After Brexit: EU RIP

My wife is Swiss so I tend to notice Swiss news. The EU and Switzerland have been fighting lately, with this update today, the Swiss banning EU stock exchanges in retaliation for the EU locking Switzerland out of its exchanges: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/06/24/swiss-ban-eu-stock-exchanges-row-brussels-escalates/

The Swiss are a small nation compared to the UK, France or Germany, but they seem to do a hell of a lot with few people: banks, CERN, hosting the Global Economic Forum and acting as a neutral base for very many international negotiations, as well as being famous for chocolate, coffee, coffee machines, cheese, fondues, steel, numerous high tech industries, as well as their winter sports prowess, scenery….. And now they’re falling out with the EU, for the severalth time. So I wonder, when we leave the EU, and are making strategic alliances with other nations of compatible cultural values (strong work ethic, freedom, tolerance of others, democracy) with whom we can do great things, Switzerland ought to be pretty high on our natural allies list. Norway also has a not-quite-perfect arrangement with the EU, so they too would make a good nation to invite to a new economic alliance. So, the UK, Norway and Switzerland potentially forming a new Common Market, you know, just like that thing that formed ages ago that everyone wanted to be in, before the idiots-in-residence decided to force us all into a United States of Europe and eradicate democracy.

Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, probably Finland but I don’t know Finland well (Belgium, who cares?) would also be very tempted to say goodbye to the EU and join us. That would leave Germany to pay for everyone else, and various surveys have suggested most Germans would be happy to leave the EU even before that, which is why they don’t get asked. The French are the same, their leaders boasting about how clever they are not offering a referendum because they’d get the wrong answer, being even more exity than the Brits. But the pressures would increase too far if these other countries were leaving and joining a better club. So given a few years of the EU heading down hill and the grass on the other side getting greener and greener, the EU might not be able to keep any of its Northern countries.

The new Eastern countries have mixed approaches to life. Some have a very strong work ethic, encouraging hard work and risk-taking to get a better life, and they might well form their own block, or join the new one. The others are more similar to Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, and would likely join with them and possibly Turkey too, to make a less prosperous Southern Union. In fact, France might find it hard to decide which of the two to join, the Northern or Southern Unions.

Every time I see another news headline about internal EU problems, relative economic decline, shutting of borders and a more aggressive attitude by un-elected bureaucrats toward forcing a United States of Europe, this end game looks more and more likely. It’s what I predicted before the referendum, and I have even more reason to think that way now.

The EU will die, maybe over 10, 15, 20 years tops. By 2050 we will have some sort of Northern Union and Southern Union, perhaps an Eastern Union too, or they might just divide between the other two. Brexit is just the first domino in the line.

Last one out, turn off the lights.

I won’t publish  comments on this article. Write your own blog if you want.

Monopoly and diversity laws should surely apply to political views too

With all the calls for staff diversity and equal representation, one important area of difference has so far been left unaddressed: political leaning. In many organisations, the political views of staff don’t matter. Nobody cares about the political views of staff in a double glazing manufacturer because they are unlikely to affect the qualities of a window. However, in an organisation that has a high market share in TV, social media or internet search, or that is a government department or a public service, political bias can have far-reaching effects. If too many of its staff and their decisions favor a particular political view, it is danger of becoming what is sometimes called ‘the deep state’. That is, their everyday decisions and behaviors might privilege one group over another. If most of their colleagues share similar views, they might not even be aware of their bias, because they are the norm in their everyday world. They might think they are doing their job without fear of favor but still strongly preference one group of users over another.

Staff bias doesn’t only an organisation’s policies, values and decisions. It also affects recruitment and promotion, and can result in increasing concentration of a particular world view until it becomes an issue. When a vacancy appears at board level, remaining board members will tend to promote someone who thinks like themselves. Once any leaning takes hold, near monopoly can quickly result.

A government department should obviously be free of bias so that it can carry out instructions from a democratically elected government with equal professionalism regardless of its political flavor. Employees may be in positions where they can allocate resources or manpower more to one area than another, or provide analysis to ministers, or expedite or delay a communication, or emphasize or dilute a recommendation in a survey, or may otherwise have some flexibility in interpreting instructions and even laws. It is important they do so without political bias so transparency of decision-making for external observers is needed along with systems and checks and balances to prevent and test for bias or rectify it when found. But even if staff don’t deliberately abuse their positions to deliberately obstruct or favor, if a department has too many staff from one part of the political spectrum, normalization of views can again cause institutional bias and behavior. It is therefore important for government departments and public services to have work-forces that reflect the political spectrum fairly, at all levels. A department that implements a policy from a government of one flavor but impedes a different one from a new government of opposite flavor is in strong need of reform and re-balancing. It has become a deep state problem. Bias could be in any direction of course, but any public sector department must be scrupulously fair in its implementation of the services it is intended to provide.

Entire professions can be affected. Bias can obviously occur in any direction but over many decades of slow change, academia has become dominated by left-wing employees, and primary teaching by almost exclusively female ones. If someone spends most of their time with others who share the same views, those views can become normalized to the point that a dedicated teacher might think they are delivering a politically balanced lesson that is actually far from it. It is impossible to spend all day teaching kids without some personal views and values rub off on them. The young have always been slightly idealistic and left leaning – it takes years of adult experience of non-academia to learn the pragmatic reality of implementing that idealism, during which people generally migrate rightwards -but with a stronger left bias ingrained during education, it takes longer for people to unlearn naiveté and replace it with reality. Surely education should be educating kids about all political viewpoints and teaching them how to think so they can choose for themselves where to put their allegiance, not a long process of political indoctrination?

The media has certainly become more politically crystallized and aligned in the last decade, with far fewer media companies catering for people across the spectrum. There are strongly left-wing and right-wing papers, magazines, TV and radio channels or shows. People have a free choice of which papers to read, and normal monopoly laws work reasonably well here, with proper checks when there is a proposed takeover that might result in someone getting too much market share. However, there are still clear examples of near monopoly in other places where fair representation is particularly important. In spite of frequent denials of any bias, the BBC for example was found to have a strong pro-EU/Remain bias for its panel on its flagship show Question Time:

IEA analysis shows systemic bias against ‘Leave’ supporters on flagship BBC political programmes

The BBC does not have a TV or radio monopoly but it does have a very strong share of influence. Shows such as Question Time can strongly influence public opinion so if biased towards one viewpoint could be considered as campaigning for that cause, though their contributions would lie outside electoral commission scrutiny of campaign funding. Many examples of BBC bias on a variety of social and political issues exist. It often faces accusations of bias from every direction, sometimes unfairly, so again proper transparency must exist so that independent external groups can appeal for change and be heard fairly, and change enforced when necessary. The BBC is in a highly privileged position, paid for by a compulsory license fee on pain of imprisonment, and also in a socially and politically influential position. It is doubly important that it proportionally represents the views of the people rather than acting as an activist group using license-payer funds to push the political views of the staff, engaging in their own social engineering campaigns, or otherwise being propaganda machines.

As for private industry, most isn’t in a position of political influence, but some areas certainly are. Social media have enormous power to influence the views its users are exposed to, choosing to filter or demote material they don’t approve of, as well as providing a superb activist platform. Search companies can choose to deliver results according to their own agendas, with those they support featuring earlier or more prominently than those they don’t. If social media or search companies provide different service or support or access according to political leaning of the customer then they can become part of the deep state. And again, with normalization creating the risk of institutional bias, the clear remedy is to ensure that these companies have a mixture of staff representative of social mix. They seem extremely enthusiastic about doing that for other forms of diversity. They need to apply similar enthusiasm to political diversity too.

Achieving it won’t be easy. IT companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter currently have a strong left leaning, though the problem would be just as bad if it were to swing the other direction. Given the natural monopoly tendency in each sector, social media companies should be politically neutral, not deep state companies.

AI being developed to filter posts or decide how much attention they get must also be unbiased. AI algorithmic bias could become a big problem, but it is just as important that bias is judged by neutral bodies, not by people who are biased themselves, who may try to ensure that AI shares their own leaning. I wrote about this issue here: https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/fake-ai/

But what about government? Today’s big issue in the UK is Brexit. In spite of all its members being elected or reelected during the Brexit process, the UK Parliament itself nevertheless has 75% of MPs to defend the interests of the 48% voting Remain  and only 25% to represent the other 52%. Remainers get 3 times more Parliamentary representation than Brexiters. People can choose who they vote for, but with only candidate available from each party, voters cannot choose by more than one factor and most people will vote by party line, preserving whatever bias exists when parties select which candidates to offer. It would be impossible to ensure that every interest is reflected proportionately but there is another solution. I suggested that scaled votes could be used for some issues, scaling an MP’s vote weighting by the proportion of the population supporting their view on that issue:

Achieving fair representation in the new UK Parliament

Like company boards, once a significant bias in one direction exists, political leaning tends to self-reinforce to the point of near monopoly. Deliberate procedures need to be put in place to ensure equality or representation, even when people are elected. Obviously people who benefit from current bias will resist change, but everyone loses if democracy cannot work properly.

The lack of political diversity in so many organisations is becoming a problem. Effective government may be deliberately weakened or amplified by departments with their own alternative agendas, while social media and media companies may easily abuse their enormous power to push their own sociopolitical agendas. Proper functioning of democracy requires that this problem is fixed, even if a lot of people like it the way it is.

2018 outlook: fragile

Futurists often consider wild cards – events that could happen, and would undoubtedly have high impacts if they do, but have either low certainty or low predictability of timing.  2018 comes with a larger basket of wildcards than we have seen for a long time. As well as wildcards, we are also seeing the intersection of several ongoing trends that are simultaneous reaching peaks, resulting in socio-political 100-year-waves. If I had to summarise 2018 in a single word, I’d pick ‘fragile’, ‘volatile’ and ‘combustible’ as my shortlist.

Some of these are very much in all our minds, such as possible nuclear war with North Korea, imminent collapse of bitcoin, another banking collapse, a building threat of cyberwar, cyberterrorism or bioterrorism, rogue AI or emergence issues, high instability in the Middle East, rising inter-generational conflict, resurgence of communism and decline of capitalism among the young, increasing conflicts within LGBTQ and feminist communities, collapse of the EU under combined pressures from many angles: economic stresses, unpredictable Brexit outcomes, increasing racial tensions resulting from immigration, severe polarization of left and right with the rise of extreme parties at both ends. All of these trends have strong tribal characteristics, and social media is the perfect platform for tribalism to grow and flourish.

Adding fuel to the building but still unlit bonfire are increasing tensions between the West and Russia, China and the Middle East. Background natural wildcards of major epidemics, asteroid strikes, solar storms, megavolcanoes, megatsumanis and ‘the big one’ earthquakes are still there waiting in the wings.

If all this wasn’t enough, society has never been less able to deal with problems. Our ‘snowflake’ generation can barely cope with a pea under the mattress without falling apart or throwing tantrums, so how we will cope as a society if anything serious happens such as a war or natural catastrophe is anyone’s guess. 1984-style social interaction doesn’t help.

If that still isn’t enough, we’re apparently running a little short on Ghandis, Mandelas, Lincolns and Churchills right now too. Juncker, Trump, Merkel and May are at the far end of the same scale on ability to inspire and bring everyone together.

Depressing stuff, but there are plenty of good things coming too. Augmented reality, more and better AI, voice interaction, space development, cryptocurrency development, better IoT, fantastic new materials, self-driving cars and ultra-high speed transport, robotics progress, physical and mental health breakthroughs, environmental stewardship improvements, and climate change moving to the back burner thanks to coming solar minimum.

If we are very lucky, none of the bad things will happen this year and will wait a while longer, but many of the good things will come along on time or early. If.

Yep, fragile it is.

 

We need to reset society by bursting the bubbles

Looking at the state of democracy across the whole of The West right now, we are in deep poo.

I’ve written often about my concern that tribalism is increasing, that the live-and-let-live attitudes that used to prevail have been evaporation, that people are too quick and too willing to be aggressive against those with whom they disagree,  that common civility and manners are vanishing from politics, and that if we continue, we will end up with the Great Western War, essentially a civil war between an increasingly polarized Left and Right. Although I’ve never been sure about how fast the speed of change would get there, I’ve usually estimated mid-century or soon after.

Recent trends do not encourage optimism. In many cases, people are actually proud of their intolerance of the other side, proud to wear it as a badge. Even more ridiculously many of them call holding such a set of attitudes ‘love’, accusing the other side of being ‘haters’ even as they go out rioting against their existence and vowing never to live peacefully side by side with them because they stand for ‘hate’. It doesn’t bode well for peace, or for language. The love on display in the #lovetrumpshate demos is a doubleplusgood love, 1984 doublespeak for hatred and despising of ‘the other’, not the sort we used to understand. This new ‘love’ is love for those with who you share allegiance, and a deep hatred for everyone else. The very dangerous sort of love that wars are made from. The love I was brought up to understand is a love for others that doesn’t depend on who they are or what they believe. The sort that hates sin but loves the sinner. That’s actually a hard thing to understand and a tough principle to live by but many generations managed to do that. You may disagree with what someone says or does, but you can still love them as a person. That is love, not ‘intolerance of intolerance’, or ‘hating haters’. When you hate others for who they are, even if you rationalize that as being because they are evil, war is a short step away. In rare occasions, such as when it’s Hitler, doing what he did, then war is justified and we actually do take up arms.

If I only had friends I agreed with, I’d have none at all. I disagree often with many of the people who I follow or who follow me, but I am very happy to share the planet with them and to get on as best we can. Thankfully, almost all share that same view and accept me with all my differences. I hardly ever get trolled or called names. I sometimes tease, and sometimes get teased, sometimes I point out a few home truths and sometimes people point out a few of my faults too. And that’s about the limit for what should happen in civil society.

If you really do want a war and you’re prepared to kill others and die yourself for it, then fine, but have a good think about that first. If you’ve never lived through violent conflict first hand, and the nearest you’ve ever got is using a hashtag, waving a banner, emoting or virtue signalling, then grow up, get out of your playpen or safe space, and start behaving like a civilized adult. That involves discussion of tough ideas, it often involves looking at hard and unpleasant facts and it involves reaching very difficult compromises with other people, not just calling them names or sulking in a corner because you didn’t get your way. It’s the difference between being a kidult and an adult, the difference between a luvvie and a leader.

I don’t really need to labor that point, we all see this new intolerance and hatred every day now, whether it’s far right marches or far left ones, #lockherup or #lovetrumpshate, Brexiteers or Remainers, #blacklivesmatter or #alllivesmatter. I’ve said this stuff many times before. We need to learnt to get along. Sure, by all means gently tease the other lot, but accept that while you may not agree with them, they have just as much right to their views as you do to yours.

We may reasonably ask how we got to this state. When Thatcher was the most disliked PM the UK has ever elected, or when Reagan was elected, those who voted the other way accepted the result peacefully. They grieved and moaned a bit for sure, and argued against policies all the time of course, as they indeed should, but democracy carried on peacefully. When Tony Blair was elected, or Bill Clinton, or even George W Bush, it was still peaceful. Even when Obama was voted in just 8 years ago, it was still peaceful. The people who didn’t like it accepted that the pendulum would eventually swing back and they’d get their way again.

Some time during the last decade, the foundations of civilized society have badly eroded and collapse of the walls has started. If we don’t do some much-needed repair, then the Great Western War will go from an idea in a blog to reality.

There are several contributing factors. Replacement of religion by political correctness harnesses the religious zeal of a new convert to PC causes. The energy-intense fuel of sanctimony powers new-found hatred of their own community, as we see manifested in the white protesters whining about #whiteprivilege, cultural appropriation or joining the increasingly anti-white racist #blacklivesmatter movement. This is similar to the rejection of background, friends and family so often seen in new religious converts over the ages. Religion has declined quickly in recent years so this force is an important contributing factor, becoming a secular Spanish Inquisition.

But while secular religion substitution is a powerful force lying behind some of this new divide, it is not the strongest force. For that we need to look at the self-reinforcing social , information and cultural bubbles caused by social networking, and these are what really lie behind this divide growing over the last decade.

Social media such as Facebook provide a strongly insulated protected world where nobody ever needs to see views that differ from what they find comfortable. They are a safe space, a play pen, full of friends and same-thinking celebrities, full of being stroked, and safe from being attacked. Mostly anyway. They are therefore very dangerous places where group think is seeded, germinates and quickly matures, and where alternative views are kept away. Outside social media, the real media is populated and run by those who have become more polarized by these bubbles themselves, so the real media has also become far more polarized. People then watch channels they feel comfortable with and read papers that share the same spin preferences. So the social media and real media become aligned and a superbubble arises that accounts for the entirety of information input.

When people spend so much of their time in these bubbles and when they even get their news from them, filtered and spun to reinforce their existing groupthink, they can build an extremely distorted view of the world that bears little resemblance to reality. They may be wholly unaware of some events because their news source completely filters them out, or they might be aware of some other events, but via such spun reporting and presentation of the facts that they have no real understanding of hat actually happened. On the other side, another group is seeing different sets of events, or very different interpretations of the same ones. I read several newspapers every day, from different parts of the political spectrum, and I am often shocked by just how much difference there is in how they are interpreted and presented to readers. It really is no surprise that each side thinks of the other so badly, when although they are probably actually not very different people, they are seeing extremely different information. Even from the same set of events, people will come to very different conclusion if they only see some of what’s going on, and only though very distorted lenses and filters.

I’d therefore suggest that the biggest problem we face is not that half of the population are nasty horrible people who we should rightly refuse to peacefully co-exist with. The problem is that although the other side is really only slightly different from us, and probably share most of the same desires and values, and really only differ a bit on how best to achieve pretty much the same fair and free society we want, where the poor and unfortunate are protected as much as possible, and people can get on with living free and happy lives as they see fit, but are seeing extremely different information about what is going on because they are locked into different media and social media bubbles.

The problem therefore is the bubbles, not the people. Republicans and Brexiteers are actually not all uneducated misogynist omniphobic bigots. Democrats and Remainers are not all antisemitic antiwhite snowflake commies. A few on either side actually are, but most aren’t. Actually, almost everyone is quite a nice person who just wants to get on with life and will cheerfully help anyone else they can along the way. The problem is that each half thinks the other half are a bunch of idiots and nasties hellbent on wiping them out and destroying the world.

Social media was never meant to be the cause of division. We all imagined that networking would make the world a nicer place. We would all get to know each other better, learn that we’re really not that different, and peace would result. Actually, it has become a force for the amplification of tribalism.

I could speculate further that the deeper problem is advertising. Maybe the polarization has arisen because of self-reinforcement caused by tapping into small differences in personal preferences and pandering to them via advertising for commercial gain, thereby feeding them and making hem bigger. I could, but I need to develop that line of argument and leave it for another blog.

 

 

Negativity has to end soon

There is much negativity about the future at the moment but post-Brexit, I am optimistic about our future. It looks better than it did before the referendum. Negativity spoils the short term but not the long term. Even if the next PM is rubbish – and once again it is a choice between bad and useless – they will be replaced by a better one in due course. Short term quite bad, long term very good.

The UK voted to leave the EU because most people thought we would be better leaving it, including me. Many commentators seek to project their own prejudices onto those who voted the other way, but all we know is that 52% voted to leave the EU; we don’t know why each one made that decision. Counting the votes told how many wanted to stay or leave the EU and only that; it can’t be mined to derive details of the mindset leading to that vote. It is not actually reasonable to infer that someone is a racist selfish moron from a leave vote. They might be, but you can’t derive that from the vote itself; you’d need other data. I’m not interested in debating all the various opinion polls about possible reasons, but it seem to me that there is little in common between typical poll stats for reasons given and the straw men put up by some remainers to demonise leavers. Demonisation just increases division.

Leavers voted leave for diverse baskets of reasons and attitudes, but the reasonable hope of probably most of them was that Britain could survive and prosper outside the EU, though economic reasons were usually secondary to escaping an undemocratic EU that was going the wrong way. Unfortunately we don’t currently have the competent and well-intentioned politicians and economic leaders we need to achieve the full potential so that needs fixed. We have some, but many seem to think it is more important to sulk in the corner, stomp their feet, do all they can to harm the economy, stir up division and encourage hatred, resentment and general bad feeling instead of putting their effort into making the most of a situation they didn’t want. They’d seemingly rather live in misery so they could say ‘I told you so’, but for some it might be that they actually don’t know how to do their jobs outside of the EU. They need to learn fast or be replaced.

That was to be expected, but it is a passing phase. Eventually, they’ll stop sulking and start doing the job they’re paid to do, or they’ll be replaced by others who can and will. Then the future freedom, prosperity and opportunity will come, slowly but surely, and it will become clear that the right decision was made and people will wonder what all the fuss was about. The UK will prosper, and the EU will either steer away from an embryonic Unites States of Europe towards a proper Common Market or evaporate via the domino effect, regardless of Tusk’s silly remark today that ‘there will be no sequel to Brexit’, which I suspect will go down as one of the worst predictions in political history.

Already, countries around the world are starting to discuss trade agreements with us. There is already enthusiasm for a new trading block of free and independent countries to deal with the EU. Currency and stocks and shares were always expected to take a short term hit during a period of uncertainty, and higher interest rates for out national debt was always expected to increase. Those are short term costs of a bigger long term benefit. Politicians, economists and bankers should work to accelerate the recovery and provide momentum to take us into improved prosperity. Nothing can be gained by moaning about how awful it is, exaggerating gloom or talking the economy down.

The media never accepts responsibility for anything, but they too play a part in the talking down and general negativity we’re seeing now. They don’t simply report things, they add huge negative spin and bias to make their own political points, to try to prevent Brexit or to reduce the changes and consequent benefits it could provide. They have also played a large role in the election of the new PM, strongly favouring one candidate (May) while undermining all the others. When the dust settles, it will be an excellent time to review the terms of existence of both the BBC and Channel 4 and especially to restore the impartiality the BBC once was famed for. Using the BBC or Channel 4 News as data sources at the moment is the intellectual equivalent of trying to survive by drinking swamp water full of decomposing sheep. Political bias in paid-for news channels is to be expected, but bias in organisations paid for equally by everyone is not acceptable, and if they can’t or won’t police themselves, then external policing should be imposed.

Some negativity was always expected after the referendum, whichever way it went. It must be just a short term hit, not become a way of life. We must not let it become the norm. Sulking benefits nobody.

 

 

 

 

 

Politics needs change, not unity

The UK is suffering division, so our politicians and media are calling for unity. It is old wisdom that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The old-style parties no longer represent the people. Some Conservative ministers could just as easily belong to Labour. There was very little to distinguish Cameron from Blair, and Theresa May is another Blairite. What’s the point of a Conservative Party that’s half full of MPs that could as easily have stood under a Labour banner?

With disintegrations, resignations and rebellions all round, this is a better time than ever to reform the parties. We need a clear spread of easily distinguishable and well-focused alternatives to choose from. The old main parties adopted indistinguishable values to capture the same chunk of the electorate, only differing in competence, so voters who didn’t share those values felt disenfranchised and responded by moving to the fringes. In a referendum where people had to choose between quite different value sets, all of the existing parties except UKIP and the vast majority of politicians occupied the same space, and collectively only actually represented 48% of the population. The important views of half the electorate were shared by only a quarter of politicians, while the other half had three quarters, or three times as much representation. Now that the referendum has been won, UKIP has no lingering purpose so could also be thrown into the mix to redesign new parties.

Having half of the population represented by three times as many MPs as the other half is bad democracy, but instead of trying to take a lead by fixing it, it looks likely that the Conservatives will try to preserve the unfairness by selecting Theresa May, rambling on about the need to restore unity. Unity of the half that are represented, while still keeping the other disenfranchised? That’s how revolutions and civil wars start, probably, though history isn’t my strong point.

We have the Greens and Corbyn offering a clear-cut far left. A few sacked UKIP candidates and some ex-BNP people could field a tiny far right too. Labour, LibDems and Conservatives are all badly in need of reinvention, while UKIP has done its job so can also be thrown in the mix. They should all discuss things with one another until they finally discover what their real differences are, and form new parties. Usefully, they could also agree that they actually all share some values in common. Everyone wants fairness, nobody wants racism, everyone wants to end poverty, nobody wants an unhealthy environment or pollution, everyone wants good health care and to look after the ill, the weak, the disadvantaged, everyone wants to educate kids and to make a strong economy. If they disagree on how to accomplish these common goals, then they should work out clear differences that can be offered to the electorate. If differences on such issues are minor, then they could agree to use cross party committees to manage those things and focus elections on their bigger differences.

If that was all accomplished, politicians would stand for clear values and clear approaches. They would no longer have to pretend that they want exactly the same things and avoiding every answering a question.

Our parties served the country well in the 20th century. It has become absolutely clear that they are not suited to the 21st. We do not need unity and a return to normal, because that normal only worked for a fraction of the population. We don’t need any more Blairs, any more fudges, any more pretense. We do need a total remix, a redesign, a re-crystallization along new axes, with very different parties that different people can vote for.

Calls for a United Ireland should wait a while

At the height of The Troubles, the North and South were very different places. Religion was important, economies performed differently, and attitudes to life were different between the communities. As religion became less important and as the EU started to dominate, as people aged and as economies converged, difference have become a lot less. Apart from ancestry and memories, there isn’t anywhere near as much difference now. There has never been a better time for nationalists to demand a vote on a United Ireland because the opposition to it right at the moment is probably the lowest it has ever been. Most (55%) of people in the North wanted to stay in the EU, so that offsets some of the opposition to becoming part of Ireland instead of staying in a Brexit UK. For some people, especially the young, the old emotions that drove the Troubles are quite alien and Brexit could be a strong deciding factor. Many remainers have already applied for Irish passports. If a United Ireland vote were to be magically organised within a few days or weeks, (the Ukraine managed to organise a referendum in two weeks) then with today’s demographics and circumstances, it is not unimaginable that it could win.

However, not everyone is young or such a remainer that they’d rather leave the UK and stay part of the EU. Many people still feel pain from the Troubles or the same loyalties and though both sides have admirably set aside old grievances to live together in peace with one another, that doesn’t mean those grievances have vanished. People are still not all the same, they are simply managing to negotiate and compromise instead of fighting, to live in peace better. Very many of the Unionist population would still find the idea of leaving the UK and joining with the South intolerable, regardless of the EU, and forcing a vote could well re-ignite tensions. Needlessly.

Of course nationalist want a United Ireland, but it would be far better for everyone to avoid pushing such a vote yet. The Troubles were not fun for anyone, and the peace that has been established is surely worth far more even to Nationalists than getting a United Ireland a few years earlier by hurrying to capitalise on a short term turbulence during Brexit.

A few years down the road, it is highly likely that economic performance of the UK and the South will have diverged a little, but not much. It is also likely that most all the advantages offered by EU membership will have been retained. Even if it still exists, the EU will be less significant because other countries may have left, new trade agreements will have formed, and sensible negotiation of trade and movement among friends will ensure a perfectly civilized and amicable Europe. The United States of Europe idea will certainly have been long buried.

Also, in a few years time, old emotions will have had a few more years to evaporate. Many of the old will have gone to their graves in peace, young kids will be young adults. Peace and living together in harmony will have had a few more years of being the norm, and will be far more resilient. It will be a better time then to consider asking again for a vote.

Even though I lived in Belfast all the way through the Troubles, I have no axe to grind at all on which way that vote should go. I don’t even care whether Northern Ireland stays in the UK or not. It matters to some but the chances of Nationalists finally getting their way are more likely to increase than decrease over the next few years. Sure, there is strong temptation to hurry to strike while the iron is so obviously hot, but it would be wiser for them to wait just a few more years for everyone’s benefit.

Putting a hypothetical but feasible date on it, surely it’s better to aim for a peaceful United Ireland in 2025 than risk a return to violence and bad relations just to get there a little quicker?

Freedom!

What a glorious day for the UK!

After a long and bitter fight with far too much unnecessary nastiness, the UK finally voted to walk away from the dead weight of the slowest growing regional economy in the world that was set on a path to inevitable destruction. In doing so, we will certainly now be followed by some other EU countries. Across all the EU, many people did not want to be forced into a United States of Europe, many don’t even want to be part of the EU at all. Now most will be able to demand the choice in their countries too, and some at least will follow. They will likely negotiate free trade deals with one another, without the baggage of political union.

A much smaller EU will be forced to either disband, or reform into a simpler free trade group, and won’t be able to dictate terms to the countries that have left.

After much turbulence and quite a few years, today’s EU will have reformed into a simple free trade block, or possibly three. Northern EU countries don’t share the same values as southern ones, and the new Eastern members may join together or join a North or South European trade block.

Freedom generates better quality of life, enterprise, wealth, and short term financial turbulence is just that, short term. When we emerge, and it will take time, we can all have a better future.

However, the bitterness we saw in this campaign, the lies, fear-mongering, and most of all the offensive name calling will not go away quickly. A lot of damage has been done and resentment built up. We wake to a country facing fantastic new opportunity and freedom, but a country divided. We must now take great care to diffuse that, to restore our traditions of living peacefully and amicably alongside others with whom we disagree. There will likely be more squabbling, there will be demonstrations, more name calling, maybe even some riots as some protest, throws blame, accusations, and stones. That needs good leadership, so it is essential that Cameron and Osborne at the very least are replaced.

Britain has some fine politicians, and some less fine. The campaign has shown clearly which are which. Some MPs on both sides of the campaign and across all parties showed their leadership ability. Some did so while maintaining proper respect for others, always acting with dignity, offering vision and sense, while others offered little more than threats and abuse. With the right leaders in charge, unity can be restored.

It is a different world today. The ripples from this referendum will transform politics across the EU and even the USA. I am excited. We know now that we will be free to do as we will, to run our country as we decide. Division is a very real problem but it can be repaired by good leadership, and together we can make the future genuinely better, not just for the UK, but for the rest of the EU, Norway and Switzerland.

Half the population didn’t get what they wanted, but the right decision was made and they will still reap the benefits even if they didn’t predict them. Provided of course that they accept the new situation positively and we can all work together again.

We can do that. This morning, the short term forecast is for unsettled weather, but the long term future looks great for everyone.

Brexit, my analysis

The EU has a population of around 500M. These people differ enormously but agree to cooperate for mutual benefit. Being able to trade more easily with other countries is obviously a good idea, and for that reason the UK joined the Common Market. A common market may work better if there are commonly agreed standards so that buyers can be sure of the quality of what they are buying. Some regulations and associated administration align well with seamless running of a common market.

However, since the UK joined the Common market, it has evolved into a very different entity. Rather than just regulating easy trade, it has gone in baby steps so that noone would notice far beyond any interpretation of a free trade zone, firstly into a ‘European Economic Community’ and now the European Union. The EU now is intended by many of its leaders and executors to become a single country, a United States of Europe. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to that, but not all of us want to go that way. Now we will have a vote on it. Do we want to stay in the EU, with all of its current issues, knowing what it is intended to become, or to leave, re-asserting our own sovereignty, making our own laws and renegotiating trade agreements, controlling our own future?

The EU is made up of very different countries. We have the Northern set, with high wealth, a strong work ethic, relatively low corruption, strong regard for law and order, and a high welfare net. We have the Eastern European countries, with lower wealth but in some cases more vibrant populations, aspiring, and determined to self-improve. And we have Southern European, Mediterranean set, aligned with a lower work ethic, a gentler pace of life, but more affected by corruption and in some cases higher enthusiasm to avoid taxes. Incompatibility between the interests of these three zones has often featured in the Euro collapse.

Trade

A Brexit UK  would have to renegotiate terms of trade with the EU. We sell the EU far less than we buy from them, so it is in the EU’s interest to give us favorable terms.

Inside the EU, we cannot negotiate terms of trade with non-EU countries, but those are the fastest growing markets. The EU is the least well performing major trading block in the world. It is in the UK’s interest to be free to pursue larger and faster-growing non-EU markets without EU-imposed restraints.

Will Britain be better off in the EU as Cameron says? Very probably not. We would keep favorable trade with a shrinking EU, and gain trade with a faster expanding rest-of-the-world.

Trade would continue. I would still work for EU companies, and they would still gain just as much by choosing me over another. You’d still be able to buy French cheese or wine, or a German car,  or Swedish furniture, they won’t suddenly refuse to sell it to you. They will fight with fierce competition for your business from other regions, and offer you fair reciprocation, so there is no reason to fear unbalanced trade sanctions. As far as trade balance goes, the UK has most of the aces in this game.

Free movement of people

Free movement of people coupled to differences in standard of living encourages people to leave countries with low pay and welfare and migrate to others with better pay and welfare. Countries are not permitted to choose who enters, so it may be the top engineers or brain surgeons that all countries want, or people who won’t contribute much, make big demands on expensive services such as education and health and to send generous welfare payments home.

The 7 year period where we can restrict in-work benefits that Cameron has negotiated would mean that if he can show that the UK is under undue stress, then we can disallow benefits to future immigrants in their first year of entry, increasing them to maximum over the next 3 years. The savings estimated for this is around £30M, or less than 45p for each UK citizen. Cameron might therefore have saved you 45p, if he can argue that it would otherwise cause too much stress. Bigger savings would only occur if potential EU migrants decide that a year’s restriction on in-work benefits is too big a problem and prevents their migration, thereby saving their impacts on health, education and other  welfare. I don’t believe that will be the norm. I would expect virtually no impact from this headline win in his negotiations.

Free movement of people is not a requirement for free trade. They are quite separate issues. It is perfectly possible to agree amicable terms of trade with another nation without allowing citizens to relocate freely between them. A Brexit UK that negotiates trade agreements with the EU and other trading blocks would still be able to use an Australian-style points system to decide who to admit and who to reject, whether from the EU or anywhere else. The UK still has borders where passports are required for entry, since it was not part of Schengen, but it is nevertheless true that once a person is given any EU passport, they are able to travel and live here at will. Some of the migrants currently entering the EU are the sort of migrants everyone would welcome, but some are terrorists, some are criminals, some are religious extremists and a huge problem is that nobody knows which are which, so many undesirables will be given EU residence and passports.

Brexit UK would be far less vulnerable to entry by unsavory migrants and terrorists who have somehow managed to be accepted in any other EU country. It would be able to attract the best people and fill the needs of our industries, but to refuse entry to those who would be an overall strain on our systems.

Security

Cameron says we will be safer in the EU. That is an insult to our intelligence.

The world is a dangerous place right now. North Korea, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa are already major threats to peace, and China may become a security threat. The UK is a leading member of NATO, which has been the backbone of our defense for decades. Brexit UK would remain in NATO. The creation and success of NATO is the main reason that European countries live in peace.

The EU provides little additional security benefit, other than streamlining working of police forces to make catching criminals easier. Extreme ongoing delays in dealing with the migrant problem instead demonstrate total EU incompetence in the face of a security threat.

The EU creates some severe security risks. It has been argued by some that the EU’s attempt to capture the Ukraine as a part of the EU was a significant factor in causing the problems we see there now. Given the overall threat from that and its encouragement to Putin to expand elsewhere, it is very hard to see how one could believe the EU has made us more secure.

By its failure to stem the migrant crisis, and with Angela Merkel almost single-handedly causing it by encouraging them to take the risks to come, the EU has led to thousands of migrants dying at sea, and millions of unknown migrants to enter, some having deliberately discarded their identification, others using fake identification, during a period in which ISIS have stated their aim to smuggle as many terrorists into Europe as possible among the migrants. Many EU countries are now experiencing severe internal problems caused by migrants, such as massive increases in rape, sexual assaults, violence, intimidation, antisemitic attacks and other crime. By contrast, the UK’s policy is to help refugees close to their origin and to carefully select those most in need of resettlement to be allowed to come to the UK. By that policy, resources are focused on those most in need, migration is discouraged, many lives are saved and the UK is protected at least in the short term from the more unsavory migrants until they obtain EU identities.

A Brexit UK would still be able to help refugees in exactly the same ways but by being properly in control of our borders, reduce the risk of terrorists and criminals entering with EU identities. If we remain, undesirables will be able to come here at will once they obtain an EU identity.

Cameron knows all of this, as do his ministers. To claim that the UK is safer in Europe while knowing the opposite is true is simply lying. Brexit UK would be safer and more secure.

UK Relevance

If any proof were needed that the UK has very little influence in the EU, then Cameron just provided it. He went to beg for a few very minor changes to the UK’s position and got very little of even that. He is certainly no Thatcher. Two world wars failed to make Germany controller of Europe. By many tiny incremental changes that were never enough to make people worry, today’s EU is de-facto a German dictatorship. As perfectly illustrated by the migrant crisis, the Germans often seem to run the EU as their own show, sometimes allowing their French allies to have some input, with other countries generally doing as they are told. While Cameron has to beg for changes to migrant regulations, Germany unilaterally changes their polices without consultation. Germany shouts and expects everyone else to do as they command.

The EU as a whole is the last well performing of any trading block, and unilaterally handicaps its industries by environmental regulations and taxes. It has reducing military influence as China, Russia and the USA still dominate worldwide events.

Voter say varies enormously between countries too. Numbers of seat in Brussels are allocated disproportionately to smaller countries. Being outside of the Eurozone also reduces the UK’s say. The best the UK can ever hope for if we remain is to have an ever-decreasing say in a rapidly diminishing Europe.

Brexit UK will be a small player in a large world, but we have always shown strength and influence  well above our numbers in every domain, economic, cultural, technological and political, and we would do so outside the EU. The UK could grow as the EU declines. Remaining will ensure decreasing worldwide relevance.

Sovereignty

Ever closer union is a headline aim of the EU. It wants to become a Unites States of Europe. It almost certainly will in due course. The process will take several more decades, slowed further by all its self-inflicted problems. A weak EU superstate will gradually emerge onto a much stronger world stage. An EU UK would be just one small region of that. We would be irrelevant, doing as we are told by un-elected bureaucrats from other countries, having a say only on unimportant local issues. Taxed heavily to subsidise other regions, without much representation at all.

Brexit UK would regain its sovereignty. It would make its own decisions, its own alliances, its own place in the world. There can be no pretense that we would ever again have the status once enjoyed by the British Empire, but we have enough national character to play our part well.

Independence and freedom are goals worth fighting for. Our leaders surrendered much over the last few decades, and our country has suffered the consequences. We once led the world, now our EU partners consider us mostly a nuisance. We still command some respect in the world, but it is diminishing year on year as our ability to self-govern is siphoned away. It is time to reclaim our freedom and to become a leader once more.

The Scots might argue for another referendum to leave. They are fortunate indeed that the last one failed, given what has happened to oil prices since. They would now be arguing over Greek style budgets. No canny Scot would vote to leave the UK next time knowing it would mean certain decline in standard of living.

I have tried to understand the mindset that says that a United States of Europe is a good idea. I don’t doubt that many people believe in it, and some of them for well-argued reasons. I have no doubt that we will see some of them articulate its merits during coming months, and I will listen to them, and in the unlikely event that they’ve got a convincing argument, I’ll change my mind. Until then, I can’t see what we can achieve all forced into a single country that we cant achieve by separate countries cooperating.

Islamification

Islamification needs a mention in its won right since it is a major challenge for Europe now and for several decades to come, specially since Europe otherwise was becoming far more secular. The EU intends to absorb Turkey in due course, an Islamic country. The Islamic minority in other countries in Europe will grow greatly, as millions of Muslims already in the EU before the migrant crisis are joined by the millions of migrants already arrived, on the way or coming later, and then later joined by their families. Much higher birth rates feature in the Islamic community than ‘native Europeans’. Even leaving aside terrorist threats from extremist subgroups, many attitude surveys have shown that most Muslims do not consider their culture compatible with western values. Even peaceful Islamification already creates significant tensions right across the EU, and that will increase as numbers increase. Far worse of course, Islamic extremism and activism will also increase in line with numbers, especially as growing communities become more emboldened. Resurgence of far right parties claiming to fight back against Islamification is already evident and will undoubtedly worsen. The two will eventually very likely be in conflict. I have written many times comparing Islamic extremism and its response with the IRA problem in Belfast where I grew up. Islamification will be a very significant problem in the EU in coming years. Having better control of our borders won’t stop it also affecting the UK, where I calculate it could potentially become 13 times worse than the IRA troubles give the right stimulus, but it will help prevent it from getting far worse.

Brexit UK will still have a significant problem from Islamic terrorism, but an EU UK will have a far worse one.

If Brexit, then what?

The Common Market no longer exists. It was a good idea and it could exist again. In fact, watching current fragmentation of the EU, with fences being erected, borders closed, arguments over migrants becoming fiercer, and watching the slow car crash collapse of the Euro, there is every chance that European union as it is today could collapse. If Britain leaves, some other countries will look at having such freedom again. It is very likely that Brexit could stimulate partial evaporation of the EU, and an end to the dream of a united States of Europe. Britain could form alliances with other countries leaving to establish a proper common market, determined to be no more than a common market.

The EU is already creaking, pushed by several forces. Brexit could be the end of a nightmare, and the resurgence of the dream of a Common Market of sovereign states.

If we stay, that collapse might happen anyway. The seeds of doubt have been planted, watered and much fertilizer will be poured on them in next months and years. The EU is weak and will get weaker. It may survive and the nightmare United States of Europe might happen. Britain staying might even encourage further progress towards that goal. But even if Brexit fails, there is still every reason to expect that the nightmare might end all on its own, that others will realize that what we all actually want is a Common Market, not all the other stuff.