Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Britain's weird new future

27th Jun 2016
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

As the sound of people saying, “Yes, I voted out, but I only wanted to frighten them…” recedes into the background, we have to adapt to this weird new future.

And an early thing must be an emergency Budget (or, so we had been told). Osborne appears to have no immediate inclination to follow his leader and fall on his sword, though he must know that his hopes of the top job are now gone. So he must present that Budget, and of course he gave us a sneak preview the other day with huge tax increases and cuts in public spending.

But, although it probably shoved a few more people into the leave camp, it wasn’t a serious exercise in fiscal planning, more a vision of the apocalypse. For a start he would never get it through the House of Commons, with the Brexit half of his own party and everybody else going into the lobbies against him. And today we find him trying to “calm the markets” and saying we won’t need an emergency Budget at all.

While the Leave campaign has won the battle, this is surely at the expense of all the chief exponents of that campaign having lost any shred of plausibility. Could you ever believe anything Boris Johnson or Michael Gove says again? But then I have heard this week somebody calmly suggesting that a regard for the truth is “old-fashioned pedantry” (referring to the claim on the Leave bus), and it is indeed suggested that Johnson and Gove are “post-truth politicians”.

Which leaves me wondering why, if as has been suggested the major problem is that people have lost all faith in mainstream politicians, they then voted with the ones who told the biggest lies (I am struggling here not to introduce the name and political theories of Josef Goebbels here). The answer, it seems, is that for many the issues of the campaign were irrelevant: it was a chance to give the political establishment a slap and so the various arguments simply slipped past people. Add to that the element of xenophobia and you have your answer – including the answer to why the Leave campaigners did not look happy to have won.

One comparison this suggests to me is with the fall of the Roman Empire, or more precisely the withdrawal of the legions from Britain. We have the same need to make new trading arrangements, something completely different north of Hadrian’s Wall, and we have left over immigrants – in that case demobbed soldiers, camp followers and hangers on. That time we got back to the same standard of living in about a thousand years.

What will tax strategies be now?  The Leave campaign didn’t appear to have one (or even several). Some suggestions today see Michael Gove as the next Chancellor, a man so deeply embedded in free market ideology he is likely to see a 0% rate of Corporation Tax as excessive. But who knows?  Who was it said “be careful what you wish for?”

Replies (9)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

Out of my mind
By runningmate
28th Jun 2016 00:00

My theory is that all four countries in the UK voted against Westminster / London / the City (and not against Brussels). Only London itself (and a handful of sympathetic city centres) voted in favour of London.
If that is anything like true then if there is to be a general election this year a former Mayor of London would not be the best choice as a party leader!
RM

Thanks (0)
avatar
By Disabled Campaigner
28th Jun 2016 15:53

"Add to that the element of xenophobia... ".

There it is, the predictable suggestion that anyone voting leave must be a racist. That is the standard accusation made by the remain camp. An accusation that is offensive and insulting to over half of the electorate.

At least now Britain HAS a future. If left to the remain camp we would cease to be a nation and would become a small offshore part of a European dictatorship.

Thanks (3)
Replying to Disabled Campaigner:
By mwngiol
28th Jun 2016 16:39

"Element of xenophobia" = "anyone voting leave must be a racist". Yes of course, that's exactly what that sentence meant. Thank you for clarifying that.

Thanks (2)
Replying to Disabled Campaigner:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
29th Jun 2016 11:15

Disabled Campaigner wrote:

"Add to that the element of xenophobia... ".

There it is, the predictable suggestion that anyone voting leave must be a racist. That is the standard accusation made by the remain camp. An accusation that is offensive and insulting to over half of the electorate.

At least now Britain HAS a future. If left to the remain camp we would cease to be a nation and would become a small offshore part of a European dictatorship.

In amongst all the mixed & hyped messages and the division and fears this whole (to my mind unnecessary) process has generated; one fact seems to have come through which is that whilst, clearly, not all those who voted leave are racist, most, if not all, racists voted leave. This was clear well before the start of the campaigns and if this means that some of the racist mud sticks to you non-racists....tough, suck it up.

Thanks (2)
Replying to Paul Scholes:
By cheekychappy
29th Jun 2016 12:44

Paul Scholes wrote:

Disabled Campaigner wrote:

"Add to that the element of xenophobia... ".

There it is, the predictable suggestion that anyone voting leave must be a racist. That is the standard accusation made by the remain camp. An accusation that is offensive and insulting to over half of the electorate.

At least now Britain HAS a future. If left to the remain camp we would cease to be a nation and would become a small offshore part of a European dictatorship.

In amongst all the mixed & hyped messages and the division and fears this whole (to my mind unnecessary) process has generated; one fact seems to have come through which is that whilst, clearly, not all those who voted leave are racist, most, if not all, racists voted leave. This was clear well before the start of the campaigns and if this means that some of the racist mud sticks to you non-racists....tough, suck it up.

Tripe!

I'm amazed at how many lefties accuse out voters of being racist whilst they have their Golliwog on the mantle and have a "chinky" for tea at the weekend.

Thanks (0)
Replying to Paul Scholes:
avatar
By Disabled Campaigner
29th Jun 2016 14:56

Paul Scholes wrote:

In amongst all the mixed &; hyped messages and the division and fears this whole (to my mind unnecessary) process has generated; one fact seems to have come through which is that whilst, clearly, not all those who voted leave are racist, most, if not all, racists voted leave. This was clear well before the start of the campaigns and if this means that some of the racist mud sticks to you non-racists....tough, suck it up.

Does that mean that I can happily refer to all remain voters as traitors willing to sell Britain out to the EU? Or maybe refer to all remain voters as collaborators intent on seeing Britain invaded. By comparison, I consider being called a racist quite a compliment.

Thanks (1)
Replying to Disabled Campaigner:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
29th Jun 2016 16:43

Hi DC - Sorry I don't understand your logic, all I was saying was that this was a 2 horse race with 3 jockeys and if observers got confused over the identities of the two jockeys on the leave horse, they can't really be blamed, the 2 jockeys benefited from each other's support and were clearly happy to make the most of it.

Had we had had two questions "leave/remain on non-xenophobic grounds" or "leave/remain on xenophobic grounds" and rightly chucked away the ballot papers for the 2nd, the result may well have been different.

Thanks (1)
Out of my mind
By runningmate
28th Jun 2016 17:56

Two things appear to be becoming clearer today.
Firstly Juncker, Obama & other leaders outside the UK envisage & hope to see a United States of Europe emerging quite quickly. The UK will no longer be hindering that process from within the EU.
Secondly if BoJo wins the Tory leadership election in September he does not plan to hold a general election before negotiating Brexit. He believes he is mandated to negotiate Brexit by the referendum result.
What might happen in the Labour party is much less clear.
RM

Thanks (1)
avatar
By Disabled Campaigner
29th Jun 2016 19:31

Britain has a future, it seems that the Labour Party does not. Corbyn has been divorced twice so by now he must be used to being told "for God's sake man just go".

Thanks (0)