All the visible notions of the above campaign group it seems to me are intended towards, a continuation of the main political narrative of the UK Government and Establishment battling 'the big EU' over "the way the British do things with plucky spirit and much vim," in Britain but reluctantly accepting 'the coolly, rational case' for conceding some powers to a Supranational EU.
This has been a constant of the British Government since the early 1960's and Vote Leave it seems to me continue this two-faced role of the UK Government looking both to Brussels at the same time as talking a "different game" to the UK Electorate: Controlling THEM.
Brexit The Movie: More "plucky crap."
Some brief examples:-
Fake figures around the NHS
Johnson's appeal to Nazis/Hitler
Bonfire of Regulations
Sheer Confidence alone will conquer negotiations
Waving the Immigration Stick for agitation effect
All the work of Vote Leave and also the perfect demonstration of "inferiors" in both:-
Authority
Competence
Comparison of sources of prestige
And of course if you do agree with this minor jottings of the descriptions of Vote Leave and the effects they naturally lead to, just consider how much this is multiplied in error by both Remain (with puffed out chests) and by Leave (with little actual intelligence but tribal mores as bad as they claim Remain to suffer from).
Likewise on the Remain side we've had an endless parade of prestige:-
Barack Obama (President of the USA)
Jeremy Corbyn (Labour leader)
Mark Carney (Bank of England Governor)
Christine Lagarde (Managing Director of the IMF)
David Cameron, Gordon Brown, John Major (past and present PMs)
I think taken TOGETHER, we see that Vote Leave is PLAYING TO THE PRESTIGE of the above perfectly, showing inferior behaviour in indirect methods. Whether or not it's intentional or not it is irrelevant, it's systemic both ways.
What I find remarkable is that for many people who don't feel confident about voting due to their information and knowledge levels, then they will tend towards resisting notions of:-
Take Then Give in preference to Give Then Take ("Give & Take")
My suggestion is this, Vote Leave is systemically designed to fail the Leave case for voting to leave the EU Referendum. They focus on taking not on leaving and in this taking world, firstly (1) they invite fantasy then (2) they ensure people feel as if "taking" (without feeling comfortable on the balance of the relationship) is perhaps a "rash" decision of violation against neighbours that may lead to wrongs and hence it feels safer to "keep the peace"...
What's been neglected is the case to build up that the EU is doing the TAKING:-
Boris Johnson generates more bubble politics/Babel-17 from citing Hitler instead of holding up this paper concerning the EU's future plans or indeed it's key proponents preferences for it's members.
From such a position, we should see that the UK has been a generous and benefactor nation to the EU since we joined in the early 1970's and has GIVEN a lot to the EU. But it's time for the UK to take a commanding role on the Single Market outside the Political Union and thereby give the world a boost to trade and positive global influence. Given the EU has chosen to take more powers, it's time for it to GIVE goodwill back to the UK if the UK chooses democratically to leave: Quoting Dr. RAE North at EUReferendum.com:-
"The
oddest thing of all is that, in devising our original scenario, we
adopted the line taken by the British negotiating team in its successful
attempt to enter the European Community in 1972.
In his report on the negotiations, Con O'Neill wrote a very telling
piece on how he came to define his strategy. "First", he said:
…almost every conceivable Community policy or rule or
enactment is the resultant of a conflict of interests between the
members, and has embedded in it features representing a compromise
between these interests. Open it up at any point, and the whole
laborious compromise will fall apart …
Second, as in all negotiations, exceptions are dangerous, for they
create precedents. Admit a change in this or that case, just because
British arguments are strong and you will find it hard to resist changes
in other cases where the matter is vital. So the two facets of the
Community's principle became embodied in one precept: "Swallow the lot,
and swallow it now".
On this basis, the character of the negotiations became one of leaving
"relatively minor" matters to be settled after the UK had joined the
Community while, in order to expedite the negotiations, the governing
precept became, "Swallow the lot …".
Given the two-year time limit and "sudden death" character of the
Article 50 negotiations, which would determine the exit settlement for
the UK, it seemed to me that the precept which had facilitated our entry
could do equal services in assisting us to leave the EU.
My reasoning in this respect was entirely straightforward. It would be
far better to gain an exit settlement which was less than optimal than
to end up with the catastrophic outcome of leaving without an agreement.
Furthermore, and crucially, I took that view that, unless we were able
to show that compromise was possible, we would never secure the
confidence of the electorate, and their support in the referendum. In
effect, we either convinced the electorate that we were prepared to
compromise on our exit expectations, or we would lose the referendum.
Such insight, of course, stems to a very great part from the intensive
labour, with Christopher Booker, in researching and writing The Great
Deception. And you might have thought that this might afford us some
authority when it came to defining the referendum strategy."
I think Dr. North's logic is sound. But as important I'd extend, the attitude is cooperative and the communication is simplified and hence: The problem of LEAVING the EU is above all else:
The above poem is not only a nice poem but as with good poems it condenses the core elements of the content as much as possible, in this case the musings on "destructive emotions that shape the consequential external destruction invoked". In this spirit, it's also referred to by George R.R. Martin in his series of fantasy epic: A Song Of Fire And Ice and acts as the complete canvas to all the micro and macro dramas in that "tapestry"; involving multiple warring factions which itself is loosely based in historic events of The War Of The Roses (and other such conflicts fictional or historic):-
Attribution: By Richard Burchett (1815–75)[1] - File:Richard Burchett - Sanctuary (1867).jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12626198
"The Wars of the Roses was a series of wars for control of the throne of England. They were fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, the Houses of Lancaster and York.
They were fought in several sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1487,
although there was related fighting before and after this period. The
conflict resulted from social and financial troubles that followed the Hundred Years' War, combined with the mental infirmity and weak rule of Henry VI, which revived interest in Richard, Duke of York's claim to the throne."
Here was a war for control of the Throne of England. Subsequently power itself was fought over in The English Civil War:-
Attribution: By Unknown - Encyclopædia Britannica online, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8631860
"The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") over, principally, the manner of its government. The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651."
Here was a conflict between two factions: The Throne and the emerging power of Parliament itself.
Before moving onto the third and final "conflict" in this series on "Conflicts of Power by Internal Forces" centred on Political Power in our history, we need to take a view of another history neighbouring, a "Conflict of Power Amongst External Forces": Two relatively recent blog posts on this subject by Dr. RAE North at EUReferendum.com and in connection with the recent Introduction by Christopher Booker to FLEXCIT: The Movie:-
They are, how to express how essential these two summaries from The Great Deception, essential to understanding the genesis of forces acting on the Remain side of the question in the upcoming EU Referendum Question and as I asserted in the previous blog, any derivative motivations and intentions of the modern descendants or inheritors of this strand of feeling and thinking in how to "manage power":-
"What was especially interesting, though, is that Juncker and Cameron are pictured
visiting a First World War cemetery on the Somme, despite the official
hagiography of the EU firmly rooting its genesis in the post-WWII
period.
In fact, the First World War was far more important to the intellectual
genesis of the EU than the Second, something that Booker and I observed
in The Great Deception (see p.14 et seq).
So vital is it that we start Chapter One with an account of how, on 22
September 1984, two portly middle-aged men stood holding hands in front
of the largest pile of human bones in Europe. One was the President of
France, François Mitterrand; the other the Chancellor of Germany, Helmut
Kohl.
The reason why the two most powerful political leaders in western Europe
were staging an act of reconciliation before tens of thousands of
graves was that the site of this ceremony was the ossuary at Douaumont,
just outside Verdun in eastern France.
And if there was one historical event which more than any other inspired
what was eventually to become the European Union, it was the battle
which had raged around Verdun the First World War. For the British the
defining battle of that war was the Somme in the summer of 1916."
And again in the subsequent blog but with a view not to the past (World War I) but to the future (World War III):-
"With Mr
Cameron claiming on this of all days, "Europe Day", that leaving the EU
would bring us closer to war, all he is actually doing is repeating the
most insidious myth of them all in relation to the European Union - that
this monstrous construct has helped keep the peace.
The myth finds is purest form in the EU hagiography, where the European
Commission's asserts that "probably very few people in Europe know that
on 9 May 1950 the first move was made towards the creation of what is
now known as the European Union".
Crucially, it would have us believe that this was an attempt at
preventing a Third World War, but completely omits to tell us that the
intellectual genesis lies not in the post-WWII period but in the 1920s,
devised is response to the problems arising out of the First World War.
For
the myth-makers, though, the origin of the EU was Paris on 9 May 1950.
Against the background of the threat of a Third World War engulfing the
whole of Europe, the then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman
(pictured above, right, with Jean Monnet) read to the international
press a declaration calling France, Germany and other European countries
to pool their coal and steel production as "the first concrete
foundation of a European federation".
This was
what was on offer was the creation of a supranational European
Institution, charged with the management of the coal and steel industry,
the very sector which was, at that time, the basis of all military
power. The countries which Schuman called upon had almost destroyed each
other "in a dreadful conflict which had left after it a sense of
material and moral desolation". Thus, concludes the European Commission
in its own history, "Everything... began that day".
Needless to
say, the reality is very different. Far from the heroic Schuman standing
at the centre of the "project", he turns out to be little more than an
unwitting stooge, manipulated by one man who had made its his life's
work to set up a "government for Europe"."
That man was Jean Monnet.
FLEXCIT THE MOVIE Intro by Christopher Booker. ~ Linking both sides of the argument and pointing out the difference between quality arguments and "destructive low quality emotions" that dominate the Referendum today.
What we see is that the widely held belief about the EU is itself a Myth taking the form of a "Creation Story" and that story is not factually/historically accurate, even if it's hyper-emotional. Far from seeing the genesis of obsolescence alone, we see the seeds of destructive emotion where perhaps "we least expect it" and indeed the European Union does not appear to have developed as perhaps so many in power set the peoples' expectations for it towards, only 10 or 15 years ago?
The "Creation Story" is very important, to forging an "origin of legitimacy for political union and power". Ultimately (that means eventually on this preset course!) however this requires a formation of an established "Demos" of some form as acknowledged perhaps under International Law? Indeed much of this is the thinking behind those who still support the further Political Union of the EU:-
So you see, the assertion in the previous blog for both sides of the argument, despite my personal support of one over the other, I think is still highly applicable, irrespective of my own opinions, the arguments themselves must be asserted.
And here is indeed where and why I part ways with the EU Remain side: Those destructive emotions we see in our histories and in our stories ultimately find their most potent form when the consolidate and centralized around power instead of dispersing or controlling that power or "kratos" as per The Harrogate Agenda:-
To be clear I'm not pitting the forces of "Good" on one side vs the forces of "Evil" on the other side. For some European Nations the EU may indeed under The Fundamental Law above be a very necessary next step for many possible reasons.
However, coming back to the UK, and those historic "Internal Conflicts" over the source and control of political power:-
The War Of The Roses (Throne vs Throne)
The English Civil War (Throne vs Parliament)
EU Referendum (Parliament vs People)
In my view, the modern equivalent of those previous power conflicts is fortunately not a battle involving either guns or steel but ideas as is possible when democracy establishes itself in a nation and the idea of war recedes as a destructive way to resolve problems rather than the creative solutions people can generate through argumentation and analysis and communication tools:-
If we take another model of understanding and apply it to this posited idea:-
What we see is that the basic necessities of life are much to are "First World Problems" chagrin catered for and we run up against another layer of problems. In fact "Safety" is a basic expectation of our own government and social contract with the state. But it is a basic "need" and one that I'm sure the UK is predominantly in control of. Yet the government failing at delivering "higher needs" inevitably overplay's it's hand concerning how valuable it is and indeed how valuable the EU is, doubly so given it's own "Creation Story" in this area. And so so much of the debate is bogged down via lower quality arguments and lower order needs without a positive argument that reaches towards more productive and creative and growth generating solutions:-
What we see from FLEXCIT is those higher order forms of actualization and self-expression by people:-
I'd finish this overview of history and the "Remain" side of the question, by suggesting for the UK, clinging to "security and safety" is the least or minimum of our aspirations for progress. And driving that "expectation setting" is our own Parliament and politicians who in my opinion more than anyone appear to be holding back the UK's ability at creative thinking to solve our modern and very global problems.
