Nigel Farage resigns as UKIP leader; wants his life back; How strange can UK politics get!

Last updated on 8th July 2016

Nigel Farage resigns as UKIP leader: 'I want my life back' - BBC News, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KlWLTdjpuc, 1 min. 35 secs., published July 4th 2016.

How strange can British politics get? Or maybe I am not smart enough to get any understanding of it.

The PM Cameron who had promised a referendum as part of his party's election campaign (that's what some reports said) has resigned after the Leave result.

Now both the main two leaders of the victorious Leave campaign, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, seem to have moved to background positions. Farage now wants his "life back".

Michael Gove, the deputy of Johnson, is being viewed as an untrustworthy person due to his eleventh hour betrayal of Johnson. So though he is running for PM position, he may not get it.

The next PM may be Mrs. Theresa May who campaigned for remain!

And then perhaps we may have Johnson and Farage appear on TV criticizing her once she takes on the tough job of negotiating the Leave process with the EU! Or perhaps I am being too cynical. They might give their wholehearted support to the next PM of Britain who has to implement the Leave vote. Let us hope that my cynical view is proved wrong.

I had not wanted to share this early June (weeks before the Brexit vote) video interview of former PM John Major who was strongly critical of the Leave campaign statements. But with this bombshell of Farage resignation of his party leadership, I feel I should share it. John Major: Leave campaign being 'deceitful and dishonest' - BBC News, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyn9Lq5IX9E, 15 min 54 secs, published on June 5th 2016.

Anti-establishment wave/campaign is all fine. But if the objective was/is to simply unseat the establishment and then quit, that is pretty unfair to the voters who voted for them, IMHO. Once again, maybe I am getting it wrong. Maybe these leaders will provide great background support to the new leaders. Let us see.
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A correspondent wrote in response (and was OK with sharing):

Michael Heseltine, one time Big Man in the Conservative party, said that Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage took the country into this mess and should be left to deal with the consequences, especially to negotiate with the EU. He pointed out that if anyone else did the negotiations, they could always say that the reason Leave did not work was because the terms were not satisfactory.

I think David Cameron should take the blame for taking the country into the unnecessary referendum.
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I (Ravi) responded (slightly edited):
Checked out youtube for Heseltine videos on Brexit. The following are interesting:

1) Michael Heseltine: Brexit negotiations should be led by Boris Johnson, Micheal Gove & Nigel Farage., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-32xcBLdDY, 4 min. 39 secs, published Jun 27th 2016 [This is related to what the correspondent wrote in his response above.]

2) Michael Heseltine launches scathing attack on Boris Johnson - BBC News, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hx_BxzAjxg, 3 min. 34 secs, published Jun 30th 2016

3) Heseltine on Brexit: 'The British people have been sold a deceitful pup' - BBC Newsnight, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubbSV5C9PXk, 3 min. 31 secs, published Jun 29th 2016

Heseltine is mad, really mad, at Boris Johnson. Heseltine also is brutally frank about this being the worst constitutional crisis he has seen in his life, in peacetime, and that it is as dark a moment as he has lived through.
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An interesting article in The Hindu today (5th July 2016) by an economics professor from a UK university - A Brexit from economic wisdom, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-brexit-from-economic-wisdom/article8807936.ece.

Short extracts from it:

In a statement that will probably hound and haunt him for the rest of his political life, the Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who, along with the flamboyant ex-mayor of London Boris Johnson, was the public face of the Conservative Eurosceptic camp, contemptuously brushed aside all these warnings [Ravi: about economic difficulties if Leave campaign won, from virtually every well-known economist including Nobel laureates] remarking that “People in this country have had enough of experts”.
...
But the post-referendum surveys show clearly that xenophobia was the dominant reason explaining the vote in favour of Brexit. This is surely reason enough to desist from giving any positive spin on the referendum.
--- end short extracts from The Hindu article ---

Ravi: I guess the inescapable truth of the Leave vote of the British is that the majority of the British people want immigration to UK to come down drastically, and at least some of this majority (a not insignificant part of it) is against non-native Britishers living in their country (xenophobia).

A couple of views from the street are given below. Some warnings first. The first video has some rough language. The second video is by right-wing British National Party. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party:
The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right British nationalist political party.
...
The party advocates "voluntary resettlement whereby immigrants and their descendants are afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin".
The BNP also advocates the reintroduction of capital punishment and opposes same-sex marriage, multiculturalism and what it calls the Islamification of the UK.
...
Party literature published by the BNP commonly cites the fact that Britain is the second most densely populated country in Europe, and that White British as an ethnic group are a minority demographically in London, Leicester and Luton. The BNP argue that these areas in England have been "ethnically cleansed" and that "to ensure that we do not become a minority in our own homeland... we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration".
--- end wiki extracts ---

1) Why did England's North vote to leave the European Union?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1zL3wDLyXk, 5 min 04 secs, published on July 1st 2016 by VICE NEWS.

2) Everybody wants Out of the EU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPHhUin519I, 10 min 50 secs, published on Jun 19th 2016 by bnptv
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I felt it appropriate to share the content and some of my comments on my Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1761043907445512, below:

Post contents (slightly edited):
BBC presenter Trish Adudu in tears after racist abuse - BBC News., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSHszDYYWgg. 1 min. 47 secs, published on July 2nd 2016 by BBC News.

The bad part is the racist hate speech with a clear reference to the vote result by the (alleged) racist, as related by Ms. Adudu. The good part is the positive way in which the British police seemed to have handled Ms. Adudu's racist hate complaint.

I think this upsurge in racism in Britain after the Leave vote should be tackled by giving wide exposure to such incidents, naming-and-shaming such racists, co-operating fully with the British authorities like the police, and also the mainstream media (e.g. BBC) in tackling and condemning such racism. A few bad elements in British society should not be allowed to promote division in its current multi-racial, multi-religion (including no religion) and multi-ethnic society.
--- end post content ---

In response to a comment about imagining "how this virus would develop if the economy was doing really poorly and unemployment was skyrocketing", I (Ravi) responded on July 3rd 2016:
That would be a pretty scary scenario. However, I think the situation in UK is stabilizing with people coming to terms with the vote result and impending change in political power. So let's not paint any scary scenarios for the future. Lets just ensure that any current spurt in racism in the UK is opposed on social media as that may help to combat it.
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In response to a comment, "What do you mean it is stabilizing?", I responded:
Well, the atmosphere of a kind of chaos that was created by PM resignation, Labour party leadership crisis, Boris Johnson being upstaged by his deputy Michael Gove, as seen from mainstream media reporting, has become less chaotic. I mean, people are dealing with it now, as against being completely shaken and being clueless about what's going on. ... The celebratory mood of the Leave campaign also seems to have dimmed as these realities have set in. That's what I mean by stabilizing with people coming to terms with the vote result and impending change in political power. I do not mean stablitity as a whole, but stability in the context of the chaos that followed in the immediate days after the Leave verdict.
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The following links were provided as comments:
1) EU migrants should not be left fearing for their future in the UK, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/05/eu-migrants-fearing-future-uk-bigotry-referendum, 5th July 2016. The sub-heading-sentence of the article is, "It is incumbent on all of us to challenge the fear and bigotry that the referendum has stirred up and stand up for our fellow Europeans".

2) Pound Tumbles to 31-Year Low as Brexit Starts to Inflict Damage, http://origin-www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-05/pound-drops-toward-31-year-low-as-selloff-resumes-before-carney, July 5th 2016

And then the commenter wrote, "That much in terms of stabilization..."

I (Ravi) responded:
Well, I did not mean stability as a whole ... But I can see why you seem to be upset with my usage of that word. Just ignore it if it upsets you.
...
An interesting article in The Hindu today (5th July 2016) by an economics professor from a UK university - A Brexit from economic wisdom, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-brexit-from-economic-wisdom/article8807936.ece.

Short extracts from it:

In a statement that will probably hound and haunt him for the rest of his political life, the Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who, along with the flamboyant ex-mayor of London Boris Johnson, was the public face of the Conservative Eurosceptic camp, contemptuously brushed aside all these warnings [Ravi: about economic difficulties if Leave campaign won, from virtually every well-known economist including Nobel laureates] remarking that “People in this country have had enough of experts”.
...
But the post-referendum surveys show clearly that xenophobia was the dominant reason explaining the vote in favour of Brexit. This is surely reason enough to desist from giving any positive spin on the referendum.
--- end short extracts from The Hindu article ---
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I (Ravi) wrote (slightly edited):
A Feb 2016 video ... if you have not seen it, you might want to see it, What the Polish think of UK possible Brexit…, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57IVw7zaNNE, (Conversations on Bus from Krakow to London), 4 min. 22 secs.
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In response to comment, "200 pounds minimum wage... Was 15 yrs ago, minimum nowadays is hitting 500eur", I (Ravi) wrote:
Oh! So she was not being correct. ... These inaccuracies do happen in such interviews with people on the street/bus etc. but one does get a feel of how people think about, in this case, working in Britain. At least at that time, some Poles were very positive about working in Britain and the opportunities there. That's how it came across to me. ... And I think that's a good thing. ... Of course, if the British majority don't want other Europeans to compete with them in UK for jobs then I guess they will have their way now that the Leave vote has won. ... It will hit the British too in terms of their access to continental European job market. The knife cuts both ways.
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I (Ravi) wrote (edited):
I think the political reality of England (and perhaps Wales) is that the majority wants Out. I have given an extract below from my blog post giving some street view kind of stuff. So I don't think the English will consider reversing the referendum decision. But if Scotland (and then Northern Ireland) kick up a real fuss and threaten to leave the UK to stay in the EU, that might be big enough to trigger talk of ignoring the referendum result. [Mind you, legally nothing has been done yet from the British govt. to trigger article 50 to start the process to leave the EU.]

The street view kind of stuff that I mentioned earlier is given below:

[Snipped content which has been given earlier in this post but was provided in this comment on Facebook]
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I (Ravi) wrote:
About the British economy survival if and when it gets out of the EU: I think that while there surely seems to be some short-term damage and perhaps even medium term damage (a recession perhaps), UK may be able to strike trade deals with non EU countries (USA, Australia, Canada, China, India ...) which will help them get more access to different export markets for their products & services to offset losses from reduced access to European Single Market. ... UK is a pretty strong economy and so I think it will come out of this eventually and do quite well on its own too. ... But the bigger issue is the political relations with Europe part. If the EU continues as a union (which is what I expect & hope) then citizens of various countries in Europe will have a bonding between themselves (over generations) and treat UK differently. That may have some unpleasant consequences over the longer term for UK as compared to other countries in Europe.
...
About the ideology thing: I don't think most of the Leave voters really understood such stuff. I think Xenophobia played a major role in this vote especially among rural voters. Things like xenophobia can run very deep emotionally. So it seems to be an emotional vote registering their unhappiness at so many foreigners coming into their country over the years (and, in their view, taking their jobs and using the country's services like its national health service thereby reducing its availability to UK citizens!).
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I (Ravi) wrote (slightly edited):
Oh! I used the word, 'many foreigners' as an example of how some of the British view this matter and not my view.

In my study of politics, both Indian and International, over the past few years, it is clear to me that the saying that in politics perception is reality, is true.

Most of the voters in this UK Leave referendum or in Indian elections or in USA elections vote according to their perception of the reality. Very few have the time, inclination and/or ability to study and know the reality themselves.

To make things significantly worse, many top political leaders get engulfed in financial scandals, immorality and/or plain lying. So the public seems to have lost trust in the top leaders ever saying the truth to them! In such a scenario they go by what appeals to them, and what people in their group like.

In hard times, it is the very unfortunate but brutal truth that most human societies (including UK in this case, and India and the USA) have a large proportion of people, sometimes a majority of people, who look to an easy to target 'others' group different from them, as the cause for their problems. The logic is not important. They will come up with some skewed and idiotic logic. Once a leader like these right wing leaders in UK and Europe targets an 'other' group, usually an immigrant group, the followers get together in a kind of herd mentality and follow the leader.

I read a little about Hitler's Germany. It was economically very challenging times then in Germany that created a scenario where the madman Hitler started attracting large number of followers. And that made him even more mad. Finally he got the world into the worst war of all time and got Germany and some other nations into the worst genocide of all time against the Jews (the Holocaust).

I think that some of the veteran leaders who have been very disturbed by the Leave vote, remember this horrible history of Europe less then a century ago, and so are perhaps more distressed by this kind-of moving further apart from each other between the European continent and the UK, than by the economic aspects even though they are concerned with that too.
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Brexit: Next UK prime minister will be a woman, as Gove knocked out of race, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/07/europe/brexit-britain-conservatives-vote/, dated July 7th 2016

An extract from the above article:
The contest to replace the outgoing Cameron as leader of the ruling Conservative Party -- and of the country -- will be fought between MPs Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom, after Michael Gove was eliminated in the second round of voting by their party's MPs.

May secured 199 votes, Leadsom 84, while Gove won just 46, Graham Brady, chair of the Conservative Private Members' Committee, announced.
--- end extract ---

Ravi: Hmm. So Michael Gove's eleventh hour betrayal of Johnson only led to defeat! Johnson seems to be supporting Leadsom (who also campaigned for Leave). It was natural of Johnson not to support Gove!

I think this can be viewed as a lesson to any intellectual/policy wonk who rides on a mass leader's charisma to win a major vote from the public of a country, to never ever think that after the public vote has been won, the charismatic mass leader can be pushed aside using backroom conspiracies. Democratic politics ideally needs mass leaders for top positions like Prime Minister or President. Intellectuals/policy wonks who lack that mass leader charisma are best suited to play a support role as a minister, policy advisor etc.
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Here's an interesting article, Brexit in seven charts — the economic impact; How growth, trade, migration will be affected by a split with the EU, https://next.ft.com/content/0260242c-370b-11e6-9a05-82a9b15a8ee7, dated June 27th 2016
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[I thank Wikipedia, cnn.com and thehindu.com and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their websites (short extract from thehindu.com and cnn.com) on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]