fahrenheit451:187

A couple of days ago, the Labour Party issued its latest update on its Party line on the brexit process.We are to Remain imprisoned for an indefinite period within the Single Market as well as  the Customs Union.
The very shackles that have bound our Nation in servitude for decades to an alien authoritarian tyranny are to remain in place; this in the view of the British Labour Party constitues Brexit- the UKs departure from the serfdom of the EU !!
The following is my latest missive launched DPRK style to the local newspaper.

You may recall the failed Remain campaign that lost the 2016 EU referendum. More than 200 Labour MPs were at the heart of that discredited shambles including our own unrepentant antidemocratic zealot who despises her own constituents for having voted largely for #brexit.

 

Having been beaten once, the Labour Party, again are spearheading another vain attempt to in effect overturn the result of the very referendum which they singularly have refused to accept as legitimate.

 

Despite all the arrant nonsense from Keir Starmer and Chuka Umunna and idle bombast spewed out by the Labour Party and their deluded anti-brexit allies in various trade and industrial bodies,there is one all commanding fact which they wilfully choose to ignore in the hope that the electorate can be misled.

 

Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon gives the leaving country two years to negotiate an exit deal and once it's set in motion it can't be stopped except that the timescale of 2 years may be extended by unanimous consent of all member states.

 

Triggering Article 50 has started the clock running down.After March 2019,the Treaties that govern membership no longer apply to the UK.

On the day those treaties become null and void our trading arrangements with the EU revert to WTO rules.

 

The UK has no need to compromise on any single facet of its objectives.

They don't have to sit around a meaningless negotiating table and be continually subjected to condescending otiose cant and vituperative slander from the EU side nor its supporters in this country.

 

Lying and cheating on brexit and debasing the democratic will of the electorate on an epic scale not seen since Goebbels in 1930s Germany does nothing to enhance Labour's tawdry reputation. 200 of their MPs need to take urgent note or face the consequences.

 

fahrenheit451:186

Another day, another self-perpetuating damnable lie uttered and then broadcast and published by the smug metropolitan elitists of the Seditionist Remain campaign.

 That's enough said about Chuka Umunna and his latest in a long line of deluded ramblings and unsubstantiated assertions on the non-existent " demonisation" of migrant workers.

The latest flagrant disregard for anything approaching empirical proof,logic or remotely cogent argument comes from the Food & Drink Federation.

They concocted, ( sorry conducted ) a survey that was meant to somehow meant to be authoritative and credible and impress anyone with an intellectual attention span less than an amoeba.

The survey covered, they claimed, 627 companies from across trade bodies such the Association of Labour Providers, the British Beer and Pub Association, the British Hospitality Association, the Food and Drink Federation, and the Fresh Produce Consortium.

Nearly a third of respondents to the survey, conducted between March and May, said some EU staff had already departed.

" Some EU staff  ", this isn't admissible,verifiable empirical data from which one might draw a conclusion,is it ?

 

While the UK's economy has slowed sharply this year, evidence that the Brexit vote made an impact on the labour market is less clear.

Less clear? than what ? the ephemeral " Some EU staff " ?

 

The Chief Spokesdroid for this intellect-free,integrity-lite survey , Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium made the following pronouncement to the effect that:-

 

An abrupt reduction in the number of EU workers eligible to work in the UK after Brexit would result in significant disruption for the entire food supply chain and that this would have consequences for the availability and price of food in Britain.

 

Around a fifth of the 2 million EU nationals working in the UK are employed in the food and drink supply chain.

36% of companies in the survey said their businesses would be unviable without access to EU workers.

 

So,the British Retail Consortium has issued a threat against Her Majesty's democratically constituted government,that should the  brexit process be carried out to its agreed conclusion,i.e. departure from the shackles of the EU,then the entire food supply chain for the population of the UK will be existentially imperiled by Companies withdrawing themselves from the supply infrastructure. Is that what Opies meant to say?

 

It seems that the egregiously  exploitative Agencies ZeroHours Contracts that for decades have underpinned the systemically lazy,stupid,greedy,inefficient cheap foreign labour grubbing shennanigans of the UK Food and farming Industry have come home to roost.

 

In a passing nod to Realpolitik  and Real Economics,the Food & Drink Federation acknowledges,much like a penitent before the Inquisition that:-

 

Over time [training local workers] is something that will have to happen as a result of the Brexit vote. We recognise that immigration was a big factor in the Brexit vote.

 

To deal with fewer foreign workers, the federation will have a strong emphasis on building skills through apprenticeships and investment in technology to support automation, it said.

 

How jolly big of the F&DF!

 

Why the hell haven't they as well as most of British industry across all sectors been pro-actively doing this over the last 40 odd years?

 

Then again the Labour Party & Trades Union Movement and virtually all the anti-capitalist Left maintain that unrestricted labour market competition actually increases wages! and that to argue against that is to scapegoat aka demonise immigrant /migrant workers.

 

Which brings us back to Chuka Umunna.

 

Schadenfreude.

 

fahrenheit451:185

There's an old saying about the definition of insanity being someone who keeps on repeating failed actions over and over and expecting a different result.

Syria.The Middle East in general. United States foreign policy.

Gleaned from today's  South Front website

ISIS AND ‘MODERATE REBELS’ UNITE EFFORTS AGAINST SYRIAN ARMY IN EASTERN HAMA COUNTRYSIDE. GOVT FORCES COUNTER-ATTACK

 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and its allied groups of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have united efforts with ISIS in an attempt to cut off the Salamiyah-Ithriyah-Khanassir-Aleppo road, the only government supply line to Aleppo city.

On August 23 and August 24, HTS artillery units conducted a massive bombardment campaign shelling Syrian Arab Army (SAA) positions along the road. At the same time, ISIS attacked the SAA at Wadi al-Adib and Shayk Hilal and even temporarily cut off the road near as-Saan.
Pro-militant sources, including the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), claimed that the SAA suffered a number of tactical setbacks and that ISIS could use the situation in order to recapture a large area in the Uqayrabat pocket.
However, then reports started appearing that the SAA, the Qalamoun Shield Forces and the National Defense Forces (NDF), backed up by Russian attack helicopters, launched a counter-attack in the area and recaptured some points that had been lost to terrorists.
Clashes are ongoing. The situation remains tense.

It's only a few short weeks ago that the CIA ( aren't they part of the US state ? ) announced its withdrawal of military support for the ragbag coalition of forces commonly referred to as the Free Syrian Army. Then again elements of the US military are still actively stationed inside fortified installations inside Syria assisting and advising the very same FSA.

Meanwhile the clowns of the Turkish regime's governing elite have let it be known that they are mightily displeased with the US continuing its support- military and financial to the YPG ,the Syrian Kurdish faction who themselves co-operate with some elements of the FSA.

Erdogan's genuinely racist,xenophobic authoritarian regime despises the very existence of all Kurds everywhere and considers them an existential threat to his greater Turkey.

There is nobody in Washington, either in the Trump administration itself or amongst the politicians in Congress or amongst the Military/Security apparatus, who has ever been called upon to debate and explain in public the strategic rationale and constitutional justification for the US opposing the legitimate sovereign state of Syria and for supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The ongoing Islamic terrorist outrages across , not only the european continent but in south east asia,the horn of Africa and a broad range of countries stretching from Nigeria in the west to Kenya in the east of Africa seems to be of little concern to the Neocon/ liberal interventionist warmongers in Washington. Maybe they can't bomb or threaten to bomb or regime change everywhere all at once like back in the good old old days.

We are most assuredly dans la merde.

fahrenheit451:184

It wasn't so long ago that some Oxbridge anti-brexit Remoaner academic actually reported as a " Hate Incident " the utterances of an MP who advocated ending the freedom of movement of labour once the UK had extricated itself from the morass of EU membership. At least I seem to recall it being something akin to that.
Now,it seems on a much broader front, the reporting of hate incidents, hate crimes and such like are once again being prioritised this time across social media.One presumes not only utterances related to #brexit.
We know this to be so because  Alison Saunders,the Director of Public Prosecutions said so this morning and was widely reported across the Corporate MSM. Who themselves,wittingly or otherwise might fall under the scope of this latest draconian edict.
To refresh our understanding of just what constitutes a " Hate Incident " that in turn might segue into what may constitute a  "Hate Crime ",we glean the following from the Crown Prosecution Service website :-
Though before we get started, we need to highlight the CPS' own reassuring axiom that -Not all hate incidents will amount to criminal offences, but those that do become hate crimes. Which to say the least is one heck of a moot point m'lud.
Anyhow -

Hate Crime What is it?

A Hate Incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someones prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender.
If you, or anyone you know, has been called names, been bullied or had anything happen to them that you think may be because of one of these factors, then you should report this as a hate incident. Even if you dont want the incident to be investigated, it is important that the police know about it, so that they can build up a picture of how many incidents are happening and where. This information can help police investigating other hate incidents.
Not all hate incidents will amount to criminal offences, but those that do become hate crimes. The Association of Chief Police Officers and the CPS have agreed a common definition of hate crime: "Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender."
Anyone can report any utterance of any seemingly contentious view or opinion on any matter even if the person making the report was not the object of the utterance, as in the aforementioned recent case of that complete twat of an Oxbridge Professor denouncing someone regarding something he'd heard on the radio about brexit.
"A Hate Incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someones prejudice."
This is the rebirth of French revolutionary Sans-Culottes Vigilantism propagated by Saint-Just, who essentially maintained that Nature would not condemn an innocent man. the irony being he himself was denounced and subsequently executed for counter revolutionary activity and apparently accepted his own guilt!
In truth we now all live under an implacable tyranny.That tyranny is the yoke of metropolitan elitist politically correct multiculturalism.

fahrenheit451:183

The virulent cancer of  Political Correctness ,the standard bearer of the metropolitan elitist  religion of multiculturalism,has claimed yet another victim albeit this time one a little more prominent in public life than usual.
Until the other day, the MP for Rotherham ,Sarah Champion was Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Women & Equalities.
She wrote an article for The Sun newspaper about the continuing,unresolved menace of organised paedeophile gangs and in particular the role in them of, what is circumspectly termed as, British-Pakistani males in some of the more prominently reported of such crimes.
The most recent trial of such abusers in Newcastle follows in the wake of similar outrages in amongst other places, Rochdale and Sarah champion's own Rotherham.
Not only is the significant participation of British-Pakistani men in the rape gangs a common feature,but so is the role of Labour Party controlled and dominated local authorities - Councillors, directors and officers in Child welfare services,Police forces and schools.
All of them in uniform retrospective pleas of mitigation, claimed that the legal requirement to practice and enforce the doctrine of multiculturalist Political Correctness,meant they were all supposedly rendered impotent and wholly indifferent and institutionally complacent to the decades long reports of organised paedeophile gang activity involving British Pakistani men.
Child victims and their parents were routinely denounced Stasi-style,by Councils,by the Police,by Social workers,by teachers, as being mischievous and racist for even daring to attempt to report these horrific crimes.
So it is beyond insufferably egregious for Labour Party spokesdroid ,the MP for Bolton South East, Yasmin Qureshi to feature on the BBC Radio 4 flagship " Today " news program and carry out an epic,disingenuous filibuster when asked about the sacking / resignation of her Party colleague Sarah Champion. Adopting a sneering metropolitan elitist mien a la Diane Abbott infantilising the issue at hand ,was in retrospect only to be expected from Labour.
" Labour for the many not the few ".  " Labour stands with you " Jeremy Fucking Corbyn & all his parliamentary bootlicking,careerist,plaudit grubbing toerags this is their Epitaph :-
Rotherham Council commissioned an independent inquiry led by Professor Alexis. In August 2014 the Jay report concluded that at least 1,400 children, most of them white girls aged 11–15, had been sexually abused in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 by predominantly British-Pakistani men. The abuse included gang rape forcing children to watch rape, dousing them with petrol and threatening to set them on fire, threatening to rape their mothers and younger sisters, and trafficking them to other towns. There were pregnancies—at least one at age 12—terminations, miscarriages, babies raised by their mothers, and babies removed, causing further trauma.

fahrenheit451:182

From The Book of Romans 3:10-13
" There is none righteous, no, not one: ¹¹There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. ¹²They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. ¹³Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; "

President Donald Trump pretty much said more or less the same thing in his response to the rioting and bloodshed in Charlottesville,Virginia. He even handedly and dispassionately denounced the criminal behaviour of both sets of ideological extremists who had congregated in the otherwise little heard of town in Virginia.

The corporate MSM , ( mainstream media ), a plethora of social media platforms ,Uncle Tom Cobbley and all have in the meantime gone totally ape over President Trump's statements,almost as if he were the instigator of the mayhem itself.

I stand with Scripture on this.

fahrenheit451:181

Amid all the fabricated chaos,convulsions and confusion engendered by the seditionist agitators of the – 48%, Remain ,Stronger in Europe,Open Britain,Campaign or whatever else they choose to call themselves on any given day, there is one over-arching certainty; the general atmosphere of vituperative public discourse is highly unlikely to dissipate the nearer we get to actual #brexit in March 2019.

That said, we glean from the BBC news site :-

” Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Hammond and Mr Fox said the UK definitely would leave both the customs union and the single market when it exits the EU in March 2019.

They said a “time-limited” transition period would “further our national interest and give business greater certainty” – but warned it would not stop Brexit.  ”

It is heartening indeed that the Chancellor and the International Trade Secretary have found so much common ground. It bears an uncanny resemblance to those very same basic tenets of the Leave campaign in the EU Referendum in 2016.

Of course this is Britain,so even the theoretical notion that something will actually ever get done by those in power in accordance with the Will of the people as expressed for instance, in a referendum that all parties agree beforehand the result of which will in effect be binding is far more problematic.

We can all plainly see that from the present on going,seemingly interminable imbroglio.

But two prominent members of HMG’s Cabinet espousing the same line? You can never tell.

Hell, the Reformation got carried out for the most part,and the Civil War a century or so later pretty much succeeded also.So leaving the EU aka brexit may actually eventuate.

fahrenheit451:180

Nothing signifies the utter,crass stupidity of  the USA's  infantile,venal militaristic posturing than the current on going and seemingly escalating spat with the DPRK ( North Korea ).
The Byzantine convolutions and convulsions of Washington DC domestic politics aside, it would in theory have to take the US Congress to actually declare War,were it so inclined to do so over this latest hissy fit of theirs.
Not that the highly inconvenient constitutional necessity has ever impeded Neocon psychopaths from gerrymandering contentious and mainly bogus UN security council resolutions that allow the Pentagon a smoke and mirrors loophole to go ahead and wreak havoc on a historically unprecedented scale - Yugoslavia, Iraq (twice),Afghanistan,Libya,Syria.
President Trump's Hollywood-manque poorly scripted, sub-Churchillian rhetoric about fire and fury,yatta-ta-yatta is of itself not terribly enlightening other than it helps to highlight another facet of this entire useless,burdensome farrago of the US chucking the teddy out of its pram.The undiplomatic verbiage has even managed to upset John McCain, the terminally ill warmonger,neocon hawk supreme and soon to be ex-senator from Arizona.
The deep, deep state of CIA,career military and political thin tank neocons do crave for wanton carnage and global instability as long as it seems to favour US corporate interests long term. The spat with the DPRK doesn't accord with the preconceptions of their playbook and so it isn't welcome.
Which is worrying for them; ever since a Heritage Foundation report from 2013 concluded that the US ruling elites and their military-industrial complex are no longer capable of fighting a two front war.  Read and enjoy :-

http://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-measure-superpower-two-major-regional-contingency-military-the-21st-century
Today’s military is too small to meet the two-MRC test credibly. Moreover, the qualitative advantage that the U.S. military has long enjoyed is eroding as advanced military capabilities proliferate around the world. The capabilities of U.S. forces are also deteriorating as platforms and systems age and as critical modernization programs are delayed or even cancelled.
Building a two-MRC force for the 21st century means increasing the size of the U.S. military, modernizing existing platforms and systems, and investing in advanced air, sea, and land capabilities. This will require resources above the levels proposed by the Obama Administration. Over the next decade, building a reasonable two-MRC force for the 21st century will cost roughly $70 billion more per year than the projected cost of the current defense program, which averages approximately $550 billion per year.

Section I: What It Takes to Be a Military Superpower

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has measured the fundamental adequacy of its force posture in terms of the ability of U.S. forces, without national mobilization, to defeat two nation-state adversaries in geographically separate theaters nearly simultaneously. From the time it was first articulated in 1991, the two-theater-war standard has undergone repeated reviews and revisions. The fundamental reason that the two-theater-war standard still survives is because no credible alternative has ever been proposed. Senior decision makers across five Administrations, Republican and Democrat, have been unable to avoid the reality that, in a world of continuing globalization and growing political and military uncertainty, the U.S. needs a military that is large enough and has a sufficient range of capabilities to cover multiple major military contingencies in overlapping time frames.
............................................................................................................................................................................................
No-one will be bombing anyone anytime soon,unless,of course there are those too stupid to comprehend what really is at stake were they to act so precipitously.
The term  " Schadenfreude " seems appropriate at this juncture.

fahrenheit451:179

A few days ago, the American sprinter Justin Gatlin won the Gold medal in the Final of the 100 Metres competition at the World Athletics Championship by beating, amongst others the much feted Usain Bolt of Jamaica.And thereby hangs a tale.
Of Bread and Circuses. The rulers of ancient Rome understood the importance of state sponsored mass  popular entertainment and the role they and it played in the maintenance of the dominant ideology's hegemony over civil society.
Centuries later and the commodification and fetishisation of such entertainments-divertissements has become inextricably fused with the structure and superstructure of contemporary capitalist society.
The content of daily MSM discourse would in many ways seem severely depleted were sports in particular to feature less intensively and prominently as they do now.
Amid all the pressing issues and problems confronting us, those of economics ,various wars and politics the MSM has found time and space to highlight a single event in the World athletics Championships 2017 being held in London.
The BBC, the supposed virtuous paragon of impartiality and journalistic objectivity has gorged itself on the spectacle and aftermath of that 100 Metres Final that Gatlin won.
BBC commentators and journalists and expert pundits,once upon a time when reporting from sporting events ,would do just that. Report, giving  vivid descriptions of the action they were witnessing for the benefit of listeners and viewers whilst pundits /experts would add relevant event related analyses.
Alas, we are now in the Age of the Moral Philosopher-Commentator and the Prosecuting Attorney-Pundit. We are also under the jumped up,tin pot strutting tyranny of Sporting regulatory and administrative organising Bodies who've taken on a quasi-governmental role with ideological/theological views on morality.
Gatlin defeating Bolt was all about a twice " convicted " drugs cheat ( Gatlin )  de facto stealing the predetermined and rightful glory from Bolt who was running his last individual 100 metres race. The crowded stadium in London booed Gatlin prior to the running of that Final race, booed him after he'd won and  a day later booed him again at the event's medal ceremony.
So much for the oft mythologised and misunderstood legacy of Jesse Owens , that other American Negro sprinter who so controversially won a Gold medal in a hostile stadium environment amid official host country media hostility.
It is practically only ever mentioned as a footnote, that Gatlin was dealt with by due process of the disciplinary protocols and mechanisms available to and accepted by all in World athletics.
Gatlin was banned, he served his ban and was readmitted to participate in competition according to due process.
 And the moral jihadists ( mainly other current and former GB athletes of various disciplines ) led by the Grand Ayatollah of the IAAF, Lord Coe explicitly espoused their contempt for due process and the name and reputation of,an innocent law abiding person by the name of Justin Gatlin.

fahrenheit451:178

The Social Europe site published an opinion by Simon Wren-Lewis on  the current state of the UK's brexit negotiations with the EU. In general, SWL's article was a broadly social-democratic critique of what he regards as the Left's case- " Lexit "- for leaving the EU.
So far so good,after all just like every vote cast in the EU referendum was of equal value, so too, were we to extend the argument ,ought not one man's opinion be of equal validity to everyone else's opinion on any given issue? In practice,of course this is never the case, to believe that it could be is the height of naivety.
You see, the  Simon Wren-Lewis article had as a footnote his official moniker  " Professor of Economics at Oxford University ". Of all the varied demographic groupings it was the AB social class alone amongst all of them that had a majority vote Remain in the EU referendum. And  Remain metropolitan elitists being the seditionist nest of vipers that they invariably are, it doesn't stop at the opinion,learned or otherwise of just one professor.
Today's MSM has been assailed with the announcement of a list of demands delivered to our doltish Prime Minister by no less an august grouping than that representing the UK's leading 10 universities. Their particular strategic line of assault against Brexit is centred on the supposed infringement of the copious Rights enjoyed by EU citizens sojourning in the UK who also happen to be working at universities.
And so it goes. The metastasizing Remain insurgency asserts that every conceivable sector of the economy in one shape or form or another is under dire immediate existential threat because of the looming brexit. Whether or not it even actually eventuates or not.
As for the democratic will of the UK's sovereign electorate as expressed in a binding referendum agreed as such by parliament itself; that clearly counts for less than nothing.And in any event the 52% were misled,didn't understand the question or did and perversely voted Leave because they are racist,insular cretins.

That would include me then?