An Empty Core: The Top-Down Referendum

 False Positive = Vote Leave ; False Negative = HM Government & David Cameron

With just over 6 weeks until the Referendum day on June 23rd, it's worth considering the state of the arguments and the underlying emotional energy that drives them in the absence of carefully building a factual and intellectually-driven basis for voting either Remain or Leave the EU.

Indeed the emotional histrionics and sense of urgency are all carefully created by the HM Government under David Cameron and aided by Vote Leave (see "Intellectual Quagmire" below).

In describing what we all CAN so easily observe, we may create an opportunity to avoid becoming bogged down in the quagmire that our politicians and legacy news-media have created: EU Referendum: an intellectual quagmire

"With less than two calendar months to go before polling day, it is nothing less than alarming to find that fundamental questions relating to Brexit are so far from being settled by Vote Leave that we're not even past first base. [...]

In the first instance, Jenkin is making the same error (although perhaps unwittingly) that Mr Cameron has made in agreeing his supposed treaty. He has neglected the provisions of Article 61 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and the dictum res inter alios acta vel iudicata, aliis nec nocet nec prodocet, where two or more people cannot agree amongst each other to establish an obligation for a third party who was not involved in the agreement.

What these amounts to is that the member states, even if they agreed to carry out negotiations (which seems unlikely), would be acting inter-governmentally (which Jenkin acknowledges), which means they could not bind the European Union – which has its own, separate legal identity – to the terms of any agreement.

The inescapable bottom line, therefore, is that, if there is to be an exit settlement, the negotiations have to be with the EU. And that means working within the constraints of Article 50. [...]

We are actually paying good money for this extruded verbal material, to achieve nothing but a further attestation of the capacity of our elected representatives to waste time and money.

Whether by MPs or the official campaign, we are so badly served in this referendum that the issues have been submerged in that self-same quagmire. Not for nothing does Mr Brexit argue that the political game playing and personality politics of the referendum campaign is snatching the goal away from us.

When this is all done and dusted, he says, there needs to be a reckoning. We could not even begin to disagree."

We can see some foundation rules to this Referendum in the above that are denied by the politicians on either side of the Official Campaigns. Some examples of the results of this:-

Michael Gove’s interview on the Andrew Marr Show was a car crash
 

Vote Leave: "Lookin' Good" (feeling inadquate)

Cameron : “Stock up on canned food”

 HM Government/David Cameron: "Gotta Hide!" (feeling insecure)

The result of the above was already predicted as per Dr. RAE North, EU politics: Germany in stasis :-

"The new movement, "Direct Democracy for Europe", Patzelt speaks about favourably. It certainly has "a chance", he says, a man who is demonstrably no great fan of representative democracy.

Those who want more democracy must resort to other means - referendums initiated by citizens, regardless of elections. The problem with representative democracy is that, after the vote, the citizen has no voice. "The most important instrument of political influence between elections", he says, "is the referendum".

However, not all referendums have the same value. If they are top down, they are a tool in the hands of professional politicians. The must work from the bottom up, with citizens deciding on the topics. He who fails to make this distinction will miss the opportunity of making a truly democratic system of government, Patzelt says."

The predicament this leaves those who are fully in agreement that there needs to be an intellectual foundation to arguments of such importance as national Real (direct) Democracy decision-making at such scale of human organization of people for their future (millions over decades) is the attempt "to clear the rubbish" out of the way:-

• The Vote Leave “free trade zone” is mythical: It is the EEA or nothing (The Sceptic Isle)
• Leaving the EU is not a simple menu of options (White Wednesday)
• Pig Ignorant And Grossly Offensive To Boot (Lost Leonardo) 
• EFTA EEA is the real deal (Paul Reynolds, EU Question)

But this is "losing cause" I think. What it is doing is reducing the time possible for the dissemination of the arguments into new forms at ever greater scale and speed of distribution and multiplicity of forms while sustaining the original quality source of such derived communications to people. It's a stalling exercise, a holding up exercise due to the lack of seeing what both Vote Leave and HM Government are actually behaving according to, as opposed to making the mistake of listening to their nonsense words:

• "A Free Trade Zone Across Europe" ~ Vote Leave: "Lookin' Good" 
• "World War III" ~ David Cameron/HM Government: "Gotta Hide!"

As we get closer to the EU Referendum Date, it becomes more necessary to be able to disseminate according to a holistic argument to produce a clearer picture with which people can contribute positively via DIRECT REPRESENTATION of themselves to their own future - independently from politicians.

Referendum: Clear Choices Ahead & Behind

The art of sales or marketing/advertising is often the ability to persuade. And the ability to persuade people when the actual product is either not wanted nor useful or in good quality is to substitute such evidential "virtue" with deception and that is done via introducing types of error which confuse the customer into thinking the exchange of their hard-earned money has higher value than it actually does to them for the item that they are sold.

I can think of such confusion from telesales marketers, sales people and in this case politicians join such illustrious company. When we can model what actually is the right context then we can ignore the various errors introduced to trick and deceive us by constantly keeping in mind, in this case the actual map (The North Downs Way) and core details:-

1. Origin
2. Route
3. Destination

If we KNOW what our destination is, we can create the right route to that destination. But we also must KNOW what our origin is and how it is different from either the fake version being sold to us and also know that it's not the same as the destination where we want to get to:-

Our own Government under David Cameron, most recently, introduce the errors of not asserting that the EU Rules are built as per the above LHS: That is the map for the EU and it always has been. But equally Vote Leave introduce errors by making assertions that there is no need for a ROUTE or PLAN to get to our Destination!!

In fact, worse, Vote Leave say that the rules can be changed after we vote to Leave however we want which is like saying we can draw our own map of how to get from Guildford to Canterbury: All we need is a black marker pen to make a few minor alterations to the map (not to the physical reality!)! They really need to be clear:-

• The EU is going towards a different destination to the UK and hence David Cameron is lying.
• There must be a well worked out route or plan to get out of the EU Treaties first.
• This is not the same as the subsequent stages the UK is aiming to travel towards eventually.
• It does however mean that the UK is ABLE TO LEAVE:-

1. Economically (via retaining Single Market access)
2. Legally (via Article 50)
3. Politically via Democratic Referendum Supported by the UK People (demos)
4. Politically: Negotiation (UK legitimate and true kratos exercised by our politicians according to the will of the people) with the EU and other European Members who I'm sure will respect such "democracy in action" so long as they can do so according to the Rules they have chosen to govern themselves by!

The Leave Alliance Launch (video)

The full video is above. However if you want to learn perhaps the most pertinent piece of information that is a derivation or inheritance of all the incredibly long journey as described in The Great Deception, and I mean all the way back to World War I and the experiences that shaped and drived the big ideas of the original creators of the European Union and a lot of the future of European people and politicians then:-

youtube.com/watch?v=d_eVHKofcPo#t=00h23m30s

That's the present result, whether it was ever intended or planned, it's how it's turned out. That is a fair description in under a minute of the present politics of the UK; it's quality or lack of it. I think attending this meeting was riveting for so many reasons: Mainly that so few people are engaged in the political process, and what counts for politics is not dissimilar to ancient traditions that have only their external appearance for repetition by adherents... not for it's practical application.


I'm just glad I was able to attend such a meeting and be able to talk about it in the first person to anyone else in the future, be it tomorrow, to a friend in the pub (which I've been doing at the risk of becoming a pub bore!) or one day when my young nephews are grown up adults and need a "word from the wise": Their worldly uncle!

Finally: I'd just like to say how grateful I am to those who worked so hard and so honestly, it seems to me.

Honesty is the way forwards amongst friends.

In The Referendum Soup

The above is a play on The Vinegar Tasters. In fact only recently did I realize that the interpretation I'd read in some book or other was partly wrong. I read that for one taster the taste of the substance was bitter, another sour and yet another sweet and so how could the experience be "negative for two" yet one of the three find the experience "positive"? It was that sweet taster was putting "mind over matter" and this was how we should approach things.

Actually I think that's a superficial rendition. First we learn through experience which is tasting. That experience may be either sour and bitter (or indeed sweet) and hence partly right but subjectively so depending on us and on the conditions in which we were tasting: In my cup of tea - yuck! On my fish and chips with salt - yum! The single objective answer we can all agree on is: "What is in the large pot?" The answer is of course "Vinegar." It it - in this case - what it is.

The Great Deception

 You may like it or you may not like it, but at least KNOW WHAT IT IS = Supranationalism

I was just catching up on the BBC Question Time for this week and watching the usual scenes of people who don't know therefore they replace this lack of not knowing with "emotional intuition" which they then force to fit into particular conclusions and emotively extrapolated statements.

EU Referendum: no such thing as free trade

Trade appears not to be a singular discrete object but more of a web of various possible interactions?

"If you care to Google "TTIP", a goodly number of reports will refer to it in terms of the creation of "the largest free trade area in the world". And in the simple designation of "free trade area" lies one of the most prevalent misunderstandings, quite literally, in the world. TTIP is not a free trade area (FTA).

[...]

Above all else, non-tariff barriers are the target, recognition of which requires breaking away from the tired old mantras, and understanding what we are dealing with. What we end up with is not free trade, but managed trade – and the better the management, the better the results."

There's so much to quote in the above by Dr. RAE North, that it would almost end up c&p'ing the entire article: Please read it and see that there is no special privilege to calling the EU = Supranational Political Entity than attempting to more clearly define what we mean by "A Trade Deal" by the Vote Leave lot as opposed to the Remain lot (HM Government, above):-

"This puts the likes of Boris Johnson, Gove and, latterly David Bannerman, on the spot. If they want to take what they insist on calling the "free trade" route, it is their responsibility to identify the extent of the financial penalty, and then to argue that Brexit is worth it. What they cannot do with any validity, is argue that there is no financial penalty. Nor can they argue that a partial CRA is equivalent to the Single Market. It is not.

Alternatively, and more sensibly, we can adopt the Efta/EEA route, as part of an evolutionary process of which even the Adam Smith Institute – spiritual home of "free trade" doctrine – seems to approve. That way, we remain part of the Single Market CRA and there is no financial penalty."

And this is about the "flavour" of the EU Referendum so far: Even the public have realized that one side says "Jump!" and the other side says "Duck!" but neither side are ready or able to explain to people why? 

The result is in fact that the people shouting out the commands to the people how to respond to the EU Referendum:-

Pig Ignorant And Grossly Offensive To Boot

"What is the point of the British legacy media? It is incapable and where capable unwilling to report on reality. It exists only to lie to you.
Sure, for the most part, the hacks are just clueless keyboard thumpers who know not what they do. But why should ignorance be an excuse when these people are being paid?

Everybody makes mistakes. But the extent of the deception and self-deception which bubble journalists evince is on another level. If these people are ill-informed, it is because they want to be. If I type “EU referendum” into a search engine, the top site is EUReferendum.com.

So we come to the focus of this post, this condescending and inaccurate Evening Standard article written by Anthony Hilton. I shall not rebut the entire piece, just a few illustrative examples."

 

It could be Anthony Hilton with his "cool pose" in the Evening Standard or Michael O'Leary (Ryan Air) on BBC Question Time with his apparent business sense on display... . There's too many people shouting about their own personal tastes based on ignorance and emotion and not enough on producing a coherent and consistent model of understanding of the subject to be debated and discussed BEFORE being voted on directly by people in this EU Referendum.

I think if we recollect where we are in time at present, however, looking back we may find that there was one group at least where people were sharing an understanding that people can use and make sense of by attributing to things what they really are as opposed to the reaction they might or might not induce in that person or others:-

The Leave Alliance

s 
                                                   

Global Trade: Goodbye Uncertainty, Hello Change!

 TTIP like the EU/EZ appears to be grinding to a halt...

In the previous blog, the approach taken was to create a picture that helps explain some of the following:-

• Reformatting from "intractable" Establishment Bubble pseudo-politics
• And thus aiding in explaining the peculiar behaviour of our politicians in both the Leave camps (Vote Leave) and Remain (only the latest eg of this absurd  feedback-looping nonsense today:  Why is the Brexit camp so obsessed with immigration? Because that’s all they have Peter Mandelson.
• Providing an alternative model with kind thanks to Dr. RAE North of EUReferendum.com and Roland Smith of The Adam Smith Institute based on a positive process of Globalization in Trade via harmonization of regulations and standards.

In this blog we're going to see how this works again heavily drawing from the works of Dr. RAE North in particular The Definitive Plan for the UK to Withdraw from the EU: FLEXCIT: The Market Solution) and some of the other "Blogger's Army" sources and The Leave Alliance associations still further:-

• Our politicians themselves are the greatest source of "Uncertainty" to which they continually harangue the public to "vote the right way" once in so many decades when they're forced to deliver a token show of democracy to which they immediately set about corrupting and invoking "heightened uncertainty and FUD". This is the negative picture which I started with in the previous blog's opening illustration.
• This "uncertainty" retards our decision-making processes out of step with the emerging "reality" at Global level which again I illustrated using a graphical "rate of change" visualization. And here is the heart of the EU Referendum question: Tapping that rate of change by voting Leave and removing as a by-product or default a major source of Uncertainty: Both our own (The Prime Actors in The Great Deception) Establishment defeated by the people and secondly the ailing EU which by it's very design the "unstable and incomplete EU Treaties" are a major source of "Political Uncertainty" driving further "Economic Uncertainty" Eg: A fragile EUrozone.
• Some examples will be used to suggest this positive change, is empowering in expanding and explaining how things appear to work and hence work for us and our trading partners.

Again referring to the previous "battleground" inanity we see that "Trade" is heavily considered a part of the Economic Uncertainty used to prevent a Brexit Leave vote in the public and indeed the polling proves this "big idea" is more potent than Migration. Today we see more Legacy News-Media on this subject:-

Brexit would put 250 billion pounds of trade at risk - 'In' campaign

In considering any alternative to European Union membership, Brexit must:-

1. Secure Access to The Single Market
2. Apply for Withdrawal from Political Union via the legal process: Article 50
3. Ensure Trade Continuity
4. Understand the context and conditions for Political Negotiation process to achieve all the above.
5. Only then, does the question of Migration amongst other policies, become a relevant subject at that stage of the process.
6. So firstly Migration should not be 1. and secondly there's bigger fish beyond Migration (5.) in 6., the second most powerful argument for leaving the EU: Prosperity via Global Trade change.

We've already covered 1 and 2 and indeed Trade Continuity has been covered as per The Leave Alliance The UK will not have to renegotiate its trade deals and various other bloggers.

We that for both sides of the argument: Trade is now conducted in multifarious ways and the EU is by far not the only actor in this activity and as such the UK could take even greater actions outside the EU to boost Global Trade.

Looking again at the above, and in connection to the latest developments on the leaking of TTIP documents, then comparing to the plethora of different channels by which trade relationships are formed:-

Trade Argument 1:

The globalisation of regulation should be at the heart of the Leave campaign

"When dealing with international trade, it is said, it is much better for businesses to deal with one set of regulations that the 28 of each of the Members States of the EU.

There lies much of the justification for participation in the EU's Single Market but it is also one of the strongest arguments for ditching the EU and moving on. If, after all, it is better to replace 28 sets of regulations with one, it has to even better for the 162 members of the WTO to get together and replace all their regulations with one set."

However if we consider as above the "network effect" of a larger set of trading nodes, then the same logic applies, why not be part of a global standard for Trade?
FLEXCIT: The Market Solution - 10.6 International Regulatory Cooperation (IRC)

"In particular, it notes that, for large or more advanced economies (or regional blocs), harmonisation might prove difficult as both parties have usually already developed a complex set of advanced standards and regulations. When large trading partners seek a reduction in their bilateral regulatory barriers to trade, it thus concludes, mutual recognition of existing standards may be an easier and better way forward. However, whenever possible, rather than developing competing and often incompatible regional standards, using global standards is the best option."  

Trade Argument 2:

Arguing for membership of the EU as a large bloc leads to stronger negotiating clout than lead to a poor deal with a stronger negotiating partners such as China or the USA.
Well hot off the presses, just in: We're seeing that there's a lot about TTIP that's negative and driven by "power play" and indeed this itself is increasingly grinding the whole process to a halt:-
 EU Referendum: the TTIP leaks

"We've not written a great deal on TTIP on the blog (although it is covered comprehensively in Flexcit) for one very good reason. I've never believed is will happen. Even if it is finally agreed (which I doubt), I would expect Congress to refuse to ratify it.

Now, it appears, it may not get even that far. The massive leak of hitherto restricted documents by Greenpeace Netherland is being widely reported – not least be the BBC as spelling the death-knell for any agreement.  
We've dipped into some of the documents to take a look, and it does seem that there are some quite substantial differences, even after nearly three years of negotiations, with the starting gun actually being fired in November 2011."

In fact there's a whole load of different ways to formulate trade as per the above diagram also from FLEXCIT above comparing the approach of the US-EU talks on the objective of TTIP:

1. Remove Trade Barriers
2. Standardize Regulations (from the infograph summary)

Concerning the Trade Barriers there's numerous methods:-

• Integration/Harmonization through Supranational Institutions (EU); perhaps on some areas Climate Change this may or may not be fruitful as a larger bloc? But it is one of the typologies described by the OECD, there's many more:-
• Treaties/Conventions
• Inter-National Cooperation Agreements
• Joint Standard Setting via Inter-governmental bodies
• Adoption and Recognition of International Standard Bodies standards
• Trade Agreements with regulatory conditions (RTA's, FTA's)
• Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRA's)
• Unilateral Convergence

etc! In many sectors different approaches and/or what is termed "Unbundling" When it comes to trade, the EU isn't that good at it as per Pete North.

Here we see that there are negatives with EU Membership as Pete describes. Another example detailed in FLEXIT and again by Pete, is concerning the IMO and the EU: And they call this "cooperation":-

"This barely requires additional commentary, save to say that here is your irrefutable proof that detailed regulation (hard law) is made by global entities (and that is the trend throughout) - and that the EU removes our vote and overrides our veto in instances that are critical to our economic interests. It also sabotages the timetables to prevent any challenge to barely legitimate assumption of competence. It should also be noted that it is our own civil service report saying this."

And back to FLEXCIT and how this fits in with the UK:-

"The  UK  government  is  fully  aware  of  the  extent  of  IRC  and  has  its development agency, DfID, describe it as "the range of institutional and procedural  frameworks  within  which  national  governments,  sub-national governments, and the wider public can work together to build more integrated systems for rule making and implementation, subject to the constraints of democratic values such as accountability, openness, and sovereignty"

And here we have a powerful argument for Brexit at the core of this globalization argument which as per: The globalisation of regulation should be at the heart of the Leave campaign

Trade Facilitation – a couple of definitions 

• “simplification, standardization, and harmonization of procedures & processes and associated information flows to move goods through the supply chain in a transparent and predictable manner”

• “identifying and addressing bottlenecks that are imposed by weaknesses in trade related logistics and regulatory regimes and that prevent the timely, cost effective movement of goods.”

MEASURING THE IMPACT OF TRADE FACILITATION REFORM

itself globalization and the rate of change and influence of prosperity at global level as per Dr. RAE North at EUReferendum.com:-
EU Referendum: why is Vote Leave trying to lose?

"The point here is a simple one. We rely for our prosperity on international trade, yet the improvements in global trade have stalled. Despite the technical advances in containerisation and shipping, and the expansion of air freight, the huge benefits from reducing tariffs through GATT and WTO have been wiped out by the growing scourge of non-tariff barriers.

Thus, while pre-GATT tariffs were estimated at about 22 percent, recently the Atlantic Council reported the cost of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to the US automotive trade was 25.5 percent.

For sure, a single, global figure for NTBs is almost impossible to compute and there is no agreed methodology for calculating such a figure. Furthermore, a single value is probably not relevant as there are huge regional and sectoral differences. 

The range varies considerably, from a few percent to as high as 45 percent, growing to 73 percent in some sectors. The World Bank estimates NTB costs in Africa average 40 percent. Nevertheless, what is known as the "ad valorem tariff equivalent" (AVE) - the average value - for NTBs is variously estimated at around 20 percent. It has wiped out all the gains from tariff reductions.

Enter the Bali trade facilitation agreement under the aegis of the WTO in December 2013. As we reported at the time, and has been remarked upon since, the impact could be huge. When fully implemented, it was said that it could increase global GDP by almost $1 trillion.

That is probably an under-estimate. The World Bank offers even higher figures. If all countries reduced supply chain barriers halfway to global best practice, global GDP could increase by 4.7 percent or $2.6 trillion, potentially worth about $60 billion a year to the UK, far outstripping the illusory value of any savings from leaving the EU

Furthermore, world trade overall would increase by 14.5 percent, or $1.6 trillion, this figure itself far outweighing the benefits from the elimination of all import tariffs.

In terms of detail, we have seen reports that agreement on a global tyre specification for passenger vehicles could save $40 billion a year. An ostensibly simple thing like standardising nomenclature for existing pharmaceutical products could save $20 billion. Adopting electronic documentation for the air cargo industry could yield $12 billion in annual savings, and prevent 70-80 percent of paperwork-related delays.

These savings, though, will not happen spontaneously. Nor will they happen without a great deal of work – and leadership. And it is there, in that latter category, that the EU is not delivering."

I think this is a positive of the UK leaving the EU and using the UK's very capable and competent array of strengths to be a force for positive change at global level.

FURTHER READING:-

 Britain's Global Leadership

The Market Solution: Stage Five - Trading with the rest of the world

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?

Article 50: "Kept In The Dark" not "A Leap In The Dark"

The above is perhaps one of my favourite The Far Side cartoons by Gary Larson. I've done some TEFL work so it's satisfying in that context. I've also done some science, so the combination is particularly appealing to me.

In the above cartoon, the scientists are adept at measuring the sounds of the Dolphins and matching patterns of sound and repeated uses of such... but the enjoyment is the fact that all they really need but entirely lack is a sense of the Spanish language and then they'd be perfectly fluent in "Dolphin" who themselves appear to be the intelligent actors attempting to communicate to the "dumb" human scientists!

It might seem there's little application to politics directly, which is correct. But it does remind me of the strange situation where the basic or core rules of political process are not established and agreed upon perhaps by an "Electoral Commission" inquiry that asserts some "ground rules and factual foundations" for the campaign to proceed by... on either side of the Referendum process at large?

There's a very basic secret being displayed here in our politics, which our Dolphins above can help describe for us:-

A factual assertion of rules, opens up the logical legitimacy and indeed practical possibility, hence, politically of a fair choice either to Remain a member of the European Union or else to Leave the membership of the European Union.

If the rules were asserted and hence agreed, then the above knowledge would become "common knowledge", unexceptional and in fact ordinary: It would effectively cease to be a tool of power of politicians OVER people: It would radically be the gift of power in the hands of people.

What however we see instead is the replacement of this knowledge of these rules with the attempt to guide peoples' intuition towards ensuring any choice to Leave appears NOT to be based on any rules, but to be emotionally wishful or emotionally regressive or emotionally uninformed. It is beyond count how much this is backed up again and again and again in the prevailing politics, at present.

The Basis of All Propaganda: Even the smallest crack will allow the brightness of light to replace darkness and show the "way to the wider world"

But I think what is driving this failure to establish the fundamental rules, a spoiling motivation behind such a failure can only be deducted from such lack of sensible diligence to such a significant political decision-making watershed in the UK's history, is the dread of those who hold power to allow a glimmer of light to shine from behind the opening of the smallest crack of this Brexit Door: For this would allow the consent amongst all involved that it is possible to leave the European Union and to do so politically in a sensible and mature and responsible way.

And once that becomes a matter of fact, devoid of emotional energy and sound and fury, then it leaves space for: "What next?" And once that engine of decision-making starts moving forwards, I think there could be a substantial shift in peoples' attitudes and hence polling of confidence and expression of self-determination.

People want to know "What next?" it's so much more rewarding to know "What next?" and there is one way of achieving this: Choosing for oneself "What next?" and not allowing a small subset of warped politicians to choose for us instead and deprive us of this.

• fears that the divorce would be turbulent
• a polite way of saying that Britain could expect no favours from its jilted partners.

It's interesting that "fear-mongering" is a kind of common knowledge but it is commandeered by the politicians for their own agendas.

First the correct assertion of Article 50 is corrupted by CER using an increase in emotional pitch via "soap opera" language.

But this is reinforced by the Brexit likes of Vote Leave:-

1. "Brexiters claim that this is all scare-mongering. Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, thinks that article 50 is another example of a Brussels diktat constraining sovereign member-states, and suggests that the UK could simply ignore it.
2. Others still cling to Boris Johnson’s idea, now recanted, that a vote to leave does not have to mean exit, and that Britain could negotiate better terms for its membership than Cameron obtained. Brexiters are confident that the rest of the EU will have no choice but to offer good terms to the world’s fifth largest economy.
3. And if that does not work, Michael Gove, the pro-Brexit justice minister, has said that Britain could threaten to block other European projects if the EU did not give the UK what it wanted." 

 All these Vote Leave results:-

• Denial of the Rules of EU Members on Withdrawal specifically.
• Referendum vote for another Referendum on Reform (extended negotiation) again contradicting the EU Treaty Rules.
• Zero-Sum Relationship asserted above the equality of rules.

All the above however are in fact based on false intuition building in the British public over the primacy of the rules that are currently operating. Keeping Pro-Brexit supporters in the dark with false expectations and a portfolio of phony politics.

Vote Leave: Ensuring voters are "kept in the dark" and ensuring Brexit is "out of reach"

So we see, that Vote Leave utterly fail because they use the "false intuition" form of argument equally as the Remain advocates to ensure people are "kept in the dark" which is then used as "a leap in the dark" by the Remain advocates to falsely intuit this message to the voters.

As for the rest of the CER article, Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska could just simply read and refer to FLEXCIT: The Market Solution on how the negotiations would need to be handled, but like the entire charade that counts for adult decision-making, the omission of FLEXCIT is deafening by it's absence.

EU Referendum: the Booker beat

"Then, Booker turn to the main theme of his column, headed: "Brexiteers! We need an exit strategy and we need it now!". Here, he also picks up on the theme he had raised earlier this month, observing that "even more astonishing ignorance of the nature and rules of the EU" is that being displayed by the main players in our referendum battle, not least, alas, by those running the official "leave" campaign.

This begins with their amazing inability to recognise that the only possible legal way for any country to leave the EU is by invoking Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which derives from the insistence back in the Eighties of Altiero Spinelli, the "father of the European Union" that his Union must not be "a prison" from which no country could escape.

Again and again, when two very senior experts on EU law gave evidence to a House of Lords committee on 8 March, they emphasised that Article 50 is the only conceivable mechanism for a country to leave - all it seems falling on deaf ears to those who should know this before anything else.

The transcript of the oral evidence is here, with supplementary written evidence here. There is also written evidence from David Edward here. The crucial words are: "Article 50 is the only route for withdrawal consistent with the UK's legal obligations".

This makes even more terrifying, says Booker, the quite deliberate refusal of the Leave campaigners to come up with a convincing and coherent exit plan which could reassure voters that, by leaving the EU we would not be excluded from the European Economic Area, allowing us to continue trading in the single market just as we do now"