EU Referendum: Setting ourselves up to fail

The more I delve into issues surrounding international trade and regulation trying to keep pace with Richard North, the more I discover how little difference Brexit will make as far as industry will notice. But we have a problem. Ukippers are filling up the airwaves with promises of milk and honey - and that a libertarian regulation-free utopia is just around the corner. If we win this referendum, they're in for a mighty shock.

In any eventuality we will still be subsidising our agriculture, we will still be paying large sums to producers to seemingly do little, we will still be making compromises over our fishing grounds and there is very little point in deregulating manufacturing. Much of what is said about EU red tape is hokum.

That's why Ukip is becoming a bit of a problem. We're not going to re-industrialise, we're not going to "take back control of our borders" and we're probably not going to get much in the way of trade deals that we don't already have. Things have gotten a bit more complex since the twenty year old eurosceptic arguments were developed.

On the face of it, if you take our word for it that all of the above if true, you might ask why bother leaving, and why all the fuss? Kippers would have it that the ultimate destination of the EU means Britain becoming a minor state of a Federal Europe, eating frogs legs and spending Euros. But that doesn't look like a reality either, nor does the threat of an EU army.

We're never going to join the Euro and even if the EU does achieve the final killer treaty, whatever government we end up with in Brussels couldn't be much worse than our own. Half of the global initiatives that filter down through the EU very much have British officials in the driving seat. The "EU madness" is very much of our own making. As much as our energy policy has impositions from Brussels upon it, it's our own parliament that triple gold-plated it to become one of the most absurd pieces of law ever passed.

At this point,you could be forgiven for ceasing to care altogether since the measurable economic advantages to Brexit are negligible. Very few of the old eurosceptic arguments stand up and even in a federal superstate, Lizzie won't be kicked out of BuckPal anytime soon.

The reason we at eureferendum.com know all this is because we have put all the traditional eurosceptic arguments through some very serious stress testing, and we keep treading in the cold cat sick of reality.

International trade means international regulation which means huge compromises, often taking on laws we don't want for greater good. The broader national interest means compromise. For sure we would have a few more vetoes, but we can't really rely on our government to use them much. We have a veto on UNECE matters pertaining to the environment and I struggle to find an instance where we have used it.

Even falling back on the old tropes about identity and culture doesn't really hold much sway since we as far as identity goes, the Scottish are busy building their own with Wales not too far behind. We have many problems, many of which are of our own making, wrongly blamed on the EU and more probably the result of the centralisation and corporatisation of local authorities. 

So what is the actual point? For me, it's about scrutiny and accountability. The EU negotiating on our behalf in any circumstance is intolerable but what troubles me more is that Strasbourg is the mechanism of scrutiny. MEPs are a subspecies of politician who are even less fit to govern than most MPs. As if that weren't bad enough, in the European parliament, even if all our MEPs voted together, we are still a minority by default which means, to use a reductio ad absurdum argument, that if the EU decided we were all suddenly going to drive on the right, in practice we couldn't stop them.

We might also ask if we'd even know what hit us if that did happen. Even our own government is often surprised by measures it has previously agreed to. TTIP went through without our national parliament ever getting to scrutinise it. Something like that is far too important to outsource. 1/28th of a voice is not enough.

As much as anything it's a cultural thing. The problem with us is that we're just not cut out to take an interest in EU politics. Our politics is culturally based in London. We're quite parochial like that, which means important EU matters are ignored when really they shouldn't be. It is treated as foreign news and reported as such. Neither the people nor the media really grasp that the EU is a government in its own right, and it's that ignorance and passivity on which the EU depends to progress it's federalist agenda. There is a democratic deficit that cannot be fixed.

For sure we could have an elected commission and an elected EU president, and that would make for a fine democratic façade (and would essentially establish the EU as a nation in its own right), but that would not make a it a democracy any more than the proverbial wolves voting on the dinner menu. And that's the ultimate principle to fight (and die) for.

Because the EU has always been a top down imposition on the peoples of Europe, with neither a demos nor a mandate, the European Parliament will always be viewed as a foreign talking shop, and our lack of engagement in it ensures we will always get a bad deal. We will treat euro-elections as an opinion poll on the incumbent government thus will always end up with the madcap fringes like the Greens and Ukip representing our interests. Cranks and cronies who are simply not up to the job.

If there are to be new rafts of regulation that could fundamentally change our country, I want Westminster and our fierce internet headbangers chucking it around for debate. TTIP has barely been discussed in any great detail, people are pretty ignorant of what it is, and those who oppose it seem to oppose it for all the wrong reasons. That's because it's abstract to the British political machine.

The EU model could hardly be described as representetive either. We have a mere six MEPs to represent somewhere like South West England. That works out at 1.2 MEPs per million people, to represent seven cities and several large towns. This is not democracy by any definition I understand.

For all we might grumble that democracy in the UK is no real democracy, there is a certain force that guides Westminster in ways that Strasbourg is immune. We need to make it work better, but it's better than what the EU calls democracy. Strasbourg is not steered by public debate and popular discourse.

That is why we must repatriate the scrutiny process. Whatever veto we then end up using will at least be a people's veto. It matters because minutia matters. My example de jour being the shipping container. There are better designs but we settle for the mediocre one because universality is what makes the global shipping trade work as efficiently as it does. Perhaps one of the greatest innovations of the modern world.

The shipping container dictates the size of lorries, the types of dock crane, and the shape and size of ships, the width and camber of roads and the height of bridges. That does mean lorries are now much bigger than we would necessarily want for our roads on this little and ancient island, but the common good benefits are there for all to see. But then cyclists get squished so now we are remodelling our cities. Just one small design standard can change everything. Next time that happens, I want our parliament in Westminster looking at it.

There is also another dimension to this. Many lament the triviality and emptiness of British politics. Our parliament seems ever more preoccupied with interfering in our daily lives. What it really is, is displacement activity. Maybe if parliament was looking at the larger matters of trade it would find less reason to poke its nose into things that do not concern it, and leave the more trivial matters to local councils.

By restoring parliament to matters of importance, we restore its prestige and dignity and thus in the process restore its gravitas. That would perhaps go some way to fixing the crisis of confidence we have in our politics - with each level of government doing what it should. We may then start to see councils responding to to the wishes of citizens having reacquired the powers to act.

That is the battleground on which we must fight. We fight to make Westminster mean something again, to restore the primacy of our domestic politics. Brexit doesn't mean a renaissance of empire and fortune, but a renaissance of politics and participation. That in itself is worth having.

Making false promises of what Brexit will achieve is an open goal for the No camp. If the Yes camp puts eurosceptic arguments under half the stress we have put them under, then they will crumble the moment the debate heats up. Brexit cannot deliver a utopia, it cannot deliver total sovereignty nor can it give us complete control of our borders. A global, internet connected, modern Britain can never close itself off. But Brexit can reconnect the people with their politics and politicians, and it gives us the power to say no when it really matters.

A managerial federal Europe may indeed deliver a base level of prosperity, but we are more than economic units to be managed. We are people and we must have a say in our politics otherwise we are merely spectators of our government rather than participants. Managerial federalism may work while the going is good, but all good things inevitably come to an end. What then? If the people do not say no in this referendum, they may already have said no for the very last time.

Ukip: the enemy within

I've made the point more than a few times. Ukip is toxic. Not only that, Ukippers are uniformly so bigoted, self involved and myopic that there s no reasoning with any of them. They are poisonous people, proud of their ignorance and beyond any reason. Every single conversation I have with a Ukipper ends up with them calling me a paid shill for the EU, questioning which side I am on for pointing out that we should be mindful of the parameters in which we must fight a Brexit campaign.

Through their fog of incomprehension all they do is lash out.

Nobody has tried harder than me to reason with kippers. I have patiently taken them through step by step of what needs to be done to win, and I just can't get through the programming. They won't even read the carefully prepared material we have gone to great effort to compile and distribute at immense financial and personal cost.

To be frank, Ukippers are as bad, if not worse than EU federalists and if I thought for a moment their vision of Britain would win out then I would vote to stay in.

They are not allies, they are obstacles - and every minute spent trying to educate a Ukipper is a wasted time. Behind the scenes I've been working with others to build up a social media campaign but have arrived at the conclusion that no Ukipper is an ally, can't be part of it, and the less we have to do with them the better, They are a lost cause, a folorn hope, more interested in their dismal cult than actually winning.

If my fellow campaigners think this is an unreasonable view, and that my outright hostility to Ukip is something they cannot work with then count me out completely. I'm done with these morons, they are all yours.

If I were left wing I would be pro-Brexit

Lefties go for all that green crap and don't like exploiting Africa. But that's exactly what the EU does. From its seabed hoover trawlers killing off fishing grounds off West Africa, causing mass migration, to the forced removal of border tariffs for Kenya, cutting off its state revenue, the EU is damaging the environment and pillaging Africa.

But more than this, with the EU piling on more employment law burdens and demanding equal access to benefits to all, it will ultimately lead to more zero hours contracts and more benefit cuts to the point where benefits are scarcely worth having. Finite resources have to be rationed. While the effect of common labour laws and welfare equality means flexibility and convenience for the educated Easyjet-set who don't think twice about taking a contract in Amsterdam or Hamburg, the effect is sustained and permanent poverty for the poorest. If you believe as the left does, that trickle down economics theory is wrong, that is.

The net effect of making it difficult and expensive to fire people (Agency Workers Directive) is that it's harder to hire, and so business won't bother. They'll just hire contractors. That means people working without paid holiday or sickness - without adequate benefits if they get sick or can't find work. The EU is undermining everything the left fought for that was worth having. The unintended consequences of EU labour market intervention is the "rampant neoliberalism" they so dread.

Then because more people are on rolling contracts or zero hours arrangements, fewer people then have access to mortgages, preventing them from getting a foot on the housing ladder.

More to the point, a welfare system that is no longer possible to live on means more people taking bottom rung rates of pay, having to give up their homes to share houses in order to compete with immigrants - or have some disposable income. A step backwards for our own working class.

By any measure of what the Left claims to want, the EU is undermining it. It means fewer rights, lower pay, more exploitation at home and abroad and more privileges for the already privileged.

In effect, the left have been hoodwinked into believe the EU stands for wholesome things like workers rights and human rights when in reality they're being conned. It looks good on paper but the reality is very different. These are not rights fought for and won by the left, they are rights granted by an unelected elite to buy their co-operation. And because these rights are gifted with such ease, they can be snatched away with equal ease.

That said, I'm a capitalist and I welcome the rationalisation of the welfare state and I want to see a more dynamic workforce and I do believe in trickle-down economics. My working class mechanic is now richer than I am because he knows a bunch of poser IT consultants like me who buy shit Audis that break down all the time. By that measure, I should be pro EU, but what the EU is doing is more by accident than intent. Eventually to deal with the unintended consequences of its interventions it will have to impose even more draconian employment regulations, which will kill the labour market stone dead and hammer EU investment - then nobody has a job, zero hours or otherwise.

There is a balance to be struck between the needs of the worker and the needs of the employer. The EU is tiling that balance away from the worker but deceiving workers into believing they're getting a better deal. What could be better if you're a corporate? Unfettered market access and the right to influence EU regulations in your favour while the people who's rights you're undermining demand more of the same "protection".

If we had real unions and not these corporate scale parasites run by slobs on executive salaries, they'd have woken up to this by now. But they're complicit in the biggest con job ever pulled on the British worker. The left are turkeys voting for Christmas.

Brexit: back from the future

Readers, I've just come back from the future. I've been to 2017! Stupidly, I forgot to check on the lottery numbers and I'm afraid there are still no flying skateboards, but it appears the future Complete Bastard is still blogging and is still banging on about Ukip being a bunch of habitual losers. I'm afraid the news isn't good. Here's the blog post from the morning after the EU referendum:

So then, the results are in. We are staying in the EU. It is pleasing to see we did not lose by the margin many predicted but there are no prizes for second place. So what went wrong?

Firstly, the referendum was a poisoned chalice the moment we got it. Having turned itself into the BNP-lite, banging on about immigration, re-energising the far left in the process, Ukip became toxic, thus they tainted the Brexit cause by association. It was an avoidable mistake, but it put us on the backfoot from the get go. If you were pro-Brexit, people just assumed you were a kipper.

In the end, we didn't win the arguments. The failure of Ukip to develop a coherent message was a big factor. They were unable to deliver a reassuring message to business, instead playing to the home crowd on immigration. It was popular, but not popular enough.

Many point to a biased media and establishment scaremongering, but that was always the mountain to climb. The timing wouldn't have mattered. It was never going to be a clean fight. The mission was to develop a message that could overcome it. In that, we all failed. We needed a coherent strategy to get around it but all Ukip did was complain about the unfairness it.

If I had to blame any one individual it would be Nigel Farage. By 2015 Ukip was so toxic that no moderate voice could speak in its favour, and its message so incoherent that few apart from the headbangers could get behind it. There was never a possibility of a coalition that included Ukip because kippers proved incapable of heeding good advice  and could not get past their fixation with "taking back our borders".  Early on it became a left vs right referendum on immigration and the substantive issues were lost between the cracks. Kippers were unable to make the distinction between the referendum and their anti-PC culture war.

The campaign also suffered from a lack of credible spokesmen. Ukip had no big beasts because Farage had always been incapable of forging relationships and nurturing talent - and on the Tory side, Daniel Hannan, a posh boy spiv, had little substance to his shallow arguments. The lack of any left wing presence was also a clear loser. How could they be seen to be associated with the likes of Hannan and Ukip?

The truth is, the referendum was lost on the day the Tories won a majority in 2015. The campaign for that referendum started that same day. Ukip was originally set up to get us out of the EU. It always knew that one day a referendum would come. Having spent all its political capital entrenching itself into the "left behind" cul-de-sac, having spent all the money on getting bums on seats, having put no resource or thought into a referendum strategy, it found itself without direction, campaign material or expertise. The referendum was an afterthought to Farage's own electoral ambitions.

The debate was bogged down by the usual FUD scaremongering. The No campaign was unable to overcome it. The vagueness of the arguments about democracy and sovereignty failed to capture the mood and failed to reassure business, and the economic arguments went to the other side since Brexit was painted as a leap into the unknown.

That is why it was important to unite around an exit plan that retained access to the single market. It may have meant a lot of compromise on our part but it would have been the first step to freedom. Having obsessed about regulation and immigration, such a Brexit plan was one Ukip could not unite around without making major policy u-turns. Kippers simply couldn't comprehend that the how was as important as the why when it came to Brexit.

There was also a huge lack of leadership. The Ukippers never learned the mistakes of the Scottish independence referendum. Comparing the EU with the USSR and the Third Reich was never a winning message and the cyber kippers we an embarrassment throughout. Any hashtag you went to on Twitter was polluted by pictures of Farage and crass jingoistic memes. It was hard to escape the label of being a little Englander thanks to the malign influence of Ukip. An effective party machine could have spiked that kind of behaviour but Ukip never did manage to professionalise.

What this means for Ukip now is anyone's guess, but it has proved that it doesn't have what it takes to get us out of the EU. Ukip has failed to do what it was created for - and if it didn't succeed this time, it never will. This means, thanks to Nigel Farage, the eurosceptic movement is back to square one. It will take a long time to rebuild a coherent anti-EU movement. What shape that takes I don't know.

What I do know is that the British desire to remain British will live on. I know that one day we will leave the EU, but we just blew a massive opportunity to get out while the going was good. Kippers can take a bow for that. Good job, morons.

Sorry to have brought you this bad news. I'm not too hot on quantum mechanics so I don't know if this can be avoided, but if there is a way to stop this future from happening, we need to act now. We do have a coherent Brexit plan. It's called Flexcit and you can find it here. Read  it. If I can't have a flying skateboard then can we at least not lose this referendum?

Their battle is not ours

Kippers don't seem to realise the election is over. Hereabove we see Ukip fighting the last election. And this is why Ukip will be the main obstacle to winning an EU referendum.

By ranting on about "Leftwing Fascist Thugs" they are positioning themselves into the void vacated by the BNP. It's exactly the same rhetoric. By attacking the the far left as their number one enemy they de-facto become their equal and opposite on the UK spectrum. It's the politics of the far fringes. We have seen how this pans out before with the BNP. Electoral extinction.

That doesn't trouble me especially, there's nothing I would like to see more, except there's that EU referendum thing on the horizon. That thing Kippers said would never happen under Cameron. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, they're still in a world of their own.

Ukip is fighting a culture war against what they see as an ultra-liberal PC leftwing establishment. As was the BNP. It escapes them that it's a turn off to most, it's not going to win any elections and it will probably lose a referendum.

They are well within their rights to wage such a war, but it shows their culture war takes ultimate precedence over winning a referendum. It shows they have given no thought as to how we might win. This is a critical time for all eurosceptics and this would be the time for Ukip to shine. But it won't because it has no discipline, no intellectual capital and zero ability to plan. That is a reflection of their leader.

It should be the case that this close to an EU referendum, Ukip should be owning every debate, winning every argument, and have a presentable leader who gets it right. Instead it finds itself undermining carefully a worked referendum strategy, at war with itself and with its allies, and with a leader whom just about everyone is agreed is a liability to the campaign.

For Ukip, now might be a good time to put that culture war on ice because it's the moderate middle 10% we need to win over to leave the EU, and grunting about the far left is not going to win any hearts and minds. It's bad enough that Ukip have handed us a poisoned chalice of a referendum, but if this is the shape of things to come from Ukip then we can expect to lose it two-to-one and bury the EU issue forever.

Ukip playing the victim is loser politics. Nobody likes a loser. Losers never win. That's why the out campaign does not need them. They are toxic.

Ukip: The Wooden Horse of Kent

There's been a lot of talk about what will happen if Farage and his fellow onanists use the referendum as a vehicle to further Farage's career. For a start, being the oily little worm that he is won't help. Nor will banging on about immigration, and certainly not foreigners with Aids.

But there's no point telling that to kippers. From the lowliest of Ukip mongs to some of the fairly switched on Kipanderthals, it always comes down to the same collection of mantras. The one en vogue at the moment, which I have heard from every single one of the grunters is that "there wouldn't even be a referendum were it not for Farage".

Such piss-boiling stupidity shouldn't wind me up as much as it does by this point, but this point has to be addressed. Ukip very nearly cost the Tories this election win. So one could very easily look at the numbers and say nobody worked harder than Farage to stop a referendum. But for the sake of argument, let's concede the point.

By breaking from any strategy to turn Ukip into an immigration single issue party, ever since those scaremongering immigration posters, we saw was a massive surge in Ukip publicity, most of it negative, with Ukip scoring every own goal possible. We saw Ukip candidates making policy up on the spot because Suzanne "the dog ate it" Evans couldn't get her act together until the last minute. Then we saw Lightfingers Atkinson, a Farage appointee, with her hands in the till, and more stupidity than is natural to come out of any one party - with a big dollop of Muslim hate as a side order.

So having sacrificed sustainable growth, gradually professionalising, making solid arguments based on well researched, long established policy that would win over the media pundits, we saw Ukip blunder from pillar to post, treading on every cowpat as it went, discrediting good ideas by association.

So what we now have is a poisoned chalice of a referendum where euroscepticism is tainted by association, support for remaining in is at an all time high and the one eurosceptic party is the laughing stock of the country - and their representation in parliament halved.

For this I am supposed to sing "Hail the conquering hero". For this outstanding achievement, Kippers have decided that their man can do no wrong. Nevermind that Farage is deeply unpopular to anyone not in the kipper cult or that his brain-capsizingly stupid pub rants undermine more intelligent Brexit strategies. Nevermind that has "sudden death" Brexit assumptions scare business witless.

The truth is that business won't back Brexit unless they are certain to have single market access, and without that, opinion formers will feed the message through that the outers haven't come up with the intellectual goods. A rousing Farage pub speech ain't gonna cut it. Similarly, any free trade deal with the EU is going to require some freedom of movement so making bogus promises about what Brexit will achieve immigration wise merely undermines us further.

As before the election, kippers still don't understand the value of intellectual capital and think we can fight a campaign on a wing and a prayer. They don't understand the importance of winning the technical arguments - nor are they equipped to try.

Time and again when I point this out I get the old mantras about how good Farage was on the telly against Nick Clegg, or that we hold a grudge against Farage. Firstly a dead hamster could run rings round Nick Clegg, and as to holding a grudge, this ancient history they dredge up from over a decade ago is irrelevant. This is purely about wanting to win and pointing out the obstacles to victory. So far as I can see, it's the ignorant grunting of kippers and the bull-in-a-china-shop style of Farage.

We have pointed out many times that in 1975, the BBC put on all the worst players from the No camp to ensure victory. That's what they will do this time which is why they will keep inviting Farage on to BBC Question Time. For sure, none of his lackeys will fare much better, but that's all the more reason why Ukip should make themselves scarce for the next couple of years. The eurosceptic rump is not going anywhere and will surge back to Ukip in the event of a referendum loss so Ukip has nothing to lose by staying quiet. If we win, then mission accomplished, if we lose, Ukip does well and the Tories get hammered. But kippers are going to have to decide what is more important... their clan or their country.

By inviting Ukip into the Brexit campaign we wheel a giant Trojan horse, seemingly a gift, into our midst - where in the night, a marauding band of kipper rednecks disembark and wreak havoc on our camp. This is suicide. The short of it is that if kippers really do want Brexit to happen, now is a very good time to shut the fuck up and let the adults get on with it.

Can the Tories survive an IN vote?

A passably insightful piece in the Guardian today on the possible timescales for EU reform. Even the Guardian is prepared for a weak charade - and so is the Telegraph. This will be funny. Nobody expects the PM to come away with anything worth having.

The PM will come away with some crappy concessions, no treaty change and supposed new powers to deal with immigration that we already have. The problem is, the PM doesn't know what to ask for since half of the things we blame the EU on are a consequence of our own rubbish government. Cretins like Farage assert that there's nothing we can do about immigration without leaving the EU, but there is plenty we can do. We can reform welfare, enforce housing standards, tackle gang labour exploitation and uphold the minimum wage. Brussels officials will probably be telling the PM the same thing Westminster ones are. The fault is in our shop. That's why we're seeing this sudden crackdown on illegal immigration.

The one useful thing Cameron could ask for is more flexibility over our energy policy, but it was our own government that gold-plated the EU insanity. As to Human Rights, I don't think anybody really knows what it is we actually want. The only people with any certainty are Kippers, and anybody certain about anything in this regard should be ignored because it's not simple. I actually don't envy the PM. He knows he can't have treaty change, but there's nothing we want that we can't do already that doesn't require one. So he has to go through the motions, do his song and dance and come home with a weak set of measures that will be totally transparent even to our lame hacks.

Tories will then make a massive noise about a stunning Cameron victory. Thicko Tories will clap like seals (because that's what they did last time) while kipper and Tory eurosceptics will go into hyperdrive, forcing the left to either defend Cameron and say he isn't a liar, or stay quiet if they want to stay in the EU.

My gut instinct says we'll probably lose this referendum and stay in for three key reasons. The massive wall of deception by big business, scaremongering, and kippers behaving like the toxic mouth-breathers they are. In the mean time, while support for staying in is at an all time high, that margin will close as people are gradually reminded why everyone hates the EU - and in between there will be a minor Euro crisis of some kind that will spook a lot of people. The margins will be close.

After which, eurosceptic Tories will be hopping mad with Cameron, we'll see a real swing to the mouth-breathers and we'll end up with another lame duck Tory coalition, or a seriously crappy Labour PM.

After that, if you think you've seen political turbulence in recent years, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. And if you thought this last election was unpredictable, this one will be off the charts. The Tories only have a mandate on loan for the purposes of a referendum. If they don't get us out, we might just end up with a grunting mob of kippers shouting across at a grunting mob of SNP with two very broken establishment parties unable to grasp what they did wrong.

Win or lose I think we're going to see a huge push for Scottish independence and a lot of serious rows. The Eurosceptics will not take a loss lying down, and when the EU gears up for the final bullet treaty, that's going to be a resounding no in a second referendum (the referendum lock), leaving us in the paralysis of the status quo - or actually forced into a slow lane of the EU since the treaty draft will anticipate a British no vote.

We will then be in Europe, ruled by Europe, but also isolated and without a voice in the EU or globally. After that, some time later, comes the mother of all rows, a parliament held in total contempt, followed by a third EU referendum where we finally leave the EU. With the caveat that the government does not break the law and ratify a new treaty without a referendum, in which case we will be back to square one: betrayal, euro-deadlock and continued political decay.

The short of it is, British politics is not going to settle down until we leave the EU and it will get very ugly if we don't. That's why I urge you to get involved and get us out. The downside is that Farage will then be lionised as some kind of latter day saint, and kippers will be insufferable - and I'll want to leave the country.

Some Tories warn that Brexit means Scotland definitely will leave the Union. I've attempted to address such points here, but I'm not particularly satisfied with such thoughts and don't think the Scots would go for it. The threats that Trident will be kicked out of Scotland are simply unrealistic. There's nowhere else they can go, it's already a done deal and Scotland will want our money so we have leverage. The SNP will not succeed in cancelling or reducing the Trident order either. It was decided a long time ago and nothing is going to change it. The contracts are signed. I actually think in any case, in or out of the EU, Scotland is going to leave. Nobody in Westminster has the spine to stop it from happening.

There's no putting the genie back in the bottle. If we didn't want to lose Scotland we should never have signed up for devolution in the first place. What other conclusion could come of giving them a parliament? They will have their victory parade on us, they'll cock a snook at the English but we will see them quietly climb down as they realise independence doesn't mean independence, and adult status means adult responsibilities. They will ask London for more and more to help them out of their messes and that will come with terms and conditions - just as Greece now does as it is told.

The next ten years are going to be pivotal in the history of Britain. These times decide what is to come for the next century. What that settlement looks like is anybody's guess. And events do happen. So like all of you, I can only go with my best guess - and that is that Britain is not a happy member of the EU. It is stagnating politically and it needs change. As much a Brexit is a bureaucratic and technocratic and economic question, Brexit is a gesture. A big one. A gesture that says Britain wants to be Britain come what may. It is an assertion of ourselves and an assertion in the world. A statement that we wish to be a power that speaks for itself in a global forum, and not to a corner of Europe.

I want to see a proud Britain with, but not of a united Europe. One that leads Europe as ever it has and does so as a strong and independent voice. Not a nation that goes cap in hand to Berlin to ask "please may we?". Win or lose this referendum, the British desire to be British will never die. The independence question never went away for Scotland after their referendum - and if anybody thinks a Brexit referendum will settle the EU issue once and for all, unless the answer is out, then they are mistaken. Very mistaken. Anything less than out may well kill the Tories for good.

Ukip: when cousins marry

It's been a distressing day. I'm working on some code for the EU Referendum website but there are days when I run out of coding steam and need to do something else so I've been hammering away on the Twitter Brexit hashtag to get some of our work out there.

I've always said the message needs to be less parochial than the kipper grunting about "muzzer pedo gangs" so I'm having a bash at finding some liberal eurosceptics. As much as the EU's asylum policy is killing people in the Med, we remember that the EU is destabilising emerging economies and collapsing West African coastal economies by overfishing. We can make a strong case that the EU is not as benevolent as it would have us believe.

We also looked at WEEE and recycling regulation that sees our toxic waste shipped to China and India. The EU is not green nor is it especially a crusader for human rights (especially for black people). For everything the US is accused of, the EU is at least as bad. It just has a better PR department. This actually prompts kipper mongs to ask if I'm secretly working for the Green Party.

At this point I try explaining that grunting about foreigners with Aids is not what the Brexit campaign needs. Ah, but Ukip got four million votes, they shriek. In broader terms that means only one in ten voted for Ukip. Rather than a political earthquake securing many seats, which according to Matthew Goodwin were "in the bag", we saw Ukip lose an MP and the majority of its remaining MP slashed. 

But the colossal failure of Ukip to live up to its promise has made no impact on kipper headbangers. This secures Farage a place at the Brexit table in their book. There's no talking to them. Farage is their man.

The danger now is that Ukip makes this a referendum on immigration. The reality: If Farage makes this an immigration referendum, the anti-racists will make out that Brexit is a racists vote. We lose.

This is beyond the comprehension of kipper mouth-breathers - even though Ukip making immigration their campaign platform last time breathed new life into the "anti-fascist" movement. If Farage is front and centre, as any Ukip leader will be, and the issue is immigration then a Brexit vote becomes a racist vote and a loser vote. That's why the BBC will seek to put Farage on our screens.

Moreover, Kippers are not remotely concerned that Ukip has no Brexit plan. Their whole view is "we'll work something out". Farage's on the hoof fag packet workings may go down well with the kipper morons, but people who run businesses and employ people and export goods will need something more reassurance. They can't wait for policy a mere week before polling day.

We've put a lot of energy into producing our own Brexit plan at EUreferendum.com but the kippers now can't use it now because they are a single issue immigration party, and their policy is to screw Britain over as quickly as possible. Whatever it takes to get the doors slammed shut. Nobody wants that.

I have been warned by sympathisers that I should be more tactful about kippers because apparently we need them. As you know I have no patience at all for for the kipper cult, but I've made several attempts to reach out and several attempts to be reasonable - but it's a waste of time. These people collectively would lose in IQ contest with a potato and would struggle to find the wet end of a hosepipe. They are actually incapable of understanding the points I'm making. Even the brighter ones lash out through their fog of incomprehension. Every time it boils down to the sour grapes and grudge meme. These cousin-marrying rednecks are a liability to themselves. If there were any danger that these people would be running Britain in the case of Brexit I would vote to stay in.

I can't listen to the advice I'm given by my campaign colleagues because I very much doubt they spend half as much time talking to kippers as I do. I think I'm the expert on these bozos now, and every conversation always goes the same way.

So I go back to that previous thought. 9 in 10 did not vote for Ukip. The 90% are the people I need to talk to. Kippers can go to hell. They are not needed or wanted and their input only makes our job harder. It's better if they say nothing for the rest of the campaign and our only hope is if Farage takes a very long vacation. Twenty years or so should do it.

Getting to grips with immigration

Now before anyone starts blethering about "draconian" new immigration measures, be aware that this is the price of open borders. If an employer is happy to employ an illegal, chances are they are equally happy to exploit them too, keeping the off the books, not paying tax and without any of the basic protections we ourselves take for granted. This then creates an unlevel playing field to the point where British workers simply cannot compete. If we have a labour market then it must at least be a level playing field whereby basics much as the minimum wage is enforced.

But as far as that goes, a company breaking the law in this regard is not the only guilty party. It takes two to enter a contract and so the illegal immigrant is essentially engaged in criminal activity which does have negative externalities, not least welfare as you and I pay for our own to live on benefits because they can't compete.

If we accept and demand a basic standard of living is a facet of being a UK citizen then we must enforce the laws that uphold those principles. By doing so we can keep our borders open with the EEA and then strategically extend those arrangements with partner nations we want to develop through aid and remittances. In our case, Nigeria and Kenya might be a good place to start if we can help them develop effective civic administration.

The ultimate objective being a reduction in the necessity to come to Europe. Dealing with the push factors is equally as important as the pull factors. Eventually we can have fully open borders but that much is a process, not an event. In the mean time we have to manage according to what we can assimilate and according to what there is democratic consent for.

We should be properly enforcing the laws we have, there is merit in doing so and if we don't enforce the law properly, what's the point of having them? It is already within our powers to do this much without slamming the door shut as kippers would have it.

But then we also need to address our asylum policy that sees people drowning in the Med. That cannot happen without ending our devotion to the 51 Convention on Human Rights - the killer pull factor. As much as we have our own problems, we see that it's a global problem with events unfolding down-under.

Australia has the right idea. None of the more than 8,000 Rohingya refugees caught in a weeks-long stand-off at sea will be resettled in Australia, prime minister Tony Abbott confirmed on Thursday. The US has indicated it is willing to take some of the refugees, and the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) has urged Australia to work with its neighbours in finding a solution. But the prime minister has closed the door on suggestions some could be resettled in Australia: “Nope, nope, nope".

“Australia will do absolutely nothing that gives any encouragement to anyone to think that they can get on a boat, that they can work with people smugglers to start a new life. “I’m sorry. If you want to start a new life, you come through the front door, not through the back door.

“Don’t think that getting on a leaky boat at the behest of a people smuggler is going to do you or your family any good. “We are not going to do anything that will encourage people to get on boats. If we do the slightest thing to encourage people to get on the boats, this problem will get worse, not better.”

Australia understands the pull factor and has all but abandoned its commitment to the convention, instead using diplomacy to stop the boats, in tandem with an active foreign policy to that end. We must do likewise, but the 51 Convention is enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon. If we want people to stop drowning in the Med, we are going to have to quit the EU. Let's tackle the causes instead of the symptoms.

An open letter to Airbus

Dear Airbus,

I don't tell you how to build aircraft so don't tell us how to run our country.

The EU is not the single market so the functioning of Airbus is not in any way affected by the UK leaving the EU. Most of the rules of the single market are made by global bodies. This you know full well. The same is true of the regulations with which you must comply.

To say you would reconsider investment in the UK in the event of Britain leaving the European Union ignores the fact that you already have, some time ago - not least by ending 100 years of aviation at Filton by closing the runway. This does not suggest to me a long term commitment to the UK.

Moreover, the repair jobs based at Bristol have been gradually outsourced to India over the last few years so please don't pretend you care about British jobs. We know that first and foremost you are a French company and you have been gradually pulling out for years, placing all the best jobs in Toulouse.

If it's labour costs that bother you, you should be glad we're leaving the EU. As to jobs, don't forget those jobs are heavily subsidised with OUR money. We CAN take our money elsewhere.

Meanwhile, our order for the A400M is worth less to us than the maintenance contracts for the C130. We can survive without it. And while we're on that subject, rather than pontificating on how we should run our democracy, how about you concentrate on making the A400M not fall out of the sky killing all the crew - since our RAF men and women will be serving on them?

That's your business. Who governs us is not.

Yours,

Complete Bastard.

Kipper bloodbath?

Not that it's important, but Lunchtime O'Flynn has been kicked out of the Farage inner circle (big surprise), but then so has Suzanne "the dog ate it" Evans.

We will find out in due course the real reasons, but the appointment of Mark Reckless, the loser and parliamentary failure, is classic Farage.

This blog has always maintained that Farage feels threatened by competent people. That's why there are no big beasts in Ukip who can replace him and that's why he's surrounded himself with failures.

Now that Reckless is out of a job, he has to take whatever comes his way, and Farage is the man to hand out the goodies. So we're effectively seeing lacklustre bozos replaced with equal or worse. Reckless won't challenge Farage and will do exactly as he is told.

So far as I'm concerned, it's not actually news. The only real concern is that Farage will now be the go to guy for the BBC on all things EU, so instead of making an enlightened case for independence we'll get kipper grunting about foreigners with aids while he's fighting off a hangover.

Where Crasswell stands in any of this is anyone's guess, but if he has any stones at all, he'll make moves to oust Farage if he wants a shot at winning a referendum. Kippers are doing their best to spin a united front but we will see more internal bickering before September. There are a few bright sparks among the knuckle-draggers and they can see it clear as day that Farage is a liability. Now is the time for them to speak up.

Politics is dead. And that's a good thing.

Liz Kendall warns that Labour could be out of power forever. Looking at the absolute cretins up for the Labour leadership so far, I'd say Labour are going to be out of power for at least a decade. These dolts make Ed Miliband look like an absolute titan. But I've seen quite a lot of people asking what Labour is actually for. The Tories are a middle of the road party with no radical ideas to speak of, tax and spend too much, and are only tempered by the realities of the moment, as Labour would have to do had Miliband won. So actually, what do we need them for?  

The only thing they can actually do in their narrow frame of perception is either to become as anodyne as the Tories or go back to bloating the public sector and enslaving people on welfare. It actually says a lot about Labour that characters as risible as Liz Kendall and Chuka Umunna would see themselves fit to lead. 

As much as the metro left hate the idea, it's really Ukip speaking for the working class right now. If it wasn't a cult lead by an increasingly Gallowayesque figure who couldn't run a bath, Labour would have cause to worry about Ukip being the new party of the working class. If there were any danger of that I think I would actually go full Tory. The thought of those contemptible mouth-breathing dolts getting anywhere near the levers of power is absolutely terrifying. I'll take managed decline over national suicide any day of the week.

In reality, this whole system has run its course because the really big questions have mostly been answered. The statist ideas of the left are bankrupt and obsolete, and now politics is merely the process of regulating the worst excesses of strategic markets, most politics is redundant, nevermind the Labour party. But unable to give up their grasp on power and the well paid job in the Westminster bubble, they won't surrender to that reality and will instead look for more ways to stick their noses into the minutia of out lives just to give themselves something to do.

The truth is, we don't need full time MP's - and what we really need is a mechanism for self-government (The Harrogate Agenda) so we can send these dorks their P45's.

Westminster should be a chamber of discussing national emergencies, like a war council, and one that remains closed for most of the year. Let the cities and towns run their own affairs. That way, the inbreds in Ukip can't complain about the political establishment because there won't be one. With direct democracy they will own their own stupid decisions and will have nobody to blame but themselves. As to Liz Kendall, Labour should totally elect her. We're paying for this shit. We might as well get some entertainment out of it. Just look at her.

The Complete Bastard Guide to Winning an EU Referendum

Regular readers have noticed I have deviated from my stance on blogging profanity. That's largely because I no longer have that obligation now that I'm blogging serious work elsewhere. As to this post, it's a handy guide for Kippers on how to win that EU referendum.

1. Get rid of Farage

One thing we don't need is a sweaty drunk making pub speeches he hasn't rehearsed and we can't win if the referendum is a referendum on HIV infected foreigners. Sorry kids, for whatever use he was, he's jumped the shark big time. Europhiles want him front and centre because he's their biggest asset. That's why you'll see more of him on the BBC. He's gone full Galloway.

2. Muslims

That anti-Muslim shit you post... stop it. It's ugly, it's wrong and it's stupid. Muslims vote too.

3. Hammers and Sickles

Contrary to what you've been told, the EU is not the EUSSR. Take that stupid picture off your Twitter profile. It makes you look like an idiot. Also any swastikas on a blue flag or any dumb shit like that - get rid of it. Avoid stupid internet memes. Some are funny, but most are hackneyed and make you look like a dickhead. You're already in Ukip, so you're on the back foot already.

4. Immigration

Open borders is going to be a facet of any Brexit settlement. Suck it up. Free movement of goods and services needs free movement of people. It's about the only good thing about the EU - and it's not even the EU, it's the EEA - that thing most of you have never heard of. We'll be keeping that for a long time to come. Pulling out of the EU just means we get a say on what benefits we can pay them and who in their families we allow in. Yes, that human rights bollocks. But if you make this referendum about immigration then it becomes a left vs right referendum, the anti-racist mob gear into action and we lose - for similar reasons Ukip fucked up the general election.

5. Deregulation

There will be no deregulation. If we want access to the EU market (and we do) we will have to comply with EU regulations. What you haven't been told is that EU regulations are mostly not made in the EU. They are international regulations - and global standards. Leaving the EU gives us a voice in how they are made, but there will be no bonfire of red tape. Sorry.

6. Babytalk

That "LibLabCon" nonsense and all the kipper grunting you can find listed under #SillyUkipPhrases - seriously, cut that shit out.

7. Business For Britain

Basically what kippers would call a "false flag" operation. Pretty much Tory stoogey "renegotiation" stuff. About as much use as a penis sharpener - and virtually indistinguishable from British Influence - the europhile lobby group. Don't retweet their stuff. Their facts are probably wrong.

8. Ukip

Your party has made enemies of just about everyone by calling them quislings, traitors and fifth columnists. Sure, over 3m people voted for you, but 87% of the electorate did not. You taint the Brexit cause by association - so if you must join in the campaign - leave that shit at home. More than that, your party proved in the general election it couldn't run a bath, let alone an effective referendum campaign.

9. Manners

Even if you disagree with someone, be polite and patient. Don't call them quislings, traitors and fifth columnists. They'll think you're a wanker. It makes it harder for the adults to campaign for Brexit. Learn the lessons from the IndyRef and how "cybernats" toxified the debate.

10. Conspiracies

No, the EU is not a Bilderberg plot, it wasn't modelled on the Third Reich, it's not a KGB attempt to collapse western democracy - and it does not owe its existence to the CIA. Even if any of these barnpot theories were true, you're advised not to blether on about them because you'll sound like a complete dildo. Leave the tinfoil hat at home. 

11. The Left wing

Not all lefties are europhiles. Be careful who you call "leftard". To win, we need left wing voters too.

12. Get your facts right

Breitbart is a sub-Daily Mail comic. It's a grubby little nest for kippers to stroke each others egos. It's the Farage cult HQ where pathological losers hang out. These are the clowns who would rather "go down with the captain" than actually win a referendum. Steer well clear. If you need EU information, come to www.eureferendum.com. Sure, we think kippers are contemptible mouth-breathers, but when it comes to hard facts we definitely don't screw around.

They deserve our contempt

The boss is not impressed. We have nothing but genuine contempt for the London politio crowd. Political campaigns are merely an adjunct to their insular social lives where they gather to congratulate themselves and cosy up for a nice little campaign sinecure where they afford themselves grandiose titles for effectively running a Twitter account and retweeting the Telegraph; the newspaper that did nothing but hyperventilate about the rise of Ukip for an entire year when us bloggers were saying it was bullshit back in March last year. 

I'm not surprised Crosby singles out Montgomerie and the Tory circle-jerk. These people are serious wankers - with a passive aggressive air of superiority where us plebs are supposed to be deferential to these bozos. Calling them out for being stupid and wrong is apparently bad manners and not the done thing. Well, next time I am in London, I will give them a new definition of bad manners. 

Looking at Twitter today, all the wankers running democratic reform groups in London seem to be only concerned with improving the illusion of democracy. Put Harrogate Agenda in front of them, giving real power to people to run their own affairs, and they shit a brick. We can't possibly have the plebs voting on things that affect them. These bozos would be out of work for starters.

They are described as the Westminster bubble elite. They are in Westminster, they do live in a bubble, but there is nothing elite about them.

The Guardian has sussed it. Farage has to go.

This in today's Guardian...

It seems Farage does well galvanising the convinced, but repels everyone else. This is what worries outers, especially those in the Conservative party. With David Cameron now lionised by his party as an election-winning hero, he probably won’t have to extract too much from EU negotiations to win support for an “in” vote from all but the most diehard Tory Eurosceptics. So long as Cameron can point to a couple of token victories over Brussels, the likes of Michael Gove and Philip Hammond – who once threatened to vote for out – are likely to campaign to stay in. That would leave a dearth of big beasts on the “out” side – with Farage as the most visible face. And that could sink the anti-EU cause.

That is why Farage must go. He is a disaster.

The London political crèche

Tim Bouverie (who he?) says "Senior UKIP figure tells me UKIP HQ is run by "Farage freak show...kids who think they are in the west wing" - which rings about right to me. The Farage lackeys are all young Londoner politico types on the make seeking out their next job in the Westminster bubble. They don't actually subscribe to what they fight for, nor do they even care, which is why they've been so permissive in letting the party make such a fucking pigs ear of it.

And this is pretty much in line with the infantilisation of the entire political system - run by children of all ages, many of them graduate to "think" tanks and editorial positions in the Telegraph, which accounts for why the Telegraph is just a Guido style gossip rag with a better CSS template. These same infants grow into posturing, ignorant "adults" who stop thinking after a given amount of time because they live in a self-congratulatory bubble, where we impolite plebs shall not intrude with our different and well researched opinions. They award themselves grandiose titles like "director of media and communications" because they run the Twitter account. 

This is why political commentary in mainstream media is so loathsome, crass, wrong and shallow. This is why I have zero time for the London crowd who actually entertain these bozos as being politically insightful. Worse still, MP's actually listen to these useless know-nothing arses. And then they tell me I'm so terribly rude for not "co-operating" and telling these jumped up pillocks that they speak mainly from their sweatiest hole.

Question Time: ducking the debate

Watching BBC Question Time, we get the distinct impression that Farage will help Ukip limp along until September while it gets its act together for some kind of leadership contest, in which Farage will probably let the other contenders make fools of themselves and resume his role, given that the gang of clowns he appointed to senior roles could not possibly replace him. That was always a possibility.

One thing we saw was Farage having a pretty easy ride of it. The thing is, Farage is now the useful idiot the establishment needs. He will make the worst possible case for Brexit, using decades old arguments, which are now beyond relevance, dragging immigration into the debate - which is what lost winnable seats for Ukip in the general election.

He trots out the same old baloney about a European army and and "taking back control of our borders", and it's precisely the sort of easy hit arguments the europhiles are prepared to face down, and Farage will walk right into it.

In many respects, the political establishment couldn't ask for a better opponent. He has been anointed by the BBC as the official spokesman for the Brexit campaign even though he has precisely no mandate to do that. For those eurosceptics like me who want this to be about bigger issues of governance, democracy, sovereignty and human rights reform, Farage is the very worst possible spokesman.

Never will you hear it said that free movement of people and trade is the benefit of the single market and the EEA, not the EU. Nobody will even make the distinction. Farage won't make this case because he's barely aware of the distinction even as an MEP. As it happens the majority of British MPs and MEP's don't know the difference.

This does raise the question of whether anyone in Ukip would be any better and the answer is categorically not (since they're all mouth-breathing losers), but in any case, the squabbling will continue for sometime within Ukip and that will sadly equate Brexit with Ukip - and will show just how much the campaign is in disarray. When the only other "assets" we have are the likes of Matthew Elliott, Dan Hannan, Bill Cash, John Redwood, Dominic Cummings and Business For Britain, the chances of winning look remote.

None of them will appreciate that the debate has been framed between the status quo and the narrow little Englander vision and they will only speak within those narrow parameters, with perhaps only Hannan preaching a more liberal view but in essence getting all the arguments wrong because he's a shallow individual and impenetrably thick.

One thing is clear, we are not going to get an honest debate about the EU, or even about what the EU is from either side, and ignorance will be considered a virtue. You might well ask why I'm even bothering. Given how bleak it looks today, I really don't know. I guess I'm just not one for going down without a fight, even if my allies are my enemies.

Just call me Mystic Pete

I was going to write an analysis on the Ukip civil war. But if you read this and this and this from this here blog you can see that the clues have been there all along.

Some hardened Ukipists expect a number of MPs in double digits, while those in the media are being more cautious by saying between five and seven. Meanwhile, I'm detecting higher frequency low outliers in the polls that suggest Ukip might be tanking. I will be hugely surprised if Reckless keeps his seat. The only way he will scrape it is to remain absolutely silent between now and the election. Carswell will keep his seat, Farage will fail to take a seat and it will only be by accident of numbers that Ukip sees a breakthrough anywhere else.

If Ukip is competent, which it isn't, it may manage to batter the door down in one of their strongholds as the Greens did with Brighton - and that will be hailed as the new dawn of Ukip, but it will fail to capitalise on that and learn from the success, as indeed the Greens never really learned the lesson from Brighton.

After which we will see inter-Ukip bickering, with competing egos pushing Farage out the door. It is at this point Carswell will make his pitch. Some of the more astute individuals in the media have noted Carswell has been somewhat mealy mouthed in his support for Ukip's health policy and is cagey in endorsing the whole body of Ukip as it stands. One imagines he loathes the Ukipist ilk almost as much as I do. Assuming he hasn't gone native he will be planning on a great purge of Farage's gophers and reigniting the libertarian flame within the party.

The problem with that is he won't be able to sack all of them. He will have to concede on certain core beliefs because to impose his ideas will lead to an exodus of what some are calling red-Ukip. And in the other corner he will face Lunchtime O'Flynn who also thinks he has a natural entitlement to the crown.

What we will probably see is a very public, very bloody spat, possibly resulting in a split, with a new red-Ukip and Nu-Ukip. One will wither on the vine, the other will limp along. The crown will go to the faction first in the office to nick the party database and its backups. It won't be pretty. And while Ukip is fixated entirely on itself the public and the media will lose interest. The media will get bored and move onto the next plaything and Ukip will join the BNP in electoral zombieland.

That is one possible scenario. The other scenario is they will hang onto Farage as a caretaker leader, while drawing down his involvement, while the charisma-free Carswell (or some other placeholder) will help the party limp along while it quietly dies.

In any case, Carswell looks like a bloody fool having bought the hype that Ukip was going anywhere. He mistook it for a real party with real potential rather than a demented and disorganised cult. He thought he would be able to bring some direction and professionalism to the party, blissfully unaware that better men than him have tried and failed. That's because Farage will actively resist it. As we have remarked on this blog, if you look at Ukip as though it were a political party, expecting it to do things that political parties do, you will misread its behaviour and leap to erroneous conclusions.

If on the other hand you view it as a playground gang, with Farage as lead bully, you will see that any attempt to build a team of professional, intelligent people pushing an intelligent agenda is not only a threat to Farage but also to the small army of drongos in all the top positions. It would take a great deal of skill and diplomacy to get rid of them and it won't happen quickly, and that's assuming you could now get good people who would touch Ukip with a bargepole after being so widely discredited.

As to who does actually win... who honestly cares? The party's over. They have wasted our time and squandered their chances.

Busy!

Above is the new look EU Referendum website. Tomorrow, I start work on the new Harrogate Agenda site. I will probably write a blog later this week on the emerging Ukip civil war. I don't really care who wins but the character of the individuals involved will be there for all to see, and all the things I have said about them will prove to be true. Since the only contenders for the leadership will be dismal, we can only hope the one the do elect will be the one who does the least damage to the prospect of winning an EU referendum. Whoever wins will be an idiot.

Time to get busy

You are going to have to get used to me being even more of a monomaniac now that the election is over. All I'm going to do is bang on about the EU. The forthcoming term will be dominated by this issue and those who know the least will speak the most. The media who confidently predicted a hung parliament and a Ukip surge will be the same media telling us what Brexit will entail. They will be wrong. That is the only consistent thing about our media.

The only people who will be more wrong about it is Ukip. I had hoped that a eurosceptic party would be a useful ally but all hopes of that have faded. It's a cretinous band of misanthropic know-nothings who are comfortable in their misery and ignorance. There is going to be no bonfire of regulation, we are not going to take back control of our borders, nor will there be any great savings - and I would go as far as saying the UK will scarcely notice the difference.

That does not mean we should not leave the EU. In reality the EU has already left us by charging headlong into currency union. That much is now irreversible and even if member states voted to leave, the EU would not permit it. It would symbolise the end of le grande project. Britain however, is not a Euro member, thus has no real influence over the biggest of all EU factors so the EU could afford to lose us and we can afford to lose it.

If we want access to the single market and keep our borders open, which we do, we will have to remain in the European Economic Area - which is not the same as the EU. That is the only way we can retain the things worth having without being erased as a nation state. There is never going to be a time when we don't have to comply with EU regulation if we want to export. Eurosceptics who say different are wrong. But Brexit will give us more of a voice in that EU regulations do not in fact originate from the EU. This is a point I will continue to hammer. Regulation is now global and the EU is just the middleman. EU federalists will speak of a seat at the top table. The EU is not that top table. I don't recall a time when it ever has been.

Presently the EU takes our seat at all the international top tables and negotiates on our behalf. In terms of forming regulation and influencing the outcomes, we have less influence than Norway. It must also be said that just because the EU has a parliament and election, it is not democratic. The collective vote of UK MEP's in the parliament and ministers at the Council of Europe can never command a majority thus we are incapable of defending any needs distinct to Britain.

Moreover, ironically, it is Ukip who have proven why the EU is a bad model of government. It has proportional representation, but because there is no pan-European demos, and no shared political culture, it becomes a talking shop of the continents malcontents, propelled into office on a wave of protest and cynicism. It means we will only ever have the likes of Nigel Farage and Janice Atkinson speaking for us in Europe. It's hardly surprising that the EU goes to such extended lengths to ensure the EU parliament has no real power. Giving these bozos any power at all would be a dangerous thing - and so for its own safety, it has to avoid democracy at all costs - and I don't really blame it. But that can never be a sufficient settlement when so many critical policy areas are decided for us.

In truth there is not going to be a golden age of sovereignty, deregulation and democracy, and leaving the EU is only a babystep. But it is the first and most necessary step to take if we want to take a more active role in shaping the world and making globalised markets work in our favour. We have to look out to the world and not just inwardly on a corner of Europe. Our voice is diminished as 1/28th of a voice in the EU and no entity that large can speak for all its peoples. Barely half of them I would imagine.

The size and the power of the European market dictates our international clout. The existence of a talking shop with a blue flag in Strasbourg is really neither here nor there. A non EU alliance between the EU, the UK and EFTA is much more powerful than just the EU. There is competition and strength in diversity and when the EU falters we can show the way. We can lead Europe from outside the EU.

Leaving the EU does not mean the end of free trade, nor does it mean the end of human rights and workers rights. As far as workers rights go, I can think of no influence that has done more harm to British workers than the EU in dictating how and when we can work. The thousands of dead migrants in the Mediterranean are a testament to the EU's model of human rights. As for keeping the peace, it is the existence of a common threat and our common defence in NATO that has kept the peace. France and Germany don't go to war over coal and steel because we import it. Moreover if we got serious about making good use of our own natural resources, we could be a global energy exporter, stripping the Russian bear of its power.

The truth is, the EU is yesterdays solution for yesterdays problems. It is no longer relevant to the modern world. If ever it was. The EU may well become that federal superstate, and I would happily engage with that nation, but the UK's destiny lies elsewhere. Those who would have us stay in the EU are the ones who underestimate the economic and cultural dominance of the UK and speak of the EU in purely economic terms, failing to understand what the EU is. But the UK is more than just a market. It's something tangible, distinct and potent - and it should not be abolished. The world would be diminished by its loss.

A good day for the good guys

Twitter is butthurt galore. Twas the voting system donchaknow? But really you have your answer. The voters looked at Miliband and said "it can't be that". For Labour to heal, they needed a leader as anodyne as possible after Blair and Brown. That was what Labour needed. But that was never going to win elections. Labour decided the moment they elected Ed Miliband that they were going to sit this term out as the opposition.

Even though Miliband looks like a badly stuffed donkey I do think he has a great deal of integrity and and self awareness. I may even have grown to like him, but not his ideas and his politics. The noble benevolence toward "the poor" is patronising, demeaning and harmful. It is a destroyer of ambition and initiative and it paints people as helpless victims rather than authors of their own destinies. Welfare infantilises people and degrades them to the status of serfs.

The Blair era was characterised by welfare dependency and a something for nothing culture. The "shameless" generation. We paid the poor to stay poor and paid for a vast army of professional nosey parkers to tend to them - public servants who would never vote for a government living within its means - unionised administrators who were stripping the cupboards bare, gold plating their entitlements and feathering their own nests. Labour's ideology created a welfare underclass and a parasitic middle class. The result being a nation stripped of its vitality and entrepreneurial instinct while the political class pointed the finger at the rich.

Labour did not cause the global banking crisis, but our local authorities were in no fit state to withstand cuts having overextended themselves and their remit into just about every aspect of public life - creating vast welfare empires which looked good on paper, but in reality did nothing to stop predatory child sexual exploitation and massive abuse - nor did it do anything for our hospitals which became bureaucratic engines of death.

The Labour message was that "the poor" would not survive if nudged out of their poverty and forced to take control over their lives. The old jealous mantras of conservatism serving the rich few at the expense of the many, punishing the poor for the mistakes of the rich is one of the oldest tricks in the book. The public know this is dishonest. The lie that we're headed to a new Victorian age of poverty and destitution does not manifest itself on the streets. Things are good and some would say never better.

The gulf between the picture the left painted and our everyday lives widened over the last five years. Confidence is returning in the labour market, the engines of wealth are creeping our of their hibernation and there's a new optimism in the air that the lost decade of stagnation is almost over. The voters were offered a real choice between the pessimism and the regressive state patronage of the left, and the optimism and energy of the right. They voted on instinct. Even the poorest of us don't want an easy life on someone else's dime, nor do they want to be written off as helpless and in need of their betters benevolence.

There is a new spirit of self-reliance, and self-knowledge. Many have been through hard times these last few years and surprised themselves with what they have accomplished. They would never have known what they were made off had we continued to subsidise poverty without calling the system to account. All the left could do was promote scare stories but eventually they jumped the shark. The masses aren't poor or helpless and don't wish to be styled as such. That is why they voted Conservative.

The Tory message throughout was one of optimism and confidence. Even Ukip's anger and negativity couldn't keep up with that. Things are good and it's going to get better for most. Everybody knows it - and that's why Ed Miliband is not Prime Minister today. The vote was an expression of the public mood. For sure, the Conservatives will do little to drive growth, but then governments don't do that. People do. The public will drive the growth if government will let them. One thing that won't drive growth is paying people to remain poor. We tried that, it didn't work and there can be no going back.

Peter Troy: A Very British Complete Bastard

Monday evening, week last, Peter Troy, campaigner and fellow bailiff baiter, suffered a massive heart attack and has been unconscious ever since. While he is currently in intensive care in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, Richard North was told this morning that he is not expected to recover.

This is extremely sad news. Troy is a Complete Bastard's complete bastard. A hard man to like, but a very useful and necessary man whose loyalty to our family and all our endeavours over the last twenty years is unsurpassed. His persistence and patience has been remarkable.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll make it but he will be a big loss to euroscepticism, and though he has not been involved in Ukip for a very long time, he was instrumental in making it what it was in the North East. He is well known to the Campaign for Independent Britain and all of the concentric eurosceptic groups.

He has been a great enabler and a man who has a talent for getting things done. For a man with such lamentable social skills he had an extraordinary way orchestrating events and has pulled off some minor miracles. Although we had heated arguments over the production quality of our two documentaries, they still stand as valuable contributions and I am quite sure the work he did was a major contribution to Flexcit - and that will be the bible as far as the referendum campaign goes. We owe him.

I am sad he didn't get to see today's events because I'm certain he would have been as delighted as I am, and he is one of the many who helped to bring forth the prospect of an EU referendum.

I'm quite certain he didn't have very much time for me, and I found him quite risible at times. No man but Peter Troy could think a Triumph TR7 was cool. Especially not the one he owned. But The Harrogate Agenda wouldn't have come off as well as it did without him. He was the one who brought the people to the events from inception, and some of our best friends and allies came to us through Peter. I'm sure he wouldn't miss me, but I will miss him, and his passing will be noticed.

This is not the news I wanted to end the day on. Otherwise it's been a great day. If you Google his name, you will see he has a long and distinguished career of complete bastardy and he really sets the example of how to be a complete bastard. A Very British Complete Bastard.

That'll do, pig

Well, the results are in. Britain has taken out the trash. It's a Tory majority. As far as the Ukip earthquake goes, not so much as a cup fell off the shelf. Reckless lost his seat, Aker didn't win Thurrock and Farage failed to get elected. As predicted.

I said all that would happen. I said it would turn into a two horse race and I said the Lib Dems would keep a handful of seats. I wasn't expecting them to get as hammered as they did, but who honestly gives a toss?

I did say that Ukip would poll less than ten per cent. I don't honestly know if they did or didn't, because again, who gives a toss? That Ukip earthquake didn't happen. Farage fucked it up from day one. It could be no other way. And so what if Ukip has increased it's polling? Look at what Ukip now is. A discredited party of people you wouldn't want to share a taxi with. Now lead by thick as pigshit Suzanne Evans, it won't take her very long to fuck it up even more.

The only win for Ukip, as predicted, was Dougie Crasswell with a substantially slashed majority, ending his political career the next time we have a general election. He's now out on his own, grinding his axe about his timid and failed ideas about MP recall. Pathetic. Ukip should be grateful that the slovenly little worm, Tim Aker, didn't win because THAT representing Ukip would be an even bigger embarrassment than Ukip already is.

Sadly, Ukip won't go quietly. They will continue to limp along as the new English National Party, soaking up the nations losers. Nobody will care what they say. They'll just keep blethering, making it harder for the adults to win an EU referendum - and they still won't bother to find out what they're talking about before they speak.

You may be surprised to learn that I very nearly voted for the local Ukip candidate because Ben Walker is a Royal Navy man who served on Type 42 destroyers, and he was of some use during my campaign against South Gloucestershire Council corruption. But it would have been a violation of my conscience to lend support to that nasty little cult lead by a liar, a snake and thief, so I reluctantly voted Tory - for a man I don't even like, who has never voted against the government. I didn't enjoy doing it but it came down to a question of getting that referendum.

Cameron is the same worm he's always been and he may yet renege on his election promise, as the kippers insist, but I'm ok with it either way. If Cameron wants to commit suicide then I'm as fine with that as having a referendum. Every Tory's life will be made hell. I will see to it.

As to the snivelling kippers who came to this blog to fling their tainted bile at me, including those who called themselves my friends, well, fuck you. You stupid bastards got exactly what you deserve. Don't darken my door again. All that remains is watching your torrent of pisspoor excuses from "media bias" to the first past the post system. You knew full well these were factors before you even started the campaign, so puhlease, quitchabitchin, losers.

In the final analysis, give or take, I called it right from the start. Ukip played to the script I set out in early 2014. The experts and pundits, particularly the cretinous Matthew Goodwin, got it completely wrong. The polls got it wrong, kippers got it wrong and so did most of my readers. They have proven themselves as irrelevant as Ukip.

But none of that matters. Today we have avoided a Labour government lead by a communist propped up by Scottish fascists, we'll probably have a referendum on the EU, and a lot of bad MPs are gone. There will be more cuts to welfare, there will be more council cuts (though not nearly enough) and the left are going to to hyperventilate about it for years. All in all I'd call that a very good day. Farage being outed as the scumbag loser he is, well that's just icing on the cake.

As to this blog, I'm going to have to professionalise on a new blog to win the complex arguments on the EU, so you'll be seeing a lot less of me on this blog, and I'll see you Ukip losers elsewhere. Please note that unless you came here to apologise for your conduct, don't bother to comment, I'll not read them - I'll just delete them. You knuckle-dragging losers have nothing worth hearing and never did. Meanwhile, I'm off to bed. The EU referendum campaign starts today... and I have work to do.

Nuff said

A further analysis follows. But for now, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

The real campaign for democracy starts now

It may be jumping the gun a little bit, but I expect by Friday we shall have a Tory government. I will be hugely surprised if that is not the case. That starts the clock on an EU referendum campaign.

The first thing to note in the referendum campaign is that just because Ukip are anti-EU does not mean they are allies. Kippers are bad, nasty, stupid people who belong to a bad, nasty, stupid party. With certain caveats, it's an English National Party, made up of roughly the same types of people as the BNP and a bunch of throwback ultra-libertarians with racist tendencies. Ukip may have been something different back in the day but no longer.

If the Brexit cause is hitched to that wagon it will lose and it will deserve to. If any kippers do want to join in on the campaign then they need to stow that Ukip bilge and bury it deep because any mention of it is not helpful. If you have run a blog and you have kipper readers, ban them, get rid of them and ignore them. They will stay in their mucky little nest over at Breitbart and it's better for everyone if they stay there. We don't need our own version of cybernats so we need to brand them and make it very clear that they don't speak for the majority of eurosceptics.

Kippers believe there will be control over borders and a bonfire of regulation following Brexit. This is a risible fantasy and it's totally childish. So too are their reasons for wanting to leave the EU. Euroscepticism but be seen to be modern and progressive. Playing to the Kipper narrative ensures only the votes of their ilk and their votes are in the bag anyway so why bother? it could well be that Ukip has one or two Gallowayesque loner MPs who will make a nuisance of themselves but it should be understood these people are not allies either. Their first term as Ukip MPs will be their last.

The eurosceptic campaign needs a fresh start with fresh ideas and a thorough understanding not only of why we must leave but also what comes next. That's what Fexcit is about. It is the only fully comprehensive Brexit plan and over the coming months, a new blog will break this document down into more digestible posts.

A post-Brexit Britain will still need to work with the EU, will still need to co-operate with it and more than ever we will have to focus on global poverty and international development because the global movements of people have ramifications for everybody. We need to stop the people smuggling  butmore than that we need to stop the causes of it. That's going to mean foreign aid, an independent foreing policy and a rethink on defence spending.

An independent Britain means we get a seat at all the top tables in regulations on banking right through to fishing and food. It means we have the freedom to develop our own energy policy free of meaningless vanity targets so we can have a clean, value for money, modern energy grid.

We must turn our backs on the paranoid luddism of the past and accept that there are some battles we cannot win. We must focus on the battles we can win and prioritise them. Hitching our wagon to lost causes is dead weight we don't need. Even if by some twist of fate Labour takes office on Friday, we should still be building a new vision fro Britain and accept that Ukip is a deadbeat party that cannot be salvaged. And let's face it, would we even want to? It's permanently associated with Farage's ugly mug and nobody likes a loser.

The Brexit campaign must be outward looking and forward thinking. These are not just empty expressions. They have meaning and we must give them meaning. It must be developed through policy ideas rooted in the idea of a globally active Britain, a newly confident, prosperous and democratic country looking to increase and proliferate wealth, not hoarding it from behind an iron curtain. More than anything the campaign needs friends and allies and we must get out there and persuade people rather than calling people traitors and quislings as the Kippers did. We have to learn from their failure.

Even if Labour forms the next government, at some point there will be a referendum and we will need to be ready for it. We have a lot of work to do to undo the damage Ukip did and detoxify the cause. Decent people must retake ownership of it. More than that we need to spell out an alternative. While I have been busy fighting the malign influence of Ukip these last few months I have also been testing the water with The Harrogate Agenda. In all the white noise I have struggled to make much of a breakthrough with it but a wide spectrum of people have now seen it and the response has been hugely positive. It's very essence is democracy and being that the case it is wholly incompatible with EU membership - but that is the carrot we must offer the voters. Simply leaving the EU is a negative premise - and that cannot win. Negativity and nihilism is the province of Ukip - a dismal, miserablist cul-de-sac. It's time to turn a new page and close the book on Ukip.