The UK left the European Union on 31 Jan, 2020.

[Bill Ryan]

Folks, I wanted to just bring this to everyone's attention, especially to our friends in North America, Australia and elsewhere. (I'll merge it with the main Brexit thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?91509-The-UK-Brexit-vote-to-leave-the-EU) tomorrow.)

Today is Brexit day. The official timing of leaving the EU is 11 pm in the UK, midnight in Europe.
:happy dog:

[ExomatrixTV]

Nigel Farage’s final speech to European Parliament cut short after he waves flag:
RBMvZRf9Scs
Nigel Farage's instant reaction to leaving the EU
uFTN_mjM-ls
Nigel Farage: 'I will miss being pantomime villain of the EU after Brexit'
FX6YnV2hvk4
As a Dutch person I wish we had someone that comes close to Nigel Farage in The Netherlands sooner!

We have now: Forum for Democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_for_Democracy) & Thierry Baudet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_for_Democracy)

After Brexit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit) comes >>> Nexit :dancing:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_withdrawal_from_the_European_Union)

[TomKat]

And now, having failed to destroy Britain with immigration, Germany will work on getting Scotland to leave the UK.

[Pam]

I have to admit. I never in a thousand years believed it would actually happen. I imagine this opens the door for many other possibilities. One stone on the grave of the globalist agenda.

[araucaria]

One stone on the grave of the globalist agenda.
Now which globalist agenda would that be – for there would appear to be more than one? As I pointed out the other day (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?355-The-Anglo-Saxon-Mission&p=1333402&viewfull=1#post1333402), the Brexit show has been run by the same people as were behind the so-called “Anglo-Saxon Mission”. That agenda was supposed to come to fruition in 2012, a year famous for nothing untoward happening. Surprise surprise, the Brexit bandwagon really got rolling in 2013. Since then, the big new gambit has been to get a sizeable portion of the alternative scene behind the very people they should be objecting to.

[Chester]

It seems logical to me that as countries who realize they pull a disproportionate weight move to exit the EU, we see a domino effect. The UK being the first... I wonder what the UK bookies have as an "over/under" for the dissolution of the EU? I would make it January 31, 2027 at even odds.

And knowing the Dutch the way I do, I can see that happening sooner than later. In general, the Dutch hate wasting money more than anyone on the planet.

[Le Chat]

Oh good, £350 million per week extra for the NHS:bigsmile:

[snoman]

Finally!!
Now all we need to do is detach from the UK parliament and we might get nearer democracy.. which in effect would be benign anarchy floated on a reinvigorated psychedellic renaissance. Just musing :)

[greybeard]

Wait and see how many of the claims made by Boris and Co are actually true.
Chris

[Hiram]

This is just a single step, albeit a major and symbolic one for all the people who have objected to the European project for a very long time. In many senses this can be thought of as the United Kingdom's Independence Day.
In other peoples eyes it will not be viewed that way at all. Either way, the work has just begun.
The imperative now, for those who have opposed the forces of globalism, will be to watch the negotiations between the U.K. and the E.U. very closely over the next twelve months. I can tell you that regaining control of your own fishing rights, your own territorial waters, your own pace of immigration, and your own justice system will all be paramount. On the other hand, the E.U. will seek to limit the U.K.'s ability to become a fair competitor of any kind. It will tie the establishment of any future trade deals with the bloc to the U.K. adopting the very policies which drove the U.K. out of the E.U. in the first place. In a way, this process will be enlightening. The next months will slowly reveal WHOM in the British government is actually serious about creating a strong, and independent Britain. For my part, any step away from centralized control is a step in the right direction. So we shall have to see.
I can tell you that tonight, My family and I will be enjoying a thoughtful drink in celebration of a battle won,
with the full understanding that there is a big difference between winning a battle, and winning the war.
Peace and prosperity to Ole Blighty!

[bettye198]

Can anyone break it down as to what may or possibly be next because of this event? What do we expect to see in the UK? Thanks.

[Kryztian]

_rdIJ0sEEmA

When Britain first, at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

[Eric J (Viking)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tw74d3Exlc

Happy days...

Viking

[Matthew]

And just as Article 13 radically changes the internet for those subject to the legislation. One small example of the control the European Commission, etc impose.

***edit: six month old report, but very insightful - Article 13 has since passed***
Article 13: https://youtu.be/rmO7BdPcmlU

BREXIT DAY!
This video is scheduled to start in just over an hours time
GTj1Szesnfs

[sunwings]

Not many politicians family members work in the Honda Swindon factory or the Nissan factory in Sunderland or in Jaguar Land Rover plants.

If they did Brexit would probably look very different. Democracy has been exposed not respected. Decisions being made which will never affect the powerful elite.

A close German friend of mine who works translating between the Spanish Seat factory car plants and VW Head Office told me how in one meeting they discussed a larger plan to chip away at the Car industry in Britain because they will be weaker after Brexit. He told me how a Trade War between the EU and Britain would start after Brexit.

The EU has already planned to destabilise Britain. Firstly because it will make the EU stronger and secondly, it would scare off future attempts of EU separation. Post Brexit Britain has to fail. It won´t be difficult because Britain is distancing itself from the largest trading bloc in the world and its No.1 export partner.

1223317142117941249

[sunwings]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tw74d3Exlc

Happy days...

Viking

Celebrations erupt!!!!:confused:

This photo doing the rounds on social media is actually of LIverpool football club celebrating winning the European Cup. It is not a Brexit party.

1223239588992471040

This is actually what Parliament Square looks like.

1223309853285896193

I wonder if a Remain party would have been as exciting as this one???

1223351829486022657

[Matthew]

I've been watching two live streams .. here's one of them

RT
https://youtu.be/mD0a_Gh7N74

And the other

UNN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD0a_Gh7N74

[Matthew]

Oh also, I have a friend there, in London at the event, they said the atmosphere is amazing. I'm not in London, but where I am fireworks are going off everywhere.

[sunwings]

I am sure it is an amazing event.:clapping: Let's Zoom into it and listen to these well-informed voters.

1223377890655506433

[Bluegreen]

..:moony:
"Say it again!"
"God save the Queen!"
"Again!"
"God save the Queen!"

RvMxqcgBhWQ
Much :heart: to the happy Brexiteers from the Colonies

[wnlight]

I have to say that I am shocked! I had come to expect endless postponements.

[shaberon]

One stone on the grave of the globalist agenda.
Now which globalist agenda would that be – for there would appear to be more than one? As I pointed out the other day (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?355-The-Anglo-Saxon-Mission&p=1333402&viewfull=1#post1333402), the Brexit show has been run by the same people as were behind the so-called “Anglo-Saxon Mission”. That agenda was supposed to come to fruition in 2012, a year famous for nothing untoward happening. Surprise surprise, the Brexit bandwagon really got rolling in 2013. Since then, the big new gambit has been to get a sizeable portion of the alternative scene behind the very people they should be objecting to.



I would have to ask what it means in terms of law and finance.

Yes, I would think there are a handful of "globalist agendas" which may at times cooperate or compete. I presume UK is a bygone in terms of military empire, but, first of all, being the original shadow banking tax shelter, and secondly, land holdings such as World Wildlife Foundation in Africa and so forth...I don't think their hands are exactly clean, and for some it will be business as usual.

At the same time, if you can force them to support reasonable health services, then at least you are getting something in return, better than here is my understanding.

[sunwings]

At the same time, if you can force them to support reasonable health services, then at least you are getting something in return, better than here is my understanding.

Unfortunately, It will get worse the British health system. Every Doctor and Nurse begged the people of Britain NOT to vote Conservative because the NHS is being run into the ground. However, as the British people wake up today excited by events and eager to enjoy their new Sovereignty. Mmm! Smell that fresh sovereign air! Feel the freedom after 47 years of tyranny! Our shackles removed at last! Free at last, free at last!

[Mare]

On the contrary old chap! We were promised £350 million per week for the NHS once we left the EU. I’m sure Boris is as good as his word, but would you just double-check and see if the cheque goes in at the start or the end of next week?

[Chester]

...being the original shadow banking tax shelter...

Happen to know when this was established?

[greybeard]

Think people a little naive.
Every country has rules governing imports—exporters have to meet those or no trade can happen.
The idea that there will be no border between NI and the South is just not true.
Different tariff means custom and excise will require regulations to be met.
So there has to be border points to check incoming goods.
There will be additional paperwork to export and import.
All this means delay—delay creates expense.
No longer free flow of goods to our biggest customer the EU
This means extra expense—who will pay for it –why us of course.
So I think the idea that UK will be better off is a bit optimistic.
In a few months those who shouted loudest for Brexit may be loudest critics.
I hope im wrong.
New beginnings are a bit like a birth, painful, hopefully good will come of it.

Chris

[ExomatrixTV]

Adieu, EU: UK celebrates exit from the European Union
WF3S7gcDmvA


Awesome Powerful Symbolic Video! :thumbsup::Party::handshake::happythumbsup::hail::cheers:

[shaberon]

...being the original shadow banking tax shelter...

Happen to know when this was established?



I don't mean "original" necessarily as "first", but original, in terms of globally spread. Having to do with territories such as the Virgin Islands. I guess we could look from the start of Bank of England, which I think was 1694, and no Rothschild does not solely own it. My understanding is it has to do with an old issue in British politics, it was hard to get the government to crack down on "pirates" because most contraband was being smuggled by members of Parliament. And so this would be things like untaxed rum. I don't think there was an event like "poof" and suddenly a shadow institution appeared in place, but, an evolving strategy of those who had the means to do so.

Although Virgin Islands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_British_Virgin_Islands) is still the leading tax haven, little is said about the colonial epoch, except the governors approved at least one island as a pirate safehouse (https://www.vinow.com/general_usvi/history/), even prior to Bank of England. So perhaps it may be more accurate to say there was already international shadow finance, which the actual bank simply grew up in the middle of.

[Praxis]

I think that the EU is not a good thing and clearly if you watch the constitution struggle it shows that it is not good. I do remember the Lisbon treaty. I remember how that developed and they forced Ireland to revote after they voted wrong, after other countries did the same but then they change the vote to stop that. I agree that Brexit is probably the best thing for England(but not actually the world. I do think the EU prevents another franco prussian war. So the EU falling apart would actually move us closer to another goddamn European conflagration).

The racist anti immigrant takes in here are appalling.

Did you know that Bill Ryan is an immigrant? When you talk about being anti immigrant you are anti Bill Ryan. FULL STOP. Do you hate Bill Ryan or are you just anti immigrants that are not white?

Being anti immigration as anyone of European descent in the Americas is stupid and ignorant.

IF you are not of a tribe, you are of immigration. To be okay with your past but want to block that for other people is disgusting.

I am constantly shocked about how some people around here are supposed to be star child, love light, infinite awareness and acceptance, woo woo people then espouse racist nonsense.

Capitalism and class warfare destroy your countries, not immigrants. Also capitalism and class warfare destroyed their countries, that is why they are immigrating to the countries that did the destroying.

[Bill Ryan]

The racist anti immigrant takes in here are appalling.

These are strong political opinions. Nothing to do with 'racism', as best I can see.


Did you know that Bill Ryan is an immigrant? When you talk about being anti immigrant you are anti Bill Ryan. FULL STOP. Do you hate Bill Ryan or are you just anti immigrants that are not white?
Well, I've written on the Racism (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100738-Racism) thread that in many ways, I really don't think I should be in Ecuador.

I'm legally allowed to be here, and cause no harm, but I don't belong here, these are not my people, I don't speak the language, I don't contribute to the strong culture, and in many ways I'm an imposter.

I'm always just as friendly as I can be, but I know I'm merely tolerated, and that the Ecuadorians are worried about their culture getting diluted by [usually economic] immigration.

If I were an Ecuadorian, I'd want Bill Ryan to "go home". The practical issue is that I have no other "home" to go to.

:focus:

[Sunny-side-up]

The racist anti immigrant takes in here are appalling.

These are strong political opinions. Nothing to do with 'racism', as best I can see.


Did you know that Bill Ryan is an immigrant? When you talk about being anti immigrant you are anti Bill Ryan. FULL STOP. Do you hate Bill Ryan or are you just anti immigrants that are not white?
Well, I've written on the Racism (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100738-Racism) thread that in many ways, I really don't think I should be in Ecuador.

I'm legally allowed to be here, and cause no harm, but I don't belong here, these are not my people, I don't speak the language, I don't contribute to the strong culture, and in many ways I'm an imposter.

I'm always just as friendly as I can be, but I know I'm merely tolerated, and that the Ecuadorians are worried about their culture getting diluted by [usually economic] immigration.

If I were an Ecuadorian, I'd want Bill Ryan to "go home". The practical issue is that I have no other "home" to go to.

:focus:

I hear you Bill and yes no racism here.

If I was:
If I were an Ecuadorian, I'd want Bill Ryan to "go home"
I wouldn't mind anyone who was good and kind (just like you Bill), I would treat them like beings of the world.

[Kamikaze]

delete it all.

[happyuk]

Is it racist we have finally got our nation and our democracy back?

I have a real problem with people playing the racist card, particularly in that the worst part of the last 1317 or so days has been the repeated claims by many Remainers that anyone who voted Leave was as thick as two short planks, narrow-minded, bigoted and probably xenophobic/racist. Simply because we want to make our own laws, police our own borders, escape micro-regulation, uniformity (my personal pet hate) and red tape.

They were furious that us great unwashed plebs didn't fall into line. The ruling class have always hated this country, and England in particular, since the 1930s. It was genuinely bizarre to see "Labour" politicians lining up with the CBI, the banks, the BBC, the judiciary and the senior echelons of the civil service - basically the Establishment - to trot out the same doom-mongering nonsense. Ranting, interrupting rent-a-gobs like Terry Christian will keep banging on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hzqy6QM7_8) until the cows come home, while sensible Remainers realise that there is no going back.

Most Leave voters love Europe, its people and its cultures as much as I do. Let’s hope other European countries like the Netherlands vote to choose their own destinies too

[greybeard]

If you think Brexiteers are angry now, just wait until the wonders of Brexit fail to materialise


https://uk.yahoo.com/news/think-brexiteers-angry-now-just-144837645.html

I have just read Tom Peck’s article, "Parliament Square was a knuckle-dragging carnival of irredeemable stupidity". Were it not so true, it would be acerbically-funny.

It is clear that there are many Brexiteers who would like to go back to an imagined past of imperial superiority. If it were possible, they would emigrate there. What they fail to remember is that the forgotten and the left behind were far, far more left behind then than they are in our modern welfare state, impaired though it is.

For most people in Britain, prior to the relative wealth of the 1980’s, life was nasty, brutish and short. Under imperial and feudal systems, the vast majority are not in charge, they do not reap the benefits, they do not live lives of comfort and ease. My life today is immeasurably better than the lives of my parents, grandparents and all those who went before; a large part of that has been due to our membership of the EU. Before that, our lives were lives of relative austerity.

The great benefit of Brexit, for which we should all be thankful, is that it will slay the myth of Britain as a major player on the global stage. It will reveal us as a small, creative, inventive, energetic country, helping us find our realistic place in the modern world. This will enable us to have the comfort of punching at our weight, without the imposition of an illusion that we are punching, or can punch, above it. We will now receive absolutely clear, demonstrative evidence of exactly what Brexit means for the United Kingdom. All we have to do to see the truth is to be patient, clear-sighted and observe.

I have no doubt that Nigel Farage, Iain Duncan Smith, Mark Francois, and all who deride the EU as the source of all our problems, will first find reasons, then excuses and then just incoherent rage to explain why it isn’t working, but it will be too late. They will be exposed as the irrational, impractical, unintelligent, backward-looking, foam-flecked charlatans that they will be proved to have been all along. Peck is right when he writes that the two sides will not become reconciled; we will not "come back together". If you think Brexiteers are angry now, wait until you see how they behave when the sunny uplands of a newly-triumphant economic powerhouse fail to materialise, then everything really will be Europe’s fault.

At the same time, it will be an amusing sideshow to watch Boris Johnson and the Tories attempt to be both the Conservative and Unionist Party and the Pretend Labour Party, as they attempt to keep both their old and their new voters onside. If a party, which has been in power for 10 years, cannot plan ahead sufficiently to ensure that Big Ben is available to chime on the night which represents the pinnacle of their achievement, then I give little for their chances of significant success in other, more important, areas.

Boris is Boris, he will do what he knows, which is to wing it. It'll be riveting as a spectacle but will not work as a political, commercial or international strategy. Tory factional infighting will commence in the spring and will make the ERG (remember them?) look like new-born lambs gambolling in the spring fields of their new lives. Politically, things will get much, much worse before they get better. Still, I look forward to watching the Tories in their terminal decline. After the coming failure and the inevitable extinguishing of their demographic base, these are the twilight times for them.

The other cause for celebration, as part of the natural way the world works, is that over the next few years a lot of older people (and I write as one) will die and younger, more open, more imaginative people will take the lead. They will be unburdened by the memory of empires, kings and queens, wars, nationalism, shallow patriotism and the old, broken ways and so be free to help us evolve into societies where we all make better choices about how to co-exist on our small planet, preserving it as a blue and green beacon in the dark immensity of space.

All things pass...and so will Brexit.

Nick Kell

[greybeard]

We are all immigrants if you go back several generations.
My wife is an immigrant- now British.
She does sterling work.
Chris

[Matthew]

We are all immigrants if you go back several generations.
My wife is an immigrant- now British.
She does sterling work.
Chris

It's as if the argument is Brexit is anti-immigrant... ??? Rather obtuse. What's wrong with the immigration levels we had before the EU? From India and other parts of the world. It was EU free movement that strangled immigration from the rest of the world, which was an insult to our previous (pre-EU) generations of immigration.

[Praxis]

I was responding to a Canadian who said something about immigration in England. This is what is interesting.



If I were an Ecuadorian, I'd want Bill Ryan to "go home". The practical issue is that I have no other "home" to go to.

:focus:


I think that this is the key bit here and why I get frustrated. People here are framing it like these people have choices. I am willing to bet that if many immigrants had the chance to return to their country, you included apparently, that they would return home. Economic circumstances, and military ones as well, force the situation upon people and this is what makes me sad. For many it is not a choice really it is about trying to make a better life.

If you do not speak Spanish, how are you aware of the concerns of the locals? How do you know you are merely tolerated? Have you tried learning some Spanish? You might find yourself very welcomed. Bill, Have you done something bad to a local person? Do you have an account that is told about you to other Ecuadorians? If no, then maybe that is the reality for many if not most immigrants. Just people trying to get by in a place maybe they didnt choose and cant leave.



The history of humanity is a story of constant immigration.

How many who are concerned with immigrants have ever actually interacted with one and it was negative? Like truly negative, not just their existence bothered you?

From my personal experience, majority(by alot) are positive. This feels like something like your TV and news telling you to make people an OTHER. Dont listen.

[Bill Ryan]

I was responding to a Canadian who said something about immigration in England. This is what is interesting.



If I were an Ecuadorian, I'd want Bill Ryan to "go home". The practical issue is that I have no other "home" to go to.

:focus:

If you do not speak Spanish, how are you aware of the concerns of the locals? How do you know you are merely tolerated? Have you tried learning some Spanish? You might find yourself very welcomed. Bill, Have you done something bad to a local person? I don't belong here. This is a different culture, very different from my own. (Most misinformed comments about 'race' are really all about culture.)

And no, I've never done anything 'bad' to a local person. Not the tiniest thing.

But I can feel their attitude. I'm not that insensitive! :) Many Ecuadorians are super-nice people. I sometimes meet the local farmers, and their wives and children, when I'm walking with my dog. Some of them are genuinely happy, cheerful, and friendly. Others purposefully look the other way and pointedly ignore me — every time.

Where I live is their valley that they've lived in for generations. It's me who's out of place here.

To bring this back to topic (sort of!), this is also very often the problem of immigration. It's all about culture.

Not 'race', or the color of anyone's skin. And local cultures, with all their historical nuances formed over hundreds of years, are extremely important. We can't put everything into a giant global blender and assume it'll then all be better still.

95% of what's the very best and the very greatest about all human beings would be lost.

[happyuk]

"For most people in Britain, prior to the relative wealth of the 1980’s, life was nasty, brutish and short. Under imperial and feudal systems, the vast majority are not in charge, they do not reap the benefits, they do not live lives of comfort and ease. My life today is immeasurably better than the lives of my parents, grandparents and all those who went before; a large part of that has been due to our membership of the EU. Before that, our lives were lives of relative austerity."

I disagree with Nick Kell when he says that improvements in living standards are due to being members of the EU. Think about it. Every person I know living today is living better than John D. Rockefeller lived in the 1930s. They are fed better, entertained better, transported better, medically treated better, you name it.

None of them have the power or prestige Rockefeller had, but if you have the choice of living the life that he could live and the life that they could now live, they’re all better off in every other respect.

We have advances in technology and unleashing human potential to thank for that, not membership of any political union.

[snoman]

regardless of sensibilities in relation to the rhetoric that each side of the EU stay/leave is espousing
we have to admit that we are observers of a narrative, of political theatre and there is little certainty
that our views are anything more useful than a rotten tomatoes rating.

[sunwings]

122 Year old motorcycle company goes into administration after admitting Brexit has kicked us up the ASS.

1224031677544128513

[araucaria]

Not 'race', or the color of anyone's skin. And local cultures, with all their historical nuances formed over hundreds of years, are extremely important. We can't put everything into a giant global blender and assume it'll then all be better still.
While I agree with the point about race matters often being more to do with culture, this global blender is not how it works when two multi-layered cultures meet and interact. A better analogy would probably be a knife: there is a cutting edge at the business end and an increasingly blunter section behind it. This analogy also reflects all the damage that gets done in this regard, and the wounds that might take eons to heal because we are even now still recovering from the day when cultural interaction was synonymous with invasion, colonialization, oppression etc. and learning to do things differently. Because it also works in more peaceful ways. Typically cultures meet when two individuals fall in love and become intimately intertwined both personally and culturally. Like a pebble in a pond this bond ripples out through family and friends, while weakening all the time, until it reaches a point where the effect is insignificant. Meanwhile the union takes strong concrete form when children are born that belong to both cultures and have never known anything else.

I was at an intercontinental wedding only last week, with only a few South Americans making the trip to Europe, exchanging as best they could with the Spanish speakers and to a lesser degree with the others. To complete the event, a similar celebration is planned over there next year for the folks back home to participate in the new French connection. For the majority on both sides of the ocean, things might not go any further than that, although sometimes these things can snowball. But even that much brings a greater awareness of what it means to belong to one’s own culture – like fish discovering the property of the watery environment they take for granted. You have to remember that for many, probably a majority, these things are very far away from life “in the valley”. The valley dwellers are the grassroots, and it won’t take much to make them feel uncomfortable, meaning that they have to be looked after as well and allowed to do things in their own good time if at all. We talk about leaving alone the last few Amazonian tribes, but every culture has people that need to be mostly left alone. A culture is not a single given; it is more like a river, which derives its complex identity from streams coming in from all over.

Sometimes peaceful “invasion” can be a good thing. Eastern Europe was of course a major 20th century battlefield, not just because of the neighbours. In Nijni Novgorod a thousand years ago, some peace-makers were needed to act as a buffer between the Rus and other Slavic tribes; so who did they call in to help? The Vikings! If this makes no sense to you, then think of the modern Scandinavian: a gentle Swede is about as far as you get from the invading hordes of Norsemen of our imagination. How do I know what happened in Nijni Novgorod? Quite simply because here in Normandy, a region named after these people, a major commemoration was hampered by the almost total lack of evidence of their having ever been here: in current jargon, they “left no footprint”. You cannot mount a museum exhibition with no material beyond a few placenames. If you want to observe the Viking influence, you need to look at the people: a pretty placid bunch on the whole, hardly likely to see themselves as Vikings. The Vikings probably got a bad reputation from the Danes, I don’t know. The whole point of making contact with other cultures is to find out things you don’t know: always a risky business, but there is no alternative, there is no going back – simply because there is no “back” to go to.

One reads that the choice of the future is between a technology-free world culture and a technology-driven one. – i.e. between a backward-looking (reactionary), isolationist approach and a forward-looking (progressive) one – the implication being that humanity will inevitably split into two groups. This of course would only create the ultimate form of Us and Them where total separation is the only way forward. But even such separation would only create two genuinely racist groups and nothing fundamental would be solved. Since all but a very few seem committed to getting along together – naturally including those nice Ecuadorians in their valley – we need to be wedding cultures together and avoiding dichotomies such as technology-free/technology-driven. There are no such things. On the one hand tilling the land involves some technology however primitive; on the other, any society however technological is still driven by its non-technological, spiritual, needs. So we need to steer a middle course in every way.

[Sunny-side-up]

I have mixed views about leaving the EU.
One is I'm worried about issues on a personal level for me and my family, it's just the position we have in the system here.
My main view based on my views of the alt kind, I'm glad, this UNION is getting more and more scary, I see big troubles that could end up effecting the globe in very painful ways, to put it very mildly.

Dictatorship comes to mind.

[greybeard]

Firms demand 'seat at the table' in post-Brexit trade deals
Tom Belger,Yahoo Finance UK

https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/uk-business-brexit-trade-deals-eu-us-talks-chicken-farming-standards-workers-rights-000106833.html

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and Britain's Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay attend a news conference after agreeing on the Brexit deal, at the sidelines of the European Union leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium October 17, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

UK businesses are demanding a central role in post-Brexit trade talks, warning that firms will suffer and consumers face higher costs if their concerns are ignored.

Trade negotiations with the EU are expected from March, and talks with the US could start even sooner.

Frictionless trade with the EU is the top priority for business. However, the government has so far has signalled it wants to diverge from EU rules, which could prove costly for firms.

Representation for industry may prove crucial, if they are to have any hope of securing continued EU access and other goals in trade talks around the world.

“If we get it right, there is tremendous potential,” Josh Hardie, CBI deputy director-general, said earlier this month. “The key for the government to unlock that success is simple – make the best use of the wealth of expertise business has to offer.”

READ MORE: What the Brexit transition period means for business

The government’s relationship with business was strained over Brexit, and industry leaders fear being ignored as Britain prepares for new trade talks with Brussels and other countries.

The biggest clash with Whitehall is looming over frictionless trade with the EU. Chancellor Sajid Javid alarmed business chiefs last month by declaring there would no alignment with EU rules, let alone single market or customs union membership.

UK firms fear costly new paperwork, checks and even tariffs or caps on exports if Britain diverges from European standards.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) warned on Friday new barriers would mean “higher costs and reduced choice” for shoppers. Mike Hawes, the SMMT car industry body’s CEO, also called for a deal without tariffs or additional burdens, which could make some car supply chains unviable.

[Praxis]

To bring this back to topic (sort of!), this is also very often the problem of immigration. It's all about culture.

Not 'race', or the color of anyone's skin. And local cultures, with all their historical nuances formed over hundreds of years, are extremely important. We can't put everything into a giant global blender and assume it'll then all be better still.

95% of what's the very best and the very greatest about all human beings would be lost.

I know most people here do not like me and wish me to shut up, but as the husband of an immigrant and as having been an immigrant in another country for years and probably going to be an immigrant in the future. . .


This is the crux of what I see here. People are saying: I am a painter and I am painting. Right now, I have the colors I like and have known for generations.

When a painter with a different color palate moves into next to me, simply him moving there is going to mess up my color scheme!

Now I see all these other colors and I dont like them because they are not what I am used to and him simply painting with his colors near me is causing me to dislike my own colors.

Now I can see how drab and un colorful my colors are and so I have to adopt the better colors.

Another way of taking what you are saying is:

You all Hate Baseball in Japan.

Why do you hate baseball in Japan?

Also curious: What is English culture? Pre Norman? post Norman? Are Catholics English? Does indian culture get grandfathered in? Does Pakistani? Can Aussies go to England be ok? Why? Can Irish(Sinn Fein not Ulster) people live in England?

Interesting when the Empire complains that the subjects of the empire move to the metropole after the destruction of their country by that metropole.


Bill, if you do not belong why then do you not leave?

[snoman]

praxis, I get your angle.. sure
but two things:
whatever people's perspective on why people voted to leave or stay.. it's all grease for the cogs that are used to wind everyone up so they behave as they
should i.e get into a dutiful argument so the real players can grin about how easy it is to involve us all in the nonsense. whatever one's view, we are supposed
and expected to have one and the culture race immigration thing has had everyone dancing from the get go.. division.

the other thing is... I'm giving you an F minus for sensitivity re Bill's honesty. If he wants to say more re why he is stuck in Ecuador, that really is up to him. I don't think
it's a placid question you poked out.

[Caliban]

But I can feel their attitude. I'm not that insensitive! :) Many Ecuadorians are super-nice people. I sometimes meet the local farmers, and their wives and children, when I'm walking with my dog. Some of them are genuinely happy, cheerful, and friendly. Others purposefully look the other way and pointedly ignore me — every time.

Where I live is their valley that they've lived in for generations. It's me who's out of place here.

To bring this back to topic (sort of!), this is also very often the problem of immigration. It's all about culture.

Not 'race', or the color of anyone's skin. And local cultures, with all their historical nuances formed over hundreds of years, are extremely important. We can't put everything into a giant global blender and assume it'll then all be better still.



Bill, next time you feel "unwanted" over there, mention to your neighbors that a friend in the U.S. says their Hundreds-of-Thousands of compatriots living there (many illegally) send their regards. But I'm sure they already know that--since they're probably receiving the remittances from them. Remind them that's many Billions of $$ leaving their adopted country. And going to them or their neighbors. Then tip your hat and smile.

(But learn some Spanish ;)

[Praxis]

Snoman,

That is just the point. If he has no other home to go to then it is possible that other good people might just happen to be in a similar situation in their life. Maybe these people need a place to just be.

I disagree with Bill's assertions that he does not contribute to the "strong Culture". By being the good person he is, in that place, he is contributing. If the locals around him see him as the oppressor then that is on them. But how can anyone in this thread argue that Bill is hurting Ecuador or its culture by existing there and being the awesome man he is?

Bill, I apologize if this has offended or hurt you in anyway.

I just am curious how it is possible to hold a belief and political agenda that is directly counter to your own direct personal situation. This is like a diabetic voting to raise the price of insulin.

I find it necessary to state my opinions especially when they are counter to comments that I feel are dog whistles. Much of the rhetoric around Humans moving between countries(also called immigration) that I see on this site could be lifted straight off Rupert Murdochs Propaganda Organization(also called Fox """""""""News"""""""""""). EDIT Just look at Calibans post. Exactly what Im talking about.

[Matthew]

We're not just talking about immigration, there are degrees of scale. Mass, uncontrolled immigration is far different to what we might think of as immigration. It's all about how entirely uncontrolled it was

[sunwings]

Journalists walk out of No 10 after bid to impose selective briefing of Boris Johnson's Brexit plans

Journalists walked out of a Downing Street briefing on Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans after the prime minister’s director of communications tried to restrict it to selected publications and broadcasters.

Among those boycotting the briefing were the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg and ITV’s Robert Peston.

Labour accused the prime minister of adopting the tactics of US president Donald Trump, who regularly excludes reporters who he regards as hostile.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-brexit-news-journalists-walk-out-no-10-briefing-a9314996.html

Reading Jounalists reactions on twitter it is scary how the PM of GB&NI decides who gets to tell the news. The Daily mail YES! The Sun YES! The guardian NO! If only we had listened to Brian Clough 30 years ago.

mkWzuKdk4m8

[araucaria]

Journalists walk out of No 10 after bid to impose selective briefing of Boris Johnson's Brexit plans

Journalists walked out of a Downing Street briefing on Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans after the prime minister’s director of communications tried to restrict it to selected publications and broadcasters.

Among those boycotting the briefing were the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg and ITV’s Robert Peston.

Labour accused the prime minister of adopting the tactics of US president Donald Trump, who regularly excludes reporters who he regards as hostile.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-brexit-news-journalists-walk-out-no-10-briefing-a9314996.html

Reading Jounalists reactions on twitter it is scary how the PM of GB&NI decides who gets to tell the news. The Daily mail YES! The Sun YES! The guardian NO! If only we had listened to Brian Clough 30 years ago.

mkWzuKdk4m8
Brian Clough was a soccer manager and talks like one. I’ll have a winning team when I sell off two troublesome players. Unfortunately, you don’t eradicate rabies by putting down two rabid pack leaders. Maxwell HAS been removed from the planet, and it has changed absolutely nothing. This is where genocidal notions come into play: to totally eradicate any virus, if you don’t have a cure you would need to remove every single victim. I see no one killing off coronavirus patients at this early stage. You have to find a cure as has been done before for other illnesses. Meanwhile, you need to be able to screen for this form of psychopathy and to quarantine sufferers, i.e. disqualify them from positions of power and authority. The problem being of course that they are in positions to prevent this happening. But that is the problem to be addressed. Brian Clough’s response is not shockingly violent as much as it is woefully inadequate.

As regards the case in point, one needs to act on principles, not simply pragmatically, because it is a matter of not doing exactly the objectionable thing oneself – simply choosing different newspapers to be allowed into Downing Street. If you want the Guardian but not the Sun reporting on Brexit and other matters, then the proper way to go about it would be for the courts to ban any papers that break specific laws, and if such laws do not exist, for them to be introduced by parliament. This is actually long-term pragmatism because there is always a way to hijack a respectable broadsheet – isn’t that what has happened to The Times? You have to go through the courts to make an accusation stick. OK, the courts are somewhat corrupt as well. The only way to solve that problem is through higher ethical standards working from the grassroots up. There is actually plenty of evidence that this is happening in the field of pedophilia and/or rape, where the courts are learning to reach decisions on difficult old cases with little or no hard evidence. The laws were already in place; simply, more sensitive prosecution techniques were needed. Other crimes can be dealt with in this way too.

[Tintin]

Article 17 (previously Article 13) - update

Well, it isn't all doom and gloom for those who'd preferred we'd remained. I am still very much erring on the side of caution as I outlined here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?109390-UK-Election...-12-Dec-2019-Corbyn-Boris-or-Libs&p=1328049&viewfull=1#post1328049) but I cautiously welcome this news received in my inbox today from the Open Rights Group (https://www.openrightsgroup.org/support-org/february-2020-newsletter)



Surprise shelving of EU Copyright Directive
Nearly a year after many UK MEPs aided passage of the dreaded EU Copyright Directive, which opened the door to automated upload filters that damage free speech, the UK Government infuriated opponents and proponents of the Directive alike by suddenly dropping plans to implement it. ORG campaigned fiercely against the Directive so welcomes the news, but the threat of algorithmic copyright enforcement remains. Rightsholder interests are certain to push for similar laws domestically.

Related stories referenced:

1220792914688692226

----------------------------------------------------

http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-united-kingdom-will-not-transpose.html



The IPKat has just learned that, currently, UK Government has no plans to transpose the recently adopted Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 [Katposts here] into its own legal system.

As it can be read on parliament.uk (https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020-01-16/4371), the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Chris Skidmore (https://members.parliament.uk/member/4021/contact), has stated:




"The deadline for implementing the EU Copyright Directive is 7 June 2021. The United Kingdom will leave the European Union on 31 January 2020 and the Implementation Period will end on 31 December 2020. The Government has committed not to extend the Implementation Period. Therefore, the United Kingdom will not be required to implement the Directive, and the Government has no plans to do so. Any future changes to the UK copyright framework will be considered as part of the usual domestic policy process."



Hence, the transposition of provisions like Articles 15 and 17 of that directive will not be part of the UK copyright debate ... at least for the time being.

The IPKat thanks John Shaw for bringing this news to the blog's attention.

[greybeard]

Brexit day poster: Residents stage anti-racism protest over notice at flats telling tenants to speak English or leave
Jane Dalton
The Independent
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/brexit-day-poster-norwich-residents-220738351.html

Residents of a council housing block where a poster telling tenants to “speak only English” was erected on Brexit day have responded with messages of welcome for foreigners.

People living in Winchester Tower in Norwich staged an anti-racism demonstration and erected notices condemning the original message of intolerance.

One notice, signed by several residents, read: “Everyone is welcome here – except bigots.”

Another addressed “to our European friends” and was also signed by residents.

Police are treating the original poster, which was headed “Happy Brexit Day”, as a “racially aggravated public order incident”.

Copies of the notice entitled were found stuck on fire doors across every floor of the 95-home tower on Friday, the day the UK left the EU after 47 years.

The messages read: “As we finally have our great country back we feel there is one rule that needs to be made clear to residents.

“We do not tolerate people speaking other languages than English in the flats. We are now our own country again and the the Queens [sic] English is the spoken tongue here.”

It said anyone who wanted to speak a different language should return to the country they “came from” and give back their flat to the council so “we can return to what was normality before you infected this once great island”.

A 67-year-old resident of the block, who did not want to be identified, told the Norwich Evening News: “When I saw the first poster I was absolutely disgusted. We live in a tower block and for that reason are already looked down upon – this has just made that worse.

“I love living here, and I am proud to live here – ordinarily it is a peaceful and lovely place. However, whoever this coward is, they have given everyone else here a bad name.”

Norwich City Council said it would not tolerate the behaviour of those who created the signs.

Nannette Youssef, a city councillor, wrote: “This despicable behaviour has no place in Norwich. We need to stand together, united in the face of racism ... God save our beautiful, diverse country.” She called on police and the city council to investigate fully.

Jake Humphrey, a television presenter, tweeted: “This trending photo from a door in Norwich makes me livid & embarrassed. Norwich is the most tolerant, accepting, loving city I have ever lived in or visited. This photo in no way represents our county or city. A racist, bigoted minority will NEVER be tolerated & NEVER prevail.”

The group Stand Up to Racism Norwich said of the backlash: “This is what we do: grassroots, community-led, collective action that gives everyone the confidence to challenge racism & fascism.”

After Sunday’s show of support, resident Rosemary Miller told the BBC: “We all stood round the tower holding hands and saying that we were a multicultural building and everybody is welcome.

“I put on the wall [a sign saying] ‘let’s live in a city of love for all, we love our tower block, we love everybody, we are all family’.”

[greybeard]

I’ve spent 40 years reporting from Westminster. I’ve never seen anything like this before
The Independent Andrew Grice,The Independent

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/ive-spent-40-years-reporting-135639693.html

In 38 years as a Westminster journalist, the last 21 for The Independent, I have witnessed many bouts of arm-wrestling as politicians of different hues tried to tame the media beast and tilt the balance of this tense relationship in their favour.

Today, relations have sunk to their lowest ebb in my time. On Monday, Downing Street excluded several non Conservative-supporting outlets, including The Independent, from a briefing about the UK-EU trade deal talks. The invited journalists rightly boycotted it in solidarity.

Some readers, and some No 10 aides, will doubtless think the widespread media coverage of this storm in an egg cup is self-serving. But it matters. The decision crossed a line.

I have attended – and been excluded from – many selective briefings over the years by party political aides now known as “spads” (short for special advisers). But I cannot recall such a meeting being held by a politically neutral civil servant, as Monday’s was going to be – David Frost, Boris Johnson’s Europe adviser, who will lead the negotiations. So this was different.

The 150-year old lobby of some 250 Westminster-based journalists knew the writing was on the wall. Lee Cain, the Downing Street director of communications, wasted no time to exploit the power of Johnson’s huge majority. He unilaterally decided that the twice-daily lobby briefings would be held at 9 Downing Street rather than at the Palace of Westminster. This makes it hard for media organisations with small staffs to attend, and led to protests from the Society of Editors. Cain played hardball, even refusing to meet the lobby to discuss the matter – a deliberate break with tradition.

As well as making it harder for the media to question the government, the move raised fears that No 10 would soon herd the journalists into sheep and goats, excluding those who do not toe the line from briefings on its home ground. It took only a few weeks to happen.

The parallels with Donald Trump’s attacks on the “fake news media” are inevitable – and accurate. Like Trump, Team Boris wants to gets its message directly to voters unmediated by what it views as an anachronistic Westminster institution out of touch with the real world. The architect of this strategy is Dominic Cummings, who wrote in a blog post last month: “In SW1 communication is generally treated as almost synonymous with ‘talking to the lobby’. This is partly why so much punditry is ‘narrative from noise’. With no election for years and huge changes in the digital world, there is a chance and a need to do things very differently.”

When I joined the lobby in 1982, a veteran political editor took me to one side and whispered: “Maintain the mystique.” The lobby rules dictated we could not even attribute the twice-daily briefings to Downing Street; they were from anonymous “Whitehall sources”. But the system has reformed, slowly. In 1991, referring to No 10 was allowed after The Independent, The Guardian, The Scotsman and The Economist withdrew from the briefings.

Under New Labour, the briefings were finally attributed to the prime minister’s official spokesman. The Alastair Campbell era is viewed with admiration by some Tory spin doctors. In opposition, Tony Blair had adopted an aggressive stance towards the media. He once told me that “never again” would Labour allow the media to dish out the abuse directed at Neil Kinnock, one of his predecessors. Blair also supped with the media devil in Rupert Murdoch.

Oppositions rely on headlines but Blair discovered that, in government, spin is no substitute for policy. The Campbell era ended with the dossier about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, after the spinners cherry-picked the intelligence. Campbell’s briefings were taken over by two civil servants. The message was: “No spin is the new spin.”

David Cameron copied the Blair playbook, seeing it as basic professionalism. Theresa May recoiled from it, refusing to govern by headline. Team Boris likewise rejected the approach of its predecessor.

Johnson aides might view waging war on the lobby as part of its populist “us vs them” battle against the establishment. It worked at the election, after all. I suspect it is about a wider strategy which includes rationing Johnson’s appearances and avoiding difficult questions from those, whether seasoned lobby hacks or the BBC’s Andrew Neil, who know what to ask.

Johnson also rations his appearances at the Commons despatch box. Since the election, 30 minutes a week of Prime Minister’s Questions is all we get. There’s talk of him being chairman of the board; a good delegator, as he was as London mayor.

The image is misleading, and I doubt it will last. Every Downing Street operation I have known could not resist the temptation to interfere obsessively in Whitehall departments. This one is no different.

Johnson might be riding high now. But it won’t last; it never does. Events, whether in foreign fields or closer to home, will blow the best political operation in the world off course. When that happens, Team Boris will need the traditional media more than it thinks it does now.

As Monday’s walkout by the approved media showed, Johnson will discover he has fewer friends as a result of following the Trump playbook now, and that the pen is mightier than the sword.

[greybeard]

Support for Scottish independence soars to 52% as three polls in a week show anti-Brexit surge
Ross McGuinness
Yahoo News UK yesterday
Brexit has led to an increase in support for Scottish independence, according to a polling expert

Three polls in less than a week show support is rising for Scottish independence, with one survey putting it at 52%.

Polling experts said the surge was down to anti-Brexit sentiment north of the border.

On Monday, surveys published by Survation and Panelbase revealed that Scottish people’s voting intention in a potential second independence referendum was swaying towards the Yes camp.

[greybeard]

Brexit is a crisis, not an opportunity. But we’ll see that too late
The Guardian William Keegan,The Guardian

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/brexit-crisis-not-opportunity-ll-070003417.html


The prime minister tells us he wants to bring the country together. This is rich from the politician who made a major contribution to tearing it apart.

In theory, Johnson is monarch of all he surveys: the British political system resembles, in Lord Hailsham’s famous phrase, an elective dictatorship. And Johnson already manifests dictatorial tendencies.

We Remainers have lost. Great Britain has officially left the European Union (it is not at all clear that Northern Ireland has). But, in fact, Brexit has only just begun.

In his acceptance speech when recently being awarded the Olof Palme prize in Stockholm, my good friend John le Carré noted that the shabbiest trick in the Brexiters’ box was to make an enemy of Europe.

He added: “Don’t blame the Tories for their great victory. It was Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, with its unpolicy on Brexit, its antisemitism and student-level Marxism-Leninism, that alienated traditional Labour voters and left them nowhere to go.”

There is much discussion in innumerable postmortems about what went wrong: Labour’s loss of touch with its heartlands and so on. But Le Carré has captured it in that one sentence. Labour lost because it had disastrous leadership; and, alas, from what the people in control of the party machine still seem to believe, there is a danger that, like the Bourbons, they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

Both our main political parties have let the country down: Labour because of its disastrous mismanagement of a once great movement; the Tories because the 2010 policy of austerity was unnecessary, misconceived and terribly damaging.

Labour should have been there to repair the damage. But, like Captain Oates, they have gone outside and may be some time.

We are therefore landed with a Conservative party led by an opportunist I distrust so much that I should not want to go anywhere near the jungle with him. At his birth, Johnson was blessed by a mischievous fairy with such a Teflon carapace that, although a longtime resident of the metropolitan Islington so despised by voters in the Midlands and the north, he – and for that matter his fellow Islingtonian Dominic Cummings – escape the cheap criticism levelled at Corbyn and co. They were on the ropes before the opposition parties agreed to that one-issue election; but the opposition was fatally divided, so the Conservative and Brexit party, representing a minority of the nation, won with the help of our first-past-the-post system.

It is likely to be a slow-burning crisis, and the real culprits will continue to blame the EU

However: we are where we are, and people keep telling me I should try to be constructive – make the best of it even though, in common with most economists, I think Brexit is the biggest economic crisis of my professional career. Frankly, it is difficult to be optimistic.

To put it bluntly: what government in its right mind would say goodbye to more than 70 advantageous trade agreements and start all over again? Answer, this government. Again: what government would wish to disrupt the smooth non-tariff barriers afforded by the single market, painstakingly negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, in order to risk queues at the ports and needless disruption to our way of life? Answer: the very same.

So what hope is there? As Anand Menon, director of the thinktank The UK in a Changing Europe, recently pointed out, the tone of this Brexiter government has changed from proclaiming that Brexit is “full of opportunities” to acknowledging that it is “a problem to be managed”.

The problems are so overwhelming that most trade experts conclude Brexit cannot be negotiated within the agreed timeframe of one year; the odds are that we shall crash out of the customs union and single market without anything resembling a sensible deal.

Michael Gove, who has a central role in handling negotiations with our former partners, tells us that if anything goes wrong people can no longer blame the EU. From now on we are on our sovereign own!

Oh yes? I wonder. It is likely to be a slow-burning crisis, and the real culprits will continue to blame the EU. We shall remain in the customs union and single market for the rest of this year. Uncertainty will persist on many fronts, and almost certainly continue to delay private investment. But the EU will, rightly, not relent in its insistence on regulatory alignment, while Johnson and co refuse to abandon their obsession with seizing control. An irresistible force meets an immovable object.

I suspect that people will gradually wake up to the absurdity of Brexit as it begins to affect them in different ways. But by then it will be too late.

[Tintin]

Here's a somewhat peculiar, and I'd argue fairly strongly, alarming headline from Sky News:



"NHS staff can refuse to treat racist or sexist patients under new rules: The NHS will soon bar discriminatory patients from non-critical care - powers that currently only cover aggression or violence."

On the surface this may appear, at least to the less discerning, a 'good' thing - it isn't of course.

Why?

Well,

Number 1 > how do you identify those who are 'racist', 'sexist'? (I have some ideas about that data being mined from social media feeds)

Number 2 > how do you define those terms (racist, sexist)?

[EDIT related: cross-posting to Mike's link on the Racism thread, here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100738-Racism&p=1336696&viewfull=1#post1336696). Essential listening]

This is dangerous territory, Orwellian in its import, and another manifestation of thought and social control hiding under a blanket of decency (sic). (Think about it)

These sorts of rules being foistered on the UK population puts those of us a little more awake 'on notice' to the real intent behind this kind of legislation.

Here's a link to the Twitter post (NB: lovers of the Oxford comma may choose to look away now :) )

Link: https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1229789669421875201

1229789669421875201

[Matthew]

Douglas Murray at the National Conservatism Conference, Rome 2020

Douglas talks about Brexit


sIxIqNCsSB0



Extract

(from https://youtu.be/sIxIqNCsSB0?t=824)


...
And particularly for anyone here who does regret our exit from the EU

I regret the interpretation that some of our friends on the continent put on our vote, and not enough has been noted of this

...

People who did interpret our vote in, I think the wrong way, people who thought that, for instance, we vote the way we did because we didn't want European citizens to be in Britain, or people who thought it was an expression of dislike of our friends and brothers and sisters across the continent.

Now it seems to me its not enough to say and re-iterate that wasn't the point, but to prove in the years ahead that it is not the point. Many people have very dishonestly misrepresented the actions of my country, in recent years but that was never one of them.

And I think for all those people that felt this was an insult, or a pushing away to our friends in Europe, I hope we can prove in years ahead all of us can prove this is not the case.
...

[Matthew]

An anti-Brexit protest that restores my faith in humanity.

I appreciate Darren's sarcasm, but in this case the protesters are a credit to protests imho. Bit loud but they are letting people get on with their lives. I don't care that I disagree with them for long because of the fine moves. That's some choreography. A joy to watch.

https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1705746375382605824

[jaybee]

An anti-Brexit protest that restores my faith in humanity.

I appreciate Darren's sarcasm, but in this case the protesters are a credit to protests imho. Bit loud but they are letting people get on with their lives. I don't care that I disagree with them for long because of the fine moves. That's some choreography. A joy to watch.

{dance tweet above...}



I'm sorry Matthew - it wasn't THAT good.... lol

Oh the irony - 'Power to the People'..... the bigger the organization and the more centralization - automatically means LESS power to the people...

:idea: I think I'm going to choreograph a little sword dance where people wear Elon Musk and Russell Brand masks and do a bit of toe pointing and swirling around - avoiding the sharp blades - :angel:

wink


edit to add.... it might be something like this - without the falling over and nearly cutting yourself to ribbons :)


nIqQpbvMqdw

Determined highland dancer who falls over gets straight back up and carries on(2:00)

[Matthew]

I also like watching morris dancers so you're probably right jaybee :bigsmile:

[Icare]

Here's a somewhat peculiar, and I'd argue fairly strongly, alarming headline from Sky News:



"NHS staff can refuse to treat racist or sexist patients under new rules: The NHS will soon bar discriminatory patients from non-critical care - powers that currently only cover aggression or violence."

On the surface this may appear, at least to the less discerning, a 'good' thing - it isn't of course.

Why?

Well,

Number 1 > how do you identify those who are 'racist', 'sexist'? (I have some ideas about that data being mined from social media feeds)

Number 2 > how do you define those terms (racist, sexist)?

[EDIT related: cross-posting to Mike's link on the Racism thread, here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100738-Racism&p=1336696&viewfull=1#post1336696). Essential listening]

This is dangerous territory, Orwellian in its import, and another manifestation of thought and social control hiding under a blanket of decency (sic). (Think about it)

These sorts of rules being foistered on the UK population puts those of us a little more awake 'on notice' to the real intent behind this kind of legislation.

Here's a link to the Twitter post (NB: lovers of the Oxford comma may choose to look away now :) )

Link: https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1229789669421875201

1229789669421875201

Your three-year-old post is even more pertinent today than it was three years ago.

Now we know how to answer the two points you made, unfortunately.

It was all part of the transgender agenda even back then.