its peaceful and positive evolution over the next decades. And what they do serves Europe’s interests.
Boring though this incremental and technocratic policymaking may be, it works. This has been shown not just by the examples above but in Europe’s recent decisions to provide 750 billion euros ($826 billion) in added financial firepower to stabilize the euro; to craft a system to screen Chinese investment in Europe; to switch to European-built 5G mobile networks; to promote peace and development in the Western Balkans; and now, without fear of a British veto, to coordinate tax policies.
In the wake of COVID-19, many in the United States have asked themselves whether democratic countries can sustain farsighted, data-driven, expert-based policies. Would-be Trumps and Putins question whether such policies are even desirable, preferring to appeal to national greatness. The answer is in Europe: In the 21st century, such policies are not only sustainable but successful. Europe is the future. This story appears in the Fall 2020 print issue.
Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and director of the European Union Program at Princeton University. Foreign Policy Magazine FP EVENTS FP STUDIOS FP ANALYTICS FP PEACEGAMES SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES REPRINT PERMISSIONS WRITER’S GUIDELINES WORK AT FP FP GUIDES – GRADUATE EDUCATION FP FOR EDUCATION FP ARCHIVE BUY BACK ISSUES MEET THE STAFF ADVERTISE WITH FP CONTACT US PRIVACY POLICY POWERED BY WORDPRESS.COM VIP © 2020, THE SLATE GROUP

Labour: The EU's dog that never barked - article by Bruno Waterfield of the Times

Times subscribers can opt to receive an email featuring a selection of that day's articles that might particularly interest them. I found this "Brexit briefing" article by Bruno Waterfield in my inbox yesterday. Normally I would submit the article to /ukpolitics by linking to it on the Times website but I can't find it there. Text follows:
THE VIEW FROM BRUSSELS
Labour: The EU's dog that never barked
BRUNO WATERFIELD
Labour is the dog that has not barked for European Union strategists plotting how to put the government under pressure in trade, fishing and security negotiations.
On Tuesday next week a major legal deadline passes, a big moment that will pass away and expire without a bang, not even a whimper, but in silence. At midnight on June 30 the government will no longer be able to ask for an extension of up to two years to the Brexit transition period that keeps Britain in the EU's single market and customs union until the end of year.
As the coronavirus pandemic struck in early March, EU negotiators and diplomats were convinced that the question of extension would become a major political question in British politics. That it did not is down to Labour and Keir Starmer.
With both the British and European economies reeling from the pandemic, the EU saw an extension as a shoo-in and the government's hostility to the idea as a strategic and political blunder. Last year, as shadow Brexit secretary, Starmer played a major role in delaying withdrawal, frustrating the government and coordinating Labour policy to overlap with Michel Barnier and the EU's negotiating strategy.
Many officials and diplomats used to joke that he had worn a shiny patch on the carpet into the EU's lead negotiator's office, so regular were his meetings and contacts with Barnier.
While the pandemic and lockdown has made physical meetings impossible, it has been noted in Brussels that Starmer has not sought any contact at all with Barnier — not even a chat over Zoom.
When Starmer took the leadership in early April, many on the European side predicted that extension would become the rallying cry for the former Remain camp in frustrating Boris Johnson's strategy. Many European governments and EU officials had hoped that a Labour-led outcry against the prime minister's hostility to an extension would box in Downing Street, painting the Tory leader as an ideologue who was putting Brexit purity before the economy.
With talks deadlocked between Barnier and David Frost, the UK's chief negotiator, and little progress towards compromise, it was hoped that a clamour for extending the transition would take the time pressure off the EU.
As well as getting extra time, it was thought that with extension the question of putting a closer trading relationship before a more distant purely free trade deal (Canada dry) would gain ground.
After all, if staying in transition arrangements made coping with a coronavirus recession easier, then, the argument runs, the case is made for staying close to the EU and its single market in a turbulent world. With the deadline passing uncontested and with just three months until the end of October to find an agreement, the EU is under pressure to compromise, with senior Brussels figures already trailing concessions.
"It is difficult to present the extension decision as naked Brexiteer ideology if the leader of the opposition is silent on it," said one senior diplomatic source. "Labour's decision not to politicise the extension has had an impact on the European strategy, which has always benefited from a longer timeframe."
Most people close to negotiations believe that after the June 30 deadline there are legal tricks, albeit "messy and difficult", to build implementation periods and elements of a phased entry into force for a future deal.
Such fixes might be part of a management strategy on both sides to ease the workings of quickly negotiated, fudged and fuzzy agreement.
The passing away of any political battle over extension is mourned on the EU side as a missed opportunity to reset the negotiations to Johnson's disadvantage.
But can Starmer take his party members with him?
At first glance the situation seems to pose a real dilemma for the Labour leader. Wasn't he elected with a resounding majority in April precisely because the majority of party members want a second referendum to rejoin the EU?
But a series of Zoom calls Sir Keir has held with members around the country in recent weeks reveals a more complicated picture.
Questions on Labour's Brexit position are common. But there has been no outcry about why he is not taking a more pro-Remain stance. For a significant chunk of the membership, the election result largely settled the question and what matters now is getting the party to a place where it can win again. To do that, Sir Keir must win over not Labour's members but its voters, particularly those in constituencies in the north of England that returned Tory MPs for the first time in December.
Asked by a party member in Northumberland last week why Brexit supporters should now vote Labour, he said: "The Remain argument is over. And I think it's very important that I say that, having been an open champion of remaining, which I thought was the right thing for us to do. We voted against, we have left. And we need to now focus on the future going forward."
Those around the new leader say that from the moment it looked likely that he was going to win the leadership contest a lot of thought went into how he should calibrate his response to Brexit.
In particular they were well aware that the most the broader public knew about him was defined by his stance in favour of a second referendum. And they were determined not to allow Brexit to dominate the narrative of his early days in office.
To that extent, although it would never be said aloud, Covid has been enormously helpful to Sir Keir's attempts to reinvent himself, as recent polling has shown.
And he knows that if Labour is to have any chance of power in 2024 then he will need to reunite the party's electoral coalition that was fractured by divisions on Europe.
That, perhaps, explains his response when asked, in the Northumberland call, whether he would campaign to rejoin the EU if Brexit proved a disaster. In a further twist of the knife for his Remainer supporters, he declared: "I don't really think there's a case for rejoining the EU. I think by the time of the next election we'll have been out for four years… That divide which divided families, communities, parts of the country and political parties is something nobody enjoyed."
Labour Remainers will hate it but they haven't really got anywhere to go other than the Lib Dems. And they don't look like such a good bet at the moment.

Labour: The EU's dog that never barked - article by Bruno Waterfield of the Times

Crosspost
Labour: The EU's dog that never barked - article by Bruno Waterfield of the Times
Times subscribers can opt to receive an email featuring a selection of that day's articles that might particularly interest them. I found this "Brexit briefing" article by Bruno Waterfield in my inbox yesterday. Normally I would submit the article to ukpolitics by linking to it on the Times website but I can't find it there. Text follows:
THE VIEW FROM BRUSSELS
Labour: The EU's dog that never barked
BRUNO WATERFIELD
Labour is the dog that has not barked for European Union strategists plotting how to put the government under pressure in trade, fishing and security negotiations.
On Tuesday next week a major legal deadline passes, a big moment that will pass away and expire without a bang, not even a whimper, but in silence. At midnight on June 30 the government will no longer be able to ask for an extension of up to two years to the Brexit transition period that keeps Britain in the EU's single market and customs union until the end of year.
As the coronavirus pandemic struck in early March, EU negotiators and diplomats were convinced that the question of extension would become a major political question in British politics. That it did not is down to Labour and Keir Starmer.
With both the British and European economies reeling from the pandemic, the EU saw an extension as a shoo-in and the government's hostility to the idea as a strategic and political blunder. Last year, as shadow Brexit secretary, Starmer played a major role in delaying withdrawal, frustrating the government and coordinating Labour policy to overlap with Michel Barnier and the EU's negotiating strategy.
Many officials and diplomats used to joke that he had worn a shiny patch on the carpet into the EU's lead negotiator's office, so regular were his meetings and contacts with Barnier.
While the pandemic and lockdown has made physical meetings impossible, it has been noted in Brussels that Starmer has not sought any contact at all with Barnier — not even a chat over Zoom.
When Starmer took the leadership in early April, many on the European side predicted that extension would become the rallying cry for the former Remain camp in frustrating Boris Johnson's strategy. Many European governments and EU officials had hoped that a Labour-led outcry against the prime minister's hostility to an extension would box in Downing Street, painting the Tory leader as an ideologue who was putting Brexit purity before the economy.
With talks deadlocked between Barnier and David Frost, the UK's chief negotiator, and little progress towards compromise, it was hoped that a clamour for extending the transition would take the time pressure off the EU.
As well as getting extra time, it was thought that with extension the question of putting a closer trading relationship before a more distant purely free trade deal (Canada dry) would gain ground.
After all, if staying in transition arrangements made coping with a coronavirus recession easier, then, the argument runs, the case is made for staying close to the EU and its single market in a turbulent world. With the deadline passing uncontested and with just three months until the end of October to find an agreement, the EU is under pressure to compromise, with senior Brussels figures already trailing concessions.
"It is difficult to present the extension decision as naked Brexiteer ideology if the leader of the opposition is silent on it," said one senior diplomatic source. "Labour's decision not to politicise the extension has had an impact on the European strategy, which has always benefited from a longer timeframe."
Most people close to negotiations believe that after the June 30 deadline there are legal tricks, albeit "messy and difficult", to build implementation periods and elements of a phased entry into force for a future deal.
Such fixes might be part of a management strategy on both sides to ease the workings of quickly negotiated, fudged and fuzzy agreement.
The passing away of any political battle over extension is mourned on the EU side as a missed opportunity to reset the negotiations to Johnson's disadvantage.
But can Starmer take his party members with him?
At first glance the situation seems to pose a real dilemma for the Labour leader. Wasn't he elected with a resounding majority in April precisely because the majority of party members want a second referendum to rejoin the EU?
But a series of Zoom calls Sir Keir has held with members around the country in recent weeks reveals a more complicated picture.
Questions on Labour's Brexit position are common. But there has been no outcry about why he is not taking a more pro-Remain stance. For a significant chunk of the membership, the election result largely settled the question and what matters now is getting the party to a place where it can win again. To do that, Sir Keir must win over not Labour's members but its voters, particularly those in constituencies in the north of England that returned Tory MPs for the first time in December.
Asked by a party member in Northumberland last week why Brexit supporters should now vote Labour, he said: "The Remain argument is over. And I think it's very important that I say that, having been an open champion of remaining, which I thought was the right thing for us to do. We voted against, we have left. And we need to now focus on the future going forward."
Those around the new leader say that from the moment it looked likely that he was going to win the leadership contest a lot of thought went into how he should calibrate his response to Brexit.
In particular they were well aware that the most the broader public knew about him was defined by his stance in favour of a second referendum. And they were determined not to allow Brexit to dominate the narrative of his early days in office.
To that extent, although it would never be said aloud, Covid has been enormously helpful to Sir Keir's attempts to reinvent himself, as recent polling has shown.
And he knows that if Labour is to have any chance of power in 2024 then he will need to reunite the party's electoral coalition that was fractured by divisions on Europe.
That, perhaps, explains his response when asked, in the Northumberland call, whether he would campaign to rejoin the EU if Brexit proved a disaster. In a further twist of the knife for his Remainer supporters, he declared: "I don't really think there's a case for rejoining the EU. I think by the time of the next election we'll have been out for four years… That divide which divided families, communities, parts of the country and political parties is something nobody enjoyed."
Labour Remainers will hate it but they haven't really got anywhere to go other than the Lib Dems. And they don't look like such a good bet at the moment.

Dear Brexiteer...

17,410,742 people voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, a process now famously known as Brexit. The country is now three years down the line, we have replaced Cameron with May and now May with Johnson, we're probably going for another General Election and absolutely nothing has been done to sort the problems that caused this.
Since I can't be bothered typing it out every time, let's call it 17.5 million people. In political circles, that's known as a "shitload". That many people voting for major reform of our entire system is something that warrants sincerity when analysing it, sadly this hasn't been the case with Brexit. We on the losing side chalk most of this up to populism, lies and let's be honest.... stupid folk. I'll put my hands in the air and say that the vast majority of people who voted against Brexit think that the vast majority of those who voted for it are intellectually inferior. We, the losers, think that you don't understand what you've done. We think you've cocked it all up a bit, we think you got angry at the "elite" and we definitely think quite a few of you are racist. That is not however the reason 17.5 million people voted to leave the EU. If anyone believes that over half of the UK is a bunch of raving mad racists, then they’re morons. 17.5 million people are not a monolith. They're not all twats and neither are we. This deserves a proper analysis where instead of guessing solutions and hoping they fit, let's take a serious look at the reasons why so many people would vote for such a drastic change.
I want to be clear and reiterate, I’m a 25 year old Remain voter who is giving his own opinion. I am not a professional at this. If I'm wrong, I'm a just a bog-standard bloke getting something wrong. Here’s my honest opinion why folk voted for Brexit, why I understand and why it’s fair for me to pissed off.
Small amount of history required. The United Kingdom closed World War II with a determination to strengthen Europe. Churchill was only too aware of the vulnerabilities within the continent and encouraged a pan-European approach which would allow nations to easier curtail any rogue state. He did however make the UK's position on Europe a little hazy:

We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.

On 18 April 1951, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Paris to become the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). We didn't. Which is weird but the reasoning is vitally important. The UK didn't want to sign up to such an agreement despite economic indications it would be profitable. Trading with Commonwealth countries was decreasing and joining the ECSC would surely offset it. There was at the time, great expectation that were the UK to join the ECSC the British legal system and parliamentary tradition would be altered and potentially disappear. Notably Labour were the strongest in opposition of European integration as they feared the effects it may have on their socialist principles.
Now, nobody needs a massive history lesson but it's important to quickly cover the rest. Weakening UK/US relations forced the UK closer to Europe and in 1970 negotiations began to join the now named, European Economic Communities (EEC). Despite some reservations the UK agreed a deal and joined the EEC in 1973. It wasn't that easy though, prominent Socialist Labour MP Tony Benn was concerned and wanted a further referendum on the permanence of the UK's relationship with the EEC. So divisive was the topic that Conservative MP, Nigel Farage's idol and definite racist; Enoch Powell inferred support for a Labour vote in 1974 so that they could back Benn's referendum. All of this considered, in 1975 the UK voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EEC with 67% of voters backing a Yes vote. It's interesting to consider here, we did not vote to join, that was decided for us and we certainly didn't vote on the permanence of our relationship, we just voted whether we stayed or not. To say that the UK walked into what we now know as the EU would be an understatement, we stumbled our way in. But, we were in.
Then around 20 years just sort of happened. Europe became less of a serious talking point and more of a political football. Thatcher's generally pro-European Conservatives were frustrated with the Maastricht Treaty which sought to protect workers rights and Neil Kinnock lead the generally anti-European Labour party to a policy of much greater integration in Europe. You can go through the period of '73 till now over and over again, the one thing you will conclude is that there never was consensus. Euroscepticism has always existed. Whether it's the Socialist who believes the European market-driven economics will harm equality or the Capitalist who believes the EU's focus on rights and bureaucracy will suffocate the UK economy, there was always opposition on both sides.
Euroscepticism is a perfectly valid stance to have. Whatever side of the aisle you come from, you've had team-mates who would call themselves eurosceptics. Some folk just don't believe in globalisation.
Okay, if I am to be honest about my Remainer stance, be honest about yours, this was never about Europe was it? You don't care about Brussels or regulations on bananas. Nobody cares about regulations on bananas. You feel pissed off that for almost half a century now, nobody gave a shit about your city/town/ village.
In 2016 a study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) analysed the fortunes of 74 UK cities with populations of more than 100,000, developing an index of relative decline based on changes in employment rates, levels of highly qualified workers, the number and type of full-time jobs, net migration rates and population change (the previous sentence is entirely from a Guardian article, yup I’m THAT guy). In simpler terms they wanted to find out which city has regressed fastest. Where's the biggest shithole essentially.
Should we do a top 10 and bottom 10? Okay.

Cities showing lowest relative decline:	Cities showing highest relative decline:
1) Milton Keynes	1) Rochdale
2) Cambridge	2) Burnley
3) Brighton	3) Bolton
4) Aberdeen	4) Blackburn
5) Crawley	5) Hull
6) Cheltenham	6) Grimsby
7) Worthing	7) Dundee
8) Cardiff	8) Middlesborough
9) Bournemouth	9) Bradford
10) Edinburgh	10) Blackpool

Now, my UK geography isn’t that bad but I’m still struggling with places like Crawley and Worthing. Let me put it this way, the North of England has been completely neglected. It’s honestly embarrassing seeing how systematic this decline is. Not one city in the South of England shows up until bloody Swindon at 26. This is a fucking joke. Too long we have looked at figures like these and talked about Thatcher and her deindustrialisation. Thatcher left in 1990. It’s 30 years later, I went to Huddersfield recently, it’s awful. We’ve completely forgotten vast swathes of England and if we want to pin this on the EU then that’s fine but let’s be very clear, absolutely every politician in the UK Parliament is fundamental aware of this issue and is doing nothing to solve it.
I have grown up in Edinburgh. I went to a private school, I’ve been to 4 continents, I know how to ski, I have a university degree and I am a notorious lazy bastard. For me and my friends to laugh at people on radio phone-in shows saying why they voted Brexit is just about the most fucked up thing going. I have had literally everything you could ask for handed to me and my side of the argument has the audacity to tell others that they are the ones who don’t understand.
Allow me to take a guess for a second. I’m being genuinely sincere when I say this because I truly want to understand. You’ve grown up in a city in North England like for example Grimsby. You’re one of the thousands who live in Grimsby and you love it. Of course you do, it’s home and with a proud tradition you and your family have always voted Labour. You proudly tell all that the last time Grimsby didn’t have a Labour MP, we were still fighting the Germans. You are what’s known as a “Safe Seat”. Nobody cares about you, nobody is campaigning in Grimsby because you’re just going to vote Labour. It stretches further though, you’re in such an entrenched Labour seat that not even Labour care too much about you and take it for granted you’ll always vote and, you do. You know that only two parties can win the election so you have to pick between the party that forgot about you and the party you hate. You vote Labour.
Grimsby continues to be neglected and you’ve had enough. You need someone to sit up and listen. The two party system has effectively taken away your only meaningful way of democratically showing disgust but now someone is giving you another option. Sweeping Europe is populism but you don’t care, all you see is someone actually showing up. Someone talking about Grimsby in that same positive light you always saw it in. You see someone who tells you that you’re right. They tell you it isn’t your fault and that the people running your country for the last 50 years have forgotten about you, instead favouring immigrants. Now there are fuck all immigrants in Grimsby. Nigel Farage stood for Parliament in South Thanet. There are no immigrants in either South Thanet or Grimsby but because of that, you don’t really know any immigrants. All you know is what you’ve been told and the only person who fucking bothered to speak to you were the populists so what the fuck are you supposed to think when they stand you in a polling booth and expect you to vote Labour? You don’t. You say fuck them. I’ve been taken for granted for too long. You mark an ‘X’ in the box next to UKIP or the Brexit Party. You’re proud. All of a sudden you matter. You made the difference. You’re part of a campaign and it’s full of patriots and “good decent” people.
I get it. Nobody cared and now they do. You wanted people to notice you and now they do. That makes complete sense to me. One question, why the EU?
Seriously, why the EU? When we actually sit down and look at the arguments it’s kind of crazy. We don’t want immigrants? The cities with the highest levels of immigrants tend to have the most pro-immigrant opinions. In Scotland we literally rely on European immigration, without it we’re seriously in trouble. I will say one thing, unfettered immigration is not fair and it’s not right, we in the Remain camp absolutely need to recognise that. There are people within this nation who need help and before we kick off about racism it is vitally important that we appreciate just how forgotten parts of our country are, while, in very broad terms, areas with larger amounts of immigration do tend to take more focus politically and higher public spending. Again, that’s fair. You can be angry about immigration. We need a much more sophisticated policy so that areas like Scotland can maintain higher levels while other areas can take less. Hopefully that might encourage spending to increase in the North of England and greater understanding of some of the immigrant communities. Here’s the thing though, I hope I would do the same. The vast majority of the people that have been subjected to some pretty heavy abuse and increasing violent attacks are just standard folk from across the world. If I told you that you could leave where you are and achieve a better life for your family by working elsewhere, would you do that for your family? Would you travel miles to set up a completely new life in a foreign land? Would you have the balls to do that? And before we say, “Nah, I’d stay and improve my home”, seriously why is Grimsby such a shithole then? Give credit where credit is due, the decision to move so far is, if nothing else, bold and I’ll be honest, I might be a snowflake but I massively admire anyone who is willing to not just say they’ll do anything for their family but actually go and do it.
What other key words have we got? Brussels? There’s this attitude in the UK that the Belgian capital and pretty much the entire country itself is pointless despite the Belgae dating back to the time of Julius Ceasar. Let’s not get into an argument over whether Belgium is a nice country or not, some folk like some places, some like others. If you don’t like Belgium, I can assure you, not even the Belgians give a shit. The properly debatable issue with Brussels is the fact that certain European Union institutions can be found there. The European Commission, the Council and part of the Parliament effectively make Brussels the Capital of the EU so when people say they don’t like Brussels, they’re really meaning they don’t like the centralisation of power outside of the UK. That in large part is Euroscepticism and a completely valid opinion. Like I said about Euroscepticism earlier, I can understand it. It falls apart here though when the solution to that is simply more power in Westminster, I mean absolutely nobody has an alternative to these laws just being transferred to the national Government. It’s seen as bringing power closer to home and as such becoming more democratic but answer me this. Have any of the recent UK votes, the elections or the referendums resulted in actions that you feel properly represent you? Nah. Taking back control in the fashion Brexiteers want is going to result in the same bullshit as before unless we properly look at what the real problems are. That’s the key. This has absolutely zero to do with a Bulgarian MEP giving his or her own opinion and anyone who tells you it does, they’re lying. Plus, if you were disappointed in how the EU was run, why did none of you vote in European elections? That includes Remainers. In fact, more so Remainers, at least the Brexiteers did something with the EU elections, most Remainers telling you how crucial the EU is, never even voted for that democratic assembly.
Money? That £350m we would get every week? That’s shite. You know it’s shite. There aren’t going to be more jobs, you aren’t going to earn more money, we all know that. Enough of the economical arguments. If you genuinely think the UK is going to be wealthier after leaving the EU, you’re betting on Scotland winning the next World Cup, while you’re not definitely wrong, it’s extremely likely that you are.
Let’s be completely honest with one another here, we have no idea what’s going to happen. There’s only one thing that we can take forward as a certainty and that’s that you and I have to share this island for the foreseeable future. I promise to not jump to conclusions and call you a racist. I also promise to go forward with Brexit, you guys won a democratic vote and I’m not going to stand in the way of that. You in return do not have to stop calling me a snowflake, you don’t have to change your view of the UK and you definitely don’t have to like me. You do on the other-hand have to understand my point of view. Economics aside, my girlfriend is from Spain. She only came here because of the EU. I can get behind a policy if it makes it easier to meet humans like her. I also think globalisation drastically reduces the susceptibility to major wars and helping to strengthen countries around us has a knock-on effect in my opinion. Not only does the EU really help minimise tensions, it does a great job of allowing all nations to participate in movements that are bigger than just our nation. It was far too fucking hot this summer. That’s not normal. We do need a global effort on climate change and the EU helps that in my opinion.
Whatever happens, I really don’t think you’re a twat. You’re entitled to think I am but I pledge to make a genuine attempt to help the forgotten areas of our nation. Also, I’ve never been to Grimsby. I have no idea if it’s a shithole. Photos do look bleak though.
TLDR: A letter from me, a Remainer, to Brexiteers on why I understand and I would have probably done the same.

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Signs That We're Completely Doomed Under the Johnson Cabinet?

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Here are some of ... but nowhere near all of ... the indications I think the public may live to regret electing this government:

Earlier this year, Johnson, quickly indicated a willingness to go back on promises made right after the GE 2019. These were: protecting free TV-licenses to over 75s (1m20s); raising the minimum wage to £10.50 (2m10s); sorting out social care (3m17s); protecting EU citizen rights (4m03s); reuniting unaccompanied refugee children with their parents (4m42s); keeping NHS out of trade deals with the US (4m45s); protecting government spending plans in general (5m38s)
Very early on, he also removed all the commitments to worker's rights and environmental protections from the withdrawal agreement and put them into the political declaration instead:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/boris-johnson-workers-rights-ecj-brexit-bill-wab-1-6434197

We're trying to get trade deals with large economies to get trade leverage over US & EU but most of those countries already have existing trade deals with the world's superpowers they're unlikely to undermine for a trade deal with us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVGhELy3Y5k

I'd be all for diverging from EU regulations to diversify our own trade portfolio but as that stands, it means accepting poorer consumer standards from the US where their chicken is more likely to have salmonella poisoning and they have maggot eggs in their orange juice

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-deal-latest-chlorinated-chicken-us-trade-deal-trump-a9255761.html

Then there's numerous other alarming implications to a US trade deal that include, of course, backdoor privatisation of the NHS

https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Summary_of_U.S.-UK_Negotiating_Objectives.pdf

Customs checks at Dover are likely to slow down our economy and vital supplies of foods and medicines coming in from the EU

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/01/johnson-to-impose-full-customs-checks-on-goods-from-eu-report

His back up plans for trade through transport links (a N. Ireland - Scotland bridge and a Midland to London HS2 rail) seem economically unsustainable and Johnson has a poor track record of completing or making his architecture projects economically viable as London mayor

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/11/boris-johnson-doesnt-let-detail-stand-in-way-of-latest-vanity-projects

Gibraltar means that unless Johnson plans to sell all the UK citizens living there down the river, we're all completely screwed in the trade talks with EU as Spain plans to veto Gibraltar from any deal we make with EU.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/01/brexit-trade-talks-eu-to-back-spain-over-gibraltar-claims

Numbers 1-72 of this list are benefits we get through EU membership that Johnson has made no detailed plans to replace in the next 11 months

edit: I am not permitted to share the original facebook link to Jack Dart's post: you will have to get the information from this amazon book preview
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Slaying-Brexit-Unicorns-truth-decision/dp/1916271308/?fbclid=IwAR0v4Jq9jThF2s560TYc0v8EscQbFLuqEvD3sku01fQjGDlPgdO6Znsbsds

The myth that Conservatives are the financially responsible party is just that - in fact they doubled the national debt since they came into power in 2010 and have not even spent the money on social services like Labour: where that money is going is a mystery and an utter disgrace

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/02/11/the-doubling-of-the-national-debt-the-conservatives-have-spent-all-the-money/

Johnson will deport people some of whom have lived in this country since the age of 3, have not reoffended since serving their sentence, not all serious offenders at all, are all as British as you or I and label them all as "violent, sexual offenders" and make them all the problem of the Jamaican tax payer - which I'm sure we'd all be chuffed about if the French did that to us, right?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51456387

Experts and the European Commission are saying that Johnson's rebranding of the "Australia Deal" is effectively "No Deal"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-brexit-deal-australia-eu-commission-latest-a9328681.html

Johnson's new Chancellor does not even have experience in senior cabinet positions and there's good indication the unelected Cummings completely dominated the whole cabinet reshuffle

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/13/sajid-javid-any-self-respecting-minister-would-reject-pms-demands-video

Johnson has less than 11 months to form a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU which took Canada 7 years and he's already ruled out an extension. Why can't we get a free trade agreement before we leave regulatory alignment ... or are their financial patrons and shadowy figures controlling our democracy that won't let Johnson do that?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/15/brexit-canada-trade-deal-eu-model-next-steps

On the last point there's strong indication that Epstein's former circles have very powerful influence over western democracies in general ...

https://www.vox.com/2019/7/9/20686347/jeffrey-epstein-trump-bill-clinton

And monetary interests from Russia, Leave.EU, Murdoch, Desmond, Harmsworth and the Barclay twins as well as dark data flows from Aggregate IQ throughout the 2016 referendum and 2019 GE

https://qz.com/1134845/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-investigations-into-the-brexit-campaign/

Which ties into Russia's not-so-secret foreign policy to weaken the EU, isolate Britain and create western divide through false narratives, polarised debates and espionage ... In this video, the author explains that in 1997 a book, The Foundations of Geopolitics, was published, a book of required reading for every Russian General.
Further to the above point, George Monbiot explains vested interests oligarchs have in controlling western democracy which includes access to money laundering through the city of London threatened by the EU anti-tax avoidance directive

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/controlled-foreign-companies-and-eu-anti-tax-avoidance-directive/controlled-foreign-companies-and-eu-anti-tax-avoidance-directive

Pro-Brexit disaster capitalists also have a vested interest in crashing the GBP

https://bylinetimes.com/2019/09/11/brexit-disaster-capitalism-8-billion-bet-on-no-deal-crash-out-by-boris-johnsons-leave-backers/

The pound has gone downhill ever since Johnson became Prime Minister and is now weaker than the Euro and US Dollar!

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/pound-sinks-on-boris-johnson-drastic-law-that-risks-no-deal-brexit-2019-12-1028767946

Some experts are warning of an impending 2020 global recession - how post-Brexit Britain is to cope with that is anyone's guess

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/25/global-recession-a-serious-danger-in-2020-says-un

Ireland's new election shows a strong Republican sentiment for a united Ireland which if that happens will mean we will lose one of the few advantages we have: a part of our union being in EU customs territory to facilitate trade through the isles post-Brexit

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/13/sinn-fein-breakup-uk-boris-johnson

Why I no longer support Lisa Nandy

Alright so I know it's been a while since I posted here, but given that we're in the later stages of the Labour leadership contest, and that I previously supported Lisa Nandy on this subreddit, I think I should make clear that I have since changed my position on the matter, and now regard Nandy as being ill suited for our aims. Why? Well, allow me to make my case by making the following points.

#1 - Nandy was and still is a Remainer
While she has opposed a second referendum and rightly criticised Labour's misguided Brexit policy, not only did she not campaign in favour of leaving the EU, she voted Remain. She also voted against ending the supremacy of EU law over UK law, and voted against most Brexit deals until finally voting for Boris Johnson's Brexit deal in principle back in October, only to vote against it less than a week after the election. She also confirmed on the Andrew Neil show that she wanted to remain in the single market and customs union, a position that no serious Brexiter can agree to, which means any pretence that she is the pro-Brexit candidate is a fraud. If that's not all, when she did chastise Remainers and it wasn't about the second referendum policy, she criticised them for not adequately defending free movement, which puts her out of touch with a working class that rejects free movement.

#2 - Dubious left credentials
Given that she has no intention of implementing worker ownership of the means of production, it's safe to assume that she's no socialist, but she even fails at social democracy. Recently, she caused controversy on Twitter by saying she opposes the scrapping of tuition fees, deeming it "unrealistic". She also went on to oppose much of the nationalisation programmes (except rail and mail which she apparently supports nationalising), even though nationalisation is such a popular policy that even Tory voters support it. With this one it's actually quite more nuanced considering she has expressed some interest in co-ops, but this is mainly in response to Rebecca Long-Bailey's call for public ownership (which to RLB and the Corbynites is just code for state ownership), and I have yet to see a flesh-out programme from her.

#3 - Her bizarre comments on Catalan independence
On the Andrew Neil show, she talked about the need to tackle nationalism across the world, and touted the way Spain dealt with the Catalan independence movement as inspiration. Of course, we know how Spain dealt with it - by beating up people who were going to vote in the Catalan independence referendum and stealing ballot boxes. Naturally, Twitter was ablaze over this, with many jokes about how maybe this is what she has in mind for Scotland. For sure, I am no fan of the Scottish independence movement, but I found Nandy's comments deeply concerning because to me it revealed a hidden sympathy for authoritarianism. Given that voted in favour of mass retention of information about communications, we know that she cannot be trusted with civil liberties.

#4 - Authoritarian leadership of the Labour Party
Speaking of authoritarianism, she also confirmed to Andrew Neil that she would expel anyone who was even mildly critical of the Israeli government's treatment Palestinians. When showed a tweet that said the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Palestine should be condemned and ask whether the poster (Rachel Cousins) should be banned, Nandy immediately replied that she would. This implies that she is going to respond to the legitimate failure of Corbyn's leadership on the genuine problem that Labour had with antisemitism by going in the complete opposite direction - total, indiscriminate censorship. Not that this is particularly unique to Nandy, but if we in this subreddit value freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, then I don't think we can appreciate the next leadership of the Labour party using the legitimate failures of Corbyn's leadership as an excuse to curtail freedom of speech and suppress legitimate criticisms of an authoritarian regime that has shown contempt for democracy, human rights and international law.

#5 - She won't even be able to stand up to intersectional identity politics
Recently there was a controversy over the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights and its campaign pledges, which is essentially a cynical ploy to gauge the prospective leadership candidates' loyalty to the woke consensus on gender issues. Pledge #10 is particularly problematic because it commands the expulsion of anyone deemed transphobic by the party, which, if the new leadership commits to the charter, will mean practically anyone that goes against the intersectional view on gender and challenges gender theory as unscientific even if they still support trans rights regardless. Lisa Nandy signed this charter, signalling that she is both unable and uninterested in challenging the woke culture that has a stranglehold on the Labour Party, which is incredibly ironic considering she has talked a big game of trying to win back the working class yet is totally uninterested in gauging their views on the subject. All the more baffling is that Emily Thornberry (who failed to make the final ballot), who by and large represents the opposite of our social politics, apparently had enough spine to oppose the LCTR charter, while the candidate who was supposedly the closest to our politics couldn't cave in fast enough.

In short, do not bet the farm on Lisa Nandy. She doesn't represent any aspect of our politics whatsoever, and in fact any notion that she does is a complete and utter fraud. It goes without saying that Labour is doomed as a party. Either it will die and be replaced by another party, or it will a decade to get back on its feet, all because it couldn't do something as simple as rejecting identity politics and actually listening to the working class it is supposed to represent.

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FRASER NELSON: Between Brexit and another scandal, Sturgeon’s run out of road

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Daily Telegraph, 7 FEBRUARY 2020
It ought to have been the perfect launchpad for the next Scottish independence campaign. Nicola Sturgeon was preparing for her first Budget after her party’s general election success. An Old Etonian Tory had just pushed through a Brexit that most Scots voted against, nudging support for independence past the 50 per cent mark. Yesterday’s Budget was the perfect chance for a new SNP message: Scotland wants economic freedom, it wants to stay in Europe and is ready to fight.
Instead: bedlam. The finance secretary, Derek Mackay, quit just hours before he was due to deliver the Budget after admitting to “foolishness” in bombarding a 16-year-old boy with text messages. Worse, it fits a trend. It starts with Angus MacNeil’s “foolishness” (his word) with a Church of Scotland minister’s teenage daughter. Then the affair that saw Stewart Hosie stand down as SNP deputy leader, then Mark McDonald quit as a minister after a sexting scandal. It’s all a bit much.
You can, of course, argue that each of these is an individual and personal tragedy. At a push, you might laugh it off, say that (to use the joke in Holyrood) the nationalists can be seen as “romantic mujahideen” whose antics don’t affect their politics. But, as Sir John Major found, there comes a point where a pattern is spotted. Unkind words such as “sleaze” are used – and labels stick. Voters do not see isolated cases but a theme: the arrogance, carelessness and decadence of a party too long in power.
When I was a reporter in the Scottish Parliament almost 20 years ago, the SNP were the decent ones. Labour were clannish and complacent, having long governed municipal Scotland and expecting to run Holyrood for the foreseeable. The phrase “Scottish Tory” had become a contradiction in terms. I came to admire Alex Salmond and his dedicated team of outsiders, who brought fresh ideas and seemed to relish winning people over in friendly argument. And they did, taking Holyrood and almost winning a referendum.
But after almost 13 years in power, the SNP are starting to look as tired and embattled as Major’s Tories in 1997. Mr Mackay, 42, had been tipped as Ms Sturgeon’s most likely successor: he is now suspended from the party, awaiting investigation. It doesn’t help that her predecessor, Mr Salmond, is awaiting trial for 14 alleged offences against 10 different women, all strenuously denied, in what will be one of the most high-profile criminal cases since the trial of Jeremy Thorpe. This will be followed by another Holyrood investigation. All told, this promises to be a year for the SNP to forget.
Ms Sturgeon is now on her way out. Party members who once idolised her are starting to despair about the lack of any serious shift in support for independence. The Tories fought the last election on a pledge to refuse any request for another referendum, which Boris Johnson has duly done. So Ms Sturgeon now finds herself out of road. Last week, she all but admitted as much, saying that there can be no “shortcuts or clever wheezes” (such as a Catalan-style protest referendum). Any move to independence, she said, must be legal. That is to say: Westminster-approved.
To many nationalists, this is defeatism. The old split in the party between pragmatists and radicals is opening up again. Some MPs, such as Joanna Cherry, drop hints about legal action that might allow Holyrood to go ahead anyway. But it’s a bit of a stretch, given that the devolution settlement was designed to make such a move legally impossible. Then there’s public opinion: polls showing majority support for independence are rare. The surge of backing the SNP hoped for, especially after Brexit, has just not materialised.
In fact, Brexit has – in many ways – made the Union far more secure. The nationalists made much fuss about the pain they expected from leaving the EU’s single market and customs union. So what about leaving the customs union and single market of the United Kingdom? Then the border issue: the agony seen in the Northern Ireland debate would be back, writ large. Making Hadrian’s Wall into an EU border, with questions over pet quarantine and even passports, is something no one will relish.
The “independence in Europe” mantra that the SNP used for years also looks a hopelessly long shot. The Spanish would certainly veto Scottish membership rather than let Scots blaze a secessionist trail for Catalans and Basques to follow. Also, EU members need to keep a government deficit under 3 per cent of economic output. The chasm between Scotland’s state spending and tax haul means a deficit of 7pc, by far the worst in the developed world – and that’s including what little remains of the North Sea oil money. A vote for independence would mean a vote for sado-austerity.
As part of the family of the United Kingdom, Scotland has been insulated from the oil price collapse. There’s talk in No 10 of doing even more: perhaps offering NHS England operations to those who have been waiting for too long in Scotland. Studies show the differences in how Scots and English see the world are not widening but narrowing to the point of non-existence. Even Brexit was backed by almost two in five Scots.
So what, now, remains of the case for independence? The theory that home rule means better public services has been tested to destruction by two decades of devolution. The economic case has vanished. The idea of Scots being so culturally different from the English as to necessitate divorce from England is demonstrable nonsense. The SNP used to present themselves as being better, more decent, more dependable than the appallingly behaved Tories. This is a bit harder to argue today.
If Ms Sturgeon stays now, it will be to see her party through the tumult of the next few months and transition to a new leadership. It has options: take Kate Forbes, who stepped in at the last minute to deliver Mr Mackay’s Budget, and handle questions after. She’s young, but the SNP are beginning to recognise that they have plenty of time. When Ruth Davidson quit as leader of the Scottish Tories she told friends that her work was done, that the threat of independence had vanished for the foreseeable future. All told, it looks like a pretty safe bet.

Greece is a Nation Under Occupation - Blaming The Victim -

by Andrew Gavin Marshall 17 July 2015 from AndrewGavinMarshall Website

https://preview.redd.it/rezpcpakafk41.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1f8299b279f0162d85ddb5c3fa0344316e964084
In the early hours of Thursday morning, July 16, the Greek Parliament passed a host of austerity measures in order to begin talks on a potential third bailout of 86 billion Euros.
The austerity measures were pushed onto the Parliament by Greece's six-month-old leftist government of Syriza, elected in late January with a single mandate to oppose austerity.
So what exactly happened over the past six months that the first anti-austerity government elected in Europe has now passed a law implementing further austerity measures?
One cannot properly assess the political gymnastics being exercised within Greece's ruling Syriza party without placing events in their proper context.
It is inaccurate to mistake the actions and decisions of the Greek government with those taken by an independent, sovereign and democratic country. Greece is not a free and sovereign nation.
Greece is an occupied nation...
Since its first bailout agreement in May of 2010, Greece has been under the technocratic and economic occupation of its bailout institutions,

the European Commission the European Central Bank (ECB) the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

For the past five years, these three institutions known as 'the Troika' (though now referred to as 'the Institutions') have managed bailout programs in Greece and other nations of the Eurozone.
In return for loans, they got to dictate the policies and priorities of governments.
Behind the scenes, Germany rules an economic empire expanding across Europe, enforcing its demands upon debtor nations in need of aid, operating largely through the European Union's various institutions and forums. Germany has consistently demanded harsh austerity measures, structural reforms, and centralization of authority over euro-member nations at the EU-level.
Greece has served as a brutal example to the rest of Europe for what happens when a country does not follow the orders and rules of Germany and the EU's unelected institutions.
In return for financial loans from the Troika, with Germany providing the largest share, Greece and other debtor nations had to give up their sovereignty to unelected technocrats from foreign institutions based in,

Brussels (at the European Commission) Frankfurt (at the ECB) Washington, D.C. (at the IMF),

...and with ultimate authority emanating from foreign political leaders in Berlin (at the German Chancellery and Finance Ministry).
The Troika would send teams of 'inspectors' on missions to Athens where they would assess if the sitting government was on track with its promised reforms, thus determining whether they would continue to disburse bailout funds.
Troika officials in Athens would function as visiting emissaries from a foreign empire, accompanied by bodyguards and met with protests by the Greek people.
The 'inspectors' from Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington would enter Greek government ministries, dictating to the Greek government and bureaucracy what their priorities and policies should be, with the ever-present threat to cut off funds if their demands were not followed, holding the fate of successive governments in their hands.
Thus, unelected officials from three undemocratic and entirely unaccountable international institutions were dictating government policy to elected governments.
In addition to this immense loss of sovereignty over the past five years, Greece was subjected to further humiliation as the European Commission established a special 'Task Force for Greece' consisting of 45 technocrats, with 30 based in Brussels and 15 at an outpost in Athens, headed by Horst Reichenbach, dubbed by the Greek press as the 'German Premier'.
European and German officials had pushed for "a more permanent presence" in Greece than the occasional inspections by Troika officials. Thus, the Task Force was effectively an imperial outpost overseeing an occupied nation.
When a nation's priorities and policies are determined by foreign officials, it is not a free and sovereign nation, but an occupied country.
When unelected technocrats have more authority over a nation than its elected politicians, it is not a democracy, but a technocracy. Germany and Europe's contempt and disregard for the democratic process within occupied (bailout) countries has been clear for years.
When Greece's elected Prime Minister George Papandreou called for a referendum on the terms of Greece's second bailout in late 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Europe's unelected rulers were furious.
The economic occupation and restructuring of a nation was too important to be left to the population to decide.
Europe's leaders acted quickly and removed the elected government from power in a technocratic coup, replacing Mr. Papandreou with the former Vice President of the European Central Bank, Lucas Papademos.
Thus, a former top official of one of the Troika institutions was put in direct control of Greece.
Papademos, who was not elected but appointed by foreign powers, had two major mandates from his German-Troika overlords: impose further austerity and conclude an agreement for a second bailout.
Within a week of the coup, the EU and IMF demanded that the leaders of Greece's two large political parties, New Democracy and PASOK,

"give written guarantees that they will back austerity measures" and follow through with the bailout programs.

Troika officials and European finance ministers wanted to ensure that regardless of what political party wins in future elections, the Troika and Germany would remain the rulers of Greece.
Troika officials threatened that unless political party leaders sign written commitments they would continue to withhold further bailout funds from being disbursed to Greece. So the leaders signed their commitments.
The leaders of Greece's two main political parties, Antonis Samaras (New Democracy) and Evangelos Venizelos (PASOK), which had governed the country for the previous several decades,

"became reluctant partners, propping up a new prime minister."

In February of 2012, the new Greek government agreed to a second major bailout with the Troika and Germany, thus extending the economic occupation of the country for several more years.
Greece was set to hold elections in April of 2012 to find a suitable 'democratic' replacement for the 'technocratic' government of Lucas Papademos.
But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble was growing impatient with Greece, and publicly called for the elections to be postponed and to keep a technocratic government in power for longer.
As the Financial Times noted in February of 2012, the European Union,

"wants to impose its choice of government on Greece - the Eurozone's first colony," noting that Europe was "at the point where success is no longer compatible with democracy."

But the elections ultimately took place in May of 2012, though Greece's fractured political parties failed to form a coalition government, and thus set the country on course for a second round of elections the following month.
The May elections were seen as a major rejection of the bailouts and the two parties that had dominated Greece for so long, marking the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party on the far-right and Syriza on the left.
But with a second round of elections set for June of 2012, Europe's leaders repeated their threats to the democratic process in Greece. The Troika threatened to withhold bailout funds until the next government approved the package of reforms demanded by the creditors.
Jorg Asmussen, a German member of the Executive Board of the ECB, warned,

"Greece must know that there is no alternative to the agreed to restructuring arrangement, if it wants to stay a member of the euro zone."

The German President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said that,

"The Greek parties should bear in mind that a stable government that holds to agreements is a basic prerequisite for further support from the euro-zone countries."

As Philip Stephens wrote in the Financial Times,

"As often as Greece votes against austerity, it cannot avoid it."

At a May meeting of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, it became clear that Europe's rulers were increasing their threats and ultimatums to Greece.

"If we now held a secret vote about Greece staying in the euro zone," noted Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker (who is now president of the European Commission), "there would be an overwhelming majority against it."

When the second elections were held the following month, the conservative New Democracy party won a narrow victory over Syriza, forming a coalition with two other parties in order to secure a majority to form a new government.
Upon the announcement of a new coalition government on June 20, 2012, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany warned that Greece "must stick to its commitments."
Antonis Samaras of New Democracy was the third prime minister of Greece since the bailout programs began in 2010, and led the country as a puppet of its foreign creditors until his government collapsed in late 2014 and he called for elections to be held at the end of January of 2015.
Upon the collapse of the government, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Syriza, declared that,

"austerity will soon be over."

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble warned that new elections in Greece,

"will not change any of the agreements made with the Greek government," which "must keep to the contractual agreements of its predecessor."

Jean-Claude Juncker, who was the newly-appointed (unelected) President of the European Commission, warned that Greeks,

"know very well what a wrong election result would mean for Greece and the Eurozone," adding that he would prefer "known faces" to rule Greece instead of "extreme forces," in a reference to Syriza.

A couple weeks before the elections, the European Central Bank threatened to cut its funding to Greece's banking system if a new government rejected the bailout conditions.
Syriza won the elections on January 25, 2015, forming a coalition government with the Independent Greeks, a right-wing anti-austerity party.
Alexis Tsipras, who would become Greece's fourth prime minister in as many years, declared,

"an end to the vicious circle of austerity," adding, "The troika has no role to play in this country."

Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the IMF, warned,

"There are rules that must be met in the Eurozone," while a member of the executive board of the ECB added, "Greece has to pay, those are the rules of the European game."

Nine days after the election, the ECB cut off its main line of funding to Greek banks, forcing them to access funds through a special lending program which comes with higher interest rates.
Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research suggested that following Syriza's election victory, the strategy of European officials was,

"to do enough damage to the Greek economy during the negotiating process to undermine support for the current government, and ultimately replace it."

The ECB, under its President Mario Draghi, quickly took a hardline approach to dealing with Greece, increasing the pressure on Athens to reach a deal with its creditors.
In early March, the ECB added pressure on Greece by indicating that it would only continue lending to Greek banks once the country complied with the terms of the existing bailout.
On 9 March, a meeting of the Eurogroup was held where ECB president Mario Draghi warned the Greeks that they must let Troika officials return to Athens to review the country's finances if they ever wanted any more aid.
The same message was delivered by officials of the European Commission and the IMF. The Greeks were forced to comply.
As negotiations continued, it became increasingly clear that the unelected institutions of the IMF and ECB had immense power over the terms and conditions of the talks.
Negotiations were dragged out, and the economy continued its collapse.
By mid-June, Prime Minister Tsipras accused the creditors of,

"trying to subvert Greece's elected government" and encourage "regime change."

James Putzel, a development studies professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) noted that Greece was being forced to choose between more austerity and reforms under Troika demands, or being booted from the Eurozone and losing the common currency (something which the Greek people did not want).

"Greece's creditors," he wrote, "seem bent on forcing the demise of the Syriza government."

Robert H. Wade, a political economy professor at LSE agreed, referring to the strategy as a "coup d'état by stealth."
In late June, as Greece was faced with an ultimatum to implement more austerity or be pushed out of the Eurozone, Alexis Tsipras threw out the wild card option in a final attempt to gain a better negotiating position by calling for a referendum on the terms demanded by the Troika and creditors.
Europe's leaders reacted as they did the previous time a Greek Prime Minister called for a referendum, and moved to put the squeeze on the economy.
The ECB froze the level of its emergency aid to Greek banks, forcing bank closures and capital controls to be imposed on the country, essentially cutting off the flow of money to, from, and within Greece.
Chancellor Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker,

"coordinated how they would respond" to the Greek government's call for a referendum.

As Mr. Tsipras publicly campaigned for a 'No' vote (which would reject the terms of the bailout), Europe's leaders pushed for a 'Yes' vote, attempting to redefined the terms of the referendum as not being about the bailout, but about membership in the Eurozone, threatening to kick Greece out if they voted 'No'.
As Paul Krugman noted in the New York Times, the ultimatum agreement that was delivered to the Greeks by the Troika was,

"indistinguishable from the policies of the past five years," and was thus meant to be an offer that Tsipras "can't accept, because it would destroy his political reason for being."

The purpose, wrote Krugman,

"must therefore be to drive him from office."

Mark Weisbrot wrote in the Globe & Mail that,

"European authorities continue to take steps to undermine the Greek economy and government, hoping to get rid of the government and get a new one that will do what they want."

Europe's leaders increased their threats to Greece in the run-up to the referendum, warning the country that voting 'No' would mean voting against Europe, against the euro, and result in isolation and further crisis.
But Greece voted 'No' in a landslide referendum on July 5, 2015, in a massive rejection of austerity and the bailouts.
Mr. Tsipras made a gamble with the referendum, hoping that a further democratic mandate from the Greek people would give him a stronger hand in negotiations with the creditors.
But the opposite happened.
Europe's leaders instead decided to completely ignore and dismiss the wishes of the Greek people and continued to put the squeeze on Greece, whose economy was pushed to the brink so far that Mr. Tsipras announced the country's intentions to enter into negotiations for a third bailout program.
On July 10, the Greek government submitted a formal bailout request to its creditors.
Europe, noted the Wall Street Journal, was,

"demanding full capitulation as the price of any new bailout."

The Greek government was betting that Europe wanted to keep Greece in the euro more than Greece wanted to get away from austerity, but Germany - and in particular, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble - were willing to back a 'Grexit' scenario in which Greece would be given a five-year "timeout" from the Eurozone.
As Paul Krugman noted,

"surrender isn't enough for Germany, which wants regime change and total humiliation."

As Greek leaders negotiated with their European counterparts over the possibility of a new bailout, it became clear that Greece was in for a reckoning.
The demands that were being made of Greece, wrote Krugman, went,

"beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief."

The lesson from the past few weeks, he added, was that,

"being a member of the Eurozone means that the creditors can destroy your economy if you step out of line."

Financial journalist Wolfgang Münchau wrote in the Financial Times that Greece's creditors,

"have destroyed the Eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union."

The Eurozone was instead,

"run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order."

With Germany threatening to kick Greece out of the euro for failure to capitulate entirely, this amounted to "regime change in the Eurozone."
As Münchau wrote:

"Any other country that in future might challenge German economic orthodoxy will face similar problems."

After 22 hours of talks, Greece was forced to agree to the new terms.
The Greek government would have to pass into law a set of austerity measures and reforms before Europe's leaders would even begin talks on a new bailout.

"Trust needs to be restored," said Chancellor Merkel.

A new fund would have to be established in Greece, responsible for managing the privatization of 50 billion Euros of Greek assets.
As the Wall Street Journal noted, the deal,

"includes external control over Athens's financial affairs that no Eurozone bailout country - even Greece until this point - has had to endure."

The Financial Times called it,

"the most intrusive economic supervision program ever mounted in the EU."

Tony Barber wrote that the conditions set for the country were so strict that,

"they will turn Greece into a sullen protectorate of foreign powers."

One Eurozone official who attended the summit at which Greece conceded to the German demands commented, "They crucified Tsipras in there."
And so after six months of a Syriza-led Greece it is evident that Syriza does not rule Greece, Germany and the Troika do.
What Syriza's "capitulation" tells us is not that the party betrayed its democratic mandate from the Greek people, but that staying in the euro is a guarantee that no matter who is elected, they are little more than local managers of a foreign occupation government.
Blaming Mr. Tsipras and the Greeks for the current predicament is a bit like blaming a rape victim for getting raped.
It doesn't matter how they were 'dressed', or if they 'could' have fought back, because it's ultimately the decision of the rapist to commit the crime, and thus, the rapist is responsible.
Syriza could become a party of liberation, of a proud, sovereign and democratic nation. But this is only possible if Greece abandons the Euro.
Until then, the Greek government has about as much independent power as the Iraqi government under American occupation. Syriza made several gambles in negotiations with the country's creditors, most of which failed.
But Greece was never on an equal footing...

Is Brexit over? (wall of text)

OP by Leetenghui - reposted here with OPs permission.
(disclaimer - unlike Leetenghui i'm not an expert in Accountancy or Tax Evasion so i'm taking his views and opinions as likely correct) ** STARTING PASTE BELOW**
Thankfully I never actually bet more than I could afford to lose so I won't be too badly hurt.
Why is it over? It's over because for the tax evaders there is now no longer any point in leaving the EU.
It’s finished, it’s done. A lot of people say it's a tin foil hat conspiracy that brexit was to dodge tax... and some assert that Brexit was a ploy to escape paying tax retrospectively, but it failed, and miserably so. Somebody challenged me on this yesterday. So I did a bit of digging and found out the following things:
Here is the evidence:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-04-04/debates/606C0091-A272-4442-82DC-4EE8170C700D/LoanCharge
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-04-11/debates/65713A00-68FA-4AEB-B739-B092D6CE2B26/LoanCharge
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/anti-tax-avoidance-package/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_en
So the brexit ring leaders thought they could escape their taxes. The EU just proved that they can't.
As an accountant a HMRC tax bill is like playing doom 2 and a revenant missile comes to you it homes in on you relentlessly. They are like the Inquisition ever since they merged with customs they became incredibly powerful. The tax man always wants his money. The primary purpose of raising and collecting taxes is, and always has been, to finance the crown. This isn't unusual. The HK government and the PRC government demand my money now and again.
So lets back up a little bit.
On 6th February 2019 - Donald Tusk spoke of a "special place in hell" for "those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan .. a lot of people thought he was just making a snide comment.
Except Donald Tusk was foreshadowing what would happen! Clever bastard!
Guess what 5/4/19 was the date of departure for the special place in hell. As the tax year ended and HMRC will have printed out their tax demands.
NORMALLY HMRC only asks for the previous year. Or in extreme situations they go back 7 years for tax purposes. HMRC however decided to go back 20 years! So HMRC would have presented tax dodgers tax bills stretching back to 1999! As a former accountant I'm at the holy fucking shit! This is dynamite! 20 years of tax is colossal. In fact it's crippling as many of those who were earning and dodging in 1999 the prime of their earning years will have retired. HMRC is of course ruthless. HMRC in the past has demanded money by liquidating viable companies so they get their taxes. Rather than arrange a payment scheme. In the dying embers of my accountancy career I saw it happen all the time. Viable company owes tax but has a cash flow problem? Fuck you pay me.
Good Fellas sums it up nicely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGAmPRxV48
So because I'm a boring fuck and I've hurt my ankle (so can't go hiking) I went and read some Hansard. I came across something called the Loan Charge, and baby this is so juicy. It's got HMRC hounding people for 20 years worth of taxes!
6 April 2019 MP Ross Thompson expressed serious concern about this in the house as mentioned by Hansard
On Thursday 4th April, 6 days into the 1st Brexit extension, Ross Thompson moved that this House expresses its serious concern at the 2019 Loan Charge which applies from 5 April 2019;
He says here:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-04-11/debates/65713A00-68FA-4AEB-B739-B092D6CE2B26/LoanCharge
expresses deep concern and regret about the effect of the mental and emotional impact on people facing the Loan Charge; is further concerned about suicides of people facing the Loan Charge and the identified suicide risk,
Mel Stride commented on this and said: It wasn’t a debate so much as a chat between buddies bemoaning the fate of some of their constituents who would appear to have finally fallen foul of the EU’s anti tax avoidance Directives, details of which were made public on 28 January 2016. Why is 28th Januaryy 2016 so important?
28/1/16 is important because Cammy called the referendum 20 days later.
You can watch archived debates. You can search Hansard links. BREXIT is mentioned ONCE. Nobody talks about EU anti tax avoidance too. This is what is the killer that the UK government is corrupt as fuck. It’s not so much tax avoidance as truth avoidance.
The brexit side (and by that I mean the UK based ones not the exploiters of dubious motivations like me). thought that by leaving the EU, UK tax payers would escape the EU tax authorities but they were thwarted by the extensions.
So how do these tax dodges work? Note I haven't been an accountant for over 10 years now. Therefore my knowledge is not quite up to date as it should be had I continued my accountancy career. Anyway: An employer can hire an employee and pay them like other people are paid by way of wages. wages are subject to payroll income tax NIC employers and employees. This is how most people are paid. This is how I was paid when I worked in the UK.
On the other hand there is a shitty scheme called a loan scheme. Again as an accountant in a big accounting firm I used to run a few of these too.
So what is a loan scheme? Well instead of the employer paying the employee as above. Money is instead sent to somewhere hot and sunny in the Caribbean. It is then stuck into a trust. The money is then slowly siphoned back to the UK. The siphoning of money means it is treated as a loan not wages not income.
The kicker is of course that there is no intention to ever settle this 'loan'. So guess how UK tax law treat it? It is not treated as earnings at all. Therefore it's mostly free from income tax and national insurance. :O. EU tax laws and HMRC cottoned on to this.
So what happened way back in 1999 when I was still working for Keith in big accountancy (shit I just found out Keith died last year :/) lots of wealthy people were encouraged to take out loans. They were told this was free of tax and the 'loans' would never need to be settled. At the time this was true. Enormous amounts of tax wasn't paid. I remember the debate when we did the taxes of footballers. Many of us during the after work drinks complained bitterly that us as accountants paid more tax than footballers. Except the EU announced its anti avoidance measures on 28 January 2016. The killer in them is that the anti avoidance is retrospective.
There is an incredible irony here. The leave campaign was about sticking one to the elites and that the EU was undemocratic and overbearing on UK businesses.
Um no it was HMRC all along that was the monster. I remember back in 2004 when the merger was announced John one of my colleagues who has since retired said nothing good will come of it and some time in the future it will all be a massive fuck up.

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FRASER NELSON: Between Brexit and another scandal, Sturgeon’s run out of road

Greece is a Nation Under Occupation - Blaming The Victim -

Is Brexit over? (wall of text)

Leave campaign dominated by "lies" and "xenophobia" says Baroness Warsi - BBC News