Brexit, but not as we know it.....

Jonny Ingbar said:
One thing about Brexit that I think everyone would agree upon, is thats is been a long drawn out and painful process, but this piece by Alastair Campbell makes more sense to me than anything else I've read.

Its a slightly Orwellian take on things, but not without cause - its a fairly long pice but definitely worth 10 minutes of your time.


The collapse of the Nation state
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Thought provoking and definitely beyond anything in the public domain.
Very dark outlook for the left behinds, that includes all of us.
 
I have an awful lot of time for Campbell, I really do not and never will understand why he is despised by many on the left. I am sure he is right in much of what he says too.

Those that are so powerful and persuasive overseeing their puppets in Government do need reining in. I am all for a sovereign independent country, but not one that allows the few to dominate and control the people and their wealth and aspirations. As a brexit voter I have been truly dismayed at some of the unfolding scenes. I am not particularly naive though, but equally not the brightest mind and appreciate some of the behaviours and outcomes of the state actors involved were predictable. I do think the time has come where the country has to move forward and work with where we are, railing against things right now is not the way to help the country and its future.

I am totally supportive of Starmer’s stance for now. If, and it is an if, Brexit proves a mistake, and It may or may not be (railing against it is definitely shooting ourselves in the left foot, even if Brexit were proved to be shooting ourselves in the right foot) we need to move forward together and not continue this constant tug of war that will only pull the country down quicker and everyone will lose out even more, along with it. Future generations will have the opportunity to reverse it in time if that is the case. Is that really worth the agony of continued bitter in fighting, even if you eventually were to get to say I told you so? I hope most people are bigger than that.
 
I am afraid I will have to disagree about the mandatory reading and accuracy of the article. Whilst it raises some interesting points it reads like a brooker script that takes some realities and extends them beyond where they will ever go. Brooker does it for entertainment, Mogg and his co-author do not fit the mould of being somehow more intelligent than the rest of society nor are they more motivated, they were born between the right pair of sheets.

That they assume they are somehow superior, and actually believe it, puts the whole book in a different light.

There are some technical innaccuracies also.
 
I have come across a few people on here who describe themselves as "Libertarian" as though through sounding a bit like "Liberal" it was a good thing. It is in my opinion the most evil and pernicious of world views and philosophies, the intellectual justification of "I'm alright screw the rest of you".

That the Hard Brexit adherents view this as the first step is unsurprising that they want to create a completely divided dystopian society with the Mega Rich and the rest us "left behinds" in squalor we should all find scary.
 
coluka said:
I have an awful lot of time for Campbell, I really do not and never will understand why he is despised by many on the left. I am sure he is right in much of what he says too.

Those that are so powerful and persuasive overseeing their puppets in Government do need reining in. I am all for a sovereign independent country, but not one that allows the few to dominate and control the people and their wealth and aspirations. As a brexit voter I have been truly dismayed at some of the unfolding scenes. I am not particularly naive though, but equally not the brightest mind and appreciate some of the behaviours and outcomes of the state actors involved were predictable. I do think the time has come where the country has to move forward and work with where we are, railing against things right now is not the way to help the country and its future.

I am totally supportive of Starmer’s stance for now. If, and it is an if, Brexit proves a mistake, and It may or may not be (railing against it is definitely shooting ourselves in the left foot, even if Brexit were proved to be shooting ourselves in the right foot) we need to move forward together and not continue this constant tug of war that will only pull the country down quicker and everyone will lose out even more, along with it. Future generations will have the opportunity to reverse it in time if that is the case. Is that really worth the agony of continued bitter in fighting, even if you eventually were to get to say I told you so? I hope most people are bigger than that.
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I can tell you why he is despised: he manufactured a case to wage war, a crime against humanity. As we all know, the premise to justify invading Iraq was based on total falsehoods. It was insulting to people's intelligence.
I remember tweeting him when he complained that the government should listen to the 100s of 1000s that were on the march for a 2nd referendum to remind him that over a million had marched against the impending Iraq invasion and that he and his boss totally ignored them.
He was also Blair's pitbull - used to bully any that dared to contradict and helped Blair turn from PM to President.
He was also obviously very powerful but unelected. A horrible spin doctor and 'close advisor' to a Prime Minister in the same vein as Cummings and Milne in the lughole of Corbyn.
Ironically, his public stance on Brexit, along with Blair's, damaged the chance of stopping Brexit, in my humblest of opinions - they are both, rightly, to be forever remembered by the left AND right, as war mongers.
 
Laughing said:
I am afraid I will have to disagree about the mandatory reading and accuracy of the article. Whilst it raises some interesting points it reads like a brooker script that takes some realities and extends them beyond where they will ever go. Brooker does it for entertainment, Mogg and his co-author do not fit the mould of being somehow more intelligent than the rest of society nor are they more motivated, they were born between the right pair of sheets.

That they assume they are somehow superior, and actually believe it, puts the whole book in a different light.

There are some technical innaccuracies also.
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When you judge the predictions of the book you have to do so knowing it was published in 1997 - thats a long time ago in relative terms and many of its predictions have become true; post-truth media, populism politics, cyber-warfare and most of all the resetting of political norms, not least here and in the US.

Cummins, until his sudden recent political demise, was infamously anti-politics, anti-establishment and anti-politicians. His mantra has very obvious flavours of the book and given he was the chief architect of Brexit that alone should make us all sit up and question the real motives of Brexit.
 
Laughing said:
I am afraid I will have to disagree about the mandatory reading and accuracy of the article. Whilst it raises some interesting points it reads like a brooker script that takes some realities and extends them beyond where they will ever go. Brooker does it for entertainment, Mogg and his co-author do not fit the mould of being somehow more intelligent than the rest of society nor are they more motivated, they were born between the right pair of sheets.

That they assume they are somehow superior, and actually believe it, puts the whole book in a different light.

There are some technical innaccuracies also.
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Hi L, pray tell on the technical inaccuracies,
 
Lifelonfaninexile said:
Hi L, pray tell on the technical inaccuracies,
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Can't re-look at the article at the minute, but there was something in it about secure infrastructure for the elite to hide wealth and be above taxation, as an example.

This is about to be a thing of the past with reliable quantum computing just around the corner. This will ultimately make anything online insecure as a matter of course. All the encryption we have available today will be childs play for a quantum computer.

There is, of course, the possibility that better encryption is already around the corner and encryption manufacturers have a head start but simply don't have the funding available that is being made available for a working QC.

Jonny, I agree that the book was written in 1997 and some of the predictions seem to be accurate, however that sisn't take a genius and for the last 30 years those predictions have been pretty mainstream, so not really anything new there.

My main gripe with the article is Cambell is essentially treating everyone as idiots, or maybe mindless sheep and assuming we would allow this to happen. You can push the populace so far in one direction or another, but ultimately there is a course correction.

I would suggets that captolism has a finite life span and is nearing the end anyway.
 
Absolutely no surprise there Nye bevan was 100% spot on

Honest politics and Tory politics are contradictions in terms. Lying is a necessary part of a Tory’s political equipment, for it is essential for him to conceal his political intentions from the people.

I keep saying it true blue torys dream of returning back to feudalism.
It looks very much like they have found a 21st century version of it.
 
Lifelonfaninexile said:
Hi L, pray tell on the technical inaccuracies,
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It is an interesting article, thanks for posting and glad I read it.
The book's authors appear to have previous for forecasting some future trends and transformations in their first two books in this "trilogy".
Maybe there is some logic to their 1997 predictions, maybe you can choose to look for things to fit their narrative, but that doesn't mean that everything they write is therefore an accurate forecast of what is happening or going to happen. It could easily be described as Campbell's serial Conformation Bias.
I certainly hope the book does not play out and would hate the consequences; more over I would vote and act to oppose it with every action I could take; not as a "left wing or left behind psychopath" described in the book, but as a person who cares about family, community, society AND nation.
 
coluka said:
I have an awful lot of time for Campbell, I really do not and never will understand why he is despised by many on the left. I am sure he is right in much of what he says too.

Those that are so powerful and persuasive overseeing their puppets in Government do need reining in. I am all for a sovereign independent country, but not one that allows the few to dominate and control the people and their wealth and aspirations. As a brexit voter I have been truly dismayed at some of the unfolding scenes. I am not particularly naive though, but equally not the brightest mind and appreciate some of the behaviours and outcomes of the state actors involved were predictable. I do think the time has come where the country has to move forward and work with where we are, railing against things right now is not the way to help the country and its future.

I am totally supportive of Starmer’s stance for now. If, and it is an if, Brexit proves a mistake, and It may or may not be (railing against it is definitely shooting ourselves in the left foot, even if Brexit were proved to be shooting ourselves in the right foot) we need to move forward together and not continue this constant tug of war that will only pull the country down quicker and everyone will lose out even more, along with it. Future generations will have the opportunity to reverse it in time if that is the case. Is that really worth the agony of continued bitter in fighting, even if you eventually were to get to say I told you so? I hope most people are bigger than that.
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I'd have more sympathy for this view if there was any sort of coherent strategy of where Brexiters actually want to take the country now that they've 'got brexit done' and if there had been any attempt made whatsoever to try and build a consensus that the vast majority of the voting public could get behind in the past four years. Unfortunately, there's nothing and when claims don't stand up to scrutiny there's just more calls for 'unity'.
 
Piccadilly Day Tripper said:
I'd have more sympathy for this view if there was any sort of coherent strategy of where Brexiters actually want to take the country now that they've 'got brexit done' and if there had been any attempt made whatsoever to try and build a consensus that the vast majority of the voting public could get behind in the past four years. Unfortunately, there's nothing and when claims don't stand up to scrutiny there's just more calls for 'unity'.
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One of the reasons it worked was the “ coherent strategy” was the appeal to emotions...and nothing else, in fact the absolute avoidance of anything that could be questioned or analysed.
So in essence we’re left with seeming incoherence...
I think that was the primary motivation. We are not in this situation by chance.

“Things fall apart...”
.
 
Piccadilly Day Tripper said:
I'd have more sympathy for this view if there was any sort of coherent strategy of where Brexiters actually want to take the country now that they've 'got brexit done' and if there had been any attempt made whatsoever to try and build a consensus that the vast majority of the voting public could get behind in the past four years. Unfortunately, there's nothing and when claims don't stand up to scrutiny there's just more calls for 'unity'.
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I think the thrust is that, they do not give a f@@k about what happens to the country or whatever the population needs or wants. They have what they wanted so the rest can do one.
 
Interesting article but I’m not sure there is anything new here.

The very rich trying to shape the world so they get richer - always been the case.

The very rich trying to evade or have lower taxes - always been the case.

The very rich seeing opportunities in a disrupted environment - always been the case.

Politicians having hidden agendas shrouded in a few populist policies - always been the case.

Certain rich individuals operating on a global scale so they don’t actually belong or associate with a particular country - this is just business isn’t it? All companies have to be registered somewhere to be legal entities.

One thing Campbell doesn’t talk about is how much rich people depend upon a healthy, mobile and well educated ‘left behind’ class to continue making their millions. A strong public sector is essential to everybody.
 
I'd like to see your explanation for this....

"One thing Campbell doesn’t talk about is how much rich people depend upon a healthy, mobile and well educated ‘left behind’ class to continue making their millions. A strong public sector is essential to everybody."

...I'd argue the opposite, they need a desperate and easily exploitable "left behind" class.
 
smogontherhine said:
I'd like to see your explanation for this....

"One thing Campbell doesn’t talk about is how much rich people depend upon a healthy, mobile and well educated ‘left behind’ class to continue making their millions. A strong public sector is essential to everybody."

...I'd argue the opposite, they need a desperate and easily exploitable "left behind" class.
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The rich need a healthy, mobile and relatively well educated workforce to make their millions into more millions.

Therefore you need good state hospitals (however funded), you need good state schools and you need good public infrastructure. This is something Labour do not argue strongly enough about, they behave as if the rich can just make their money in some kind of bubble of isolation when in reality the provision of strong public services is the backbone of the capitalist system.
 
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