Posted by seumasach on December 4, 2018
Cailein Bochanan
4th December, 2018
The G20 summit meeting between Trump and Xi has ended on an upbeat with the declaration a truce and a 90 day period in which to consolidate a deal. Xinhua has welcomed what it describes as a consensus in rather glowing terms
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: Chinese soft power, End of empire, retreat from empire, trump agenda, us -china strategic partnership | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 27, 2018
Cailean Bochanan
27th September, 2018
The analogy coming forcibly to mind of late was of Britain as a ship adrift without a captain heading towards the rocks as the crew below indulged in an endless brawl, unaware of or indifferent to the grim fate awaiting them. But my spirits have been lifted by the Labour Party conference; could it be that someone has emerged who can put the ship of state back on course to somewhere that is not the abyss. In other words, can Corbyn finally end his highly ambiguous stance on Brexit and at the crucial moment come out for Remain.
Without of course stating anything of the kind, Corbyn has pointed to that as the only logical outcome. The bare facts are that there is a consensus now in the Labour Party that Labour will vote against any deal negotiated by Teresa May which doesn’t satisfy the criteria that Labour has set down and that Labour will oppose a no-deal Brexit. Well, no deal which could conceivably be negotiated by May could satisfy those criteria therefore Labour will vote down whatever she comes up with. That means that deal would fail to pass the Commons leaving us with a no-deal Brexit. Opposing this at any cost, Labour would then campaign for a referendum with the two options being: Remain or the deal negotiated by May. They would win support for this in the Commons and the country would vote by a clear majority for Remain.
This was the logical kernel of the fudge agreed upon at the LP conference. But it was a tiny island of logic in a sea of fudge. Truth-telling is political suicide in the contemporary world: everything must be approached obliquely, through dissimulation, through fudge. Labour haven’t actually come out for Remain. It has been tentatively suggested as an option; all options are on the table, therefore, Remain is on the table. It could even be on the ballot paper (how could it not be!) should it come, in extremis, to a second referendum.
The main element of dissimulation is the claim that Labour prefer to have a General Election so that they can take on the Brexit negotiations, so that they can take on May’s hopeless conundrum. As if they hadn’t learnt the one clear lesson of the last two years: there is no such thing as a Soft Brexit! They must have worked out by now that the Soft Brexit scenario was merely an invention of the hard line brexiteers to help sell a Hard Brexit i.e. Brexit by lulling the people into a false sense of security and then blaming Europe for a Hard Brexit and the whole mess that would flow from it. Incidentally, why they would want a mess in the first instance is a very good question that, with a bit of luck, we will learn the answer to in the years ahead. Anyway, returning to Labour’s fudge, they’re professed aim of demanding a General Election provides a very good alibi in anticipation of any accusations of being closet Remainers and helps smooth over divisions in the party between those with the perfectly achievable goal of Remain and those who insist on pursuing the impossible mirage of a benign Brexit, a Brexit for jobs, a Brexit for Ireland and other such nonsense.
I’m being a bit unfair. There is a benign Brexit option: the Norwegian option. This could come in handy if Labour are unlucky enough to win a General Election called, for some reason, by Teresa May. After all, it would be very difficult for them to call a referendum after reaching their heart’s desire of a chance to negotiate a “Brexit for jobs”. So they could leave the EU but remain in the single market, maintain free movement etc.. Only, they wouldn’t have any input into the EU project. That wouldn’t be the end of the world. The EU has developed quite nicely without our input: they’re already working with Russia and China to bypass US sanctions against Iran and uphold the Iran deal. Britain would just have to sit things out for a while in the sin bin, quarantined from a world that is passing us by. But the ship of state would still be afloat!
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco, brexit mudge and fudge, Corbyn agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 27, 2018
As US-led globalization degenerates into a cacophony of, hopefully, idle threats and the generalized incoherence that flows from internal division, the 22nd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) shows that globalization itself is not dead. As a multipolar project led by China we can hope to see a constructive globalization process subject to new forms of global governance. The key issue of the moment is the joining of this process by Europe and the related question of the replacement of the dollar as the standard means of international payment. Consciously or unconsciously, Trump has played the role of facilitator of this process which is now unfolding at breathtaking speed leaving so many lagging behind, most especially the Western intelligentsia which has never really got beyond liberal imperialism and has certainly never caught on to the idea of a multipolar world, to the idea of the equality of nations.
26th May, 2018
The 22nd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) concluded a plenary session Friday as world leaders gathered here to discuss pressing economic challenges.
Held under the theme “Building a Trust Economy” this year, the forum, often referred to as Russia’s Davos, attracted some 15,000 participants from 70 countries to Russia’s “northern capital” and second largest city.
The leaders noted that there are alarming trends that might compromise economic growth, including rising protectionism and unilateralism, the spiral of sanctions and risks from radical technology transformation.
Recognizing the need for a concerted effort in response, they called on countries to enhance mutual trust, remove trade barriers and boost bilateral and multilateral cooperation to drive forward global growth.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: The 22nd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIE | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 9, 2017
Cailean Bochanan
9th December, 2017
On a historic day, yesterday Britain resigned its role as a junior partner in the Atlantic Alliance and embraced a new role as a junior partner in the European Alliance.
Something had to give way as the impossibility of Brexit became increasingly obvious. I had anticipated that it would be the government and the Tory party. Instead they both emerged intact at the expense of Brexit itself.
The thorn at the heart of the Brexit gorse bush had been the question of the status of Northern Ireland. Given the impossibility of a hard border between north and south Northern Ireland had to be given special status meaning de facto, continued membership of the Single Market and the Custom’s Union. The loyalist veto of this arrangement meant instead that the whole UK has been given a special status: the UK will remain in both the Single Market and the Custom’s Union. Officially, this arrangement is only temporary, for the duration of the so-called transition. However, since the Irish border problem will not simply go away the UK’s special status will continue indefinitely to be finally resolved, presumably, by our renewed integration into the EU. There is no alternative.
One would have anticipated an immediate backlash against this arrangement by the Tory brexiteers but they have simply rolled over. The British ruling has shown again some of their more positive, traditional attributes: an ability to act pragmatically and to discard useless ideology. What cannot be cannot be, and Brexit cannot be.
That begs the question: what was it all about in the first place? That is beyond my meagre intellectual abilities. However, two things may be pertinent. Firstly, the EU shows no sign of falling apart as was hoped and expected by the neocon wing of the Brexit movement. Euroscepticism is not on the rise and the Catalan declaration of independence, which elicited a brief frisson of excitement in the Brexit camp has not triggered a cascade of regional movements towards the CIA’s favourite Europe of the Regions outcome. Secondly, Trump has adopted a hostile attitude to the UK and has already, effectively, ended the Special Relationship with the result that Britain just has nowhere to go.
These changes may also explain why the Europeans have conceded what they said they would never concede, namely, that the UK can leave the EU and still enjoy the benefits of membership of the EU. But, of course, the unspoken, unspeakable reality, from the brexiteers point of view, is that we aren’t really leaving the EU, except in a purely formal sense. But for the meantime we are in a state of limbo with a special status under a kind of EU mandate.
Ultimately, this astonishing outcome reveals the level of disconnect between ideology and reality. All the current ideologies flow from the Anglophilosophy and the presuppositions of Anglo-American globalization- globalization from below at the expense of sovereign structures. This is perfectly embodied in the Brexit cult of “free-trade”. What we seeing now is globalization accompanied by global governance stemming from sharing of sovereignty. The Single Market reflects that but it will be even more evident as the One Belt, One Road project takes off. Who is going to regulate or “nationalise” the high-speed trains which will soon connect China and Europe? Who will regulate international trade and an international means of payment now that the Dollar-fiat reserve currency system is coming to an end? Of course, some of these agencies of global governance already exist but they will undoubtedly be transformed, extended or replaced in the coming years.
Britain has, as of yesterday, begun to resolve it’s relationship with the nascent multipolar world order. The fact that Brexit is only a virtual event, or, at least, a real non-event and that that is understood by all will have immediate effects. Most importantly, our deal with are major creditor, China, should be back on to the accompanying smirk of George Osborne. Major problems lie ahead concerning uncontrolled debt, speculative bubbles and lack of income at personal, corporate and national levels with the banks once again looking vulnerable. But, as of yesterday, we will resolve them within a European and multipolar context.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco, brexit mudge and fudge | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 31, 2017
The latest news is that Hague is leading the campaign against any backsliding on the Brexit decision. He has not , therefore, despaired of Brexit and is all for pressing on with it come hell or high water. Adding to that the fact that Hague claims he voted, remain and we have to admit that these are deep, and troubled, waters. It has now become fashionable for remain supporters to insist on Brexit being carried through despite the dire straits ahead. Also noteworthy is the flurry of excitement in the Brexit camp following the eruption of the Catalan crisis: this, presumably, was to be the catalyst for European disintegration. But, no one, least of all Trump, came to the support of the Catalan nationalists and the whole affair has blown over. Similarly, the post-electoral crisis in Germany seems to be heading to a resolution thanks to the co-operative approach of the SDP. This highlights the strength of consensus in Germany concerning Europe, trumping as it does ideological differences. European integration goes marching on to the despair of the British government.
Cailean Bochanan
31st August, 2017
In 2011 William Hague described the Euro “as a burning building with no exits”. But it appears to still be standing as the pound sinks to parity and , no doubt, beyond. And now he despairs of the Brexit process blaming the British people for their “mistake” in not giving their full backing to the government in the recent general election:
“I think the result was a mistake. Collectively, by the people of this country.”
One cannot help but recall Hague’s denunciation of the then Labour government in 2001:
“We have a Government that has contempt for the views of the people it governs.”
But I suppose we must concede that the electorate can make mistakes- after all they voted for Brexit in 2016, a decision whose catastrophic consequences have since become ever clearer. Indeed, one could argue that two wrongs make a right and that the British people corrected, to some extent, that fateful vote by failing to follow it up with a rounding endorsement of the Brexit Junta.
Would it have made any difference had they given May the thumbs up? According to Hague:
“Britain will get a worse deal as a result of the election.”
But what was the deal anyway given that Britain is totally dependent on inward investment and incoming labour to keep a wasteland created by forty years of Thatcherism afloat and both will be undermined by Brexit? Well, the hope was that the “burning building” could be brought to the ground. Hague’s despair is simply the realization that that is not going to happen.
The election has contributed to that conclusion. Britain needed a united front of the entire political class to apply maximum pressure. They appeared to have it but Labour was waiting to see which way the wind was blowing and have seen that it is still the prevailing westerly, blowing the ship of state back towards Europe where it now belongs if it belongs anywhere. They have adopted a de facto remain position after discussions with the Europeans. Oh, the treachery of it all!
But a more significant factor was the need for a united front with Washington led by a politician with the left-liberal credentials capable of influence in Europe. Someone like Hilary Clinton. Instead they have a man who opportunistically used the Brexit vote to advance his own nationalist credentials in order to win an election but who has since purged his team of ideologues of this hue. What remains is a realist administration based on the military which has no interest in either exporting a nationalist revolution or the neocon obsession with bringing down the EU. Indeed, Trump has, wittingly or unwittingly, advanced the cause of European integration and independence from US tutelage. The disarray in London following his election contributed mightily to discrediting European eurosceptic movements as well as these latter being tarred by association with the Beast in the White House.
And so we come to the “negotiations” with Brussels. As I predicted on the 26th June, 2016:
“The fact that Brexit is only a trigger for “more exciting” perspectives[the destabilization of Europe] explains many of the peculiarities of the Brexit campaign. They have done nothing to elaborate a clear alternative to EU membership, they don’t want to leave any time soon and many of their promises over the NHS and immigration have already been shown to be worthless.These things are beside the point and there will be no attempt to negotiate in good faith.”
I rest on my laurels.
It remains only say that Hague has effectively announced the end of the Brexit neocon project. Europe will not fall but this government, and likely a whole lot else, will.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 28, 2017
Cailean Bochanan
28th January, 2017
If Theresa wants a special relationship with Donald and Donald wants a “fantastic relationship” with Vladimir, what kind of relationship with does Theresa want with Vladimir? She wants to “engage but beware”: beware, no doubt, that Vladimir’s relationship with Donald doesn’t get too fantastic.
All in all, May’s response seems to be in keeping with with Britain’s values of tolerance and laissez faire but the reality is that May used the Washington trip to mark a complete about turn in British foreign policy aligning it with that of Donald Trump. Indeed, her words are the surest confirmation yet of the winds of change blowing in Washington.
Quite simply May totally the contradicted the Fallon doctrine, an obvious shot across the bows of Trump, proposed by her defense secretary only last week that “The UK is sending a clear message that we are committed to defending democracy across the world and support Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.” According to May, however: “The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over.” The shift is confirmed by her foreign secretary’s statement on Syria in which, ever gracious in defeat, he concedes that Assad may be allowed to stay after all.
Of course, one could point to elements in May’ speech contradicting this interpretation, notably her claims that the UK and US will continue to lead the world in the face of rising challenge of Russia and China. I would respond that these contradictions stem from the hybrid nature of her speech: it is like an adaption of the speech she would have given had Clinton won the presidency to the emerging Trump doctrine. Indeed, she continues to sing the praises of doctrines which Trump has totally repudiated such free trade and adherence to the various “globalist” institutions. In an unfortunate lapse she said at the joint press conference that she “thinks” Trump has just given his 100% backing for NATO.
Most interestingly, May reaffirms that she doesn’t wish the EU to fail. I wouldn’t rule out that she is telling the truth on this. After all, she has only recently given a long speech focused on Britain’s need to make a trade deal with Europe post-Brexit. Is that really compatible with this new deal with the USA. Europe rejected TTIP: will they really accept it through the back door via a trade deal with Britain. May may be cognizant of Ukraine’s attempt to play both sides in trade deals with Russia and the EU: they ended up with nothing.
UK/US leadership in the world is bluff and bluster: trumpet the charge whilst stealthily retreating. But the West truly will be lost if we don’t begin constructive engagement with the rising stars of the East soon and May must already deep in anxious dreams be haunted by that smug grin of George Osborne standing triumphantly alongside President Xi.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 24, 2017
Cailean Bochanan
24th January, 2017
It is not necessary to read beyond the first sentence of today’s Supreme Court Ruling to arrive at the heart of the matter
“The devolution Acts were passed by Parliament on the assumption that the UK would be a member of the EU, but they do not require the UK to remain a member.”
Posted in brexit crisis, Constitutional change in Britain | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 23, 2017
and provides the key to understanding May’s enigmatic speech
Cailean Bochanan
23rd January, 2017
After triumphantly hailing the disintegration of the EU for so long, George Soros now admits to some “exaggeration” behind the claim. To cover his change of tack he claims that neither Russia nor China want the EU to disintegrate and therefore it won’t. This is disingenuous to say the least. Russia and China never wanted the EU to disintegrate. It was Soros himself and the forces he represents in Western elites who wanted it. Funnily enough his most emphatic forecast of Eurodoom came right after the Brexit vote which, according to him, rendered “the disintegration of the EU practically irreversible”. But now the EU is safe from the soothsayer’s curse.
Could this have anything to do with the election of Donald Trump? It has everything to do with it. Soros clearly anticipates the defection of the Americans from the Atlantic Alliance and now looks towards Europe to take on the mantle of his obsessive, compulsive anti-Russian policy. I hadn’t considered this possibility before because it seems such a long shot: Europe can only look east now. This explains the curious feature of May’s speech last week: its eurocentricity. The election of Trump has left the Brexit project of a fortified special relationship taking a step back from a collapsing EU in total disarray. May’s speech was, in fact, a corrective, a reorientation towards an EU which is now the last great hope for our values and, in her distinctly fuzzy, despairing vision, a bulwark against “authoritarian” Russia. So she was telling the truth after all when she said she didn’t want the EU to collapse. She is now doing what the Kippers (UKIP) suspected she would all along: talking hard Brexit whilst trying to work out some satisfactory accommodation behind the scenes.
This looks like a tall order and, anyway, hard Brexit talk costs political lives. The most obvious one is that of Jeremy Corbyn who has quite pointedly failed to walk through the open door of opposing Brexit and has become instead the enabler of Brexit by failing to join a cross party coalition amendment to article 50. But May herself is now set to trigger the disintegration of the UK, a process she is certain not to survive (as Soros himself charitably points out). What is more the inevitable emergence of an English nationalism as opposed to a UK nationalism will see splits in both the major parties. We may never know what Brexit was about but its unintended consequence will make themselves felt only too painfully in years of chaos and utter confusion. The home of farce is about to live the mother of all farces.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 18, 2017
Cailean Bochanan
18th January, 2017
The most striking feature of May’s latest attempt to clarify Brexit is that “global” Britain will remain focused on Europe. We our leaving Europe only in order to reengage with Europe, except this time without free movement: Europe without Europeans.
Posted in Battle for Europe, brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 9, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
9th October, 2016
Friday’s flash crash may remain a mystery but it should be no mystery that the pound is in freefall and that it could become the focus of hostile trading.
This is not just about Brexit itself but what is behind Brexit. If we want to destroy our own economy by leaving the single market that it is our business. But if we want to use Brexit to turn the UK into a base for hostile operations against our creditors and closest trading partners that is their business.
Incredibly, that is exactly what has happened. We have appointed negotiators who delight in the prospect of the implosion of the EU. Boris Johnson has endorsed Change Britain whose neo-conservative leadership sees the end of the EU as inevitable and desirable. His clowning has taken him as far as putting a good word in for Erdogan regarding EU membership for Turkey. This is our foreign secretary. Liam Fox’s ultra-atlanticist views and his visceral animosity to the EU are well known. Defense secretary Fallon has seen fit to launch the amazing provocation of vetoing EU security arrangements.Much is being made of supposed European hostility towards us but with this crowd it looks more the other way round.
The May government wasted no time at all in reversing our growing ties with China. Obviously we weren’t going to be entering into a strategic partnership with a”security threat”. Wrecking out rapport with our biggest creditor and supplier was simply destructive. You either enter negotiations with your creditors or you wait for the bailiffs to come in. Jumping on the “isolate China” bandwagon only made sense if you were thinking in terms of “taking them out”. The dramatic developments in the USA where the Pentagon has effectively marginalized the White House on foreign policy were our cue to enter into just such a hostile posture towards both Russia and China. So at the first key test of our supposed new-found sovereignty and independence we chose to align ourselves with the Pentagon.
So “Global Britain” now has a hostile stance towards most of the Eurasian land mass. Meaningful negotiations with the EU, Russia or China are precluded. At the same time the dreadful reality of our economic plight cannot be hidden by the massaging of statistics. You only have to walk down any high street to see that Britain’s consumer economy model is dead. We are not a great trading nation. Out deficits and debts only get worse. If we were a business we would have closed down years ago. We are a bankrupt country that has chosen to go down hitting out wildly just so that the military industrial complex can keep itself afloat. We cannot of course afford Trident but will press on with it regardless. Everyone else will have to pay the price. It is an astonishing fact that the opposition of virtually the entire legally operating business community is as vehemently opposed to this whole unfolding scenario as it is marginalized by it. It seems we are to be taught a lesson in where the real power in this country lies.
A few months after the Brexit referendum we have made clear our indifference to our economic future and instead are intent on bringing the world to the brink of WW3. And then we wonder about the “mysterious” sinking of the pound.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 2, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
2nd August, 2016
“Brexit means Brexit!” but what is Brexit? Well, now we know. It is the alignment of the UK with the policy which will dominate the next US presidency: the strategy of containment or isolation of China.
Posted in brexit crisis, Containing China | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, brexit agenda, Chinese soft power, End of empire, the brexit disaster | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 25, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
25th July, 2016
Jeremy Corbyn is on safe ground in making a U-turn over Brexit. He had originally insisted that Article 50 should be triggered immediately but now seems to have backed down on this and is talking about the possibility of a second referendum after negotiations have been completed. Of course, there will be no negotiations until Article 50 is triggered but let’s not get bogged down in technicalities.
Posted in British economy | Tagged: brexit crisis, Simply stay! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 15, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
15th July, 2016
It looks like Brexit was Obama’s preferred option all along. In any case, both sides of the Atlantic have been suspiciously quick to catch on to the idea of a TTIP between the US and the UK after Britain has jumped from the back to the front of the cue. Obama has a new global role for us now that US-EU TTIP is dead in the water. It’s not exactly independence day but it’s not entirely bad news either.
Of course, a trade deal with the USA, between two de-industrialised debtor nations, offers little in itself. But there has to be more to it. Hopefully, it’s one step back in order to take several steps forward.
First of all, it’s about what we’re no longer doing. We are no longer America’s poodle in Europe pushing through a neo-liberal agenda, TTIP, a new cold war, NATO expansionism and aggression and acting as wrecker and saboteur of last resort in the process of European construction. Brexit is independence day for Europe. Rather than a domino effect as hoped by the neocons, now marginalized by Theresa May, we are seeing a wave of Euro- enthusiasm across Europe following Brexit and to follow there will be a swathe of Eurozone measures aimed at banking and fiscal union, control of borders and European security. We can also expect friendly overtures towards Russia, China and Iran.
Anglo-American diplomacy will also go into high gear with detente with Russia. The appearance of a sell-out will be countered by sabre-rattling in the South China Sea.
Ironically, Brexit, conceived by Little Englanders of the UKIP or IngSoc milieu, is the catalyst for global transformation. It pertains more to the wider world than to Britain itself.
Nevertheless, there must be something in it for us unless, amidst all the theatricality, we are to be given the role of real life proles in an Orwellian Oceania. One of most striking features of the new government is the ommission of Osborne not because he jumped the gun in his negotiations of a deal in Washington the other week, but because of his association with austerity. The government’s disavowal of austerity and declared intention of investing heavily in UK economy and infrastructure seems incompatible with the pound’s very vulnerable status. It only makes sense if some kind of global currency reset is imminent along with Chinese style real economy QE on a global scale. That appears to be a long shot but Brexit may have triggered a global transformation which astonish us all.
As for Britain’s relationship to all this: look for Brexit to be the mother of all mudge and fudge. At some point we can reintegrate ourselves into a Europe, or Eurasia, which will, in any case, no longer be the one we left.
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: brexit agenda, global reset, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 5, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
5th July, 2016
It seems that Theresa May’s victory is not so certain after all. Andrea Leadsom, the self-proclaimed successor to Mrs Thatcher, is all the rage amongst the rank file Tories. Her victory would certainly have repercussions. In Scotland the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister would certainly constitute that”material change of circumstances” that would trigger a new referendum on independence. In fact, a referendum would be unnecessary: a unilateral declaration of independence would go unopposed.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit crisis | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 4, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
4th July, 2016
Suddenly an eerie silence descends on Britain’s tumultuous political scene.
One or two shots are still going off: Gove has a drink problem according to the Johnson camp; Leadsom may have been stashing money offshore it is suggested and has been outed as a Remain supporter until only recently. Any remaining obstacles to Theresa May as prime minister are being removed. That’s all.
On the other side of the house the anti-Corbyn forces are going quiet. It looks like Corbyn will be staying.
The coup has failed. Neocon forces, those who gave us the Iraq War, have not seized control over both sides of the House.
Having “taken our country back” we now await events elsewhere to give us direction. Specifically, the US presidential elections. If our relationship with the EU is now in question the “special relationship” is no less so. Under Obama it appeared to come to an end and even now Kerry is talking up reversing Brexit. Trump may applaud British isolationism but intends the same for his own country. Clinton, if the FBI don’t take her out, remains the great hope of the Atlanticists and neocons. She promises the renewal of the Anglo-American partnership and hegemony.
We can expect May’s cabinet to reflects Britain’s suspension between Europe and America: on the one hand Gove or Fox, who would seek to trigger article 50 and commence hostilities against Europe and on the other Osborne, who still wants another special relationship. that with China, and , therefore, implicitly, to reverse Brexit.
Last Thursday vote has resolved nothing. The people have decided without, on either side, having the remotest clue what the stakes were. We are now undergoing a crash course in the geopolitical forces that are to shape the century.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit crisis | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 2, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
2nd July, 2016
Pundits of every hue, seduced by the image of true -born Englishmen wielding pitchforks in the face of the dark forces of Mammomisn, are interpreting the Brexit vote as a victory over “the globalists”. As if the likes of Rupert Murdoch are not globalists.
Rather than elite versus people the contest is very much within elites and both sides are globalists.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit crisis, NWO v. multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on June 30, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
30th June, 2016
This is all becoming quite surreal. The fall of Boris Johnson seems to be a result of his attempt to present the Brexit vote as a mandate to renegotiate our membership of the EU. The theory must have been that the Europeans heartbroken to lose us, would do anything to ingratiate themselves to us.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: the brexit disaster | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on June 30, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
30th June, 2016
The British people have just voted to leave the EU but the prime minister has refused to leave. His heart just isn’t in it. Nor does he want to step down now. Surely, as prime minster he is obliged to accept the result of the referendum which he called and duly invoke article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, specially crafted to the needs of a country which has been on the way out for some time.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: Down with the unelected Brexit junta!, Simply stay! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on June 26, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
26th June, 2016
Now that we have voted for Brexit we will not know what exactly the program of the Remain camp was.
However, the program of the Brexit leadership was blurted out by an emotional Nigel Farrage in the early hours of Friday morning:
“For the whole of Europe. I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nations, trading together, being friends together, co-operating together. And let’s get rid of the flag, the [EU] anthem, Brussels and all that has gone wrong.”
It may come as a surprise to little englander Brexit voters that they weren’t voting to leave Europe but to destroy it. It wasn’t a vote against globalisation but for Anglo-American globalisation. Neo-conservatism, the infection that just won’t go away, is back in the form of a new unelected junta about to take control of Britain. It’s chief ideologue is Michael Gove of the neocon Henry Jackson society. According to Gove:
“For Europe, Britain voting to leave will be the beginning of something potentially even more exciting — the democratic liberation of a whole continent”
So we are to leave Europe in order, subsequently, to meddle in it.
This is Gove’s permanent revolution agenda to borrow a term from one of the neocons great inspirational figures, Leon Trotsky.
In my last article on the EU question I noted that that Cameron had failed to negotiate the opt-outs that City of London interests would require whilst at the same time Brexit would leave British banks excluded from the EU. That depended on the assumption, of course, that the EU still existed. If it could be subverted then the dilemma could be resolved.
As a Brexit campaigner from Chatham House told me it was a question of stepping back from Europe and watching it disintegrate. This implies passivity on behalf of these Brexit interests but I would suggest that in reality they would be proactive. Just as the State Department and the CIA have been proactive in destabilizing Europe’s periphery with a view to destabilizing Europe itself.
The fact that Brexit is only a trigger for “more exciting” perspectives explains many of the peculiarities of the Brexit campaign. They have done nothing to elaborate a clear alternative to EU membership, they don’t want to leave any time soon and many of their promises over the NHS and immigration have already been shown to be worthless.These things are beside the point and there will be no attempt to negotiate in good faith It also explains why 250 billion has already been “made available” to the British economy i.e. the City of London: while the revolution is awaited in Europe an interim bailout of the zombie banks is inevitable. All the talk of freeing up funds for social spending, the Brexit turn to the working class, is simply hot air. It’s the banks, silly!
Of course, Brexit brings in its stead enormous costs. We have ,at one fell swoop, thrown away all our geopolitical trump cards- cards which would have enabled us to negotiate a way out of the troubled waters of end of empire. The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China was of enormous potential benefit to us but was entirely dependent on our being a bridge into Europe. A deal with our largest creditor and, therefore, holder of sterling denominated assets was crucial if we were to achieve , at least, an orderly decline in our currency. It also brought with it the possibility of a new role for the City as an offshore trading hub for the Yuan and the extension of the finance necessary for national reconstruction. That is all effectively over- powerful financial interests did not want the deal and they have won out.
And yet, man does not live by bread alone. The English people have expressed a wish to regain control of their own destiny. They have every right to do so. The regional integration process which is everywhere evident, from Mercosur and ALBA, to the African Union, Asean and the Eurasian Union concerns the voluntary ceding of sovereignty not the submission to a Bonaparte or a Bolivar. It is true that the UK, in as far as it still exists, can negotiate deals with whoever it wishes without belonging to the EU’s formal structures. Were it a question, that is, simply of Brexit rather than of turning Britain into a base for a neocolonial project, for the next episode in the extension of the Empire of Chaos.
Here is the rub. Here is why the British people made a catastrophic error on Thursday, one which they will live to bitterly regret. Britain will pay a terrible price for hosting a neocon junta which is set to continue Britain’s long and dishonorable tradition of interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries. Until we remove it “the markets” will be ruthless. China who intimated back in 2010 that they were no longer buying UK government bonds, no longer have a motive to hold them or to invest them in Britain. Several hundred billion could be dumped for gold, for example, leaving sterling reeling and subjecting Britain to an apocalyptic inflationary crisis.
In the meantime events are moving a breakneck speed.
All the signs are that the Junta has already lost it’s nerve following the massive, unprecedented falls in sterling on Friday. Following Cameron’s resignation Johnson and Gove appeared at one of the most lackluster press conferences ever given. It was positively funereal. Johnson appeared to be in state of bewilderment whilst Gove with his langue de bois makes Van Rompuy look like d’Artagnan. Significantly, Johnson blurted out some incoherences seemingly addressed to Britain’s youth implying that there would still be free movement. He knows and fears that while the brexiteers hold the cabbage patches, the youth may hold the streets.
At the same time the European leadership have shown that they are not completely inept and have seen through the game. That’s why they put out the blunt message: get out now! They know that Gove wants to string things out, a bit like Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk, scoring propaganda points whilst awaiting for Clinton and the neocon cavalry to help put the European “establishment”to the sword.
On the home front, Salmond and McGuinness, two of the sharpest cards in British politics reacted promptly and appositely. The union is now dead in the water: Scotland will begin negotiations to remain in Europe and will only be able to do so as an independent country. We will inevitably choose that option especially as the true enormity of Thursday’s aberration become evident. At the same time, there can be no repartition of Ireland now that the existing border has de facto ceased to exist.
Unsurprisingly, the Brexit vote has triggered a conspiracy to remove Corbyn from the Labour leadership.
Britain now enters into a prolonged economic and constitutional crisis. Its resolution depends most of all on the recognition of the sovereign wishes of all the nations which make up the UK and the exposure of the false position of the Brexit Junta and its neoconservative, neocolonial agenda.
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Posted by seumasach on February 21, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
21st February, 2016
It is unusual for the British establishment to risk a consultation with the people unless major changes are underway- changes which are sufficient to provoke divisions in the establishment itself. It goes without saying that the negotiations with the EU are not essentially about child benefit for Polish families living in the UK. They are about “sovereignty” although in a very limited sense: the “sovereignty” of the City of London. The deal struck triumphantly by Cameron is revelatory. It shows that conflict within the establishment concerns the least bad option for the City: whether to face exclusion from the EU market and displacement by Paris or Frankfurt as Europe’s leading financial centre or to remain inside Europe and to take up arms against a sea of Eurozone banking regulations and by opposing end them. That is the question!
Posted in Battle for Europe, UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, Britain into Europe-Europe out of NATO, Cameron's EU deal, Chinese soft power, european bank "bail-in", european banking union | 2 Comments »
Posted by seumasach on December 5, 2015
Cailean Bochanan
5th December, 2015
When Bassar-al Assad is re-elected as president of Syria in about 18 months time it is unlikely that David Cameron will still be in office. He is no doubt delighted to have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on Wednesday in the House of Commons but it may turn out to be a pyhrric, pig in a poke.
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Posted by seumasach on October 20, 2015
Or WW3 “to stop the bloodshed”
Cailean Bochanan
20th October, 2015
Russia’s bold move to finally bring effective military force to bear against ISIL has given rise to some strange political activity in the West and heightened, collective, cognitive dissonance.
Casually turning on the TV to watch the Scottish National Party’s conference in Aberdeen I couldn’t believe my eyes when a Syrian “refugee” was given the platform and proceeded to deliver a rant against Syria’s President Assad which would be worthy of John MacCain. According to this gentleman extremism in Syria is caused by Assad and we need to establish “No bomb zones” to protect civilians. Readers may notice a similarity between “No bomb zones” and the famous “No fly zones” which also never happened.
Posted in Syria | Tagged: "War on Terror", east-west coalition against ISIL, no bomb zones, no fly zones, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 15, 2015
Cailean Bochanan
18th October, 2015
Once again Cameron’s nemesis, the spectre of the disastrous Libya intervention, has raised its head. This time SNP foreign policy spokesman, Angus Robertson, speaking during Prime Minister’s question time in the House of Commons, has referred to the “total anarchy and civil unrest: in Libya” as one of the “unintended consequences” of that war. He went on to ask, in reference to the military intervention in Libya as well as those in Iraq and Afghanistan: “What assurances can you give that you have learnt lessons from past mistakes and you will not repeat them?” As it transpired, Cameron fended off the attack with some ease, quipping: “Would you be happier with Gaddafi running Libya?”
Posted in Libya | Tagged: corbyn leadership | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 12, 2015
Cailean Bochanan
12th October, 2015
The long awaited coup against Jeremy Corbyn has finally materialized. Up to fifty Labour MPs are reported to be prepared to vote for military action in Syria were it to be put to a vote. What possessed them to put forward this woefully mistimed move is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they had been reading Socialist Worker and been inflamed by its reports of “some 10,000” barrel boms “dropped in the first six months of this year” and how Russia “wants to shore up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which is crumbling, so it is attacking all forms of opposition.” In any case, they have decided that the time has come for another UK intervention to protect civilians by creating safe havens for them. That would involve, as Labour MP John Woodcock put it, “greater involvement from air forces to sustain a no-fly zone and will certainly require an end to the hand-wringing over President Putin’s disgraceful deceit in bombing anti-Assad rebels rather than Daesh [Isis].”
Posted in Syria | Tagged: corbyn leadership, End of empire, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 4, 2015
Cailean Bochanan
4th October, 2015
I had the impression that Osborne’s recent and startling announcement of various deals with China, including the integration of our financial markets, no less, had been met by a stunned silence. But John McDonnell, the new Shadow Chancellor made this reference to them in his speech to the Labour Party Conference:
“I found the Conservatives’ rant against Jeremy’s proposal to bring rail back into public ownership ironic when George Osborne was touring China selling off to the Chinese state bank any British asset he could lay his hands on.”
“Ironic” is putting it mildly: The Chancellor has essentially admitted the failure of the Thatcher revolution and called in the state to rescue Britain. Only it’s not the British state, which no longer knows how to run anything unless it’s into the ground. You might have thought the left would be enjoying this “irony” a bit more than they appear to be. More, for example, than William Keegan writing in the Guardian who is dismayed that Osborne is “kowtowing to a communist Chinese government” and denounces his “cloying approach to a regime notorious for its abuse of human rights”. Keegan is something of a soft left neo-keynesian and , therefore, those criticisms could be largely expected. What about the hard left?
In an article in Socialist Worker Alex Callinicos gives us the line. He is, of course, scrupulously politically correct:
“The problem here isn’t that the companies are foreign-owned.”
Why shouldn’t foreign companies take the place over? Don’t they have rights too? The problem lies elsewhere. Callinicos points out that Chinese companies are “still subject to considerable state control” and that capital “is still not allowed to flow freely in and out of the country” However, Callinicos insinuates this is changing and China is embracing the free movement of capital.
So we have two major threads in this leftist discourse: on the one hand, dealing with China is wrong because China is communist and , on the other , it is wrong because China is no longer communist.
Callinicos goes on to denounce the fact that Chinese investment will be centered on the the City of London at the expense of the “national base of companies operating in Britain.” Callinicos’ thinking in all this is particularly fuzzy. Capital exported from China can still be and is controlled by the Chinese leadership for all their rhetoric about free markets. This is particularly true of the banks. As Dend Xaoping himself used to say:”Whatever you do keep control of the financial system!” In addition, I don’t believe the behavior of Chinese banks will merely replicate that of our own: riding high on bubbles and carry trades, manipulating rates and prices and laundering funds of dubious origin. If they did China certainly wouldn’t be in the position it is today. Anyway, as Osborne announced, there is already large scale Chinese investment in the real economy, largely in infrastructure and housing. There is every reason to believe that this would increase with funding available from Chinese banks operating in the City. The principles of Chinese finance contradict completely those the City of London. We are, therefore, looking at systemic change in the British financial system.
The British left desperately need to get to grips with this issue and quickly. This is because they have essentially abandoned their neo-Keynesian perspectives and accepted the need to balance budgets. But how can they reconcile this with their claim to be anti-austerity. Balanced budgets imply genocidal austerity unless there is some countervailing tendency. That tendency is incoming investment something which, seemingly unbeknown to the left, we have been beneficiaries of for decades. All that is happening,as Osborne’s policy shows, is that the form this investment takes is changing.
For a long time China was obliged to accept fiat pounds to cover its massive trade surplus with Britain and reinvest these pounds in UK government bonds. This was win/win for Britain and largely explains the surprising prosperity of post-Thatcherite Britain. The bankruptcy of the City and its subsequent bailout changed all that. China ceased to buy new UK government bonds (note that, in addition to its massive trade deficit, Britain no longer has a current account surplus not including trade) although they agreed not to divest from existing bonds, sinking sterling. Instead, they wanted to reinvest the surplus funds in the UK. So, on the one hand, we can no longer fund our deficit with Chinese bond purchases and on the other we have the prospect of hundreds of billions worth of inward investment. So balanced budgets and Osborne’s policy are two sides of the same coin. It would be truly reckless to embrace balanced budgets without wholeheartedly welcoming the incoming investment which will render the outcome far less austere. The left are caught in a dilemma which they must resolve if they don’t want to be outflanked by the Tories.
Posted in British economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, Chinese soft power, End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 28, 2015
Thierry Meyssan
28th September, 2015
The liberal hawks and the neo-conservatives have been unable to provoke the confrontation with Russia for which they were trained during the Cold War. Finally, the voice of reason has prevailed. While discrete negotiations are under way to seek an end to the crisis in Ukraine, Russia and China are preparing to convince the United States and their allies to participate in a global alliance against Islamic terrorism. After 5 years of tension, both the project for the seizure of power by the Muslim Brotherhood – the « Arab Spring » – and the proclamation of a Caliphate have failed. Peace is saved.
Posted in Global peace process, Syria | Tagged: Assad must stay, East-West alliance against ISIL, Obama's realist turn, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 28, 2015
Cailean Bochanan
28th September, 2015
Once again I have been proved to be wrong. I had interpreted the decentralization of the British state as the key development linked to inward, especially Chinese, investment and predicted that a Tory/SNP duopoly would dominate Britain in the coming years. But Osborne’s barnstorming performance in China, following on from Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, opens up completely different perspectives. His idea of integrating our financial markets with those of China suggests nothing less than a Chinese takeover of the City of London rather than piecemeal investment in Britain’s devolved regions/nations. This chimes in too with Corbyn’s plan for a National Development Bank which is tantamount to central planning, hitherto an absolute taboo. It is not difficult to see that the kind of infrastructure overhaul that Britain requires cannot be done merely through devolved assemblies and combined councils but must be Britain wide and centrally planned. It also makes much more sense for China to finance the whole thing through the banks which can issue credits for projects as required just as they would do in China. And so we go from the Panarin-type post-imperial scenario of fragmentation to one of systemic transformation of Britain as a whole.
Such a radical revolution is inconceivable without opposition. It is striking that as Osborne blazes the trail down China way, the knives are out for Cameron back home. Cameron has been until recently vociferous in his claim that Assad must go. He obviously had an intuition that someone must go: but it has turned out to be himself. He has called it a stab in the back but the blows are coming from all sides, decisively from Michael Ancram, et tu Ancram, who has raised the specter of Libya, hitherto the politically correct war, ominously drawing the parallel between Cameron and Libya and Blair and Iraq. This is deadly and given the reality of what was done to that once thriving country and its catastrophic consequences for Africa and Europe this just won’t go away. Of course, just about all of us were implicated, but all the more need for a scapegoat.
An excellent analysis of recent events in Australia by WSWS focuses on a conflict between the ardently pro-Chinese Malcolm Turnbull and “powerful sections of the Australian military and intelligence apparatus as well as the media and political establishment, not least within the Liberal-National Coalition”This presumably parallels tensions here and it looks like Cameron has found himself on the wrong side of this argument. In other words, the proposed financial merger with China will go ahead over the dead bodies of assorted dead-enders, security state and MIC interests and neocons. In these historic September days the Blairites and the Cameronites have commenced their exit from the British political scene.
Is this another Glorious Revolution? In 1688 certain Dutch financial interests were invited to take over Britain to establish a financial system orientated towards war and empire. This time we have invited a foreign power in the to rebuild an economy gutted by a failed hegemonic project. We have come a full circle since this marks decisively the end of empire and a new historical époque in which war will no longer be the normal state of affairs
Posted in British economy, Multipolar world | Tagged: China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, Chinese soft power, End of empire, National Investment Bank | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 20, 2015
“The Chinese Communist Party, the biggest communist party in the world and , in my opinion, one of the best.”
Father Ted Crilly
“Recent volatility should not and will not put us off. It should drive us forward, so that we integrate China’s new financial markets with our own so they are deeper and better able to absorb shocks.”
George Osborne
This must be the most neglected and most surprising aspect of this Tory government’s policy. Not only have they signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China, begun to issue UK government bonds in Yuan and broken ranks with the USA in becoming the first Western country to sign up for the AIIB: they are now also about to “integrate our financial markets” with those of China (completely mind-boggling!). Since the nature of China’s financial system, with its orientation to productive imvestment, is the complete opposite of our own this can only be seen as a totally revolutionary step: something which chimes in with Corbyn’s proposal for a National Investment Bank. But while Corbyn comes across as an unreconstructed Bennite, Osborne is more a born again follower of Deng Xaoping. The left are now taking control of both major parties in Britain! Watch out for a wave of interest in things Chinese and a politically-correct campaign against Chinaphobes.
19th September, 2015
The United Kingdom must strive to become China’s “best partner in the west” by forging ever closer economic ties that will bring benefits to all parts of the country, George Osborne has said.
Posted in British economy | Tagged: China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, Chinese soft power, Deng Xaoping, UK-China strategic partnership | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 15, 2015
Cailean Bochanan
15th August, 2015
The Blairites may be right in claiming that a Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn won’t win the 2020 general election. But they are missing the point : by that time we can expect the most pressing issues in British politics to have been resolved. The next five years are crucial in setting the direction for a new, post-imperial Britain and Corbyn as Labour leader buoyed up by the mass movement that will put him there will play a crucial role. The Blairites have misread this badly denouncing Corbyn as throwback to the past when, in fact, it is they who hold that position.
British politics is in a state of flux and it will be become more and more evident that things cannot be understood within the framework of the old left/right divide. The significance of the recent developments in Greece has been missed : pragmatism prevailed over ideology. The contradiction is that ideological rigidity and sectarianism seems more entrenched than ever, at least, in certain quarters.
Last night’s Corbyn rally in Glasgow bore out that point : it was very much a rally of the faithful in an atmosphere of revivalist enthusiasm. All the leftist shibboleths new and old were itemized: global warming, identity politics, even the old warhorse “class”, nationalization, socialism and so on. Of course, Corbyn has to press all the right buttons but I maintain despite that that he will prove to be a pragmatist. Otherwise, what was someone like myself who has long dissociated himself from the left doing there?
I was there because I anticipate Corbyn playing a strong hand concerning the most pressing issues we face and because I don’t expect these issues to be resolved by the victory of either the left or the right. I expect them to define a new center ground in British politics which can draw support from left or right or neither.
The first of these is the renewal of Trident. Corbyn will oppose it vehemently and hopefully the British people will take tp the streets in their millions to the same end. The left have always opposed it on moral grounds and have claimed, to counter the right, that it is not effective as a deterrent. Actually, it is very effective as a deterrent : would Russia still exist as a unitary state without it? The left’s longstanding opposition is, however, no longer the point. What clinches the argument is that the Cold War is over and Jeremy Corbyn seeks constructive cooperative relations with Russia. He does this as a pragmatist despite his ideological difficulty with what he chooses to see as a homophobic government. The simple fact is that Russia has no aggressive intent towards Britain, quite the contrary, and since there is no other nuclear threat in sight there is no need to cough up 100 billion for Trident. Apparently, many in leading military circles also hold this view and not many of them will be Corbyn supporters.
The cost of Trident is anyway prohibitive for a country in the kind of financial state we’re in. The left has developed a complacent view on the debt since there has been no run on UK bonds or on sterling despite QE. They fail to see that this because the Chinese have agreed not to ditch sterling assets. The Chinese have instead sought a deal with the UK government evidence for which can be found in the rarely noted Comprehensive Geostategic Partnership we have signed with China and the fact that we are issuing UK government bonds in RMB. To Corbyn’s credit he does not share the prevailing left view that the debt doesn’t matter and that we can simply go on for ever borrowing money from people who don’t want to lend to us or simply go on devaluing the currency to monetize the debt and then force feed it to China and others in exchange for their exports. Without actually explaining this he admits that the budget has to be balanced. Actually, the principle is also a problem since interest payments are only manageable due to negligible interest rates. Anyway, Corbyn shares with the SNP and the Tories the new consensus view that the debt is a problem and, given that, the ridiculous costs of Trident are also a problem – to be overcome simply by canceling it.
Corbyn’s realism about Britain’s financial plight also extend to the realization that simply cutting the budget won’t work. Whether we like it or not the survival of millions of people and Britain’s social cohesion depends on welfare spending and that isn’t likely to change soon. We need to look at the other side of the equation; income. There isn’t any: we lose massive amounts every month running up our monster trade deficit. Almost everything we consume we import and our exports are limited by a depleted industrial base. We must therefore, reinvest in that base both to boost exports and to substitute for imports. Corby proposes a financial system orientated to this end, some form of national investment bank. How can anyone disagree with this even if the modalities remain to be determined?
Whatever form it takes it is clear that foreign investment will play a major role in the recapitalization of Britain. The deal with China probably concerns this and ,in fact, it’s already happening. However, were Britain to withdraw from Europe this investment would be threatened. The recent Greek crisis saw a surge of anti-European and anti-German feeling and, most notably, a shift on the radical left towards a eurosceptic position. Corbyn has already come out for the EU in principle and has thus provided something of a corrective to left’s Little Englander drift. The fact that born-again eurosceptic Owen Jones is sharing his platforms illustrates this. The anti-European left and right will then hopefully be marginalized by the time of the referendum and they will have been by a new pragmatic consensus.
Corbyn’s promise to renationalize the railways looks highly ideological but he certainly knows what he;s talking about on this question. Privatization has been a disaster which has seen a natural monopoly milked and undermined by private interests. Adam Smith wouldn’t have any problem with nationalization in this case. In the end it may just come down to a form of words : the mess has to be sorted out by the state in the interests of the nation. Is that or isn’t it nationalization? How many London commuters find the remedy just as sweet by any other name. One could say the same regarding the disarray in the utilities or the education system. Does any state simply leave these things to hobble along anyhow or assume that the market will for some obscure reason sort everything out? Only, Britain it would seem. The utilities only work at all because they’re being run by people like EDF, a state run company – although the state ,of course, isn’t Britain. But maybe the British state can have at least some say. After all, we’re British!
The simple reality is that the required program for Britain is fairly obvious and we can expect to find it insinuating its way into the manifestos or discourse of the most unlikely bedfellows. We’ve understood that we don’t want any more wars and must now turn our attention to the mess on the home front.(Does that mean it has to be like Dad’s Army?) Ideology, however, still reigns and it’s only right and fair that the most passionate adherents of the various secular faiths should have one last chance to insult each other in a frenzy of self-righteous indignation before going quiet in the face, hopefully, of the concurrence of the mainstream on simple pragmatism.
Posted in British economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on June 15, 2014
Cailean Bochanan
15th June, 2014
The betrayal of the Iraq army leadership facilitating last week’s capture of Mosul by the so-called ISIL may become a watershed in US foreign policy in providing a significant diversion from the Ukrainian fiasco and turning attention from quasi-cold war tensions towards the new Obama doctrine already outlined in his West Point speech, anticipated by Blair’s 23rd April speech and ratified by an intervention by Kofi Annan last week on BBC Newsnight.
What is this new doctrine? It is called, with great originality, the War on Terror. Thus, we return to 2001 and the post-9/11 doctrine but in a geo-political environment which has become completely transformed. In 2003 , on the eve of the Iraq War, the USA was still regarded as the undisputed global superpower, even though a resurgent Russia and China were already disputing that status. Today it has suffered a series of military reverses and the catastrophic state of its economy and society can longer be hidden. After the dismissal of Rumsfeld in 2006 in a palace coup the stage was set for Obama to turn around US foreign policy in the aftermath of the failed Iraq and Afghan wars. He is generally regarded as having failed in this respect and that judgement has seemed to have been confirmed by the dramatic events of the last week. We appear to be condemned to relive the historical cycle of US military intervention.
But, as I say, the context is completely different. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan post-9/11 were the beginning of a global war for hegemony. This war failed and no such perspectives are in sight for a severely weakened USA. Rather than being the opening shot in an attempted roll-back of Russian and Chinese power War on Terror II could lead to a re-engagement of these two emerging superpowers by Washington. Tony Blair’s above-mentioned speech already prefigures this development:
“In this speech I will set out how we should do this, including the recognition that on this issue, whatever our other differences, we should be prepared to reach out and cooperate with the East, and in particular, Russia and China.”
This was followed up by Kofi Anna’s call for a de facto alliance with Russia , China and Iran:
“Mr Annan – the UN’s former envoy to Syria – said he did not believe that there was the “stomach” for “boots on the ground”, but that a group made up of permanent members of the UN Security Council, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and possibly Egypt could agree a common approach.”
Already, the ISIL surge has raised a prospect that was previously unthinkable: joint US-Iranian military co-operation.
I have, for some time, been talking up a strategic alliance between Washington and Moscow as the great paradigm shift in global geo-politics. It was, admittedly, difficult to see how such a shift could come about. Indeed, the failure of Obama’s reset was just another amongst a litany of seeming failures. But if that remains a strategic goal of Obama, and I believe that it must, then War on TerrorII would be the key to its realization.
The roller-coaster unleashed by the Arab spring continues. The events in Iraq last week serve as a cover for the surreal Ukraine fiasco, which in turn obscured defeat in the Syrian war which in turn diverted the world’s attention from the chaos engendered in Libya by NATO intervention. Since the hand of the NATO and Western intelligence assets is clearly present in all these scenarios you might think Obama’s strategy is merely to cover failure with even more failure. But their may be a different logic at play,a convoluted logic of end of empire. If so, the cycle may be broken in Iraq and by the time the ISIL has been checked we may see the clear outlines of a new international order.
Posted in Iraq, New Cold War | Tagged: End of empire, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire, US-Russia strategic partnership | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 1, 2011
Cailean Bochanan
1st July, 2011
We have a sense that capitalism is coming to an end. If by capitalism we mean that system which was introduced into England subsequent to the Dutch invasion of 1688 then that is true.
With the setting up in 1694 of the Bank of England, a consortium of private financiers came to the fore or rather came to exercise their power from behind the scenes of Britain’s political facade. In this original public-private partnership, they lent to the government at interest and used the bonds issued as the basis for leveraged banking. Swift defined concisely this new interest:
“that set of people, who are called the Monied Men; such as had raised vast Sums by Trading with Stocks and Bonds, and lending upon great interest and Premiums; whose perpetual Harvest is War, and whose beneficial way of Traffick must very much decline by a Peace”
Elsewhere he talks of “a new estate” to whom every house and foot of land in England paid a rent-charge, free of all taxes and defalcations” and where “the gentlemen of estates were, in effect, but tenants to these new landlords”
A whole class, “these new landlords” on behalf of whom the entire nation is taxed. Does this not ring a bell in post-bailout Britain?: the whole nation is mortgaged to the banker elite, which for all that their methods have evolved since the early seventeen hundreds, are essentially the same “interest” as Swift was describing and warning us about. At least, in Swift’s day the consortium’s original loan was from their own funds, however ill-gotten: today the banks are lending back to the government the funds they received from the government to bail them out, basic usury as conceived then has become the fraudulent shenanigans of the notorious “carry trade”. Now that there is no longer even the pretence that banking is about investing in business, understood as legitimate business, and now that the various bubbles from the dot.com through the housing market to commodities have exploded in our faces the monied men limit themselves to milking the state for all its worth and the ultimate bankruptcy of the system is the bankruptcy of the state itself. Curiously, the flow of funds into government bonds is being characterised as a “flight to safety”, yet the returns provided fall well short of inflation generated by endless treasury money issuance. Where then is the profit in the profit system? Wealth creation is over and the financiers are limiting their ambition to, instead of creating new wealth, monopolising all that already exists. It’s not at all clear where, if anywhere, the rest of us fit into the picture. We’ll soon find out: the peril of the “flight to safety” is becoming evident and nothing will glitter which is not gold. The burst of the bond bubble and the collapse of the dollar/pound will be dramatic events indeed, the cue for our long awaited awakening or our plunge into the abyss.
Posted in UK economy | Tagged: End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 11, 2018
5th december, 2018
Since it was uploaded to YouTube just ten weeks ago, Michael Oswald’s seminal documentary film on Britain and its tax haven empire has gained over 1,000,000 views. “The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire” documents how British elites created a network of tax havens after World War II and the lengths they take today to preserve it – exemplified in a chilling scene where a Jersey police officer harasses and interrupts the filmmakers’ interview with a tax haven whistleblower. Based on Nick Shaxson’s best-selling book Treasure Islands: The Men Who Stole the World, the film delivers a sobering account of Britain’s role in corrupting the global economy.
Posted in British economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 11, 2018
Posted in Constitutional change in Britain | Tagged: City of London | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 8, 2018
Jacques Pauwels
6th december, 2018
World War II started, at least as far as the “European Theatre” was concerned, with the German army steamrolling over Poland in September, 1939. About six months later, even more spectacular victories followed, this time over the Benelux Countries and France. By the summer of 1940, Germany looked invincible and predestined to rule the European continent indefinitely. (Great Britain admittedly refused to throw in the towel, but could not hope to win the war on its own, and had to fear that Hitler would soon turn his attention to Gibraltar, Egypt, and/or other jewels in the crown of the British Empire.) Five years later, Germany experienced the pain and humiliation of total defeat. On April 20, 1945, Hitler committed suicide in Berlin as the Red Army bulldozed its way into the city, reduced to a heap of smoking ruins, and on May 8/9 German surrendered unconditionally.
Clearly, then, sometime between late 1940 and 1944 the tide had turned rather dramatically. But when, and where? In Normandy in 1944, according to some; at Stalingrad, during the winter of 1942-43, according to others. In reality, the tide turned in December 1941 in the Soviet Union, more specifically, in the barren plain just west of Moscow. As a German historian, an expert on the war against the Soviet Union, has put it: “That victory of the Red Army [in front of Moscow] was unquestionably the major break [Zäsur] of the entire world war.”[1]
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: battle for Moscow | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 7, 2018
David P.Goldman
6th December, 2018
Equity markets fell sharply in Asia after news media reported the arrest in Canada of Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, pending extradition to the United States on charges of violating US sanctions against Iran.
The news has stunned financial market participants and policy analysts, for two reasons.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Trump-Xi deal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 4, 2018
The rise of China to global economic dominance is indeed unstoppable: the question is whether the USA can engage constructively with China and share to some degree in the success or whether it will fall into 4th world status.
David P.Goldman
4th december, 2018
For at least a month, there has been no doubt that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping would agree to agree at the Buenos Aires summit. The threats, remonstrations and hints of high officials were for the most part scripted. Buenos Aires was less negotiation than reality show.
When the dust settles, America and China will have a deal that allows Trump to claim victory and allows China to become the world’s dominant economy.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: China US reations, End of empire, retreat from empire, trump agenda, Trump-Xi deal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 4, 2018
“To my mind, Putin felt encouraged to sense that the time has come for the realization of what Russian pundits often call the “Primakov’s Triangle”. (The idea of a Russia-India-China format was first propounded in 1998 by the legendary Russian strategist and then foreign minister Evgeniy Primakov but both China and India had reservations about it.)”
M.K.Bhadrakumar
3rd December, 201§8
The G20 in Argentina last weekend turned out to be of great significance for India-China relations. On the sidelines of the event, PM Modi and President Xi Jinping had occasion to interact thrice – one bilateral meeting and a second meeting of BRICS leaders were scheduled in advance and then, lo and behold, Russian President Vladimir Putin sprang a huge surprise on his Indian and Chinese colleagues by initiating a summit meeting in the Russia-India-China (RIC) format.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: china-india-russia alliance, Primakov’s Triangle | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 3, 2018
2nd December, 2018
BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump held a “highly successful meeting” here Saturday, reaching important consensus and agreeing not to impose new additional tariffs.
The two heads of state had an in-depth exchange of views on China-U.S. relations and international issues of common concern in a friendly and candid atmosphere at a working dinner after the conclusion of the 13th summit of the Group of 20 in Argentina.
Sound China-U.S. relations, Xi said, are in line with the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the broad-based expectations of the international community.
He called on both China and the United States to handle the development of bilateral relations from an overall perspective and push for long-term, healthy and stable development of bilateral ties.
Trump said that he agrees with Xi on his evaluation of U.S.-China relations.
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: “major-country relationship” between China and the United States, detente with Russia and China, strategic partnership between US and China | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 21, 2018
M.K.Bhadrakumar
20th November, 2018
After prolonged hibernation, the Astana Process on Syrian peace is kinetic, with the troika of ‘guarantor’ states – Russia, Turkey and Iran – set to hold a round of talks in the Kazakh capital on November 28-29. Delegations of Syrian government and the opposition are also expected to attend. A renewed effort is commencing to create traction for the UN-sponsored negotiations in Geneva.
Posted in Global peace process, Syria | Tagged: Astana Process | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 20, 2018
18th November, 2018
Iran says it is discussing a plan with Iraq to switch to dinar in trade instead of the US dollar.
The announcement was made by Iran’s Ambassador Iraj Masjedi who said the plan had been devised in response to recent US sanctions that restricted Iran’s access to the greenback.
Posted in Currency Wars, Iran | Tagged: decline of dollar, iran sanctions, Multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 20, 2018
20th Novemebr, 2018
For decades, every sign Russia and Japan had made progress in talks on disputed territories and a post-World War II peace treaty turned out to be a false alarm. This time may be different: Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe need a deal more than their predecessors did.
Posted in Global peace process, Multipolar world | Tagged: Russia- Japan peace treaty | Leave a Comment »
