Hope for the future
Monday, June 12, 2017
I take no satisfaction in having been right about the unnecessary election of June 2017. The voters punished Mrs May for putting party before country. In their ire they came close to inflicting upon us all a government Communist in all but name. We had a narrow escape. I was in New York and watched the result through the eyes of a baffled America that wants to like us but just can't help seeing us as has beens with baffling delusions of grandeur.
About the only lesson that everyone (but Mrs May) can agree upon is that she is an idiot. She's a dead woman walking and it's only gracious to avert our pitying gaze. So what now?
The contempt of our EU colleagues (for now) could scarcely be intensified but, having worked closely with Continentals for decades, trust me; they never wished us well. That's not to say that they can't be friends at an individual level. They can and are. But they are absolutely united in their humiliating folk memory of Britain astride the planet when (in their view) so clearly a barbarian, uncultured race far far below the salt of the cultural and legal descendants of Ancient Rome. We have put our Empire behind us and moved on but I doubt the erstwhile rulers of Europe's failed and far more vile empires ever will.
Here is my positive take. The next phase of our history is like an FA Cup match in which all believe us to be lower league minnows with little hope of success. Good. Expectations are low and those who wish us ill are over-confident that we can be lightly regarded and swiftly despatched. We have been here before. We shall be here again. So let's play the game as best we can and take what we can from the occasion.
The Brexit negotiation has its own internal logic. There is no reasonable compromise on offer because (to frighten others who might think of leaving) the EU can give us nothing. I am more afraid of betrayal from within. Since they can give us nothing, anything we pay them beyond their strict treaty entitlement will be a waste of resources we need to husband against an uncertain future.
I believe in Britain's prospects. I really do. But our future is ours to take — or throw away. Given the alarming proportion of young people who, on the evidence of last week, are economic illiterates, ethical degenerates and brainwashed identity warriors, there's no guarantee of success.
At least, after Brexit, we are under our own management. Win or lose the outcome will be ours to live with.
I don't worry about the future, primarily for two reasons: a) I'm not going to be about and b) Only worry about something if you can do something about it.
I agree however that our institutions are infested with cultural marxism. The Left being the left will split into ever smaller niche categories. I look forward to how they are going to reconcile rampant islamism with Gay/LGBT rights. The same is true of women's rights. Something is going to have to give somewhere!
As to the subject in hand, I concur with Antisthenes
Posted by: rapscallion | Friday, June 16, 2017 at 11:19 AM
But that’s from before young voters were born! Irrelevant!! Everyone indoctrinated in Western unis knows that prehistory begins in the 1980s when everyone was racist, sexist and homophobic (and would have been Islamophobic too if they had ever met any Muslims).
Posted by: Tom | Tuesday, June 13, 2017 at 12:11 PM
On an historical note for those who know at least a little of events 1500 years ago Western civilisation is in many ways mirroring the rise and fall of the Western Roman Empire. It was immigrants that founded Rome it was they that help to make it great and it was they that delivered the fatal blow that killed it. Good judgement, knowledge, actions and men made it rise to prominence and greatness. Wealth, decadence, corruption, incompetence, debt and currency manipulation created the conditions for it's fall.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Tuesday, June 13, 2017 at 11:04 AM
They're our future Matt. We can't be scared of them. The outcome suggests, as I have long maintained, that the real battle is being lost in our institutions of higher education where made up subjects are being used to indoctrinate, not educate. The social "sciences" are largely a fraud designed to magnify division, set friend against could-be friend and justify big state solutions employing social scientists to solve imaginary problems.
Posted by: Tom | Monday, June 12, 2017 at 11:06 PM
The Tories did everything they could to lose the election. First it was unnecessary. The manifesto offended many, May's U-turns and failure to attend the stupid debates all designed to lose support. I suppose it seemed a clever ploy to ruin the brexit process and let others take the blame. "Brexit process"? What process? it is damn near a year and what progress have we made? All we have done is given the clowns in Brussels plenty of time to demonstrate daily how bitter spiteful childish and unpleasant they are. Every day they prove to me I was so right to vote to leave.
The sheer amount of terrifying stories about the effects of Brexit that appeared before the election reminded me of the hysterical fear tactics prior to the referendum.
I developed the feeling that the deep state felt there was a possibility (there still is) of a repeat referendum when the Tories had got rid of the job and Cameron/ Osbourn style fear might give them the referendum result they want at the second attempt.
Your comments on the children who voted for Corbyn are perfect. They scare me. We are doomed. Sit back and break out the popcorn.
Posted by: Matt | Monday, June 12, 2017 at 08:58 PM
I hope you are right about the young and that they will grow out of their juvenile leftism. The alternative is that the long march through the institutions has succeeded. The shocking part is the historical illiteracy. I was told today that Corbyn urging on terrorists to kill British soldiers and civilians is so long ago as to be irrelevant. It is ancient history because it was before most voters were born. If our historical hog cycle is really now that short, we are doomed surely?
Posted by: Tom | Monday, June 12, 2017 at 03:15 PM
The EU whether by design or accident has ensured that Brexit negotiations will end with no deal. Time(the EU's bureaucratic and technocratic nature precludes actions above a snails pace), hubris, arrogance of EU leaders and enough Labour MPs especially Corbyn who are for leaving the single market implies that outcome. No doubt the EU believes threats and intransigence will frighten us into accepting whatever deal the EU wants. What the EU wants is for us to remain or at least cough up enough money for as long as possible to keep their budget intact. Loss of the UK's contribution for the EU is a disaster the opposite of course for the UK. In fact it may be the straw that breaks the EU.
Considering the situation at the time and all the indicators they made calling a general election the correct course of action. Considering who was Prime minister and leader of the Conservative party it was not. I had my reservations about her then in fact ever since she was elected leader given her track record at the Home office. She should be replaced as early as possible especially as a new dynamic has entered politics. The large turn out of the immature and adolescent idealistic youf vote who are natural loony left commie supporters.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Monday, June 12, 2017 at 01:16 PM