A Brexit Lesson In Greek – Votes and Hopes Trashed on Parliamentary Floors

Op-Ed by Brett Redmayne-Titley

So…you, the UK voter, favored the Brexit! You, the EU voter, see the Brexit as the pendulum of democracy swinging away from un-elected central rule and returning to sovereign national priorities? You… will be proved wrong.

Sadly, yours is an optimism without memory of corrupt Members of the European Parliament (MEP) or of  EU evils past and their backroom methods of dealing with the whims of free will, voting power and democracy. You must realize that these are anathema to the tenants of centralized rule. Indeed. History is about to repeat itself – less than a year later. Like the failures of Greece in June 2015, last week’s UK referendum is doomed.

Three-hundred-and-sixty-one days before the Brexit victory night of this past Thursday, Alexis Tsipras boarded a plane to Brussels with a confident smile on his face and a new populist referendum under his arm. As head of Syriza, the fledgling opposition movement avowed to stop EU hegemony over a positive Greek financial future, Tsipras had roared to power.  In an attempt to fulfill this promise he scheduled a referendum – a non-binding popular vote requiring  parliamentary approval – refusing Troika financial demands of additional austerity that would further gut and sell-off his country to its core. Getting onto the plane Tsipras was all confident smiles and waves to his supporters. The world press was abuzz with the possibility of a Grexit from the EU.

Ah, but what a difference two days in Brussels can make.

He returned to Athens with the face of a broken man with a country more fractured than when he left just days before. Tsipras had failed. Miserably. His political ineptness directly caused, rather than cured the Greek problems. Moreover, it was his failure to understand and plan against the true collective influence and danger of his Brussels counterparts that puts the ongoing and ever-increasing social and economic Greek disaster squarely on his head. Simply put, Tsipras was an arrogant fool who attempted to play high-stakes EU political poker for the first time in his life at a poker table seated with career EU card sharks. Sadly, he was not merely a fool with little money – he was a fool…with a country! Coincidentally, that was exactly the price the EU demanded; one whole country. Greece!

And then, there was David Cameron.

Days ago, Tuesday morning, Dec. 28, the same grim resignation of fate adorned the face of the UK Prime Minister as he left for the woodshed in Brussels. Like his Greek predecessor, Cameron had personally begun the process of consummating the destruction of the sovereignty of his country via his creation of the EU-serving Brexit referendum – that would prove forever UK support for servitude to EU diktats. Obviously his attempt to please his masters did not go as planned. So, Cameron left this week to serve-up his ill-conceived Brexit to be carved into pieces for a plan of attack by a cabal of unelected corporate, Zionist banksters who wish to hold sway over all matters EU. Judging from their year-old Greek insurrection, they will know exactly what to do now. In the days and weeks to come the hope and vote in favor of sovereignty, via the Brexit, will be dashed forever on the rocks of EU treachery. Again.

Pundits of the post-Brexit days show dumbfounded optimism. Again their predilection for short memories regarding past efforts of the nationalist movements to stand up to their EU masters is shown. Cameron’s political blow-up has accidentally set in place the populist sword of Damocles over the heads of this US-inspired EU central control. In doing so, the irrational optimism that was the Brexit cannon-shot just a week ago, does not foresee the roadblocks already forming behind the scenes that will NEVER allow a confirmation of this populist UK referendum.  These optimists myopically ignore the very recent lessons of not very faraway Greece. “The British have violated the rules,” flatly stated EU parliamentarian, Martin Schulz as a warning. ” It is not the EU philosophy that the crowd can decide its fate.“

Here lies the problem.

Jogging the memory banks, it must be recalled that it was only due to Cameron’s willingness to please Brussels that he allowed for the Brexit referendum to be conceived three years ago. Following the 2015 UK general election that saw Cameron’s Conservative Party seize power with a mysteriously low 24% of the popular vote, Tory arrogance was running wild and so Brexit was thus finally scheduled. This vote’s results were supposed to spell resounding allegiance by a majority of Britons to EU un-elected central control. But, the vote was following many draconian austerity ridden years imposed by the Cons at the behest of the EU committee which always had money for American-inspired war and its felonious banks but not a farthing for food or peace. All that was actually left for the UK voters’ financial future was the prospects of a massive, ongoing housing bubble inspired and created by Canadian draftee and UK co-conspirator, Mark Carney, whose Canadian version of this housing Ponzi scheme has already burst across Canada months ago.

So, surprised they were in Brussels when this past Thursday, June 23, 2016 the whole plan blew up in their arrogant faces. None of the EU Commission dreamed this a possibility, nor the twenty-nine EU country leaders, nor the massive banking interests they all represent. But was not this the same short-lived surprise rendered in Greece? The Greek referendum was so short-lived and ultimately disastrous that it should be considered foreshadowing of the evil results and planning that will now, again, take place in the latest EU committee effort to thwart the free will of all UK and future EU voters. The wedge: the Brexit. As such, in the days to come the parliamentary efforts to ratify the Brexit, like the will of the Greek politicians before them, will become mere trash on a new parliamentary floor.

To see clearly, take a look at what the first six days after the anxiously awaited Brexit results has achieved for the public so far.

EU President, Jean-Claude Juncker, immediately began huffing, puffing and bluffing. Responding to applause from the UK contingent on his opening Brexit remarks at the first EU commission meeting, he diverted from his prepared script, warning the Britons, “that’s the last time you are applauding here… and to some extent I’m really surprised you are here. You are fighting for the exit. The British people voted in favor of the exit. Why are you here?”

Indeed Juncker’s morning outburst at the first post-Brexit EU committee meeting showed his dictatorial nature and inherent contempt for all EU democracy and that of Britain. This of course highlighted collective EU contempt for national sovereignty or populist will of EU voters, and the core reason why so many Brits had chosen to give him the middle finger just days before. This was supported by the grinning Nigel Farage, who could not miss this new dawn of the EU world. When it was his turn to speak he mocked Juncker and the other jeering EU dual-loyalists.“You’re not laughing now… are you!” he crowed.”…and the reason you’re so upset, the reason you’re so angry, the reason you’re not laughing is simple – you as a political project are in denial.” Indeed.

Following Friday’s opening salvo Cameron resigned, which was not surprising, but the timing of his swoon should have been. While many saw this as the Prime Minister properly falling on his sword, none commented on the true result applied to the Brexit. While his departure should be Boris Johnson’s dream come true, Cameron’s resignation immediately put any parliamentary ratification of the Brexit on indefinite hold pending election of his successor.

Nice.

With Cameron now very publicly whining about his inabilities to lead a Brexit transition, he has punted the EU’s problems while leaving the ball in the air. In serious political matters of state and high finance, when the shit-hits-the-fan the best historical legislative option is: delay. Hence, Cameron has currently stopped the time clock of Brexit passage. But the game continues behind-the-scenes despite the timeout. It’s a safe bet that the phones of many UK parliamentarians are ringing right now with incoming calls from Belgium. It will not take too many successful calls for the Brexit to become as once was the Grexit.

Brexit was passed by a thin margin of the popular vote. Not all UK districts collectively voted to leave EU control. Nor did Scotland or Ireland. Wales, however, wants out. The votes to be cast by elected members in the House of Commons are representative of the collective will of their districts or voting areas. Will Members of Parliament (MPs)vote as per their district’s will? While this is still a resounding majority, Scotland and Ireland who hold a collective sixty seats have come out strongly and nationally against it. The annals of worldwide political treachery and hypocrisy being equal in Westminster, it will not take much – with a little economic hardship added in – for enough votes and souls to be sold for money and a NO vote. Think not? Ask the Greeks. In a matter of mere days – with an urgency created by Troika blackmail – their referendum victory collapsed in public tatters on their own parliament’s floor. The vote of their people meant nothing.

Despite the possibility of a NO vote in the Commons, it is the House of Lords that is most in the grasp of EU control. Unelected and already wealthy from inherited riches, the “Landed Gentry” of Britain has much to lose from a Brexit passage. Although the house of Lords does not have a process by which it can vote NO, it does have the ability to influence the Commons as was shown during the two-year negotiations for the language of the Brexit where Lords returned the drafts for revisions on numerous occasions and Commons complied.  However, parliamentary approval of any legislation originating in the Commons can be, by law, delayed for up to two parliamentary terms by the Lords. It should be remembered that in the weeks leading up to last Thursday’s earthquake the majority of gloom and doom financial reasons to stay emanated from politicians in tails and their vicarious political concubines, such as rock music’s prince of whores, U2’s Bono. Will the rich of Britain, after gaining so much from EU complicity, work against their own best interests? Probably not. If the House of Lords delays a vote on confirmation for two full terms, what’s an already angry Britain to do about it?

Forces unknown next floated the short-lived idea of a new referendum to deny the results of the first one. While this was revealed initially to be a fraudulent effort inspired by third world countries, the effort to re-vote has subsequently caught fire and highlights the desperation of Brussels to divide and conquer by tightening the closeness of the two opinions on the previous results. But no sane politician – even David Cameron – was going to fall for that one again; so, while it won’t fly, watch as the new daily results are used to negate and minimize the true referendum tally.

At the first EU commission meeting since the Brexit, again the EU leadership blathered about the UK getting out as soon as possible. Indeed this belied their backstage agenda and their own EU charter. This contains the next big problem for Brexit supporters: Article 50.

Mr. Junker ignores his own craftsmanship when ushering the UK out the door at his personal behest. Article 50 was included in case of the eventuality of a member nation-state leaving. It is very ill-defined. Article 50 allows for as much as two years for the transition to take place and leaves it up to the member country, the UK, to decide when to implement by formal notification the commencement of Article 50. Despite the Brexit vote, Britain is under no obligation to do so at any prescribed time.

The press has incorrectly stated that Article 50 allows for member states to individually veto a country’s departure. This is not true, but the reality is actually far worse. Once Article 50 is commenced by the UK’s formal notification to the EU, thus begins a never-before-tried process of negotiations regarding the terms under which the UK will leave. With thousands of pages of existing UK and EU laws that must be considered and amended retroactively, as well as trade agreements and worldwide foreign policy commitments, Article 50 allows for a mere two years from commencement to fruition. All along the way these negotiations will be joined by all twenty-eight other members of the EU contingent who will be looking for compromise. For a country with the world’s second biggest banking center this will certainly be a daunting task. It will also be extraordinarily divisive while creating a public and daily confrontation as the UK attempts to finalize the terms of its departure against the collective will of its adversaries. Ultimately, it is the member states who do have de facto and lengthy veto power during the negotiated term. Until these countries approve the terms, conditions and revisions the UK, despite its Brexit vote, is going nowhere.

Conspicuously Ireland, and hypocritically Scotland, have both brandished their claim to a unilateral veto as their new weapon against the Brexit. Not true, but their influence in the exit negotiations, like that of the other member nations, may have that exact same effect.

This opposition has all occurred in a mere six days – just four business days. Markets and banking stocks were down in historic one-day drops. The British pound is bouncing near thirty-year low levels. By manufacturing additional reasons to stop the Brexit – as was done in Greece – economic forces are already bringing to bear supposed economic hardships on Britain as punishment. At this point the very long list of admitted market manipulations by UK and EU banks must be recalled to attention. Although the EU used an economic gun in the form of loans to then be used primarily for compulsory payback of previous IMF loans – to which Tsipras fiddled – this brought Greece to its knees quickly. Now it seems the EU is focused on the devaluation of the Pound which, if effective, will cause an already impoverished Britain to suffer inflation and increased cost for essential consumer goods. This will create social discontent and insurrection against the perceived cause, which will surely be trumpeted by media whores as being the fault of the Brexit. This worked quickly and to perfection in Greece. If this example does not suffice see: Daniel Ortega/Nicaragua.

Strangely, the post-Brexit UK now worries about exports, national exports that have already been sharply reduced by EU mandated sanctions – at the behest of their American masters – against exporting to the largest importer in Europe: Russia. Pundits cite oil exports as example, to which one might ask: if ISIS can sell its stolen oil via Turkey and right under the EU’s and NATO’s watchful eye, then why not Britain and Scotland? Someone’s buying.

Final proof that the Brexit will go the way of the Dodo was shown in convincing fashion yesterday – business day four, Thursday. Boris Johnson resigned. Really!  His interest in becoming the new Tory Prime Minister has suddenly and dramatically diminished. This is a surprise equal to the Brexit results.

Johnson’s announcement is nothing more that political damage control … in advance! Johnson has proven to be a political opportunist of the highest order during his multi-year political legacy of grandstanding on issues he can use to advantage. Few recall that Mr. Johnson, as a Conservative Party leader, was not until recently at all in favor of the Brexit. Then he flip-flopped in the final months. He was rewarded with huge press coverage. In the days before the vote his Trump-like image adorned many a national rag’s cover page. With Cameron’s fortunes those of one who is sent to the Tower, everyone, especially Johnson, knew his next step: No.10.

So, six days later he punts?!

Johnson’s no fool. His political cunning in using the Brexit has led him to front-runner status. He plans to stay there. He knows that whoever replaces Cameron inherits the Brexit pro-and-con. Moreover, Johnson well understands the upcoming protracted mess it will be. With the volatility of British parliamentary politics often historically providing for a very truncated tenancy at Downing St., Johnson is not going to throw a decade of dedicated opportunism away in favor of surefire failure. The UK economy may rise from the ashes of the Brexit. He cannot.

The world needs change and more than ever it needs hope. In watching these dreams destroyed by a meanness only central in the hearts of so few, there is no joy. The Brexit, regardless of the multi-layered arguments for staying or leaving, offered both. When the Brexit fails to come to fruition, several years from now, this will serve as another warning of the power of the organizations that exert their will over that of nations and the rights of man.

When the dust that was the idiocy of Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and his quixotic joist with power had settled, barely one year ago, only one shred of good came of it: a sound warning. A realization that we, those who still desire the change and hope of a better beginning, are playing a very terminal end game – and we better learn the rules! Here, the Brexit will fail miserably. Here, however, lies a lesson.

When next a nation chooses to sit at the high-stakes poker table that seats the players of its own sovereign demise; this time remember Greece. This time, remember what once was the optimism of the Brexit.

This time… play to win!

-THE END-

Image Credit: Alt-Market.com

About The Author:

Brett Redmayne-Titley began reporting on-scene in an effort to provide better quality reporting from current events of geo-political, environmental and moral importance. A life-long activist, political commentator and world citizen, he has published over one hundred in-depth articles, many of which have been re-published and translated internationally. He can be reached at: live-on-scene [at] gmx.com