British Parliament Continues Its Two-Year Brexit Tantrum

After years of pressure led by nationalistic Tories, the reactionary British tabloids, and the so-called United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), the British government of then prime minister David Cameron, a Conservative (Tory) member, felt compelled to finally allow the public to vote in 2016 on a referendum on whether Britain should remain a member of the European Union (EU), or leave, so-called "Brexit," short for British Exit.

Much to the surprise and chagrin of much of the bourgeois establishment in Britain, Europe, and the U.S., Brexit won with 51.9% of the vote. [1]

I won't go into the whys and wherefors here as that's off the topic a bit.

Under EU law, Britain had two years to formally leave the EU. Now the deadline has arrived.

The British Parliament has in the past couple of weeks formally voted to reject remaining in the European Union, has voted to reject leaving the EU without an exit deal, AND has voted to reject the deal that took two years to negotiate and renegotiate.

In other words, the Members of Parliament (MPs) reject everything. They in effect reject BOTH leaving and remaining.

Why do I say the British MPs are having a tantrum over Brexit? Because, like two-year-olds, they are demanding something they obviously can't have, and won't stop demanding it. Namely, that Britain can have a better deal outside of the EU than as a member!

That is completely, totally unrealistic.

But they refuse to accept that.

The British Brexiteers want all the benefits of EU membership with none of the responsibilities or obligations or costs. It would be suicidal for the EU to agree to such a ridiculous demand, as it would create a cascade of other member states demanding the same treatment for themselves.

The Tantrumeers believe that, contrary to the old saw, that they CAN "have your cake and eat it too," as one of the main leaders of the Brexit movement, the Tory buffoon and dodgy former "journalist" Boris "Bojo The Clown" Johnson actually asserted.

Perhaps they imagine they are still a globally dominant power that can force others to accede to their unreasonable demands.

I have an idea. They've beaten the French and the Germans in past wars (with a LOT of help in the case of the Germans)- why not try THAT again?

Maybe that's what former Tory prime minister David Cameron meant when he threatened in the campaign leading up to the referendum on Brexit that voting to leave the EU would lead to "World War III."

Or maybe he was just being demagogic, like the pro-Brexit camp, which was even worse.

The EU leaders, whose exasperation has started to show, granted the British an extension to exit the Union, which by treaty was supposed to occur in two years, in March just ended, so the new deadline is in April. With the demand that since Britain is still in the Union, it must elect members to the toothless show legislature, the so-called "European Parliament." (In the past, the British members elected to that body were dominated by haters of that body, members of UKIP, led by the articulate and clever rascal Nigel Farage, the Trump-loving reactionary head of UKIP , who was their spokesman in the European Parliament in which role he delighted in making speeches on the floor insulting the body and the various EU poohbahs while they sat there taking it.

The current Tory prime minister, Theresa May, has proven to be a rigid and politically inept, indeed tone-deaf, politician. But the problem here isn't her incompetence. It is the total unrealism of Brexiteers, plus the fact that the Parliament is divided within itself in various ways, and both major parties, Labour and Conservative, are divided internally between pro-Brexiteers and Remainers, and within those subgroups in each party, those willing to take the deal on offer and those not, those wanting a "hard" exit with no deal and those who think that Britain can somehow extort a more favorable deal out of the EU at this late date,and among Remainers, those who favor a "do-over" of the referendum, and those who do not.

It's a mess, but those who will pay most of the cost are the British, as major corporations are already announcing plans to pick up and move to the continent. The imposition of border controls adds friction and costs to cross-border commerce, increasing prices.

Being able to keep out workers from the continent, and freedom from EU rules on health, safety, labor rights, pollution, product standards, etc., in the name of "independence," won't really help the main supporters of Brexit, workers left behind by neoliberalism. Interdependence isn't necessarily bad.

Ironically, if Britain had a social welfare state more like some of those in Europe rather than a Thatcherite model, the referendum vote may have come out differently. People who are kicked to the curb sometimes find a way to upset the apple cart, or at least knock some of the apples off.

Theresa May, architect of the Grenfell Tower fire massacre.

Bojo The Clown

Nigel Farage. (Rhymes with "garage.") Happy now, huh asshole?

1] A detailed breakdown of the referendum vote is at the BBC here.

EU Masters Won't Be Able To Rid Themselves of Britain As Fast As They Want To

Looks like Britain may have the European Union bosses over bit of a barrel. They can't actually eject Britain from membership in their dysfunctional club. Britain has to invoke Article 50 of one of the EU treaties to begin the process of withdrawal. British Prime Minister David Cameron announced in the British Parliament that he would leave it to his successor to initiate that process. (Assuming his successor chooses to do so, which he is under no obligation to do. The just-completed referendum does not legally compel the British government to actually withdraw from the EU.)

Cameron announced he is stepping down in October. So that's already 3 months before anything can happen. He also referred to negotiating before Britain invoked Article 50. That gives Britain a good deal of leverage in extracting relatively favorable terms from the EU regarding trade, immigration, and social benefits for immigrants.

Meanwhile, there's been an odd disconnect between the political events and the behavior of stock markets. Every day, the political chatter from and about Britain is that it is "leaderless," since a clear successor of the Tories to replace Cameron hasn't been selected, and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has a rebellion on his hands in his own party. Labor MPs are overwhelmingly calling for his resignation, and his shadow cabinet has resigned. We're being told that months, or even years, of uncertainty lies ahead.

Stock markets are supposed to hate uncertainty. And yet, after declining for the first two trading days after the Brexit referendum on Thursday June 23, stocks fell on Friday and Monday, in the U.S. about a total of 6% in the broad averages. Then they went up strongly the next 3 days in a row, recouping all the losses. This morning U.S. stocks are up again, for the fourth day in a row, although anything could happen by closing. As so often, the stock market confounds by defying its own putative "logic."

One excuse (aka "reason" or pseudo-explanation) for the rally is that traders expect central bank easing as a result of the Brexit vote. In other words, they assume that central banks (the Fed in the U.S.) exist to facilitate ever-rising stock markets by providing financial sugar for the professional speculator class. Perhaps some thought a measly 6% decline created a "bargain" situation. Given the extremely short-term perspective of "the market" in recent years, that probably is at least part of it.

How to square the continuing hand-wringing and bitter condemnations by financial and political commentators over the Brexit referendum outcome, along with their doom-and-gloom predictions for the economic future of not just Britain but even the entire world, with the giddy reversal of direction by stocks globally? Could it be that the elite chatterers and "economic experts" are dead wrong? Since they fetishize markets, surely they must defer to the "judgment" of those markets.

Following Moody's another "rating" agency, S & P, has downgraded the credit rating of the British government. As I stated in my previous essay, these credit "rating"agencies have shown themselves to be criminal enterprises by their complicity in the packaged mortgage securities fraud, rating junk mortgaged Triple-A. They deserve no credibility whatsoever.

Even the British pound rallied back to $1.35, from $1.32, although right now it's back to just under $1.33. But the gloomsters ignore the positive of that. It means British exports are cheaper, just boosting British exports. That in turn benefits at least some British workers, and certainly the export businesses. It also will boost tourism to Britain, since it means vacationing in Britain becomes cheaper for Americans and Europeans using the Euro. The downside is more expensive imports, and it makes foreign travel more expensive for Britons, who will get less foreign currency in exchange for their pounds when abroad. Net, Britain gains economically from a cheaper currency. And I doubt it will fall anywhere near the low of 1987, when it dropped to $1.04 U.S.

A looming political question is what Scotland will do. Scotland voted strongly for Brexit, and doesn't want to lose the alleged advantages of EU membership. There has been talk of another vote on Scotland independence, (Which requires the permission of the British Parliament, unless Scotland wants to fight a war of succession.) Well, the British empire has been shedding pieces of itself for a century, perhaps it's high time for another piece to molt off.

One worry going forward: now that the Tory former London Mayor Boris Johnson has dropped out of competition to succeed Cameron, the egregious Home Secretary Theresa May very much wants the PM job. She's a repressive authoritarian who has consistently pushed for more powers for the British secret police agencies, including the NSA's little brother, GCHQ (General Communications Headquarters, an electronic spy agency that works hand in glove with the NSA as one of the "Five Eyes," the electronic secret police organizations of the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand). She also lobbies hard for more repressive laws. And if Britain leaves the EU, the privacy laws of the EU and the European Court of Justice will no longer exert a restraining influence on the British ruling class' thirst for more repression. At this time she has but a single rival to take Cameron's place, and that is Justice Secretary Michael Gove, an erstwhile ally of Boris Johnson in the pro-Brexit camp.

The Nightmare Scenario: The Remorseless Theresa May as Prime Minister of Britain.