Bored with Brexit - it's EFTA Stupid...

Evening - hope our foray into European matters goes rather better than that of Man United last night.

The post-referendum period has been an immensely disappointing time from a philosophical perspective for a number of reasons. We've witnessed a sort of toxicity enter our discourse which, if we're absolutely honest, was on the horizon for some time but then that God awful campaign unleashed upon all of us. With many on both sides preferring to re-fight that battle amongst themselves rather than approaching the problem constructively, the entire country appears engulfed by a sort of 'caretaker manager' status as we've boiled everything down to 1) bickering about Soft Brexit/Hard Brexit/I can't believe it's not Brexit and 2) 'stuff' around identity politics. That's it.

Leaving aside the nonsense around non-binary and transgenderism, there are three reasons why I can understand the 'slow emotion replay' being fought to some extent. One is the shocking and blatantly dishonest campaigns waged by both sides, which has left a sense of 'unfinished business' with nothing truly resolved (especially when you factor in that it was 52-48 and hardly represents a 'mandate for change' at all). A good analogy would be with a very close (albeit terrible) fight in boxing which went to a split decision on the scorecards. The loser claims to have 'lost the battle but won the war' and immediately calls for a rematch. I think Remainers are ultimately wrong here, but get their point.

Then there's the attempts by numerous and various to tell 17 million people "what they voted for" as if they all voted the same way for some sole and identical reason. This has been used to drive a silly and presumptuous 'debate' about the trajectory and nature of Brexit, when in reality some will have 'Brexited' in the hope of retaining at least some economic ties with Europe. Others were no doubt willing to 'take a hit' in the name of culture, heritage and/or restricting immigration while there will of course be some who probably couldn't articulate exactly why they voted the way they did but were perhaps motivated by a desire for some form (in fact any form) of 'change' at any cost.

Probably most importantly there seemed to be a pledge on the part of the 'alternative government' that was the Leave campaign that we would all have more money in out pockets right away as a result of leaving the EU, that a deal could be struck which combined every imaginable positive of membership with precisely zero adverse effects. This struck me at the time as being a cynical and disingenuous piece of gerrymandering based on what those offering it knew to be a false premise. As a result, all roads from there were bound to lead to disappointment and disillusionment when this thing could easily have been won (albeit by a different campaign) on a more realistic understanding.

It may be that we struggle economically post-2019, but I don't necessarily see this as an argument why it's such a terrible idea. By the same logic, young people should never move out of their parents' house since for the few years immediately proceeding that decision they might have less disposable income. Similarly, the nations of Eastern Europe should have stuck with Communism in the 1990s because the period of re-adjustment proved to be one of stress, hardship and difficulty for some. In reality our biggest mistake was joining what was the EEC in the first place and no process of unraveling from it was ever going to be rapid, straightforward or painless.

It's worth remembering that greater independence, the ability to shape your own destiny to a more significant extent, is a good thing in and of itself.

With this in mind, the option of joining EFTA is one that has always struck me as the 'least worst' option and an off-the-shelf type of choice which could conceivably have been agreed (at least in principle) by now. Sure, EFTA equals compliance with most of the EU's rules, it means some sort of membership fee going forward and is not a 'perfect' solution by any stretch. However, while enabling continuity and confidence it provides us with some (albeit limited) tools for restricting immigration and disassociates us entirely from the 'ever closer union' that is now known to be the EU's ultimate goal. Set against Utopia it fails, but next to every other realistic option, it's pretty good.

The Uk would be a massive addition to the association and provide it with a significantly increased profile on the world stage. From there, we could start to appeal to those movements within other EU nations which seek a similar process to the one we're engaged in - offering to open our doors to any country wishing to substitute EFTA membership for that of the EU while promoting it internationally as a looser and more flexible alternative. In the event that seven, eight, nine takers were forming a queue to join what would essentially now be a rival body, EFTA would be in a position to basically re-negotiate an even better arrangement for itself, starting a virtuous circle (at least for us).

Playing 'the long game' here just might lead to what many Brexiters really want, which is not simply British withdrawal but the collapse of the European Union itself. This, I suspect, is why the Conservative Party, a distinctly pro-EU organ which gave us the Single European Act, Maastricht and the non-vote on Lisbon, will not even countenance going down the EFTA road. Meanwhile, the boneheads and village idiots on the UKIP wing of the argument are too trapped in their state of Little Englander myopia to see this bigger picture. Having enjoyed the chase much more than the catch, their lack of imagination has created the terrain for a strong 'take us back in' movement to emerge.

This is why I've ultimately stopped talking about the subject, as not only am I far from sure we will actually end up leaving, but even if we do Brexiters were too busy winning the vote and then celebrating to even attempt to win the argument, let alone establish realistic and achievable aims once it had been won. A motivated, driven and well-resourced campaign to stop this from happening will simply morph into one to take us back in given 2-3 years to re-tune and wait for the inevitable post-Brexit difficulty - nor am I in any doubt that they will get their day, their referendum to re-enter with Schengen, the Euro and everything else. How that will work out is anyone's guess.

Smug Brexiters have really taken their eye off the ball here.

Anyway, apologies for the gloom but there is a reason why this 'Brexiter' of two decades has gone rather quiet. I'll say it again, pursuing a referendum rather than destroying the pyrite sceptics of the Conservative Party was the wrong, wrong way to go.

On a brighter note, I wrote the words 'slow emotion replay' earlier for a reason. Will leave you with some music and catch you next time - thanks for reading.

The Life and Times of Tories

Afternoon - good to see you all again.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that we have (at least nominally) a Conservative administration and not some 'government of national unity' as you might get at times of war or constitutional crisis. To paraphrase Tony Blair when New Labour were in opposition, Tories might be in office but could not be described as being 'in power' in the true sense. In many ways, Trezza and her dismal ensemble remind me of a caretaker manager in football, installed after the previous incumbent was sacked mid-season but knowing that their odds of getting the job permanently are precisely zero. Mayday's government has that very same 'temporary' feel to it and this is a symptom of its wider problems.

British Conservatives have two major difficulties - the first (and most important) is that in large swathes of the country they are something of a 'poison brand', an institution that millions would refuse to support and vote for even if they agreed with the entirety of the Tories' manifesto. Were they a private company they would have been closed down and re-launched under a different name circa 15 years ago for this reason, but such options do not exist in the political sphere. Their second substantive problem is that, regardless of whether they happen to be the government or opposition, this type of Conservative is culturally irrelevant and has been for some time.

Something we've tried to illustrate on these pages is where the real battle lines are within the current discourse - and it's clear that Tories of the Thatcher and Major mould fall completely outside the parameters of the ongoing conversation. For most of its existence, the Conservative Party was not a party of classical liberalism and a small state, in fact it usually took the 'managerial' form of being 'slightly to the right of the opposition', which is why I'm infuriated when people construe Cameron and now May as being 'right wing savages', based solely on the colour of the rosette. Useless, rudderless and ineffectual? Absolutely. Brutal, savage and inhumane? Get a grip.

Almost nobody wants a low-tax small state but then in the climate of 'ADHD politics' underpinned by a perpetual sense of disenchantment and popular desire for some form of state-driven radicalism, there is no great enthusiasm for a dull set of 'managers' either. This leaves the Tories boxed in and looking increasingly like a curiously sad bunch too busy starring in their own film to realise that everyone else has stopped watching. Getting the Brexit process to the end of its initial phase and basically 'not being Jeremy Corbyn' has given them a temporary reason to exist, but this is little more than life support and the passing of time simply illuminates their irrelevance.

Whatever you might think about Margaret Thatcher, it is beyond dispute that she and her key influencers shaped and moulded the discourse of the 1980s and into the following decade. Unfortunately, that same government was not merely divisive, but actively set out to be so by rewarding and punishing 'groups' within society based on their voting habits. Its shocking record of conflict with minorities and 'people of difference' on all levels, wrongly attributed to some sort of inherent bigotry, was actually politically motivated. For example, if gay people had overwhelmingly voted Conservative then there is no way on earth that Section 28 would have happened.

Everyone was 'one of us' or 'the enemy within' and in that sense Thatcher and her chums were 'Toddler Right' some 35 years before you first heard the term on these pages. In a liberal democracy which respects pluralism, there has to be some attempt made to govern in the interests of those who did not vote for you as well as those who did, whether that means toning down the rhetoric, embracing gradualism and/or making compromises. That the Tories of the 1980s in particular constantly antagonised, picked fights with and sought to punish their 'enemies' through the law and economic policy is the single biggest reason for their 'poison brand' status in much of the Uk.

While her shadow continues to hang over them, the destruction of the Conservative Party might well be Thatcher's ultimate legacy.

However, there is something else worth pondering:- where would we be had we taken the opportunity we had in the 2000s to finish the Tories off for good? This slide towards irrelevance did not occur in the span of fifteen minutes, but probably first became apparent during the dismal Hague/IDS years - in fact the only thing keeping them alive during that period was the distant prospect of returning to office, which they eventually did in 2010. Another couple of heavy election defeats and that would have been the end of their activists and significant donors. Replacing them with something fit for purpose and non-toxic would have been worth enduring 10-15 years of 'the other lot', surely?

My concern is that their inevitable death (a question of when and not if, seeing as its membership is literally dying) will see them replaced not with a broad church of small-state paleos and classical liberals, but a truly ghastly 'blood and soil' Toddler Right outfit. Think UKIP circa the 2015 election, but then given a two week course of steroids, a 'charismatic' new leader who makes Farage look like the Easter Bunny and the status of 'default right' party with all of the automatic media coverage this would entitle them to. Britain needs intelligent, imaginative and yet sensible conservatives to stop this very real prospect from happening in 10-15 years. The question is...where are they?

This is worth repeating over and over until it finally 'clicks' with enough of our readers - the madness of 'the other side' is not your issue as there was never any activism, money or votes for you to withdraw from that madness in the first place. In the two-horse race that invariably develops under a first past the post electoral system and adversarial parliament, the key question is whether the side you deem 'least worst' is fit for purpose (or close enough) and actually worth voting for. In the case of the Tories the answer has to be no, and the constant threat of 'the other lot getting in' simply serves as an ad infinitum roadblock to the sort of renewal that we all know is necessary.

We just have to be mindful that the possibility of them being replaced with something far worse also exists. 'Change for the sake of change' is an unnecessary throw of the dice.

Anyway, I might be back later today (or tomorrow) with a quick piece about the suffragettes. Short and sweet but pertinent given the media coverage of the last week or so.

Anyway, I'll leave you somewhat amusingly with the Riot Squad - catch you next time.

Why I Spoiled my Ballot in the EU Referendum

Afternoon - hope you're all doing well and thanks in particular to all of our new readers (of whom there are many, the statistics demonstrate this).

I first became convinced that Britain would be better off out of the European Union in the late 1990s (I was still a teenager at the time if you're being nosy). At the time it was strange because the EU was being presented by the mainstream media as this shiny, modern exciting and progressive organisation while those who opposed further integration into it were depicted as xenophobic Little Englanders who were still suffering from some post-imperial form of PTSD. For the benefit of our younger readers, the debate back then was about whether or not we should adopt the Euro as our currency. Wanting what has become known as Brexit was regarded as full-on extremism.

This blatant bias in favour not just of continued EU membership but further integration, the enlargement of the EU and British entry into what's now the Eurozone probably stiffened my resolve. Like many young people, I deeply resented being told what to think and whenever I came into contact with EU-enthusiasts I found that they insultingly conflated scepticism about the EU as a political organisation with a general hatred of foreigners. The term 'Eurosceptic' (which came into currency around that time) was a sneaky and pernicious extension of that conflation. Knock it off. I'm EU-sceptic, let's have a discussion about that and don't accuse me of xenophobia again.

Of course a few of those who were sceptical about the EU did have 'issues' in this regard but I'll return to that later on.

In reality they never wanted that discussion, not really. The thing that I always noticed was how dated the EU looked and came over, even back then. It may have been perceived as futuristic and exciting by some in the 1970s but by the turn of the millenium it was obvious to me that it was the EU's little fanclub within the media and the political parties who were guilty of time travel (in the case of political parties both had financial reasons to support continued membership, as well as their MEPs' job security being reliant on it). It was a relic cemented in the mindset and mentality of the 1970s, as if the political and economic changes of the 1980s had never happened.

It also occurred to me that although the Conservative Party sometimes presented itself as an organ that was sceptical about the EU, its stated position was disingenuous both in absolute terms and the long-term plausibility of that position. The Tories had taken us into the EEC, that great 'sceptic' Margaret Thatcher happily signed the Single European Act. The Major years saw Maastricht and a cabinet that included the likes of Heseltine and Clarke, who would gladly have taken us deeper into the EU and adopted the Euro in a single morning had the opportunity presented itself. The Tories were and remain pyrite sceptics taking good people for a ride.

Hypothetically, there were other political options out there but most of them (BNP, National Front etc) were pretty revolting and not even worth having a conversation about. The one exception was UKIP, who I did once have a look at joining - note that this was before Farage really went to town on them, kicked anyone with a brain out and turned the personal cult that remained into the political wing of Breitbart magazine. The Alan Sked/Michael Holmes incarnation of UKIP was rather different (and altogether more moderate) than the 'Frankenstein's Monster' that Sked later completely distanced himself from. Perhaps it's for the best I didn't bother.

Over the years the climate and landscape shifted somewhat. Talk of joining the Euro subsided when it turned out to the the 'New Coke' of currency launches and membership plunged several countries into economic crises they then lacked the levers to get out of. The pendulum swung in the opposite direction, particularly after UKIP (initially inspired by Robert Kilroy-Silk and not Farage, how often is that forgotten?) started getting decent results, albeit almost exclusively in European elections. All of a sudden the question of 'in or out' was on the table as almost nobody argued openly for further integration or Eurozone membership.

So you would presume that I was delighted when the offer of a referendum was made ahead of the 2015 election, equally so when we got the promised plebiscite and euphoric when 'we' won? Well, somewhat appropriately given what we're talking about, the answers are no, no and no again. First up, the referendum 'pledge' was made by an arrogant Prime Minister who calculated that he would need the support of the Liberal Democrats (who would helpfully 'block' him) to stay in office. The reason for it was actually Dave's hysterical over-reaction to the maverick Douglas Carswell and a complete tosser called Mark Reckless defecting to UKIP.

Dave cacked his pants and decided this was the way to stop further defections, completely blowing the departure of Carswell (self-styled 'mavericks' tend to pull strokes like this) and Reckless (good riddance, surely?) out of proportion. Though Farage called his bluff by claiming he was in constant discussion with whatever number of Tory MPs he felt like making up that day, the prospect of 15-20 of them jumping ship somewhere near simultaneously was never seriously going to happen. Nor do I necessarily think Nige ever wanted it to - any MP with a bit of clout might be inclined towards leadership ambitions of their own.

Then there's the referendum itself.

I'm going to open up with something that nobody ever seems to talk about. One Sunday morning I was watching the Andrew Marr show when he told us that the Electoral Commission would be "deciding that week who the official Leave and Remain campaigns would be, and that they would get broadcast time along with State funding". Now read that bit in italics back to yourselves again and, here are the questions nobody asks:- who decided that there would be a single 'official' Leave campaign and a similar one on the Remain side? Who decided to give them taxpayers' money and why? And why was everyone else deliberately excluded from the conversation?

And...why was basically nobody asking these questions at the time?

Look, even if you can demonstrate to me that my 'side' actually benefited from all of this then I don't care. I don't cheat to win at Scrabble or Monopoly and I don't cheat to win at politics either. In what is supposed to be a free country you and me might disagree on a particular issue. We should be free to campaign on opposing sides, get like-minded people to help us and argue our cases with energy and drive while keeping it clean and respecting each other. The media should then be free to report on this if they want, rather than being told which campaigners they can and can't report on, and 'corporate welfare' given to those campaigns to eliminate 'the competition'.

This 'management' of the process was a State attack on pluralism which transcends the result and I wish more people were pissed off about. Straight away I was apathetic and didn't really care, nor could I give two shits about which 'side' Boris Johnson was on. After months of 'suspense' which was killing precisely nobody, the Oscar envelope is opened and Boris 'comes out' as a Leaver. He had apparently 'agonised' over this and written alternative pieces for the Telegraph which argued for either side (er...what?). Then this fly-by-night convert by a margin of 51-49 in his own mind gets to be the de facto 'leader' of the Leave campaign. How the hell does that work?

During the campaign I got sick of hearing about celebrities who had come out for either side, along with the prominent people who had 'swapped sides' at some point in the process. You're going to have to explain that one to me as well - as a sceptic towards the EU, I always had two realistic choices on this thing, namely voting Leave and abstension. If you're inclined towards leaving but dislike their campaign then stop working for them, spoil your ballot paper or stay at home and that's the end of it. Just because you disagree with how 'your side' was campaigning (and we'll go there) isn't a reason to fundamentally change your mind about the subject being discussed, surely?

It all felt fake or contrived in some way I couldn't put my finger on.

Another low point was the bizarre debate a couple of nights before the vote where the likes of Ruth Davidson, Boris and Gisela "I'm a mother and grandfather" Stuart battled it out. The crowd whooped and cheered while the 'contestants' waved to that crowd like they were on Wheel of Fortune rather than discussing a very serious constitutional issue (why have we got a compulsion to turn these things into entertainment?). The biggest highlight was Stuart accidentally 'confessing' to being a hermaphrodite on national television, the next biggest was 'quitting' this infantile crap to switch to the Spain vs Croatia match on the other side. It was just surreal.

If 'Project Fear' surprised you then I've no sympathy whatsoever. The Remain crowd were always going to resort to this stuff - especially as they had the bum end of the argument, although they did manage to excel themselves on a few occasions. I laughed when Gideon threatened us all with an austerity budget (he seemed to suggest this as a punishment rather than out of necessity) if we dared to vote Leave and it was a genuine 'face hurts' moment when it was suggested that if Britain left the EU, the rest of Europe would all start fighting each other and World War 3 would break out - tonight we're gonna party like it's 1939, or something like that.

A few intelligent people have got this when I've explained it to them - stop obsessing with the other side, you can't hurt them as you were never going to vote, campaign for or support them in any way - ergo, there is nothing for you to withdraw. Focus on whether or not your own side is fit for purpose. In this regard, Leave was a disaster which genuinely deserved to lose and in reality very nearly did lose something they should always have walked. In the end, Leave got over the line for all the wrong reasons and had already lost millions of ordinary people well before the final bell. They were just fortunate that 'the other side' contrived to be even worse.

Overnight we went from "people call you racist if you talk about immigration" to a campaign that saturation bombed people with constant anti-immigration white noise, blatantly appealed to the pub racist/soccer hooligan crowd and would spend several days at a time going on about precisely nothing else. Then there were the election-style giveaways like the pledge of additional cash for the NHS, which was both irresponsible and rank dishonest. This wasn't an election and whatever savings might have been made by leaving, it was not the Leave campaign's money to throw around like confetti. Whether people believed the £350 million number or not is beside the point. It stank.

The last straw was when it came out that Leave had accepted a significant amount of money (somewhere around £900,000) from a prominent former BNP benefactor. Having spent the previous two months essentially 'being the BNP' this does make a sort of logical sense on the surface but I wasn't prepared to hold my nose anymore. Knowing that they would have to count it and could never lazily label me 'apathetic' for having done so I resolved to write 'NONE OF THE ABOVE' at the bottom of my ballot paper come the day of reckoning. If you want to essentially abstain but avoid the 'apathy' label then this is just about the only way of doing so.

I never wanted a referendum in the first place as it was obvious this would inevitably leave the process of leaving in the hands of people bitterly opposed to what they'd been compelled to do. Although it was more like hard work, surely a smarter option would have been to allow the Conservative Party to die of neglect and replace it with something fit for purpose? That's one for another time, but we had our chance and blew it. What I didn't anticipate was the squalid and foul climate that would emerge from the whole thing, with respectful disagreement, reason, recognition of an objective truth and common decency collapsing on both sides of the proverbial road.

We really shouldn't have bothered.

Look, I've regarded the EU as a crappy, declining outfit for years and wanted us out but it's not an 'evil' organisation led by devils and there were benefits to being a member, it's just that on balance they were clearly outweighed by the disadvantages in my view. If you look at the same evidence and reach a different balance that's entirely your call and maybe Boris Johnson genuinely did 'agonise' over this, but then someone closer to 51-49 than, say, 80-20 had no business being involved in the campaign did they? For a while I thought 'the sting' was going to be Boris 'changing sides' fairly close to the vote and taking a truckload of this strange 'cult of personality' he has with him.

Referenda by definition don't allow for balance, but present two competing, false and rather silly threads of good vs evil in which 'your side' is right about everything and 'their lot' have to be wrong on all questions at all times. Imagine trying to live your life like that - in fact, a lot of people seem to be living at least one aspect of their lives entirely like that if you open your eyes and ears. It's one of the most poisonous aspects of Brexit, the emergence of little one-man or one-woman Leave and Remain campaigns everywhere - flinging mud, telling lies, playing the victim, 'crybullying', depicting those who disagree with them as devils, psychopaths, traitors or baby-eaters.

It's absolutely pathetic and I sincerely hope we never have another referendum in the Uk.

I'll be back on New Year's Eve and returning to one a week from January, it's just the additional free time over the festive period has given me opportunity to get a bit done.

Thanks again for reading and spread the word if you feel the inclination. Take care.

Why Safe Space is Bad for Your Health

Afternoon all.

It's true enough that none of us like being challenged, criticised or disagreed with. We all prefer the warm glow of being told that we're right, that we have hit upon some searing point that is very rarely exposed or illuminated, that we're a rare voice of sanity in an increasingly mad world. Being challenged and cross-examined about your thoughts or ideas can be bloody hard work, a trip outside your own comfort zone into the 'real world' of someone else. Rather than recalling things sequentially from the card index in the brain, we're forced to slalom at someone else's instruction, perhaps answer questions we'd never considered, from a perspective that isn't really ours.

This is why I'm inherently suspicious of 'ideologically pure' people - having spent a bit of time on the Libertarian wing of politics a few years ago, I found it to be something of a 'filter bubble' and 'warm glow society' (dare I say, its own type of 'safe space') for like-minded ideologues who preferred stroking each others' egos on the internet to anything more substantial. Whereas totally 'pragmatic' people who believe in precisely nothing are dangerous because they are prepared to believe in anything for the sake of personal gain, the purely ideological present their own malevolent threat, refusing to be tempered by context, the need for gradualism or even decency.

The trouble with these 'filter bubbles' is that they can very easily descend into a game of who can 'outpure' each other on the ideological front, leading to real silliness. A massive flashlight regarding the 'batshit insane' wing of Libertarianism came one morning when a fella started arguing quite loudly on the old LPUKE website for the legalisation of child pornography, on the basis that, well, watching it wasn't the same thing as doing it and didn't amount to a violation of the non-aggression principle - ergo, it should be filed under the "I'd rather you didn't but I'm not going to have you arrested for it" category.

Whatever the arguments for and against (and no, I don't think we should legalise child porn before you ask, although a few people seemed to be in agreement with him) there's a more important point here when I look back at that morning a few years ago. This is where the occupation of such bubbles ends, in an obsession with marginal issues and a total detachment from what it palatable to people of a different socio-political denomination or none. I got sick of telling my fellow Libs that banging on about how great it would be if we could legalise crack and heroin next week was not a bright idea. In a room full of people who support at least some drug legalisation that's an interesting conversation, but be assured, just about everyone else is off down the fire escape.

A couple of Christmases back I remember getting in a discussion with a friend of a friend on social media, who was genuinely arguing that a person involved in and benefiting from theft from their place of work is not doing anything 'all that bad' and should be treated with some degree of leniency. Now that falls down rather rapidly on three levels, 1) if the theft is on any sort of scale then that could lead to other people losing their jobs in cutbacks, or not getting pay rises etc. 2) the person benefiting from the theft did it for personal gain rather than as some form of protest against 'the man' and was highly unlikely to have been in abject poverty or anything like that, 3) once you defend this then surely you're consenting to him or her nicking your stuff if he or she feels like it?

Thought not.

Now this fella was a 'younger person' in his 20s and I looked forward to hearing his response, seeing as I'd raised these points in a respectful way. His actual response was to shut down anyone disagreeing with him, myself included, and essentially non-platform them. It also became very clear that he'd 'discussed' this subject with a raft of like minded people and received the personal validation of a "well said" from at least most of them. As for the matter in hand, it's a straightforward Marxist way of thinking - poor, oppressed worker gets his own back on evil, exploitative bourgeois boss (who should have been paying him more in the first place) by helping himself to a few quid out of the till. All to feed his starving and malnourished kids and absolutely not for his own gain, promise.

Of course it's completely off the wall, but yes, I understand the 'logic' of this completely.

This proletariat vs bourgeoisie concept is a good example of what is probably the most tragic consequence of a lifetime spent around people agreeing with each other, namely the dehumanisation and demonisation of those who are not considered to be on message. One of the most destructive and dangerous elements of any one-party state, one of the biggest single reasons they end up in poverty, human rights abuses and mass murder, is this depiction of all who are not in complete agreement with the regime not simply as people who are opposed or agnostic, but as traitors, the fifth column, racists, fascists, communists, whatever the appropriate label happens to be at the time.

Once you have stripped your 'enemies' of their humanity, then anyone who wishes to inflict sub-human types of treatment on them is free to do so. See Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or basically any other hellhole for furher details on how propaganda can be used to get 'the people' to sort your enemies out for you.

With that in mind, the notion of 'safe space' within educational establishments in particular is one which I'm deeply alarmed about and genuinely believe not just to be wrong-headed but potentially dangerous, particularly as it brings with it a hefty wedge of the 'one party state' thinking I've just outlined. While it used to be 'edgy' views on social topics that led to some sort of non-platforming, it seems that the regressive left (who control most student unions these days) have moved into 'economics' as well. Arguing for lower public spending would see someone like Milton Friedman likened to Hitler or Slobodan Milosevic, and almost certainly non-platformed from most universities.

I'll repeat it because we know it's absolutely true - the quite brilliant (and not remotely dangerous) Milton Friedman would be widely non-plaftormed these days. Please, please reflect on that and if you're inclined towards believing that 'safe space' does more good than harm, think again. I can see a situation in about ten years time where Conservative, classical Liberal and Civic Nationalist groups are banned altogether from further and higher education campuses. As for the dubious contender on the charge, the 'alt right', it's clear as a bell that they would simply have different proscribed groups and different sacred cows if they got their hands on the machinery of the state.

Anyone who suggests that their ativists should become teachers so they can indoctrinate kids (as was suggested at the UKIP conference a year ago) is absolutely terrifying and clearly no lover of freedom of expression either. Now we also have groups like the President's favourite, 'Britain First' and the shiny new 'for Britain', led by the 21st century Joan of Arc, banging on about the day that the boot is on the other foot and how they're going to use internment on their enemies. Sorry, I meant 'terrorists', but then who would get to decide who all the 'terrorists' were? The stupidity of the small number of sane, reasonable people who join such organisations never ceases to amaze me.

They claim to be persecuted and in a narrow way yes, they probably are, but then do they stand for an altogether different way of doing things? Or would they impose their own version of political correctness, a 'safe space' for themselves and people who think like them, while that space became deeply unsafe for everybody else? Let's just say I wouldn't trust them to prove me wrong. My good mate Stuart Heal commented to me last week "y'know Daz, I never thought we'd get to the point where people like us were considered the sensible, moderate centre ground". I laughed, but of course Stuart is correct as he normally is. Sanity, logic and reason are lonely vocations these days.

In short, time spent talking and listening to people who disagree with you is not simply good for your spiritual and emotional health, it's highly necessary if you want to avoid the risk of turning into a warped, nasty and narcissistic little bastard. When I first set about writing this I was going to focus on something along the lines of "your opinion does not have an automatic claim on a certain amount of respect in the way that your personal dignity does - an attack on what you think does not and should never constitute an 'assault' in the true sense that needs to be stopped from happening". My good mate Chris Coey quite skillfully blew me out of the water on that front the other night, said that more conciesely than I ever could.

So,,,here's something you rarely hear. Safe spaces, people spending time only amongst people who agree with them, leads to worse tribalism, the dehumanisation of those who see things differently and, ultimately, is largely responsible for the squalid and nasty public discourse we currently have to endure. Someone who disagrees with me is, well, they're someone who disagrees with me - they're not 'scum', a 'traitor' or part of some 'fifth column' which wishes me personal harm. If he or she is giving a speech about a contentious topic on a night I'm free then I might go along and ask some awkward questions afterwards, it's only words after all.

Horrors, I might even change my mind about something - stranger things have happened before.

The alternative is to sit in a cave (cyber or real) with my like-minded pals, lamenting this individual and banging on about what a 'bastard' or 'bitch' they are, stripping them of their humanity, hoping they're involved in a motorway pile-up (copyright Morrissey vs Johnny Rogan) and giving a veneer of legitimacy to someone who might engage in some form of politically motivated violence. Meanwhile, we disappear up our ideological sphincters and try to be more Conservative/Socialist/Libertarian than each other, end up chatitng complete shite amongst ourselves. I'm not surprised that political parties are as useless and inept as they are, they are essentially 'safe spaces' on a national scale.

It's clear as a bell what 'the right approach' is and, as I seem to be saying rather frequently these days, we need to recognise that it's not about 'us' and get over ourselves somewhat. The Brexit 'debate' legitimised the branding of all in favour of leaving the EU as racists or xenophobes, while the mud being flung from the other side of the road was and continues to be about 'traitors', which includes anyone who voted Remain, judges doing their job and upholding the law, or members of parliament remembering the 48 per cent who voted Remain and asking questions of the government rather than engaging in jingoistic tubthumping.

Both 'sides' have dehumanised the other and both seem to have convinced themselves that they are being persecuted, that the other side is getting favourable treatment. Everyone involved needs to drop this petualant crybully modus operandi, get over themselves just a little and grow up before we sleepwalk into an altogether nastier form of tyranny. The state of public discourse post-Brexit has reached a foul new low from which we show no signs of recovering anytime soon - a low we have reached as a result of having too much 'safe space'  among members of our sad little tribes, rather than too little.


It's incumbent on all of us to reject the comfort of an unearned warm glow, dismiss the temptation of 'safe space' for ourselves and respectfully welcome those we profoundly disagree with. If we refuse, then we lose the right to complain when that process of tyranny is turned on us at a later date, along with the built-in auto-correct of the thuggish and unpleasant making utter fools of themselves and standing out like a sore thumb in a different climate. Once you resolve to respect those who think differently to yourself, you earn the right to walk away with honour when that is not reciprocated - to paraphrase the song, opinions don't hurt people, knobheads do.

I'll be doing one more about a topic I was asked to cover on either Saturday or Sunday, so here's some music and have fun in the meantime. Thanks for reading and I'll see you soon.