There's some amusing Brexit memes and some funny Brexit jokes. But the jokes that are reported from the various comedy circuits I've heard don't seem very funny, in my opinion, and secondly don't seem very accurate either. Generally I find jokes can be funny of themselves as an interesting sentiment without being accurate, but more rewarding when they're both funny and accurate in some insightful way.
In fact most of the jokes seem to be closer to the "Knock knock" formula: They're not really providing anything close to original or spontaneous and hence insightful. "Contrived" might be best word to describe them?
And so it is with the majority of the Legacy News-Media's reporting of the UK's EU Referendum and the Brexit Leave result as demonstrated by the report and research from Will It Kill Us Or Make Us Stronger? How Europe’s Media Covered Brexit.
The first paragraph provides a useful summary of what I think is the established doctrine of those who predominantly control power aka "Political Orthodoxy" (in the UK known as "The Establishment"):-
"Europe’s newspapers were overwhelmingly negative towards Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, according to a review of the press in 13 countries in the week after the referendum. Most articles presented the view that Brexit was bad for the EU, would damage their own nation’s interests and would also be bad for Britain. Of the articles that discussed the possibility of following Britain out of the EU, the majority concluded it would not be in their country’s interest to do so."The other interesting prevailing view in response to this:-
"However the majority view, across all political opinions, was that it should be reformed rather than be allowed to fail."Back to "EU Reform" territory again, and yet The Great Deception goes into great detail as to the essential form this takes or to be clearer it's such a generalism as to be a form of falsehood much more than a form of concrete solution.
However, all of this is secondary. What's of real interest:-
"In the UK analysis, of the three newspapers studied (The Telegraph, Guardian and Daily Mail) two had backed the leave campaign, yet coverage after the vote was mostly anti-Brexit (39%), 27% pro-Brexit and 34% neutral."I think what's useful is that what is only apparent is the value-score of the papers cumulatively:-
- Emotionally Good (positive)
- Emotionally Bad (negative)
- Either Good and/or Bad or Neither
I think I'm on the right tracks here and I can perhaps give some examples:-
Before the Referendum the Environmental Groups and Universities for example were very clear that Brexit would be bad for Britain. But given the chancellors' recent recommendations their fears appear to be allayed to a major degree. By comparison, the promises of leaving for "leave voters" such that "control of our borders" was clearly going to massively improve the "immigration problem", I suspect this is the area of politics that is being worked very hard on in it's presentation and delivery to people to reassure them that it too has been handled or will be. The problem is however that these voters only hear what they want to hear (like most voters who require persuading) and so the solutions must be packaged into a form of emotion that makes it acceptable or palatable: Namely stoking up the very grave dangers of Brexit and reigning in expectations a bit like angling and tiring out a fish before pulling it out of the water.
If you look at the reporting in other nations, very very few are in the "grey bar" category. But I wonder what the actual feelings of people is? The danger for the EU is the idea of "contagion": It seems a strong motivation to impress upon people and institutions that "Brexit is foolhardy" such as the FT.com and Guardian are doing such a wonderful post-Brexit job of catering towards, along with the equally charlatan The Economist. The Express on the other hand demonstrates the bias-supporting of "Immigration-ultras" who are so invested in stopping Migration they've given up with solutions and shout slogans with redoubled energetic displays of zeal towards this cause. The opposite but equals of the "catastrophizing" voices in the FT.com and Guardian and elsewhere. All they're doing is adding to the emotional aggregation in the Legacy News-Media.
If there is a conclusion, then I think these banal jokes, only indicate the "joke is on the people" and the dance macabre of emotion that is the beat of the legacy news-media (the so-called life (free press) but closer to death of democracy) and the level of actual democratic engagement achieved in the UK. The 78% or so of turn-out may be "the highest since whenever..." but like the legacy news-media, all it merely records is the attempt to stimulate enough people to feel emotional about a subject to record "democracy in good health" when in fact all it's doing is suggesting democracy in it's present form is merely an exercise according to two simple parameters:-
- Stimulate enough of the population to take a few hours out to officially record a vote for the statistics of the exercise to increase it's "validity".
- Given democracy at such scale of millions, to provide so many ignorant and emotional people with a format of participation which mostly can be counted as "satisfactory": Their numbers may be great, but their actual input into the relevance of the arguments is significantly tiny.
- InFacts by Hugo Dixon
- Vote Leave Watch by Chuku Umunna
- Brexit Central by Matthew Elliott
"Despite the anti-Brexit views in western Europe’s quality newspapers"There's the implicit assumption that these newspapers actually are adequate let alone not inadequate! In fact they're more: They're superior quality (see below by contrast to the tabloids!). This is in my opinion a fatal flaw of this study indicating yet again the "Orthodoxy" at work.
"In general coverage in tabloid and popular newspapers was more superficial and often focussed on issues such as immigration, racism and migrant workers in the UK."Yes, as above, a question of "by degree" and "relative to what?". Overall the service of newspapers is EMOTION (see below again).
"Most of Russia’s domestic coverage consisted of “short news about Brexit-related events without providing interpretation or authorial comments,” said Andrejs Berdnikovs, editor of EJO Russia. Berdnikovs said that while overt political statements were avoided, the media coverage was selective."The problem about accusing Russia of doing this is again comparing Russia to more sober and impartial press in the West. However, the experience I have of the British Press in particular is that they're a closed shop commentating in their own little bubble amongst themselves, excluding and actively building "walls" to communication expansion. When they do include it's as a prop to then reinforce future exlclusion via direct "dismissal": See EUReferendum.com: Brexit: Newsnight.
"Often seen as a model of how to exist outside the EU, Switzerland"No, no, no! Often "presented deeply deeply erroneously...". And I have tons and tons of evidence: The Columbo Method: Norway
The FT.com and Economist may not be as explicit but they've tended this way also. I suspect tabloids boost "political participation" and serve a useful role to the Orthodoxy at the same time as our betters "crying oh the shame of the daily mail, mirror, express and sun!". Nothing is worse than being ignored, not even those tabloids' headlines! One of the interesting things however: Scared To Death.
"The negative tone is also reflected in headlines that included words such as fear, anger, frustration, chaos, panic, turmoil, populist revolt, confusion."
"The negative way Europe’s news media reported and presented the outcome of the UK’s referendum indicates how the issue might be discussed in national public arenas in the future, according to Dr Raluca Radu, of the University of Bucharest and Director of EJO Romania."No, Brexit: a surfeit of negativity I think it only leads to "limiting democracy" and controlling via the excessive usage of "fear" or FUD as discussed a couple of years ago in FLEXCIT.
The best joke I heard on Brexit is in this article, and it's not really a joke... but it 'sort of/kinda' is:-
"Berdnikovs said that while overt political statements were avoided, the media coverage was selective. “The decision of which quotes to use was dependent on portals’ ideological stance. Thus, conservative REGNUM tended to present an atmosphere of confusion among ruling European politicians, normally trying to make Pro-Europeanists sound naïve and trivial (“Moldova should strengthen efforts towards European integration, because it can bring Moldovan citizens welfare, social solidarity, good laws and respect”), but eurosceptics – witty and wise (“The EU is a project with a past but without a future”),” Berdnikovs said."I'm not seeing any difference (apart from role reversals) in the Russian Press than the European and British Press! I guess those in the Orthodoxy of politics are much more similar to each other than they care to admit?!
The Spectator is taking enjoyment from the confusion: Luvvie anger over Brexit is palpable at Edinburgh – and it’s exposing their true colours; and I think makes at least one valid point, the question of money dictating a lot of peoples' reactions to politics.
This is valid, but the solution is not so much the short-term flux over money ("They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work"), it's the politics of power as per The Harrogate Agenda:-
5. No taxation or spending without consent:
"No tax, charge or levy shall be imposed, nor any public spending authorised, nor any sum borrowed by any national or local government except with the express approval the majority of the people, renewed annually on presentation of a budget which shall first have been approved by their respective legislatures; "
Irresponsible it was by Vote Leave to bang on about £350 million figure because it's a lie. But the underlying message of "Who the hell gets to have a say on how our money is taken from us and used by who for whom," probably was an attractive underlying idea to people? Well The Harrogate Agenda attempts to promote this question further and more honestly than Vote Leave or the Luvvies.
In the previous article I argued concerning the importance of data especially on the health of our Sovereign concept of Britain/UK. This flows "upwards" to inform our policy (compare freely spending billions on foreign policy wars). In this blog I've ended with a suggestion that Brexit was probably driven by a keen sense that money which should flow "downwards" from first setting good policy, is sensed by people not to be doing so, but to being abused and wasted and indulged by those who are in power and share the same "Orthodoxy" supported by the major institutions predominantly: Legacy News-Media, Universities, Entertainers etc all siphoning off their share of money while it slowly becomes clearer and clearer the policies made are "bad" while "economic recovery is just around the corner" (good?).
"What do 'The Youth' think?" Adapted from Dr. RAE North, FLEXCIT: http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/flexcit.pdf from which referencing: http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/cyri/our_research/esrc_festival_of_social.Maincontent.0008.file.tmp/eu1%20copy.pdf 