The Brexit vote in Britain has rocked the country with elites and immigrants most affected.
The vote to “Remain” was a majority in Scotland, Northern Ireland and in London and several other large cities with large “immigrant” populations.
Protesters are planning to march to London’s Shard building to demonstrate against the ‘racist’ and anti-migrant rhetoric of the EU Referendum campaign.
The march, announced in a Facebook post by the Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century, was due travel from a park in Whitechapel to the headquarters of New Corporation next to the Shard at 6pm.
All is proceeding as expected.
The decision has prompted a large market selloff, which will probably persist until the effects are better understood. Those campaigning to “Remain” have used various threats and predictions of doom, so the immediate result is not unexpected. Of course, the political left is hysterical at the idea that voters don’t want to be governed by remote elites.
On Thursday British voters willfully walked off a cliff when they decided to leave the European Union. The “Brexit” victory is a defeat for Britain, Europe and the global economy.
Tens of millions of Britons voted for isolation — to go it alone — rather than for cooperation. The European Union just lost a sixth of its economy, roughly akin to Florida and California seceding from the United States. The impact on the British economy could be catastrophic. Europe’s unified stance against a reemerging and aggressive Russia will be splintered.
Who could imagine that people would not want a thousand bureaucrats in Brussels, or for that matter Washington DC, micromanaging their lives ? Well, I know someone.
Donald Trump is a happy guy today, and his timing seems to be excellent. Last week, when the “Remain” side was expected to win, he was told it was a serious mistake to go there.
Trump, on his first trip overseas since he embarked on his White House bid, faced criticism in the US for making what was essentially a business trip at a time when his campaign has been faltering, falling behind Clinton in the polls and in fundraising.
Yes, who can imagine a politician actually conducting business and creating real jobs ?
Some in Britain were pleased, and did not put scare quotes over ‘great victory’ as the Guardian did.
There were two referendums on Thursday. The first was on membership of the EU. The second was on the British establishment. Leave won both, and the world will never be the same again.
It’s impossible to overstate how remarkable this victory is. Twenty years ago, Euroscepticism was a backbench Tory rebellion and a political cult. It was a dispute located firmly on the Right with little appeal to Labour voters. It took Ukip to drag it into the centre of political life – given momentum by the issue of immigration – and slowly it has emerged as a lightning rod for anti-establishment activism.
The British Establishment seems to be doing no better then its American cousin.
But this time the establishment consensus coincided with a historic loss of faith in the experts. These were the people who failed to predict the Credit Crunch, who missed the greatest economic disaster to hit us since the Great Depression. And we were supposed to believe them? Slowly the consensus came to resemble not just a conspiracy but, worse, a confederacy of dunces.
The British voters may be joining the preference cascade that began with the Trump Phenomenon. I don’t want to claim clairvoyance but I did say:
Their panic was best articulated last week in The Daily Beast by GOP consultant Rick Wilson, who wrote that Trump supporters “put the entire conservative movement at risk of being hijacked and destroyed by a bellowing billionaire with poor impulse control and a profoundly superficial understanding of the world .?.?. walking, talking comments sections of the fever swamp sites.”
Some might take that as a backhanded compliment. Can the GOP really be so out of touch with the legions of out-of-work Americans — many of whom don’t show up in the “official” unemployment rate because they’ve given up looking for work in the Obama economy? With the returning military vets frustrated with lawyer-driven, politically correct rules of engagement that have tied their hands in a fight against a mortal enemy? With those who, in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino massacres by Muslims, reasonably fear an influx of culturally alien “refugees” and “migrants” from the Middle East?
The Daily Beast is not exactly the Republican voter and the “GOP Consultant” seems to be ignoring the possibility that his job prospects might be harmed by his contempt for the voters he is supposed to understand and convince.
And now we have had Orlando. And Brexit.
I can’t believe Trump’s luck. It never seems to run out. On Monday he was looking dead in the water with his campaign manager sacked and no campaign money in the bank, but today he looks like the leader of the new paradigm. It’s almost ridiculous.
Today Brexit., tomorrow Paul Ryan..
“Texit” has a fine ring to it.
“Europe’s unified stance against a reemerging and aggressive Russia will be splintered.”
Certainly reemerging from it’s problems caused by the end of the communist state. The aggressiveness was forced by the US in it’s need to keep it’s preeminence. Knocking over country after country seems to have ended with Syria and the Ukraine. Europe, against it’s better interests is the US’s puppy. It has damaged it’s self a great deal with the forced separation from Russia, the sanctions that US required, and is poorer for that.
The whole spin about newly aggressive Russia is bullshit. It feeds the US narrative and has renewed NATO.
How about #texodus, instead? I didn’t coin it, but I like it.
A very good comment at Powerline.
The best quote ?
Look at the tweet.
Grurray,
Leadershlp is often confused with luck.
The vote is not binding.
This is much ado about nothing.
Sorry for being Captain Obvious, but there it is.
With Cameron resigning, there is no chance that anyone will hold a vote to reverse the referendum.
I thought someone might but not now.
Oh and George Will has quit the Republican Party and hopes Hillary wins.
That’ll teach those peasants !
The global elites, a designation which describes a great part of the leadership of the EU, Britain, and the US, are becoming increasingly known for their incompetence, corruption, disdain for the ordinary working citizen, and detachment from the very cultures and societies they claim to lead as a natural right based on their credentials.
For a century, the progressive movement in the west has claimed that grandiose state solutions could solve the lingering social problems that every society in history has experienced, especially poverty and lack of basic services.
These claims took root around the world, and various countries tried one version of statist society or another. The laboratory experiment in statist ideology was tried on every continent, at every stage of social and economic development, by every race, creed, and color of population.
I read an analysis a while ago that said there seemed to be a time limit on people’s patience with these systems of around 70 years, judging from the specific history of the now defunct Soviet Union, and loosely applied to the Chinese and others who have also followed that path.
It strikes me as an interesting coincidence that the Tea party rose, based in the remnants of the Reagan coalition, in about that time frame, counting from the end of WW2, when the overwhelming state that claimed the victory over both the Great Depression and the militarists in Germany and Japan, began to promise it could solve many other social problems as well.
It does not surprise me that the general public, especially the working middle class, is leading the movement to unseat the ruling elites. These are people who do things every day. They go to work, they manage their homes and families, they are very able to recognize the difference between something that works, and something that just doesn’t perform the way it was promised.
And that, a significant failure to perform as advertised, is the basic catalyst for the unrest in the middle classes around the western societies. You can only tell someone that you will fix things so many times, and fail every single time, before they begin to seriously question whether you ever knew what you were doing to begin with.
The so-called leaders of the west, in politics, academia, culture, and crony connected businesses, have stepped on their dicks so many times, and so blatantly, that their incompetence, corruption, and obvious contempt for the general public can no longer be hidden or explained away.
Just as the laws of thermodynamics, or other well known rules, will eventually win out, so too the laws of reality relating to these grand programs and claims of expertise will eventually come home to roost, just as all big, ugly chickens always do.
Ordinary working people know when their car doesn’t run properly, when the air conditioner isn’t cooling, when the street is full of potholes, when there are constant shortages of essentials when the opposite was loudly promised.
It is the blind snobbery of the elites that is now on full display. They couldn’t imagine that anyone would catch on, get organized, or simply throw the bums out.
They were wrong. Again.
We are living in interesting times.
Are these “elites” that oblivious to what is going on?
And George will. Reminds me of Peggy Noonan endorsing Obama over John McCain and still calling herself a conservative.
Someone made a comparison today of Brexit and the election of Margaret Thatcher with the oncoming election of Ronald Reagan. Not saying Donald Trump is Ronald Ragan to be sure that it’s the same political Tsunami.
Interesting times to be sure.
There was a wonderful comment by “ivor” at Tim Forstall’s blog.
“All that has happened here is that the British have finally noticed the water being sucked away from the shore and have realised this means a tidal wave of geopolitical and economic disasters is soon to arrive.
That we have set off running for higher ground may give us a better chance of survival than the tourists still gawping on the beach, but our chances are not good.
And sprinting uphill is a lot more painful than relaxing on a sun lounger – brace for the pain.”
The purpose of media-darling conservatives like Will & Noonan has always been to “conserve” progressive innovations.
The British peoples will not be free until the EUlite which voted to remain is driven from Britain’s shores.
Foolish EUlite occupying Britian held the vote before they’d chosen a new people. They thought the millions of immigrants and millions of raping, pillaging Muslims had already cowed the natives. If the vote had been held five years from now….
Interesting POV at the Wall STreet Journal.
Britons voted and the European Union lost. Friday morning in the U.S., British stocks were down 3%—and Spanish stocks were down 12%, Italian stocks were down 12%, French stocks were down 8%, German stocks were down 6.8%.
The old joke about “Fog in the channel, continent cut off” comes to mind.
Then again, Japanese stocks were also down 8%. Suddenly this earthquake seems to have less to do with the U.K. than with something altogether bigger: Investors globally starting to question the institutional framework that has been inducing ultralow interest rates while supplying central bank actions to prop up the industrial world’s most heavily-indebted governments.
The “Gods of the Copybook Headings” are coming.
Veryretired said “Ordinary working people know when their car doesn’t run properly, when the air conditioner isn’t cooling, when the street is full of potholes, when there are constant shortages of essentials when the opposite was loudly promised.”
I wanted to buy a five gallon “gas” can this week. It appears that gas cans have been re-designed to meet EPA requirements. I was amazed to learn that, in an attempt to limit fumes and spills into the environment, newly manufactured cans being sold at this time spill more, not less, when being used and severely limit the amount of liquid that leaves the can through the newly designed spouts that are supposed to seal themselves. The big box stores listed these new types as the only type available on their websites and they predominated on Amazon.
I spent twice as much as I should have had to on a metal can that I’ll use with a funnel.
“They go to work, they manage their homes and families, they are very able to recognize the difference between something that works, and something that just doesn’t perform the way it was promised.”
And for noticing the difference, being vocal about it, and demanding that something be done about that — their initial reward is to be called “racist” and “stupid hicks” by the ruling elite.
Which tends to just add that much more resentment on the part of the middle and working class “Country Party” members.
Tyouth, there are workarounds on the gas-can thing. Google around.
I wish I still had my old ones as they are probably worth something now, sort of like silver quarters.
George Will’s actions towards Trump and the GOP shouldn’t be too much of a surprise because he was the one who convinced Obama to run for president. He also de facto endorsed Obama in a series of articles attacking McCain in September and October 2008. It pains me to say it because I’ve been reading his columns and following him since I was a kid, but Will is a Beltway Insider whose primary interest is preserving the favors and privileges of the Insider Class. He’s not a Conservative.
Grurray That column by George will urging Obama to run is sickening. I guess I’ve been to naïve all these years thinking that a supposedly conservative columnist would be extolling conservative values and urging conservatives to run.
But it’s all about power. I’ve never been a complete Trump fanatic but I’ve come to the belief that a lot of his opposition in the beltway is due to the fact that these people have had no influence on his rise. Has nothing to do with whether they think he would be good or bad just that they had nothing to do with it.
“Has nothing to do with whether they think he would be good or bad”: he’ll probably be bad. But little Mrs Evil can be guaranteed to be worse, so you have to prefer the mountebank to the ….. hm, is there an adequately polite word for a woman of such character?
Thank-you Obama. Your cowardly middle east policy has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and precipitated the invasion of the EU by hordes of “refugees”. And for the “Coupe de Grace”, putting the UK at the end of the queue sealed the success of Brexxit.
So, you stupid,spiteful, man you have done the world some good in wrecking the EU project.
The word for Hilary is Strega.
Stream as in someone who rides a broomstick?
Oops, bloody browser: not “Stream” but “Strega”.
The gas can fiasco slouched out of California via the CARB regulations IIRC, then went national. As I have mentioned here before, I think a revolution could be started just by assembling all the frustrated users of these new cans. They are, in a way, an excellent illustration of our government, in the microcosm. An ideal teaching tool for those inclined to think government solves problems. Even the simpleminded can understand, with a tangible comparison with an old can.
So now we have a spill proof, vapor retaining can that takes three hands to work, and spills a half cup of gas every time it is used. Wonder how much vapor it takes to equal a half cup of liquid gasoline?
This is called an unintended consequence, a great philosophical mystery to the left. Unless it was intended, and I would not put it past them.
There are screw on spouts available, for now, till it occurs to the ‘crats to mandate non removable nozzles. Pretty soon we will have to go third world and use 2L soda bottles.
One of the things I hate about big business is the refusal to let the consumer know why things don’t work and cost what they do. Every one of those cans should have a tag with the reason why it is such a bodgeup, and the names of the ‘crats who forced it into being. The cost of regulatory compliance is immense, yet 99% of the people in this country have absolutely NO idea about it. The only reason we have been able to absorb it at all is the tremendous improvement in manufacturing methods.
You see what a rant the New Gas Can can inspire? The revolution is parked right over there, next to the mower….
OT, but the coffee will speak- for my next rant, the sacred cow of America. Safety. Safety first, safety, safety, safety.
It is pasted on every truck, written on every letterhead, it is our new god.
Now the curious unintended consequence of safety, is that it becomes it’s own enemy. Get safe enough, and the job does not get done. The job does not get done, people suffer. Officer safety for example, did not work so good for those folks in the Pulse.
We don’t hire cops to go home at the end of the day. We hire them to do a job, just like a lineman- damned dangerous to go out in a storm at night and work for two days straight, but if they don’t do it, Aunt Judy freezes to death in her room.
Another unintended consequence- the proliferation of warnings, page after page of warnings, of every possible and some improbable risks of life, in common purchases. Most don’t need to be told not to make toast in the shower. For the few who do, Darwin is on line one, don’t send a text, they can’t read anyhow. Again, the effect of this is to make ALL the warnings ignored, as no one is going to read all of them. The wheat gets lost in the chaff. I once attended a safety meeting where extensive time was given to a host of minor risks, no doubt an agenda mandated by some ‘crat somewhere, where major life threatening incidences were ignored. Lost in the chaff. Don’t mind the frayed lift cable, but wear your safety glasses.
If the Egyptians had the same regulations we have now, the pyramids would still be a construction zone.
“strega” ? All I get is Italian booze?
Strega=Witch (in Italian)
“Strega=Witch (in Italian)”
“Hillary” in Old English.
As a fellow who indulges in much off-road motorsports, my advice for gasoline storage containers is to buy NATO spec. jerry cans.
They are mostly German made by Wavian. If sold under the Wavian brand name, they are pricy- $80 for a 20L can. If not branded Wavian, they can be found for half that. Also available in 5L & 10L. Also sold are jerry cans advertized as ‘Military Style’. They have a smaller neck opening, and take a different spout. The cheapest ones don’t recess the central seam enough, and should be
avoided. If the cans you currently have don’t dispense well, you can use a super shaker syphon hose. They work extremely well. Got mine from Home Depot for $7-8.
As someone who used to buy flammable chemicals and solvents in drums and bulk, using plastic storage containers for them strikes me as unwise. Steel has better puncture resistance, and will take longer to rupture from a fire event than plastic.
If you feel like spending money, here is where I bought my jerry cans:
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/productlist/military-surplus/ammo-cans-military-storage/jerry-cans?d=122&c=407&s=2786
Now back to your regular programing.
VP makes a decent “containah” as well:
http://www.vpracingfuels.com/containers
Team Chicago Boyz!
The founder of Home Depot endorsed Trump today. He’s not George Will but we will take all the help we can get,
This was posted over at American Digest and I suspect this video will be viewed with much interest in this discussion. Nigel Farage’s comments to the bureaucrats in Brussels. It’s 7 minutes long and well worth watching as it’s rare we witness such impolitic honesty. AT 4:25 Farage goes for the jugular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayojl7Op37A
“20 years ago you laughed at me, you are not laughing now…”
Pure gold, that Farage speech. Don’t know who the guy in seat 122 is, but it looks like he’s giving the evil eye, the “mau-ohaldo”. I guess there’s someone that checks the underside of Nigel’s car regularly, cause that was some high heat, right there!
The threat to the jobs of those in that room is what i one their minds. Not the jobs of the citizens of their respective countries.
Bravo, Farage.
Maybe, if the GOP is determined to dump Trump, we could try to draft Farage, as many of us once wished to have Thatcher as president.