I'm glad you laid out the real reason most people voted for Brexit. I remember hearing Boris's first post-Brexit talk about how we would now be able to be a genuinely global Britain. Wait, what? That's not what we meant!' And I remember a friend saying, 'So let me get this straight. You voted for a stop to EU immigration because you want less non-EU immigration? Is that it?'
My reasoning at the time was this. Since the EU didn't seem bothered that it's southern border was being overrun and that hordes of alleged asylum-seekers were steadily making their way north I thought, this is a 'Tragedy of the Commons' problem: no one is dealing with it because it's not any individual country's problem. Okay then, let's go individual. Ah, if only things had worked out how I planned.
I seem to remember Johnson stating after 2019 that he was aware that the Red Wall votes that had won him the election had been 'lent', and so Tories had better reflect carefully on what they needed to do to maintain their newfound supporters' fragile trust. The subsequent contempt and brazen deception over one of the issues they (and other natural conservatives) care about most deeply has been absolutely astonishing. Suicidally so, if they keep at it.
I have doubts over whether anyone, even the Melonis and Akessons, can do much about mass migration in Europe over the long run - the vested interests and demographic pressures are so overwhelmingly powerful - but it would be nice to be able to vote for someone who at least had a proper go.
"A small number perhaps believe that we can have more open borders and also evolve into a small-state economy blessed with a super-efficient bureaucracy ..."
I suppose people can believe anything if they want to believe it badly enough.
"a world of cheap luxuries and unaffordable necessities"
I will remember this phrase.
When I saw in the Times that Truss was planning even more immigration it did make me pause. After all these years? And what for? Even more expensive housing and overburdened social services?
It's interesting to compare to Japan, which has embraced population decline as the lesser of two evils, favoring preserving cultural cohesiveness. I daresay Japan will have the last laugh.
You should write an article on the deliberately carefully selected demographics of the Great British Bakeoff. Someone commented to me the other day that after all these years there's never been a contestant originally from Australia or Canada or the US, despite substantial populations living in the UK, even for most of their lives, and yet the show producers always manage to find a couple people who've barely lived in Britain. But perhaps more relevant, till about a few years ago the show's bakers were clearly selected to provide a regional representation of Britain, balanced among the four countries and English regions, but now it's pretty much mostly London / ethnic with a few token people from elsewhere in the UK isles.
The funny thing about Brexit was that it ‘meant’ whatever anyone wanted it to mean, on either side. You only had to be much too online to see this. More curry chefs was an oft-promised benefit too. Right there is a promise that will be kept.
There was always a strong left wing case for Brexit. Recall the EU imposes neoliberalism in a way that placed it beyond democratic control. When a Labour government get into power they will have the opportunity to show that it is possible to combine social liberalism with a high wage economy. What is required is to allow immigration where needed for acute labour shortages but not to the extent that it suppresses investment in productivity. Sadly having an infinite pool of EU labour removed any incentive for managers to get their act together and improve labour productivity.
Watching the GBP/gilts drama unfolding since Friday, especially with an emergency BOE hike being imminent, I'm becoming more and more convinced the Tories will be done much earlier than current consensus (ie in 2 years).
Immigration levels tend to have a lag until the public catches up, mortgage payments on the other hand provide an instant realisation.
I'm pretty convinced that the touting of economic benefits of immigration by elites in all Western countries is just a sublimation of an open-borders modernist ideology that has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with contempt for things the rubes are into, like traditions and nations and people's pride in them. Mass immigration as the use of human beings as political bioweapons to dramatically say "take that!" at the lower orders one despises. Remember the Blair advisor's comment about "rubbing the right's noses in diversity"? Any economic benefits to one's supporters are secondary to this.
Giorgia Meloni is not a "fascist" politician. She is the exact opposite. She is a center-right politician and her planned policies are center-right. She supports freedom for the people of Italy, of which they have lost much to the dictatorial policies of the EU and left-wing governments.
Fascists are on the left side of politics, starting with Mussolini, who was a pure socialist and was publicly proud of it.
Fascism is a leftist ideology, not a right wing one. The fascists came from socialist parties that broke from communism and globalism in favor of technocratic control by the few to dominate businesses and economies and societies and inculcate them into doing what they were told “for the collective good”.
I'm glad you laid out the real reason most people voted for Brexit. I remember hearing Boris's first post-Brexit talk about how we would now be able to be a genuinely global Britain. Wait, what? That's not what we meant!' And I remember a friend saying, 'So let me get this straight. You voted for a stop to EU immigration because you want less non-EU immigration? Is that it?'
My reasoning at the time was this. Since the EU didn't seem bothered that it's southern border was being overrun and that hordes of alleged asylum-seekers were steadily making their way north I thought, this is a 'Tragedy of the Commons' problem: no one is dealing with it because it's not any individual country's problem. Okay then, let's go individual. Ah, if only things had worked out how I planned.
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I seem to remember Johnson stating after 2019 that he was aware that the Red Wall votes that had won him the election had been 'lent', and so Tories had better reflect carefully on what they needed to do to maintain their newfound supporters' fragile trust. The subsequent contempt and brazen deception over one of the issues they (and other natural conservatives) care about most deeply has been absolutely astonishing. Suicidally so, if they keep at it.
I have doubts over whether anyone, even the Melonis and Akessons, can do much about mass migration in Europe over the long run - the vested interests and demographic pressures are so overwhelmingly powerful - but it would be nice to be able to vote for someone who at least had a proper go.
"A small number perhaps believe that we can have more open borders and also evolve into a small-state economy blessed with a super-efficient bureaucracy ..."
I suppose people can believe anything if they want to believe it badly enough.
"a world of cheap luxuries and unaffordable necessities"
I will remember this phrase.
When I saw in the Times that Truss was planning even more immigration it did make me pause. After all these years? And what for? Even more expensive housing and overburdened social services?
It's interesting to compare to Japan, which has embraced population decline as the lesser of two evils, favoring preserving cultural cohesiveness. I daresay Japan will have the last laugh.
You should write an article on the deliberately carefully selected demographics of the Great British Bakeoff. Someone commented to me the other day that after all these years there's never been a contestant originally from Australia or Canada or the US, despite substantial populations living in the UK, even for most of their lives, and yet the show producers always manage to find a couple people who've barely lived in Britain. But perhaps more relevant, till about a few years ago the show's bakers were clearly selected to provide a regional representation of Britain, balanced among the four countries and English regions, but now it's pretty much mostly London / ethnic with a few token people from elsewhere in the UK isles.
The funny thing about Brexit was that it ‘meant’ whatever anyone wanted it to mean, on either side. You only had to be much too online to see this. More curry chefs was an oft-promised benefit too. Right there is a promise that will be kept.
"The Tories seem to believe that immigration is necessary for economic growth, which might be true but doesn’t appear immediately obvious"
This article on the Conservative Home website sets out the case that *low-skilled* immigration is bad for economic growth:
https://conservativehome.com/2022/09/27/will-tanner-a-warning-shot-across-the-bows-to-the-government-on-relaxing-immigration-rules/
There was always a strong left wing case for Brexit. Recall the EU imposes neoliberalism in a way that placed it beyond democratic control. When a Labour government get into power they will have the opportunity to show that it is possible to combine social liberalism with a high wage economy. What is required is to allow immigration where needed for acute labour shortages but not to the extent that it suppresses investment in productivity. Sadly having an infinite pool of EU labour removed any incentive for managers to get their act together and improve labour productivity.
Watching the GBP/gilts drama unfolding since Friday, especially with an emergency BOE hike being imminent, I'm becoming more and more convinced the Tories will be done much earlier than current consensus (ie in 2 years).
Immigration levels tend to have a lag until the public catches up, mortgage payments on the other hand provide an instant realisation.
I'm pretty convinced that the touting of economic benefits of immigration by elites in all Western countries is just a sublimation of an open-borders modernist ideology that has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with contempt for things the rubes are into, like traditions and nations and people's pride in them. Mass immigration as the use of human beings as political bioweapons to dramatically say "take that!" at the lower orders one despises. Remember the Blair advisor's comment about "rubbing the right's noses in diversity"? Any economic benefits to one's supporters are secondary to this.
Giorgia Meloni is not a "fascist" politician. She is the exact opposite. She is a center-right politician and her planned policies are center-right. She supports freedom for the people of Italy, of which they have lost much to the dictatorial policies of the EU and left-wing governments.
Fascists are on the left side of politics, starting with Mussolini, who was a pure socialist and was publicly proud of it.
Fascism is a leftist ideology, not a right wing one. The fascists came from socialist parties that broke from communism and globalism in favor of technocratic control by the few to dominate businesses and economies and societies and inculcate them into doing what they were told “for the collective good”.