A Labour of love?

Were I was a Labourist I would be sitting back to take stock. The majority of working class people have voted to leave the EU. It would actually have been by a bigger majority had Vote Leave not been a bunch of zealots. Why they chased the xenophobia vote beats the hell out of me since they were always going to vote leave.

I would think on that. I would not be looking to subvert the referendum result. I would be looking to facilitate a pain free Brexit. And then I would look at the party leader; a man who, for the sake of a fragile unity, defied his own conscience to support the EU. His position demanded that of him. A man largely elected by the party membership - who also voted to leave.

So if I was a Labourist conniving to subvert the referendum I would be defying not only the substance of the leader but also the people I supposedly work for. And so it is not Corbyn who should step down and stay silent. It is those Blairites who connived to take us deeper into the EU without popular consent.

As it happens I could not be further from a Labourist and I do not appreciate Corbyn's politics. But I do believe that of all the leaders of the left there have been in my adult lifetime, he is one who best represents the ideas upon which the party is based in the tradition of the best social reformers the left have ever offered.

That said, I am not praising the man as I believe him to be a dinosaur bereft of ideas and still stuck in the 1980's. But that at least is grounded in some kind of philosophy unlike the mainstream Labour party who evidently stand for nothing except for their own tribal advancement. If I had to pick a side it would be Corbyn. And though he is an inept spokesman, he connects with at least some of the people unlike the rest of Labour who connect with no-one.

But in the end I believe the modern left will turn on Corbyn because those qualities I begrudgingly admire him for are what they detest the most. What they seek is control for the clan rather than the service of those they represent. They have their fixed ideas that we should be in the EU and will do anything to make sure it stays that way whether the people want it or not.

Exemplifying this is Hilary Benn, a man who salivated at the prospect of bombing Syria and staying in the EU - not out of any principle but out of a sad compulsion to define himself as different from his great father. I have never suffered from that affliction. Many people told me my father is a great man. They are right. Why would I not want to aspire to be the same, standing up for democracy and good governance, as indeed did Tony Benn? It's time to call Labour out for what they are. Politically and morally bankrupt.

Brexit racism?

As to the outbreak of post-referendum racism, I think it is to an extent overstated. Much of what we are told reaches us through Twitter which is hardly the most reliable source and people have been known to lie about such things, not least Stella Creasy.

But I don't doubt some of it is true. There are some rotten people with some rotten ideas about what Brexit entails. But then I think it is only to be expected. We are seeing the end of a political order where such thoughts have been suppressed rather than challenged.

Yesterday I took a rare day off to take time to smell the roses. It was a happy day. Just me, the car and and open road. I stopped in a village pub for a bite to eat and a pint only to be told I couldn't use my vape stick in the pub. But the landlady piped up "that won't last long now we're out the EU". I laughed in sceptical agreement.

And that to me really says something. It's the little micro-oppressions people associate the EU with. Along with that goes political correctness and those things you can think but not say. So I rather suspect folks rather felt the same way I did yesterday. That we are going to be free of this invisible pettifogging harassment.

So as I defiantly continued to suck on my vape stick I imagine there will be little acts of defiance happening all up and down the country. I don't see it lasting but it pleases me to think that we could become a more relaxed society less bound by the ever present threat of fines and forfeitures. And I can also see how that might mean more overt expressions of racism. But I'm ok with that too.

You see, we have never really overcome our fear of words as the Americans have. In the US it is commonplace for Americans to call eachother po-lock, spic, nigger or whatever. It is not said with racist intent and in some regards is viewed as a sign of friendship that one can venture such a taunt without offence being taken. It is a bond of trust. Britain was quite like that in the eighties. We didn't have these hang ups and nobody saw it as racist. Though we did call out genuine racism when we saw it and it was just as hated then.

The truth is we haven't become a more tolerant country. We have always been tolerant. But we have become intolerant of free expression. We did not tackle racism or racist ideas. We simply repressed them. And how could we tackle them if we couldn't even openly discuss it? We have drifted into a state where we cannot separate word from intent and word from deed.

And so if Brexit has lifted the lid on those micro-oppressions then we should consider that as an opportunity. Brexit has opened up a Pandora's box of questions that have yet to be resolved and this is one of them. The left wing approach was always to challenge the language and not the thought behind the language. Little wonder that people now feel enabled to act in defiance after two decades of conditioning. We can change that.

As I said earlier, now we have lanced the boil a lot of puss will seep out before we start to heal. Oh and one other thing. That little anecdote about the vape stick? That didn't happen. I just made it up to make a political point. A lot like those tweets claiming racist incidents.

Jo Cox is a reminder of why we must leave the EU

Although the source of these words is not one I would recommend, and the author one I have no time for, each and every word of this searing condemnation should be absorbed and heeded, and I make no apology for republishing them. Jo Cox was a symptom of a deep running cancer throughout the establishment and a good reason why our well intentioned foreign policy is as blood soaked and incompetent as it is.

"In the immediate aftermath of Jo Cox’s death politicians from all sides promised not to make the killing part of the referendum debate. And then proceeded to do just that. The killing got the full Charlie Hebdo treatment, with even the Prime Minister doing a passable imitation of a man beside himself with grief. Even Hilary Clinton, got into the act, and saw the opportunity to frame herself as a fighter against “extremism.”

The connection was immediately made to links to the right wing. The media in full-throated pursuit, were not going to let small details such as contempt of court rules or an ongoing investigation stop them.

Tribute after tribute bore witness to Jo Cox’s uniqueness. But in reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, women like Jo Cox are ten a penny across the West these days — bland, compliant functionaries who have been marinated in political correctness and are happy to regurgitate the platitudes and attitudes of their political masters. And are well-rewarded for doing so.

She was that toxic combination of self-righteousness and entitlement which believed itself possessed of a special moral insight into the moral shortcomings of their own people. Never slow to parade her compassion, she was also calculating enough to help more dubious causes, as when she lent her name to a government minister who was lobbying for Britain to begin bombing in Syria. Bombing and babies; it was all business for Jo Cox.

Hers was the typical smooth career path of the modern political cog. From her grammar school, where she was the Head Girl, she seamlessly moved onto an extended period at two universities before emerging as professional aid worker for Oxfam and Save the Children. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was another fashionable international development outfit in which she managed to wangle a position as “advisor.”

She certainly travelled extensively, but to what extent did she get her hands dirty? Rather than mopping sweat-covered brows, her role as a policy consultant seemed to revolve swanning around seminars, conferences and committee rooms in Brussels and London. Networking, rather than counselling, seems the main skill in this field.

The safe Labour seat seems to have been a reward for acting as a bag-carrier for prominent political wives such as that of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a former Labour leader and Euro aristocrat Neil Kinnock. Her constituency seat had been represented by local white men for decades so an all-female shortlist had to be imposed on the local party to ensure an acceptable candidate could be given this plum.

It was a gilded lifestyle with a houseboat on the Thames beside Tower Bridge at which she hosted networking events for important left-wing women. There was a second house in her constituency which was a venue for a huge Solstice party each year.

The role of international aid worker is highly valued among a section of shrewd university-educated females. It offers a particularly attractive combination of a good salary in an expanding sector, frequent foreign travel and high status among the do-gooding circles."

Ends.

This is the system-wide ambitious narcissism that infects every strata of UK governance. It is greedy, deeply corrupt, massively hypocritical, shallow, malign and lacking in any self-awareness. They are not good or decent people. They are climbers of an especially greasy pole where there is plenty money sloshing around for vanity projects with zero accountability or checks and balances. It is these people who exemplify everything that is wrong with the EU and why we need to leave it.

And if this pricks your sensibilities, if you feel outraged or shocked - do not chastise me. Examine the source of your outrage and shock. You have always thought such institutions and people to be wholesome and good because of their intentions. This tramples all over some careless assumptions you've been labouring under. And it's not me you're angry at. It's that this truth has rattled you.

And if it seems untimely or insensitive, forgive me, but at any time these words may seem shocking, perhaps even disrespectful, but if I say these things next week, next week is too late. This week is your chance to interrupt their grubby little circle-jerk.

These people are not kind and caring and they certainly don't care what you think just so long as you keep paying. They do not believe in free speech, they do not believe in democracy and they neither like nor trust you.

On Thursday you can send them a message. You can either take their power away or you can give them more. If your choice is the latter, don't forget that it's irreversible and you won't get another say. 

The Daily Telegraph deserves to fail

As much as the Telegraph is lying to its advertisers by faking sales figures of its hard copy, it is now lying to its online advertisers. The reason Telegraph articles are peppered with pointless and intrusive pictures and vids is to increase the visit duration because advertisers are now starting to ask more sophisticated questions about page hits.

What their digital strategists haven't clocked is that it's actually pissing a lot of readers off and making them less inclined to read anything. I don't know how they manage to be this incompetent.

Though it's easy to see why it is tanking from the journalism on offer. They have lawyers and sub editors interfering with submissions, cross linking to corporate approved sources only and imposing pointless word limits on people which prohibit the necessary level of detail that may retain readership.

The fact is, they have forgotten how to add value. They are followers, not leaders. They see bloggers as competition to be frozen out rather than part of an ecosystem to be nurtured as a talent pool. But who is going to give them the time of day when they pay £275k a year to Boris Johnson for his flatulence but only £50 to a blogger who does actually know their subject?

They have just sacked most of their best writers and instead rely on junior hacks without any depth or experience. The follow the media herd in reporting the dismal and shallow slanging matches from the bubble assuming that the public are more interested in that than being informed.

As it happens, you have to nurture interest in something so you need columnists who work as bloggers do, hunting in packs and developing a knowledge base. Instead they select from a narrow pool of interchangeable egos from the conservative circle jerk whose opinions I wouldn't give tuppence ha'penny for. Self-satisfied lazy people who have no inherent curiosity.

You're never going to get genuine journalistic enquiry with such a proscribed doctrinaire approach and certainly not without editorial independence. It naturally stifles good writing - not least asking people to write about things they know nothing about.

But since you can't retain a talent pool of expertise anymore because of financial constraints, you need to know where the expertise is in order to call upon it. That's where bloggers come in Bloggers tend to be monomaniacs and sponges for information. They know where all the facts and figures are. Moreover they are not entirely motivated by money. They are genuinely curious people who tend to thrive on hits and exposure. If you link out to them so they thrive then you build up a lot of good will and backlinking from them.

But the Telegraph does not link out to bloggers so it is not reciprocated. If it references bloggers at all it steals the work without attribution. Daniel Hannan and Alistair Heath do this. Let's call it what it is. Theft. And Telegraph policy is to link only to itself or sources the editors go to lunch with. If you're not in the club, you don't exist.

That is why journalism is withering on the vine and these rags are now treated with contempt by people who do actually know what's going on. The joke of it is, the model I propose would actually see writers paid properly, produce a better product and could be done cheaper.

As much as TLA bloggers are second to none on EU issues, there are specialists and contributors to global forums who could uncover an entire universe of interesting politics which gets no exposure at all. People like Justin Stares of Maritime Watch - a fascinating and vital field in its own right, and David Cenciotti of The Aviationist. Not to mention communications officers within the NGOcracy (Sandy Starr for instance) who tend to be expert in their field.

The fact is, if you are producing the goods that people can't get anywhere else and adding value, you will have a loyal and appreciative audience. Not so if all you're producing is exactly the same tat you can get anywhere. That is why the Telegraph is regarded as a joke and that is why it has to lie to advertisers. That is why it's a second rate clickbait rag dying on its arse getting by on (rapidly diminishing) brand prestige alone.

To some extent the Guardian has the right format with a slightly better attitude to the outside world, but their problem is that they think self-satisfied leftwing smugness qualifies as expertise. That cannot be corrected as it is endemic to the creed.

In a crowded market with all the rags chasing the same shrinking pond your strategy should be to nurture a new audience. You can do that by borrowing the readers of your contributors. But you only retain them if your purpose is to add value and increase understanding - and to acknowledge your critics rather than ignoring them.

For as long as our media remains a inbred, self-referential circle jerk, full of worn out preening egotists like Iain Martin, Dan Hodges and Con Coughlin it will continue to wither on the vine. But since it has such a lame attitude to the world of writing and a contempt for intellectual property I actually look forward to the day when the Daily Telegraph closes its doors for the last time. Journalism cannot thrive until these bed blockers are put out of their misery.

A slumbering dragon is still a dragon.

One political meme travelling around academia at the moment is that the vision of the EUs founding fathers has stalled and will never become a reality so it's ok to remain in the EU because there is a different destination of concentric circles bound under a loose alliance. It's actually a convincing argument when you look at the reality on the ground, but it's a piece of creative writing which ultimately ignores the nature of the beast.

The founding fathers were savvy in their design of le grande project. They always knew it could never be done all at once because the central vision would never secure a mandate. Integration by deception has always been the modus operandi. It salami slices powers little by little, so gradually that few ever notice. And you'd never see it unless you know what the game plan is. They were long term thinkers. They knew it would take a generation or so to advance their agenda and they had a roadmap to do it.

It has always used funding of local projects to manufacture consent. It's why you'll find EU logos emblazoned on any nature reserve or community hall or obscure museum out in the shires, to convince the plebs that their benevolent EU guardians cared more for them than the London government. It is why it funds universities too. Every strata of civil society has an injection of EU cash. Education, NGOs, you name it. And it works.

I recently debated Jay Risbridger at Bath Spa University when he made the assertion "our universities are completely dependent on EU funding". It's actually closer to 6% - and UK research wins the grant money because it is good - It is not good because it is funded by the EU. I stopped short of calling him a liar because you're not lying if you actually believe this tosh. This is why europhiles are useful idiots on any given subject.

Whenever you hear a europhile talking about the EU being responsible for our workers rights you are actually listening to a useful idiot. Not only is this notion demonstrably false (and the few tacked on extras are actually damaging to labour rights), you are listening to a messenger of the founding fathers of the EU - who, in their attempts to manufacture a common consent, set about abusing the institutions of civic society to implant a social narrative. What you are actually hearing is a pernicious historical revisionism. And if that smells like a form of creeping fascism to you, then give yourself a gold star and come sit at the front of the class.

The founding fathers always knew a day would come where the legitimacy of the EU would be questioned. And now you see how well their pernicious scheme worked, with the entirely of the civic establishment coming out in favour of remain. They have made idle supplicants of our institutions, robbing them of their vitality, curiosity and dynamism.

And those who speak up about this are often labelled cranks or conspiracy theorists. Except it is a conspiracy and one they published in full. They even founded an academic institution to promote it: "The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies is an inter-disciplinary research centre at the heart of the European University Institute". The hellmouth of europhile academics and functionaries.

The modus operandi is encoded into all of the treaties and articles of the EU. It is worked into the philosophy of the institutions and it is designed to resist any kind of reform - especially anything which may introduce democracy. There it lies, dormant in the system, but sufficiently restraining in order to prevent deviation from the path.

It may stall, it may go quiet, but the agenda is always there with the noose ever tightening - engineering for irreversibility. That is why the remains make such an issue of how we leave the EU. It was never meant to be easy. It was always a quicksand trap for democracies. The harder you pull away the more it sucks you in.

And so when we hear the ignorant prattle of cosseted and sinecured LSE academics telling us it's safe to stay because the dream is dead, they are speaking from a position of naivety and ignorance. The Ghost of Monnet lives on. The ghoulish servants of the ideal still roam the corridors of Brussels and an infest social media spreading their poison, sewing doubts and rewriting history.

And that's why the EU is not an alliance. It is a power cult. One which believes in the ideal that nations robbed of their resources and democracy lack the ability to go to war - and by this logic the absence of war de facto means peaceful coexistence. It's why they are the enemies of peace and consequently liberty. They are extremists zealots for home no lie is too big and any lie will do so long as you keep believing.

I am not a religious man at all but if I were I would hold the belief that the EU is the work of Satan. It is an evil empire built on a foundation of lies, sustained by ignorance and deception. And to quote that great revolutionary leader, Kyle Reece, "it can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with, It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever". Do not believe the deceivers. A slumbering dragon is still a dragon.

Let's be done with these awful people.

A few polls have put Leave in the lead. I am cautious. My view is to always fight like you're losing. What's interesting though is the reaction on the remain side. They see this as the great unwashed being taken in by the snake oil salesmen like Farage and Johnson - that we are under the hypnotic spell of the tabloid press, and that we have rejected the wisdom of the experts - that populism is on the rise.

This is how deeply they hold the average voter in contempt. It doesn't actually occur to them that we all find the lead leave campaign a total irrelevance and this is our chance to express many of our views on a subject which has largely been buried for decades. No, we're all just feeble-minded xenophobes incapable of independent thought!

And that is in part what I am voting against. A snobbish, aloof political elite who believe that they are the progressives and the enlightened, and guardians of a sacred wisdom which must never be challenged by something as tawdry as democracy.

But it's not just them. Plenty of ordinary people think the same way. Useful idiots who wish to be seen to be progressive and enlightened and that somehow the EU is the embodiment of those values - despite decades of evidence to the contrary.

It is a wholly shallow, narcissistic and lazy attitude, being taken in by an institution that uses all the vocabulary of progressivism but is in reality nothing approaching what it pretends to be.

And this is why this is as much a culture war as anything else. I don't know about you but I'm tired of identikit clean cut politicians sneering at us from upon high. Not least the likes of Emma Reynolds and Rachel Reeves who in truth know fuck all about nine tenths of anything.

They are vacuous, empty, shallow, profoundly ignorant people with neither curiosity or self-awareness. I am voting to leave because these people want to remain. I want to sabotage their political agenda and I want adults back on control. We cannot afford to be run by these people anymore.