Pro-EU Corbyn: Politically, Playing Dead

Pete North notices there's something not very "convincing" about Jeremy Corbyn's new "Pro-EU/europhile Stripes" in: Sorry Jeremy, but workers are better off out:-

"I must confess, while I have nothing in common with him politically, he does have a certain superficial appeal. His contempt for media hacks is refreshing. But with closer scrutiny you soon realise that a lot of what he does is still calculated. He's still one of them. And his sudden Damascene conversion to Europhilia marks him as a man with no real political courage. He is also on the wrong side of the facts.

As much as Britain has signed most of the International Labour Organisation conventions that will remain in force after we leave the EU, it doesn't hold that Britain was a Dickensian slum before the EU social chapter. We did have workers rights and health and safety before and we'd accomplished an equilibrium through many small increments."

 I'm sure Jeremy Corbyn would far more enjoy assaulting Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and defending the NHS from the likes of Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS):-

"The controversial agreement has been criticized and opposed by unions, charities, NGOs and environmentalists, particularly in Europe. The Independent describes the range of negative impacts as "reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations", or more critically as an "assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations"; and The Guardian noted the criticism of TTIP's "undemocratic nature of the closed-door talks", "influence of powerful lobbyists", and TTIP's potential ability to "undermine the democratic authority of local government"."

But if he did that it seems to follow that he might also harbour similar misgivings about the EU? Perhaps? Perhaps not... instead he's on similar "turf" but without the possibly misgivings against the EU before the EU Referendum. Interestingly, on the one hand we have the Tory's patter about The Fallacy of The Wrong Turn as described by White Wednesday/Roland Smith; considering the EU and on the other hand we have the lost argument against Britain/UK being "at the heart of the EU Project outside the Eurozone and outside Schengen and hence the "Fallacy of EU Reform" in "Barking Cats" territory as per Dr. RAE North. which is related to "The Better Deal Fallacy" desired by Vote Leave and/or Leave.EU/GO.

In the first case, it's a convenient erasing of an inconvenient truth. In the third case, it's equally a convenient excuse to make unrealistic demands that can't possibly be achieved and hence a self-limiting exercise in futility. And what to make of the second and "Middle Way" case that is supported by David Cameron as equally as by Jeremy Corbyn, though he tries to hide the association of the Establishment working together? In Cameron's Case we know what to call it:-

EU Referendum: treaty fraud

In the case of Corbyn, he's certainly inhibited in his reaction to the EU, hence I think it's less deliberate and willful, though it still seems deliberate and volitional, but he's effectively "Playing Dead" or Apparent Death when it comes to showing his EU Stripes:-

It did seem like Corbyn was the attempted reassertion of the original Labour over the New Labour schism in the party. But it looks like Corbyn has opted for this old ruse when it comes to the EU:-

FLEXCIT: Talking The Talk 2

FLEXCIT: 2.2 The Europhile counter-attack , p.26

"With the possibility of a referendum very much on the political agenda, supporters of continued membership of the European Union have been quick to present their arguments. Basically, these have fallen into two broad categories."

"Firstly, there are those, such as Open Europe, who argue that reform is a better proposition than withdrawal. Secondly, they and others have sought to demonstrate that the consequences of withdrawal would be seriously damaging to the UK."

• Fallacy of the Middle Way argument has significant advantages for political manipulations: It is a common thought process in the West that not too extreme on the one hand leaving but on the other hand the current state is "not good enough". Secondly it potentially gains borderline adherents from either side. Next it sounds plausible which is a part of sense-making where plausible > accuracy applies in the news media due to imperfect information and media manipulation in a multi-polar viewpoint society.

"Primarily, the counter-attack highlighting the adverse consequences of withdrawal has been based on economic arguments, but with a strong reliance on fear, uncertainty and doubt (known as FUD)."

• FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) is the magician's trick of attempting to deflect attention onto Economic grounds for not leaving which are in essence uncertain which fuels myriad forms of doubt and can then be exaggerated as those doubts all manifest as acceptable fear-mongering.

"This FUD has been a characteristic of pro-EU campaigns for some decades. The fear exploits the status quo effect which is a significant phenomenon in all referendums, where the innate conservatism of the electorate can weigh heavily against change, allowing the pro-EU side to enjoy as much as an inbuilt 20-point advantage. Focusing on the economy sidesteps the sovereignty and independence arguments, and exploits the practical concerns about withdrawal."

• Status Quo Effect is leveraged by FUD as well as ensuring attention is drawn away from Sovereignty to Economic questions - this ensures insufficient interest can grow on the core questions of Sovereignty to which the evidence is very unequivocal and hence ensures delay of decision-making in people concerning their independence. The more FUD is fuelled the more effective is the lack of decision-making that the status quo effect manifests from.

"Thus in his 2012 New Year's address, we saw John Cridland, the CBI Director-General, declaring: "The debate about our future in Europe … must be based on an informed, hard-headed analysis of where our long-term economic and financial interests lie and business will need to make its voice heard"

• Controlling The Agenda All it takes is for the bigwigs in the CBI to pronounce their "profits of doom" economic sermons to summon FUD and ensure attention is diverted onto Economic matters and a lack of interest in Sovereignty information dominates the debate on Brexit. The full arsenal of economic weapons are deployed: Cars, Finance, Tariffs, FDI would all suffer catastrophically. The fact the CBI endorsed the EURO and predicted doom for not joining it is always swept under the carpet or the fact they are always wheeled out as Pro-EU economic weapon.

"The Economist asserted that, while a complete exit from "Europe" was certainly possible, few British Eurosceptics wanted it. They preferred "halfway options": a Norwegian one and a Swiss one. If Britain were to join the Norwegian club, though, "it would remain bound by virtually all EU regulations, including the working-time directive and almost everything dreamed up in Brussels in future".

• Prestige Owns All Arguments Establishment Set:{The Economist, The Financial Times, Open Europe, CER, CBI, Whitehall, Westminster} They are all part of the same set and hence argue both for and against the EU arguments even if politically they are all in the same Pro-EU camp. Without an independent Out Camp that assumes authority for the Anti-EU Camp all attention will be held by Prestige of the Establishment Set. They can even produce their own flawed Brexit options and set them up for failure as the Economist provides an example of above.

"The Economist asserted that, while a complete exit from "Europe" was certainly possible, few British Eurosceptics wanted it. They preferred "halfway options": a Norwegian one and a Swiss one. If Britain were to join the Norwegian club, though, "it would remain bound by virtually all EU regulations, including the working-time directive and almost everything dreamed up in Brussels in future".

• Social Ostracizing Meme aka "Seat at The Top Table" Meme or "Big-Player" on "The World Stage" in the "Influential Member's Club" are all marketing ploys to produce the idea that the EU provides "influence" which would somehow hurt the UK or leave it isolated and hence the people wanting that are "Little Englanders" or "Dwelling in the past" who want to "Pull-Up The Draw-Bridge" and are "Isolationist" and can't "The UK can'tSurvive alone in a Globalized World" and anyone who thinks so is "Dreaming of the Empire". NOTE: The same tactics were used in Norway in 1994 for reference.

"For domestic reasons, the magazine thus asserted, the Norwegian option could well fail. As soon as British MPs learned that Norway "has to swallow almost every regulation that comes out of Brussels, despite having virtually no power to shape them", they would waver. When they also learned that Norway had to pay for the privilege, "they may reject it outright".

• Poor-Man's EU is how Norway is branded by the Pro-EU and is dimissed as swiftly as possible as "telling the Anti-EU'ers" "It's not what they want anyway" or it is "Democracy By Fax" ie all the disadvantages and now none the advantages.

"In the view of the Economist, even the country's closest friends, who would rather keep Britain in to bolster liberal voices inside the EU, would be unlikely to be generous to a country that had chosen to leave. The most likely outcome, it suggested, would be that Britain would find itself as a scratchy outsider with somewhat limited access to the single market, almost no influence and few friends. And, it declared, there would be one certainty: that having once departed, it would be all but impossible to get back in again."

• Swiss Anomoly The Swiss option is always painted as exactly what the UK would want except for the tiny detail that it was a one-off and the EU would likely wish to punish the rash, short-sighted greed of the UK for attempting to Brexit and break the Clubs' rules. No "Privileged Partnership" or "Pic-n-Mix" or "Rugby in the Football Club" etc.

"On the other hand, we assume that the "out" campaign will have succeededbecause it will have offered a positive vision of a post-EU nation, emphasising high ideals such as self-determination and the restoration of democracy. But we also assume that success would have been unlikely without neutralising the torrent of FUD, of which examples we have seen here. To do so, assurances on continued membership of the Single Market will have been needed. Irrespective of the actual merits of membership, we do not see that a campaign could have succeeded without unbreakable assurances of this nature, to "kill stone dead" the business and foreign investment case against withdrawal."

"Such assurances as would have been given would have to be honoured, thus shaping the exit negotiations. They add further, insurmountable obstacles to the adoption of any tailor-made bilateral option (and, for that matter, the WTO option, discussed in Chapter 3). If those options were not already untenable, the need to keep the Single Market intact would make them so."

• Totemic Status of access to The Single Market and FDI for the UK and The City and sustaining Trade and neutralizing Economic perturbation have to factor into a successful Referendum and hence Brexit Plan to vote for during:-

1. The Referendum Political Event.
2. The Article 50 TEU Lisbon Treaty Formal Secession (2-years)
3. The Full Brexit Operational Process spanning days, years, decades.

FLEXCIT: 2.3 Timing complications , p.33

"Following the "in-out" referendum, however, we also believe there will be a strong demand for the earliest possible exit from the EU. We thus anticipate that the two years initially set by the Treaty for Article 50 negotiations will be treated as a maximum. Although the period can be extended by unanimous agreement, there will be little tolerance for prolonged talks and certainly not for a process that drags on for many years."

"Expectations will undoubtedly create a political momentum that will be difficult to ignore, especially if a general election intervenes. Dominating the talks, therefore, will be an over-riding need to bring them to a speedy conclusion. Furthermore, speed is no bad thing. To avoid unnecessary market uncertainty and political instability, leaving the EU is best done quickly – advice which was tendered to nations proposing to leave the euro. Delay in reaching a settlement could be highly damaging."

• Economy Of Time is critical to be controlled. Any Brexit plan that attempts to increase SCOPE will increase the forces acting on the negotiations and the referendum campaign itself, leading to increase in loss of control, which leads to increase in loss of confidence which leads to higher chance of lack of success both in support (before) and in resolution of negotiations (during).

"Advocates for bilateral options, though, rarely discuss the time needed to conclude negotiations. Economist Roger Bootle, for instance, posits that many British people imagine that the UK would not be able to negotiate free trade agreements because it is small and insignificant, then asserting that "this is not true". The UK is still about the sixth-biggest economy in the world, larger than Russia, Brazil or India, he says, then asking, "Why shouldn't it be able to negotiate satisfactory trading arrangements?"

"This, of course, completely misses the point. Undoubtedly, given unlimited time, the UK would be able to negotiate a different deal than when having to negotiate under time constraints. In the Article 50 scenario, however, the presumption must be that time is limited."

• Brexit is Political not Economic: The politics needs to be POSITIVE and the economics needs to be NEUTRAL to remove it from the Referendum Question. Is part of the winning strategy of the referendum; it neutralizes the FUD of the Pro-EU's, it maximizes the arguments of the Anti-EU/Pro-Brexit. Too many Anti-EU'ers misconceptualize Brexit as the time to maximize the economy. WRONG! It's the time to maximize the politics of Democracy, Sovereignty, Self-Determination, Global Destiny. The Referendum Question must be positive political and that means economically neutral, because any economic arguments positive or negative come with uncertainty and uncertainy is NEGATIVE to confidence which is to support which is to success of decision-making.

"When it comes to establishing trade agreements with more complex economies, the contrast is extreme. For instance, the current round of EU-Swiss talks -which provide the basis for many of the exit models proposed for the UK -started in 1994 and took 16 years to conclude. 73 And if that is to be an example, no negotiation scenario can realistically ignore the political and practical implications of negotiations taking a prolonged period."

• Council of Despair of the Pro-EU's depends on uncertainty of negotiations and on doubt of economic predictions which is inherent in economic arguments aka "The Dismal Science". This is to be avoided with a Positive Political campaign and a comparison of Influence in vs out of the EU and that is Sovereignty and Democracy questions not Economic.

"On this basis, it is highly improbable that British and EU negotiators could conclude a de novo bilateral agreement in less than five years. Whatever their attractions in theory, the bilateral options are not viable within the context of Article 50 negotiations, purely on the grounds of the time needed to negotiate them."

• Playing By The Rules of Brexit will ensure Pro-Brexit/Brexiteers'ers are not harshly dealt with by the biased media, the biased civil service, the biased government, the biased big business. The more they are forced to bend and break the rules the more the people will see the deception and corruption operating within the Pro-EU Project.

~~Fin.~~

It's very interesting to note so little of this advice has been taken by Vote Leave or Leave.EU/GO campaigns:-

The Leave campaign is failing. We need your help. 

 

Can we have our cake and eat it too?

To sum up how the EU has been sold for so long to the British public, we can think of the analogy of it being a cake. The argument begins that if we joined the EEC 'cake' we could all bake a bigger and better cake together; with each nation contributing it's own unique ingredients to the 'cake mix', at the time called the "Common Market". Of course reassurances were provided that each nation would still retain "property rights" over it's own contribution of national ingredients, and hence the additional EU layers above these were necessary to administrate this.

Over time more layers were added, more nations joined and more policies powers were or "cake ingredients" were added. Each major layer was added with the signing of each of the Major New Treaties:-

• Treaty of Lisbon (2007) 
• EU Constitution Treaty (2005)
• Treaty of Nice (2001)
• Treaty of Amsterdam. (1997)
• Treaty on European Union - Maastricht Treaty. (1992)
• Single European Act. 1986
• Schengen Agreement (1985)
• Merger Treaty (1965) - Brussels Treaty
• Treaties of Rome (1957): EEC and EURATOM treaties
• Treaty of Paris (1951) - Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.

Quoting the above source:-

The European Union is based on the rule of law. This means that every action taken by the EU is founded on treaties that have been approved voluntarily and democratically by all EU member countries. For example, if a policy area is not cited in a treaty, the Commission cannot propose a law in that area.
A treaty is a binding agreement between EU member countries. It sets out EU objectives, rules for EU institutions, how decisions are made and the relationship between the EU and its member countries.
Treaties are amended to make the EU more efficient and transparent, to prepare for new member countries and to introduce new areas of cooperation – such as the single currency.
Under the treaties, EU institutions can adopt legislation, which the member countries then implement.

This is a very succinct summary of how our "Cake" is sold to us. As you can see our cake was always designed to add ever more layers to it.

 However in the combination of ingredients, the mixing, baking and designing of our cake, the question of the actual nature of the cake, what sort of cake are we actually trying to make, seems so simply to have been overlooked! What is a better cake? Is a bigger cake better? How much of each nation's ingredients actually contributes to making it better and do all of them agree on the sort of cake they would like to eat? Quoting the above introduction to The Great Deception by Christopher Booker and Richard North:-

"The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  tell  for  the  first  time  the  real  story  of  how, through  what  had  come  to  be  known  to  its insiders  as  ‘the  project’,  the continent’s  politicians  had  for  half  a  century  been  seeking  gradually  to construct and to impose on  their peoples a unique system of government. Not the  least  remarkable feature  of  this  political  experiment  had  been  how few people really understood its real nature, aims and origins.
 
The  form  of  government  it  created  was  unique  because  it  was  designed  to place the nation states which belonged to it under a ‘supranational’ power, unaccountable to any electorate, ruling its citizens through the agency of each country’s  own  national  authorities.  Although  the  nation  states  and  their institutions  of  government  remained  outwardly  intact,  all  these  institutions, from  heads  of  state  and  parliaments  to  civil  services  and  judicial  systems,  in reality became increasingly subject to the decisions and laws of the new power that was above them all."

However, bringing the past up to the present in 2015, our cake is much nearer to it's completion of being fully-baked and "ready to eat". And now people across Europe are beginning to see what sort of cake they are getting, the above "selling the idea of the cake" is no longer possible. We're moving from Pro-EU/"Let Them Eat Cake!" sales pitches to "How much of the cake is each nation getting or being charged for"!

This is how our "EU Reform Cake" is now being sold to us today:-

 We are being told that we can change the cake or get a bigger and better slice with "less icing or nuts" on it or more "chocolate and sponge". But the actual cake has not really changed at all. And to understand why we have to understand how the cake is made in the first place. If we argue over the above ingredients, taste preferences we're being distracted from whether or not we ourselves can make and then bake our own cake to our own tastes and preferences! In my opinion that's what counts the most.

And to illustrate this is the modern arguments on the EU aka "Cameron's Reform Fudge" in the style and spin of "The Middle Way Fallacy" argument:-

We're now being sold "a slice of the EU Cake" as "EU Reform". But coming back to those layers and how the EU cake is made: The Treaty Of Rome (1957)

• DETERMINED to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe, 
• RESOLVED to ensure the economic and social progress of their countries by common action to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe,

The "Ever Closer Union" is as fundamental as the the self-raising flour in mixing the core ingredients when making a cake. It cannot be taken out. And if that you don't like that taste or it makes you feel ill or you think it's simply unhealthy then you have to decide to choose another cake.

Arguing about how many chocolate buttons we get given on our slice or how thick it is, are completely missing this central point about our membership of the EU Supranational Organization. This cake analogy is a crude simplification, but for the complex and very fascinating full story then read The Great Deception from cover to cover.

Effectively when it comes to answering the EU Referendum question we're not talking about a slice from one cake, we're talking about two very different cakes:-

• Remain = Eating and paying for a small slice of the EU Cake
• Leave = Baking our own full and complete Cake