tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13227837495351100522024-03-05T16:19:55.404+00:00Martin's ViewA blog mainly about politics, both domestic and international. For those who are seeking safe passage between the extremes.Martin Vearthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03836538893598716215noreply@blogger.comBlogger207125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1322783749535110052.post-7333556642363424182023-03-05T14:09:00.002+00:002023-03-05T17:10:49.937+00:00The Windsor Framework and Scottish Independence <p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Give credit where it is due - the deal that Rishi Sunak has agreed with the European Union is, on the face of it, a good one. It allows for most goods to pass from Great Britain to the North of Ireland through a green channel without regular checks, as long as said goods are to remain in NI. Goods that are destined for the Irish Republic and thus entering the EU Single Market have to be declared and go through the red channel, with checks at the port of departure. The exception to this process is agricultural livestock. Ireland in general has a history of been, er, versatile, when it comes to the movement and counting of livestock for the purposes of receiving subsidies, so one can understand why the same curtesies has not been extended to certain parts of the farming industry.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Windsor Framework has already received the support of most ardent Conservative Brexiters. The DUP has yet to declare but one is sure they have collectively put on their thinking caps (bowler hats) and are examining the text for excuses to say no. The fact that there has not been a rapid outcry is a good sign that raising valid objections will strain the finest minds that Ulster Unionism has to offer. <br />
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Rishi Sunak himself stated that Northern Ireland would have a great deal - access to the EU Single Market AND to the United Kingdom internal markets. Good for them - this was the same deal that the rest of us had before the iniquity of Brexit was inflicted upon us all - but it is even better for those of Irish descent whether still resident in NI or not. As it is widely known, those born on the island of Ireland (and their descends for two generations) have the option of taking an Irish passport. This means that individuals have the right to EU freedom of movement should they choose to exercise that option. Many have - including myself.<br />
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In other words, of all the words of cakeism made by Brexiters ahead of the 2016 poll, only the people of Northern Ireland can actually make good on the otherwise vapid promises. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Various members of the SNP have already been on their hind legs in Westminster asking why can’t Scotland have the Single Market too? Actually for once they are right - now there is absolutely no reason why Scotland cannot have such an option. There would not even been the necessity for green and red channels across the land border. Any goods moving between England and Scotland would simply be assumed to be for the UK market. The English ports would act as they do now. The only checks required would be those goods leaving Scottish ports. Goods originating in England and Wales would have to automatically go through the red channel. Goods originating in Scotland would go through the green channel. The only real challenge would be ensuring that the checks are enforced to a suitable standard to protect the EU Single Market from abuse. The other implication for Scottish goods is that they would have to conform to EU standards and regulations and, frankly, this is no bad thing. Like the North of Ireland, Scotland too can have the best of both words, as long as trade is concerned. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The UK framework in which this is delivered is a potentially interesting question. Liberal Democrats such as myself favour a federal system for the UK, with each nation setting their own internal mechanisms while having the advantages of remaining part of the Union of the United Kingdom. Now, my politics has never been about what is best for The Nation or The People, but really what delivers best outcomes for the majority of people and families within the UK. Barriers to trade and to freedom of movement tend to be against the interests of normal people. We are seeing this right now with empty supermarket shelves - this is affecting us all and the food price inflation is well beyond the stated current level of about ten percent. Thirty or forty percent inflation for food items is common, and is especially hitting the poorest in our communities the hardest. This situation cannot be allowed to stand.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is a lot of pressure on the outcome of the next general election. Labour is expected to win but are repeatedly pledging that there can be no return to the Single Market - exactly the mechanism that would alleviate the current food crisis. Rejoining the Single Market will not solve all the issues - there are global factors at play which all nations are subject to. Great Britain has all these challenges and the hobble of Brexit on top. Liberal Democrats should be calling out this situation and, in my own opinion, saying we were right about Brexit all along - because we are. Brexit continues to be a huge exercise in national self-harm. Labour continues to be vague and all the Conservatives can offer is harsher measures against the cold and bedraggled refugees who wash up on our shores in small boats<br />
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I should finish the blog with the paragraph above. Sadly the logic does not end there. Sunak’s Windsor Framework will work for Scotland. In doing so it potentially removes one of the biggest barriers to Scottish independence. One of the arguments against independence was the trade issues that would exist between the remainder of the UK (rUK) and Scotland. So what happens if Scotland were to go independent? That depends on the attitude of both the Westminster government and Brussels. While the Windsor Framework provides a model for rUK-Scottish trade, it may also be the case that either the EU or Westminster says that, since Scotland in no longer in the EU, Windsor can no longer apply. Windsor would provide a very attractive solution but is by no means certain. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When it comes to Freedom of Movement, that would be more complicated but, again, not impossible. Just as Irish businesses are free to hire people from the EU, and Irish citizens are free to take holidays and work in the the EU, Scotland could do the same. Workers would have no right to work in rUK. The seasonal worker issue would be solved for Scottish agriculture. In fact, the only folk who would be unhappy are the fishing fleets of the North East as Scottish waters would be reopened to foreign fleets. But then, how long is that particular tail going to be allowed to continue to wag the dog? At least the fishing industry will be allowed once again to land their catches in European ports and the inshore fleet could resume direct exports to the continent - albeit not via English ports. <br />
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I am sure that in the construction of the Windsor Framework, the focus was rightly on the island of Ireland, the preservation of peace and restoration of functioning democracy at Stormont. The unintended consequence might be to throw a lifeline to Scottish nationalism. Mind you, I have previously written how the Conservatives have used the threat of the SNP in keeping Labour down in England and therefore Westminster. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Overall though, Sunak’s Northern Ireland deal is a potential game changer for Scottish independence. Many issues still remain though. If Brexit is bad, the break between Scotland and England will be even more painful. But now it is more possible. Much depends on the attitude of Labour and how they address the challenges that face us all, presuming of course that they win the next general election. It is theirs to win but one is haunted by spectre of 1992. Nothing is ever certain. <br />
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Liberal Democrats, in my opinion, should be addressing the food and energy crises head on and the factors that are making them worse - with Brexit being a major one. After all, we have been right on many issues but chasing opinion polls and pandering to error have got us nowhere. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Time for the party to be confident, time to be brave. <i><br />
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To remind the reader, it is a story related by Jesus of a traveller who is robbed and beaten on the highway and left half-dead. Two of his own countrymen, one a priest, sees him but passes by on the other side of the road. It is a Samaritan, a person whose nationality would traditionally make him hostile to victim, who takes pity, attends to him, cleans his wounds, brings him to a place of safety and pays for his further treatment. <br />
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None of us would ignore an injured or sick work colleague if we came upon them but a lot of the bread and butter of health and safety work is drawing people’s attention to actions and conditions that are hazardous and will, eventually, cause injury or illness. In this matter, I believe that too many of us still act as the countrymen of the crime victim and pass on the other side. Especially the priest, who equates to a manager who is aware of an issue or bad practice and decides to look the other way. Part of our job, every one of us, is to address matters of safety as soon as we become aware of them and not to run the risk of our colleagues ending up like a beaten mess.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It strikes me also that there are applications as far as our health services are concerned. We rely upon the NHS to treat us, to heal our injuries once they occur. There is an excellent culture of health and safety within the health services and the sector is a leader within human factors. Unlike industrial health and safety, most of the huge amount of resources are spent in treatment and not in prevention. Surely if this was turned around, then fewer of us would be sick, lives would be lived more healthily and stress would be reduced upon both staff and resources. It would however mean that the government would have to be more prescriptive. Instead we find examples such as the watering down of the recent sugar tax and another one being the delay to improvements in housing build standards. In putting the lobbyists for the food and housing sectors before the public interest, government is guilty of walking by on the other side. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The most delicious parallel to the story of the Good Samaritan and the workplace, indeed also to government, is the person who asks Jesus “And who is my neighbour?” It was a lawyer. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The parable of the Good Samaritan, and indeed who is one’s neighbour, is a lesson that the current Home Secretary, barrister Sue Braverman, should take onboard. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The parable of the Good Samaritan is to be found in the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke, Chapter Ten. </span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Housing, whether a flat or house, lies at the root of poverty in the United Kingdom. The condition of one’s home, whether it suffers from damp, how much it cost to heat, whether it is big enough, all feed into a family’s level of health, both mental and physical. It is shocking that a young boy, Awaab Ishak, died this year of mould inhalation, despite his parents putting in multiple appeals for help from the responsible housing association. An extreme case but illustrates the point: a warm, well-insulated dry home supports good health and reduces pressure on local health services. The same is true on the other end of the age range: a well-designed home, with enough space to facilitate walking aids and a wheelchair, help the infirm and those of advanced old-age stay in their homes for longer. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Important too is the location of a home. The national census aids central government and local authorities allocate necessary services but it is a truism that we all need good local schools, access to health services, and reasonable transport routes for the majority of people who are not able to work from home. Required also is access to supermarkets. While there is often grumbling if a new supermarket goes up in a more affluent area, poorer estates and rural locations are often in desperate need of easy access to the cheaper food that comes with sophisticated supply chains. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A house is the most expensive purchase for the vast majority of people they will ever make. Whether one owns or rents, the monthly payments we make accounts for a larger part of one’s pay packet, and this is particularly true now interest rates are on the rise. The threat of losing one’s home is a constant pressure because it is easy to see what the outcome is when it goes wrong: people end up on the streets, or families are packed into single rooms of bed-and-breakfast by local authorities, sometimes for years. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So, my question is this. Since housing is so vital to the health, prosperity and prospects of literally all of us, why is the construction of new homes, and the management of rental accommodation, left largely to market forces? If you can afford it, fine, go out and buy a nice home for yourself. Most people can’t, not without taking on massive amounts of long term debt. That debt may not end with retirement. Either one’s home has to be sold in order to cover the cost of longterm care, or people take out a lifetime mortgage to cover the cost of no longer earning. Either way, it means that increasingly for the next generations, the cycle of struggle to keep a roof over one’s head starts again. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is clear that the major house building companies do not act with a view to long term social responsibility. They act to maximise their profits. Which is fine. However, it is a shame that successive governments continue to fail to act to address the injustices that market forces continue to create. It is perfectly feasible for government to all this, as occurred after the end of World War II. The current system that the UK has results in poor and expensive housing outcomes for the majority of people in the UK. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This cannot, should not, be allowed to continue. </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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This blog however is not intended to indulge in party politics. Sitting back and viewing the current field, I don’t think any of the UK’s political parties have covered themselves in glory recently. So, I am going to ask the big question: what should we be campaigning about? Both the global and UK contexts will be considered. <br />
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This was meant to be a single blog post but, having started, I realise that it is going to be part of a series. There is too many areas to cover. The aim though is to focus attention on the things that are the root issues. That is not to say that other things do not matter but in themselves are part of the bigger picture. For instance, when it comes to tackling poverty, education, healthcare, and housing are all part of the issue and solution. <br />
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All the challenges that we face are interdependent but let’s start though with the environment. Without a healthy environment, it will be difficult to sustain human life and civilisation. You may ask why I don't lead with the rise of CO2. It is vital to reduce and reverse CO2 output but again, there is no simple solutions. Each section of these blogs will have this global problem interwoven with the issues being addressed. </span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This year has seen the birth of the eighth billion person to be alive on this planet. As many has pointed out and for a long time, the human population of the planet continues to grow. The driving force for this is not increasing birth rates but the elderly lasting longer. None of this is controversial, go and look it up. So if we are as a global society are to preserve the health of the planet, and ultimately our societies and ourselves, biodiversity has to be cherished and the trend in species extinction to be reversed. While there is understandably a lot of focus on the melting ice sheets and warming of the Arctic and Antarctic, the causes are to be found elsewhere. </span></p>
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<li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">We must conserve the world’s forests. The major woodlands of the boreal and tropics are both major carbon syncs and the focus of biodiversity on the continents. They continue to be cut down globally. This must stop. In the British Isles, we have over the centuries all but destroyed our natural woodlands, resulting in some of the poorest biodiversity in Europe. There is talk of re-wilding projects and these should go ahead, at all scales. Whether it is the use of micro forests in urban parklands or the replanting of upland woods, long scalped by sheep grazing and grouse moors, these are necessary to returning these islands to environmental health. </span></li></ol>
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<li style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Perhaps even more importantly, the global oceans are in deep trouble. Seventy percent of the world’s surface is covered by water and the oceans average a depth of five kilometres. As such, it is a far more important carbon sync than any forest on land, but still is less well understood. Of the global fisheries that have been studied, six percent are under-fished, sixty percent are fished to the maximum limits of sustainability, and the remaining thirty four percent are over-fished. There are studies suggesting that bottom fishing is disturbing carbon sedimentation, releasing CO2 back into the environment. What is worse, few seem to be asking the question how much fossil fuel is the global fishing fleet burning while fishing? For us in the UK, the relatively shallow waters of the North Sea and adjacent Atlantic are an important nursery for many species.</span></li>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Both woodland and oceans are important carbon syncs and centres of biodiversity. With the UK being an island nation it is vital that we play a major part in regional conservation. Ironically enough, this means further restricting industrial fishing in the surrounding seas. Of the seventy six marine protected areas designated by the UK government, only four of them are currently protected from bottom trawling and dredging. Therefore it can be concluded that the other seventy two marine protected areas are in name only. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I use the term ironic because the fishing industry was used as a political touchstone to justify Brexit. Sorry about this folks but Brexit probably means, along with restricting our ability to export UK seafood, that the necessary expansion of marine reserves will, in the short term at least, mean even more restrictions on the fishing industry than currently exist. The resetting of our fisheries will ultimately mean more healthy and sustainable fisheries in the longer term and a healthier planet. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p>
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After the vote to leave but before we actually did in 2020, the British public were promised many things. That we would be free of regulation from Brussels and ‘unelected bureaucrats’; a free nation negotiating exciting and buccaneering trade deals across the globe. Now, let’s take that all at face value. Could this government have predicted Covid19? Well, they were not the only government that missed the warning signs, so let’s be generous and say that a lot of countries were caught with their collective pants down. This blog post will not go further: it is not an attempt to critique the government’s performance on Covid.<br />
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Less forgivable is the current energy crisis. This government has been in power since 2010. Up to 2015, The Conservative / Lib Dem Coalition mainly continued the previous Labour administration policy of encouraging renewable energy development, while mainly relying upon gas-fired power stations to deliver the majority of supply and nuclear power to deliver baseline electricity. While inadequate in many ways, at least there was a continued shift away from fossil fuels. Come the summer of 2015, after the Liberal Democrats were roundly punished by the British public, the Conservatives under Cameron got rid of the ‘green crap’. Support for small and medium scale renewable development was severely curtailed. The emphasis is, to this day, on only promoting large-scale renewable energy, deliverable only by corporations. While there still has been progress, it has been mainly in the area of offshore wind, with some solar. With the continued decline of North Sea oil and gas, any other shortfall is now made up by building electrical interconnectors to neighbouring nations and importing the deficit. In short, Britain is now more firmly plugged into the European energy grid than ever before, and with proportionally the highest level of fossil fuel imports since the 1970s. From 2004, the UK became a net importer of energy and as of 2018, 90% of UK imports has been in the form of oil and gas. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Where does this all relate to Brexit? Basically, for if there was for any chance of a positive outcome for Brexit, it would rely upon only the UK changing and the rest of the world basically staying the same. So while in terms of a global pandemic, it might be acceptable to give the Brexiters a pass, the same cannot be said of the current energy crisis. Why? Because there are always energy crises: OPEC in the 1970s, Iran and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War, the first Gulf War, Gulf War II, and now Ukraine. Energy crises are unpredictable in timing but like buses, they turn up in the end. In not addressing the issue seriously, in a fundamental sense the negligence of this Conservative government has put the national energy supply at risk and has sentenced us all to the massive price rises that we see today. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0919FLyqs5p3-aSOOm6DK-Xc1QBIQhWzB3ht-uMUgcNmUPJnaqjDTR3748rgfmEgL36Wu9_Zn5xjmE0tZ0Xp4VWiKG1xLkgr8RxmRSP2L4zF_Muhx1LJA3_H8S5PskOwBA7ybw2fL03y2yTG8CwxaWbtI37UvSgOrvgiUVJLEFywStWanGmuBv4y84g/s1230/Screenshot%202022-06-18%20at%2021.23.27.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="1230" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0919FLyqs5p3-aSOOm6DK-Xc1QBIQhWzB3ht-uMUgcNmUPJnaqjDTR3748rgfmEgL36Wu9_Zn5xjmE0tZ0Xp4VWiKG1xLkgr8RxmRSP2L4zF_Muhx1LJA3_H8S5PskOwBA7ybw2fL03y2yTG8CwxaWbtI37UvSgOrvgiUVJLEFywStWanGmuBv4y84g/w547-h364/Screenshot%202022-06-18%20at%2021.23.27.png" width="547" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I could end this post right here but that is not what I set out to write. There is another perspective and this is the one which I have proposed since the start: that Brexit is designed to take Britain, us, to our knees. In previous blogs I have described Brexit as a coup, and there is nothing that has happened since that has persuaded me otherwise. The Ukraine crisis is being used by Johnson as a human shield in his very public support for the Zelenskyy regime, and the struggle against the Russian invasion and Putin’s naked aggression. Human rights are being crushed by the Police Bill which basically sets out to outlaw protest, and the assault of refugees by calling them illegals. Universal human rights are just that: universal. To take away human rights of some is an assault upon all. Hence the proposal for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR is a declaration of war by the government against every citizen. Just look at what Gove is proposing with the UK version of GDPR. By allowing the concept of vexatious challenges, and thus allowing corporations to charge individuals each time a person upholds their current rights, privacy basically will become the preserve of the rich. So we come to the point of Brexit: freedom. Freedom for corporations and the extremely rich, not for the masses. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">What do the massively rich want to do with this freedom? This is the nub of the question. The current setup certainly does not inhibit anyone in terms of enjoying luxury. What do they want? <br />
</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I was watching an old movie from the early Nineties the other week, The Silence of the Lambs. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; text-indent: -40px;"><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Hannibal Lecter:</span></b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; text-indent: -40px;"><span style="text-shadow: rgba(254, 254, 254, 0.004) 0px 1px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b>First principles, Clarice: simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius, "Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature?" What does he do, this man you seek?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; text-indent: -40px;"><span style="text-shadow: rgba(254, 254, 254, 0.004) 0px 1px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Clarice Starling:</b><br />
He kills women.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; text-indent: -40px;"><span style="text-shadow: rgba(254, 254, 254, 0.004) 0px 1px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Hannibal Lecter:</b><br />
No, that is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does, what needs does he serve by killing?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; text-indent: -40px;"><span style="text-shadow: rgba(254, 254, 254, 0.004) 0px 1px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Clarice Starling:</b><br />
Anger, social acceptance, and, uh, sexual frustration.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; text-indent: -40px;"><span style="text-shadow: rgba(254, 254, 254, 0.004) 0px 1px 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Hannibal Lecter:</b><br />
No, he covets. That's his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet?</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It is the same with the very rich and those who want to be. They covet. And as a society we have allowed this, one of the seven deadly sins, to become a virtue. What is more, the EU put limitations on corporate covetousness. It is true, these limits are not very strict but they exist and to organisations and people that are consumed by covetousness, that is intolerable, or, as former Conservative minister (now Lord) Eric Pickles described it, communism. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">We have so idolised the sin of covetousness that as a nation there are many that are willing to support the destruction of human rights and our standards of living in the hope of benefiting from the current chaos and destruction, and to see destroyed those that stand against this grand project. <br />
</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">In Western mythology, there is a creature that embodies covetousness. They destroy in order to acquire what they desire and once wealth is gained, they do not tolerate challenges to their power and they certainly do not share. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The United Kingdom is rapidly becoming the abode of dragons. </span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">While it was nasty losing my job in 2014, I wasn’t unduly worried. Sure enough, I had a new job within seven weeks. It was a wrench but I could do it. The three-four months of office based work was tough on me, so it was a complete joy to return offshore, even if it was for Christmas 2014. I really enjoyed the change from rigs to seismic vessels, even if the working conditions on a ship were not as good as I previously enjoyed. It didn’t matter: I was back. <br />
<br />
Not for long though. There was a global industry downturn in 2015. I knew when the redundancy notice was announced, that it would be bad. The day my immediate boss was called into the director’s office I was watching. When her head turned suddenly and looked at me, I knew that it was over. I entered a state of shock and then denial. Hope made the next seven weeks some of the worst of my life up to that date. <br />
<br />
What I had failed to understand then, and that it has taken many years of unlearning to see, is that business and careers are ultimately about relationships. As a seismic engineer, few people actually understood what I did. All I had to do was rock up and do it. Not so as a seismic planner. Yes I can explain complicated ideas and tasks in very simple ways, making it easy to understand. Yes, I am a good person. But I was never really great in cultivating relationships. I honestly thought that being good at the job was enough. I am sure many of you are laughing at such naivety. When I lost my job as a seismic planner, I knew I lost my career. I knew it would be bad. Job hunting in my sphere of expertise revealed three vacancies: globally. I knew the gig was up. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is amazing how many people approach you when one is unemployed. I can now see why those in retirement complain of being really busy. In addition to Air-BnB (which didn't prevent me from sinking but did buy me more time) I did a ton of work for people and various organisations, none of which paid a dime. I also took an M.Sc in Energy with Heriot Watt University, which I enjoyed greatly. I did this in the hope that I would be able to secure a career in the renewable energy sector, making that transition that so many talk about. I failed. What I did not realise at the time was, at least in terms of employment, how small the renewable sector is compared to oil and gas industry. Between 2015 and 2017, 200,000 oil-related jobs were lost in the UK. In 2017 I had an interview with a wind farm operator, the fifth largest company in the UK. They controlled thirty four UK wind farms and were purchasing more in Spain. How many people did this company employ? At that time, 42. Forty two, but there were looking to increase their team to sixty by 2019. I recently check up on they and they now employ about eighty. <br />
Beware of politicians who speak of green jobs. The jobs do exist: just nowhere near in the numbers claimed. <br />
I was not the only one in such a position though. I learned this year that a colleague in a similar line of work, also made redundant in the great downturn, also went back to university. He obtained an MSc in Oilfield Decommissioning. Despite this undoubted logic of the move, he too failed to find work in the sector and is now retraining again, this time to be a teacher.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It wasn’t all doom and gloom however. While I am still on my journey of work, I am only in employment now because several of those threads which I possess have come together in a new weave. Several of these related to the unpaid work I did while seeking a new direction. Standing as a political candidate cultivated both my public speaking and leadership abilities. One of the insights I did gain as a candidate debating in public is that even if the audience is unsympathetic to one’s party, most would hate to see you fail on the evening. They want speakers to do well, they want to be both informed and entertained. It is really positive to know that even hostile audiences are, on a certain level, on your side. Having a Masters degree does elevate one into a new range of career options. My work with potential IT startups, while actually costing me money, has ultimately resulted in paid work. It even led me to my choice of dissertation: the challenges of setting up sustainable data centres in tropical climates (it’s a heat thing). </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What are the lessons that can be drawn from my experience? Here are a few suggestions:</p>
<ul>
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Don’t take your current career for granted. If you are getting tired of it, address the issues. See what you can do proactively either to move it forward or change it, before change is forced upon you. </li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Do consider extra training or qualifications but do your research first. Make sure there will be a market for your new skills. </li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Do be open to new opportunities, whether paid or not. Don’t however let yourself to be exploited. It is a fine line to walk. </li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Do be resilient and don’t ever give up. Receiving a stream of refusals is disheartening. If this keeps happening though, change something. I had to invest £120 for a professional CV rewrite. It worked.</li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Do put yourself outside your existing comfort zones. Don’t be afraid when trying something new. People are often nicer and more supportive than you think.</li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Don’t be afraid to fail. Even if you try something and it doesn't work out, it still could be a stepping stone to the opportunity that is right for you. </li>
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>Do remember that professional relationships are important.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Most of all, remember this: there is no such thing as staying still. One is either moving forward or moving back. If you think you are still, you are moving backwards. Make the effort to always move forward.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br />
That is all very well but the thing that caught my attention this week is Michael Gove’s declaration that <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57764147" target="_blank">the Conservatives will do away with EVEL</a> - English Votes for English Laws. EVEL was seen as a solution to the famous West Lothian Question - why should a Scottish MP from, say, West Lothian, be able to pass a vote on something that did not affect his / her constituents? The question became even more keen since the reformation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. <br />
It is therefore strange to me that Michael Gove should be moving to reinstate the voting rights of Scottish MPs over English matters. True, it can be argued that EVEL was a bit rubbish to begin with. Previously the Conservatives were quite happy to rule as a minority government with the support of the DUP, which rather sinks the entire concept. But, with Douglas Ross now astride both parliaments, there is more to the situation than double-bubble paydays. <br />
<br />
Even <a href="https://martinveart.blogspot.com/2010/03/return-of-tartan-tories-why-vote-for.html" target="_blank">back in 2010</a>, I noted that the Conservatives were already pretty relaxed in the face of the rise of the SNP. Events seem to have proved the case. While the SNP is still the government in Holyrood (since 2007 an even longer run that the current Conservative government), the Conservatives have replaced Labour as the main opposition party in Holyrood. The SNP have been wielded as an effective meat-shield in the destruction of Labour, both here in Scotland and across Britain. Remember the SNP promise to “supercharge Labour” in 2015? This was effectively used to damage Labour in that election with Conservative cries of “The Scots are coming!” It was almost like 1745 all over again. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Like 1745, only one battle has to be won to enable final victory. In 1746 this was Culloden, where the Duke of Cumberland felled the flower of Scotland’s clansmen on Drumossie Moor. For the SNP, the hope has to be a single victory in a second independence referendum. If the next referendum also fails, then another and another will be fought, until just one win gains Scotland’s political independence. Unless that is there is no way to call for that referendum, no body capable to rival the democratic authority of Westminster. <br />
<br />
Labour is one the ropes and it will take a lot to get them into shape ahead of the next election. I am not saying they cannot win, but it will take the Conservatives to lose as heavily as the effort it will take Labour to win. On Newnight last night (14th of July 2021), former MP Anna Soubry was right to call the current Conservative Party the new Brexit Party. In order to keep the political Right of UK politics together, the Conservatives effectively engineered a reverse takeover by the Brexiteers. The Conservative Government is, in reality, a Brexit Party government trading under the old brand name. <br />
<br />
So there we have it. As the SNP was used by the Conservatives to destroy Labour, the next phase of the operation is to destroy the Scottish Parliament, reducing the SNP to a regional party of North Britain and without any democratic means to call for a referendum.<br />
<br />
Now I have no love for the SNP or for the Conservatives. I am rather fond of democracy however and despite the rise of nationalism, regional and local government is a good thing. Devolution will be ended and night will fall. I cannot help but see this in the context of Brexit and the ongoing destruction of British democracy at the hands of the Far Right.<br />
<br />
So we return to Douglas Ross MP, MSP. It is of importance to the plan that the leader of the Scottish Conservatives is in Westminster and backs the destruction of devolution. It avoids any nasty splits. Lucky Doug.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Below is a copy of my reply to their questions and concerns. </span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Sophie, Dylan, Eva, Taylor, Polly, Caleb, Alexa and all of the class of P4.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Thank you very much for your letters and for telling me of your worries for the environment and the future of the planet. I am typing my reply because my handwriting is not as neat as yours!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">May your teacher, Mrs Currie-Smith, forgive me for the long reply. I feel I am able to do so because I have some things to say. Like I hope many of you will be able to, I was lucky enough to go to university. For me, it was not once but twice. The first time I studied geology, that is the history of the Earth. The second time I studied energy, that is how we use energy to power our lights, homes and phones, and the problems that come if we continue to use the wrong kind of fuels. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You may have heard the term “fossil fuels”? I’ll try to keep this short but it is important to know why burning them as we do today is a bad thing for us and for the animals and plants we share our planet with. So I will tell you, briefly, where fossil fuels come from. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Many hundreds of millions of years ago, there was no life on land. There was life in the sea but on land, there was nothing but deserts. Plants started to colonise the land, spreading out from rivers. Plants use sunlight as an energy source to grow and elements from the ground and air for material. As plants evolved, over millions of years, trees formed vast forests which grew over the land. They took the carbon they needed to form their wood from the air and the hydrogen they need for food from water. When these forests died, their remains were buried and, again over millions of years, the dead wood formed vast coal beds. This is important to remember.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Other plants stayed in the oceans. Many millions of years after the coal beds formed, there were so many tiny plants in the oceans (this was during the time of the dinosaurs) that, when they died they sank to the bottom of the seas. Usually when this happens the plants are eaten but there were special occasions when they were buried instead. So much material that was buried that oil and later, gas, started to form in the rocks from their remains. Like coal, they are made from carbon and hydrogen and there are huge amounts of them. Together coal, oil and gas are known as fossil fuels. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">A lot lot later. Tens of millions of years later, people came along. Our ancestors. For thousands of years we have grown crops using just sunlight and water. Power for our tools came from ourselves, animals like oxen and horses, the wind and water for grinding our wheat and for sailing our ships. About 300 years or so ago, we discovered that coal could be burnt to boil water, and the steam used to give greater power to our machines. Our ancestors first used these as pumps to keep mines clear of water, power looms to make cloth and then turned the pumps into steam trains to move goods and people across land, and later steam ships to carry cargo from continent to continent. Later still, we used oil to power our cars, trains, ships, airplanes and tractors, and gas to heat our homes and schools. Coal, oil and gas are still used to generate electricity. We were able to grow more crops, develop more chemicals and medicines, and so, during the 20th Century, the century I was born, there grew to be so many more people than there was previously on Earth. When I was born, there was about three and a half billion people alive. Now, in 2021, there are nearly eight billion people alive! Each one of us, you and me included, need to be fed, kept warm (or cool) and to have a decent life. We need fuel to do this. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Here’s the problem. Currently we still rely upon fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas, to power our machines. To give it a percentage, 80% of the energy we use for our electricity, heating, cars, ships and airplanes comes from these fossil fuels. As we burn these fuels, the hydrogen and carbon that was locked up in the Earth for tens and hundreds of millions of years is being released back into the atmosphere. The hydrogen is not a problem: the combines with oxygen to form water. Oxygen combines with carbon too, forming carbon dioxide (known as CO2). When this happens in large amounts, there is a problem because CO2 helps locks the heat of the sun into the Earth’s atmosphere. And we are doing this over a very short amount of time: a couple of hundred years. Compare that with the millions of years it took all that carbon to be locked up into the ground! Over the past couple of hundred years, we have released thousands of billions of tons of CO2 back into the air. So much so, that the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere has not been so high since long before people first evolved on Earth. The rate of change has been very short: a couple of hundreds of years. Animals have not had a chance to evolve quickly enough over such a short period of time. The additional heat, trapped by the CO2 blanket, is warming the planet and is the reason the ice caps at the poles are melting. This is the reason why animals like polar bears are having problems. Taylor, you mention the that it is the Sun that causes the ice caps to melt and the fires to burn. We cannot do anything about the Sun but what we can do it control the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The extra heat trapped by the CO2 does not just sit and mind its own business. Heat is a form of energy. That energy is used in some places to form strong storms and floods. In other places, droughts occur, causing forests to burn more quickly and over greater areas than before. You mentioned the fires in your letters Dylan. There have always been droughts, storms and forest fires but seldom have there been so many happening time and time again. This is all part of climate change, caused by people like us, over the past few hundred years. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Sophie, you asked what will happen when all the ice caps will melt? It will be a big problem if this happens. Many cities will have to be abandoned and more people will have to find new places to live. We have to do what we can to keep the rise in global temperatures down and preserve the ice caps. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">As you ask Polly, what can we do about it? As I said, we are still burning too many fossil fuels and allowing too much CO2 into the atmosphere. If we suddenly stopped though, a lot of people would have a hard time and even die! Homes could not be heated or cooled, which means that in hot summers or cold winters, people would suffer from either heat or cold stress in their own homes. More people would starve because we use fossil fuels on our farms while growing food. I do not mean to scare you but that is the truth. Like you Alexa, I want a good future! It is facts like this why politics and who is elected to be politicians is important. We have to make the choices for the way forward. The choice cannot be between animals and people, the environment or our homes. All are important but the way forward is not easy. In order to achieve the good future that you ask for Eva, politicians have to listen to scientists. This is where we can get objective information from. It is important for you and me to be informed as to what the facts are. Unfortunately a lot of people do not listen to facts, preferring to hold their own opinions. Many people chose to believe only those facts that back the ideas and opinions they already hold. A very big example of this is the current president of Brazil, who is ignoring the science and encouraging big landowners to continue cutting down the rain forests of the Amazon. The world has to tell President Bolsonaro that he is wrong and that the rain forests of Brazil need to be saved.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Another part of the answer to the problem is for us to need less energy. We all need to insulate our homes against the cold in Scotland so we need less fuel to heat them. We also need to get away from releasing carbon when we produce our energy. Solar panels and wind turbines are some of the ways to do this but they take up a lot of land (or sea). Plus we need to store the energy produced. That is a whole load of other technology but here is a hint - batteries are not the best way to store large amounts of energy. Politicians can help to bring all these things about.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The oil and gas industries want to find ways of separating the carbon from the hydrogen before we burn it. The hydrogen would be burnt and the carbon pumped back into the ground. If they succeed, this would get us through your lifetimes but would not be an answer for your grandchildren. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You mention cars Caleb. It is true that we all need to use them less often and that their fuels need to change. I admit I love driving but whenever it is practical, I take the bus and leave the car at home. Cycling is also very good for us but we need better cycle lanes. In this we are still very far behind our neighbours in Sweden, The Netherlands and Germany.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">These things are all complicated. I would advise you to be careful of any politician who claims to have easy and quick answers. In truth, not many people, including politicians, understand all the problems involved and how to solve them. That is why we have to work together and be guided by science and the facts. It is up to politicians like me to decide what can be done, what must be done and how fast it is possible to do it. In a democracy like ours, politicians cannot give orders. We have instead to pass laws that can make the system work how we all need it to be.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">What can you do at your age? My best advice to you is to give space to the small things near to you. Polar bears and penguins are important but far away. Look after the nature that is close to your homes and gardens. Plants and insects are important. Give homes to bugs like slaters, insects like bees and plant native species if you have gardens. If you don’t (and even if you do) have a garden, ask to join in local conservation groups and get to know and help your local environment and wildlife. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Why is this important? Polar bears don’t eat ice. They are what biologists call apex predators. They need seals, who in turn need fish and squid and, in turn need smaller fish and crustaceans (like shrimp) who ultimately need plants. So the key is to look after the small stuff like plants and bugs and the environment in which they can be happy. If there is enough of them, they will feed larger animals and ultimately big animals like polar bears. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I am sure you have many questions. I am sorry I am not there to answer them. Perhaps one day I can visit your class and answer your questions in person. For the moment though, that is not possible. I am also sorry my letter to you is so long. It is a problem that really interests me. I wish to have the opportunity to deliver answers directly to you, the people of Motherwell and Wishaw and to our country. Maybe one day I will be in the position to help people and the environment better than I am now but for now that is up to your parents and how they vote. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I am proud to be a Liberal Democrat because although we have policies designed to address all the challenges I have told you about, the party does not say to me “You have to think this way and say these things.” Being a liberal means thinking for yourself. I have benefited from wonderful teachers who have helped me to do so. I am old: 55 this year. The last time I sat an exam was only three years ago so, whatever we do, we can choose never to stop learning. Make the best of your time at school. If you need help, ask for it. For those you who do well, everyone can celebrate in your success. If your classmate isn’t doing so good, ask them how you can help. Look after and be kind to each other. If you look after each other, then there is a good chance that your generation will go on to look after the planet too.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">If you have any more questions, please give them to Mrs Currie-Smith to pass on to me. I cannot promise to get back to you ahead of the election date but I will try my best. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Kindest regards and best wishes,</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The little bit of bright news that the party is still pro-EU is set against the big fat raincloud of the future as outlined by the current Conservative government. Unfortunately, what I have previously predicted is proving to be correct. Since the UK has left the European Courts of Justice*, the government is bringing about legislation that basically gives free range to police to ban any form of protest on the grounds of it being “deeply annoying”. Both Steve Bray (he of the top hat and megaphone outside Westminster fame) and Greta Thunberg (who on Twitter has since adopted the label "Deeply Annoying") would have certainly attracted the maximum fine of £2500 (or a year in prison) for solo protesting under the proposed law. Steve would have had an additional £5000 fine for directing a megaphone at parliament. Larger demonstrations, such as the one I witnessed in Aberdeen in January 2020 by Extinction Rebellion, are the main target of the legislation. Now, I don’t back ER’s aims (which involves a complete socialist takeover of all aspects of life) but I do support their right to peacefully protest. Did they disrupt business for the day in Aberdeen? Sure, but so what? Their message is important even if I do not approve of their proposed methods to save the planet. I think that the breaking up of the vigil in memory of Sarah Everard is exactly what current Home Secretary Priti Patel would love to see being used against ER’s Red Brigade. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR7gabRP9d6YqCKXrOh25R9Tu-ZIDtKuMzZc1URNJPW81L6sGX6mvKlChuToSyHeU6g6qwJLJg-AAxTfljYro7ZJkzI6DC1JXkApVq8a2DC9th8Qdz2z7-0gk9i7mqZtLvM6NhncIq3UxT/s2048/ER_Aberdeen.heic" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR7gabRP9d6YqCKXrOh25R9Tu-ZIDtKuMzZc1URNJPW81L6sGX6mvKlChuToSyHeU6g6qwJLJg-AAxTfljYro7ZJkzI6DC1JXkApVq8a2DC9th8Qdz2z7-0gk9i7mqZtLvM6NhncIq3UxT/w400-h300/ER_Aberdeen.heic" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Extinction Rebellion in Aberdeen, January 2020</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Another example of suppression of rights is embodied by recent criticism of BBC television presenter, Naga Munchetty who, along with fellow presenter Charlie Stayt were accused of making derogatory comments about the flag being used by Tory minister Robert Jenrick. Naga was later forced to issue an apology and there were calls online by at least one Conservative MP, Richard Kemp, who said on Twitter “The BBC must stop employing those who despise their own country.” I can assure Mr Kemp that mocking the Conservatives for waving bloody big Union Flags in the face of the public at every opportunity is not the same as despising one’s own country. Nor is opposition to this government, no matter how much one might indeed despise it.</span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The creation and crackdown against dissidents at home match the proposals for military expansion elsewhere. Although the Army is facing further cuts in numbers, the proposal to increase military spending by £80 billion should be seen as aggressive expansion of overall capacity and global power projection. The focus seems very much of the greater mechanism of the forces, with drones and similar remote vehicles seeing heavy investment, as well as the Royal Navy. To my mind, combined with our leaving the EU, means only one thing: the UK has picked a side and that side is with the USA, against everyone else. Remember that these plans were being prepared during the Trump administration and many on the right of US politics sees the EU, not as an ally and partner, but as a rival. So while the headlines are full of opposing Russia and China, ultimately they will be pointed at whoever the USA thinks is the greatest threat. Leaving the EU clarifies the UK’s ultimate loyalties, and they are with not with our nearest neighbours. As I write this blog, I am listening to an American admiral who while is bemoaning the proposed cuts to the Army, is very happy with the news that the UK’s number of Trident nuclear warheads will be boosted by forty percent. Wouldn't it be weird if representatives from other nation's military were to be invited on Today to comment upon the UK's future </span><span style="font-size: medium;">military plans? But it is perfectly normal for the Americans to do so and be given space on the BBC to air their opinions. </span></span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">There have been calls to adapt to these “new realities”. I don’t think I can. These are the exactly the types of developments that I predicted before leaving the EU. In fact, they are the only logic I can see to Brexit. Certainly there are political battles to be selected (and God knows, there are enough of them: poverty, handling of COVID19, jobs, the NHS to name but a few) but I cannot see any middle ground existing between those, like me, who are opposed to the UK’s current path towards being a junior partner in global superiority at the point of a missile launcher, and the government's path which will see continuing suppression of human rights, both at home and across the planet; spawning a plethora of minor wars and continuing the cycle started by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. </span></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">It is therefore important that the United Kingdom reengages with our near neighbours as quickly as possible. By reengagement, I mean rejoining of the European Union. At home there has to be agreement among those who oppose this militaristic path to find common ground against the Conservative right who are pushing through this agenda. It is no coincidence that the Conservatives want to see a return to First Past The Post for all elections held across the UK. It is the most undemocratic method of voting possible short of actual vote-rigging, allowing a government voting in on a minority an overall majority in parliament. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqUNb6G42Tem8Qdnk3Z_R9dkjzpiNg2nuAaAix0yKpxPUj9mgYFGF2ji4BAQ4WGNk6pessC85025IWgy8buMHvsK0D3jMWh73nxwRMlK6MGkxEyAgLxCUZy9rzPm1U9HKS9dFE4sGuqnqq/s840/IMG_34CB5257EACC-1.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="840" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqUNb6G42Tem8Qdnk3Z_R9dkjzpiNg2nuAaAix0yKpxPUj9mgYFGF2ji4BAQ4WGNk6pessC85025IWgy8buMHvsK0D3jMWh73nxwRMlK6MGkxEyAgLxCUZy9rzPm1U9HKS9dFE4sGuqnqq/w400-h225/IMG_34CB5257EACC-1.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">2019-20 Westminster Representation under FPTP</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br />The previous justification for FPTP was that it keeps the extremists out of power. That has now failed: the extremists are in office. I am certain that the Conservatives are banking upon Labour in their continuing support of FPTP but really, Labour has to step up, support a genuine system of proportional representation and take a bullet for democracy on this one. Otherwise with the Conservative FPTP voting majority in England, we are effectively facing the prospect of a single-state party for the UK, just as we currently have with (the slightly more fair voting system) has delivered power to the SNP since 2007. The key to both is the use of identity politics: independence for Scotland and freedom from the EU for English nationalists.</span><p></p>
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<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">This blog post can be summarised with this: our democracy is in grave danger. It is vital that no further ground be ceded to the right and that ground lost is rapidly recovered. I genuinely fear for the future for the UK if this Conservative government win a further term. Don’t shoot the Lib Dem messenger Labour, but the country does need you to step up and provide genuine opposition and reform. We cannot carry on having our nation’s path set by those on the extreme right. That outcome will be too horrible to contemplate but we are now on the path to authoritarianism. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">*<span style="font-size: x-small;">This blog has been updated on the 24th of March as I previously stated that the UK has left the EHCR. The Brexit agreement allows for provision to leave parts of the EHCR but this has not yet actually occurred.</span> </span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“<i>I may well reconsider my position in the future should Britain leave the EU: that would be the height of nationalistic folly - albeit English on this occasion.</i>”</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">With the end of 2020, we finally see the outcome of the Brexit negotiations and it is not pretty. All third nation regulations and bureaucracy apply to the island of Great Britain, with the only “benefit” being that trade is tariff-free. It is a total disgrace and a disaster for small and medium sized businesses that trade with the EU. The only companies that can ride out this arrangement relatively unscathed are the largest. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So the question I have to face now is, given this change, where do I stand now on the issue of Scottish Independence? It is not a moot point: the SNP will be pressing for a second referendum, assuming they do well in the upcoming Holyrood elections. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has waded into the debate. He rightly points out that the vast majority of Scotland’s trade is inside the United Kingdom. If Scotland were to leave the Union and we were to join the EU, there would be a very good chance that we would be facing a hard land border with England, at least for goods and services. One only has to look at what is happening in Kent and Holyhead to see the results of such trade barriers. It’s either chaos or the calm of greatly reduced trade. Scottish businesses with any dealing with England would have to complete whatever paperwork required by England, and English businesses and goods would have to be completely EU-compliant. Brown cited that Scotland currently does £15 billion worth of trade with the EU, and about £60 billion with England and Wales. This would be a massive brake on the Scottish economy and there is no getting around it.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
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Since Scotland and England share the same island, the movement of people would be easier. That is unless an independent Scotland were to join the Schengen Area, which allows free movement of people from anywhere in the EU, in which case a hard border would certainly be the result. In order to enjoy freedom of movement within Great Britain, it is very likely that Scottish and English border forces would have to maintain a joint relationship, with pooled recording of every individual that enters Great Britain. It is not impossible to do but would mean that the independence of Scottish immigration policies would be limited in scope by the larger neighbour to the south. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The truth is that Scotland will be poorer if we are to vote for independence. That was always the case. In 2014, it was made clear that the EU would not support swift membership for an independent Scotland. This was one of my reasons for opposing independence. It is entirely understandable that the EU would support a member state to maintain its national integrity. Now that the UK has left the EU, that attitude might well change. In 2016, Scotland voted 62% to stay in the EU. If anything, support for continued EU membership has grown since them. But this is the same across the UK. If there was another referendum, polls from 2020 indicate that the UK as a whole would vote 60% to stay with the EU. Well, that ain’t going to happen. The Conservatives will not give another chance for a referendum for at least another 40 years, if ever. Labour is fence-sitting and not willing to lead any debate. Even Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats has said that while the party will campaign for closest possible ties with Europe, we will not campaign to rejoin. In this Davey is completely wrong: the majority of Liberal Democrats are ardent supporters of the EU and would rejoin in a heartbeat. The overall political picture though is clear: despite the train-wreck that Britain is currently going through, there is no appetite among the leadership of any major political party to reopen the debate. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So what do we do now in Scotland? The SNP would have us vote Yes of course. I don’t like nationalism and I don’t like the SNP. They are illiberal, prone to centralise power and there is a certainly a pitchfork-and-torches section in their membership that target political opponents. For example, Alex Cole Hamilton, Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh West, has had roughly thirty complaints levelled against him to the police by SNP members, concerning election spending and paperwork. All have been dismissed as baseless. Also I don’t care for the SNP tendency to go in for their cults-of-personality, both Salmond and Sturgeon have in turn enjoyed such mindless support. An independent Scotland would have this version of politics turned up to 11. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is a host of reasons not to support Scottish independence and yet I am thinking about it now: the reason being down to bastard Brexit. <br />
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Brexit is not an end but a start. The leaders of that movement, mostly from the economic right but aided by fellow-travellers on the democratic-socialist left, have campaigned against the EU for decades. The left because the EU is a capitalist club (they are correct: it is) but the right wanted out because it is regulated capitalism. In the words of former Conservative minister Eric Pickles, that’s communism. Which is utter bollocks. Capitalism has to be regulated by the rule of law. Deregulation is economic Darwinism where people like you am I are food to be preyed upon by corporations and the very rich. It takes the pooling of political sovereignty in order to stand up to modern-day global companies. Although not perfect, this is what the EU does regulate on. It is one of the few multi-national bodies that can. The alternative is to go the way of China, Russia and Singapore, which have little in the way of individual rights or effective courts, therefore authoritarian governments lay out how it is going to be. At least in Singapore the citizens have a luxurious lifestyle to compensate for their lack of political involvement, even if the migrant workers do not. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Post-Brexit Britain will head the same way: an erosion of working and political rights, a dominance of large corporate bodies and ultimately the privatisation of all of public services. This will take time to occur but freed from the constraints of international law and EU regulation, it will happen. Add to this the continued rise of the far right, as I and many others are persistently warning against. It is not coincidence that Trump approves of Brexit and Biden does not. So far, Brexit has been the biggest tangible victory of the international far right movements. While Hungary and Poland are under their sway, neither country has actually left the EU. Britain has. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Gordon Brown has got around to advocating a federal Britain. He is right: that would have been a good answer. Liberal Democrats have been pushing for federalism for years. But who is listening now? Who listened before? Certainly not the Labour Party. Nor does federalism answer Brexit. Ed Davey’s proposals, which ultimately means rejoining of the EU Customs Union and Freedom of Movement, would work too. I would have, reluctantly, accepted Brexit if this had been on offer. Brexiters made sure that those of us who voted Remain were completely shouldered out of what type of Brexit would be settled for. Their Brexit, an apparent liberation for businesses, has resulted in red-tape strangling SMEs. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Make no mistake: it has been nationalism on all sides that has brought us to this pass. This is an example of why I am committed anti-nationalist. I also said in 2014 that I would accept the outcome of any Scottish referendum result: a pledge notably absent from nationalists. I have not accepted the Brexit result because we had three months debate ahead of the vote and then four years arguing about what we had actually voted for. That is the wrong way around. In 2014, we in Scotland made our decision after two years of debate. <br />
</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What do I want? Britain to rejoin the EU as soon as possible. What if that soon as possible is thirty years? Scotland could be independent and settled within the next twenty. If there is a Yes to independence in another referendum, my advice would be not to rush the transition. As shown by the past five years, it takes a long time to make a break. If there is a Yes result, I will continue to campaign for a liberal Scotland within the EU (or EFTA) framework. I would be happy to live out the rest of my life in a Scandinavian-style Scotland and would do what I can to bring that around. This would not help the people of England and Wales though, except through example of what is possible. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If the Referendum votes No, I will continue to campaign for a better UK under the rule of law and with proper human rights to the highest standards. I am not so confident that is possible any more but that is no reason to give up. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
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How would I vote in another referendum? There is no easy or clear path now. One has to look towards what the ends are. The ends of Brexit are totally abhorrent to me. So, reluctantly, and in great sorrow for the breaking of the Union, I would now vote for independence. </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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When Trump called upon his fascist followers to muster at the Capitol on Wednesday, it was the last throw of the dice as far as his own presidency was concerned. His legal team had previously raised 62 complaints of voter fraud across the country, in states such as Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All of these charges were rejected as baseless. Often the depositions were filed without supporting evidence. In Georgia it took judges just one day to throw out the case. <br />
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This begs the question: why do it? Why go to the time and expense of taking these issues in front of the courts when those filing the cases <b>knew</b> they were going to be thrown out? In order to answer such questions, one has to appreciate the overall picture. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Trump’s assault of the legality of the November vote started in March 2020. By May 2020, The Guardian was reporting that Trump had singled out both Nevada and Michigan, both states that he needed to hold but was vulnerable to a swing vote, for making mail-in voting easier. He alleged that ballots would be sent to all registered voters when, in fact, both states arranged for mail-in ballot applications to be sent out. However, the Trump teams raised no complaint when Iowa and West Virginia also send out mail-in ballot applications to all registered voters ahead of the elections. Both these latter states were expected to, and returned, Trump victories. No subsequent allegations of voter fraud was raised, despite the fact that these states acted the same as those Trump complained against. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One can therefore see that Trump’s team were acutely aware of the states vulnerable to flipping and, in advance, decided to create a case for voter fraud, regardless of facts involved. Where states who did the same thing but were predicted to return a Trump victory, no such concerns were expressed. From this, it is fair to assume that if any of the flip states had gone to Trump, that allegations of voter fraud concerning those states would have similarly evaporated.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The central point is, as compiled in detail in the paper <a href="https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37365484">Mail-In Voter Fraud: Anatomy of a Disinformation Campaign</a><i>,</i> that Trump, supported by the Republican National Committee and Fox News, ran a disinformation campaign against the American public. This campaign has led to about half of Republican voters continuing to believe that there was indeed wide-scale voter fraud, that Trump had the election stolen from him and therefore the assault on the nation’s Capitol was justified. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Trump’s selective offensive against mail-in voters in flip states will seem even more logical when the tactics of the 2016 are taken into account. It is true that Mail-In voting makes it easier to vote. It is also true that, in comparison to those registered voters who attend a polling station, those who register for Mail-In voting are more likely to vote. In September 2020, <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-trump-campaign-strategy-to-deter-millions-of-black-americans-from-voting-in-2016">Channel Four News</a> started a series of reports that alleged that, in contrast to traditional voting campaigns where political parties encourage their supporters to register and go to the polls, Trump’s 2016 campaign actively targeted black voters to dissuade them from voting. C4News estimates that 3.5 million black voters were subjected to the “Deterrence” project. For instance, in Georgia, where black voters make up 32% of the population, 68% of black voters where targeted for deterrence campaigning. In total, 54% of voters in the deterrence category were from minorities, while those votes were activity encouraged to vote were overwhelmingly white. Thus another objection to the Mail-In campaigns from flip-states are that it would be defeating one of the weapons used by the Trump and the Republican campaigning team to keep the black vote away from the polls. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The refusal of Donald Trump to admit defeat at the polls and to encourage his supporters to storm the Capitol ahead of the formal counting of the Electoral College votes cannot be ignored. It can mean only one thing: the insurgency of the far-right in US politics is still ongoing and while they were defeated on the day, the war they are waging against democracy is not over. Some commentators are comparing Wednesday the 6th of January to Hitler’s Beer Hall Putch of 1923, which at the time was a bit of a farce but led to Hitler being given a national platform to make his party’s case during the subsequent trial. I am in little doubt that the legend of the stolen vote and storming of the Capitol is exactly what those who seek to overthrow democracy in the USA is seeking to gain from perpetuating the lies sown by Trump and the Republican National Committee. <br />
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Why do I emphasise the role of the RNC? As shown by a series of votes surrounding Biden’s confirmation as President Elect, the war within the Republican Party is ongoing. Eight Republican senators backed Trump’s version of events but, more importantly, so <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html">did 139 members of Congress.</a> The insurgency of the Far Right into the Republican Party is far from over. Even if the Democrats are successful in getting Trump impeached and thus not able to stand for the presidency again, if his successor does not come from his immediate family, it will certainly come from one of these Congressional hopefuls. That is <i>if</i> the Republican Party fails to counter this takeover. So far they have failed. Today’s video appeal from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P-0I6sAck">Arnold Schwarzenegger</a> to can be seen as part of the fightback of those within the Republican Party who still support the democratic process. Those 147 elected members of Congress and Senate who still back Trump may also support democratic methods, but they also seem quite willing to back undemocratic methods too. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One last reflection on the events of the 6th of January. Many have already noted that compared to the response to the Black Lives Matter protests, the police response to the storming of the Capitol was muted to say the least. There has been much evidence that the far-right has been working very hard to infiltrate the police and military. There must have been hope that instead of resisting the invasion, the police on duty would have actively gone over to side with the insurrection. That did not happen but it cannot be taken for granted that it will always be the case. Rather than “defund the police” a much more urgent case can be made to deradicalise the police: that is root out those members would willingly back the overthrow of the US Constitution. I would expect that in light of how the invasion played out, the fascist insurgences will redouble efforts to get more of the nation’s security forces over to their side. <br />
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So while the far-right insurgency in the United States has stalled for now, one must not make the mistake that the removal of Trump from the presidency is the end of the matter. It isn’t. The fight against authoritarianism must be the leading task of the Biden presidency. It will take many forms, including improving the lives of Americans who have lost out in the current system. All policies must have the common thread of fighting to support democracy and improve the lives of all Americans. Otherwise, the high ideals of the USA may well be lost forever.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>Martin Vearthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03836538893598716215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1322783749535110052.post-3883764711305827542020-06-15T16:57:00.001+01:002020-06-17T09:15:12.097+01:00Statues and Empire<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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I once had an idea. Take pictures of all the statues in Edinburgh and then research their stories. Who are these people? How did they come to prominence and who is it that thought so highly of them that they raised the funds necessary for a statue, often in a prime location? Then I was going to stick it all on an app and flog it to Edinburgh’s many tourists as a series of walking tours. Naturally I did nothing of the kind and, with the current demonstrations in support of Black Lives Matter, I am kind of glad the effort necessary was put into other projects. Another side of me wished I had done it because I would have been in a prime position to give an informed view on whose monument is based upon the fruits of slavery. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There are many that say you don’t need statues to tell history. For the history of the individual who is being commemorated, that is perfectly true. We don’t need statues of either Hitler or Stalin to tell their stories. But they are terrible examples to hold up. For one thing, both were being honoured in life as part of a totalitarian cult of personality. Their statues were built on order of the state. The case of Edward Colston, whose image in bronze was torn down by demonstrators on the 7th of June 2020, is far more interesting. That particular statue was not erected until 1895, one hundred and seventy years after Colston’s death. There was no state directive to be obeyed, no one was impelled by the threat of force to do this. What Colston’s statue is is hard evidence that the values of late Victorian Britain held up someone who had build their fortune upon the trading of mass human kidnapping and enslavement as someone whose virtues outweighed these crimes. <br />
Of course, I am looking at Colston’s statue through the eyes of a 21st. Century liberal. It is quite possible that those who erected the Colston statue did not either know of his links to the slave trade or, if they did, that they did not care nor even regard it as a crime at all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now, before I continue, am I outraged that Colston’s statue took a dip in the River Avon? Not particularly. I certainly don’t think anyone should be charged with criminal damage for this. It is clear from media accounts that there was a long-standing local campaign to have the statue removed and that parts of the Bristol establishment consistently vetoed its removal. Throwing that statue into the river is totally understandable. What worried me is what comes next. <br />
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“What comes next” has already started. The weekend of 13th of June has seen violence on the street as far-right activists have appeared on our streets “to defend the statues”. The recorded fact that these people throwing straight-armed Nazi salutes and punches at the police who were actually defending The Cenotaph and Whitehall cannot be mistaken for anything else but intimidation, designed to keep Black Lives Matter supporters off the streets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A bit more of a genteel example was the gathering in Poole, Dorset, to defend the statue of Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouts movement. Anti-colonial campaigners would point out that Baden-Powell was charged with the illegal execution of Matabele prisoners of wars. He was acquitted of any crime but that might well have been a reflection of values of the day and that the the prisoners were black, for they were certainly shot. Baden-Powell’s statue was also a possible target because of his encouragement of the Hitler Youth movement and recorded admiration for <i>Mein Kampf.</i> This did not stop B-P ending up on the Nazi’s infamous “Black Book” list. The truth is always more complicated. The Scout movement has, and continues to do, much good in the formation of young people across the globe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So what is at risk here is a proxy war between racists and human rights campaigners, with a new battlefield being over lumps of carven sandstone and moulded bronze. There has to be a better way and there is. It is called education and it is at the heart of Black History Month. It is a profound criticism of history teaching in the United Kingdom that there has to be a Black History Month at all. The British Empire is fundament to 19th Century global history but is only part of the picture. <br />
Naturally one has to be selective about the history taught to children, purely based upon time available but one has to worry about the flow and material. While I was studying my A level in the subject (The Cold War is already being taught in some current syllabi) I pretty well just got modern history 1880 until 1945. There was also options on the Late Anglo-Saxon period and the Norman invasion. All good stuff but apart from the naval arms race in response to German demands for “A Place in the Sun”, empire did not really feature. My daughter’s more recent exposure to history education in Scotland, covered the medieval wars of independence from England, The Scottish Enlightenment, World War Two and the US Civil Rights in 1960s America. Upon checking the BBC Bitsize GCSE history site, the AQA board specifically teaches empire, and OCR teaches immigration. The rest do not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Black History Month is more that British and Empire history and that is fine. A lot of black history is British history too. Whether it is the slaves, sugar, tobacco and cotton triangle between Britain, West Africa and the Americas, or the plantation of people from the Indian continent into East Africa, it is really history that everyone in the UK needs to know about. Fortunes were created which went to build up cities like Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow and London. Individuals were glorified which brings us back to the statues. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Not all statues are worthy of preservation but how is that to be judged? Some would say take them all down, others keep ‘em all up. Others say preserve them in a museum. None are perfect solutions and the museum solution could end up costing a lot of money. I have a possible compromise which does not lead to destruction. Monuments dedicated to those directly in the slave trade should be removed. Space for them can be made in a local park - not in a prominent place - and the monuments displayed together with explanations of their history. The history should be the good, bad, downright monstrous and why others thought these people worthy of honour. Such a grouping can be used to educate school parties as part of British and Empire history: that should be part of the history curriculum. The freed up spaces in our city centres can be used to honour later generations. <br />
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What of the really famous figures? Nelson who married into a rich plantation family in Nevis and defended the slave trade? Wellington defeated Napoleon but he gained his military experience in India. According to Elisabeth Longford, the sacking of Mysore in 1799 brought the young Arthur Wellesley a £50,000 share of the spoils (equivalent to £5.7million today), paid by the East India Company. This was all legal. Wellesley himself was concerned with the common soldiery looting, having several flogged and four hanged. Churchill was prime minister during the 1943 Bengal famine as supplies were shipped to feed Britain and our armies. Did Churchill set out to kill three million people? Almost certainly not but appears to have been callously indifferent to their fate. These histories should be known but for their service to the nation, the honour also remains. <br />
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The key does remain with education and I suggest that even the controversial monuments have their role in this. Statues erected willingly by choice, as opposed to those erected by totalitarian regimes, have their place. It just may not be where they were originally placed. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The real issue is that the people of the United Kingdom, all of us, are going to have to face up to our own history. There are times when it was not honourable, never mind glorious and victorious. Some of time we were the downright bad guys and, in terms of human rights, sometimes not so bad. The important thing is that we are taught it, as Cromwell might have said, warts and all. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: Times;">This morning (14th of June, 2020), a deliberate statement by Paddy O’Connell on BBC Broadcasting House (at 11:45), “Boris Johnson is unwell” went unchallenged by Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood. This caused a fair stir online in the Radio Four Facebook sites.<br /><br />Instead of joining with the usual sniper shots, I have decided to stand back and consider the trail. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: Times;">Boris Johnson is certainly a vote winner. Westminster and London mayor elections confirm this. On this basis, the Conservative Party membership chose him over Jeremy Hunt to replace Theresa May. Johnson delivered a thumping majority in reward of their faith.<br /><br />Since then, the honeymoon was brief. As Johnson took over, the Coronavirus crisis was already brewing. To be fair, the UK government was not the only European government to be caught short. What does mark us out though was while others were taking lessons from what was occurring in Italy and Spain, the UK government chose to turn Nelson’s eye to events. According to The Times reports, it wasn’t until the 12th of March that the full magnitude of events struck home. Even then though, the government continued to dither. Many companies and bodies had taken their own initiative long before the lockdown on the 23rd March.<br /><br />Meanwhile, by following their own advice, many individuals in government had been exposed to the disease, the worst affected being Boris Johnson himself. Among the others was Dominic Cummings who, instead of self-isolating with his immediate family, decided to ignore lockdown instructions and remove to Durham.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: Times;">What has burnt Johnson more than anything politically was his steadfast defence of Cummings’ action in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The upshot of all this is an immense amount of credibility destroyed, with scientists being banned from the daily briefings as very few of them would be willing to defend Johnson’s top aid.<br /><br />Johnson has never been a master of detail. He is a dreamer: bridges being a particular favoured theme. He was hard hit by the virus (male, middle-aged and overweight [bit like the author]) and might well be still suffering. Add to this an innate aversion to hard work, and a possible case of alcohol addiction and, for an individual it is a perfect storm. The man is unfit, literally, to be prime minister.<br />In addition to this, because Johnson determined to choose his cabinet based upon ideological purity towards the cause of Brexit, rather than any form of ability, the team around him are unable to defend their own positions, never mind cover for their boss. Word is that Matt Hancock was going to be the scapegoat at the end of the day but, with over 40,000 dead and in global terms the worst performing nation, exceeded only by the USA and Brazil, the rap cannot stop with a single minister. Boris has created a government in his own image and, while that may have worked in normal times, in this crisis it is a disaster for us all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="98ohl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I am receiving grave concerns from NHS staff as to the lack of preparation for Corona virus. First is testing: there is no testing at UK borders. In hospital testing of patients with respiratory problems is only performed if there is also a history of recent travel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no change in procedures. At ward and community level, it is business as usual. People with breathing difficulties (status unknown because they haven’t recently travelled) are interacting with cleaners, carers, pharmacists and porters as normal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no additional PPE being issued for staff, at whatever level. Cleaners are not being given special instructions when clearing up after patients with respiratory problems. Community health workers and carers could become prime transmitters of infection as they move from home to home looking after their charges. Staff are not being tested either.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Appeals to senior management is falling on deaf ears as they claim that they are following government procedures, who are following the herd-immunity theory. This is NHS Scotland I am talking about but have no reason to think it is different elsewhere in the UK.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Health workers are seriously worried. They want the tests available to check any patient that is presenting symptoms, not just those who have also recently been abroad. They also want to have the PPE to protect themselves and their colleagues, regardless of their status in the hospital or community. Plus they need to be able to test each other to confirm they are not becoming spreaders themselves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The procedures need to be updated, quickly, to reflect the growing threat. Resources need to increased rapidly: not just money from the government but the actual materials and medicines. This would be similar mobilisation to a wartime emergency. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally they need understanding and help. NHS staff will do their best to help everyone but they also need public support in order to get what they need to help our communities. Who will protect us when NHS workers and social carers become sick? They need our support.</span></div>
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Another week and another failure of the Conservative Government to deliver Brexit. This sentence could have been written any time since 2018. On this occasion, it is the Letwin amendment, which simply stated that Parliament should see the Johnson deal set down and passed in legislation, before giving it a meaningful vote of support. The fear was not that Johnson deal would pass, but if it did not, then we would be leaving the Eu with no deal on the 31st of October. </div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Predictably enough, there are again howls of complains from the rightwing press. Letwin, Corbyn (who has finally agreed to a second referendum) and Speaker John Bercow are the three main villains of the day. One irony of course is that Oliver Letwin said he will <i>support</i> Boris Johnson’s deal. His amendment is to ensure that if the legislation failed to pass through parliament before the end of October, that the United Kingdom would not leave with no deal in place. This is one of the reasons why the Letwin amendment passed: parliamentarians from all sides of the Brexit debate backed it in order to avoid the disaster that a no-deal exit would be, both for the UK and the EU. If the atmosphere had been more calm and rational in the Commons, perhaps the Johnson government would have accepted the point without demur. They did not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Grass root Leavers are understandably frustrated with this. “Why can’t we just leave?” they ask. They talk of their anger, and I am certain they are sincere. But I ask Leavers to stay for a moment, pull up a sandbag while I’ll try and explain how it looks from the other side. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There are some Remainers who will never accept the outcome of the 2016 referendum. Honestly, I’m almost in that camp, but not quite. My own reason is that the public debate was not long enough: the Scottish referendum of 2014 ran for two years verses the three months for the EU referendum. Unlike the Scottish experience, three months was simply not enough to look in depth for either Leave or Remain cases. That level of examination has occurred <i>since</i> we had the vote in 2016. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That is my own view, others with have their own reasons, whether to accept or reject the outcome. Let’s get to the basic fact: Leave won. <br />
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So, what was the question again? Ah yes: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?<br />
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Right, so Leave won. I wasn’t happy about this but there was a level of leaving I would have accepted. Was I, or any other Remainer asked what this would be? No. Not in the slightest. The debate that followed, both in parliament and in the country, was “Your side lost: shut up.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, no. What did not appear on the ballot paper was how we were going to leave. The Leave side promised many things, none of which they have been able to deliver. Without consulting the rest of us, they continued to argue and bicker as to the nature of their victory. Theresa May’s negotiations with the EU was purely in reference to her own party in parliament. It was only after its failure to pass through the Commons were other parties consulted. By then, it was too little, too late. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The fundamental issue is that Leave won but then thought it was a winner-take-all game. Not once has there been any serious offer to engage the whole nation as to the nature of our leaving the EU. I would have settled for a Norwegian-style deal. I can see some Leavers being unhappy with that. So am I. But at least I was willing to compromise. Like Norway, it would have addressed the fisheries issue, which to me was the only real gripe the Leave campaign is justified over. What a Norwegian-style deal wouldn’t satisfy would be the issue of immigration from European countries. As I said through, we would all had to have compromise. The UK would have been free to have a flexible and changing relationship with the EU while avoiding most of the hard economic outcomes that leaving entails. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Such consultations should have began soon after the 2016 referendum. They did not, so we find ourselves in the en passe<i> </i>yet again. I can see why Leavers would be deeply unhappy with the prospect of a second referendum. If you lost, and the polls suggest that you would this time, it is not as if you would shut up and go away either. So where do we go from here? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As far as Remainers are concerned, what is at stake is the very nature of our nation. Leaving would most probably ultimately split the Union, both with Northern Ireland and Scotland. Leaving would also enable an economic and cultural revolution, with the Conservative Party (and Brexit auxiliaries) leading the change to a US-style Britain and an unregulated corporate society. Neither of these were on the 2016 ballot paper either. That is why Remainers are calling this a coup, a revolution. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If Leavers really wanted to heal the country, the first thing you should do is stop telling Remainers to shut up and get over it. We will do neither. Hundreds of thousands of people marching through Westminster on Saturday, and 6.5million signatories to the petition to rescind Article 50 are testaments to this. Ah, but what about the 17.2 million you cry? You won the referendum to Leave: you did not win any majority, not even in Parliament, as to how the UK is going to leave. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is little wonder then that Remainers continue to campaign to stay in the EU. We have been offered no other alternative. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">At this time, I cannot see anything else but to go for another referendum. A lot of damage has been done and this is not going to heal easily. An election under the current first-past-the-post system will not be democratic enough because all it takes is about thirty five percent to get an effective majority. I am a bit surprised but a blog I wrote in 2018 on the nature of a second referendum, in its basic format of a two-stage question, has aged pretty well. The only difference now is that the Johnson Deal is closer to the Canada-style free trade deal than May’s deal. <a href="https://martinveart.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-second-eu-referendum-whats-on-ballot.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">https://martinveart.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-second-eu-referendum-whats-on-ballot.html</span></a> <br />
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If Leave won again, I would stop campaigning on the issue of EU membership and instead campaign on the future of our relationship of the EU. If Leavers lost, I would welcome their input on the nature of the Britain’s continuing membership of the European Union. What is totally clear is that whatever happens, none of us can return to business as usual. As a country we have changed. We really do have to start listening to each other.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cavalry armies were famous for fooling their opponents through a manoeuvre known as the ‘feigned retreat’. For instance, during the Battle of Legnica in 1241 a combined force of Poles and Moravians fell into the trap of charging the Mongolian cavalry lines who, apparently, fled the field. Except the didn’t. The western horsemen were now separated from their supporting infantry, the Mongolian heavy cavalry turned and light horse archers enveloped the confused knights, now on tired horses. While they took some casualties in the ensuing fight, Mongolian victory was complete. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What has this got to do with current UK politics, one may reasonably ask? Possibly nothing, possibly everything. The Johnson government has yet to win a victory in Westminster and seem to be in full retreat. Their first feint of going for an immediate election has be spotted and foiled. It seems the opposition is on the verge of victory and the Conservatives are in disarray. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is probable that the combined opposition, Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrats and assorted independents and minor parties, will get the legislation through to stop a no-deal Brexit and force a further delay to leaving. Only then will a vote of confidence be called and an election ensue. Job’s a good’un, one may think. One may be wrong. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The key manoeuvre which alarms me is the apparently suicidal move of Boris Johnson to eject all those MPs who oppose his government’s Brexit strategy. Let there be no mistake: this was a real night of the long knives. Theresa May worked bloody hard to keep her party together so it was a pre-announced and premeditated move of Johnson to purge his parliamentary party of any Remainers, or even people who genuinely want a deal with the EU. This has been achieved so it is doubtful that the Conservatives will leak any further MPs. While now a minority government, this group still are the most powerful unified force in Westminster.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The battle is about to enter the most dangerous time. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now the Conservative Brexiters are in retreat. From whence are their auxiliary forces to come? If they can be won over, from Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">At the moment, the Brexit Party appear to be the final nail in the Conservative Party’s coffin, as they threaten to split the Leaver vote. Since there are no longer any Remainers in the Conservative MP ranks, can Farage be tempted to ally with Johnson <i>before</i> the next general election? </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">If the answer is yes, then the Remainer opposition will be in serious trouble. A united extreme right could well win with about thirty five to forty percent of the popular vote. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">What can be done to prevent such a disaster? To be forewarned is forearmed. If there are signs of Farage and Johnson either uniting their parties or forming pre-election pacts, then the best the English parties can do is either do the same (a doubtful preposition with a Corbyn-led Labour Party) or advise strong tactical voting of the Remainer vote to identify the Remainer MP most likely to win in their constituency. If on the other hand, the Brexit Party and Conservatives fail to unite: all with be well. Where they stand, Brexit candidates will split the Leave vote, Conservatives will fall and a Remain-dominated parliament will be returned. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Note though I said English parties. In Scotland the dynamic is different. With the standing down of Ruth Davidson, it is unlikely that the Scottish Conservatives will survive the next Westminster vote. With the Brexit Party not a hugely strong force in Scotland, the main battle of the EU will be fought over the towns and fields of England.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Everything hinges on whether the Conservatives can be stopped from unifying with the Brexit Party. Stop that and the Battle for the EU will be won. There is now a majority for Remain across the United Kingdom so a second referendum should deliver this. But if a united Conservative-Brexit Party gain a majority in the next parliament, forget it. The barbarians win.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prime Minister-in-waiting, Boris Johnson, said this week that he wants immigrants to feel more British. This was swiftly followed up on Twitter by appeals on how this can be achieved. For instance, a French lady called Martha, currently living in York, made <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/bassguitarnina/status/1147183152961601537" target="_blank">this appeal</a>: “<i>If any of my English followers have any tips on how to ‘feel British’, I’d appreciate receiving them.” </i><br />
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As a native Brit, being half-Irish / half-English, university educated in Wales, a previous resident of the Republic of Ireland and having lived in Scotland since 2000, I should have some insights to offer you Martha. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the first things that an immigrant needs to learn is stop speaking your mind. If something is rubbish, for God’s sake do not complain openly about it, especially to the person responsible. Simply smile, say ‘It’s fine’ or ‘it happens’ and work around it, even if this is at some personal inconvenience. The time to complain is to your friends and colleagues afterwards, when the possibility for fixing the issue has long passed. Phrases like “Can you believe it?” or “what a jobsworth” can then be freely thrown around to anyone within earshot.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Conversely, if something is really good, never offer praise. It might be the most amazing pleasure one has ever experienced in life but the highest acceptable compliment is to nod and mutter “not bad.” If one must, a slight smile is permitted. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the workplace, never, ever volunteer or offer constructive criticism. If one can imagine being a sheep, and your place is in the centre of the flock, then just keep that image in mind at times of decision making or crises. Never allow oneself to take on greater responsibility, especially without extra pay. Acceptable answers to requests that should be made someone in a more senior position are “Sorry, I’ll have to speak to my boss” or “Out of my pay scale mate.” The reason for such negativity is that British employers seldom go in for this no-blame culture that is popular across Northern Europe. If something goes wrong, someone must be the cause of it. At best, ownership of a mistake will be a black mark against your record and can lead to something worse. Remember, in the television show The Apprentice, any time a candidate has owned responsibility for a failed task, Lord Sugar has fired their arse. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Someone schooled in American English might have ended the previous sentence with “fired their ass”. This of course is a mistake and someone who has been educated in US English has to make the effort to adjust their language accordingly. Chips are crisps, not French Fries. Biscuits are not cookies. It is trousers and not pants and no, we Brits do not sit around on our fannies, as they are otherwise employed elsewhere on the female body. Make an effort to match one’s language to the local region and do not point out the glaring inconsistencies in a native speaker’s own usage of American English (see examples within this text). The British are seldom well educated in English grammar, making it extremely difficult for us to learn foreign languages as we usually have little idea what is happening with our own. As Tolstoy said, an Englishman in inevitably in the right because everything he says and does is right. This especially goes for spoken English. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On a related topic however, we Brits love word play, especially when linked to cultural references. Such games can be downright silly but reduce the Brits to tears of laughter, much to the bemusement of foreigners in the group. As an immigrant, you might never get the joke. Don’t worry about it. English is the most public language in the world so perhaps it is only natural we have made it incomprehensible for our own amusement. My best advice would be just to relax, be happy to see us happy and when your finally do start getting the references, then your have finally cracked the English language. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do not take offence to the question “Where are you from?” as it really is a statement which means “You are not from round here, are you.” Owing to never having an East Anglian accent, it was a question that I was constantly asked when growing up in the town where I was born. Except in the largest and most cosmopolitan of cities, Brits has a curious sense of regional identity which is linked very strongly to accents. “Where are you from?” might mean that your accent comes from a town twenty miles away where the local inhabitants tend to have a bit of a funny accent and, therefore they don’t speak proper like we do. Yes, I know it is a pain answering this question and immigrants often feel it is a prequel for something nastier to follow but usually it isn’t. We Brits ask each other that same question all the time. Only when the question is followed up by something like “And when are you going back?” is rudeness or sarcasm justified as a response.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, perhaps the hardest thing to achieve for some immigrants is to enter into the British drinking culture. Those who are unable to drink alcohol for religious reasons are at a special disadvantage here. Outside the most formal of evenings, it is socially acceptable for Brits to get so drunk as to be a complete embarrassment to ourselves. Sorry about this but get used to it. Over the decades, many governments have tried to change things through taxation and tighter laws, drink-driving being a good example. Unless they are completely teetotal (a very rare thing for a Brit) or a recovering alcoholic (the only socially acceptable excuse not to drink), at some point you are going to see your British friends pissed - as in the English sense of being drunk and not the American of being angry. One understands that for the younger generation, illicit drugs are a socially acceptable alternative to booze, or even along with it. Either way, once work is done, us Brits love getting off our tits on abusing alcohol, or even several substances at the same time. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are many things to love about being in Britain. As an immigrant, that is why you are here. This is also the reason why I have not written about our virtues: they are well known, self evident and it is impolite to boast about such things. Instead I have written about the other side of being British: the negative and sometimes the self harming side. No nationality has a monopoly on either virtue or vice. Remember that it is often geography that forms a national personality and that Britain is a group of islands. Some of us Brits still seem to cling to this notion as some kind of comfort when, in today’s global world, being an island nation is a hindrance rather than any help. To understand the British, one has to see us, warts and all. If after doing so, you would prefer to live by your own cultural values instead of ours, I think most people would understand. I certainly will.</span></span></div>
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To the outsider, to those who do not pay attention to politics, the reason why the Liberal Democrats are back on the political scene is pretty obvious. Both Labour and the Conservatives are failing as parties and people are turning towards alternatives: be it Greens, SNP, Alliance, Plaid Cymru or Farage’s Brexit “Party”. Or even, *<i>shudder*</i>, the Liberal Democrats. On one level that is true. On the night of the EU elections, the Lib Dems came second. This could, and is being dismissed as a protest vote. A view from the inside of politics offers a different perspective.<br />
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The worse years of being a Lib Dem activist was not with the election disaster of 2015. I remember walking home from the Edinburgh count on a bright sunlit morning, smoking a cigar I had saved for the occasion. My emotions were mixed: sad that Nick Clegg had led the disaster and had stepped down. Sad for the many good Liberal Democrat MPs who had lost their jobs. Irritated that the (understandably jubilant) SNP had swept all but three of the Scottish seats before them. Angry but not surprised that the Conservatives had targeted all Liberal Democrat seats, even the ones that they knew they could not win – like Edinburgh West - in order to be rid as many Liberal Democrat MPs as possible. The Conservatives would rather have opposition MPs like Labour, or SNP here in Scotland, than someone they had to risk working with. My main emotion though was one of relief: the axe had finally fallen. Even the folk of the television show Gogglebox had called it: “Nick Clegg, dead man walking.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is the popular position to slight Nick Clegg but in reality he is a good guy who, while in government, made some bloody awful decisions. During his campaign for the leadership, he promised to get the Liberal Democrats into government within two elections. He did it first time, and subsequently we paid the price. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I did not feel sorry for myself though. When I stood in 2015, I knew it was with no hope of winning. In the weeks running up to the 2010 I had written a <a href="https://martinveart.blogspot.com/2010/04/coalition-er-no-thanks.html?m=1" target="_blank">blog</a>, predicting the outcome of entering a coalition as junior partner with either party. The hardest thing for me to bear was being proved right, so soon after the 2010 election, and to continue campaigning for the Liberal Democrats knowing that we were stuffed. It was difficult to keep motivation up during those years. It felt perverse: Liberal Democrats are in power. We are making a difference: getting a lot of policies though and keeping at bay the worst excesses of the deep-blue nutters on the right of the Conservative Party. Why wasn’t I happy? Because no good deed goes unpunished and so it proved. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is natural perhaps that a lot of opponents, especially on the left, were gleeful on our downfall. Poor President Trump if he feels he is being victimised by the press and public opinion: try being a Liberal Democrat. I believed even our own esteemed former leader, the late Paddy Ashdown, described the party as “roadkill”. That should have been that for us. And yet. And yet…<o:p></o:p></div>
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The green shoots of recovery started instantly. As most jeered as they shovelled earth over the Lib Dem coffin, a small section of the UK public looked on with both horror and compassion. Some of those people joined us and, for the first time in five years, the membership numbers of the Liberal Democrats soared. To the grizzled survivors like me, it felt like a miracle. It was Nick Clegg who later summed it up with a story. A few days after the defeat, a woman shouted across the street at him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Nick, I’m sorry what happened to you and the party.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Thank you. Thank you for your support!”<br />
“Oh, I didn’t vote for you!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In Edinburgh we had a large number of new folk join us. Most of them stayed and quite a few of our new (and high quality) activists that we have now, joined us since the rout of 2015. Even from the first days, the Liberal Democrat recovery was underway. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Still, during the years 2016 and 2017, there was no breakthrough. Liberal Democrats campaigned and, slowly slowly, we started to regain lost ground. Although we did not gain many seats during the 2017 snap general elections, I think that one of the unintended consequences that it turned a lot of the new Liberal Democrat activists from raw, if enthusiastic recruits, into campaign-hardened veterans. What was just as important, there were some victories to show for the effort: we got three seats back from the SNP, including Edinburgh West. We Liberal Democrats took the opportunity given and in many areas, continue to campaign on the ground long after the other parties had packed up. The evidence for this was the start of local council victories in unlikely places such as Sunderland. Which, of course, leads us to consider the next reason for the recovery: Brexit.<br />
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Brexit is, and always has been, driven by the schism of the right. Although there was part of the Left (as personified by Jeremy Corbyn and before him, Tony Benn) who always objected to the EU on the grounds that it is a capitalist club (it is), the main political force against European Union comes from the economic right of the Conservative Party. It is their implacable hatred of EU regulation upon free market economics that led to the formation of UKIP. By itself, the freedom of billionaires to rip off the public is hardly a vote winner, so in order to gain popular support, the real flavour of the party was disguised by a heavy dose of nationalism and bigotry. Like all disasters, the reason for outcome are multiple. One was the foolishness of David Cameron, who thought that a bum’s rush of a three-month Brexit debate would be followed by victory, the death of UKIP and a return to business-as-usual. Another was that those backing Brexit had done deep preparation for the day that the referendum was called. New techniques of big data were used to target the electorate that felt ignored and did not usually vote. The SNP had used similar techniques for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum but, as I have stated previously, they had given a two-year-long debate so that people had an opportunity to discuss and understand the issues. With Brexit, that opportunity for public contemplation never occurred until after the vote. By heck, it has happened since though.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is the Liberal Democrat consistency in stating the obvious: before the referendum and afterwards, that Brexit is a terrible idea, which has finally given the party its public identity. Before, the question before was “What are the Lib Dems for?” We have always had well-thought through policies by the container-load. We have always valued human rights over the power of the state. Our focus was upon the individual and families before power-blocks, be they unions or corporations. By itself though, that message is always too nuanced. Now, for good or ill, we have a clear identity: Liberal Democrats are the party of Europe. <o:p></o:p></div>
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By ourselves though, Liberal Democrats are not yet strong enough to break through the first-past-the-post voting system. The last stage of our return requires the failure of the two main parties: Conservatives and Labour. They are both obliging in a most unexpected way. I do not have to run through the arguments: on her deal, Theresa May failed to consult with the whole parliament until it was far too late. What is truly amazing is the complete and utter failure of Labour to capitalise on the Conservative disarray. Corbyn simply had to say “We have tried: the government is unyielding and Parliament is deadlocked. It has to go back to a second referendum.” But no. Corbyn has steadfastly failed to move on Brexit and instead is sitting on the fence, much to the chagrin of most Labour activists. At the recent EU count of May 2019, held in the same venue as 2015, I was speaking to several senior Labour activists. I was told that Corbyn’s stance made it “like fighting with both hands tied behind your back.” Unlike previous counts, only a handful of Labour people bothered to turn out.<br />
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The largest parties to win that night were the nationalists, although neither the Brexit Party nor the SNP got anyway near fifty percent of the vote, important since both are claiming the vote is overwhelming support for their respective versions of nationalism. There is a map of Great Britain doing the rounds which shows that the SNP came top of the vote in all but a handful of Scottish constituencies, and Farage’s vehicle for self-promotion, the Brexit Party came top in most parts of England. An SNP supporter asks “Can you see the border now?” Frankly I cannot. Both the SNP and the Brexit Party are nationalist, popularist movements. I will give the SNP credit in being more decent that Farage but both are very much on the nationalist spectrum. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The real border is now in people’s minds. Are you a nationalist or are you an internationalist? Do you want to define folk in terms of “us or them” or is there only “us”? The world is facing very real problems: can those problems wait until we have gained our freedom, put our country first, or do they need addressing right now, globally?<br />
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Owing to the Liberal Democrats putting people first, not insisting that the nation-state is the greatest good and wanting to address global problems right now, that we find ourselves being defined as anti-nationalist, and in a way that the Conservatives and Labour, with their old conflicts being built on wealth and class, can never do. The popular nationalism has brought to the fore those who are internationalists. This movement is called social liberalism. The party for liberalism in the United Kingdom is the Liberal Democrats. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Along with our own hard work, the ineptitude of the main two parties, it is the rise of nationalism and Brexit has brought us, the Liberal Democrats, back from the dead. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another week, another massacre. Geography was one of the factors that made the Christchurch murder different. New Zealand a peaceful group of islands with no terrorist history. The terrorist came from the outside: a white supremacist from Australia who seems to have been radicalised overseas, possible in the UK. From the reaction of now-disgraced senator Fraser Anning, who wrote “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allows Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.” it seems that Australia have their own share of bigots and supremacists. Fair play though that, since he wrote those words on the day of the attack, Anning is now facing a national petition with over 800,000 signatures, demanding that he be removed from the Australian senate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Today, along with hundreds of others, I attended a memorial vigil outside the Central Mosque of Edinburgh, organised by the Muslim Woman’s Association of Edinburgh. The many speakers covered a wide range of topics. The shock and sadness on hearing the news. The fear and anger that such attacks generate. The need to avoid hate and to overcome it with love. Others spoke more politically: the need to face down the rise in modern Nazism, the role in the likes of Steve Bannon in organising the Far Right on an international basis, and the enabling and normalisation of Islamophobia by senior politicians. Boris Johnson got special mention for comparing woman wearing the burka to letterboxes. Noted also was the media’s role in normalising the killer. ISIS terrorists do not appear on the front page of British newspapers with pictures of them as a sweet little boy, but this privilege was extended to the Christchurch murderer of (at the time of writing) fifty people. Contrary to what the speaker said though, this time it was the Daily Mirror who was guilty and not, as stated, the Daily Mail. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoKy_c-yHuI0ss6r43CrWZAlsXh81RY2meuk-x50kE6QGbCdtrMneG6NThQ4vDSP4VuEISjMVcyviDeW6Uh7uTYqsp6j6rZI-iYDJMmNbZxGuMkLZDwg9N2KJAMIsevhw2qTdVxwwD-AS3/s1600/IMG_1374.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1573" data-original-width="1242" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoKy_c-yHuI0ss6r43CrWZAlsXh81RY2meuk-x50kE6QGbCdtrMneG6NThQ4vDSP4VuEISjMVcyviDeW6Uh7uTYqsp6j6rZI-iYDJMmNbZxGuMkLZDwg9N2KJAMIsevhw2qTdVxwwD-AS3/s200/IMG_1374.jpg" width="156" /></span></a><o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The microphone was briefly offered to the crowd to share our thoughts and, some who know me, thought I would take advantage of the opportunity. Although I had no prepared words, it is true that I was tempted. Today though was not for me: it was for the people of New Zealand, it was for our Muslim neighbours and it is for us all: to listen, to sympathise and to understand. It is difficult sometimes to make sense of such vicious disregard for life and to comprehend that some who live among us can see others as somehow lesser or even as a threat. Of course people how hold extremist views are a potential threat should they decide to act upon them but they are few. The vast majority of us just want to get on with living our lives free from oppression and in peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is my view many of the speakers are correct: that there is an active movement to motivate the Far Right across the globe. Most countries in Europe now have their Far Right movements and in places like Poland and Hungary, extreme nationalist governments have taken power. Trump in the USA has more in common with President Putin in Russia than he has with Angela Merkel. In order for our own politicians not to seem extreme, there must be someone further along the political spectrum. With the Conservatives containing the European Research Group of about 80 MPs, a party-within-a-party, along with Theresa May’s own views on immigration and Home Secretary Sajid Javid willing to pay fast and loose with the rule of law, the only people further right is the likes of Britain First and so-called Tommy Robinson. The latter’s views are being normalised in order to make our current politicians seem moderate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mr Jalal Chaudry of the Council of Ethnic Minority in Edinburgh questioned the use of the term of Islamic terrorism. If terrorism is not applied to actions done by white people: if such people are deemed as lone wolves, mad, crazy people, while any act of violence done by a Muslim is Islamic terrorism, the term “terrorist” should not be used. I disagree. In <i>The Open Society and Its Enemies</i>, Karl Popper gives an exact definition of terrorism. It is a curious thing though, that when I attempted to look up his exact words, the quotation has not turned up in the searches. So until I get hold of another copy of <i>The Open Society</i>, memory must serve. Terrorism is an act of violence intended to affect the political viewpoint of people beyond its immediate effect. This is a powerful definition because, as Popper goes on to explain, terrorism can be carried out by individuals, groups or by a nation-state. This latter aspect has led to the term terrorist being devalued. All states claim to act for the benefit of their own population and within the law. State actions can, the claim therefore goes, never be acts of terrorism. This is propaganda, as example of states carrying out acts of suppression against their own population are too numerous to note. However, the term terrorism has been solely applied by states against those that they disapprove of. More disturbing perhaps, the term is not applied to acts of violence that a particular state may be sympathetic too. Hence the concern that Islamic terrorism is a real threat while killings performed by white men sympathetic to the Far Right is usual ascribed, at least at first, to mental instability or individual examples of wickedness. There can be no mistake this time however, as the Christchurch killer emailed his political manifesto ahead of carrying out his act of evil against a gathering of defenceless men, women and children.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When it comes to acts of political violence, we must demand that the media cannot be partial to one side or the other. The term “terrorism” must be re-established and, if necessary, an explanation to the general readership must be made. Terrorism in the name of Islam exists, as does terrorism in the name of Irish republicanism (with the recent incendiary bombs being sent from Dublin to four or five targets in the United Kingdom) and as does, in this particular case, terrorism by the Far Right against Muslims. Jo Cox was murdered by a Nazi. At the time I called it straight away (before charges were laid) but was told to be not to be hasty as it could have been a lone nutter. The media does not give Islamic terrorists such benefit of the doubt. As a society, we must be consistent with our treatment of all politically-motivated violence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As for my own personal reaction to the killings in Christchurch, I was greatly saddened. New Zealand is a peaceful nation that has partially detached itself from the militarism that is dominates the foreign policies of many other liberal-democratic nations – including the United Kingdom. A friend of mine commented that she felt that New Zealand had lost its innocence. I know what she means: I felt exactly the same when I heard the news of the Norwegian terrorist attack of 2011, which resulted in the death of seventy-seven people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Britain has a proud tradition of fighting Nazism and what it stands for. It is up to us all today, to continue that tradition because it is clear that the Far Right, or Alt-Right, is nothing more than modern Nazism. It is our responsibility, as Nazism is a combination of nationalism, corporate interest and racism that arose from the pseudo-science of eugenics. Fascism may have arisen in Italy and Nazism in Germany but the ideas that fed both came from across Europe and North America, including Great Britain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK1TgB5H36EiqB-zN1P8rVB-JX2OEFS7IbDT8kbrHIznPGqjBGz674uCqXQoh-2PXniHHxY4j58SS_IS7Jer3YCj4TBve2HCwf6Mxuk8-FUcLkBc7H6cD_bHEsFYgOUlqNNBSLtfmjmOX2/s1600/IMG_1370.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK1TgB5H36EiqB-zN1P8rVB-JX2OEFS7IbDT8kbrHIznPGqjBGz674uCqXQoh-2PXniHHxY4j58SS_IS7Jer3YCj4TBve2HCwf6Mxuk8-FUcLkBc7H6cD_bHEsFYgOUlqNNBSLtfmjmOX2/s400/IMG_1370.jpg" width="400" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At today’s vigil, a young man took the microphone and tried to rouse the crowd with cries of “Never again! Never again!”. My response was, to be truthful, half-hearted. There is always going to be another time. As Nome Chomsky notes though, not only must we challenge the ideas that feed terrorism but also the situations that lead people to think they have nothing personally to lose by turning to violence. People who are secure and content do not pick up a gun. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The problem of terrorism is ours and we must own it, no matter in doing so how uncomfortable the truths that we will face. Only by having the courage to do so can we continue to live in a society that can, on the whole, be called ‘free’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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First the Seven, then plus One and, at the time of writing, now joined by the Tory Three. Brexit has made strange times for politics is highlighting the flaws in our current political system. From both Labour and the Conservative sides, the emphasis has always been on “broad church politics”. What does this phrase really mean? It means that each of the larger parties are a coalition of views: a group of sub-spectrums within the larger political continuum. The latter is often described as horseshoe-shaped, as the extreme ends of left and right bend in towards each other. It is clear now that both main UK parties have moved so close to the respective ends of the horseshoe that they are shedding members, and now MPs, who are still in the middle zone. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was not at all surprised that it was the Labour members that broke first. Since taking leadership, Corbyn and his private party of loyalists, Momentum, have been moving the Labour Party from being mainly a social democratic party, operating policies of wealth redistribution underneath a capitalist liberal democratic framework, to that of being a democratic socialist party who want to break capitalism. If you doubt me on this, the evidence is on Corbyn’s views on the European Union. Like Tony Benn, Corbyn considers the EU as a capitalist club and, to be fair, he is right. There is no way that he is going to build socialism under EU rules and hence his supporting of Brexit. Hence also the hostility of Momentum to social democrats within their own party. It is also no surprise that as soon as the Eight broke with Labour, there were calls for by-elections from Corbyn, Labour and trade union leaders. This is predictable but what is amazing is the speed at which Labour has announced plans to make public deselection of MPs an easier process. Famed for his lethargy as an opposition leader, Brer Corbyn can certainly move rapidly when the faced with internal opposition.</div>
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Labour’s approach is certainly different from the Conservatives who, more wisely, are not seeking to distance themselves from their dissidents. Philip Hammond is certainly holding out the olive branch and there are few calls from the right for by-elections. I am not sure for the reason for this. Perhaps it is part party culture, perhaps it is early days and the figures are not clear enough to base a decision on. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It can be argued of course that it is the Conservative desire to keep the right wing of British politics within a single part that has led to the whole debacle of Brexit. If they had simply let UKIP mutter in the wilderness, yes, they would have been weakened as a party but at least the country is not suffering as it is now. With about a month to go, there is only chaos in Westminster. I have previously written several Brexit blogs and this is not going to be another one. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What Brexit has shown though is that both the Conservative and Labour parties are too big. The Conservatives are split along the fault lines of regulated capitalism and the unregulated marketplace. Labour, as previously described, has moved from social democracy to democratic socialism. The extremes of both parties are united in seeing the EU (regulated, capitalist and often social democratic) as the enemy of their respective ambitions. Both have also engaged with popular nationalism in order to gain support for their positions, with the right almost hiding their dreams of unregulated capitalist society behind the flag-waving and yellow jackets.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The independent group (I have seen the acronym TIG being used) are not, as yet, a political party. If they do form into one, a major hurdle with be the first-past-the-post voting system. FPTP is acting like a clamp, holding the two largest parties together. If it is ever unscrewed, Labour and Conservatives will fragment into the smaller parties that they really ought to be. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What of the Liberal Democrats? Perhaps with some justice they are like the girlfriend in the meme: upset, confused and a bit outraged that TIG (here the girl in the red dress) is getting the attention of the media and public (the boyfriend). The Liberal Democrats have been here in the centre all along, telling whoever will listen that UK politics is broken and, unsurprisingly, being shouted down from right and left. While there is a certain satisfaction in being proved right, I don’t think we should worry for now. Certainly we should work with TIG to gain a People’s Vote. There may well be other areas of cooperation and mutual values. There are also areas where values will not overlap, especially on civil rights. That is as maybe. The members of TIG will need time to adjust to being outside their respective two-party system. </div>
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For now, let’s wait and see.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Parliament is deadlocked and there is an increasing acceptance that there is a strong case for another referendum. What goes on the ballot paper though? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the introduction to her deal, the Prime Minister said that there were three possible outcomes: her deal, a no-deal Brexit or no Brexit. For the sake of simplicity, it would be tempting to go with this. It has been ruled by the European Court that the UK can halt Article 50 process unilaterally and, since there is no majority for a no deal exit in Parliament, another possibility is having a choice between Theresa May’s deal or staying in the EU.<br />
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Both are problematic. Those who voted to Leave the EU are understandably annoyed at the very prospect of having to go through a second ballot and are complaining loudly that the 2016 should be respected. I am not going to repeat my own views on the 2016 referendum but there is a point to be addressed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What I have in mind therefore is a two part ballot. It can all appear on a single sheet of paper, so avoiding the need and cost to have a two stage referendum. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Part one of the ballot will be legally binding and will consist of a single question with a binary answer:</span></div>
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<b>Should the United Kingdom stay in the European Union? YES / NO</b><br />
Use an<b> X </b>to register your vote in <b>one</b> of boxes below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As I said, the answer to this question would be legally binding. That means that if the Leave side wins again, there can be no future ballots held on EU membership. In the legislation delivering the ballot, there should be some kind of minimum time given before Parliament would be able to revisit the question of rejoining the European Union: a minimum of twenty five years. There has to be some safeguard against a cycle of referenda while not tying future generations of citizens to the will of those currently voting. The same time period applies to a remain outcome. One side or the other will have to accept the outcome of this vote. <br />
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The second part of the vote will not be legally binding but advisory and would be under a single transferable vote system. Parliament would be not be legally bound to deliver the form of Brexit most popular with the public but would be use it as a guideline as to which outcomes would be most acceptable to public opinion. The examples below are just that but give an idea of the various possible outcomes. It would be up to the campaigns to discuss the pros-and-cons of each. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This time around, since the public are fully aware of the issues now, a short campaign, three months in length, is acceptable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The second part of the referendum is below.<br />
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<b>If the vote above results in the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, what is your preferred outcome of future negotiations? <br />
</b>Use a number to express your preference, <b>1</b> indicating your preferred outcome and a <b>4</b> your least favoured outcome. Other boxes should be filled with a <b>2</b> and or <b>3 </b><br /> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are some cheerleaders, such as Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 who is using his show to call the public to get behind Theresa May and her deal. The same deal that on Monday the 10th of December the Prime Minister decided to pull rather than face defeat in the Commons.<br />
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That analysis of defeat was accurate when, following the motion of no-confidence in the PM from within her own party, it transpires that 117 of her own MPs failed to back her. This may seem a small number when compared to the 200 that did but, this exact ratio, 200 - 117 was identified, prior to the vote, in <a href="https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2018/12/the-200-vote-test-barrier-for-may.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Conservative Home</span></a> as a problematic victory. In order to be safe, they reckoned that 215 MPs would have to back her. The degree of the victory, with over one third of the parliamentary party failing to back her, keeps May in the danger zone and her authority over the party is only partially recognised. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The no-confidence vote was called by the members of the European Research Group (ERG) on the basis that if May can be deposed, the resulting process of selecting a new leader would run down the clock on Brexit, in turn leading to their desired outcome of a no-deal exit. This has always been the aim of the economic right wing, as it is only the start of the complete deregulation of British society. Certainly this is what billionaire backers like Arron Banks and James Dyson really want out of all of this. With the overarching regulation on health, safety and working hours, the EU stands as a major barrier to their dream of unregulated corporate rule. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Theresa May has at least been smart enough to realise that no-deal will be a hammer blow to the UK economy. Her deal addressed this by keeping industrial standards tied to the EU, thus simplifying trade. Her own intolerant views on immigration, as displayed while Home Secretary, is also displayed insofar it does away with freedom of movement. Naturally May and her supporters argue that this is what the people of the UK (well, mostly England) voted for but, in reality, it is very much a deal in her own image. Trade, yes. Immigration, no. Deregulation, some. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The problem is that if May listened to anyone at all, it certainly was not those who still backed Remain. My initial response to the 2016 referendum outcome was that some form of Norway deal, that being keeping in the Single Market, some form of customs union and keeping Freedom of Movement would have been an acceptable compromise, while acknowledging that it is inferior to full membership. It works well enough for countries like Norway and Iceland and, in different ways for Switzerland too. It would have addressed the issue of Ireland’s border and backstop. New deals over agriculture and fishing would have been possible. Of course, the UK would have had to pay membership and keep EU regulation for goods and services, which make it unacceptable to the economic right. Those opposed to immigration would have been unassuaged too and it is this issue that keeps public support for Brexit relatively high. As already mentioned, it is an issue that is close to (what passes for) May’s heart too. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Remainers were not consulted however and it is only this week, after nearly two and a half years, that Labour is making any real noises in this direction. Rather too little and too late. Theresa May attempted to railroad her deal through, even keeping the cabinet isolated at Chequers in order to get it through at that level before signing with the EU. When it came before Parliament last week, it was clear from the outset that Parliament, having not being consulted previously, has no intention of passing the deal. I don’t see any way this will change, especially when it is clear that there is such a large number of her own MPs not supporting her. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last night BBC political editor John Pienaar was talking up the possibly of a People’s Vote - otherwise known as a second referendum. This is the first time it happened: whenever it was previously raised on his show, it was pretty much waived away as a non-starter. Now it is a real possibility. Leavers say that holding a second referendum would be to disrespect the outcome of the 2016 vote. That’s fine: it was a three month debate of terrible standards on both sides. In Scotland we debated independence for two years prior to the 2014 vote which, at the time seemed an absurd length. With the benefit of hindsight though, it was the time required to debate the issues involved. It has taken about the same length of time to make it clear what Brexit actually means. Guardian reporter Carol Cadwalladr has been doing a huge amount of work in uncovering the illicit side of the Leave.EU campaign funding and methods, not that that has made a similarly huge amount of impact with the public. Enough to say that the 2016 result was flawed and possibly illegal. From the beginning I never respected it: it was so short because David Cameron did not expect to lose.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is clear is that Theresa May’s deal is dead. What is not clear is whether any deal exists that can pass through parliament. This would take a new team to return to Strasburg and reopen negotiations from the beginning. There is no time. The EU has made it clear that the deal made is the only deal available but that depends on the UK’s red lines, or rather those painted by May. She would have to go if any meaningful new negotiations were to come about. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Naturally the ERG are still hoping to run down the clock and leave the EU without any deal being ratified by parliament. That has always been their aim. It is possible that the EU would agree to extend the March deadline if there is either a general election or a second referendum called. I suspect that if a new government were to negotiate any new deal, Article 50 would have to be halted, resetting the Brexit clock. Only then, if the UK were determined to leave, could a new government start meaningful talks with the EU. How do we know the basis of that mandate though? Only by holding a second referendum. A second vote is a prerequisite ahead of anything else now. If the country votes to stay, the current government has to fall. If we vote to leave again, then a general election has to be called in order for the parties to put up their competing visions of Brexit. A Remain option would no longer be viable after two Leave results. <br />
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Despite whatever the Conservative Party wants, all ways now point to a second referendum.</span></span></div>
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</script></div>Martin Vearthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03836538893598716215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1322783749535110052.post-54028740124518252752018-09-24T15:22:00.002+01:002018-09-24T15:22:57.607+01:00The History We Are Never Taught at School<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every nation teaches history as a group of selective highlights, usually (but not always) to show the home nation in a respectable, or even an heroic, light. This is natural but rarely sufficient for an educated person to make an informed decision later on in life. For example: the exam syllabus I was taught in the 1970s covered history from the 1888 until 1945. It wasn’t bad; at least we covered the German imperial ambitions (A Place in The Sun) and how that ambition led ultimately to the First World War and that, in turn, to World War Two. It was very Euro-centric but it at least mentioned Empire. Plus, it was not an optional choice: we had to take it. When I was fourteen I hated studying history but the medicine that was forced down my throat then stood me in good stead later on in life. </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My daughter, Miss V, didn’t even have to study history to exam level in Scotland. Her school restricted pupils to sitting no more than six subjects at National Five. The Scottish exam syllabus was thus: The Scottish Enlightenment of the 18<sup>th</sup>Century, World War Two and the US Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Before then, there was coverage of Scotland’s medieval wars with England. Scottish-centric certainly but not exactly offering coherent themes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is this important today? Several reason that has arisen in the past twenty-four hours that make it rather so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first was a tweet by Paul Lomax <a href="https://twitter.com/PaulLomax/status/1043410346332114945" style="color: #954f72;">“I think my daughter’s primary school is missing the point of Black History Month.”</a> accompanied by the following section of the school letter</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Paul indicted in following tweets that he did not wish to identify the school but wanted to </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6ofHwR8Ptl4n61EqJhcv4O87uNCHp_gCn1SA4wUJGxPLW7grtJNgqzOPMoEi26TUoUk44pmjUk5GHJ9gm9YALig2tRSR3wIJThlPbKySaRihl4qebDICscoQXQj1TLUZz_koyOF76nAK/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-09-24+at+11.55.17.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1022" data-original-width="1322" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6ofHwR8Ptl4n61EqJhcv4O87uNCHp_gCn1SA4wUJGxPLW7grtJNgqzOPMoEi26TUoUk44pmjUk5GHJ9gm9YALig2tRSR3wIJThlPbKySaRihl4qebDICscoQXQj1TLUZz_koyOF76nAK/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-09-24+at+11.55.17.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Extract from a school letter<br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">raise it as an issue with them; that is fair enough. I applaud him for raising the topic. <a href="https://twitter.com/Martin_Veart/status/1043416608956395522" style="color: #954f72;">My own tweet</a> replied thus: “<i>I suspect you are right. The feedback from the parents suggest that some of them certainly don’t get it: possibly they resent their children being “forced” to learn about Black History? The teachers seem not to understand that Black History is everybody’s history.</i>” It is this point I wish to expand upon. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much of Black History is not European history. The rise of the Mali Empire, Great Zimbabwe or the Kingdom of Ghana are three such examples. From the 17</span><sup style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Century onwards, Black History, European and British history became increasingly entangled; the reason being through colonialism and slavery. Black History Month is necessary because these are issued that are not usually addressed in the school curriculum. Many of the fortunes that led to the great buildings of port cities such as London, Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow and the great factories of Manchester, Leeds and Bradford were built on the wealth of sugar, tobacco, and cotton. The farming labour was carried out, in the main, by slaves who originated from West Africa. The Asante Kingdom was deeply involved in this trade. British history, Black History and European history has been fundamentally intertwined for over three hundred years. Black History is British history too, but without Black History Month, this period would not be taught at all in our schools. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The main reason being is that this is a period of British history that is, frankly, bloody awful. As a nation we should be ashamed of this period in our past but how can we be if most people do not know about it? I consider myself reasonably (self) educated in history but, it was only through the recent works of historian</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/22/toppling-statues-nelsons-column-should-be-next-slavery" style="color: #954f72; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Afua Hirsch</a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, that I became aware of how deeply Lord Horatio Nelson, Britain’s greatest naval officer, used his position to support the Caribbean slave trade; having married into one of the major slave-owning families. Little wonder we don’t hear anything of Francis Woolwards of Nevis (aka Viscountess “Fanny” Nelson) and everything about Nelson’s mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I do not necessarily support Hirsch’s call to topple Nelson’s Column because of this but I do support a warts-and-all approach to history. The Black History movement highlights how little the 19</span><sup style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Century is taught in our schools. If it is covered at all, it ends with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, echoing the teaching of the Second World War.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This second tweet, from Conservative and Brexit-supporter Christopher Howarth, who wrote <a href="https://twitter.com/CJCHowarth/status/1042854949426786305" style="color: #954f72;">“Re-joining the UK is the only way to re-unite Ireland and the British Isles. Brexit makes Irish EU membership less logical.”</a>At first, and rather uncharitably, I put this viewpoint down to ignorance but I was wrong. Mr Howarth is an educated person who is quite aware of the history of Irish independence and the resulting civil war. This period is covered in Irish school curriculum but again is absent from most UK schools. What Howarth’s tweet shows is a disregard for history: British Brexit supporters simply do not care about the effect of Brexit on our nearest neighbour. If one looks deeper still, it may also give the reason as to why this should be. I see the process of the UK leaving the European Union as a major part of the ongoing process of undermining the EU by the far right. For most Conservatives, this means the breaking up of the EU for the benefit of unregulated trade. Now I don’t think the leaders of Brexit really do see the Republic of Ireland re-joining the United Kingdom except in during a private moment of erotic spasm (as Vince Cable almost said), but their logic is that anything that weakens the EU is good. The UK is Ireland’s biggest trading partner and the hope is Ireland will be prised away from the EU through a process of economic necessity. Hence Brexiters’ complete disregard for the Irish border. They have calculated that Ireland needs Britain more than it needs the EU. If hardship results or even violence is reignited, so be it: they simply do not care. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As outlined above, the same logic will be used to either deny or campaign against a second Scottish referendum vote. It is easily countered though: neither nationalist camp really cares about the economic cost of their aims on normal folk so why should the SNP argue further when all they have to do is point to Brexit? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This lack of concern is also the reason why the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservatives-victor-orban-hungary-eu-parliament-vote-mep-group-europe-a8535511.html" style="color: #954f72;">UK Conservatives in the European Parliament are supporting</a> European far-right politicians like Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. The Conservatives MEPs are not being whipped into supporting Orban because they are seeking support for a Brexit deal. It is abundantly clear that the Conservative right want to leave the EU without any deal and hope to blame the EU for it, at least as far as British public opinion is concerned. The Brexiters want more though: they are actively working for the breakup of the European Union. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Those who know history are condemned to watch it being repeated.” This is the Labour Party this morning after shadow-chancellor John McDonnell’s announcement that, if the conditions should allow, that any second referendum concerning Brexit would not have an option for the UK to stay within the EU. There would be no point to any referendum then. I do not believe this is a fudge: it is a determination of the Labour leadership to uphold Brexit. Corbyn and McDonnell want to leave the EU, again regardless of the real economic cost. They may promise a softer Brexit but there is no Brexit that leaves us better off. What is worse though is that they are knowingly playing into the hands of the far-right in doing so. This morning, defenders of the Labour decision were online, claiming that they are merely defending democracy or that getting Labour on board with the People’s Vote is a sneaky Lib Dem plot to undermine Labour’s vote come the next general election. Some of them even blame the Lib Dems for bringing Brexit around up upholding the Conservative government. This is denial and deflection by Labour. The real architects of Brexit are the right wing of the Conservative Party and their schism party UKIP. The real architects of the crash and the austerity that followed are those politicians, both of the left and right, who in their arrogance thought they had controlled the boom-bust cycle of capitalism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1322783749535110052" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1322783749535110052" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Labour is playing a dangerous game. Their leaders are gambling that they can take what is effectively a right-wing coup and turn it into a left-wing revolution. I think they are focused purely on the UK picture and not what is happening more widely in Europe. Without taking the international movements into account, I think they are destined to lose. They will also lose closer to home as Brexit represents the SNP’s best chance to gain independence. The SNP do not care what happens to the rest of the UK, although they should, even if purely for selfish ends. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brexit is now coming. This Labour autumn conference was probably the final chance to stop it and that is now not going to happen. Brexit is only the first step to a much darker world. There is still much to be done to prevent that world coming to pass. To quote Bertolt Brecht: </span></div>
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<i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">“If we could learn to look instead of gawking,</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">We'd see the horror in the heart of farce,</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">If only we could act instead of talking,</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">We wouldn't always end up on our arse.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">This was the thing that nearly had us mastered;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The bitch that bore him is in heat again.”</span></i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To live and</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> see such times again. </span></div>
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</script></div>Martin Vearthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03836538893598716215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1322783749535110052.post-27747833984957114272018-09-23T08:17:00.000+01:002018-09-24T08:51:50.727+01:00Salzburg and the Continuing Rise of Nationalism<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Apparently the EU’s reaction was an insult to Britain. Prime Minister Theresa May has track record of not listening however and for being inflexible. From a harsh line on immigration, resulting in the injustice of the Windrush affair, through the 2017 snap election with its unwavering mantra of “strong and stable” and now to the so-called Chequers plan, May has shown that, once set out upon a course, she is incapable of moving from it until it meets an immovably real object. According to the European editor of Irish broadcaster RTÉ, <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2018/0921/995292-salzburg-chronic-misreading/" style="color: #954f72;">Tony Connelly</a>, this mismatch of expectation led to the debacle of Salzburg. Having trampled over objections within her own party to the plan, Theresa May thought that she could do the same with the EU 27. They, on the other hand, have been consistent and clear: there are options available but they have never included compromising either the customs union or the single market. Either the UK accepts membership of the EEA and with it becomes a rule taker, or a Canada Plus deal with defined, regulated trade but, and this is important, a backstop provision covering the island of Ireland in order to support the Republic of Ireland’s place within the EU. Other than this, there are two further options: leave the EU, with no deal and no trade agreement, or stay. Stay and all this can go away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are the deals on offer folks. Sure, there may be some tinkering around the edges but the twenty-seven nations of the EU have decided to stick together on this. If the UK chooses to leave with no agreement or trade deal in place, it will be painful for all. The pain however will be spread, albeit unevenly, among the EU-27. The focus of the agony however, will be upon the UK. For those British people reading this who, like our Prime Minister, may be detached from reality, that means you and me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We are told however that sovereignty has a value greater than gold and, like the wolf of Aesop’s Fables, better lean freedom than fat slavery. Except that the UK have never been a slave within the EU and British citizens have certainly never been so. We have never been so free to work and move across the continent and millions of our fellow citizens has taken advantage of this for decades: whether for work, holiday or retirement. The only problem seems to be that this is not a case of British exceptionalism: foreigners(!) are allowed to come to the UK with exactly the same rights. Foreign is being spoken on the streets of Britain and apparently that makes some people feel less British. There is a word for that and it is called xenophobia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What has been undoubtedly the case though is that an economic sub-class has been allowed to developed and this has been mobilised by nationalist forces across the continent. This nationalism has varied from place to place but it is the far-right variety that is currently in ascendency. It is most visible in nations like Poland and Hungary, but make no mistake, it is continent-wide: as seen in rising support in Sweden, France, Italy and the UK. The Conservative Party now occupies the territory formally covered by UKIP. The rump of UKIP is effectively merging with the EDL. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The lesson for this who support the EU is clear: the economic benefits has to be shared as deeply as possible, with no EU citizen being left behind. This is a major challenge but it cannot ever be ignored again. Doubtless this insight will enrage the economic right which are currently driving the rise of nationalism and the attempt to break up the European Union. They want a system of competing economies with weak governments dictated to by strong corporations. Competition between nation states are great for them as long as corporations are free to invest in the best opportunity. As far as the various populations are concerned, it will be a race to the bottom. This is the reality of the lean freedom on offer. The EU, for all its faults, is designed to benefit its citizens through the provision of a <i>regulated </i>marketplace. It is these regulations that the economic right wish to destroy and nationalism is their chosen weapon; regardless of who suffers. In fact, for the extreme right, suffering is the natural order of things. A citizen may have to suffer for the sake of the nation but a strong nation ultimately will export its suffering on to other, weaker nations. This is where the far right and the free markets merge in interest except the social Darwinism of the far right will be cheated by the more powerful corporations. The nation-state will forever be weak. It is divide and rule.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How do we avoid this grim prospect? First of all, Britain has to get through this current crisis. It will not be easy. The supporters of the economic right are on the verge of victory. All this have to do is keep May in power and limp her across the finishing post at the 29<sup>th</sup>of March, 2019 when the UK leaves the EU. They would prefer a no-deal exit. Billions can be made in a crash, primarily by betting against currency values but also by being ready to buy up devalued property. It is the opportunity that the billionaire backers of Brexit are waiting for. The majority of the press are on their side: insult to Britain, EU Gangsters, May’s Finest Hour, to paraphrase just a few of their headlines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Labour leadership has so far been backing Brexit. One can only conclude that Jeremy Corbyn is following the Marxist analysis that capitalism has to become intolerable before the masses to rise up and overthrow the system through revolution. I don’t know if the majority of Labour supporters share the leadership’s Marxism. If they don’t, they have to offer a final referendum on EU membership asking the British people are they sure this is what we want. As a party, they also have to come out as firm supporters of the EU. It was lack of Labour leadership on the issue that, in part, led to the defeat in 2016. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The SNP has to come off the fence on this too. Many of their supporters have calculated that the UK leaving the EU will lead to an increased chance of a second Scottish independence referendum and a far-right England will lead to a Yes vote finally succeeding. That might be so but, the main problem is that Scotland’s largest neighbour and trading partner will then be a far-right monster! That is really kind of important guys and regardless of one’s aspirations, it is something that no sane person can wish for. Get off the fence and actively support a People’s Vote. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As for my own party, the Liberal Democrats, we have been knocked into the wings of late but we are still here. If there is an election within the next year our message has to be simple: we will refuse Brexit. No Peoples Vote: a majority Lib Dem government would simply note that the 2016 referendum was advisory under law and a majority government would have a mandate to block it. A vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to stay in the EU. If we remain a minority party after the next election, then yes, we still support a People’s Vote. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yes, we have many other good policies and it is right we shall talk about them as well. Brexit is the elephant in the room that everybody has to be talking about for now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Beyond party politics however, Brexit is the most important thing facing the United Kingdom. It has to be stopped: the alternative is too horrible to contemplate but it is almost upon us. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">UPDATE: 24th of September, 2018. On BBC's Today Programme, shadow Chancellor John McDonnell confirms that any People's Vote offered by Labour would <b>not</b> include a option to remain in the EU. This effectively renders any further referendum being worthless. </span></div>
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</script></div>Martin Vearthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03836538893598716215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1322783749535110052.post-27400182637090766372018-09-09T21:37:00.000+01:002018-09-15T11:47:18.860+01:00Citizen of Nowhere: a New Memoir<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Over the summer I have been writing up </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">memoirs which is mostly new material that has been previously been unpublished. I am currently looking for either an agency or publisher for this book. Please contact me on mm.veart@icloud.com</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The title, <i>Citizen of Nowhere </i>is a direct reference to and rejection of, Theresa May’s speech of October 2016 where she says “<i>If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what citizenship means.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At its heart, the memoir is the story of my personal development and changing attitudes set against the backdrop of domestic politics and international affairs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Citizen of Nowhere </i>addresses the following issues and themes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Being an outsider in Britain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->UK politics, including Northern Ireland<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Working in the oil and gas industry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Environment, geology and nature<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Nationalism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Racism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Sudden loss and grief<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Israel and Palestine <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->The arms industry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Travelogue of Texas, Africa, Central Asia, and Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The book is complete and runs to a length of 79,000 words. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p> </span></div>
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--><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The social and political content carries a strongly anti-nationalist message. It sheds light on how we, as a society, went from leaders like Blair and Obama to Trump and voting for Brexit. The truth is that the support for extremism has never gone away. </span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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