Referendum: Relief, Recovery; Some Humour and New Paths Ahead.

Great fun! And a lovely day out at such an unusual and idiosyncratic event.

The Bottle Inn, Marshwood, Dorset hosts "The World Eating Stinging Nettles" competition each year around the week-end of the 21st June (Midsummer). This occurred a few days before this Summer, and indeed the week before our Referendum. I had the chance to go along last year and took the above photo with a great deal of interest as you can see from the crowd in the sunshine with the Summer rainclouds in the background against the lush foliage of Midsummer. It was a great day out and lots of Real Ales on offer too as part of the festival.

The captivating spectacle is such as this borrowed from the mirror:-

 Attribution: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/anyone-nettle-eating-8-weird-3737825

The leaves have to be eaten, washed down with a drink, I think, and the total number of stems eaten within a couple of hours if I remember correctly is how the results are drawn up for the winner!

Now imagine after the Referendum, many of the Remain voters (not all) will wake up with a bowl or dish of stinging nettles in front of them for breakfast and their reaction might be palpably similar to the above reaction!!!

Given enough time, and common sense and debate, it is more than likely that such distaste will dim for a lot of people as "nothing really changes" for the next so many years given it's a gradual and slow process to effect change practically in the politics anyway, firstly. Secondly with the realization that what counted as performance (campaigns) bears very little resemblance to what is now the result (Leave/Brexit advisory result) then again there will be opportunity for relief for a lot of people from the initial unpleasant reactions.

Finally recovery can only be fully realized when results are found to be positive in consequence as opposed to negative, confirming that a decision made was a "good one" afterall.

However, before then there will likely be a lot of people who make an emotional mistake: They have created a self-identity and stake in a particular position which no result will touch: in fact such a sense of defeat will likely lead to the situtation where:-

 attribution: http://www.real-fix.com/bizarre/chef-creates-and-eats-his-own-version-of-the-worlds-hottest-pot-noodle/

They will look for more confirmation bias to reinvigorate their previous position. Hence the Legacy News-Media, obligingly and politicians calculating for their own craven reasons, will seek to feed people such "chillies and nettles" to get them frothing full of rage and tears at such a feast!!!

I'm already seeing a lot of people attempting to "swallow bitter, hot and stinging" more news and attitudes such as:-

• Crash in the Pound!
• Meltdown in the Markets!
• The EU Strikes Back!!
• Already people are packing their bags and piling onto the life-rafts!
• They lied to us! They lied to us!
• Start the thermo-nuclear Article 50 countdown NOW!NOW!NOW!!

Hopefully you "get the picture". But more interesting than these stupid news stories is the demand for them: People actively seek them out and WANT to eat "bitter" and "scorching hot" and "stinging pain".

• This Is Just the Start of the Brexit’s Economic Disaster (New York Times)
• Chaos was predicted and chaos has ensued & Britain is sailing into a storm with no one at the wheel (The Economist)
• Sterling falls to fresh 31-year low as banks and builders slide (The Guardian)
• Britain faces up to waning influence on global stage (The Financial Times)

Personally, I admit, after a long day sitting at a computer, either typing or coding, I tend to feel a bit "zombie-numb" and either stimulus of exercise (ping-pong or fuzzball are great for this!) or a hot Indian Curry, really get my juices flowing again from perma-freeze! So I have to be even-handed in suggesting on a wider scale, people like their news this way (eg tabloids Daily Mail and Sun and Mirror) but when you asshat journalist sources as above masquerading as something "more serious" well all I can say is repeat my previous preference that I look forward to the day robots replace these "journalists".

On the other side of this "transaction": Why do people behave in such an irrational way? Partly it's emotional digestion and developing a taste for such things like eating junk food and drinking sugary fizzy drinks. I think however part of the recovery from a Referendum is in having a sense of humour about the whole decision-making process and avoiding the band-wagon opportunist politicians who want to stir people up, the better to control them for their own "Game Of Thrones" that's going on right now everywhere in Westminster:-

Brexit: alarm bells 

And then following, Dr. RAE North's subsequent blog:  the above up with a serious rerun on Article 50 (The Leave Alliance: Article 50 - An Explainer):-

"With David Cameron skulking in No 10, declining to face the challenge of dealing with the aftermath of the referendum, and Corbyn's opposition party crumbling before our very eyes, the nation is currently without an effective government or opposition.

The ruling Conservative Party has shattered into warring factions and no one group has sufficient support to be able to elect a leader outright, while the plotters continue to position Alexander (aka Boris) Johnson as leader-in-waiting.

Meanwhile, Sky News's Faisal Islam "reveals" that Vote Leave doesn't have an exit plan. Having spoken to a Tory MP from Vote Leave, he learns that the plan does not exist. Faisal quotes the anonymous MP as saying: "There is no plan. The leave campaign don't have a post-Brexit plan".

The apparent absence of any such plan is adding to the uncertainty but, in terms of the media narrative, this is undoubtedly deliberate. Faisal knows full well of the existence of Flexcit which has had well over 80,000 downloads and is approaching the 100K mark. Yet he – and even journalists who have previously mentioned it - are studiously ignoring its existence.

There is a certain wilful stubbornness about this, which defies rational expectation. Even MPs and others, anxious to block the ascendency of Mr Johnson, and who are thus determined to produce their own plans, are ignoring the material in front of them, preferring to reinvent the wheel, mostly in any shape but round.

We thus see all around us the beginnings of the debate that we should have been having before the referendum, but at so basic a level that issues we were discussing four or five years ago are now only just being aired."

What you have above is a demonstration of the opposite of feeding people chillis or stinging nettles to rouse them up! If you prefer some healthy debate and knowledge increase, the above is the first of it post-Referendum, but which was already being "served" as far back at least as 2012 and further back in some regards still.

Now, the important thing to realize between the two types of "information" is that all essential measure: TIME. I personally have not got time to be pissing around with the Legacy News-Media or our stupid big-gob politicians duplicities and survival strategies in their own enclosed and from the outside perverse ecosystem of advancement and personal power. 

So much work was put into this subject by The Leave Alliance, and when I read The Sunday Telegraph newspaper "EU Special" on my commute to work yesterday, all I saw was one break-through article amid the sea of garbage: A sea of drama of politicians doing politics but without the politics and without the people!!! Look at this:-

• Front page: Cameron vs Boris.
• Page 2-3: Gove and Wife outside house
• Page 4-5: Farage (Mr. UKIP)
• Page 6-7: EU Leaders around a petit dejeuner table & a david blair FUD article full of bs.
• Page 8: Lord Hill and then Page 9: Bootleconometrics
• Page 10-11: Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbyn.
• Page 12-13: Cameron and Wife with Osborne, Macmilland & Heath
• Page 14: Vote Leave the inside story...
• Page 16-17: Sturgeon (A rotting head of the SNP) & Sinn Fein something...
• Page 18-19: FUD Economics on Domestic and European fronts
• End of EU Referendum Special.
• BUSINESS section: "In then out, up then down, a day of rollercoaster turmoil and shocks". 

 One good article Roland Smith: We have the chance to forge a new Britain and Europe that we are all at ease with.  

As per my previous blog, I have a minor problem even with this: It's tailored to the tastes of those with chilli addiction. It really needs some communication that is more "structured information" beyond the use of words mixing Aristotle's guide to political process: Logos, Pathos and Ethos.

For example coming back to Article 50:-

"On that basis, it is a given that it is not in any way politically or legally realistic to frame any exit strategy which does not conform fully to the provisions of international and treaty law. Strategies really need to be road-tested for compliance, before they are given a public airing.

For the likes of the odious Johnson, Gove and many others, therefore, I am addressing the general principles which strategists should keep in mind. These essentially amount to five points.

Firstly, the right of a Member State to leave the EU lies outside the EU Treaties. The Treaties neither confer the right to leave or impose any conditions which might affect the decision. As Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) itself states:

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

Article 50, therefore, simply recognises the state of the art. This Article applies only after the decision to leave has been made.

Secondly, the procedural choices on leaving are then limited by international law. We are not allowed pick 'n' mix options, dipping into different treaties to come up with our own desired mix.

We are bound by the principle of lex specialis derogat legi general (special law repeals general law), which is regarded as a fundamental tenet of international law. In short, whenever two or more laws or treaty provisions deal with the same subject matter, priority goes to that which is more specific.

Where Article 50 makes specific provisions for withdrawal, these take precedence over more general provisions, as in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). We do not have the choice of using one or the other. Our choices are determined by lex specialis.

Thirdly, and subject to my further comments, until the Article 50 procedure is complete, the UK remains bound by the provisions of the EU Treaties, with all the rights, responsibilities and obligations.

As parties to the Treaties, we are obliged under international law to conform with their provisions. This general obligation is conferred by virtue of Article 26 of the VCLT, under the universally recognised provision of pacta sunt servanda: "Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith".

As one of the major guarantors of the writ of international law, it is inconceivable that Her Majesty's Government could countenance a breach of pacta sunt servanda. The international ramifications would be profound, with implications far beyond just relations with the Union and its member states. It would gravely weaken the international standing of the United Kingdom.

Therefore, inasmuch as we are obliged to resort to Article 50 by virtue of lex specialis, the principle of pacta sunt servanda obliges us to comply with its provisions."

This groundwork is incredibly important, as it structures the start of subsequent possible solutions as well as sharpening up hence what is communicated to people as to what is possible and what is not by direct reference to the rules we are all agreeing to live by with each other!

So much time was spent by The Leave Alliance, in particular Pete North attempting to "keep in check" the multiple sources of error conflation from both UKIP (Complete Bastard, the hero we all deserve!) and Legacy News-Media and Politicians (Pete North's Politics Blog).

So much wasteful energy & time spent. And in fact if you are a Remain advocate still still disappointed with the EU Referendum: Think on this: We can cut out a large area of wasteful activity bickering about what something means (to whom and by whom????), and get on with the job (to borrow Cameron's favourite phrase) of actually doing something directly for the UK by the UK!! And besides, here's a wise head with perhaps a more useful and enjoyable meal of news for you:-

Europe makes Brexit-voting UK look like a safe haven ~ Merryn Somerset Webb

As for me, back blogging already, but different paths and directions await; I don't want to have to keep commenting on commentators who should "know better"... there's some really interesting stuff regarding the next 10yrs that I want to sink my teeth into next given we have this golden opportunity ahead of us now (~14mins in) and ahead of time, too:-

edit: blue bug!

How Not To Remove Stinging Nettles

Chopping down stinging-nettles may feel good, but for how long?

  

In Ecological Succession different founder species form different types of transient habitats towards a "climax community" eg from a grass clearing over time developing via stages into a mature forest. This of course is what is going on when from the point of view of gardeners "weeds" such as stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) establish on a lawn or in a garden and grow. They're easy to chop down, but as anyone knows who's had to clear large bushes of them, they quickly (rapidly!) grow back. Hence some digging finds a complex matt of root systems from which at any point new nettle-stems can grow back from. It's effectively an example of the "roots vs shoots" problem or "root cause". The effort to dug up the root system is considerably more, however it does resolve the problem of permanently removing the stinging nettles from that particular patch of ground.

EU Referendum: The Rule of 2

In Eurosceptic "Amnesia" vs Brexiteer "Total Memory Recall" the importance or input of memory was considered in our arguments. This follows from the observation made in Literature And Science about future qualitative inferences that shape our expectations of future results compared to post-hoc quantitative deductions which can then feedback into our next future decisions. In Understanding The Mountains of Madness we saw how the argument as per the Electoral Commission's Referendum Question:-

 The argument simplified to it's essence

 Is not so much shaped as above, but as:-

• Pro-EU Status Quo which is observed to be not working very well.
• Anti-EU extremism which is considered unsafe and possibly unsound.

We learnt from The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up what our arguments concerning "good governance" reduce down to and how this principle has the potential if applied to make us happier as a people. We looked at elegant patterns in Pattern Recognition and adding to that from the above booklet "A House Divided": Can Parliament serve two masters: the Nation and the European Union?

(1) Design for EU, 1947: "No government dependent on a democratic vote could possibly agree in advance to the sacrifice that any adequate plan must involve. The British people must be led slowly and unconcsiously into the abandonment of their traditonal economic defences..." ~ Peter Thorneycroft, later Chancellor of the Exchequer and Chairman of the Conservative Party.

(2) What Germany Means by "Integration": "Does free Europe want to join Germany? Germany is the heart of Europe and the limbs must adjust themselves to the heart, not the heart to the limbs." ~ HANS SEEBOHM, Minister of Commerce in Dr. Adenauer's Government 1950.

(3) "In this challenging time we are naturally encountering difficulties. They are the birth pangs attending the creation of a United States of Europe." ~ Jean Monnet (The father of the EU) April 30 1952, addressing the Washing Press Club on the European Coal and Steel Community.

 Common Market Referendum - MP Nigel Spearing was there - The country was Duped!

You can compare and contrast with Edward Heath's quotes here in a timeline:-

I would argue the above are "the roots" of the EU Referendum argument. Mostly hidden in the sands of history. And hence we see a pattern emerging:-

• 2-Speed EU: Periphery and Core
• 2-Stage Referendum Process
• 2-Extremes on the political spectrum where a Middle Way is manufactured above.
• 2 actual arguments: The Government-EU Argument (Top) and the Government-People Argument (Down) (which will be attempted to be neglected).

Effectively the Government-EU argument comes before our own. We're excluded from it as per David Cameron's hush-hush Reform Details and avoiding mention of the EU Time-Table towards Association Membership. What concerns them is the argument of the present such as:

In fact far from Brexit causing the UK/Britain to collapse... it's the very reverse proposition that worries "the powers that be" and well-spoken by Xavier Rolet in the above too: The consequences for uncertainty on the EU/EUROZONE, itself. For this reason, this argument cannot accept the primacy of the "ultimate frame of reference itself: Time and History" to our arguments and hence what must happen as their objective and therefore as the visible public argument leading up to our Referendum is their argument: Chopping down stinging nettles not removing their roots. This is backed up again in Conservative Home piece attempting to persuade via the political angle: Nadhim Zahawi MP: Our best future in Europe would be a multi-speed EU – not the divorce that would be worse for everyone .

Surely it seems reasonable to help the EU/EZ as Europe affects us either way we vote? There's nothing unreasonable in suggesting this. However, we have to consider our choices a little more deeply... to bring up from The Campaign For An Independent Britain (see blogroll)

• The millions in EU funding the BBC tried to hide
• Anti-Democratic and Second Class
• Déja Vu 

We can witness how deep the seeds of deception have gone into our national identity, attacking it and further as per again the latest booklet from The Campaign For An Independent Britain (CIB):-

 Generations Betrayed: Cutting the roots of our National Identity (in education)

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”  ~ George Orwell. 

The great problem we as a people face is with arguments which do not actually engage with our own arguments as per democracy but seek to attack and undermine our identity and hence the abuse of power by our own government, our own ruling institutions that underpin democracy we see as per the warning from The Road To The European Union directly applicable to us! When we make a choice we are representing ourselves, our identity, what we value and what we work towards. All those assumptions that help us form a successful nation are undermined when we don't act in accordance with them, when we fail to remember them and fall for the persuasive arguments as per Eurosceptic "Amnesia" vs Brexiteer "Total Memory Recall" .

The above "mocked-up ballot paper" may seem extremely tendentious, but what I think it symbolizes is not to worry about all these exterior postulations from David Cameron who is "a prisoner of his own making" (just count the number of lies he's made and the continuation of The Great Deception under all our Prime Ministers); it's to remember to count on our own interior understanding of our place in the world; draw on our own roots which if we keep healthy like those pesky stinging nettles will grow back out of the ashes of The Great Deception: It's those roots we must look after, not the ever-changing political weather of the day.