Balthasar van der Ast, Basket of Fruits, 1625 Oil on wood, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Image: WGA
via Scorched Earth
Hope & Glory Martin Hübscher Photography ©19 October 2019
Tag Archives: EU
Tyranny
via The Misgovernment of Britain
“So Theresa May will not promise to accept the will of our democratically elected Parliament when we vote on Brexit options – but she will carry out the result of an advisory referendum, won through cheating and lies, regardless of the cost to the country.” David Lammy, 25 March, 2019
Lorenzetti THE EFFECTS OF BAD GOVERNMENT 1337 -39,
Sala della Pace (Hall of Peace) Siena. Image: WGA
“May is making a very straightforward argument that the will of the executive is more important that the will of parliament. I had always thought that Oliver Cromwell had settled that argument with Charles I in a fairly conclusive manner.” Craig Murray, 25 March, 2019
Lucas Vorsterman TRIUMPH OF POVERTY c. 1624 -30 Pen in brown, with gray and brown wash, black and red chalks, and white highlights, British Museum, London.
Image source: WGA
National identity
After years of division, defeat and self-doubt while being betrayed by the sport of politics, England has re-discovered national identity, born of freedom of movement and diversity, through the Beautiful Game that has broken English hearts for so long.
Whether they win or lose the final goal, the victories of the England football team and the sagacity of Southgate, the redeemed hero, have excited, if not entirely united, the country.
England would not have reached
the World Cup competition without
Freedom of Movement.
“6 of @England’s starting line-up 1st- or 2nd-generation immigrants. Without them, we’d be down to 5 men. And trace back family histories of every England player and you’ll find migration stories….”
Global Citizen
England would not have reached
the World Cup
without
Freedom of Movement
On the side of angels
Pieter Pietersz. Lastman, THE ANGEL STOPPING ABRAHAM FROM SACRIFICING ISAAC
c. 1612, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Image: WGA)
Oil painted in grisaille. Lastman (1533 – 1633) was Rembrandt’s teacher.
SAVE THEIR FUTURE
STOP BREXIT
Among the most eloquent and intelligent campaigners to stop Brexit ruining our country are some of the generation that will suffer most, the young. I’ve heard them speak. They are inspiring.
We should be helping them save their futures, not conniving in yet another historic betrayal of youth, condemned by the mistakes of their parents and grandparents.
Please share links to the campaigning group Our Future, Our Choice. Even Liking their Facebook page will help a little. Fund them if you can afford it.
Link to OUR FUTURE, OUR CHOICE on Facebook
Link to FEMI (HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE) ON TWITTER
INVESTIGATING HOW EU COMMISSION MAKES LAWS
Attributed to Caravaggio SACRIFICE OF ISAAC 1597-99
Oil on canvas, Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, Lawrenceville (Image: WGA)
Look how young Caravaggio’s angel is; he’s a boy, no older than the victim of parental ideology tethered on the sacrificial slab. The young are looking after each other, protecting themselves from older generations, making up for our mistakes, doing our work.
Help them, before it’s too late.
LATEST POLL CONFIRMS THAT MORE PEOPLE THAN EVER BEFORE BELIEVE
‘BREXIT’
WITHDRAWAL FROM EU
IS WRONG
“Live with Brexit or find yourself somewhere else to live”
THE REALITY OF TOTALITARIAN BRITAIN
From Brexit Exposed on Facebook
Brexit Exposed EDITORIAL: “Andrew Adonis’ letter to former minister and leading Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith who told him to leave the country and ‘find somewhere else to live’ if he disagreed with Brexit.
The implication for the countless millions who don’t share the view of the hardline Brexit zealots is clear.
You don’t deserve British citizenship or the right to reside here.
You don’t have a basic right of free speech either – the same free speech enjoyed by Leave supporters for over four decades whilst in the European Union to question the issue of membership, or not.
This is totalitarianism, pure and simple. It’s the ideology behind the practice to arrest, deport or kill citizens who have a different political view to those in power.
It is the thinking behind authoritarian states throughout history. It is also the ideology behind the right wing cult of Brexit.
The Ian Duncan Smith remark is revealing. We see it in his supporters across social media every day.”
Link to BREXIT EXPOSED HOME PAGE ON FACEBOOK
Please share
Hope, and fight
THE PEOPLE’S VOTE ON BREXIT AND THE BREXIT DEAL
Brexit is not a done deal. It is not delivering on what most voters wanted.
It is a fraud.
The people of Britain can stop it.
They are fatalistic, but not bewitched.
They have the power to stop the desultory decline of their nation and start afresh.
OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE PEOPLE’S VOTE,
IN CAMDEN, LONDON ON 15 APRIL on video
and as reported in THE GUARDIAN
This post reaches a small number of people, but some of you are Europeans, and I want you to know how much our shared European destiny, heritage and culture are still valued in Britain. Don’t be misled by Brexit, or by our third rate Government and our cowardly MPs, so many of whom are misrepresenting their electorates.
Our true national identity is best expressed through a European Union.
We are stronger united with Europe.
Don’t give up on a Prodigal Nation, please.
Allegorical painting of Elizabeth I with Time and Death, painted probably after 1620, when dissatisfaction with the absolutist regime of the Stuarts was intensifying.
The unresolved tensions resulted in civil war and the first trial and execution for treason of a reigning monarch, Charles I, in 1649.
Still indubitably England’s greatest female ruler, an adept politician
and European diplomatist, peacemaker and maker of her own image,
the Virgin Queen, married to her people, Gloriana herself,
the personification of Great Britain,
Elizabeth I (reigned 1558 – 1603), is portrayed posthumously
with a load of trouble on her mind,
and Time and Death lurking on either side of her.
[Image: Wikipedia]
Stop Brexit’s Sale of Britain
SIGN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER DEMANDING PROTECTION OF CURRENT STANDARDS AND REGULATIONS IN ANY FUTURE TRADE DEALS
THE KING ALFRED JEWEL,
a symbol of everything we value in our country:
State protection of social and economic rights, education and National Health service, enshrining British unity, freedom and fairness,
where our true sovereignty lies
New battle lines
Of course, Brexit was never going to be just about leaving the EU. Our internal political system is in turmoil. The fitness for purpose of our democracy is under question. Personal relationships have strained or broken.
Everything we took for granted about our country and our political beliefs is shaken. Britain – or more precisely, England – is in the throes of growing pains.
As soon as you hear someone say “Never since the Norman Conquest has England…..” you know they are defending a castle in the air.
And yet…..there has been no confusion in England as great as this since the Civil War, which was not a simple battle between flashy Europhile Royalists and plain russet-coated English Parliamentarians, but a mess of ideologies, prejudices, opportunism, superstition, nostalgia, pragmatism, courage, cowardice, principles, convictions, compromises and betrayals.
The 17th century English Revolution was a great experiment in republican government. There is nothing great or experimental about Brexit – the right-wing reality is a reactionary coup d’état in the interests of the few, not of the many sincere democrats who voted for it.
There is no coherence, no leadership and no civil disobedience yet. If they come, let’s hope they are not in battalions.
Andrew Carrick Gow Cromwell Dissolving the Long Parliament in 1653.
Oil on canvas, 1907. Auckland Art Gallery. Image: Wikipedia
Oil on canvas, 1907. Auckland Art Gallery. Image: Wikipedia
One of the most tortured bodies in this mess is the Labour Party, the country’s only hope for domestic welfare and the protection of public services, which lost votes in the Election because of the leadership’s fudged Referendum policy, and will be unelectable again if it doesn’t support the Single Market.
“Two things are now clear: Brexit involves a series of political choices, an our future relationship with the EU will be inferior to the one we currently enjoy. Sitting on the sidelines is therefore not an option.
For the Labour Party, the challenge is huge. The majority of Labour voters backed remaining in the EU, but a significant proportion did not. As a party we campaigned to Remain, and most of us do not believe the challenges facing the country are best solved by leaving – quite the opposite – but since the referendum we have failed to reach
a common and coherent position…
So, the choice is clear. We can sit back and wait for the consequences of a hard Brexit to become so severe that it topples this terrible Tory government.
Or we can stand up for those who will be worst affected and fight for membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union.
Or we can stand up for those who will be worst affected and fight for membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union.
Future generations will not forgive us for inaction or for perceived complicity in a Brexit that damages our country and our economy.” Catherine West MP
THE VITAL LINKS:
New report: Busting Lexit Myths
The Labour Campaign for a Single Market
and the leaked Government report on the adverse effects of Brexit on Britain
Thank all our gods, he’s here again to cheer up a dreary post: the irresistible Will, of the People:
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel by Manet
In the light of a cold winter’s day
“The Treasury’s analysis shows that the UK would be permanently poorer if it left the EU”
Analysis of the long-term economic impact of EU membership and the alternatives has been published by the Treasury.
Details
This document assesses continued UK membership of the EU against the three existing alternative models:
- membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), like Norway
- a negotiated bilateral agreement, such as that between the EU and Switzerland, Turkey or Canada
- World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership without any form of specific agreement with the EU, like Russia or Brazil
The Treasury’s analysis shows that the UK would be permanently poorer if it left the EU and adopted any of these models. Productivity and GDP per person would be lower in all these alternative scenarios, as the costs would substantially outweigh any potential benefit of leaving the EU. The analysis finds that the annual loss of GDP per household under the three alternatives after 15 years would be:
- £2,600 in the case of EEA membership
- £4,300 in the case of a negotiated bilateral agreement
- £5,200 in the case of WTO membership
The negative impact on GDP would also result in substantially weaker tax receipts, significantly outweighing any potential gain from reduced financial contributions to the EU. After 15 years, even with savings from reduced contributions to the EU, receipts would be £20 billion a year lower in the central estimate of the EEA, £36 billion a year lower for the negotiated bilateral agreement and £45 billion a year lower for the WTO alternative.
Extract from GOV.UK website
Vasily Vereshchagin The Road of the War Prisoners, 1878-1879.
Oil on canvas, Brooklyn Museum. Image source: Wikipedia
Scorched Earth
Brexit’s gift basket to you: barren agriculture and expensive imported fruit. Without freedom of movement, British fruit orchards and vines will rot. The Garden of England will be a wasteland. Outside the Single Market, the growing number of working poor will not be able to afford nutritious fresh food.
Balthasar van der Ast Basket of Fruits c. 1625 Oil on wood, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
Image source: WGA
Every day brings new evidence that Brexit will only favour the rich, eating and drinking what they like, paying low taxes at the expense of the poor, who will get poorer and unhealthier until they will be seen as sub-human, just as they were centuries ago. Brexit is retrograde and degrading.
Social justice, national health standards and equality of opportunity will be remembered dimly as an Arthurian dream. Our grandchildren will never taste an English apple or pear, and will think strawberries and raspberries were fantasy fruits.
Post-Brexit Unaffordable Luxuries: English raspberries and blueberries photo © MHP
Brexit risks sustainable and ethical food standards.
If you are British and care about Britain, take a bite out of the fruit of Knowledge and tell your MPs that you don’t want Brexit.
It is an obscenely stupid project, a stinking, rotting fruit that we are all being forced to eat from whether we voted for it or not, whether we’ve had second thoughts or not. It is shameful, humiliating, monstrous that we have brought our country to this nadir.
Abandoning the whole damned thing, licking our wounds, counting the wasted £billions, is better than acquiescing in the scorched earth policy of Brexit.
Samuel Palmer In a Shoreham Garden c 1830 watercolour. VAM. Image source: Wikipedia
THE GARDEN OF KENT BEFORE THE BREXIT FALL
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Shakespeare, King Richard II
