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Too good not to share
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Tax Research UK Blog is written by Richard Murphy unless otherwise stated and published by Tax Research LLP under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Design by Andy Moyle
I would say there is nothing funny about this because it is too close to the truth!!
Chilling!!
The ‘We wants it’ bit at the end is really funny though.
Wow! Tony Blair in drag. Whatever next, Jeremy in a blue suit?
Well, it seems that the cat is out of the bag:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/21/jeremy-corbyn-labour-policy-leaving-eu
So we have this to look forward to!!
As a result of this the Labour party has definitely lost my support.
Completely barmy!!
I’m off the make the most of Christmas methinks.
So much for Labour Party democracy
Not to worry! The party could always ask its members and supporters what they think, and then ignore them if they give the wrong answer.
Hardly fills a body with hope does it. ?
Hmmm. He’s playing Pontius Pilate (again). Meanwhile Labour remains increasingly “open” to a 2nd referendum as it has been since September:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/02/behind-closed-doors-labour-second-referendum-shadow-cabinet-strategy
The 2nd referendum will happen regardless and mainly because nothing else is feasible. That should have been apparent since the PM gave her Irish border commitments several months ago (“months” I say, is that right? It seems like years).
At any rate everything between then and the 2nd vote has been (and will be) been posturing and theatre.
Any new referendum can only be called by the Prime Minster, Corbyn is not the Prime Minister.
It requires primary legislation & parliamentary time; that only May controls.
Legally, at least 147 days’ preparation are needed to hold a referendum.
We leave in less time than that.
Two choices: Mays’ deal, or no deal.
Going by the numbers, he won’t get in on a leave ticket and a remain ticket will be no good because we will already have exited.
There is no reason at all why Article 50 cannot be extended
I do not agree with your choices
JohnM says:
“Two choices: Mays’ deal, or no deal.”
I agree that’s how it’s being presented. I’m not fooled by accepting what I see as a false choice.
Neither option will ‘do’. That’s devil or the deep blue sea. And it’s may’s shallow brinkmanship, if Parliament accepts that sort of con, Parliament is not fit for purpose.
@Pilgrim Slight Return
Thanks for the Guardian link. I hadn’t seen that.
Don’t forget the Guardian is spinning like a top these days. But I share your dismay. North of the Border dismay with Labour is endemic now; an utter irrelevance except in so far as it shapes the behaviour of our southern neighbour. Scotland expects nothing good from Westminster. (well, in truth the fantasists do, but they’re the ones who get the cream whoever is pouring the milk on their porridge.; they see it as theirs by right.)
Enjoy the festive season as best you are able; gather ye Christmas rose-buds (Helleborus niger) as ye may.
And in the spirit of seasonal goodwill perhaps you will see fit to forgive the times I have been overly acerbic (maybe even rude or dismissive) or unreasonable in response to any of your postings. We have much more in common than we have differences. Sometimes I am inclined to be a bit….binary(?) in my view of the world.
Andy Crow
This is Richard’s blog and you are here because he sees fit to let you be here. And that is alright by me.
There is nothing to forgive. If that were the case then please forgive me. This blog is a robust place because when you are trying to deal with facts in support of the new, it has to be. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Blogs that act as a place to hang out and feel comfortable and familiar in are not for me. I learn a lot from being here.
All’s well that ends well Andy – have a cool yule and keep up the energy levels in the New Year.
Oh – and we must remember to reset our respective smiley counts to zero again – yeah?
PSR
It was one of my most robustly Left wing mates who first described Corbyn and his immediate clique as Stalinists – in a debate that ranged across Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. I’ve come to realise just what he meant. The members views are only valid as long as they accord with those of the Dear Leader.
On a cheerier note, something else to watch for those interested in alternative economics. Andy Haldane talking at the Bennett School at Cambridge
https://youtu.be/3PUsWcF5O-Y
It’s some consolation to know that there is some challenge to conventional thinking at the centre.
Wow! Just seen this…more suitable for Halloween than Christmas really…
So off I trott to check the gammon in the oven. Not afraid!
“Completely barmy!!”
Agreed.
Richard,
MY comments are simply not appearing on this blog after I Submit them which seems a bit unfortunate and rather mystifies me. It is as if I’ve been blocked which I find difficult to imagine.
What’s going on with that? Do you know? BTW you have my e-mail address if there is something I should know.
Regards,
Marco
Apart from my being out all day I have no idea
Today I was out all day and when I came home, and checked it, my comment had appeared.
It seems it is a mystery (?).
No
It says I was out all day….
Me too (lol – a miscommunication on that particular point it seems and not one worth explaining).
Never mind. I get what’s going on now. There’s a time delay between the comment being submitted and its appearance in the blog.
Agonisingly true, as Pilgrim points out. The really bad news is Corbyn and the flunkies he has sent out singing his silly election hymn. Barry Gardner has gone from decent chap to faltering protocol droid and he isn’t the worst. Jess Raynor could double as a made-over Trump woman bleating out the Party line. Do they think the game is to hang on until May calls for a referendum in a Pauline conversion moment? Let’s celebrate our last Xmas with running water with Frankie Boyle.
Marco
In the old says, you could read what you had posted immediately but not now. It imparts a new kind of discipline when you write! You’ll get used to it and I hope that you do as I enjoy your comments.
Eventually, the name and address fields remember your details and it becomes easier.
Best,
PSR
Pilgrim,
I see what you mean. I’m not sure what to think. Its a bit like conventional (as opposed to digital) photography in a way.
Cheers,
Marco
As an analogue photographer Marco I like the present set up as I can (1) take more care in setting out what I say and (2) pay the consequences if I do not which takes me back to (1). It’s rather iterative – in terms of learning process.
@Pilgrim Sight Return.
Have you read this comment on the above Guardian article by AAV (not everyone’s cup of tea, I grant, but he makes an arguable case)?
https://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-new-guardian-business-model.html?fbclid=IwAR0Fjek8b8NwjBegykcHb4EZWCNpwWlIj421ZIl9qLNye34re70F3Fhg0ys&m=1
Arguable
But I am wholly unconvinced
I see almost no chance of the EU renegotiating, even if there was a new government. Why should they?
The choices are a) Leave with no deal b) The EU’s deal (which we attribute to May)or c) Remain
The key point is (b) is the EU’s deal
Corbyn has to get his head round this, in my opinion
As do others
Corbyn doesn’t need to get ‘his head around’ anything of the sort. He is fluffing around with interviewers and the press generally. He is just padding time, being evasive and pretending otherwise.
Labour will help facilitate a 2nd referendum pretend to be passive and neutral about it and then go with the result which will be Remain.
That’s not wishful thinking on my part its just the least difficult, most possible and most convenient of all the remaining options.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/02/behind-closed-doors-labour-second-referendum-shadow-cabinet-strategy
I think most Britons are possibly too close to the daily theatre of all this to see it clearly.
Richard,
I’m not arguing with your reasoning, which I broadly support, but my point in posting the AAV article was that, as AAV points out, the body of the Guardian article directly contradicts the lurid headline.
Agreed
Marco Fante says:
“Corbyn…. is fluffing around with interviewers and the press generally. He is just padding time, being evasive and pretending otherwise.” He’s making some headway, I feel in telling half-witted, smart-arse headline hunters to ‘Fuck Off and die’ without saying so and losing his temper which would delight them more than anything else. Why he denied saying ‘Stupid woman’ when it’s apparent to the entire nation that she is, or is at least behaving so, is part of what’s wrong with contemporary politics.
“Labour will help facilitate a 2nd referendum pretend to be passive and neutral about it and then go with the result which will be Remain.”
I wish I shared your apparent confidence here, Marco.
And I think it strategically very dangerous, and not clever. (and it shows no vestige of principle).
Andrew
Thank you.
I think that you’ve missed my point. I have seen Labour prevaricate and put off committing to any course of action and I have stood by the Party on the basis that it has to make the right move at the right time in a toxic situation not of its making. I have been very patient. I have even quietly disagreed with RM on this, wanting to see the whites of Corbyn’s eyes before I passed judgement. RM seems to have been right all along.
I expected Labour to talk about a second vote and failing that I wanted them to kick BREXIT out period as I believe that the ‘decision’ is unsafe for legal, process and financial reasons. The decision to leave has more holes in it than a colander used as target practice. As such it is no basis by which to take any action.
My response to the Guardian article whether it is accurate or not gave me the chance to re-state my expectation of Labour as to what I expect from them on this issue. I want Labour as a Remain party.
Why? Because BREXIT is going to cause problems for the vey people it claims to want to help. That’s why. Labour has absolutely no excuse in helping us to leave the EU and cause harm. None whatsoever.
So, whether this has been misreported or even if it was a cynical attempt to gauge opinion I and I think many others want to take this opportunity to point a few things out to Mr Corbyn. I’d much rather the UK stay in and break every neo-lib rule the EU lays down about state intervention than slink off without a fight. Since when was anything changed like that?
I also believe that Labour could let a lot of people down if they go down the ‘better way to Leave’ route. And for that there might be a high price to pay. But we will also pay for it by having to put up with the Tories for even longer or maybe Tommy Robinson as Leader of the Opposition?
So – that is my position Andrew. I have been clear about what I expect from the Leader of the Opposition.
It’s called ‘Opposition’ not ‘ ‘Opportunity’ or ‘Daydreaming’ or ‘Avoidance’ or ‘Fraternising with the Enemy’.
I want Labour to be opposed to BREXIT. That’s it.
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“RM seems to have been right all along.”
Hmmm…. makes ya sick dunnit ? [Fishing for smileys….cheap eh?] I think RM saw early that without the economic grasp Labour would be hogtied in office. I’ve had this ‘argument’ already today that understanding MMT is actually crucial to Labour being able to deliver what JC and JMcD say they want to do. And in the meantime, for my money, they have not effectively been an opposition. I’m not, for my own part, greatly disappointed because I cut myself adrift from the party in Blair’s day and I won’t go back. Ever. Betrayal is terminal. But for those who believe in Labour and have rekindled some faith, (like my Facebook friend I was talking to earlier today) I fear that they are going to be let down badly.
Many think it will be enough to get Corbyn into No.10. Job done. Hmmm… that’s no shoo-in and when/if he gets there the problems have hardly begun. Labour have bailed-out after Tory economic extravagance repeatedly since 1945, for which they have been given no credit, but this current clusterfuck (seems to be now standard English abbreviation for a diatribe on Brexit) is well beyond their capacity to repair if they eschew the tools to do the job.
I don’t see that Labour had anything to lose in opposing Brexit. Nothing at all. But they think they do because they think the EU rules will prevent the sort of State spending required to put the country back on track. The neolibs have them beaten by accepting the terms of engagement. Politics governs the economy. The neolibs have succeeded in saying the boot is on the other foot and we can only have the policies we can afford. Tacitly, and indeed quite overtly at times and in some utterances, it is clear that Labour’s current thinking accepts this. So they are stuffed. (Er,…WE are stuffed) They will struggle to win an election because ‘nobody’ believes they can fund their plans. They haven’t said how they will do it and the indications are that JMcD is going to try and tough it out and fight on neolib terms. OH! Dear.
re The specific Guardian headline issue here…… where the headline is not supported by the body type, and sometimes actually says the opposite, is something we are well-familiar with in Scotland. Stu Campbell on Wings has done sterling work on exposing this simple technique of ‘fake’ reporting over a number of years. When challenged the paper says ‘….but it’s here…in the eighteenth paragraph’
Damage done in the headline can never be undone. Too late now to ask Paddy ‘Pantsdown’ about the power of a headline. (So it goes)
I’m dismayed, but not surprised to find the Guardian behaving like this. And I don’t see what they hope to achieve, because their angle on Brexit is opaque at best. I’ve ceased to care, because I long since decided The Guardian is not ‘my’ paper any longer. It’s been hijacked by a metropolitan younger would-be elite of smug-ish clever-buggers and they’ve lost me.
Sometimes I have felt I was reading the Daily Mail for the slightly more literate. 🙁 🙁 🙁
So, whether this has been misreported or even if it was a cynical attempt to gauge opinion I and I think many others want to take this opportunity to point a few things out to Mr Corbyn. I’d much rather the UK stay in and break every neo-lib rule the EU lays down about state intervention than slink off without a fight. Since when was anything changed like that?
I also believe that Labour could let a lot of people down if they go down the ‘better way to Leave’ route. And for that there might be a high price to pay. But we will also pay for it by having to put up with the Tories for even longer or maybe Tommy Robinson as Leader of the Opposition?
So — that is my position Andrew. I have been clear about what I expect from the Leader of the Opposition.
It’s called ‘Opposition’ not ‘ ‘Opportunity’ or ‘Daydreaming’ or ‘Avoidance’ or ‘Fraternising with the Enemy’.
I want Labour to be opposed to BREXIT. That’s it.
Fair enough
And you’re right Re Stuart Campbell too
🙂
It will be interesting to see how many members of the Labour Party are fired up enough to get rid of their incompetent Old Stalinist leader Corbyn and quickly! Should they not you’ll know that much of Britain (perhaps Scotland excepted) is drowning from a lack of genuine understanding about the importance of democracy in political parties as well as economic and monetary system illiteracy.
Schofield says:
“It will be interesting to see how many members of the Labour Party are fired up enough to get rid of their incompetent Old Stalinist leader Corbyn and quickly!”
I’m a little dismayed that you see Corbyn as the problem in the labour Party.
That’s not the way I’ve been reading it at all. I’ve seen the problem in the Labour Party as being the Blairite rump which is on the wrong benches. Very comfortable there and keeping their powder dry, and their heads down ’til they can ride back into government and depose the man that put them there.
I could vote for Corbyn, but not for his party. And I’d like to see the Scottish branch of labour eviscerated at the next opportunity in the hope that an up coming younger and socialist party will grow in its place with independence.
“A man is gotta dream..”…….(Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman)
“You’ve got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true ?” (Rogers and Hammerstein. South Pacific.)
It seems that we have been troubled by issues from the EEC and EU for many years. This adds a lighter note to the problems of today.
Happy Christmas, Richard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvYuoWyk8iU
Andy says:
“I wish I shared your apparent confidence here, Marco.
And I think it strategically very dangerous, and not clever. (and it shows no vestige of principle).”
That’s an interesting opinion and I’m not sure what you mean by “dangerous”. I assume that you mean the risk of Leave winning again. Going by the overall weight of evidence I can’t see that happening but in an effort to be objective I have fished around and found someone credible that shares your view of the danger:
https://theconversation.com/would-a-second-referendum-deliver-a-vote-to-remain-what-polling-tells-us-109157
The problem with that article, however, is that it discusses an idea of “the status quo” in British politics that is back-to-front as well as upside down. It also fails to recognise that the appeal of “taking back control” has conspicuously spun out of control as it always bound to do when great difficulties became more apparent.
In my other comment above I said that Britons may be too close to the daily theatre of all this to see it clearly, so to represent my position I have chosen another credible article but this one is from Australia and contains a very interesting chart:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-14/the-only-brexit-chart-you-need-to-see/10615104
That presents a softer, simplified version of my view. As for the “vestige of principle” that you mentioned. Well, I do sincerely sympathise but would also suggest that the overwhelming desire for most is just to get the hell out of this mess by any means possible.
And that was my point about the 2nd referendum anyway. I’m not saying that it is the best choice necessarily but merely that it remains the only feasible remaining option. At this stage all the others have been closed off.
Marco Fante says:
” At this stage all the others have been closed off.”
Only because we have a bunch of sheep in Parliament, and they’ve been circling like sheep trying to bite each other, something that sheep are not well designed to do.
To call a second referendum a ‘people’s vote’ and pretend it’s something different is a transparent euphemism that fools no-one.
The resistance to this on the grounds that it is standard practice for the EU to call a second referendum every time ‘they’ don’t get the ‘right’ answer first time round is going to skew the result and makes it unpredictable.
If the MSM present a second referendum in this light, (as something the EU is making us do) and they could do… the Bolshy element of the electorate will vote leave anyway and may do so in sufficient numbers to put us straight back into the crap deal/no deal dilemma.
The option which IS on the table and does make some sense is to say Brexit has been a clusterfuck (not very parliamentary language, I know) that an acceptable deal is not currently available, that the divisions at every level of society are such that whatever we do on March 29th will be highly divisive, aswell as economically/financially very damaging in the short term at the very least. Disruptive to us and the EU.
So the only sensible option (IMO) is to withdraw Article 50. And start all over again. With realistic aims rather than fantasy projections of ‘control and sovereignty and sunny uplands and wheatfields and whatever the hell else has been ‘promised’ and cannot be delivered.
What makes Article 50 withdrawal supportable is a declaration that we are not happy with the ‘current’ state of the EU, and UK membership and that we will set about making that relationship better. But that we will do so on sensible timescales and with sensible objectives through proper diplomatic political channels of negotiation. In a spirit of co-operation and compromise.
Sadly, I don’t think after recent experience there is anyone in parliament with the stature to suggest that course and too few sheepoliticians who would support it.
If the monarchy had any useful function in our dogs’ breakfast non-constitution, HM would dissolve Parliament and knock her ministers heads together, because they have been behaving like unruly infants.
Brexit ‘was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’…. to coin a phrase.
‘Rip it up and start again?’
Look, we do not need to do this at all. BREXIT should be stopped. It is unsafe.
As I have said, there have been so many lies, such a widespread lack of understanding about the treaty amongst the voters. And then take into account the possibility of outside interference.
The only way out is for someone to grow some and stop it. Stop it because the electorate and their politicians are just not up to the job of considering the question in a rational way.
If I were Corbyn that is what I would do. And once in, increase spending pdq along the lines of PQE / GQE to take the sting off ignoring ‘the willy (sic) of the people’ . Because that is what the referendum was – a dickhead enabling exercise.
And if the EU complained about my fiscal aid to the people I am supposed to be looking after anyway I would tell Juncker and Co to fuck off basically.
Then I would start a movement within the EU to counter the growth of the Far Right by investing them/it into oblivion. For ever.
Andy, re this:
“The resistance to this on the grounds that it is standard practice for the EU to call a second referendum every time ‘they’ don’t get the ‘right’ answer first time round is going to skew the result and makes it unpredictable.”
That’s interesting but strange as I see it. Those particular “grounds” are probably too stupid for the broader British public to buy into no matter how little one may or may not think of them. I say this for a variety of reasons with the main one being that the EU didn’t “call” the first referendum to begin with nor did they necessitate it (as they did with the Greek referendum of 2011). Nope, David Cameron called it at the urging of his dopiest Tory colleagues. You know that, I know it, Danny Dyer knows it along with the rest of Britain and the Western world generally. And what’s more the EU wouldn’t be calling the 2nd vote either not by any measure of spin or stretch of the imagination. No, that would be Made in Britain as well. There is little or nothing to suggest otherwise.
I understand why you would prefer the parliament to get rid of Brexit but they’re not going to, at least not without putting it to another ‘peoples vote’ so, that’s how it is.
Anyway its almost Christmas so we should probably give the subject an undeserved rest for now.
Please see link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g_GeQR8fJo
I’ll be leaving 2018 thinking South Park more intelligent than our Parliament.
Worrying…..and probably true
Corbyn and crew know there’s not a chance in hell of being able renegotiate.
It’s almost certain that there have been ‘meetings’ between Labour and and certain representatives of the EU. If only due to the uncertainty of May’s position in the last few weeks, with the chance of another election, and Corbyn coming to power.
It appears what he actually said differs a little from the way it was reported. But possibly plays well in some areas of the country.
They’re probably holding to the…we were forced into this..game plan.
The Loathsome woman came out with her statement that there is no way for Parliament to block the no deal option. It looks like it will be very interesting over the next few weeks.
Corbyn is sticking to the “The membership will decide, not me” line. Holding this should see him through to a second vote without too much critical damage to the party vote. Maybe
I can testify from having two box sets that South Park is a lot funnier too.