Thursday 11 January 2018

Oh shit, here we go again...

From the BBC:

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage says he is close to backing a second EU referendum to end the "whinging and whining" of anti-Brexit campaigners.

Mr Farage told Channel 5's The Wright Stuff a fresh vote could "kill off" the Remain campaign for a generation. He said "the percentage that would vote to leave next time would be very much bigger than it was last time round".

Pro-EU campaigners welcomed his comment, claiming "support is growing" for another referendum.


I'm all in favour of democracy, but this was TPTB's Plan B all along.

As soon as they realised that a slim minority had voted Leave, they decided to mess up Brexit as badly as possible, really drag it out, sign up to some unacceptable terms and conditions (like massive future payments) and agree to impose massive import tariffs that would really hurt the consumer.

Then, acting all innocent, they would announce a second referendum asking people whether they would like to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire, the outcome of which would likely be "Sod it, if it's going to be that bad, let's stay in."

Suitably heartened, the EU would then swiftly impose loads of federalist measures, like what they are trying to do to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

We also have to assume that Farage's vanity trumps his political intelligence.

11 comments:

MikeW said...

'New instructuions Nige, you won't understand, but here's the next script.' And so it came to pass - Arise Lord Farage, of the City of London.

decnine said...

Has there ever been a referendum with 3 questions? They would have to be:

Back In?

Out on these terms?

Reject this deal, we walk?

Mark Wadsworth said...

MW, do you think vanity?

D, that's called "splitting the leave vote". Would be interesting though.

jack ketch said...

Please God, NO JUST NO! Haven't we learnt by now that referenda on Constitutional questions are rarely (never?) a good idea?

Mark Wadsworth said...

JK, apparently not.

MikeW said...

MW yes, an aging, disappointed, vanity, was my first thought.Not the politics! Farage made a deal with the devil to play the UKIP 'bad guy' and found he wasn't going to get his mortal rewards.If he had only been a simple 'brown envelope' merchant, like Blair, I think it would be out by now, given the Tax Haven busts (I assume this would be his level).I will decline to speculate if he ever really thought of himself as a rightist, history maker proper.So I am left with medals, furs and honours.

Perhaps 15 years ago he could have hoped for a Clegg situation with UKIP in junior partnership in Guv at some point.But Tories took the UKIP policy bundle and left him out in the cold. I suspect he would have always been willing to retire, establishment figure, to the Lords, 'my job done', at the request of his masters. How old/fit is he? I conclude this is an attempt at Blair's gambit of keeping himself 'relevant'to the debate.The sole'political judgement', is the one about getting himself onto the front pages. But this gambit is likely to be another long march to the Lords for him. Now without a party.I think he is going to run out of time.

Actually, if anybody knows the history, why did Farage not simply join the Tories in the first place? I cannot see the party selection machine being hostile to a wealthy trader, back in the day.

Graeme said...

Can you imagine Ken, Hezza, Adonis, Clegg, Blair and Co agreeing that Nige is making a good point?

jack ketch said...

""Sod it, if it's going to be that bad, let's stay in."

I have to admit, if there was, heaven forefend, a 2nd Plebis-cide I would be sorely tempted to cast asunder all my democratic leanings and go and vote this time round. I would feel sullied but...I'd even tell my kids that they have to, as Germans, stand up against fascism wherever it raises it's head and if that means voting in a referendum then sometimes the end does justify the means.I'll send them each a bottle of something so they can rinse the bad taste out of their mouths after ....and a bottle sanitiser hand gel.

paulc156 said...

decnine.
"Back In?
Out on these terms?
Reject this deal, we walk?"

Only problem is we wouldn't have tge option of "back in" rather it would be 'back in, on less favourable terms'.

In which case it probably would be brexit again.

George Carty said...

I thinking it's interesting that although MW claims he left UKIP in part because they were becoming increasingly racist, the example he chose in this post to represent the EU's nefarious centralizing ambitions amounts to "the EU will force us to take in more refugees".

Mark Wadsworth said...

GC, I don't "claim" to have left UKIP because they were increasingly racist, I did, as a matter of actual fact leave them for that reason, and also because they were increasingly Home-Owner-Ist.

Unless you have some inside knowledge on what was going through my mind five years ago which you'd like to share with us?

And there are immigrants and immigrants.

My mum was German, I consider myself half-German, my wife is from very far away and works here, I have no grudge against law-abiding people who come here to work and integrate from wherever and whatever skin colour or religion etc. Out of our circle of friends, I would guess half are either non-white or not born in the UK.

OTOH the idea of having a few hundred thousand of Sweden's and Germany's unwanted criminal Arabs and Afghans, who have no intention of working or integrating, dumped on our shores fills me with horror and dread, as it does most sensible people.

If you consider that to be racist, then you have a strange definition of racism. There is no need to discuss what these people are like - you can look at unemployment and crime statistics in Sweden and Germany.