Explanations, Reactions, Decisions and Chain-Reactions

A mere snap-shot attempting to illustrate a merest modicum of complexity, but at least fun to watch!

I think one of the biggest single explanations that captures a lot of, if not all of, the reasons that we finally see arguments made now that could or should have been made during the Referendum Campaign, is the way and worry of how politics really works. Any clearly stated course of action to be motioned for decision-making upon, creates a reaction and hence a chain of reactions forms and counter-reacts then reforms and so on.

What is left? A shadow-play of words; a calculation on intended but veiled effect; most particularly on manipulating relationships and groups of relationships: What is generally taken for granted as "Politics". Thus because we have finally had a decision, that has the weight of finality about it (despite the whinging), suddenly a lot of talking heads are coming onto the issues that were SO CLEARLY LAID OUT in FLEXCIT a few years ago. This itself is worth observing: The information may be available and highly accessible, but the emotional state of people seems to predominate in their behaviour, effectively blinding them to it. If ever there's a need for a mass anthropolitical (hehe!) study... Indeed if you believe in following those that govern the people because "they know best" and act "in everyone's best interests" just read this: Brexit: the darkest of games.

And so, to point out in EUReferendum.com 's recent postings:-

The WTO Option:-

• Brexit: the consequences of failure 
• Brexit: an accidental crisis 
• Brexit: questions and consequences

It is complex! In fact to save you attempting to master the details, just think of it in terms of a chain-reaction of complexity as the above video at least indicates though not on a scale or degree of dimensional complexity that is needed. The point is made, one false move and the whole bloody thing:-

1. Sets off in an uncontrolled manner.
2. Grinds to a halt in a manner unintended.
3. Loss of the stored potential to leverage the present working state. 

The other issue that seems to be burning away still apparently unresolvable but actually operating in the above description of "chain-reactions" and managing these things is "Freedom of Movement"; again using EUReferendum 's research to summarize:-

• Brexit: free movement and the Single Market
• Brexit: it's NOT an "emergency brake"

As has been noted, the "hollowing out" of the UK's national decision-making organs or institutions for the running of the UK, means that the politicians in Westminster serve only one useful function, these days: Enacting their role of "shadow play words" over everything for public and media consumption: Namely to use the chain-reaction motif, managing reactions, not it seems actually using information to make decisions: Perhaps Whitehall is doing that... using the one Brexit plan that actually defines the parameters then applies those conditions to any solution.

If you want an explanation for what "goes as argument" in 99% of the Legacy News-Media, then I would posit "this is as good as it gets!" Hence to be clear: The false narrative that thrives at present between The Single Market continued membership vs Freedom of Movement is merely a management of factions and their own infernal recursion of meanings: Complete gibberish fuelling the emotional reactions and managing them.

What's this all about then? There's an interesting discussion on the BBC iPlayer at the moment, you may care to watch and it contains some useful information: Britain's Vote In The EU Referendum
 
I took some notes while watching it and again using the idea of a chain-reaction to contain the relevant information and interpret it:-

Geoff Evans made some very interesting comments on the legacy of New Labour and Tony Blair and the interaction of this on Old Labour, The Working Class Vote, Immigration and Referendums/Referenda. It's worth watching.

However his information may be quite applicable and probably quite accurate, it did occur to me that his explanation was a bit like looking at the end of a chain reaction and saying "Here's the really important bit!" I think again to reference, a fuller understanding is the reward for reading The Great Deception history and reference and research on the EU, itself! Some of his language is good: "Liberal Intelligensia" or "UKIP Curious".

Next up Jane Green, it seemed to me was waffling off her feet and I could not understand her speech, only see her mouth moving. I think it was all pointed to saying "Remain was against the Status Quo of British people who were fairly pessimistic about the "so-called good" of the EU as described by the "Liberal Intelligensia". Again common sense vs a dangerously deluded over-thinking it bunch of pricks telling other people what to think.

Vernon Bogdanor, was of course very interesting on the so-called UK Constitution using an array of quotes on the subject that were both entertaining and insightful and hence useful for interpreting events against. In particular the "delegation of power" from people to Parliament and the limits that such power could or should be further bartered onwards away from and indeed how Referendums consequentially at least in the upper-echelons of the political elite became a crisis of their own identity and making.

The next speaker was Sarah Hageman, and here we really reach the business of this blog: She described "Contagion" or what I've then called "Chain-Reaction" in general application. Here specifically:-

1. Brexit Result from UK Referendum=>
2. N/Fr/D/Sw-EXIT Referendums in other EU nations? =>
3. Maybe not, but domestic political repercussions =>
4. Rate of Change aka uncertainty triggering ITA/SPA Banks in the Eurozone! =>
5. The effects of all this looping back onto "what kind of deal will the EU give the UK"?

Here we return to the drivel about Freedom of Movement vs The Single Market!! Hello!

But there is a really important principle here: The complexity is REAL: From both perspectives of the Remain EU'ers or the Brexiteers and hence absolutely Brexit must be a very measured and controlled plan: Indeed FLEXCIT's staged or iterative withdrawal principle is exactly what this means given the complexity at stake (just think of those dominoes). It hence suggests the EU cannot "give in" on Freedom of Movement if the UK is sustain Single Market access, which would go a long way to calming market flux; ie the EFTA/EEA option purely for political reasons is very rational. Indeed looking at the EU, they really need to resolve the 4th issue above and speed on with their new Eurozone Treaty. Finally as per the blogs by Dr. RAE North above on Freedom of Movement, it's iteratively improving in the EFTA/EEA set-up secondly in any case - as planned.

The opposite of this? Shit communication, the likes of which are in torrents in the Legacy News-Media and politicians of Westminster. In fact, as per the previous blog a negative spiral against correct and healthy democratic processes.

Interestingly the final speaker, Cathyrn Costello, backs this up with her talk of "Regulated Labour Markets" and circular flows and the inadequacy of regulatory measures on these economically driven flows. She even usefully makes the point that it only took One Day before all the talk of "control" or "sovereignty" was discarded and EEA becomes the main candidate. Remember after all those years and years of lies on aka "The Norway Option": The Columbo Method: Norway.

As to the meeting and "experts" the observation I made was that these people apart from Geoff Evans and Vernon Bogdanor looked like they had "panic stricken faces" on. Namely they failed to communicate as experts or in their role as experts. For example, Cathyrn Costello showed her shallow understanding or deep ignorance chirping about "No say on internal market regulation" and a somewhat righteous tone of "betrayal of polish friends" mixed with "the EU has done everything to accommodate the peculiarities of the UK". These value-laden judgements are what was discussed previously: The emotional soup washing over people.

This is the work of the politician. The work of the expert is more neutral in tone and much more measured in stating what is known or at least thought to be known compared to what most certainly is not known, for example describing the complexity of these potential chain-reactions is I think very very useful for helping people make sense of where we are at and hence how we perhaps might prefer to proceed concerning Brexit and as Mrs. May our new Prime Minister says: "Making a Success of It!"

I think it is easy to see politics feels so alien to so many people. Does it have to be this way? Probably: With change comes winners and losers. My view is however, that the change has been in motion since the history of the EU and today globalization is accelerating this rate of change which also as a subject is seeing this emotionally hot battle of winners and losers (the narrative that Brexiteers are losers is amusing! in this regard if it were perhaps not so serious at the same time).

The Harrogate Agenda

However, I think if the UK is able to take a bigger picture, or macroscope of things, it may help: In fact FLEXCIT starts off with the "least worst option" but confronts the challenges in order that in the future overall most dividends will it is hoped lead to maximizing "winners" and minimizing "losers": There is always going to be people who feel politics has afflicted them as opposed to served them: But how we manage our reactions to that and how we inform ourselves will help our reactions: And who knows, perhaps that itself will finally change politics, positively?

Before Decision-Making: Explosive Cocktails of Emotion

In one of the previous blog posts I noted how the news-stories wash over us incessantly bathing people in the emotional-narrative driven soup of the major broadcasters and tabloids. Evidently this serves a function which people feel a need for: The connection to the community and world within which they coexist and share and shape their expectations for life.

Legacy News-Media: No responsibility for sensationalism vs accuracy and training people to accept an unreality as the "norm".

For the concept of democracy to work, it hinges on the assumption that each voting adult who has made the successful transition from childhood as an independent decision-maker with a single vote to represent that, that such people are emotionally mature and rational. But if we compare the diet or environment within which voters exist, the above sensationalist news-media and the preference for people to seek pleasurable emotional stimulation even if it's "angry"; we can already see where this is going to lead to communication being impaired and reducing to people emotionally "venting": Sometimes nastily but invariably distracting away from building foundations of decision-making ie informing first.

Not only are people going to be less rational in their political discourse, they're equally reducing the complexity of understanding they are able to tolerate without feeling deprived of hyper-emotional presentation. The capacity to tolerate complex information itself is reduced. Just try reading some of the reports and papers that are primary source...

This may sound overly theoretical at the moment, but one look across "the pond" towards the United States of America and with the benefit of "outsiders' eyes" I think it seems very obvious how degraded their processes of democracy must be if we consider the communication of information to voters to aid their decision-making, even delusional on a mass scale, might appear by comparison to our standards? Now envision how the Chinese looking at the United Kingdom and wondering how poorly and chaotically do they run their political planning and policy to be able to effectively "run an entire nation"?! It may give pause for reconsideration of how we actually as opposed to apparently make decisions at a national level? There's so much grandstanding on "self-expression" (from Mill) and a "free press" and such little thought to extending BEYOND this beginning of democratic processes!! As if the beginning IS the process alone.

To bring the subject towards the focus of this blog: Brexit: Since we have had the decision, what is obvious is the ongoing attempt to emotionally digest it; from all corners and speakers

And I think this is perhaps of observation at a mass scale, in the confusion of the leadership or lack of it, in fact, of our political leaders concerning the permanent set of crisis operating across Europe concerning the EU, the EURO, Migration and Terrorism and how to politically deal with these things without a chain reaction due to the uncertainty vs confidence of our market economies.

Such explosive cocktails of emotion were deemed too dangerous at a national level by the original thinkers of the EU Supranational solution (Jean Monnet) almost one hundred years ago towards the ending of World War One. I notice our present analysts of the Referendum such as Matthew Goodwin has taken time to use the voting data to describe the obvious: "Britain is divided" along his preferential measures of Education, Age, Income Bracket, Metropolitican vs Rural for example.

From such studies many commentators come out with rationalizations: "People voted for Brexit because...".

Of fascination however, is this quote from Dr. RAE North at EUReferendum.com:-

Brexit: getting to grips with the issues 

"The thing is, when we are dealing with something as important as a complete revolution in the way we are governed, with the health and wealth of the entire nation dependent on it, that is the sort of detail we should be looking at. To have a amateurs casually interviewing a few high prestige witnesses, simply to confirm the prejudices of the questioners, is a complete waste of time and effort.

Of course, we are so good at having prolonged inquiries after the event – the BSE inquiry, the Bloody Sunday inquiry, Leveson and, more recently, the Chilcot inquiry. At a cost of hundreds of millions, it seems no expense is spared in our attempts to find out why things went wrong. Why then should we not invest a little of that money up-front, in attempt to make sure that we do things right?

And, if Parliament can't hack it, it should move over and cede the ground to people who can do the job. We used quite frequently to have Royal Commissions to examine issues of substance, and their weighty reports used to fuel debates for years thereafter. If ever there was an example of a need for such a Commission, the post-exit reconstruction of Britain is one.

As it is, one cannot escape the impression that officials are flying blind and, outrageously to mix metaphors, are totally out of their depth." 

The former in red is symptom of the investment in distractions due to the failure of using knowledge to promote decision-making capacity in place of "forceful personality" (see Blair-mania and the promotion of celebrity of our leaders: "The first lady or coloured candidate emotional-pleading narratives) and hence subsequently the loss of capacity in decision-making in light of new or alternative evidence.

Is it little wonder that Parliament emulates this "explosive cocktail of emotions" within the population when they bray like donkeys at each other? It's a show, a distraction which itself feeds most of the legacy news-media which in turn feeds itself based off the emotional needs of the population. The "house of workshop" (where decision-making is deliberated via structured and organized activity and rules for such (Parliament)) itself has become a fossil not fit for the work of policy and intelligence driven decision-making at a national and democratic level.

The latter in blue suggests that investment in decision-making behaviours themselves that demonstrate an encapsulation of "intelligence" will likely help the UK avoid the excesses (in red): But it takes a very conscious and very committed and finally very community-driven initiative to set such higher expectations for the entire UK. Pete North makes this point:  The revolution that never was:-

"Much of what is said by European leaders is for the time being merely political signals to their own electorates now that Hollande and Merkel are facing re-election. There is always a gulf between what politicians say and what is technically feasible.

[...]

In that regard, I will not be watching PMQs or even paying that much attention to the words of the EU commission. It will be in the back rooms and select committees where Britain’s fate is decided. That is where I will be watching. What I have seen thus far is not encouraging."

 After a failure of decision-making we end up with the euphemisms of failure: "Mistakes Were Made". In fact no real communication produces such analysis of results as Matthew Goodwin above desperately attempts, like a blind man in the dark, to grasp the meaning of but never quite getting there: Only rearranging the data into interesting patterns. He's not alone, I listened recently to almost the entire Lords Debate on the Referendum on the BBC Parliament channel and not once did I hear the authority of attempting to first understand the EU, via using a history of it "The Great Deception" before attempting to use such a common ground to then promote discussion of Brexit from. You could hear a thousand different reasons, all as plausible and personal as the next and never come away with a deeper understanding. Not beginning correctly, and hence attempting to begin at the end and ending up with more emotional cocktails exploding... entropy of politics and the fear of the ruling order of "too much democracy" such as "Referendums are a scourge on democracy"!

But if we look at this argument, then I think it supports the idea for Brexit to ensure as much political decision-making concerning Article 50 is "automated" or "off-the-shelf" as is possible to MOVE BEYOND THIS EMOTIONAL BEGINNING and get away from it as successfully as possible via FLEXCIT: Stage 1. Failure to do so is very obvious presently in the discussions:-

Brexit: the consequences of failure 

People like Nicola Sturgeon and Lord Lawson, it may be rationale to understand what role they are play-acting in their absurd demands and declarations from Brexit, but if you take the "model" of "emotion" before decision-making: This is indeed what they are playing at: They are playing and captivating and conditioning peoples' emotions to shape-decision-making political power. They are "beneath contempt" as per Dr. RAE North:-

"Handled properly, the benefits of Brexit for the UK could be huge, but there should be no illusions about the effects of a botched exit, based on this sort of insanity. We thus need people to stop playing fantasy Brexit and to focus on reality. We really cannot afford these games."

 It's much less that democracy is a danger, for good democracy promotes good communication and hence good argument and hence good decision-making practice and indeed the experience of improving at this with more practice. It's our leaders who are the cause of and consequence of failure "we cannot afford these games" quite numerically and literally!

Brexit: Devout Congregations In Conflict!

Dutch woodcut: Congregations rely on leadership, a sense of family, a house of worship to produce a coherent set of shared expectations

I remember having to sit through sermons and the like in church or other variations of christian assembly and feeling interminably bored. I think the biggest problem I had was that the source of shared story-telling sounded like insensible news from about 2,000 years ago. I find large assemblies of people to this day "hard-work" and feel queasy at them, the exception being when everyone is seated and listening attentively then the size matters not, so long as the "business of the day" or subject matter is interesting and intelligible. Of course I realize the "coming together" of similar people (similar shared interests and expectations and social norms) is valid even if the actual literal business is nonsense.

Recently I've been keeping tabs on the developments of various committee meetings and reported news of various different spokespeople on the subject of Brexit.

I have to point out a couple of common descriptions:-

• The size of the congregation gives the designated speaker the platform to speak
• The designated speaker replaces the congregation's voices the more the forum (or house of worship) becomes esoteric to the ordinary understanding of the congregation rather than representing them directly. Or indeed the forum itself purports to represent such a quantity of people of variable norms as to be unrepresentative of more than less.
• The consensus between designated speakers allows them to build "barriers to entry" to other potential speakers, perhaps from the ranks of the congregation? Perhaps the formation of dynasties, bubble effects and various other forms of upper echelon nepotism forms: Namely the relationships between (across) this tier is represented more than below?
• The designated speakers whether priests or politicians develop their own liturgical language as a component of such "barriers to entry".
• The interests of these "priests" who "lead" congregations are vested within the fact they hold a platform built on top of their congregations and hence their core interest is in preserving such power over these people for their own eminence.
• Likewise, other such "priests" both in the shared motivation and the shared language of coordinating congregations spend more and more time and focus on this activity effectively the "bartering" of assumed expectations between different congregations and within congregations, to summarize this:-

1. Within Frame Shared Expectations
2. Between Frame Shared Expectations

• Because of this process, it appears to me that politicians, priests become less and less leaders based on a particular expertise in a particular domain of knowledge or indeed less and less representative of their congregations (one of them) but become more and more actors who possess the trappings of leadership, the pretence of symbolizing family connectedness to the congregations and hence shared communal forums to promote the functions of democratic decision-making between individuals and collectives in various spheres of activity - this is displaced: The framing of expectations either within (see Labour atm) or Between (see Remain vs Leave for example) becomes far more encompassing a motivation of this class of people.
• Modern culture itself takes on these trappings of breakdown in democracy and in fact we could potentially extrapolate this further: The decay of civilization's progression: Celebrity promotion, Excessive investment in distractions of a cultural and mass appeal, an inability to reformulate decision-making when alternative evidence is submitted to the leadership etc.

Ok, that penultimate bullet point is the assertion being promoted in this blog and now it's time to back it up and see just how much the assertion is applicable and perhaps I hope, helpful from moving from description to explanation: Namely explanation allows connection of seemingly disparate elements...

I'll use the three broad categories in the final bullet point above:-

(1) Celebrity Promotion

If we first look at the intervention of Nicola Sturgeon, then we can summarize the nonsense of liturgy she spews out using Scribblings From Seaham's blog observations to back this up:  Talking Heads

Strugeon's motivation is I think quite likely to follow the "model" proposed above: Her platform must be asserted and she must appear to be producing value back to it to sustain her elevation. Does it really follow that Brexit will sabotage the Scots' destiny as a people as Sturgeon would have her followers in her congregation believe? Far from it. But the two priests above must appear to be powerfully talking to each other for the benefit of both the media (personality mania) and hence the congregations low-information and even lower information reporting of personalities let alone voices of argument from the two celebrities above.

Brexit: Theresa May says talks won't start in 2016

Here is a back-up of "Laura Kuenssberg" "media personality" reporting of the priests in action (see the subscript description and her tweets).  Secondly it's interesting to notice the spiked online Article 50 clamour vs May's delay on it.

Edit-Update: Just caught (21:30) Daily Politics21/07/2016 and the surreal squeals of delight concerning the sex of the above leaders... imho it suggests that appearance has superceded substance: They have nothing of value to say (the commentary) - not triggering Article 50 prematurely could be explored far more fruitfully if there was real knowledge operating...

(2) Excessive Investment in Forms of Distraction

I really don't know where to begin with this suggestion? I guess the most effective description would be that this is the product between celebrity obsession (to use a headline tag) over attending to alternative evidence when it becomes available? I suppose it may be a case of "choose your preferred poison as per your own personality preferences:-

Greenpeace Repaints Vote Leave Battlebus To Correct Brexit Campaign ‘Lies’

There's a couple of possible motivations here:-

• It just FEELS so good doing something like this, a stunt of sorts?
• Stunts capture the imagination all the better to stoke congregations' emotions with? In fact the appearance of doing something that appears good outmatches in terms of popularity the actual functional work of doing something effective? Who could argue against the lies of Boris' "blunderbus"??
• If you take this stunt at face value it's hard not to feel sympathy for the sincere attempt to recorrect a sense of unfairness in the campaigns, but this fails to realize that the performance of both campaigns remain and leave is so perversely dislocated from the results which require much deeper and extended research to understand (hint hint: The Great Deception).
• It may help understand this type of emotional error more via comparison to such a similar error or displacement ie heavy investment in distraction from the other "side of the divide":-

Politeia: The EU and the UK series: publications

There's nothing uniquely moronic about Greenpeace's particular choice of actions, they are, as indeed are Politeia, "Reverting To Type": In the latter's case you can see that this Think Tank demands prestigious economic "magic" and hence sources them appropriately in the selection of curated authors above. Again it seems that this feels good for these people (perhaps partly because of the money, prestige, authority that this line of argument seems to generate successfully for this Think Tank (as per their own admission/boast/assertion)). Why? It's clearly more successful than Greenpeace's efforts for the people in this Think Tank; though Greenpeace seem also to have been successful with funding and lobbying from the EU, not to be sniffed at either(!). I would guess it comes back to the idea of politicians as priests and requiring "material for sermons" which sway the most people or sway most powerfully most of the time when needed, the various congregations of people? And this, ladies and gentleman means MONEY Time.

What seems very noticeable is that trying to educate all these disparate congregations with "Between Frame of Expectations" is very unlikely to work. The sermons by our modern priests, our politicians therefore must adapt as described in the above bullet points to uphold their positions: The Economy and riches is one strand of thought that seems to provide political power very successfully.

Nevertheless, this bypasses what's so noticeable recently, using various examples:-

Scientists:-

Farmers:-

City:-

This list of "claimants" could get very, very long! Let's stop at three for now.

(3) Inability to reformulate decision-making according to alternative evidence

You can see that politics becomes bogged down with the different congregations run by priests/politicians who then put their own particular priorities in place as a consequence - but at what cost? We shall see now:-

I cannot do better than list EUReferendum.com past number of blogs:-

Brexit: a failure to plan	21/07/2016
Brexit: unlimited dishonesty	20/07/2016
Brexit: in for the long haul	20/07/2016
Brexit: opportunity knocks	19/07/2016
Brexit: free movement and the Single Market	18/07/2016
Booker: does Brexit mean Brexit?	17/07/2016
Brexit: Treasury Committee – oral evidence	16/07/2016
Brexit: in the hands of fools and knaves	15/07/2016

And secondly, more difficult to follow, Pete North I think I am right in suggesting (up to a point) is sometimes considering a similar "cost" at Global Level in the communication and functioning of furthering Trade in some of his recent blogs (a lot of background that I've not done so hence out of my depth speaking here for sure):-

• Brexit: taking the power back
• Brexit presents a massive opportunity for global t...
• Global trade: don't get excited just yet
• Brexit is far more than just a trade deal
• It takes more than five minutes to understand Brex...
• Treasury Committee: further thoughts
• Treasury committee: first thoughts

During General Elections the holy word is "Economy", it seems the post-Referendum holy word in our sermons must be "Trade". This is all well and good sounding, but is it also more than sound and more than appearance alone?

Well a quick look (please look at it's sections in detail in your own leisure) at:-

European Union Committee The process of withdrawing from the European Union 11th Report of Session 2015-16 - published 4 May 2016 - HL Paper 138

Some random excerpts:-

The likelihood of the two-year time limit being extended

42.We asked our witnesses how likely it was that the two-year time limit would be extended. Professor Wyatt thought that an extension would probably happen. The incentive was “£8 billion a year in net contributions, and access to the UK market for workers and for motor cars. All the Member States in the EU believe they benefit from the internal market.”

43.Professor Wyatt warned, however, that “there will be huge national self-interest in moving forward in a very considered way without jumping the gun in directions that could torpedo the negotiations before they start”. He saw “huge risks” to this not being achieved: “If, for example, the UK were to … insist on imposing unilateral restrictions on immigration while negotiations were going on, the climate would disintegrate.”

Two agreements, rather than one

31.Article 50(2) TEU requires that the withdrawal agreement “take[s] account of the framework” of the withdrawing Member State’s “future relationship with the Union”. Sir David said that the German language version of Article 50 made plain that the “structure of future relations will already have been established at the point when withdrawal takes place.” Professor Wyatt agreed. He did not think that the withdrawal agreement would be able to “accommodate all the details of the future trading relationship”,

The scope of the negotiations

37.Neither witness could be certain about the form the UK’s future relationship with the EU would take. Professor Wyatt told us: “My suspicion is that it would actually be an association agreement of some kind, because we would end up with a fairly complex comprehensive agreement that would involve co-operative machinery of some sort.”

There is a growing suspicion that the high priests want Brexit in a form that they can successfully sermonize to the disparate congregations. Secondly many many of those congregations are so low information that any attempt to communicate educationally with them may indeed be foolish anyway: Just look at a great deal of UKIP or Minford style expositions of Brexit, more dangerous than the sibilant lure of "Association Membership" of the likes of CER and Mr. Springford and his deceptive ilk.

And finally because of the dishonesty and rent-seeking and indeed self-seeking of so many politicians and the various congregations, there is fertile grounds for a complete lack of "WITHIN Frame Shared Expectations" of Brexit leaving the march more challenging and "problem-producing" "BETWEEN Frame Shared Expectations between dozens and dozens of cosy little and ignorant congregations, all the better for the priests/politicians to sermonize DOWN TO.

Alternative evidence is surely heretical to be burnt at the stake...

FLEXCIT: Dance, Dance, Dance.

This beautiful picture shows two people dancing a beautiful dance.

Some years ago I had the opportunity to learn some dance, and perhaps not very good, but at least I learnt that it is a careful choreography between two partners and obviously they have to respond and interact to the music and each others moves to be able to dance well. Much easier said than done (!) though very very enjoyable when the odd successful routine is achieved.

I've said it before and will say it again, too often on television when you have a politics question and answer it's like watching the most fucking aweful dance routine possible!!!

Well, fortunately for one day, the conversation and question and answer session on a particular aspect of Brexit was conducted and it was "moderately good"!

The UK’s future economic relationship with the European Union

Witnesses: Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, Director, European Centre for International Political Economy, Shanker Singham, Director of Economic Policy and Prosperity Studies, Legatum Institute, and Richard North, Author

Look Closely: A copy of FLEXCIT: The Market Solution on the far RHS of the table.

The above screenshot is at the end of the 2 hours session and it was quite technical and complicated and in my opinion the problem was that the questioners must have been struggling to understand the answerers: Namely the "dance" was perhaps one-sided to use the metaphor above. Secondly I think the actual "dance" went very far very often away from the actual "beat of the music" ie relevance loss again probably because the questioners had a set number of questions and were in formality mode of going through those without really understanding the answers received beyond probing where they could their own set criteria? Just imagine one of the dancers going through the set moves without the blindest bit of awareness to the rhythm of the music! Well that was the impression I took from the questioners; the answerers were overall very good.

I use the metaphor of dance because even though it is technical and complicated, I am guessing there is a dance going on here that could be described in addition to pointing out the disparity above. For a more descriptive observation of the meeting Pete North fills in here: Treasury committee: first thoughts.

I read a lot of comments over at EUReferendum.com and they seemed to generally think that Hosuk Lee-Makiyama was overly negative and indeed it may appear that way. Whereas in general Shanker Singham seemed positive. I'll come back to Dr. North in a moment.

First as Pete North points out, it was quite an important meeting considering it covered ground in 2hrs that was never covered correctly in the entire Referendum campaign. We managed to remove from Brexit:-

• WTO Option (unilateral fall-back)
• FTA Alternative to Single Market Membership

I think I'm right in asserting both these options were completely eliminated? Goodbye, don't come back, the end!

"The general impression from the whole panel is what we said from the outset. CETA and WTO options are completely out there. For the birds. And though the expertise we heard today was extremely valuable in adding to our understanding we still see a Déformation professionnelle at work as our trade experts tend only to look at it from a trade perspective, neglecting to take into account, defence, cooperation programmes, aviation and the rest of the EU institutions."

It may have worked in the EU Referendum Campaign (how?!) to have multiple different voices all advocating different Brexit plans so that all "Leave" voters and potential such voters would "hear what they wanted to hear"? I don't know, but right now we can now all agree that most of those voices were talking complete and utter bullshit. If you signed up to any of those, you might want to reconsider how you choose to trust or assess information when you make decisions for yourself.

Now looking at Pete North's quote above we can come back to Dr. North and that last bit after Déformation professionnelle this is what is fascinating: Dr. North was at incredible pains to point out and stress just how challenging and potentially difficult withdrawal of the EU will be: The arch "eurosceptic or brexiteer" talking up the EU Institutions and their particular competencies, their particular requirements and such like. You know it sounds to me like we have a real expert talking here... .

As for the other two experts, I have to disagree with the commentators impressions over at EUReferendum.com: I think Hosuk Lee-Makiyama was almost coded in his careful demolition of both the WTO and the FTA (CETA) options and only obliquely alluding to EEA+ via pointing out that EEA- would likely be a bridge too far while EEA+ would "NOT SAVE MONEY" (actually fitting in with the title of the session about the economics of Brexit (something of a dubious quesiton imo in the first place). As such far from merely being a "problemator" (creator of problems) I think his negative appearance was very useful!

Whereas the positive trade negotiator perspective of Shanker Singham, I found overly descriptive of "in principle there's positive to be had" as opposed to "in application to the present conditions we perhaps need to tread carefully": It seems to me that there was great effort to point out the opportunities here and commercial imperative that would mostly likely drive the process, but this was all hinged on the assumption of an "EU Deal" being more of a formality to subsequent opportunities. In fact I found a distinct lack of structure though the content of what was said was certainly of high quality regarding the subject. Namely I'd argue here was someone who knew the moves but it seemed not so with the music. Having experience in trade deals, I'm sure there will be a place for such expertise and reading the Civil Service World website says they're desperate for such people who can bring their previous experiences and apply them and hence I'm sure give confidence and goodwill to all ("common interest" as Mr. Lee-Makiyama puts it).

As to the questioners, The Chair seemed most useful in his questions but did not chair the discussion I feel adequately for the entire course (a big challenge tbh it seemed); I'm not sure he was able to "ask the right questions" ie he did not "know the moves" well enough. But the rest of the questioners seemed to me to be completely out of their element. I mean really, really, really (!) poor and not able to maximize such a useful opportunity.

Interestingly enough, even though Dr. North was insistent on the challenges, as to the actual question of the economics, "any final contributions" had Dr. North mentioning "Trade Fascilitation" and the very real monetary benefits possible via this discussion... . This seems like a very solid and concrete contribution but with the cautionary privisio of our "Treaty obligations" and the magnitude of political change required to be undertaken - first.

Finally I'd like to contribute something myself that I think will help future discussions of Brexit:-

Firstly there's a lot of variable "relationships" with the EU. But crucially for the UK to quote FLEXCIT: The Market Solution, with "nine treaties and over 40 years of convergence" with an almost "unique degree of convergence required" with the Supranational EU as per the Treaty requirements ie concerning the acquis communautaire "swallow the lot and swallow it whole": When it comes to withdrawal from EU Treaties ie exit away from such convergence politically, legally, monetary and economically, it has to be reduced to 3 options and now 1 option after this meeting: EFTA/EEA of some variable composition eg EFTA/EEA and UK/EEA+. But that will Stage 1 axe for sure monetary, legal and political aspects while securing that commercial and economic... namely you guessed it: Once you boil down the actual possible solutions you see the logic of FLEXCIT emerging all by itself and I could go on to list as per the previous blog's introduction all over again the correct sequence of moves in time to the correct beat!

Finally The Chair of the meeting did try to probe concerning the idea of freedom of movement of labour and single market membership or else FTA (which we can thank Hosuk Lee-Makiyama for shooting down with his ellided but quite precisely pressurized statement that he did not think the UK was ready for such a "high societal cost" even if technocrats would be!). This comes back to the idea of the EU as Treaty in the process of designing a Supranational governance or to use the visual picture again, to develop a form of integration that converges nations so closely in so many areas to such a high degree as compared to other forms of "Trade Deals" (see Dr. North's (or Mr. North...) contribution that was extremely useful at the meeting here for retrospective: EU Referendum: no such thing as free trade) .

Namely we're back to dancing to FLEXCIT's beat again, we have to accept Freedom of Movement of Labour in the short-term if we are to be Single Market members (not merely FTA access to it outside it). In fact the Trade expert Shanker Singham (usefully) pointed out as such convergences get closer to incorporating more "sectors" such as services then these matters of employment and hence labour do become more involved in such relationships... an example of this was provided in financial services by Hosuk Lee-Makiyama on the loss of "safe harbours" (it's not something I'm personally familiar with!) for US workers from the EU. Curiously he did not seem to believe the timing issues under Article 50 of the EU Treaties stating 2 years would be very relevant: If there's one detail that needs to be prioritized I'd back up Dr. North's suggestion of requesting an extension with a view to notification of the EU of Article 50 by the UK if requested to do so sooner than later.

Afterall, we do not want to put a foot wrong in this very complex and very challenging process.

Brexit: "The Lost Sheep" (poor little fella!)

Oh dear a bleating little lamb calling plaintively for his mother: He's wandered away from the safety of the flock and now the great shepherd (EU) will be needed to save him... or something like that.

Ugh, we've got Christoph Scheuermann writing in Spiegel Online The Waiting Game: Playing for Time After Brexit attempting to "change the tune" concerning reacting from Brexit: Instead of the "little foolish lamb (Reference attribution) will be left to be ripped to pieces by the wolves if it dares to stray from the EU flock", it's now "let the poor bleating blighter suffer for a bit all alone" before the good shepherd of the EU arranges a sort of "Association Membership" deal for the UK to lure it back to the flock of other frightened sheep.

Well, it's an attempt to capture the tone of superiority and the priestly orthodoxy of the Pro-EU politicians/lawyers/economists/journalists and it's also highly revealing too. It's show their attitude and beliefs in such a construct as the EU and hence just potentially how divergent they could be from what British voters actually are comfortable with in their relationship with the EU.

• Political Supranational Union
• Common Regulatory Region or Regulatory Portal (for the UK)

If there's any reason that's essential to understand about Brexit leaving the EU I think it's this divergence in objectives and motivations: Withdrawal from EU Treaties means that the confusion and coercion by stealth to manipulate or persuade the UK (the political class who have their hands all over the levers of power in particular) is safely removed and reduced.

That sorts out the dreary mess that has plagued so much poor communication on the EU in UK Political discussions all the shadow games played out in place of actual substance and policy.

However what's is left is the other indication above concerning that "Regulatory Portal" and here anyone on all sides of the argument need to pay attention:-

1. There's not going to be a short-term change here
2. Keeping it is not going to be an ultimate destination either (EEA)
3. It's going to continually be under the forces of change of globalization and hence any policy needs to be made concerning "trend" or "direction of travel" as opposed to for example "Association Membership" orbiting the EU.

Now if you've been following FLEXCIT and EUReferendum.com this is all not surprising. But it's worth emphasising the inertia and resistance to change and kicking up dust by the Pro-EU Federalists and their short and narrow vision conflating Supranational Union with this alternative premise of "globalization trend on regulations and standards" for say trade as opposed to political philosophy; and such an example is provided by Jean Monnet Chair Professor Dougan:-
Oral evidence: The UK's Future Economic Relationship with the European Union

Professor Dougan: The day of the constitutional lawyer has come. We are all aware that there is a very important legal debate happening within our own country about whether Article 50 can be triggered purely by Royal Prerogative, about whether Article 50 should be triggered by primary legislation, about whether there is some combination of parliamentary and governmental participation that we need to secure. We are all probably aware that this issue is likely to end up in the superior courts for a judicial determination, which will effectively settle the issue for us.

There's a good summary that clarifies this: Brexit | On why, as a matter of law, triggering Article 50 does not require Parliament to legislate.What is perhaps not appreciated is something that I will predict will rule the decision-making process and needs to be verbalized clearly:-
There must be an ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that the EU rules and hence motivations are divergent and different from the UK rules and hence motivations as expressed in the EU Referendum.
And that is to come back to the idea of Supranational design (lol sounds like supernatural) compared to what we the UK have left over from the Referendum: That Regulatory Portal idea from Dr. RAE North. That is something we can and must and should work with and on and about. And interestingly this perhaps may explain a lot of the subsequent flood of discussion and focus on the EEA which was so ruthlessly and so crookedly removed from the IEA Brexit Prize process.
Funny how things look now? A failure to make this distinction is a failure to progress the argument away from blockheads such as Dougan and other Pro-EUs who will always look for complications and barriers and complexity additions to the problem of withdrawal from the EU. The very opposite to finding solutions that are to quote FLEXCIT: The Market Solution:-

• It is intended to show that an orderly exit is plausible and practical and can be largely risk-free.
• Leaving the EU is a big step and there can be no serious dispute that a botched process could have dire results.
• Even in trade with the rest of the world, the EU is often the regulatory portal through which we access other markets so it has a huge influence on non-EU trade.
• To achieve a trouble-free exit, we must have an exit plan. Without that, we believe the "leave" campaign will not succeed.
• Our plan, therefore, has to be accurate, honest and pragmatic.
• And we start with a basic premise. After nine treaties and 40 years of political and economic integration, there can be no clean break
• The next point is that negotiations will not take place in a political vacuum.
• This means that our negotiators will not have a free hand.
• It starts with each of the parties setting out their opening positions but, to achieve a satisfactory outcome, both sides will have to listen to each other. Compromise will be essential.
• Proposals cannot be taken seriously unless they are politically attainable and publicly acceptable
• With this in mind, we stress that great care should be taken with exit scenarios based on economic models.
• Then, we must point out that all solutions must fit with others.
• In our view, that means we must – in the short to medium term – stay in the EU's Single Market.
• To stay in the Single Market, acceptance of the principle freedom of movement is non-negotiable. We can abolish freedom of movement or we can stay in the single market. We can't do both.
• We must accept a short-term compromise over freedom of movement.
• Under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which defines the exit procedures, negotiations are set to last two years.
• That confronts another reality. Brexit presents an existential threat to the EU.
• Taking all that into account, we propose six stages to our plan. Its very essence is that it is split into stages.
• In conclusion, we explain how leaving the EU becomes a process requiring continuous and flexible development. That repeats our central point: leaving the EU is not a single event but a multi-stage process.
• In short, by leaving the EU, we are not ending a relationship.

Here you can see the monumental difference between "problematizing" Brexit as opposed to carefully summarizing (introduction in a pamphlet form of the full treatment or worked and living document itself) the principle properties of Brexit (this itself above is merely a highlighted selection from a selection) for brevity.
But as much as pointing out this difference, the other differences need pointing out:-

1. Bad Plan = "Negatives"
2. No Plan = "Vacuous"
3. Any Plan = "Disastrous"
4. Knowledgeable Plan = "Practical"

Perhaps the leading source of bringing down the whole Referendum quality was the inability of these diffferent groups of people 1-3 referenced from Brexit: they haven't a clue in arguing honestly and not according to their own blindness and shallow motivations and failings. They truly are the lost little lambs. Meanwhile somewhere at large, on Darmoor: Dartmoor Zoo lynx: Will the call of mum trap Flaviu?

 Lynx At Large!

The Perils of "Everybody Knows."

If only words were such apprehensible objects and hence so apprehensible problems... but it's a deceptively simple "transitive" mistake to make and it's so frequent.

I grabbed the above image from this source (and hence reference it appropriately) where they're talking about the meaning of a "missionary": I'd answer by saying if you saw someone struggling up a flight of stairs on the London Underground with a heavy suitcase (or often a pram or sometimes a disability etc), then you'd take a choice to ask if they need help and lend a hand until they're up the stairs. Seems good enough to me to use a simple example. More useful, I'd argue than a missionary would be an "Anthropologist": Someone who seeks to understand the actual culture they insert themselves within BEFORE attempting to provide their skills or provide their help and areas of expertise perhaps? Namely good intentions are at the start of such voluntary endeavours to "make things better" but without an understanding they may err otherwise. I have a friend who went to Turkey in a similar voluntary vein, and it will be interesting to find out how it went: They're nice people which tends to find some success but I think it's also more of a lottery concerning success with only such a basis.

In fact something I've been troubled a lot by recently: "Everybody Knows..." seems to be the default of most of the people I talk to, and often on different subjects this "Everybody Knows..." attitude dominates how the conversation goes. In particular, on Brexit, "Uncertainty" and indeed "Everybody Knows... That Nobody Knows," is equally seductive and prevalent. People who appear most confident of their point of view tend to be heard and possibly more persuasive than a simple: "I don't necessarily know, however..."?

I realize I fall foul of this way too much too. Better to be silent, listen then think in silence and consider how much do I actually know? How many words and excessive talking on things I don't really know a lot about is certainly something to feel an "inner-cringe" about. I remember the first Brexit models or papers I came across, the problem could be "solved in an afternoon in Westminster by repealing the 1972 European Communities Act; whereas today 10 years of continuous and flexible work is required across multiples of policy making areas." It's just like thinking the world is in the cup of my palm. Fast forward to after the Referendum and "oh dear" *To be said in David Attenborough's natural history narrative voice* when an animal does something that does not turn out with the reward it was seeking (missed sex/loss of food/a rival competitor intruding). As such the response of the animal is to transform from it's habitual in autopilot mode or second gear and stimulate an increased response rate either to loss or to gain.

I would guess humans behave in this way when posed with an apparently important question (perception of loss/gain) and hence provide a view that they feel is confident and more certain as it applies to them (at least) than uncertain? To say, I know enough to know that I really don't know at all or else realize that many questions are so open-ended that they could be answered in thousands of different ways all of which would be plausible or subjectively equally applicable.

Namely, people provide a heightened stimulus response, that falls into the "I'm an expert" phase. Politicians seem to be expected to perform this trick then equally expected to be "lying" but "allowed to be lying about being an expert" because they're "obviously partisan" and hence I'm sure you know the rest, as they say! Pretty much useless.

Coming back to missionaries and converting people, I think a good indication of someone who actually is an expert is the back to "I Know Nothing" phase. Unfortunately this does not sound like that sought after "stimulated response" and secondly it can be confused for "hedging" when it's actually very careful and cautious communication of complex ideas - it should be evident that conversion is not a priority, an attempt to help explain and understand, is. And of course, it requires that the parties in communication share a sufficient knowledge level, which seems always to be assumed but never actually tested on the deficient communicator's side of the conversation.

Interestingly a lot of the reactions of people concerning the Referendum is either:-

• "Experts? Pffft! What do THEY know..."
• "Ha! See!! That's what happens when experts are ignored, BAD THINGS happen."

Above, Mark Carney is being assessed for "independence", namely his role as an expert is being considered in contention to his possible role as a partisan actor. There's a few good (understatement) blogs on this subject at EUReferendum.com by Dr. RAE North. Now donning our "Anthropologist's hat" let's look at what can be for the time-being be labelled "False Experts" and we'll see why the former response is seen from people:-

• Brexit: Dougan on Liechtenstein
• EU referendum: our learned but stupid friends 

Another opportunity to see this reversal from "knowledge" towards "coercion" is exhibited (it's almost laugh out loud by this compromised and crooked institution's consistency in this vein):-

Theresa May has two clear options on Brexit – neither of them easy

The interesting thing here is an inversion: The behaviour of "our fake expert" above is to induce the former reaction but at the same time hold some truth concerning the latter reaction. Now if we take the opposite direction to the above where expert who acts like a politician is this time replaced with a politician who acts like an expert:

• Brexit: Farage resigns … again

I think enough is known of Farage to not expand from what is written in the blog above. But the effect here now is an inversion:  "our politician acting as an expert" to convert people (ALSO) is easy to identify, he points out that everyone is an expert and dismisses "bad things" of the "fake expert" and promote the "Pfft! Experts..." but at the same time as inadvertently ensuring that as time progresses "bad things" do happen or would happen with people like him at the helm of decision-making!

Brexit: plus ça change

Fortunately "Complete Bastard - The Hero We All Deserve" flies to the rescue and explains this particular inversion very well and expands the point from Farage to the entire Leave Campaign rounded of by Vote Leave and their failure to "master the Brexit Argument".

Interestingly, not an expert view, but one that manages to capture the major flaw in both the above types of behaviour without fully appreciating it and neither from an expert nor politician but in a very "I know nothing" but at least I have some "common sense" to use even if there's a good number of "leaps of faith": When people try to "convert" other people they're invariably whether or not they realize it, are acting in a "coercive" way: "Everybody Knows..." is a terrible form of self-deception and group-deception. There are some things "Everybody Knows..." but everybody realize they don't need to talk about those things or else bore people. Brexit has been talked about far far too much by far too many people in a way that has been dominated by "Coercion" motivation.

Keep calm and Brexit on: History suggests leaving Europe is great for Britain

There's a number of different connections here. But I have to pick one that is at present most important and most urgent and hence discard the rest for sake of brevity (much like Brexit!!):-

Even if this last article touches on a core "truth" at the very heart of this argument, it fails to deal with the very serious consequences that the "fake experts" are able to continue trading off: "Bad things!"

There we really do need a real expertise that acts as such. And people in their millions muddling along in the middle of the communication of knowledge will likely never begin to understand through all the cacophany of "converting" going on that leads to those two opinions of experts: How can two different opinions both be right and wrong at the same time?! The simple answer is: Asking The Wrong question(s) is likely.

In a crazy way, the inversion that both sides through avoiding improving the quality of arguments, create it seems unintentionally, "equal each other out" and that "core" above just peeps through might be somewhere within the numbers where the Referendum result lies?

But what is most important and most urgent now?

Read this:-

Hopefully it's the first thing Theresa May, upon becoming our new Prime Minister, will advice her new Cabinet to do on Wednesday. I don't think the difficult answer is very comforting, but it might suggest that where there is a clear assessment of loss or gain, then such a Referendum choice on so large a single argument (without multiple divisions of it) will necessarily lead to a scope of enormously magnified loss or gain depending on the correct or mistaken decision-making taken by our new government.

The Referendum was won by Leave it seems without expertise, but the process of Brexit cannot be successful without the right expertise applied correctly.

Politics: Feeding the 46,500,001...

This info slide above describing junk food is possibly analogous to much/most of the news-media output on the political stories of the day. There does seem to be a social-circadian function to these stories that are "on the hour, every hour" so to speak, a collective rhythm to the day for peoples' establishment of their context to the world around them?

But if you're interested in more than this, then you may find that the quality of information is not very high for increasing understanding of politics apart from the more emotional stimulation and submersion socially within the constantly, ever-washing news stories.

The "good news" is that curated properly, there is a way to select (visibility problem) from this "roiling sea of emotion and excessive information":-

1. State of UK Politics

The great failures of statesmanship over Iraq and Brexit shows how much we need a proper leader

We pay but have no say

Just whose voice counts?

Sizing the ‘Liberal Leave’ position

2. State of Brexit

A Brexit consensus - EFTA EEA is the bridge 

Brexit: immigration versus market - a false choice

Public Law for Everyone: Brexit | On why, as a matter of law, triggering Article 50 does not require Parliament to legislate

This sources will more than suffice for an entire week of political news-media at the very least, if spaced across an entire week for the weekly intake of news - at the very very least!