borrowed from the internet.
Pete North on Twitter: "1. Now y'all know I have a problem with the leadership of the #Brexit movement. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, they lie constantly and they never know what they're talking about. From WTO rules to EU border controls, they haven't a clue between them."
Sums up my feelings
tl;dr - Brexiteers are chancers with no clue how to get what they want, nor the consequences of doing it.
Pete North on Twitter: "1. Now y'all know I have a problem with the leadership of the #Brexit movement. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, they lie constantly and they never know what they're talking about. From WTO rules to EU border controls, they haven't a clue between them."
Sums up my feelings
I have a problem with the Brexit movement. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, they lie constantly and they never know what they're talking about. From WTO rules to EU border controls, they haven't a clue between them.
When confronted on TV they offer up empty mantras about believing in Britain or postulate that german car makers will come racing to the rescue. Always with the view that it will be alright on the night. Never any credible answers.
They also have some pretty daft ideas. Especially, but not exclusively, the lexiters. They seem to think that a split from the EU gives them carte blanche to do as they please without any reference to the international ramifications.
Even without EU rules we are still the second most open government procurement market and proactive when it comes to meeting obligations under the WTO Government Procurement Agreement.
The Brexit right are similarly deluded thinking we can deregulate things like pesticides. Notionally we could diverge, but what do they think that would do to our exports and inspection frequency of goods travelling to the EU?
This limited notion of sovereignty assumes that our departure means we can do as we please without consequences - that we can nationalise, subsidise and diverge as though none of the labyrinth of international conventions even exist.
In the minds of the Brexit blob, the EU is the "Big Bad I Said No" and if we fancy doing anything differently then all we have to do is leave the EU - ignoring the march of globalised regulation over the last 25 years.
Never once do they interrogate how the system works or even why it exists - and when you do, you find that though they are problematic in democracy terms, they are a good defence against the predatory actions of corporates and rogue states.
Take tax evasion for instance. Regional solutions no longer work and we are going to need global conventions that necessarily require consensus and limitations on sovereignty. It's the only way to ensure we're not deprived of legitimate income.
The moment you break away as a leading developed nation, you then give permission for others to do the same, leading to tit for tat actions that undermine multilateral efforts to solve global problems.
The eurosceptic mentality seems to assume we can act independently and in isolation and the Eu won't take reciprocal measures of its own to protect its own system. It's like nothing outside the UK even exists. Our political agendas are created in an insular bubble.
So if they do get their way of leaving without a deal with that notional sovereignty, it will very rapidly hit the rocks of reality and our partners express their own opinions on UK unilateralism. And we are not going to like it.
This is why the Brexit movement needs a detailed and credible and deliverable post-Brexit plan, taking into account the opportunities, risks and limitations of our predicament, but we are just not seeing that kind of thinking.
It is assumed that much of the "red tape" we have comes from Brussels but to be accurate, it just comes via Brussels from any number of global conventions and international organisations where we need a strategy for operating in every one of them independently.
We won't get any credible thinking from the Brexiters on that score because they don;t even recognise this stuff exists and will go out of their way not to confront any of it because it will complicate their simplistic narratives and undermine the arguments they use.
Put this to any of the dummies from the Brexit party or the Spiked groupies and you'll get a blank stare followed by obfuscation and bluster about democracy - a word that gets more hollow every time they use it. They have no idea what they actually want to achieve.
And then you remember this isn't actually about achieving anything at all for this dismal clan. It's just about winning this battle with the establishment for its own sake. But then what? We still have to operate in an ever interconnected world with constraints on every side.
Being that they're a revolutionary movement, it is incumbent on them to say what they want to do, how they will do it and allow us to judge for ourselves whether that is viable. But these people don't do answers. They're bluffers. They're not even interested in policy.
So now the Brexit party is frog marching us all toward the cliff edge, with no idea what that will actually do, no concept of how to run this after the fact and no idea how to respond to the fallout. And we are not meant to question this?
The basic problem here is that the Brexit blob decided 25 years ago that the EU was the source of all problems and never bothered to update their thinking. Now their entire world view is obsolete their little nostrums come nowhere close to addressing the issues.
Many times I have attempted to expand the Brexit debate to get these people to engage but they prefer to stay in their comfort zone of whinging about the EU while exalting the virtues of trading with the world without the first idea of what that entails.
We are now embarking on a journey with no destination in mind, oblivious to the bobbytraps and no clue how to leverage Brexit to accomplish credible objectives not least because the Brexit blob has no objectives beyond settling old scores.
Now it has just become a game of giving the establishment a kicking - which we all want to do but where does it get us if we are kicking ourselves in the balls at the same time? Are you seriously telling me that Farage is the man with answers? Puhlease.
The short of it is, the British polity - the Westminster and media bubble has no idea how to run Britain as an independent country. They are all too busy posturing to even want to find out. If we are leaving the EU it might be an idea to start thinking about how it's done.
When confronted on TV they offer up empty mantras about believing in Britain or postulate that german car makers will come racing to the rescue. Always with the view that it will be alright on the night. Never any credible answers.
They also have some pretty daft ideas. Especially, but not exclusively, the lexiters. They seem to think that a split from the EU gives them carte blanche to do as they please without any reference to the international ramifications.
Even without EU rules we are still the second most open government procurement market and proactive when it comes to meeting obligations under the WTO Government Procurement Agreement.
The Brexit right are similarly deluded thinking we can deregulate things like pesticides. Notionally we could diverge, but what do they think that would do to our exports and inspection frequency of goods travelling to the EU?
This limited notion of sovereignty assumes that our departure means we can do as we please without consequences - that we can nationalise, subsidise and diverge as though none of the labyrinth of international conventions even exist.
In the minds of the Brexit blob, the EU is the "Big Bad I Said No" and if we fancy doing anything differently then all we have to do is leave the EU - ignoring the march of globalised regulation over the last 25 years.
Never once do they interrogate how the system works or even why it exists - and when you do, you find that though they are problematic in democracy terms, they are a good defence against the predatory actions of corporates and rogue states.
Take tax evasion for instance. Regional solutions no longer work and we are going to need global conventions that necessarily require consensus and limitations on sovereignty. It's the only way to ensure we're not deprived of legitimate income.
The moment you break away as a leading developed nation, you then give permission for others to do the same, leading to tit for tat actions that undermine multilateral efforts to solve global problems.
The eurosceptic mentality seems to assume we can act independently and in isolation and the Eu won't take reciprocal measures of its own to protect its own system. It's like nothing outside the UK even exists. Our political agendas are created in an insular bubble.
So if they do get their way of leaving without a deal with that notional sovereignty, it will very rapidly hit the rocks of reality and our partners express their own opinions on UK unilateralism. And we are not going to like it.
This is why the Brexit movement needs a detailed and credible and deliverable post-Brexit plan, taking into account the opportunities, risks and limitations of our predicament, but we are just not seeing that kind of thinking.
It is assumed that much of the "red tape" we have comes from Brussels but to be accurate, it just comes via Brussels from any number of global conventions and international organisations where we need a strategy for operating in every one of them independently.
We won't get any credible thinking from the Brexiters on that score because they don;t even recognise this stuff exists and will go out of their way not to confront any of it because it will complicate their simplistic narratives and undermine the arguments they use.
Put this to any of the dummies from the Brexit party or the Spiked groupies and you'll get a blank stare followed by obfuscation and bluster about democracy - a word that gets more hollow every time they use it. They have no idea what they actually want to achieve.
And then you remember this isn't actually about achieving anything at all for this dismal clan. It's just about winning this battle with the establishment for its own sake. But then what? We still have to operate in an ever interconnected world with constraints on every side.
Being that they're a revolutionary movement, it is incumbent on them to say what they want to do, how they will do it and allow us to judge for ourselves whether that is viable. But these people don't do answers. They're bluffers. They're not even interested in policy.
So now the Brexit party is frog marching us all toward the cliff edge, with no idea what that will actually do, no concept of how to run this after the fact and no idea how to respond to the fallout. And we are not meant to question this?
The basic problem here is that the Brexit blob decided 25 years ago that the EU was the source of all problems and never bothered to update their thinking. Now their entire world view is obsolete their little nostrums come nowhere close to addressing the issues.
Many times I have attempted to expand the Brexit debate to get these people to engage but they prefer to stay in their comfort zone of whinging about the EU while exalting the virtues of trading with the world without the first idea of what that entails.
We are now embarking on a journey with no destination in mind, oblivious to the bobbytraps and no clue how to leverage Brexit to accomplish credible objectives not least because the Brexit blob has no objectives beyond settling old scores.
Now it has just become a game of giving the establishment a kicking - which we all want to do but where does it get us if we are kicking ourselves in the balls at the same time? Are you seriously telling me that Farage is the man with answers? Puhlease.
The short of it is, the British polity - the Westminster and media bubble has no idea how to run Britain as an independent country. They are all too busy posturing to even want to find out. If we are leaving the EU it might be an idea to start thinking about how it's done.
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