The Market Solution - A Dummies Guide
The Market Solution is a brexit paper (for more see: Brexit For Beginners) (also known as FLEXCIT: A portmaneau of FL-exible, C-ontinuous, EX-IT) written by Dr. RAE North in collaboration with The Bruges Group, EUReferendum.com correspondents and various other similar input sources. It is "a living document" that is constantly being updated online and, presently, comes in two written versions and one video presentation version:-
- The Market Solution: Full Work ~400 pages in length and content
- Flexcit Lite: A "Lite" Paper version ~30 pages in length and content
- FLEXCIT Video Presentation ~ condensed from 60mins into 30mins
- The Market Solution ~ A Mind Map
- Expand the audience via alternative methods of communication.
- Establish the major concepts for people to organize their own thinking.
- I hope I can pass on some of the huge inspiration I've found from reading The Market Solution and from the other bloggers efforts (I've been using to help myself learn with, see side panel) to more people.
The Market Solution starts with 2.0 The Political Background p.17 - 3.0 The Negotiating Framework p.30. These sections raise some important concepts:-
- Referendum was a matter of time from the 1970's through 1990's and onwards until David Cameron's entering office as Prime Minister, presently. The Bruges Group provides a list of Referendum and EU and "EU Reform" promises that have been accumulating over decades.
- EU Referendum = A Political Question essentially, first and foremost, as the linked evidence above clearly demonstrates (stresses and strains).
- Remain's default is effectively a shifting "status quo" held together by promises of "EU Reform" which may in the future tend towards an "Association Membership". The EU Treaties themselves are a source of political stress and strains.
- Paradigm Shift: Brexit is a process not a single event. It will be iterative as in the case of a soft or gradual or staged withdrawal "bit-by-bit". This paradigm shift is only noticeable in The Market Solution compared to the other Brexit papers that have been produced (see Brexit For Beginners).
- The Referendum Question itself must be made as clear to voters either side of the argument to validate the Referendum or else account for how people respond to the chance to exercise some Real (Direct) Democracy. This includes effects such as FUD propaganda exploitation from the Legacy News-Media, The Status Quo Effect of risk-aversion and the Prestige of our Prime Minister David Cameron himself: Is he someone we can trust with our nation's future?
- The Campaign designation for it to truly be a Bottom-Up People led Referendum must not fall into the hands of the "eurosceptic aristocracy" who inhabit SW1/Westminster and would treat the campaign as their personal property, their opportunity for career advancement or else turn the Referendum into a Top-Down Political Calculation for various Parties in power in Westminster. The symptoms of this negative result is of course: An Epidemic of Confabulations traded across the upper tiers of The Political Food Web of Prestige; which is their "bread and butter" and our "thin gruel of democracy".
- Withdrawal, EU Referendum: the choice to be made, is an option to return "having a say" back to the people after losing it for >40yrs and never being asked for it since. Those long against EU Membership intuit this feeling already. But THEY must also be the first to understand HOW TO withdraw.
- Withdrawal is about loss of legitimacy of our government, morally they've deceived the nation. Cognitively however we can only withdraw via the legal procedures to do so.
- Article 50 Lisbon Treaty: As above, it delimits transition even if we are democratically legitimate from winning a Referendum, we must follow the rules which are 2 years. This excludes 2 of the 3 main categories of Brexit: WTO and Bi-Laterals. It would be triggered some 100 hundred days as a guide after the Referendum to set up the Negotiation Unit. The only Exit that fits the criteria of the rules that is legally legitimate is The Market Solution's Stage 1.
- Ideally EFTA/EEA as you can see for the "radiation of positive reasons" from choosing this safe, secure option. There are full backs to this version happily as safety-nets to catch our legitimate and democratic withdrawal to add cognitive legitimacy, namely technical or stoicastic considerations are accounted for pragmatically.
- Anyone, not accepting the imperative of Article 50 as illustrated above is simply attempting to bog the argument down and void it of legitimacy, the very thing that has been lost from our government and resulted in them forced over decades of dithering to offer a Referendum with the real and legitimate possibility of withdrawal: It must be both valid (legally) and viable (pragmatic: Single Market access sustained)) how to withdraw successfully.
Migration Policy is the most highly visible EFFECT of our government's loss of legitimacy! It is however not the CAUSE. In order to resolve the cause we must withdraw FIRST from the EU.
That means go back to Stage 1 and determine the strict parameters of successful withdrawal, then proceed back to Stage 2. Stage 2 we can finally start attending to the untangling of this policy which the public rightly want to see some competence and security in managing. This goes back to Labour taking the democratic conversation off the table for over a decade on this policy, subversively so and continuing with the present government's cleaving to "EU Reform" irrespective of this continued deception.
But it is noticeable that Migration itself is not the priority of the Leave Campaign yet it is presented as such, much by the "eurosceptic aristocracy" and greatly to the detriment of the effectiveness of the Leave Campaign. Not only that but within this strand of the argument Migration > Freedom of Movement (of Workers) is a minor singular and by no means most significant strand(!!!), Immigration: Is this really all we’re arguing about? when compared to Economic Migration or indeed for untangling the mess of Asylum Policy to return fairness and democracy and pragmatic competence to dealing with the problems here.
All of these can be addressed - only - if we first withdraw. All of them: Success. Concentration on one singular strand and indeed conflating it with all the other strands smacks too highly of the false Pro-EU arguments of conflating Europe == EU == Single Market. We can all do better than that, can't we?
And Behold - !!
We have discussed:-
- Why we should LEAVE the EU.
- How we should LEAVE the EU.
- What we should be CREATING instead of the EU.
This is so little talked about and is perhaps the most important vision of Brexit/LEAVE, which tells you something about the state of our politics and politicians? If Lucy Thomas or whoever jibber-jabbers one more time about, "What does Brexit look like?" This is WHAT!
It's immensely complicated is part of the problem. But here is the Global Britain vision; I lean on White Wednesday again who seems to have the requisite "touchy-feely" skills to produce a standard-bearer vision, converting the above academic into the below:-
The Olympics: "World Stage"
You can see that Regulations is a huge positive for the Leave Campaign to argue for withdrawal from the EU: But not in the way it's been twisted by the "eurosceptic aristocracy" to cut/bonfire red-tape"; but to become fully involved in the global collaboration in this area to fascilitate global trade. Likewise "Global Governance" has expanded the sources of laws above the national, regional and up to the Global. This is where hundreds of bodies require our national representation and development of expertise in - and divorced of political power dynamics of the Supranational EU. Instead UNECE is proposed as a substitute for the entire European Nations for regulatory matters in this World Region:-
"… is founded upon recognition of the fact that no economic problem, indeed no important problem whatsoever, concerning sovereign governments can be solved by a majority decision in an intergovernmental organisation, but only by agreements between as many governments as are willing to consent."
We see several emerging contexts to our Policy Control, now:-
- Supranational EU political intentions do not align with the Non-EZ UK.
- Globalization of Regulations and Standards require reform of our Policies aligned underneath and directly connected "at source" in the global top tables themselves to create "fully joint-up-policy" that is not dysfunctional eg Immigration, Defence, Flooding, Energy, Fisheries etc etc.
- Return of democratic accountability, responsibility and intelligence as part of the solution to these problems not as a problem to avoid additionally!
- The removal of a whole set of interfering posturing politicians ie EU and hopefully a cull of the useless centralized talking-shop in Westminster.
This arm was intentionally elongated to suggest that this stage will take a long time to emerge fully. But the benefits of cooperating within a functional Single Market with our Policy Control connecting democratically and technically, will ideally see progress in Global Trade truly connecting the Regional to the Global (Commonwealth and Transatlantic eg) as per Dr. RAE North's FLEXCIT Flow Diagram:-
Finally the last stage which is in some ways the loop-back to the first stage. Holding a Referendum for the first time in >40yrs will be the first demonstration of Real (direct) Democracy eg Real (direct) Democracy: Hiding in Plain Sight. As with the process of globalization of technical regulations and standards, the expansion of information and accessibility tends towards promoting more democratic conversation (Argument Abstraction) and input into "Good Governance". What starts with the EU Referendum may indeed not be the referendum to resolve the EU Question but the starting gun on a reformation of democracy and British Politics itself:-
Finally, one immediate take-home from presenting so much information and attempting to find a visual way to summarize a tiny fraction of it; if you take one thing away from this visualization, it's this Positive Vision of Brexit (Britain, Supranationalism & Globalization):-
The Referendum deliberation and Migration Policy are minor. Opportunities of the Genuine Single Market are dramatically more significant even if they're not promoted by Politicians, Legacy News-Media or Big Business/Banks - our so-called leaders.
