A worried Davie Cameron appeared at a podium outside Downing Street on Tuesday to make an appeal to voters to save his political skin. He didn’t quite utter the famous words from the Simpsons, “Will no one think of the children?” but he came close enough and the sentiment was much the same. Mind you British politics descended into a cartoonish farce a very long time ago. It’s the politics of D’Oh. We’ve even got an evil capitalist Mr Burns, actually, we’ve got lots of them. It’s the only thing there’s no shortage of in the politics of austerity. Funny that, and not in a ha ha way.
Davie claims he’s confident that the vote is going to go his way on Thursday, because making a last minute emotional plea to the electorate and begging them to think of their weans grandweans is exactly what a politician does when they’re convinced that they’re going to win. Brits don’t quit, quipped the Cameroid, his brow sweating with the realisation that they might just do exactly that. There’s nothing like a meaningless content free slogan when you don’t have anything approaching an argument. Do it for the wean, he added, by way of an extra plead. It’s just unfortunate that in this case the wean in question is Davie’s heir apparent George Osborne, whom Davie wants to take over the reins of government after he’s slinked off into a well deserved obscurity. So it wasn’t so much Do it for the Gipper as Do it for the Gimp.
It’s not really that Davie thinks that George Osborne would be a fantastic Prime Minister. No one thinks that George Osborne would be a fantastic Prime Minister, although rumour has it that he’s very good at towel folding and getting into a full body rubber suit. It’s just that it would stick too much in Cameron’s craw to see the job go to his arch-rival Boris. Then we’d have a UK out of the EU governed by a posh Donald Trump, same clownish politics, same bad hair, same massive sense of entitlement. That’s as opposed to a UK within the EU governed by George Osborne. Same clownish politics, same bad hair, same massive sense of entitlement. We don’t have a political system or a constitution in the UK, we have a public school playground where posh boys settle childish scores and don’t care about the consequences for the rest of us.
The remain campaign has been utterly risible and driven by fear and negativity. People who started off as keen supporters of staying a member of the EU have had all the positivity sucked out of them by a disgraceful campaign that’s taken all the worst aspects of Better Together’s project fear. The only person who’s still enthused about the prospect of a remain victory is astronaut Tim Peake, who has spent the last six months in space and hasn’t had to listen to the fever pitch of scaremongering. That’s only because in space, no one can hear you scream.
The speech was met by lots of angry Tory Leave supporters whose campaign has been a production line of lies and closet racism complaining about what seemed to be the use of the apparatus of government in order to punt one side in a highly divisive campaign just two days before the vote. Most of those doing the complaining were perfectly happy when the UK government used the entire apparatus of the British state in order to batter the Scottish Yes campaign about the head in the last frantic week of the indyref. That’s been the real story of this EU referendum for viewers in Scotland. It’s a tale of two standards, two faces, and rampant hypocrisy.
We’ve had the ludicrous spectacle of Brexiteer Unionists who were perfectly happy for Scotland to be ruled by politicians that we don’t elect and can’t get rid of complaining that it’s unjust for a country to be governed by politicians that it doesn’t elect and can’t get rid of. We’ve had Michael bloody Forsyth of all people, pontificating about how unfair it is that our laws are made by unelected and unaccountable politicians that we’re stuck with no matter how we vote. You don’t say, Mikey, you don’t say. We’ve had the nauseating sight of Iain Duncan Smith on the one side, and George Osborne on the other, posing as the champions of the poor. It’s like the 17th century Hungarian mass murderer Elizabeth Bathory who tried to fend off ageing by bathing in the blood of virgins claiming that she was only offering Transylvanian peasant girls an opportunity in the beauty industry.
Remember the heady days of the Scottish referendum when Unionist politicians complained that the political process was cheapened and devalued when it was left to the plebs? Well this EU referendum is what politics looks like when it’s left to the Unionist professionals. This is a Unionist roadshow on both sides, and it reflects Unionist tactics and concerns. It’s a campaign which treats ordinary people like fools, which plays to base instincts, which portrays your wallet as your worth. There are no great principles in British politics any more, except how much you can get when you sell your house. Give me the amateur passion, the enthusiasm and the joy of the Scottish referendum any day of the week over this shoddy excuse for a debate.
The one good thing about this entire miserable farce that’s passing as an exercise in democracy which has been top down and top led from the very beginning is that the Tory party is now as divided and bitter as Labour. Given that the polls are too close to call, neither side is going to win a resounding victory. That means that the losers are going to spend the rest of this parliament nursing their grievances and seeking revenge.
Anyone who is confident about the result on Thursday is as delusional as the leaders of the Remain and Leave campaigns who think that they’ve fought a principled and honest campaign. It could go either way, I’m not going to attempt to predict the outcome. All I will safely predict is that as long as Scotland remains a part of this dysfunctional state, we’ll continue to suffer from the cartoonish politics of d’oh. Our only hope is that Scotland votes to remain and the rest of the UK votes to leave, then we’ll have an excuse to make an exit of our own. And that’s the only reason why I’ll be voting to remain.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
On holiday in England, already voted remain, when for the first time, on a street in Bakewell, saw a remain campaigner attempting to give out a leaflet to passers-by. Not getting a good reception with several people putting the material in waste paper bins once they realised what it was about.
Last sentence is mine too.
I feel so dispassionate about the whole thing , its entertainment value has been the repetition of scaremongering giving me tick box thrills.
and mine
The vicious cat fight among the greedy, selfish Tories was utterly predictable.
The complete absence of (Not) Labour from either side of the debate has been utterly abysmal. As with so many other things we have absolutely no idea what the party of Her Majesty’s Offcial Opposition at Westminster thinks of this important political issue.
I really don’t care what happens on Thursday – I would prefer to stay in but if not then I will deal with it because I think either way the UK in its present form is finished and Scotland will be out of it sooner than later.
The divisions in the Tories over this will simply not dissolve regardless of the outcome and they will continue to tear themselves apart. But who is going to take their place at Westminster in the foreseeable future? No-one. So we are stuck with them I would guess for at least another 10 years if we don’t extricate ourselves in the meantime.
For me the most interesting outcome would be England voting Leave and the Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales voting to Remain in sufficient numbers to keep the whole UK in the EU.
I would love to see the Tories work there way out of that boorach. And I would love to see the vitriolic anti-Celtic headlines in the right wing tabloids. Let’s see what they think of democracy in those circumstances. “By their fruits we shall know them”
I think we may see those headlines regardless Steve. If Camo wins the only chance he’ll have to win over those backbenchers is to push EVEL even further and attempt to launch his British Bill of Rights.
Clear the decks for action.
Macart, Big thanks for the link to the talk by Prof. Michael Dougan (University of Liverpool). A clear and succinct account of what’s involved and the almost certain consequences of a Brexit. It should be required watching for all. What a world of difference from the bluster, lies and bile being served up by the politicians on both sides.
He does make a case, but I suspect that should an indyref come along tomorrow his idea of what constitutes a country and ours may differ somewhat. On the subject of EU law though and in this instance, his dissection of the campaigns is fairly damning and concise.
Steve, I do care what happens on Thursday. Like you, I prefer to stay in the E.U. and I agree that the U.K. in its present form is finished but I don’t think the Westminster Government, and in particular the Tories, will be in any hurry to see Scotland become independent, so I doubt if Scotland will be out of the U.K sooner rather than later. I am, however, decidedly worried that we may be out of Europe much sooner than later. Let’s hope not.
Reblogged this on Bampots Utd.
I’ll be voting to remain and hope upon hope we manage to secure independence in the near future.
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I’m voting remain in the hope it creates the correct conditions for #finalindy. Also, because there’s no way to vote to ensure both sides lose!
It’s a crying shame there is no 3rd option.
Your final comments bring joy to my heart. At last somebody who can appreciate the death knell of the Tory party and the UK.
I’m not dillusional. My call is 57.something% remain.
…Just reading tea leaves.
Ah think the result can be predicted. Some auld Etonian posh boy Tory is goan tae win. Which?, now that is harder tae see. Either way we get shafted by the rich elite
Not scientific in the least, but all my english based relatives are voting leave. The one thing that has surprised me that here in middle-england, there is a dearth of both remain, and leave posters. And apart from seeing one remain campainger yesterday, not one local person has even mentioned the referendum, even hearing my accent. Thank goodness.
Spoke to an acquaintance living in England just the other day and spookily it was like listening (word for word) to a Bojo press release Alex. Calmly as possible I pointed out one or two glaring inconsistencies in their argument which brought them, not to a screeching halt, but more of a pause. Needless to say their mind was made up regardless. I didn’t press the issue any further for the sake of a long held relationship, but its safe to say the meeja have done their job well across the border.
With hours to go, it’d be a brave soul who tried to call it.
This is the culmination of decades of bullshit regarding the EU. It became a favorite whipping post of the UK. A well to be pissed in without any thought of the consequences.
My call is that it will be almost neck and neck. A few percentiles difference. With no real way forward nor no real way back. Regardless of who wins, all it cost the UK Tories was their credibility and cohesion. Anyone who thinks the morning after will be business as usual is being monstrously naive. Anyone who thinks yes or no will clear the air is being foolish. Any one who thinks a No vote would be won by principled people and not race baiting gobshites is also being very foolish. So too, anyone who thinks a yes vote will make the UK government any less of a boor and a bully when it comes to Europe. The UK is broken. I don’t see why Scotland should be tagging along for the ride to nowhere.
My remain vote is an statement of intent. To get Scotland out of the union with the UK – which actually does control Scotland. To have a more adult and less moronic attitude towards Europe.
But finally My remain vote is me not wanting to be on the same side as that Racist fucknut Farage. I don’t want to vote for team evil. Regardless of how principled you think your no vote is…its that little race baiting mongrel who wins regardless.
“My remain vote is an statement of intent. To get Scotland out of the union with the UK – which actually does control Scotland.” The reality is that England is the UK and England controls Scotland.
Saw a group of studenty types at Waterloo yesterday trying to hand out leaflets for Remain; they were being ignored by roughly 90% of passers-by.
Shame they never offered one to me, I was looking forward to messing with their heads.
Echoing Mcart’s theme I can confirm it really is posioness down here. The level of racism on show is deeply disturbing and the vitriol encountered when challenging statements and arguments which are factually inaccurate and bear no congruence to reality is remeniscent of the unthinking ignorance and anti intellectual mood that has no time for evidence, expertise, experience or real knowledge, worn as a badge of pride, that is prevalent in societies about to succumb to demegogues.
There is a sizable portion of the population, even in Scotland no doubt, which, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, fervently believes that the loss of much of British manufacturing industry and the skilled jobs associated with it, from mining and shipbuilding through to steel manufacture and engineering is down to the EU and migrant labour rather than free movement of capital. It is as though Thatcher and the privatisation free market dogma never happened. Similarly the same groups are adamant that no evidence will ever be sufficient to to shake the conviction that following an exit vote free trade can and will exist without free movement of labour, the drawbridge will go up on day one, and every country in the world will be beating a path to Great England’s door to trade with and invest in us.
These groups, amplified by an irresponsible media are making all the noise. Which way will it go? That depends on what one thinks is going on. Much is made of the fact that the narrative and terms of this farce of a national debate is dominated on both sides by two wings of the Conservative and Unionist Party. This has given rise to what I conceed is a reasonable assumption that this represents a case of the Tory Party tearing itself apart which then anticipates that Party and it’s constituent parts becoming irrelavent leaving room for an alternative.
I’m not convinced, yet and prefer to keep options open at this stage. The Tories have been here on this very ground before and are still here. I’m not old enough to have been around at the time but the tensions and apparent public infighting going on within that Party and the establishment it represents in the years running up to the outbreak of WW2 will certainly have been far greater than at present. I have seen academic work on this which suggests that the apparent splits were deliberate and designed to confuse.
Should that be the case here, today, where one group is controlling both sides of the narrative, then the extreme nature of those wings associated with the out campaign may offer a possible clue to the outcome. Those making the most noise do not necessarily present an accurate guide to the outcome. If we assume Cameron, the Tory Party as Government and the British Establishment are serious and genuine in their wish to remain in (for all sorts of reasons from maintaining the Union through to wanting to ensure, through British influence as a member state, that Europe offers no alternative to neo liberalism and deals such as TTIP) then controlling the side of the narrative for out and pushing the buttons of latent and incipient racism makes sense if it is the considered view that this will produce an opposite reaction from other groups amongst the populace not given sufficient voice who will react out of fear of what that represents.
Such a reading would likely see a remain outcome as the not yet completely hollowed out middle opt for the opposite of the perceived chaos. A referendum as originally anticipated in 2017 may well have been a different affair.
Of course other readings of the runes are also possible and if the Tories really are tearing themselves apart rather then cannily controlling the debate and the narrative to achieve a specific set of outcomes things could get interesting as well as chaotic. If the observation, or could it be a wish, made by Farage about Europe falling apart and other countries lining up to go turns out to be a runner then a lot of other possible scenarios and potential outcomes open up.
This makes for an interesting read.
http://derekbateman.scot/2016/06/22/academics-not-entirely-useless-shock/#comment-101270
Absolutely agree.
And I’m hoping that Scotland just swings it for Remain, if only to watch the Daily Mail explode with rage!
What’s your perfect Friday, then?
Pretty much the same. 🙂
Honestly too close to call, so if its an in vote by a small margin, the right wing press will go into tartan meltdown.
Ma niece asked why ah was remain ah told her ah was too stupid and wee .Aye right!!!
The EU referendum has shown up the so-called united kingdom for what it is: a sick joke.
Growing up in a working class house in the sixties there were quite a few absolute non negotiable certainties in life. For example – if you are on a bus you stand up and give a wummin your seat. When you become a man you will stand your round and when elections come round you get out and vote. My old Granny was of late victorian vintage and old enough to remember the bad days. She battered into us how important and precious your vote is and to this day I have never missed voting, even at wee local elections. So I have to amit I did consider not going this time round.The only thing geting me ou is the chane it may bring forwards our own independance day……………
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