Notes from Oz (Australia)

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our Oz (Australia) correspondent, Stephanie McCarthy, provides some words after reading David Lott's latest column.  Steph, a biographer and great grand daughter of South Australia's first labour premier, makes note of cultural challenges in an every changing world.

My goodness, David’s ‘Full Circle’ is such an eye-opener for me, and I suspect any who reads it. But it does leave me despairing that America, despite a Hilary or a Donald led Government, will continue to force regime changes throughout the world whenever its interests are threatened, and thus bring hatred upon the USA and indirectly, upon all Westerners.

Steph's back lawn wonder of parrots at her bird feeder as spring returns to South Australia.

As for the mass migration into Europe and the seeded Jihadists, no wonder Trump and here in Oz, Pauline Hanson, get traction with their anti-immigration, anti-Muslim policies. I would say the majority of Australians, including myself, are fed up with the’ race’ card getting thrown at anyone who exercises their freedom of speech in warning against unfiltered, hasty immigration, either concerned at overpopulation or the issue of incompatible cultures living amongst us or both. 

We politically incorrect hard-hearted people don’t just get told we’re racist: we are told that our fears are unfounded and xenophobic. Well, letters to the editor of our major newspaper in my Australian state are proving that ordinary intelligent and educated people will not stand being muzzled any longer, and we are speaking out. Trump has a right to abhor ‘honour killings’, and Hanson has a right to express loathing of the Burka and all that it stands for.  

As for the ‘burkini’, there are ironies everywhere. To think that 100 years ago there were ‘beach inspectors’ patrolling and ordering Australian women to cover up on our beaches, and now many French citizens are demanding the Muslim women uncover and look more like Western women who lie partly naked on French beaches, while we in Oz are now covering ourselves more at the beach to protect ourselves from skin cancers! 

My personal opinion is that whatever allows Muslim women to join with westerners and swim is a good thing. At least this will allow all cultures to get to know each other as individuals in an activity that was, and still is in most cases, forbidden to Muslim women. 

 I’d love to know our readers’ opinion on this, and also what they think about the French Government having stuck to their guns re secularism and banned the burka in public places. 

Brexit and Trump

This past month I have been traveling in Europe, but still reading the media and reflecting on the American election and the British government’s dealing with an exit from the European Union.  My English friend, David Lott, a sincere British patriot, has devoted several decades to urging a break with the E.U. He shares with us his latest optimistic observations, two months on after the momentous British exit vote. As a leader in the United Kingdom Independent Party, his views are important for the historical record.

A contrary view to David’s appeared in the Washington Post yesterday.  In the interest of balance and reflection, I offer it for reading also.  My belief is that we are all better informed, dare I say wiser, if we listen closely to the arguments of others, ponder, not necessarily agreeing but seeking to find those common threads that improve the human condition. – Glenn N. Holliman

Some thoughts from the Last Month – 31 August 2016

by David Lott

In the United Kingdom

It is now 2 months since the spectacular success of the Leave campaign in the UK’s referendum and we can see the unravelling of the Remain campaign’s project fear strategy.

-        Some 27 countries have contacted the UK government to open free trade discussions.

-        The London stock market has had its best month since the 2008 economic crisis. 

-        Overseas investment in the UK as a whole has forged ahead with the exception of Scotland where investment has substantially dropped.

-        House prices are rising not falling.

-        There has been no emergency budget.

-        The August monthly budget deficit showed a £3 billion improvement compared to 2015.

-        Fears of a break up of the UK have faded to nothing.

On the other hand, confidence in sterling dropped and the pound with it in comparison to the US dollar and the Euro fell by some 15% to 20% but it is rising a little as I write. Considering the amount of debt in the UK it now more properly reflects its value.

Many argued that the victory was very tight and it would lead to the emergence of long delays Brexit bringing on, perhaps, a second referendum or some sort of Brexit lite. However, this view is abating as it appears the new Prime Minister realises not only the opportunities arising from the UK regaining its independence but also the nitty gritty of the figures that underlie the political importance of her sticking to a clear break with the EU.

Not least because when this small 4% margin in the result is examined on a Parliamentary constituency basis, it is clear that if the Leave campaign were a political party it would have won some 63% of all the parliamentary seats in the UK as a whole and with 421 seats in parliament would have had a truly massive majority using the system employed in normal general elections. In England and Wales it would have been a whopping 75% win!

Right now the odds upon Brexit not meaning Brexit are shortening day by day. The prospect of a free trade deal with the EU brighten as industrialists, one after another, in Europe realise the difficulties they would face economically if their governments and the EU decided to be spiteful and bloody minded.

All this is, of course, of enormous satisfaction to me after over 20 years of campaigning for this result.

In your country I have watched with great interest your extraordinary Presidential election. On the one hand an insider with massive media, financial and celebrity support. She had a substantial lead after the convention but now seeing it starting to erode as I write.

 On the other hand, we have Donald Trump who has made gaffe after gaffe but has still emerged from the Republican convention as their flag bearer. He had little media support, raised a tiny amount of money compared to his opponent but who has motivated huge numbers of previously non-voters to support him.

It is ironic the President Obama won his term upon the watchword change. But it in this election Trump is the biggest proponent of change in a presidential race for a long time. It is a bitter fight which many say is divisive. I do not see it that way but I think it is normal and healthy. Political agenda for Republicans and Democrats have merged and almost become one; just as left and right have done in the UK. Leaving the poor old voter with no choice at all!

In the UK we were told during the referendum that the respective campaigns would lead to appalling divisions in society and during the immediate aftermath it appeared that the losers were very sore indeed but as time goes on that poison is gradually dissipating and many Remainers are settling down to a future they had scorned but which actually may not turn out too bad at all. No one can say there had not been a democratic process.

In the USA

My friend Nigel Farage was invited out to the States to a dinner in the State of Mississippi, to discuss how we had gone about the vote to leave the EU only to find himself having a serious conversation with Donald Trump. He was asked to speak at the next day’s rally in a very minor warm up role only to find at the last minute that he was to be introduced to the audience by Trump himself.

He gave a barnstorming performance and was not at all kind to Hilary. Whilst he stopped short of endorsing Trump at the rally he did outline some extraordinary similarities between the Trump campaign and the of the Leave campaign in the UK. The crowd loved him.

From and outsider’s standpoint I believe Hilary Clinton to be in trouble for two reasons. The first is her past which although she tries, she simply cannot change and it will dog her throughout the remaining days to the election.

All Trump has to do is to avoid any more gaffes! Impossible you may say but not so impossible as changing the past. There are signs coming through that he is sticking much more to the script and instead of reacting Hilary Clinton says, he is going on the front foot and putting her on the defensive. Also he has Mr Steve Bannon taking over a very leading role in his campaign. Behind the scenes he was most helpful to us here in the UK with our referendum battle and the man is not to be underestimated. If Mr Trump follows his advice he will win. – David Lott, a founder of the United Kingdom Independent Party

 

A Contrary View from the Washington Post, 2 September 2016, by Sebastian Mallaby

Donald Trump’s ungainly back-and-forth on immigration has a parallel in Britain, which is struggling to make sense of its own impetuous resolution to take control of its borders. Indeed, if Britain after the Brexit referendum is anything to go by, a Trump presidency would be dominated by zigzagging: sometimes to dilute past promises, sometimes to double down. In the terrifying event that Trump actually became president, you’d hear supporters grumbling bitterly about treachery — even as critics wondered furiously why impractical campaign pronouncements were so seductive for so long.

More than two months after their vote to leave the European Union, the British are no closer to understanding what they have done. Theresa May, the sensible prime minister, assures the public firmly that “Brexit means Brexit,” much as parents tell their children that bedtime means bedtime. But May stoutly refuses to specify what she means by this. On Wednesday she summoned her cabinet for a special off-site meeting, and her spokeswoman declared afterward that Britain wanted the right to curb migration from Europe — but also a “positive outcome” on trade. What if these goals are incompatible? The prime minister does not say.

May’s problem is that the Brexit referendum, like the Trump phenomenon, was largely an expression of hostility to immigrants. A survey of more than 12,000 voters on the day of the referendum found that the most common reason to support Brexit was an urge to assert sovereignty; second came the desire to control national borders. Although May herself was a quiet Brexit opponent, she understands the public’s view on immigration. And that makes it almost impossible to envisage a “positive outcome” for trade.

In the European Union, the principle of free movement is nearly as sacrosanct as the Commerce Clause in the United States. This is not necessary or logical: For members of the euro zone, there is an argument that a common currency requires a single labor market; but for E.U. countries outside the euro, you could imagine a union with borders and passports. Yet Norway, which is not in the E.U. but is a member of the E.U. single market, is required to accept unlimited numbers of E.U. migrants as a condition of its trade access. Switzerland, another E.U. outsider that enjoys many of the advantages of single-market membership, wants to control its border but faces similar constraints.

Since the Norwegian and Swiss trade models are incompatible with the Brexit mandate on migration, British politicians have become instant experts on Canada’s free-trade deal with the E.U. But this has its own problems. Aside from the fact that its ratification is uncertain, Canada’s deal mostly excludes services, which account for a hefty four-fifths of British GDP. A copy-Canada deal would not help Britain’s chief exports: financial services, legal advice, architecture and so on.

Faced with no attractive way forward, May is shuffling sideways. She has cannily appointed three leading Brexiteers to cabinet positions dealing with Europe and invited them to propose a solution to their mess. 

The Brexiteers dislike each other and are generally clueless, so progress has been glacial — the more so because the British civil service has yet to recruit the trade experts and lawyers necessary to make Brexit happen. If the 3.5 million other Europeans in Britain all suddenly applied for permanent residence, it would take the existing immigration staff 140 years to deal with the onslaught.

Before the Brexit referendum, Britain’s Trump-like fantasists assured voters that it would be easy to negotiate a great trade deal with Europe. Now that reality is dawning, there is delicious speculation that Britain might postpone Brexit — perhaps indefinitely. Before formal negotiations begin, Britain must trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, and May has always said that this won’t happen before January.

But the combination of confusion in London and elections next year in France and Germany makes further can-kicking quite plausible. Much as Turkey has been negotiating E.U. accession for years without joining, Britain could proclaim that Brexit means Brexit but not actually leave.

Of course, the prime minister denies this. “There’s no second referendum; no attempts to sort of stay in the E.U. by the back door,” she reiterated Wednesday. But the embarrassing fact is that more than three-quarters of her cabinet opposed Brexit, and for excellent reasons. More than 40 percent of Britain’s exports go to the E.U. The country benefits from collaboration with its neighbors on everything from scientific research to counter-terrorism.

However, things turn out for Britain, the lesson for Americans is stark: Refuse to be seduced by campaign pledges that could not possibly be implemented without damaging the nation. Whatever the glib talk of post-truth politics, the truth still matters when it comes to governing. – Sebastian Mallaby, columnist

Comments always welcome - GNH

Some Thoughts on Libya

One of our regular columnists, David Lott, a retired Royal Air Force pilot, paints a bleak picture of the European and U.S. intervention in Libya during the recent 'Arab Spring'.   His interpretation of causes for the downfall of Ghaddaffi is unsettling, and one this reader has not seen before.  As always comments and additional observations welcome. - Glenn N. Holliman

Sirte: Full Circle 

by David Lott

This past week there was an air strike by the US upon the Libyan city of Sirte which completed a tragedy of errors. Errors that are so stupendously stupid that one questions whether they were stupid at all and were perhaps deliberately intended.

Back in the days when the West was courting Colonel Ghaddafi things were very different. So what happened to bring down his regime and his death? He was a cruel dictator and an absolute ruler but his country was secular, women wore colouful clothes and its health system was first class. He protected Europe’s soft underbelly from mass migration and he locked up people traffickers. He warned European leaders that he needed financial help to maintain this position and specifically asked Italy for $5 bn to defray his costs. He then made a fatal decision.

Ghaddaffi traveled Africa with a determined plan to sell his oil along with other producers not with dollars but in a new currency backed by gold. In other words he challenged the supremacy of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This was to be done on a regional basis within an African Union. He amassed a massive stock of gold to underpin the enterprise.

It so happened that this coincided with the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings all across the Middle East. This ‘spring’ collapsed, as perhaps some intended, to be replaced by political Islam.

Right, David's flowers at his Normandy home.

The US was outraged at Ghaddifi’s plan for a non US dollar based commerce in oil as repercussions, if others followed suit, would be huge in terms of US power and influence. The dollar itself would have come under massive fire as countries around the world unloaded trillions of dollars they no longer needed.

The scene was set for regime change in Libya using Ghaddafi’s suppression of revolution as the excuse. The Western press was flooded with reports of Ghaddafi’s cruel repression of the dissidents who had no chance of success so long as Ghaddafi’s Air Force commanded the skies.

The scene of action moved to the UN Security Council where Russia blocked an Iraq style invasion. So a No Fly Zone was proposed in order to give the dissidents a chance to defeat Ghaddafi’s forces themselves. At first Russia once again refused to support this plan as President Putin stated he feared that it would be used as a cover for Western backed regime change. The US Nobel Laureate President of the US stated this would not be the case as did Britain and France’s representatives. Russia allowed the No Fly Zone to go ahead on this basis and abstained.

From day one of the air campaign, largely conducted by UK and French aircraft against an enemy that threatened their countries in no way whatsoever, it was clear that regime change most definitely was the intention all along. 

Putin was fooled and he has never trusted the West subsequently.

Ghaddafi was defeated and murdered when he was captured and then shot. Ghaddafi came from Sirte, and for many of his soldiers and officers it was their home town. What did they find on their return? Death and destruction as a result of UK and French bombing.

Meanwhile Libya disintegrated into the familiar chaos mirroring that in Iraq. Civil society collapsed and the army’s weapons found their way to terrorist factions across Africa with repercussions being particularly venomous in Nigeria and the Sudan.

Back in Sirte there was ferocious anger and fury at the West. It became fertile territory for ISIS who orchestrated the invasion of Europe through mass migration. The people traffickers had been freed to operate by Western intervention. They continue to make fortunes from economic migrants whilst seeding these people, very largely young men, with Jihadis. They stated they would send 5000 and the EU Intelligence authorities have now agreed that there are 5000 sleeper Jihadis in Western Europe.

And yesterday the US completed the circle by bombing Sirte once again. Presumably to try to undo the damage they had begun in order to protect the dollar.

The losers have been the thousands of migrants drowned, the whole of the Libyan society, US diplomats murdered in Benghazi, the millions of people who through no real fault of their own, as they are mostly trying to better themselves then make the journey across the Mediteranean only to find that Europe cannot cope with the vast scale of immigration that is wholly impossible to integrate into Western culture. 

In addition there are the victims of Boko Haram, the murdered tourists on a Tunisian beach, the young women molested and raped across Europe and the sense of fear engendered by terrorism that now pervades many countries in the EU.

Quite a list is it not? Has anyone been held to account? No. Cameron, Sarkozy, have left the stage without honour, Obama remains in office and Hilary Clinton aspires to that office.

One last question - where is the Libyan gold? - David Lott

Comments?