Will Conservatives Undo Brexit?

There is a rather one-sided battle for who will be the next Prime Minister of the UK. It is not particularly close.

The battle for 10 Downing Street is between two women; the one leading by a dramatically large number is prominent for supporting remaining in the EU.  Her only close opponent was well known as a "Leave"(the EU) Leader.

If the overwhelming majority of the conservative members of Parliament give the "Remain" Prime Minister what appears to be a mandate to undo Brexit, to try to stop it, delay it..........whatever it takes to head off the multi-faceted cluster-f*ck that is Brexit, then perhaps catastrophe might be averted.

With a high voter turnout, to ignore the results of the referendum means to follow the wisdom of the 18th century great thinker and then-member of Parliament, Edward Burke, who so wisely noted that for evil to triumph all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.  He also wrote, perhaps more appropriately, the following two quotations:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides of the people.

I take that as permission from one of the most esteemed political figures in history that the next PM should undo Brexit, instead of allowing the lowest common denominator voter to force tragedy on the nation.

But to do that means to over-ride the referendum that brought out 2.8 million voters, for some 70% voter turnout.  These voters were categorically the least educated, the oldest, less affluent -- and surprisingly, those most likely to suffer the worst effects of Brexit (like losing their jobs).

From Bloomberg, looking at the voter turnout analysis:

The slope of the fit line (referring to a graph of voters) implies that a one-vote increase in turnout almost equals a one-vote increase in the "leave" vote. In other words, the net impact of the 2.8 million extra votes was entirely to the benefit of the Brexiters.

The dynamics of the Brexit vote also matters for our understanding of politics. It has long been an aspiration of politicians, primarily on the left, to engage (or re-engage) non-voters, with little success. This referendum finally got people who had long since given up on politics to vote; people who would no longer vote for anyone or anything, but given the opportunity to vote against something – the establishment – they turned out in their millions. While there are clear distinctions between Brexit and populist insurgencies elsewhere, there are also common themes – economic dissatisfaction, cultural conservatism and a backlash against elites – to make the unlikely voter phenomenon something to watch. The U.S. is particularly interesting in this regard, because like the U.K. its turnouts are low, even in swing states.

I have long contended that the typical conservative voter on either side of the Atlantic is old, white, crabby and flabby, not generally well educated and consistently manipulated by special interests to vote their bigotry and bias, even against their own clear best interests, and also against the larger best interest of the nation.

If Burke is correct, and if the next PM has the political will, we will see the vote of those many foolish voters overturned.  That will provide an interesting example for the US conservatives to follow, potentially, in dumping Drumpf/Trump.  The folly of those Brexit voters was detailed below.

From the Deccan Herald:

The leave vote was strongest in regions economically dependent on the EU. A higher percentage of East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire’s economic output is sold to the EU, and yet 65% elected to leave. Although thousands of jobs depend on the Jaguar Land Rover factory in Coventry, 55.6% of voters in that constituency voted to leave. Wales and Cornwall have the highest level of EU subsidies in the country, and yet they voted to leave.
There was a strong negative correlation between the share for leave and education. Apart from London, which is generally more outward-looking anyway, in the rest of the country, the lowest education areas had a higher propensity to vote for leave.

So, sadly once again, we see conservatives, this time in the UK, being the stupid party.  To indulge their bigotry, and their fears ginned up by lies they were too lazy or too incompetent to fact check, they would destroy their jobs, their local economies, even putting at risk the very cohesion of the individual national entities that comprise the UK. 

The Brexit vote will adversely hit these same Leave voters hard in their pockets.  They will be poorer, often unemployed, in a nation that is no longer a power, and which will struggle to govern amid a recession or depression of likely long duration.

They don't care.  They don't want to have to know anything about anything.  They don't want to acknowledge that anyone else knows all those many things, those they denigrate as elites and experts. The people who know facts and understand systems and processes, those with expertise and actual hands-on experience, they reject out of willful ignorance, their deliberately chosen ignorance over intellect.

But you can bet that when the bad results accumulate, these same Brexit voters will be angry, they will claim they were lied to -- and they were, but they chose to accept those lies uncritically, so it is their own damn fault.  They will look to blame everyone but those who are really responsible for the damage from Brexit.

The same faces they see in their mirrors every time they look.

Conservatives Brexit, Conservatives broke it. 'It' being the UK.

The vote to leave the UK was along party lines, being overwhelmingly a vote by Conservatives both conventional 'mainstream' conservatives, and the more rabid UKIP crowd, comparable to our teabaggers and birchers. Conservatives not only were willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces, they were willing to slit their economic throats to express their hatred of immigrants.

Sarah Palin demonstrated her deep ignorance on financial and foreign policy matters, speaking as a surrogate for Donald Trump, peddling ridiculous conspiracy theories about the EU, and advocating even more ridiculous policy positions that are not even remotely similar, about the UN.  From FB

Sarah Palin June 24 at 10:48am ·

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...
The UK knew - it was that time. And now is that time in the USA.
The Brexit referendum is akin to our own Declaration of Independence. May that refreshed spirit of sovereignty spread over the pond to America's shores!
Congratulations, smart Brits. Good on you for ignoring all the fear mongering from special interest globalists who tend to aim for that apocalyptic One World Government that dissolves a nation's self-determination and sovereignty... the EU being a One World Government mini-me.
America can learn an encouraging lesson from this.
It is time to dissolve political bands that connect us to agendas not in our best interest. May UN shackles be next on the chopping block.
- Sarah Palin

The WaPo covered it very well:

As the United Kingdom prepared to leave the European Union, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation, the value of the pound fell and HBO had to assure worried “Game of Thrones” fans that future Northern Ireland film shoots were going to be fine, Sarah Palin came forth with her own take.
On Friday, the former Alaskan governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate congratulated the “smart Brits,” likening the June referendum to the Declaration of Independence. After all, as she noted in a Facebook post, the citizens of the United Kingdom may have avoided nothing less than the end of the world.
Palin, a Donald Trump supporter, applauded the “leave” voters for outfoxing “globalists” who would bring about an “apocalyptic One World Government,” she wrote on Facebook. That is because the European Union, in her words, is a “One World Government mini-me.”
Palin’s comments marked a public embrace of a conspiracy theory popularly known as the New World Order. Palin did not elaborate what, exactly, the apocalypse would look like. But the details of who or what make up the New World Order depend on the theorist — it is a secret organization of politicians, banks, the Illuminati, the media or, perhaps, lizard people. Distilled, the main goal of the organization is a totalitarian regime that will emerge from the shadows: One World Government to rule them all.

So far as I can discern, the whole one world order nonsense is reminiscent of J.R.R. Tokien's lines from the Lord of the Rings saga:

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Crackpot conspiracy theories like the One World Order play to the lowest, and basest common denominators of the ignorant, acting as propaganda to divert those it affects from rational and fact based thought to emotional thinking that ignores fact.  It plays as well on the worst tendencies and beliefs of those it affects, in this case promoting an evil form of nationalism and the worst of "Us vs. Them" thinking.  It is notably anti-immigrant, with people wanting to 'take back' their country from those bad brown people who are 'not like us'.

Beyond the political conservative vs liberal division, voters for Brexit were older, white, and less educated, and tended to be more rural, which has correlated with less educated generally.   In other words, the Brexit voters were the Brit equivalent of Trump supporters specifically, and more extreme right wing conservatives in the US generally.  They are the resentful and bigoted "I shouldn't have to know anything" scientist and other 'elite' hating folks.

What do I mean by 'breaking' the UK?  Financial decline, certainly.  The why and how of that is outlined here very well by the prestigious London School of Economics (and political science).

The British stock market has already faced serious losses, and foreign investors are talking about pulling out of the UK -- or at the very least, phasing out manufacturing and instead taking their new investment to the continental EU.  The Guardian article here addresses the example of the Japanese investors.

From the Guardian:

It echoed a plea in May by the prime minister Shinzo Abe for Britain to remain in the EU, pointing out that those Japanese companies employ around 140,000 people in the UK.
“There would be an immeasurable impact on their businesses” in the event of a victory for the Leave campaign, he said.

...Several Japanese firms have voiced alarm at the prospect of Britain leaving the EU.
Hitachi has said Britain’s membership of the EU had influenced its decision to open a train maintenance depot in west London last year.
“We built the plant because Britain is part of the EU and we are considering expanding into the EU,” the Asahi Shimbun quoted Toshiaki Higashihara, Hitachi’s president, as saying this week, adding that he opposed a Brexit.

Tatsuya Tanaka, the president of Fujitsu, whose information technology arm employs 14,000 people in Britain, has said that a vote to leave the EU would be “a huge negative” for the electronics firm’s business in the UK.
Abe has voiced support for David Cameron’s campaign to keep Britain in the EU, warning British voters that leaving could threaten Japanese investment and put more than 100,000 jobs at risk.

But more than that, Scotland where a close vote regarding independence failed, is looking at a new vote, with a change in support for leaving the UK now that the Brexit vote has succeeded.  Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU.  Looks like they won't vote to stay in the UK however.

It has begun, as reflected in this news coverage from France:

EU leaders meet without UK for first time in wake of Brexit

Cameron flew back to London after Tuesday's summit, as Scotland's first minister headed in the opposite direction to test the waters in Brussels for her country joining the bloc as a separate entity.

And we have this about Northern Ireland wanting to stay in the EU - even if it means leaving the UK, which it happens was provided for in a 1998 accord between the UK and Ireland.

Then there is the post-Brexit vote news about Australia wanting to leave the Commonwealth, for their own economic reasons.  This underlines how Brexit makes the UK less influential and successful.

Palin got it so very wrong, as she always does. Apparently a lot of anti-Brexit voters want to take back their respective countries, not from the EU or the UN, but from the UK, because Brexit so badly damages the UK both politically and economically in the world.  It is clearly an attempt by those other parts of the UK to dump the dummies, the crazy conservatives, the petty and fearful bigots, to go their own way without the conservative baggage that is an anchor dragging them down, down, down.

Once again, conservatives demonstrate that they are poorly informed on factual, substantive matters,, and that they cannot, or will not (same effective result), participate in mature, responsible, informed democracy.  Rather conservatives act like petty children badly in need of a time out until they can conduct themselves properly.

Long term, Brexit will no doubt do for the UK what the conservatives would not do for themselves, resulting in a massive breakdown of the conservative side of the political spectrum, leading to a purge of the destructive controlling factions and eliminating their influence for a period of time.

We can probably expect the same thing as conservatives in the US implode with the nomination of Donald Trump destroys the existing GOP.

From the Freethinker in the UK: Silly Fears Over Non-Existent Sharia Law

I've recently added the Freethinker, an atheist publication dating back to 1881, back on our blog roll; they have unusual religious stories which can be equally of interest and applicable to political ideologies in the U.S.  In particular, institutionalized Islamophobia is rampant on the right in this country.  It is a knee-jerk issue, a political dog whistle topic, especially among the would be Christian theocrats among the religious right, who would impose their notions of Christian/ Biblical law on the rest of us, to the detriment of our freedom of religion, or from religion.

This was one of the Freethinker's recent posts that caught my attention, in that context:

Two guys called Mo fined for spraying burqas on billboard models in London

THE Mos – short for teenage morons Mohammed Hasnath and Muhammed Tahir – have earned themselves convictions for criminal damage after they did a cover-up job on scantily-clad models featured in poster ads.

According to this report, the two 18-year-old Muslims from east London were caught defacing advertisements when members of the public called police.

Vandals Hasnath and Tahir

They had been spotted painting over a Lynx advert which showed Kelly Brook as an angel, as well as painting over the other side of the hoarding, which was an ad for the film Drive Angry.

I was not familiar with either the model or the product referred to; so I don't know which of these photos, if any, was the catalyst for the vandalism.  The movie looks to be a particularly vapid, stupid action film, so I hadn't paid any attention to it either.  Readers can see some of the photos in the ad campaign for a deodorant referenced, here.  The movie poster was probably something like this one,  below.  The fact that Ms. Heard, seen here, has recently announced that she is dating a woman, and is apparently bi-sexual, may have been an additional incentive for the vandalism, but the images themselves in either case are hardly hard core exposure.

The article continues (numpties is Scot-speak for idiots).  These two fools clearly were clueless; that they could be so naively ignorant is in itself a concern as to what kind of world view and lack of education they must have to think and act this way.  Beyond that they seem harmless enough, and appear to have wised up after their quite peaceful encounter with the law.

When police arrived, they admitted what they had done.

The numpties admitted the offence, saying they were acting in the greater good because women should not be uncovered.  Taiwo Akinrowo, prosecuting in their recent court case, said:

They told them [the police] that the way the women had been photographed was against their religion and said it was a sin in Islam for a male to look twice at a woman who is not covered. Both have admitted painting over them. At first, they did not think it was a bad thing to do but they accept that it was not legal because it was not their property.

I personally, as a woman, have an issue with any religion that operates on the premise that when men experience lust - as both men and women sometimes do - it is the women who are held responsible somehow for the troubling (or pleasurable, or both) emotions that the men feel.  While there are cultures that use Sharia law to enforce that responsibility on women, it is far more an ethnic and  regional cultural attitude than a religious one.   There are numerous Islamic men and women who have no problems with western morality and dress, including the wearing of bikini style swimwear, or underwear models, etc. in advertising.  This is more an example of a relatively innocent culture clash than a dangerous Islamic threat.  These young men were stupid, but well intentioned.

Hasnath – who had earlier been fined £100 for posting stickers which declared Tower Hamlets a “gay-free zone” – declared:

If someone was to look at our wife or mother or daughter with a bad intention we would not like it, so we were just trying to do good.

They were each told to pay costs of £283 and were released on a 12-month conditional discharge.

Last month, posters were found in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest declaring the boroughs to be “Sharia-controlled zones”.

The posters said:

You are entering a Sharia controlled zone. Islamic rules enforced.

Underneath, images indicate that smoking, alcohol and music are banned.

Islamic hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who said in 2008 that gays should be stoned to death, has claimed responsibility for the campaign.

This hardly translates into a threat of enforcement of Sharia law; Andjem Choudary can say whatever he likes, but if the only response is spray painting bill boards in questionable taste, there is little harm done. 
Quotes from the wikipedia entry for him provide a larger perspective for the conservative religious views (photos from other sources):

Choudary has received little support from the mainstream UK Muslim population, and has been largely criticised in the media.

and

Choudary, center

 In January 2010 Guardian contributor Mehdi Hasan wrote: "Is Choudary an Islamic scholar whose views merit attention or consideration? No. Has he studied under leading Islamic scholars? Nope. Does he have any Islamic qualifications or credentials? None whatsoever. So what gives him the right to pontificate on Islam, British Muslims or 'the hellfire'? Or proclaim himself a 'sharia judge'?", and claimed that Choudary was "as unrepresentative of British Muslim opinion, as he is of British anti-war opinion."

and 

Choudary, left

Choudary has received little support from the mainstream Muslim community, although in January 2010 Telegraph writer Jamie Bartlett speculated that he might have "some" support among the minority of Muslims in the UK who could be considered to hold conservative views.

There have been no instances that I can find of alcohol being banned, or smoking, or music, or the stoning of gay men, or even harrassment of men or women minding their own business, expressing their own personal style, walking down an English street; no Sharia law in evidence ANYWHERE.  Nor is there any indication that is likely to happen any time soon, because while events like this are a minor embarrassment to the perpetrators, they are no real threat to anyone. 

The low key approach, rather than an over reaction to non-existent Sharia law is more than sufficient, and it avoids the escalation of fear, hostility and ill-will.  Any other reaction is an over reaction, other than to push back equally against militant Christian fundamentalists who would equally impose their extremist notions on the rest of us, if we let them.