I give you a daily blast of hot air and you respond with cogent comments, so it’s good that there are more comments than posts. I’d like to remind you of a prescient comment made by reader, John.
Just watch Boris and his merry band vote to renegotiate rather than exit should they win.
Here’s what I read in The Guardian last weekend:
Boris Johnson has broken cover for the first time since reacting to the vote for Brexit to set out how the country may look if he wins the race to succeed David Cameron as prime minister.
Amid clamour for the leave campaign’s leaders to set out what happens next, Johnson claimed Britain will be able to introduce a points-based immigration system while maintaining access to the European single market.
Johnson sought to reassure remain voters the UK will continue to intensify cooperation with the EU and told his fellow leave supporters they must accept the 52-48 referendum win was “not entirely overwhelming”.
The Brexit campaign figurehead, who is the favourite to succeed Cameron, insisted the only change will be to free the country from the EU’s “extraordinary and opaque” law, which “will not come in any great rush”.
He also dismissed Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s calls for a second independence referendum, insisting he did not “detect any real appetite” for one, while claiming Britain can now have a new and better relationship with the EU based on free trade.
John hit the nail fair and square on the head. BJ campaigned to Leave to endear himself to the right wing of the Conservative party and improve his chance of succeeding DC. He neither expected nor wanted to win the referendum. He would be right to be apprehensive now. The rank and file Conservatives now see BJ’s tactics as regicide. Gove hasn’t said anything but he is in the same camp. I think I heard the Prime Minister say “et tu, Michael”. Iain Duncan-Smith says that the next Conservative leader should come from the Leave camp – well, he would, wouldn’t he – but I doubt the membership will want to reward that lot for the parlous position we are in now.
In a normal democracy there would be a snap General Election, the opposition would win and life would go on. It is unprecedented in my lifetime simultaneously to have the opposition in as bad, actually a worse, state than the government. There is one shaft of sunshine. David Cameron by simultaneously resigning and deferring his resignation for three months has bought us some time. When his career comes to be assessed that may prove to be his greatest legacy.
May I refer to the successful Leave campaign as The Peasants’ Revolt? A member of the Charing Cross Sports Club this morning certainly thought so. He told me he wants to buy shares in a company making pitchforks. Meanwhile here in the United Kingdom – a misnomer if ever there was one – we sure are taking a walk on the wild side.
I voted Bremain. But at least Brexit will scotch the UKIP threat to Tory and Socialist alike. A boil has been lanced. Now the country must also show that the arty “liberal” snobbery about their fellow country-persons has been and is misplaced. The “peasants” are not very bright or well-informed (if they were, they’d have stopped being peasants by now). But not many of them are fascists of any kind.
I like yr blog more than any other I have seen.
Best wishes
Richard
richarddnorth.com
So glad that the ambitious blonde has been rumbled. God help us if he is joined by another ambitious blonde across the Atlantic.
Or perhaps the post could also be called the “The Baby Boomer’s final say,” with just over a million making the difference in the decision we have been taken out of Europe as a result of a dissatisfied White Working Class vote (which has zero to do with policy and everything to do with inequalities created by liberal economics) and also, rather pertinently, our inward looking over 60’s.
On an economic note, which I know you touch on regularly on this blog. I suggest the melee currently occurring is possibly a grand opportunity for some quick wins; the furore is over hyped. Europe wants the UK, the UK wants Europe, and whatever conservative takes over is very unlikely to walk on the wild side – the pound will rally, and the stocks will bounce. (You can then send your winnings to Batley which will ease the guilt, and then short the pitchfork company. ; ) )
The stock market is holding up better than I expected. A lot of companies I have shares in derive most of their earnings outside the UK and so the weak pound has caused them to rally. My ISA this morning is at an all-time high, albeit expressed in sterling.