More on Brexit
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UK and Switzerland have signed a deal to continue trading after Brexit as they did before it.
Cue for a facetious quote from Third Man
“…in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock…”
Such continuity agreements have been signed with only Switzerland, Chile, The Faroe Islands, Eastern and Southern Africa.
Director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Carolyn Fairbairn, said the lack of other trade deals being signed was an “emergency” – particularly in the case of South Korea and Japan.
Yes, re sending that warship to the South China Sea, there was some talk of Britain joining the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42549541
Doesn’t really sense. Perhaps Rees-Mogg will be in favour as a protection for his financial interests in Hong Kong, though, on the other hand, provoking China doesn’t seem a good way of doing this. In fact, Mrs May doesn’t seem very happy with her boy War Minister — she wants to trade with China rather than rattle sabres at them:
More from speech:
Speaking in London at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, Williamson said Western allies must be prepared to “use hard power to support our interests”, and failing to intervene against aggressive foreign powers “risks our nation being seen as little more than a paper tiger.”
He is echoing here the realpolitik views of another militarist, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Carter, already discussed here. Thanks, anyway, to the both of them for revealing why there are wars under capitalism and always will be as states take military action as a last resort when the vital economic interest of their capitalist class (as over sources of raw materials, trade routes, etc) is at stake
Yet the EU is also echoing the same policy according to this thinktank
“The European Union is particularly ill-prepared for a new era of great power competition,” the MSR declares, a point that is revealed by the new debate about Europe’s “strategic autonomy.” There does not appear to be a “plan B” for how Europe could emancipate itself in its global security policy…For that reason it was important he said, that the MSC this year shows the “non-European participants that the EU is ready to fight for its interests by asserting itself.”
https://www.dw.com/en/munich-security-report-sees-world-as-a-broken-puzzle/a-47448944
A call for the EU to flex its muscles
Just how long does it take for sabre-rattling to become clashes?
Another of Monbiot’s “conspiracy” articles
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/13/dark-money-hard-brexit-targeted-ads-facebook
Where you referring to this:
This week’s revelations of a catastrophic collapse in insect populations, jeopardising all terrestrial life
🙂
Apart from that, he does have a point. It would be interesting to know who is behind this campaign for no deal.
Relevant article in today’s Grauniad about why even some “immigrants” voted to Leave (alongside others who wanted to kick them out too) but who have since regretted it:
The Put It To The People march will take place in London on Saturday 23 March
The march is set to begin at 12pm, or “high noon” on London’s Park Lane.
Depending on how things develop before then this could be a big one, perhaps even bigger than the anti Iraq War one. Although the substantive issue is the trading arrangements of the UK capitalist class, it won’t be this that will be motivating those taking part. Most will be ordinary decent people protesting against the xenophobia and intolerance of the Brexiteers. So we should definitely be there. Unfortunately it clashes with a Party meeting on the same subject on the same afternoon, but there’s enough of us to be able to cover two things at the same time. I don’t think we need a special leaflet as they won’t be interested in our views on that. We already have a couple of leaflets that can fit the bill — the Identity leaflet and The Problem isn’t the Tories or Labour … it’s Capitalism (the LibDems who will be there in their tens of thousands as they were on the Iraq Wat one will love that !),
I also expect that a few copy-cat Brexit yellow vests will make an appearance and from all accounts they are right-wing thugs in disguise. But they will be invisible in the great numbers protesting. I believe 650,000 turned out for the last march.
Better than leaflets are banners held up…easy to spot as all the protesters march by rather than the few who receive a leaflet… There is time to design a special EU one. Sorry not got a snappy slogan for you but I am sure you can think of one that will go with our World Socialism party logo.
Perhaps this can be included
“Our demands are most moderate, We only want the Earth.”
This one might be sufficiently “internationalist” to do ? After all, the “No War Between Peoples” is one of the reasons the founding fathers of the EU gave for it and which went down well on the Continent.
We have the cash for another, surely. Unless we are cutting back on plastic. 😛
With a much more appropriate message.
What happened to the “one people, one world” banners?
But take that no war one along for added effect.
Looks as if Nigel Farage has anticipated our position:
Nigel Farage has threatened to boycott a second referendum, saying he would “rather go on holiday” than vote if the choice was between Theresa May’s deal and remaining in the EU.
Oh dear, what have we done wrong.
Corbyn was quoting Marx today, in his response to Theresa May he said, “They say history repeats itself—the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce—but by the umpteenth time it can only be described as grotesquely reckless”
I’m sure this could be said about much of what they attempt on a daily basis, not just Brexit.
Farage’s view is now being widely reported in the media, as here. This is grist to our mill in that it adds credibility to the political position of not voting where what you want is not on offer. When Farage says he wouldn’t vote in a May deal v Remain referendum “because it wouldn’t offer me Brexit“, he is applying the same logic we do with regard to socialism..
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