A Positive Vision In A Wider World

Stuck in the mud: A question of Sovereignty of Policy Control: Independent vs European Union Control?

The above illustration I think manages to visualize the current state of the EU Referendum Campaign; now that Vote Leave are the designated Leave camp and HM Government is coming out more and more using it's full force of power at it's disposal with HM Treasury reports, The President of the United States, Barrack Obama choosing this side and more besides, such as the "9m Leaflet".

I think the simple idea that drives the EU idea, is "One Big Idea", which I referred to previously in Political Barriers To Entry: An Image Of Power; A Course To Ruin

"There is an inherent assumption that those who take up our air-time or are invited to share their views in the lime-light in front of the broadcasting cameras, have somehow earned such an eminent position. Their achievements are the currency with which they deserve our notice or they are rewarded with others taking notice of them. I've long found it curious that actors often are called upon to take up the cause of "climate change", "world peace", "feminism", "palestine" and all the other idols that were pointed out so long ago by Francis Bacon in how people form bias in their thinking. Phony speakers promoting fake ideas. Why fake? I think there's a reason: One Big Idea is far more effective in drawing attraction from people than a series of interconnected and complex associations that more accurately reflects what we would suggest through scientific method is "objective reality" via independent, repeatable measurement that develop a current (but changeable) theory. When this process is "short-circuited" via such presentational problems as propounding "One Big Idea" we end up with something else too: Orthodoxy. In our politics today, such a process has been delivered."

To look at the illustration above, again: We see a tug of war over ownership and indeed money gained from ownership of the above big ideas between the rival camps. I think this enables us to see why Vote Leave recently focused on Migration (Immigration) despite the recent polling survey:-

Economy and immigration key issues for Britons in the EU referendum (Ipsos MORI Political Monitor - April 2016)

It seems to me that Vote Leave is trying to put focus on issues that are clearly "owned" by the their side of the argument in the popular imagination. For example I don't think Fisheries is an argument that can be countered by the Remain side except perhaps some token gestures towards Marine Sanctuaries given the belief that "too many boats and too few fish" was a self-inflicted disaster of Britain's Fisheries without international cooperation when the nothing could actually be further from the truth: The Betrayal of Britain's Fishing to the European Union.

Likewise Migration is generally is within the Leave side of the argument because enough numbers for long enough can't be realistically argued against that the UK no longer has policy control in this area and it generally started around 1995 after John Major's promise of "No more than <50,000 pa" if I remember off hand; which morphed into Labour's Political Correctness stamping down on open debate about the subject. However I suspect given the above polling, that the economy is in fact in the Remain camp's side of the argument because Vote Leave are driven by a campaign without a definitive Brexit plan:-

EU Referendum: why is Vote Leave trying to lose?

The reason is simple: Attention on a "Big Idea" eg Migration that is within the Leave camp's argument ensures the idea that there is a problem persists. However, I think it's a defective and eventually as Dr. RAE North suggests defeatist and hence losing tactic: It's a negative, it is a default and conceding the economy to the Remain camp for short-lived coverage of Migration in the popular imagination. And hence we come back to ownership and the cost or savings ie value of ownership that is battled inanely between the two sides per "Big Idea". The Economy is the biggest "Big Idea" and will ensure that as long as it's on the side of the Remain they'll win the Referendum. This was all so clearly put into writing on the internet a couple of years ago in FLEXCIT: The Market Solution.

Previously, we looked at Vote Leave more in terms of perception and the in my opinion obviously supplicant role they play in this wasteful monopoly by the Political Establishment over the entire functioning of this opportunity of Real (direct) Demoracy: Vote Leave: A Lesson In Power


I think this explains the silly, foolish and deeply irresponsible bandying about of economic "magic money": Große Lüge - The Big Lie of Magic Money. There appears to me even more evidence that "Monetary Policy" and the Spending and Government prudence in this area of the UK is in desperate need of reformation, lagging behind the other areas in our still-developing but under-developed democracy.

So, with the starting illustration dominating the picture of what people are voting for on either side of the referendum and the inevitable crassness of our Legacy News-Media and Politicians commentaries on that picture which inevitably leads to the public response: "We don't have enough information to know how to vote", or "they're all as bad as each other" or, "there's no point in voting it changes nothing" or finally, "how can we vote for fewer politicians and hence fewer liars?"

There's a couple of really useful articles that present a Positive Vision of what Brexit can lead towards:-

EU Referendum: Financial Times in denial

How global regulators are killing the value of EU membership  Stuck in the Middle with EU ~ Roland Smith (Adam Smith Institute)

Both these articles/blogs are incredibly upbeat and postive, they change the above "tug-of-war" nonsense from the ownership of "Big Ideas" into a conceptual paradigm shift in what we are actually supposed to be arguing (in a healthy and functioning democracy) about:-

Globalization: Trade Harmonization via Standardization and Regulation

Policy Areas = blue bubbles. Standards and Regulations Bodies = red bubbles and for finance = yellow (an especially visible example of globalization) and environmental conventions = green

For the purposes of this blog the diagram above is upside down: People know about "The Single Market" (EEA) or indeed in polling "Economy". However these would in fact be at the bottom or be at the end of the final flow of multiple bodies that formulate more and more of the legislative rules for governing standards to improve trade and quality control. As you can see each major policy area is surrounded by many (a few illustrated) specialist bodies that pool expertise in the devising of these regulations and integration with other connected policy areas for example Maritime will involve "Transport" and "Fisheries" and "Food" connecting such as: IMO, Codex Alimentarius, IACO and FAO and UNECE amongst others.

In fact instead of this sliding scale of popularity and ownership contest by our politicians, they are stuck in a small mindset, which needs to be replaced by the positive opportunities that can be a boon to world trade with the UK playing a highly active and connected part in all the multiple bodies, cooperating and sharing expertise in areas at a truly global level.

If we therefore look at the idea of Brexit or the European Union, there is something of an incorrectly framed debate going on which suits the "personality politics" low level of debate that manages to (mis-)characterize the choice as a popularity context between those in office and their prestige vs a bunch of low-grade politicians who make it up as they go along but appear "closer to the people" than the distant British Government which has been a supporter of the EU since the 1960s.

We've already seen more than enough examples of this contrast between the negative and losing arguments and how they manifest in the Legacy News-Media as if they are "the real thing":-

• Defence and Security: Sermonizing on Security
• Environment And Climate Change: Leaving EU would endanger Earth, says Miliband: Former Labour leader issues extraordinary warning that 'our global habitat' will suffer if Britain leaves  

Fortunately in the latter:-

‘If Britain leaves Europe, our environment, our wildlife and our global habitat will be starved of investment, bereft of protections and denied the leadership it needs.’

Pro-Brexit environment minister George Eustice dismissed the claims, saying that the EU offered hampered efforts by Britain to tackle global environmental problems.

Mr Eustice said EU membership had ‘systematically undermined the UK’s place on international wildlife conventions’.

He said Britain had lost its seat on key bodies and was sometimes barred from speaking out without EU permission.

He added: ‘If we vote to leave and take control, the UK would regain its own seat and its voice in vital international wildlife conventions and everything from promoting shark conservation to ending whaling would become much easier.’

There is a realization these "Big Ideas" do need breaking down. And I think this is a really interesting question:-

Will we get more rational politics if we break things down and realize that the expertise at Global Level and the level of coordination is sufficient to produce better results? Therefore these grand political ideas such as Supranationalism, even when we consider Environmental issues, which can be further investigated in FLEXCIT: The Market Solution: 15.0 Environmental Policy:-

"More so than perhaps any other policy area, environment is an amalgam of international, EU and domestic measures, to which the EU is a late arrival: a significant omission in the original 1957 Treaty of Rome was any mention of "environment". Legislation on environmental matters remained largely a matter for member states. "

Noticeably in the new framing of our arguments we can see that there is more complexity in this new positive and emerging picture that does not arbitrate according to popularity tactics in the polls but according to the factual nature of the growing body of legislation at global levels that then interacts with the destination nations, eg UK. Environmental legislation particularly interests me, but I don't take arbitrary sides as the opening illustrating showcases.

So, instead of this negative argument of the past failures we could be reorientating towards a successful and positive future as we tap into the huge change of Globalization instead of our petty and dysfunctional politically failing systems of bad governance:-

Where there's a will there's a way... but do we the people hold the political will for that change in this upcoming Referendum? Or do we have our will (power) sapped by those in charge?

The Brexit Bullshit Sandwich

It's got everyone salivating - !

This is just yet another example of the Referendum Miasma Phase as discussed briefly in The Market Solution: A Growing Solution. Stage 0: It's not even progression yet, but it is a matter of selection as per Sticky Ideas: Progression via Selection.

On the one side you have EU Referendum: the "better deal" fallacy; quoting Dr. RAE North:-

"In my piece on barking cats to which I constantly refer, I call in aid a commentary written by Milton Friedman on the behaviour of government bodies. The way an agency behaves, Friedman argues, is not an accident, not a result of some easily corrected human mistake, but a consequence of its constitution in precisely the same way that a meow is related to the constitution of a cat."

What this means is that the argument itself has it's own objective reality irrespective of the subjective political calculation of persuasion via promises of Brexit: Not far now, to Sugarcandy Mountain! which I don't like the sounds of at all for example Ponzi Schemes:-

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

 "Suckers": Sooner or later original lies are going to need more lies to sustain them which in turn require yet more and more lies to service subsequent lies... Numbers don't lie if you look after them very carefully

I personally cannot tell or know if this is some master-stroke strategy to gain the attention of swing-voters into believing that it's time for the UK to "get a better deal!" from the EU: Afterall we're supposedly partners in "political union": What kind of partnership is this?

I don't know. But what I do know is that the our politics is predominantly Top-Down and THIS dictates the type of communication from those in power to those under power ie the people:-

 Most of our politics is conveyed by the BBC FROM our politicians. Very little of the voters is shared in this medium of communication. Alternatively via google people can find alternative sources of information from other people to share and communicate on a vastly larger scale and scope.

Interestingly, google is taking a lot of "flak" for it's taxes at the moment. But I've found google immensely useful; I use it most days multiple times and in particular for helping to find useful information on "EU Referendum" and "Brexit". The problem as I see it is that the the major Legacy News-Media delivery of information is very Top-Down so we end up with the likes of David Campbell-Bannerman regressing progression of ideas of Brexit once again back to the "Better Deal Fallacy" territory again: EU Referendum: in spite of these people …

Unfortunatately google works both ways, there's a lot of information about "Control Our Borders" that also does not hold up no matter how passionately it is believed; particularly by UKIP supporters. It's another "Policy Ponzi" it probably needs to be conceded: Driven by how many people it can "sucker" in.

 Immigration: joined-up policy needed

In FLEXCIT aka The Market Solution, Chapter 7.0 Freedom of Movement & Immigration and 7.8 A Comprehensive immigration Policy p.143:-

"Putting the arguments in the chapter together, two separate themes emerge. Firstly, there is the issue of intra-EU "freedom of movement", mandated by EU treaties and then either a condition of the Market Solution, whetehr through the EFTA/EEA route ("Norway Option"), via the unilateral "shadow EEA" approach or Australian process.

We retain the view that the interim stratagem facilitates our expeditious withdrawal from the EU. The Market Solution with the short-term continuation of freedom of movement provisions, is an acceptable price to pay, especially if the alternative is continued membership of the EU, which would also require the implementation of freedom of movement provisions.

This notwithstanding, we have also argued that leaving the EU, per se, will not solve our immigration problems.

[...]

It has failed in this context to realise that "controlling our borders" is not a policy per se, but an aspiration - and a wholly unrealistic one at that."

In effect a "Policy Ponzi". Let's make this clear as per The Market Solution:-

 Brexit will allow greater Policy Control over Migration (not the same thing as "Control Our Borders" outcome) - but not over Freedom of Movement, immediately. Secondly it will not resolve Pull-Push Factors by itself which are systemic and regional-global, not only national (ie control our borders). But it will help and above all make our politicians MORE DIRECTLY accountable to this policy.

What we can see is that this is a very variable number of interacting issues:-

Any effective policy, though must be properly coordinated with other policy areas, as in "joined up policy".

Effectively:-

• Brexit (British Exit) = "Withdrawal -- from -- EU Treaties -- via -- Article 50 Libson Treaty -- Only."
• The Market Solution (FLEXCIT) = The context of "joined-up Policy" around Brexit => "a continuous, flexible (on-going) process -- over a decade."

What we're currently doing is failing the progression of the argument, mainly due to the 650 MP's and the Legacy News-Media combination in poor communication and exclusive omission of ideas from the 32,000,000 people who own "British Sovereignty". The result is The Brexit Bullshit Sandwich that is used to persuade and sell to people a lot of different "Policy Ponzis".

The result of this:-

Failure of progression via failure to implement a fair system of selection = Status Quo Result

The confusion in the argument perpetrated by the likes of David Campbell-Bannerman and The cancer in the Tory establishment means our arguments are prevented from progressing in quality. On the otherside of the BS sandwich we get UKIP putting x1 Policy Migration in front of Withdrawal because they've built up a following of "suckers for lies" aka a "Policy Ponzi Scheme"... let's see where that leads to in the future for all the followers who have invested their goodwill and emotional attachment to these promises shall we?

 Or we can all start using google and talking with each other and generating more honest and accurate ideas to discuss their merits in our national decision making as per Real (direct) Democracy: Hiding in Plain Sight, for a start:-

OMG !!!! Parakeet invasion

BBC2 - The Great British Parakeet Invasion

The above mini-documentary on Rose-Ringed Parakeets is a very 'watchable' mixture of entertainment and investigation by the BBC: It's done with a balanced, playful tone at the same time as being informative and avoiding either sentimentality or hostility. It's not seeking to increase the dosage for servicing peoples' "emotional hits".

This is an example of a positive and balanced "investigative and discursive journalism" that aims to be informative and entertaining. It could do with a few more numbers on the actual population, a few more contributions from scientists studying their "impact" for both ecologically positive and negative outcomes as an "invasive" and now naturalised species. But overall it is inviting and inclusive of opinions and simultaneously fun. The best quality is that it is produced with confidence in letting the subject matter "do the talking" and leaving overall judgement and interpretation to the viewer.

There's something oddly familiar-sounding...

To compare to The Daily Mail which decides more of peoples' "emotional-buttons" need pressing to increase it's "attractive/detractive-value" or what people otherwise term "Deliberate (Professional) Trolling" of readers. Indeed, the RSPB "Giving Nature A Home" advise:-

'It is important that the spread of the ring-necked parakeet is monitored, and its potential for negative impacts on our native bird species assessed.'

If the parakeet population were to continue to grow, the implications for our native species must be closely monitored. The Government is obliged to ensure that non-native species do not adversely affect native wildlife, and is currently developing a policy framework for addressing the possible risks associated with such species becoming established.

And here we have "The 2 Overruling Themes" on our own National Conversations concerning Migration Policy often reported as "Immigration Stories" of one kind or another in the Legacy News-Media.

1. Communication: Hot-Buttons

Stephen Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature :-

"Aside from supplying a direct justification for violent conflict, the ideology of intergroup struggle ignites a nasty feature of human social psychology: the tendency to divide people into in-groups and out-groups and to treat the out-groups as less than human. It doesn't matter whether the groups are thought to be defined by their biology or by their history. Psychologists have found that they can create instant intergroup hostility by sorting people on just about any pretext, including the flip of a coin."

 According to Westphalian sovereignty :-

"Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law. The doctrine is named after the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648... As European influence spread across the globe, the Westphalian principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order.

International relations theorists have identified several key principles of the Peace of Westphalia, which explain the Peace's significance and its impact on the world today":

1. The principle of the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination
2. The principle of legal equality between states
3. The principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state

In The Road To The European Union we looked at a comparison between different forms of governance via Roger Scruton's series of articles which concluded the significance of National Borders and hence Sovereignty to Nation States and the preconditions for Democracy such as The Rule Of Law etc, eloquently summarized by Jesus Christ Matthew 22:20-22 King James Version (KJV), whom Roger Scruton quotes:-

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

To add the context above, effectively National Democracies form "in-groups" and "out-groups" as such it will inevitably be a "hot button topic" in the nature of arguments that follow. From this statement of fact, it follows that due care and management of both: Communication and Policy are needed for the handling of Migration Policy at the National Level of good governance.

2. Migration Policy: A Government Dereliction of Duty

In Literature and Science we came to a hugely significant conclusion concerning the Visibility Of Arguments vs Quality of Arguments, to recap:-

• Media, UKIP, Establishment: Immigration > EU > Democracy 
• FLEXCIT: Democracy > EU > Immigration

 United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)

 This inference is backed up in two ways: First, the argument we make here (above) and secondly looking at a history of The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) (cheekily referred to as the UK-immigration-P); it demonstrates the growth curve away from being dismissed as a:-

"UKIP was founded in 1991 by the historian Alan Sked as the Anti-Federalist League, a single-issue Eurosceptic party. Renamed UKIP in 1993, the party adopted a wider right-wing platform and gradually increased its support vote over the coming two decades. Under Farage's leadership, from 2009 the party tailored its policies toward a politically disenfranchised white working-class support base, before making significant breakthroughs in the 2013 local elections and the 2014 European elections, where UKIP received the most votes. At the 2015 general election, the party gained the third largest vote share but won only one seat in the House of Commons.

"In 2006, Farage was elected leader of UKIP. He sought to broaden UKIP's image away from that of a single-issue party by introducing an array of socially conservative policies, including reducing immigration"

 UKIP EU Parliament Elections Results 2014

The numbers provided at wikipedia completely back up the growth of UKIP and it's politically impressive and significant to the state of our arguments. Looking also at:-

• A summary history of immigration to Britain
• Immigration Under Labour
• European Union | Key Topics

The full picture of the visibility of Migration Policy such that polling represents (in so much as polling represents anything of use - wet thumb for wind direction): Opinion Poll Results on Immigration shows this effect asserting itself in tandem with UKIP's political numbers and support growth.

However, UKIP and Immigration Polling are all about Visibility of Arguments, they represent (an especial topic for national democracies to be sensitive concerning) which are symptoms and effects of policy failure or lack of policy from our Government - not - the actual causes.

Dr. RAE North documents Government policy failure with perspicacity and detail:-

Migration: dealing with the problems
Migration: a continued parade of ignorance
Migration: the UN intervenes
Migration: the pot speaks of the kettles
Migration: reducing the pull factors
Immigration: not an EU issue?
Immigration: joined-up policy needed
Immigration: a series of marginal gains
Immigration: not quite what it appears
Immigration: the "pull factors" prevail
Immigration: the rehearsal is over
Immigration: a perfect storm in the offing?
Immigration: amateur time is over
Immigration: a "resolute Conservative government"
Immigration: a free pass for "criminals"
Immigration: opportunities galore
Immigration: Eritrea – confusion and ambiguity
Immigration: in the year to come
Immigration: a tale of incompetence
Immigration: Pegida hits a new record
 
A lot of the main arguments are summarized in FLEXCIT. Dr. RAE North as you can see provides a vast analysis of Migration Policy, and both deeper and broader than Migration Watch, as well as far more contextual and impartial. But it shows the complex web of Policy Failure that is the true measure of the Quality of Argument and you compare it to UKIP's website, which is so barren of information to educate yourself with, by contrast: They don't need to regarding relying on the visibility of arguments only:-

Legacy Media: "Pushing your buttons"

Ultimately we can establish a hierarchy: 

• "Representative Democracy" fails to represent voters.
•  The Political Party in office is more concerned with holding power than working on "joined-up policy" across not just Migration, but the EU, Energy, Defence etc.
• This incoherence is amplified in the News-Media along with various Political Correctness orthodoxy or "Groupthink".
• In turn the underlying tenets of National Democracy start to strain and the rise of alternative parties such as UKIP are a direct result of the Top-Down Crystallization of Westminster Politics under the further and continuous Centralization of the EU.
• Improving the quality of our arguments even if this appears less expedient than pushing the visibility value of arguments (which is where prestige is able to sustain no productive changes) will help people see beyond their normal moral filters and start to find greater consensus: Which means greater democratic representation and removing barriers towards that.

Coming back to the Parakeet examples of people's numerous varied reactions:-

Parakeets: "Flying secateurs" or "colourful characters"?

The above perfectly summarizes the hyper-emotional level of debate: Highly visible but extremely shallow and hence poor quality arguments: Mostly sentiment: Sentimentality and hostility. Towards Sir James Goldsmith's speech in The Referendum Party's Election video in Our Government: "Ifs, Buts, Maybes" he mentions that the great property of democracies is the ability of opposing groups with different views to accept the other side's arguments in a fair vote, fairly represented and hence "democracy heals itself". This property is not possible within the EU and is also very lacking in our own government at Westminster.

Previusly, the trend is from accusing UKIP, Dr. RAE North: EU Referendum: migrant misinformation. Then more people realize there's also something wrong with our media "in on it too" as per Lost Leonardo: A User’s Guide To The New Media and sooner or later it will work it's way back to the Government, The Brexit Door: Mrs May, Twittter & The politics of independence

When we gain more consensus closer to the ultimate source, then we will see that the argument beyond the government was all along within ours, the people's power to change things and force the govenment to actually work according to democracy. But in order to do that, all of:-

• UKIP
• Legacy News-Media
• Our Government
• Ourselves, The People

Must start using higher quality arguments according the fair rules of Real Democracy.  I personally believe UK/Britain has been one of the most tolerance and welcoming nations in the entire world and that we have one of the best and most cosmopolitan cities in the world in London where a lot of migration is focused.But without real democracy, those values and collective virtues of our culture are undermined; "our national treasures" as a people are tarnished by the politicians in power.

Rose-Ringed Parakeet tail-feather

Here's the tail-feather of a newly fledged Rose-Ringed Parakeet, I inadvertently saved from a Sparrowhawk, over the Summer. By everyone managing to improve the quality of their arguments across the board and not merely their visibility we'll all be able to "put a feather in our caps" for real democracy (pardon the pun!).