Red Cliffs Of Dawlish

Red Cliffs Of Dawlish
Red Cliffs Of Dawlish

Sunday 31 January 2016

Confabulation: Lessons To Learn, Promises To Keep

"I got the feelin' something ain't right..."


If you look up the above Sunday Politics on the BBC show: Is the EU good for business? you can observe the argument between Digby Jones and Richard Reed. Both are apparently very prestigious and successful businessmen. I like Jones' projected persona when he's on TV a lot, even though Richard Reed comes across as shrill and tremulous in his attempt to appear dominant, I do love Innocent Smoothies drink.


Previously we looked at Arguments: In The Deadly Grip of Confabulation; and we see that the above is exactly this kind of false argument. Now we look at a glimpse of how far and wide this potentially was distributed:-

BBC: Distribution of the above argument across the entire UK

 What is the function of Confabulation Arguments? In this case the title gives the game away: The Economic Question of the EU Referendum is focused upon. The very thing we already suggested is not needed:-


 Confabulation Arguments are detracting from the Main Point/Central Focus of the Argument

 Now, we have information why the Pro-EU side of the argument would want to conflate EU and EEA from political calculations information:-

Leave could be making the same mistake Labour made at the 2015 General Election





"If the referendum comes down to a popular leader with economic credibility versus an unpopular leader without any economic credibility then there will only be one winner, again."

"The ComRes poll showed “44% British adults say they think the state of the British economy would be better off with Britain remaining a member of the EU, compared to 23% who feel the state of the economy would be better off if Britain left the EU.” This is the type of polling advantage the Tories enjoyed over Labour in the run up to the last election."
Irrespective, the default voting intentions of the electorate are invariably to avoid risk to the Economy. However the article's parting advice is poor interpretation through clear lack of understanding of the argument itself:-
"Leave should make more use of someone like Lord Lawson of Blaby, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, under Margaret Thatcher, to help boost their economic credibility. As a seasoned political campaigner once observed about winning votes and elections, it’s the economy, stupid."
We know Lawson is no use from his ERM days. But also his stupidity and arrogance concerning the IEA Brexit Prize competition, from previous blogs: Lakshmi: Goddess of Prosperity (2). Secondly the nature of the argument is not an Economic Question. We can remove the Economic Question via EFTA/EEA. In fact comparing EU/EEA to EFTA/EEA is what Campaign For An Independent Britain have recently done in this article:-


Notably the exact reverse effect is produced from arguing for EFTA/EEA instead of EU/EEA:-

Q. What does the opinion poll show for different regions of the UK?
  • A. Scotland: EFTA/EEA 68%, EU/EEA 32%
  • A. Wales: EFTA/EEA 59%, EU/EEA 41%
  • A. London: EFTA/EEA 63%, EU/EEA 37%
  • A.UK: EFTA/EEA 71%, EU/EEA 29%
What we see from the Pro-EU argument is the use of "RISK + ECONOMICS". There is a solution to this inherent in sticking to the Political Question: "GROUP + POLITICS":-


 Possible EFTA+ Group via UK removing EU->EFTA + EEA

The rational for EFTA/EEA replacing EU/EEA for the UK needs to be the greater focus of the argument. And this lesson has yet to be learnt, to find more examples of Confabulation arguments:-

(1) FEAR (FUD/Risk-Aversion Exploitation):-

 

Britain Stronger In (BSE): 1. We'll lose FDI if we leave 2. We'll lose "lower airfares if we leave" 3. We won't protect the environment if we leave 3. Ireland will be majorly disrupted if we leave 4. Leaving EU or Europe or Single Market (???) will be "worst of all worlds": How terrible and frightening.

The defeatist, dishonest, manipulative propaganda from Pro-EU campaigners who cannot even campaign on the real merits of Political Union (EU) and must resort to conflation and fear of: Europe, Political Union, Single Market.

(2) UKIP: Control Our Borders & Trade Deal!



 Poor old Steven: Comparing China and the UK's political situations... Confabulation is in full throttle to excuse "Control of Borders!" empty meme and explain away EEA Treaty obligations via reference to China... and - and Trade Deal! Trade Deal!

If you look at the above Steven is trying to self-justify borders with appeals to non-applicable Treaty relationships to the UK's EU present membership status.

(3) Bonfire of Cutting Red-Tape & "We Buy more German Cars!"





 Ruth Lea bangs on about Economic Question and falls for Confabulation over both Red-Tape Bonfires (see Digby Jones also) as well as "German Cars!" economy comparisons. She's detrimental to Leave Arguments


Lessons still need to be learnt. And if there is any good reason to learn them, for Leave Campaigners it's this: Sooner or later if you make arguments which attack promises to them, you have to either PROVE those promises beforehand or afterwards KEEP your promises.


Ask yourself both of those questions before selecting from the tired, old out of date eurosceptic arguments that are the property of the old eursceptic aristocracy who fail to advance the arguments because they believe they OWN the arguments and hence are a part of the problem as much as the Pro-EU campaigners who resort to low quality arguments too.


"Political Union" OR "Free Trade Association"?

Thursday 28 January 2016

Britain, Supranationalism & Globalization

Is this what Pro-EU advocates believe the UK's position in the EU actually looks like?

In the previous blog post Arguments: In The Deadly Grip of Confabulation. We looked at examples of empty concepts or containers that dominate the EU Referendum arguments in place of i(e due to a lack of) a cooperatively shared and developed and disseminated "intellectual architecture" to advance our arguments quality with. Dr. RAE North provided a description of this previously in EU Referendum: back to basics, using the metaphor of building the foundations of a building before the actual useful components of the building that are functional for people to use can be developed; and indeed people who use these spaces are often unaware of what they are "literally" built upon.


 EU Parliament percentage of MEP's representing each national member

If we compare the above: What is yet another confabulation of our membership of the EU to the actual foundations, or "details" using merely one example that's more than illustrative and fairly representative: We see that in effect our leaders our telling the people that:-

"All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others." ~ Animal Farm, George Orwell
 If we look further at the effect of the Supranational EU:-


 Supranationalism: Effectively all UK MEP's could vote "no" but be overruled Supranationally in the EU Parliament (political institution)

 FLEXCIT: 5.5 "Influence" in perspective, p.97 _ Dr. RAE North:-
"As to Britain's voting power within the EU, most often agreements are reached by consensus. Where a vote is called, qualified majority  voting (QMV) applies to  the  Council  of  the  European  Union  (formerly  the  Council  of  Ministers). There, Britain  has  29  out  of  352 votes,  representing  eight  percent  of  the  vote. A qualified majority is 252 votes (73.9 percent).

In the European Parliament,  the  situation  is  little  better.  There  are  73  UK  MEPs,  and  these represent  a  mere  9.7  percent  of  the  751  elected  MEPs  (post-2014  election). Given the party splits,  this level of representation is notional. UK MEPs rarely vote together as a single bloc. Even if they did, they could never muster the 376 votes needed for a majority.

Furthermore,  the  powers  of  the  Parliament  and  the  Council  are  limited  in important  but  poorly  recognised  ways."
Worse the smaller nations have even fewer votes than the "major" nations such as Germany and the UK as dint of their population sizes. Even worse this is the proverbial "tip of the ice-berg" due to how the various streams of legislations are filtered down to the EU Parliament or either by-pass it completely or are already in their final form and require a "box-ticking" symbolic vote on them to be passed on Nationally (read on from p.97 in FLEXCIT above for more).

And here's the problem with this system:-


Europe's inherent diversity and complexity of network of actors and interests

Europe can be divided into distinct regions with distinct cultural, historic and geographic and political attributes that are VARIABLE per region and indeed per member nation! The above suggests the barest representation of this reality.

Now combining all this variation into one QMV system is simply suffocating this variation under a system that merges and mixes "political" and "technical" issues. This is of course the deliberate function of the EU as a Supranational Construct: To erode National Sovereignty and merge National Institutions under one EU Supranational Institution.

This is indeed seen in the way the EU Parliament actually works via groups:-























As you can see these groups work as "clusters" of alliances of MEP's. Predominantly the groups that are Pro-EU the institutions "club" together. So far from the UK "having a seat at the top table as a big player on the world stage in the EU club playing by the clubs rules", the UK is split up between these groups and it's national interest further diluted down. In fact these are politicians and their privilege and priority is to the EU and their careers. The amalgamation of different regional and national concerns of politics along with technical legislation is perhaps not a happy recipe?

An alternative model:-



FLEXCIT: 11.2 Potential regional structures, p.222 ~ Dr. RAE North:-

"Working within the aegis of the WTO's TBT Agreement, UNECE could thus be equipped  to  coordinate  the  production  of  single  market  instruments  for  the whole of continental Europe,  then administering the functioning of the market. It  would  replace the EU  as  the dominant  body,  thereby  involving  all  European countries in the decision-making process, not just EU Member States.

This is perhaps an improvement on that offered by Lord Leach of Fairford, who has advocated attempting "to redefine the EU as the Single Market" rather than as  "a  vague  aspiration  to  political  union". Such  a  scenario would  conform with  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committee's  idea  of  "radical  institutional  change"  to give  decision-making  rights  in  the  Single  Market  to  all  its  participating  states, on  an  equal  footing. By  this  means,  the  EU-centric "Europe  of  concentric circles" would  be  avoided,  and  with  it  any  idea  of  first  class  and  second  class members. Each body, such as EFTA and the EU, has equal standing, creating a community of equals."

ASEAN and the European Union: Lessons in Integration


With this caveat, there are three main lessons worth considering for regional integration experiences in ASEAN and the EU.

1. Integration processes are not really comparable, though their fundamentals are similar
"Many like benchmarking ASEAN’s progress to that of the EU’s. There is a tendency to project the EU as a model for ASEAN and to propose the European way of integration as applicable to ASEAN as well.  The EU’s commitment to pooling sovereignty for common gains has been cited as key to an integrated communityOn the other hand, ASEAN pursues integration without yielding individual sovereignty of member states.  This has created the impression that the EU is a supra-national body in a way that ASEAN cannot or does not aspire to be. The principles of inter-state relations enshrined in the ASEAN Charter reiterate respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and national identity.  Yet, the two organisations are more similar in their decision-making processes than is generally acknowledged.

The EU depends on unanimity – not just consensus – for its major decisions. The image of the EU’s supra-national authority has also been recently shattered as the Eurozone crisis evolves. Individual members have made their (national) preferences prevail at the regional table.  Regional consensus cannot be forged without taking into consideration the national interests of individual members." 
2. Institutions (and mechanisms) do not always work
"Recent experiences in both ASEAN and the EU have shown that institutions notwithstanding, no regional organisation can accomplish its goals of regional peace and security nor economic integration without national commitment to regional priorities. Regional institutions can certainly play a role in community-building. However, if regional decisions are not supported – and implemented – at national levels, the institutions by themselves cannot do much, even with well-meaning attempts to fine-tune or reform them."
3. Regional disparities can hamper integration
"While the EU faced less of a problem of regional disparities in pursuing economic and monetary integration (with “strong” political will carrying the day) in the past, the EU today is confronting  the problem of relatively weak and unstable economies. The financial crisis has exposed the vulnerabilities of the EU economies, especially those in its periphery. Greece’s budget deficits have considerably weakened the EU’s economic position and standing, as have those of Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain."

What we're seeing is that political integration is introducing it's own set of stresses. What is needed for the EUROZONE is increase in Global Trade to increase it's chances of recovery. Effectively in conjunction with the wider global processes happening (see below) there's fundamental need in the EU Political Project for boosts to prosperity to "salvage" it's future. ASEAN shows that "Supranationalism" is not the only nor necessarily the best option for regional cooperation.

This is very important part of the Globalization of Regulations to which a full blog of links and references will be needed to cover the full details. As we can see above it's in the UK's ultimate interests to split the Single Market from Political Union. It might be argued from the opposite position, if argued honestly, that the Political Union needs to be split from the Single Market also for those goals and objectives; namely the future of the EUROZONE which we've already looked at referencing the top EU thinkers and their plans for this Political Union.

Pete North has written some excellent blogs on this globalization process. Which will be listed in another blog. But to try to show a summary of the concept (perhaps failing and falling far short, in the attempt):-

Metcalfe's Law: Two computers can make only one connection, five can make 10 connections, and twelve can make 66 connections.

Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2).

Metcalfe's Law is related to the fact that the number of unique connections in a network of a number of nodes (n) can be expressed mathematically as the triangular number n(n − 1)/2.
The law has often been illustrated using the example of fax machines: a single fax machine is useless, but the value of every fax machine increases with the total number of fax machines in the network, because the total number of people with whom each user may send and receive documents increases. Likewise, in social networks, the greater number of users with the service, the more valuable the service becomes to the community."
The irony of raising fax machines into the discussion...

Above Eg: 16(16-1)/2=120 ; EEA-31: 31(31-1)/2=465 ; UNECE-56: 56(56-1)/2=1540

As said the full globalization process is staggeringly complicated. But the above at least gives an illustration of the virtue of a larger network at GLOBAL - REGIONAL - NATIONAL connectivity level and as Dr. RAE North points out in:-

FLEXCIT: 19.0 Trading with the rest of the world p.350 ~ Dr. RAE North
"The  global  economy  is  being  re-shaped at  breakneck  speed.  In  the  past decades,  political  systems  have  changed,  new  players  have  emerged  on  the markets,  as  well  as  new  materials,  new  technologies  and  workers  who  are better skilled  than ever. To compete  in  this fast-changing economy requires regulation that promotes growth, better access to markets and the availability of new sources of energy. Cut EU Red Tape: Report from the Business Taskforce February 2014

By  this  penultimate  stage  of  our  six-stage  programme,  all  the  structural  issues have been addressed, leaving the way clear to look at Britain as a global trader. As  we  have  seen  earlier,  organising  trade  in  continental  Europe,  adopting formal   structures   around   UNECE,   would   not   replicate   European   Union arrangements,  in  that  there  would  be  no  external  trade  policy.  Britain  would thus  be  free  to  act  on  its  own  account  in  relations  with  the  rest  of  the  world. Alternatively,  it could act with EFTA, or take collective action through ad hoc alliances."

FLEXCIT: 21.4 Conclusion, p.402 ~ Dr. RAE North
"But it is this idea of a six-stage plan, integrating disparate points, which makes The Market solution what it is. We start with stage one – the process of leaving the EU.  We then move on  to  stage two – sorting  out  immigration  and asylum. Stage  three  has  us  launching  a  genuine  European  single  market,  breaking  free from the EU-centricity of Brussels and building a European village where every "house" is  equal.    In  stage four,  we address  the  task  of  rebuilding  independent policies, and stage five has us reinvigorating global trade, with the adoption and implementation of an eight-point programme."

Conclusions:

When we started this blog post we had this horrible confabulation of "Leading in EUrope!" that means nothing except false and broken promises to people and the abrogation of democracy itself.

I've tried to summary a vastness and of course failed in the attempt. But at least a glimpse may have been provided for the rational, the "intellectual framework", the foundations that are invisible and underpin the First Stage Of The Market Solution:-




































The Sceptic Isle has a full summary here:-

Coming back to the objective of this blog, to dispell the starting premise of confabulation from our Pro-EU Politicians; the rot starting at the top, I hope Leave Campaigners will not fall for such arguments as "Leading in EUrope", but choose an eminently wiser and more pragmatic and maturer political outlook:-




Wednesday 27 January 2016

Arguments: In The Deadly Grip of Confabulation

Confabulation: Creating "plausible" cause-effect relationships between disparate but selected objects

Quoting and referencing the above wonderful illustration:
"Confabulation  is a memory disturbance that is the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive. Confabulation is distinguished from lying as there is no intent at deception and we are unaware the information is false. Although we can present blatantly false information, confabulation can also seem to be coherent, internally consistent, and relatively normal."

Yesterday's blog felt very needed to me: EU Sketches: The Importance of Being Ernest. Some humour to provide optimism and relief. Now I've recovered a little bit, to tackle the source of disconsolation with the lack of veracity in the words people use in their arguments either to Remain or to Leave the EU in the upcoming Referendum.


 
I was watching Prime Minister's Question Time earlier and was very impressed with how David Cameron made everyone else involved in the EU Debate and indeed in Westminster look very unimpressive!! Coincidentally the BBC Political Mouth Laura Kuenssberg, finally seemed to have caught up with the fact David Cameron will be the leader of the "In" (she means Remain) Side .

Confabulation in Politics: "If we leave the EU we'll lose our seat at the top table and 3 million jobs will go whereas Norway as a fax-democracy has to pay and but has no say."


As I said, above, there's a lot of disconsolation because the above confabulation seems to me to constitute at least 90% of all the arguments. What has happened is that the constant repetition and high emotional pitching of the above Memes (surrogate concepts of the actual argument details) have created a closed and limited list of ideas with which people swap and choose and mix and match to be able to comprehend the EU Brexit debate/question and hence talk and express themselves with.

The result? Confabulation, unwitting and on scale of millions of people. The problem is, "A Fish Rots From The Head Down":-



This is something that should be very observable now. Looking at David Cameron's attack of The Norway Option again from Dr. RAE North back in the Autumn: EU Referendum: Flexcit comes home to roost. And this ironically is pointed out by the Britain Stronger in EUrope (BSE) campaign again recorded: EU Referendum: the lies sharpen. The problem for the Leave Campaign is that they do not have David Cameron and his prestige (Media, Money, MP's) to back them when they start confabulated in the vein hope of winning over voters in this battle of lies.



Heads of the Leave Campaign (Leave.EU ; Vote Leave): Their own confabulations they perpetrate and encourage onto their followers

The problem with the above is that none of the above "objects" with which people argue about this EU Referendum debate actually means anything. You could argue the more people participate (wittingly or otherwise) in this behaviour the more it feeds The Great Deception; the original confabulation of Europe's own story in the minds of European people.

I'm on the side of the argument which holds the stronger arguments. So it's not for me to argue with David Cameron's side of the argument. It's to encourage anyone voting Leave to consider the above. Two bloggers in particular have already noted the detrimental effect of this behaviour on the Leave Campaign:-

Mr. Brexit at Vote To Leave The EU and The Boiling Frog have both identified Vote Leave's extremely high "Confabulation Positive" tests results. It's bordering on intentional mendacity. I already highlighted this in Referendum: "Plenty of Time To Finish This Game." so no need nor desire to rehearse that evidential message they're chugging out and adding to the confusion layers.

Pete North has identified Leave.EU's failings in this way too, though it appears with this campaign group it's mere incompetence rather than mendacity.















I think the last blog and in particular the image above, nails the problem with Leave.EU's strategy. It's no wonder people start to hate politics. Here's a referendum for the first time in over 40yrs. Maybe it's time to "do something different"? In the case of Vote Leave, it looks like their malaise of "political confabulation" has no cure: It is "deceptive politics as normal" in their world. I hope however that Leave.EU can be cured of their strand of confabulation aka "bullshit production". You can't argue with it on both sides: They'll just switch from one "object" not listen to the arguments in detail that disprove it and move right back to one of the other ones and start the story all over again.

There's a new report out my Migration Watch. Leave.EU leapt all over it and it stinks to high-heaven of confabulation!!


 Migration Watch UK Press Release on UK Immigration Policy outside the EU

1: TRADE DEAL! TRADE DEAL!
"The UK would, nevertheless, need to negotiate its own arrangements^1 in the aftermath of a decision to leave the EU.

If such arrangements had been in place in recent years"

"If EU migrants were, in future, to be subject to the still tighter
regime that is now applied to non-EU migrants, the effect would be even
greater.
All the statistics hinge off this. On first impression of headlines, wonderful news for the Leave Campaign: Wrong: Deflection away from the main argument which hinges on removing complexity and confusion and transforming the Referendum into a purely political question as per Real (direct) Democracy: Hiding in Plain Sight.


And Mr. Cameron tells a far more impressive confabulist than anyone else, as he should be, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.







Tuesday 26 January 2016

EU Sketches: The Importance of Being Ernest

The Eurozone: Seen better days

 Cameron's EU-Turn

Project: Projecting Fear aka FUD


 Leave: "motion & agitation" may feel good...



See No EU, Hear No EU, Speak No EU


Tax-Payer held hostage by banks held hostage by EU


Let Them Eat 1/28th Cake! 



Cameron's EU Reform


EU Supranationalism: Time to put this idea into the bin?

Merkel's Feeding of the 10,000 pigeons


Thanks for being so honest, for once!


 Poor Old UKIP


 The Real Global Top Tables


Britain's EU "influence"


Global Britain: Feeling Left Out?


Some humour to keep things light-hearted and hopefully generate some warm laughter during the dark, cold Winter months.



Referendum: "Plenty of Time To Finish This Game."

"There is plenty of time to finish this game. And to thrash the spaniards too." ~ attributed to Sir Francis Drake, 19th July, 1588

Quoting BritishBattles.com - The Spanish Armada:-
"On 19th July 1588 Captain Thomas Fleming in the Golden Hinde, glimpsed the Armada through the swirling morning mist off the Lizard and raced for Plymouth, Lord Howard’s home port. Fleming came up the channel into Plymouth with the afternoon tide to find Sir Francis Drake playing bowls with his officers on the Ho, high above the harbour. On hearing of Fleming’s sighting Drake insisted on continuing with the game."
I grew up in this part of the world and hence this story of Sir Francis Drake and The Spanish Armada, captured my imagination very deeply, as a child, and the quote above is ingrained into my memory as more stylish and sophisticated than anything I ever heard the fictional James Bond 007 come up with, irrespective whether or not it is an apocryphal anecdote: It makes sense and serves as an instructive example of "taking action when action can be taken":-

"It is possible that he knew that the tide of the River Tamar in Plymouth was against him, so that he could not get his ships out of Devonport - therefore, he knew that he could finish his game of bowls because his ships were dependent on the tide to move. If the tide was coming in, his ships had to stay tied up. If the tide was going out, then he had the freedom to move his ships into the Channel."
Now if the tide had somehow been the reverse he might have instead said:-
"Time to finish this game and to finish the Spaniards, too." 
The former shows his pragmatism and bravery. The latter would merely have shown his potential bravery. I think it's this that makes the quip so fine in meaning as well as providing unspoken interpretations of events eg the tide.



Here people are being asked for the first time in >40yrs: What does Remain in the EU mean? What does Leave the EU mean?

The above ballot paper form asks two questions. But like Sir Francis Drake's quote above, our answers very much depend on the context (is the tide coming in or going out?) when we give our answers.

The big problem I have with the Remain question being asked between now and 2017 is that it is not at the same time as Next Major New EU Treaty. Irrespective of Mr. Cameron's:-

Read David Cameron's speech outlining his four key EU reform demands

The four key points from David Cameron's EU letter

We have x3 Elements to look at:-
  • David Cameron
  • Reform
  • EU

David Cameron:-
































We looked previous at David Cameron's track-record on the EU, in MIND THE (credibility) GAP. He is not "consistent".

"REFORM":-


His x4 Reforms are:-
  • Economic governance: Securing an explicit recognition that the euro is not the only currency of the European Union, to ensure countries outside the eurozone are not disadvantaged. The UK wants safeguards that it will not have to contribute to eurozone bailouts
  • Competitiveness: Setting a target for the reduction of the "burden" of excessive regulation and extending the single market
  • Immigration: Restricting access to in-work and out-of-work benefits to EU migrants. Specifically, ministers want to stop those coming to the UK from claiming certain benefits until they have been resident for four years
  • Sovereignty: Allowing Britain to opt out from further political integration. Giving greater powers to national parliaments to block EU legislation
Has this clarified his position to vote Remain? Well again looking at the BBC's output, gives us an indication:-




































 Reform doesn't sound very clear by the sounds of it: It sounds much more like political calculation than problem-resolving

In effect "Reform" still means this:-

The Hydra of Complexity: Voters will not know what they are voting for: "A leap in the dark" = "Reform"

 European Union (EU):-


 And what of the EU:-
Here we see high magnitude, high orders of multiple intentionality and uncertainty concernign the EUROZONE required changes. This is effectively what the EU is transforming towards in the next major EU Treaty.

We also see confusion in the role of the Legacy News-Media, for example the BBC:-

David Keighley: Not the BBC news. Norway is very rich and very outside the EU


"But then the rot set in. According to website Leave HQ, what followed about the boiler-maker and Norway’s involvement with EU rules and the single market was ‘a pack of lies’, essentially because it most certainly does have influence, through its participation in the European Economic Area (EEA) and membership of EFTA (the European Free Trade Association)."

Dr. RAE North also looks at the BBC bias EU Referendum: BBC – the enemy without

Tommy R's blog Dismantling Britain Stronger in Europe's Leaflet showing that the Anti-Brexit case is being made by the "Remain" Campaign group not the case for Pro-EU (see above). This type of campaigning is increasing confusion and complexity.

Dr. RAE North notes not the first nor last time that the Tory's are fuelling confusion too EU Referendum: the Tory delusion; leaving the word. "eurosceptic" devoid of value and meaning. Vote Leave are also adding to confusion on Article 50 by Dominic Cummings: EU Referendum: a lack of thoughtful analysis along with EU Referendum: Hannan, the enemy within. And finally various think tanks are spreading more confusion: Civitas: EU Referendum: a report to myth the point; CER: If the UK votes to leave: The seven alternatives to EU membership ; Credit Suisse: Brexit: Breaking up is never easy, or cheap. Pete North points out the obvious: Stop problematising Brexit.

Effectively,


Is proliferating, and hence increasing the "Poltitical Plausibility Scope" into ever greater and wider implausible scenarios away from actual limits of political possibility that delimit the argument between "Remain" and "Leave":-



So, if we look at all the above, the hope for Real (direct) Democracy: Hiding in Plain Sight; feels as distant as it ever did when we joined the EEC back in 1972 before a Popular Referendum! However, we can remove an enormous source of the confusion:-

  • Single Market (EEA) = Remove Economic Question
  • Article 50 = Remove Legal Question
  • Referendum = Resolve Political Question