It's got to be NO DEAL

Oliver Burkeman presented a neat little 15 minute programme on radio 4 yesterday - available on podcast - that really is worth a listen. It explains why pushing for a No Deal outcome that sends Europe into chaos and forces each side to take an economic hit may not only be the rational choice, but the beneficial choice. The answer is faith, hope and charity. 

If we accept May's humiliating deal it will leave only the members of the CBI, the FTSE100 and the global corporatists of the European Round Table happy. If GDP hardly changes, she can claim it as a victory. But this will be short lived. And it is a victory for international money, not for the United Kingdom. Both Leavers and Remainers will become even more angry, even more negative, even more disillusioned with politics and the political process. The nation will become polarised, divided and discourse will become violent, vituperative and schismatic. The smug grins on the faces of Barnier and his corrupt cabal at Britain's grovelling humiliation will become unbearable. The EU will try to keep the UK in this permanent state of internal division and rock-bottom morale until the nation is too exhausted to resist further.

A No Deal exit next March on the other hand will cause short-term chaos. The big matters will be swiftly sorted and both the UK and EU will get back to almost normal service on key movements and facilities. A host of lesser matters will remain unresolved, and both we and the EU will take a hit to GDP. Unemployment will increase and manufacturing production will decrease. Most of all it will allow us as a nation to come together and focus on the future - we have shared goals of peace and prosperity, we want cordial and mutually helpful relations with the 27 nations of Europe that are members of the EU, we have great strengths. Most of all we will work together for a new future, a future of hope. It will give us a chance to make changes that allow greater intergenerational equity, deeper local democracy, a more trusted politics, a bigger stake in housing, secure in national defence and with the aid and encouragement of our anglophone cousins from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, yes, India. But only the shock, the disruption, the hiatus of a sudden exit and the challenges it brings will achieve this.

So it has to be No Deal. But not a No Deal of hatred, anger and nihilism but a No Deal that is the only way to heal this fractured nation and secure a future for all in the British Isles. 

 

Press censorship: Europe's most repressive nations

It was the Sun that set the standard back in the days when John Major was trying to fool the UK into giving away our financial freedom to Europe; 'Up Yours, Delors' was the unequivocal message that set the tone for a generation. And last week the paper was again on a burn, with its depiction of Herr Macron and Herr Tusk as armed gangsters:-

The Sun in its inimitable way embodies all that's good and right about press freedom in the UK - indeed, so used are the British to the exercise of this form of critique of the great and good, the entire population has taken it up on social media. Woe betide the inflated ego of any self-loving politician, the self-worth of dreary, humourless self-regarding Eurocrats and the pomposity of third-rate bling medal collectors, whose sciatica must surely blind them to the absurdity of their vulgar Ruritanian pretentions.

In fact, we probably regard the freedom with which the British press, British satirists and cartoonists and British sketch writers portray self-regarding nobs as being normal, Liberal and proper, but this is far from the case. The Sun's headline was just too much for the delicate sensibilities of the EU's unelected official in charge of Justice -  Věra Jourová, whose name must have been cut-and-pasted a thousand times by those too lazy to hunt for unfamiliar HTML code. You might think having an EU official in charge of Justice is a bit like having an Admiral on the government payroll in Switzerland, but there you are. Vera, let's call her, is distinctly unhappy, particularly with the Sun, and as she told the Guardian, she has a post-Brexit plan for a "European approach to media based on quality and smart regulation" that will deal with this British lèse-majesté.

I read that as her desire for an EU firewall that shuts off from the gentle sensibilities of the unelected masses in Brussels any access to the Sun. In fact, shuts off from the EU any foreign papers, news channels, blogs or other media that fail to recognise just how brilliant all the unelected officials are. Well, good luck to her. The EU is already far gone down that road; two images for you. The first, those nations in which it's a criminal act to be rude about a foreign Head of State, the second, those in which Defamation generally is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment (dark red) or other penalties on conviction (light red)  

For the former, Germany, Denmark and Poland have the most draconian sentences of up to five, four and three years respectively. Poland will also jail citizens for three years for insulting their own Head of State - and the liberal little Netherlands will bang you up for five years for the same. 

I'd suggest that nations that appear on both maps are Europe's most repressive countries. Step up to the Iron Mask, then, Germany, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. If you're a politician from these nations, Britain's unbelievably lax press laws must chafe something dreadful.

Never mind, dears. From next year you can cut yourselves off in fairyland and enjoy awarding eachother colourful little medals. Until the whole edifice comes tumbling down.

Denmark hardens compulsory integration of Muslim 'ghettoes'

Now here's a story notable for its absence from UK media - and not one from some crackpot news source but from the New York Times. What the Danes are doing in 25 Muslim 'ghettoes' (and yes, the NYT says that word is explicitly used, but I can't confirm it) to enforce integration seems harsh, but I guess the longer it's left the harder it becomes. I won't paraphrase the entire, thoughtful and comprehensive article by Ellen Barry and Martin Selsoe Sorensen but here's a taste;

Rokhaia, her due date fast approaching, flared with anger at the mandatory preschool program approved by the government last month: Already, she said, her daughter was being taught so much about Christmas in kindergarten that she came home begging for presents from Santa Claus.

“Nobody should tell me whether or how my daughter should go to preschool. Or when,” she said. “I’d rather lose my benefits than submit to force.”

One of the measures being implemented is that "Starting at the age of 1, 'ghetto children' must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in 'Danish values,' including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language."

All across Europe, amongst the old, original EU members rather than the newcomers of the Visegrad group, laws to force reluctant Muslims to integrate are gaining traction. Burqa bans, bans on Saudi and foreign funding of mosques and imams, clampdowns on arranged marriages and female genital mutilation and measures to force integration are becoming mainstream. 

One measure yet to be adopted by any European state is a ban on first-cousin marriages. Though these are unlawful in China and in many US states (and a criminal offence in others) it remains legal in Europe to marry your first cousin. Some 55% of Muslim marriages in the UK are first cousin unions, producing, as such things do, the most terrifying crop of deformed, seriously malformed or mentally subnormal offspring who are a serious burden to the NHS. Labour minister Phil Woolas called this the 'elephant in the room' and said in 2008 that "If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there'll be a genetic problem" - yet the UK has not yet taken action to ban the vile practice. 

Legal first cousin marriages (blue) or not (other)

 But I think the message is becoming clear to those considering migrating to Europe from one of the 'stans or from North Africa - that the prospect of establishing and maintaining detached nations-within-nations here in Europe is in rapid decline. Possibly we have even passed 'peak Islam' as nation states across Europe roll out the pushback.   

It's time to jail Rupert and Fenella

Back in the early 80s Rupert and Fenella's conspicuous hipness was pretty innocuous; they would open a baked potato stand in the newly renovated Covent Garden or build an accessible recording studio in a disused Methodist Church hall. Imbued with money and a desire to demonstrate their fashionable altruism they would tag these adventures 'community' or 'open' or 'collaborative' and the more astute amongst them would later sagely turn them to sound profitable investments when the reputational kudos was exhausted. 

These days Rupert and Fenella have to go a bit further afield to win youthful cachet. 

"Rupert's bought this old Scottish Trawler, yah, and he's re-purposed it to carry a couple of RIBs and built a mini clinic, all through this charity we've set up - 'Seaguard Rescue International' - we've had some pretty big donations including from you-know-who who's still using the billions he made on Black Wednesday ...yah, it's all terribly tax efficient and registered offshore; well basically Rupert patrols the Med just outside the Libyan territorial limit til he gets a satphone call from a refugee boat, meets it, takes the refugees off and lands them in Lampedusa. 

We've got a Facebook page with live Sat video feed and Rupert looks simply scrumptious and sooo dashing and we've saved hundreds and hundreds of lives yah and Tarquin and Penny Arsetrump are down there too in an old coaster with an onboard dentist - Tarquin's younger bruv, actshy- and they reckon the NGOs - that's what they call us - have landed nearly ten thousand refugees in Italy this year, yah, and we've got the peak season coming ..."

Of course what all the Ruperts and Fenellas and their socially committed financial backers don't realise, but what our government increasingly does, is that they're breaking the law - by knowingly making themselves part of the people smuggling chain facilitating unlawful entry into a EU country, they are quite possibly in breach of s.25 of the Immigration Act 1971 (as amended). Fenella's next phone call might be less hubristic.

"Mummy? Oh God it's awful I'm at Paddington Green police station and Rupert's been seized by the SBS and brought home and charged with people smuggling and they say we could get fourteen years! Oh Mummy please help; the Navy sunk our trawler with gunfire and Tarquin and Penny are on the run in Panama oh it's all such a mess ......" 

2020 Migrant wave - and why Europe needs Russia as an ally

As a lengthy (45mts) but comprehensive briefing on the matter, the podcast doc by David Willetts now available from Radio 4, is reasonably good. Using the analogy of a python swallowing a pig, the blurb states 

"a big bulge makes its way slowly down the snake from the head end to the other end. That's a bit like what's happened to the UK demographically. The baby boom generation - which has changed Britain politically, culturally and economically - is now retiring. That means a large bulge of pensioners with big implications for the generations that come behind them. Other advanced economies face a similar challenge and emerging economies - most notably China - will be dealing with an ageing bulge themselves soon. But in Africa, the bulge is at the other end. A very young generation is about to make its way through the snake."

And it's the African bulge that is exercising minds in Europe. 

The current migration report of an Austrian intelligence service shows why the time for action is scarce: experts warn that 15 million young adults will be without jobs by the year 2020 in Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia and seven other African countries And the masses want to emigrate to Europe.

Whilst the Middle East youth bulge is now passing through and will generally decline by 2020, two exceptions; Iraq and the West Bank and Gaza are both expected to rise to 29% by 2020, when Iran's will have fallen to 22%. Both flash points will continue to push migrants into Europe through Turkey and the Russian federal states. 

Only utter fools believe that the present policy of the world's navies providing a taxi service from points 3 miles off the North African coast to Europe is sustainable. For that's the range of the boats and the fuel now being used by the smugglers; it's cheaper to buy a VHF to make an SOS call just outside the territorial limit than 100 extra litres of diesel. No ship can ignore a distress call, and a nice NATO frigate will come collect you to take you to Italy.

But to contain the migrants in North Africa or the Middle East will need the active co-operation of Russia, both on the ground and at sea and at the UN Security Council. It may involve taking control of sovereign national territory in North Africa to hold (and feed) millions of migrants.

This is Europe's biggest challenge. And we need Russia as an ally to face it.  

  

Yes, Vladimir Putin should be TIME's person of the year

The headline of Jonathan Freedland's piece in the Guardian is about the only accurate thing in the article. Truly, the Guardian has found its niche in a post-truth world in which omission, distortion and misrepresentation of the truth pads the pages of even the broadsheets. But of course the post-truth meme has a corollary; an informed readership that is post-credulous. We simply don't believe them any more. And with good reason. 

Yes, everyone admits, Boris was quite right, absolutely spot-on about Saudi Arabia, but as a member of the establishment he is required to lie to the public. His fault was not to lie for his government. And if the establishment grudgingly admits that it's lying about KSA, it won't take much to squeeze the admission that they lied over Yugoslavia, Iraq (whoops - got that one already), Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya and Syria. Only patsies such as Jonathan and Con over at the Telegraph still trot out the feeble old establishment ordure. But the post-credulous don't buy it. 

I was enjoying drinks with some undergrads from Vienna a couple of weeks ago. Without any diminution of their proper patriotism (for Germany and Denmark as well as for Austria) they all expressed their admiration for Putin. He's everything they want our own leaders to be - smart, ruthless, patriotic, daring, skilled and cynical. And yes. For all his successes evident in 2016, he deserves TIME's appellation more than Trump. Russia has just the GDP of Italy yet still strides the world stage like a colossus. And outsmarts and outfoxes all of Europe's dull, failing, ineffective unelected officials with all their dreary policy blunders. 

What a perfect time for that leprous old fossil, himself the very Father of Fake News, bloody Blair to appear with the intention of founding a new public disinformation service, pumping out prime fake news better than the rest. And he may even have an establishment fair wind; a well informed comment over at CAW reveals that

Raedwald, I strongly suspect it is the National Security Council not the "the numpties at the FCO" that is responsible for the UK line on Syria, and I suspect the NSC is strongly under the influence of the Cabinet Office / Joint Intelligence Committee / PM. For example the new-ish £1+ billion Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) seems to be driving UK spending in Syria now, and that has been under NSC control since 2015, using money largely transferred away from DfID. (eg spending on the White Helmets is now cumulatively £32+ million, part of "capacity building for civil society"). Also £5.3+m for "media activists" - bloggers, tweeters and facebookers? More alarming £1.4 million UK CSSF money spent on the "Syrian rebel coalition's lobbying bill in Washington DC and the UN" - pretty weird stuff.

So who better than Blair to head up the government's own fake news channels? New Blair - New Disinformation?