Why is the UK leaving the EU?

“Does anyone know why the UK is leaving the EU?” someone asked.

This was my answer:

From where I’m sitting, the UK is leaving the EU because, in no particular order:

Nick Griffin’s account has been UNsuspended by Twitter

So while an ordinary pleb goes to jail for bigoted abuse, a Member of the European Parliament does not? (Updated, 19th October)

Griffin’s Twitter feed is unsuspended, and as one might expect, he’s celebrating with a tirade of homophobic abuse.

Apparently if you’re an elected representative – MP Andrew Mitchell, MEP Nick Griffin – the rules aren’t the same for you as they are for plebs like us.

“We’ve been told that Nick Griffin is threatening to come to our house and hand out leaflets outside,” Mr Black added.

“But, we live in a village where it wouldn’t be easy for him or many people to come and gather. There’s nowhere to park for a start and very few people walk past apart from school children. If anything happens it would be a damp squib.”

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Posted 18th October

The very Christian Family Research Council says:

That abandonment of principle is leading to a decline in membership, especially among the more liberal denominations. As more churches move away from biblical authority, their attendance suffers. Just ask the Episcopal Church, whose pews are virtually empty after the decision to endorse homosexuality. It’s time to push back on the spin that’s feeding our weak brethren who say that compromising truth in pursuit of love is the way to reach the lost. Intuitively, people want to anchor their lives to something meaningful — something that demands the sacrifice and discipline of “taking up your cross.” When a denomination abandons the truth and waters everything down to love, it reduces the church to another hour of Dr. Phil — which is something Americans can get without ever leaving home.

In March 2010 Susanne Wilkinson, acting out (she assures us) her Christian values, decided that a respectable couple holidaying in the UK (Michael Black is 64, and John Morgan is 59) could not have a double room in the Swiss Bed and Breakfast in Cookham, Berkshire – though they had made a reservation and paid a deposit – because they are a gay couple, and Wilkinson is of the opinion that Jesus doesn’t like that sort of thing and doesn’t approve of showing hospitality to those sort of people.

Scotland’s languages, Scotland’s people

At the People’s Gathering, in passing, someone said that all official documents in Scotland should be in “all three languages” – English, Scots, and Gaelic.

A sprakh is a dialekt mit en army un flot. – Max Weinreich

These days, it might be said that a language is a dialect with TV programmes and schools. I don’t know how you’d say that in Yiddish. Back when Scotland had an army and a navy, the language spoken through most of Scotland was referred to by its speakers as Inglis – it acquired the name of Scots only when Scotland had ceased to have either. (R.L.G. discusses the Scandinavian languages, which are similiar-but-politically-distinct.)

Lallans exists as a written language: spoken Scots has four main geographic “families”: Insular Scots of Orkney and Shetland; Northern Scots of Caithness, Easter Ross, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Angus; Central Scots of Central Lowlands and South west Scotland; and Southern Scots of the Scottish Borders and Dumfriesshire. (Plus, Scots-Yiddish and Scottish BSL.)

More homes, more jobs

There is a story – probably untrue – that a famous Nazi speaker was invited to address Italian peasants in a pro-Mussolini village shortly after Mussolini and Hitler became allies. He made a speech culminating in the rhetorical demand “Which will you have – guns or butter?” and was startled when the Italian peasants bellowed back in unison “Butter!”

During most of the BNP demo yesterday, there were just three of us and three of them. One of them didn’t talk to us: he stood handing out anti-halal leaflets, or trying to, to everyone who entered KFC.

The other two talked to us. In between saying things like they weren’t racist, but Britain is a white Christian country and ought to stay that way, got nothing against black people but British people ought to get first crack at the jobs that are going, they said: There aren’t enough jobs. There aren’t enough houses. People are unemployed, people are homeless.

These are facts. We all three tried to argue with them that the fault lay not with “the immigrants” nor with “the Jewish bankers” but with governments that consistently won’t spend money on job creation or building new homes, but they were absolutely sure that the problem was “too many immigrants” and “too much money spent in Europe”.

But the plain fact is: when the economy is in recession, the government needs to spend more, not less, to save jobs, not to make people unemployed. Austerity doesn’t work.

BNP outside KFC Meadowbank

Update, 5th July: The BNP will be back outside this KFC on Saturday 7th July from 12:30. UAF plan counterprotest.
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First I heard they were going to be there was this morning.

BNP plan racist demo at KFC Meadowbank #Edinburgh 1pm today. twitter.com/nickgriffinmep… Scotland – one country, many cultures. Peacefully oppose.

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

They claimed they were there because they were protesting animal cruelty. Also because this KFC uses halal chickens, and they complained they were being “forced” to eat halal meat.

Most of the time we were there (three of us) there were only three of them.

13:22

(The man in the brown jacket isn’t BNP: he’s just one of several customers that went in and out without hindrance during their demo. There were several police there, too. The man with the union jack on his cap kept raising his BNP sign to cover his face whenever he saw a camera pointed in his direction.)