Trying to understand Brexit

Finally, I may have got to the bottom of Brexit, thanks to an interesting analysis by New Statesman International Editor Jeremy Cliffe – see quote below from his recent World Review newsletter.

Under Jacques Delors, Commission president in the then European Economic Community, the European single market was founded with a clear social vocation. “What would become of us if we didn’t have a minimum harmonisation of social rules?” the French socialist argued in the European Parliament in 1985: "What do we already see? Some member states, some companies who try to steal an advantage over their competitors, at the cost of what we have to call a social retreat.” The Delors social agenda, crystallised in the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty concluded in 1992, was the wedge that would over time push the British Tories away from the European project. But it would also become one of the EU’s calling cards: the union as the credible guarantor of a social model that would not be possible were individual countries to pursue it on their own in a globalising world.

Jeremy Cliffe's related New Statesman article can be found here. Note reference to Soziale Marktwirtschaft, which I keep mentioning as a key difference between Germany and the more rampant capitalism in Britain.

On a related note, I had forgotten that Roy Jenkins was President of the European Commission (interesting / helpful Wikipedia page here). Andrew Adonis, in one of his recent New European pieces, ranked Roy Jenkins as the fourth most important political shaper of modern Britain – see PDF 'printout' here and online version here. I suppose one can safely assume that Mr Jenkins is spinning in his grave.

Meanwhile, as Chris Grey says in his Brexit Blog, "the swirl of rumours, counter-rumours, predictions, counter-predictions, and rune-reading that has characterised the last few months is intensifying and will continue to do so". And: "it serves little analytical purpose, as well as being psychologically debilitating, to try to follow each twist and turn at the moment".

Feel the Power

Following the Brexit debacle and further depressing news and developments in  the UK and elsewhere on a daily basis, there is a sense of disillusionment amongst some campaigners, and one could be tempted to use the recent Feel the Power Savage Chickens cartoon for 'guidance'.

Sanity at stake

 

Update 16/01/2021

Quote from an email a friend wrote, with reference to the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown in the UK: 

"... I hope you are keeping sane under the current house arrest situation. ..."

Quote from my reply:

"Sanity has been an issue long before Covid – see cartoon from 2016 (just after the Brexit referendum) [pointing to the unreferenced cartoon above]. I should have credited the source really – will try and find it and rectify in due course. I think it's actually American, possibly New Yorker, but it perfectly summed up my Brexit-related feelings at the time."

Further research some time ago revealed that the cartoonist is David Sipress. According to his New Yorker article from February 2017 under the heading "How to stay sane as a cartoonist in Trumpland", the cartoon is the most published, republished, tweeted, retweeted, liked, shared, or stolen and reprinted without his permission. Oh dear, sorry for having featured the cartoon here without reference or permission for several years – I hope this postscript makes up for it. Anyway, said Trumpland article is depressing and highly entertaining at the same time, and as topical as ever. Not to mention the fact that in 2019 it inspired me to take out a New Yorker gift subscription for one of my translation team members during a sojourn in Florida.

Incidentally, the word 'angst' in this sentence: "Ironically, it’s a 'good' story that has caused me the most angst: 'Dow reaches 20,000'" triggered an entry in our "German words in the news" collection.   

And by the way, David Sipress' short bio is well worth a read too, as is Juan Astasio's article from 2018 under the heading "Why this cartoonist keeps pitching the New Yorker – even after 100 rejections".

 

 

Experts

During the EU referendum propaganda battle, Michael Gove (in)famously declared: "the people of this country have had enough of experts". One can't help wondering how many Leave voters wish they had realised that "being anti-expert is the way back to the cave", as Prof Brian Cox put it the other day. See below for further reading.

Michael Gove before a Sky News interview with Faisal Islam

• Professor Michael Dougan on the EU Referendum
• EU referendum: who needs experts when we've got Michael Gove?
• Should we listen to the experts on the EU referendum?
• There's a sinister strain of anti-intellectualism to Gove's dismissal of 'experts'
• ‘Being anti-expert – that’s the way back to the cave’

Keep calm and carry on!

Recent expressions of Brexit despair prompted a British (English) translator colleague (who, incidentally, has been married to a German lady for decades) to come up with this memorable recommendation:

"Keep calm and carry on!"  
(or, as one of our local Indian restaurants has it, keep calm and curry on).  

Of course, everyone knows that the "Keep calm" phrase originated in (don't mention) the war, but  did you know that, quoting Wikipedia, "the poster was hardly ever publicly displayed and was little known until a copy was rediscovered in 2000 at Barter Books, a bookshop in Alnwick".

Jo Cox: an attack on humanity, idealism and democracy

Difficult to do 'business as usual' today, without reflecting on what happened here in the UK yesterday. Not easy to find one's own words to describe it. Today's Guardian editorial seems to sum up the situation pretty well. The subheading says: "The MP murdered on the street embodied decency and a commitment to all that humanity has in common. What a contrast with so much that is rotten in politics".

Meanwhile, tributes have been pouring in. According to the BBC, they were led by Jo Cox' husband, Brendan, who describes himself in his Twitter profile as a "campaigner, activist, boat dweller and dad", and said: "Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it everyday of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people".

As a translator colleague said, straight after the news broke yesterday:
"Let’s hope some good comes of it".  

At 5:50 this morning, Dirk Kurbjuweit, deputy chief editor of the German magazine Der Spiegel, sent this pertinent comment in his Morning Briefing, under the heading "unendlich traurig" (infinitely sad):

Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,

es ist unendlich traurig, das Jo Cox sterben musste. Ein Mann ermordete die Labour-Abgeordnete gestern auf offener Straße in Birstall. Bei Attentaten auf Politiker in Demokratien gibt es danach die Hoffnung, dass der Täter ein Irrer sein möge. Wäre der Täter bei halbwegs normalem Verstand und hätte Jo Cox ermordet, weil sie für den Verbleib ihres Landes in der EU war, hätte Großbritannien eine Staatskrise. Aus der harschen Auseinandersetzung um den Brexit hätte jemand die Schlussfolgerung gezogen, dass ein Mord seine Position stärkt. Dies würde die politische Kultur des Landes in Frage stellen und den an sich ja notwendigen Streit um den Brexit diffamieren. Kommt die Tat aus einer allgemeinen Verwirrung, wie bei Lafontaine oder Schäuble, fällt das weg. Ein Trost wäre das nicht, aber eine Erleichterung.

Two fingers to the world: is that your message, Brexiteers?

Excellent opinion piece by Chris Patten in the Guardian.

The European Union is an extraordinary creation in which countries that believe in pluralism, democracy, welfare economics and the rule of law gain extra leverage in the pursuit of their national interests by sharing sovereignty. So what is Brexit’s message to the world: two fingers? Or maybe as Ferdinand Mount, the former head of Thatcher’s policy unit, says, we’ll catch the Brexiteers belting out that Millwall chant, “No one likes us, we don’t care.” Like the football team, they’ll sing it all the way to the third division.

See also plea for a little more positivity here.

EU Leicester Rally - Leading NOT Leaving

Uplifting pro-EU rally/meeting under the motto "Leading NOT Leaving" in Leicester yesterday, organised by the European Movement (of which Charles Kennedy was president from 2004 until his death exactly one year ago), with:

• Sir Vince Cable - Former Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems and former Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
• Liz Kendall - Labour MP for Leicester West
• Caroline Lucas - Green Party MP and former Green Party Leader
• Anuja Prashar - Executive (Treasurer) European Movement UK and Lib Dem former parliamentary candidate

The speakers were in good form and admirably managed to leave party-politically differences behind, (almost) entirely. The speakers were in agreement about the need for EU reform. Caroline Lucas quite rightly pointed out that the same applies to Westminster [applause]. On that note, see previous reflections on PR here. Advance preparation for the discussion session after the motivational speeches enabled me to get the following points across:

• Andrew Rawnsley's description of Boris Johnson as an "incorrigible attention-seeker", and  Guardian columnist Matthew d'Ancona's reference to the situation as an "Eton mess", including his memorable statement: A battle between two Etonians is a poor way to decide what kind of country we want Britain to be.
• 'Sound bite statement' from my blog entry of 3 March: After the madness of WWI and WWII, it would be fundamentally crazy to undermine the foundations of the 'unity' achieved since then, not to mention environmental aspects.
• Paraphrasing from a recent 30-minute interview* with Joschka Fischer, who is described in Wikipedia as a leading figure in the West German Greens since the 1970s and was German Foreign Secretary (Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs) from 1998 to 2005 (cf. reflections on PR referred to above) and President of the Council of the European Union for six months in 1999 (see here for speech), in which he reflected on his experience in Council meetings: God, how tedious and boring these meetings often were, at times verging on the absurd... But then I thought: hang on a minute, there were times during my father's and grandfather's era, when this kind of debate was carried out on battlegrounds. Wouldn't you rather put up with tedium?
  *Political correspondent Florian Eders described the interview (in German) in yesterday's edition of his Politico Morgen Europa briefing – see here.

Joschka Fischer's reflections attracted a round of applause and were picked up by the event chair in his closing remarks, in which he referred to his own father and grandfather and the respective wars.

A Leicester Mercury report on the event can be found here.

HE Translations and Brexit

In the recent past, HE Translations has been asked for comments on the Brexit saga by the FSB, the BBC and the Society for the Environment. In response, here is an (admittedly somewhat simplistic) 'sound bite statement':

After the madness of WWI and WWII, it would be fundamentally crazy to undermine the foundations of the 'unity' achieved since then, not to mention environmental aspects.

Knallkopf of Kallstadt

In einem kürzlich von der Deutschen Welle veröffentlichten Artikel unter der Überschrift Donald Trump's German roots hieß es:

The ancestors of the "anti-immigrant" crusader Donald Trump come from a small village in western Germany. The documentary film "Kings of Kallstadt" explores the modest roots of the family's real estate empire.

In einem Welt-Artikel vom August 2015 stand zu lesen, dass man dem "schrillen Milliardär" in Kallstadt, dem Heimatdorf von Trumps Großeltern, auch nach seinen umstrittenen Auftritten die Stange hält. Als eine Art 'Entschuldigung' für Trumps Auftreten galt: "Er macht halt Brulljes", und es war durchaus auch von einer Art Bewunderung die Rede: "Der hot was druff".

Im Januar 2016 ging Julia Niemann von der Frankfurter Allgemeinen in einem Artikel unter der Überschrift "King of New York, Knallkopf of Kallstadt" weniger zimperlich mit dem "Großmaul" um und berichtete, dass Trump in Kallstadt gänzlich unpopulär sei.

René Pfister, Leiter Hauptstadtbüro DER SPIEGEL, ließ sich kürzlich gar zu der wenig schmeichelhaften Bezeichnung Monster hinreißen.

Meanwhile, hot-off-the-press bzw. druckfrisch erläutert Deborah Orr im Guardian, dass Trump und die britischen Brexiter einiges gemeinsam haben, und zwar: "A disregard for all but themselves. ... They’re anti an establishment that limits and contains them. They want to be at the centre of an establishment in which they are free to do whatever they please".

Quelle: Welt, Foto: Projekt Gold / Barnsteiner Film

Eton Mess

Now that the "incorrigible attention-seeker" Boris Johnson (to quote Andrew Rawnsley) has finally entered the stage, Guardian columnist Matthew d'Ancona refers to the situation as an Eton mess and suggests that "a battle between two Etonians is a poor way to decide what kind of country we want Britain to be".

Interestingly, Nicholas Watt, the Guardian's chief political correspondent, reckons that: "Johnson will have judged that campaigning to leave and losing is survivable. Campaigning to remain and losing would probably be terminal". See Guardian article here and, on a related note, an article on the Bullingdon Club of October 2015 in the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Boris Johnson and David Cameron were both members
of the exclusive Bullingdon Club. Getty Images.

The Brexit saga continues

The Brexit saga continues with an excellent commentary by Andrew Rawnsley:

"So the phoney war is over. The real battle is engaged. After decades of tortured agonising about this country’s relationship with its continent, three years of manoeuvring by David Cameron, 30 hours of sweaty haggling in Brussels and an extraordinary 140-minute cabinet meeting yesterday morning, the referendum finally begins. The United Kingdom’s complicated and often contradictory feelings about itself and its role in the world will now be compressed into four months of intense argument. Rival visions of the country and competing versions of its future will contend to impress voters before they make their choice on 23 June, the date with destiny announced from Downing Street by the prime minister."

David Cameron in Downing Street delivering a statement
on his EU deal. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Selected quotes from Andrew Rawnsley's commentary:

One way of looking at this, always popular among both commentators and opposition parties, is to see this moment as the final, and potentially extremely bloody, act of a Tory psychodrama that has riven that party for so long.

Those who clamour for what they call self-government cannot even agree with each other about how to run a campaign.

Journalists have colluded in the self-pleasuring of Boris Johnson by obsessing over which side of the fence that incorrigible attention-seeker will fall.  

It is certainly correct that this will be the climactic struggle for the soul of the right that has been brewing for so long. It is also true that the stakes couldn’t be more vertiginous for David Cameron.

After all those years in which Europhobia has been pandered to and fed by Tory leaders, it is a novelty to hear Mr Cameron making the arguments for membership. His backing chorus will look impressive ...

... On the other side of the argument will be about half a dozen of the less important members of the cabinet, Nigel Farage, George Galloway, Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen and possibly Boris if that is the company he really wants to keep.

his is an age of rage characterised by a widespread and deep-seated alienation from anything and anyone who can be labelled “the establishment”.  

Leaping in the dark will surely feel even riskier when the people urging the blindfolded jump are Nigel Farage and George Galloway.

In or Out will be a generational choice about the future of the United Kingdom.

Cameron fordert EU-weite Umstellung auf Linksverkehr, um Brexit noch abzuwenden

Der Postillion meldet:

Auf dem EU-Gipfel in Brüssel hat der britische Premierminister David Cameron heute erneut klare Forderungen an Europa gestellt, um einen Austritt Großbritanniens aus der Union abzuwenden. Um seinen Mitbürgern zu Hause einen Verbleib in dem Staatenverbund schmackhaft machen zu können, forderte er die EU-weite Umstellung auf Linksverkehr. Andernfalls sei der "Brexit" kaum noch zu verhindern, so Cameron. 

 Der vollständige Postillion-Artikel ist hier zu lesen. 

Luxusproblem

An updated and expanded version of this blog post can now be found on the HE Translations blog at https://hetranslations.uk/blog/das-luxusproblem