UK irresponsibility has infected the EU
The EU-May Brexit agreement – between the EU27 and UK prime minister Theresa May of November 25 2018 – makes me think about the French quote: “C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute.”
The EU treats Brexit as an issue between Member States, and thus neglects that Britons are citizens of the EU, perhaps not in a legal sense – see this campaign – but in terms of the ideals why the EU was created in the first place. The EU doesn’t protect these citizens from dysfunction in London. The UK irresponsibility has infected the EU too.
Many will regard the EU-May deal as practical. John Maynard Keynes stated:
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”
The Great Depression in the 1930s came about because economists had confusions about the gold standard and such. For this 2018 irresponsibility by UK and EU, who are the present academic scribblers ? Today the universities of the world show incompetence or gross negligence in particular on Brexit and in general on “political science on electoral systems” (including referenda). This latter branch at the Academia has been misguiding mankind for the greater part of last century.
The road to reason on Brexit is to observe and tackle this misguidance and mis-education on democracy. The partial rationality of working within EU conventions better is ended. The EU and UK better adopt an inclusive rationality and stop this nonsense and disaster.
UK democracy: Garbage In, Garbage Out
The 2016 Brexit Referendum Question itself did not fit the basic requirements of a statistical questionnaire. Thus we got “garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO). The 2017 UK General Election contest was with the UK system of district representation (DR) instead of equal proportional representation (EPR). The system of DR distorts voter views so that we again have GIGO.
Thus we do not know what UK voters want. It is rather damning for a claimed democracy like the UK that its main two instruments of democracy do not generate clarity on what the people want.
The UK political machinery runs its course but this machinery is proto-democracy based upon GIGO rather than proper democracy. The policy makers themselves have a role too but basically they only add colour to the canvas of history. The true culprits are the Academia that haven’t advised the UK at an early moment last century to switch from DR to EPR. Sweden switched in 1907 and Holland in 1917. Observe that a country with EPR doesn’t need a referendum. Now, what is wrong at the Academia ?
A time-out to investigate the role by the Academia
Let Brussels and London take a time-out on Brexit, and let the Parliaments within the European Union ask questions to their Academia, before decisions are implemented that will wreak havoc on generations to come, and that will undermine the ideals of the European Union. Let Parliaments investigate and expose the role of the Academia on Brexit, and let the Parliaments ask the questions that our collected scientists and scholars better answer, and on which they are dodging their responsibility of disinforming and mis-educating the world.
The evidence is available at MPRA 84482
As an econometrician (Groningen 1982) and teacher of mathematics (Leiden 2008) I may be a lone voice, but I adhere to the principles of science, and fellow scientists can check the evidence that I have collected and made accessible. The evidence is at the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA) paper 84482.
I have observed that the branch of “political science on electoral systems” (including referenda) is still locked in the humanities, and thus no science, and thus for its empirical claims comparable to astrology, alchemy and homeopathy. I invite the Academia to set up national buddy-systems of scientists and scholars to check the evidence. Scientists tend to know little about democracy. Scholars tend to know little about empirics. Thus buddies can complement each other. Parliaments may encourage the Academia to create such systems.
Readers are advised to start with this summary on the USA midterm 2018 that uses three novel statistical analyses that are missing in the “political science” literature, and that show that more than a third of US voters have taxation without representation, while the Boston Tea Party had the slogan “No taxation without representation”.
Precision of the kilogram versus vagueness of “representative”
Scientists redefined the kilogram recently to greater and perhaps universal precision but the scholars on democracy and politics still use everyday terms like “election” and “representative” of which the meanings depend upon national jurisdictions. A “Head of State” can be a President or a Queen but their roles are different empirically. A key example are (district) representation (DR) in the USA, UK and France and (equal proportional) representation (EPR) in Holland and Scandinavia. An introductory chapter or section of a politicological book tends to explain that these are “different forms of democracy” but when statistical analysis becomes a bit more complicated then the distinction between apples and oranges appears to be forgotten. Scientists know about “garbage in, garbage out”, but the politicological scholars take the everyday language garbage as the undisputed foundation for their treatises and their textbooks to indoctrinate their students. The American Political Science Association (APSA) was founded in 1903 with an aspiration and not with a verified tradition that it was a science. The British Political Studies Association (PSA) has an accurate name but its members may still claim positions as “professor in political science”. Renowned academics pontificate on electoral outcomes and referenda, while not knowing what they are speaking about, with a sprinkling of math, statistics and computers that only suggest science, but they are still scholars locked in the humanities that basically concentrate upon maintaining tradition.
A game-changing insight
This diagnosis may remind of familiar discussions about DR versus EPR. However, it is a game-changing discovery that this branch “political science on electoral systems” is pseudo-science. It is like the difference between a flat Earth and a globe. All claims need to be re-evaluated. This causes the proposal of the buddy-system.
Elephant in the room
Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker for the EU and Theresa May for the UK have clarified that the EU has made its final offer, and that the current UK executive branch agrees with it. A vote by the UK House of Commons is intended for December 10 to 12, with a European Council already scheduled for December 13 and 14. If the UK House of Commons doesn’t take the deal then the UK will crash out of the EU on March 29 2018. If the UK takes it then there still is a transition period with further negotiations. If the transition doesn’t result into a final agreement then the UK will remain in a customs union without a seat at the table. Potentially the UK takes the deal now and crashes out much later anyway, or perhaps re-applies again but then without its current perks.
The present situation creates economic uncertainty. This likely reduces investments and creates stagnation, and this may play into resentment in the UK that the EU sabotages it, even though the UK is itself responsible for the conundrum at the Irish border. There is a serious risk of a Stab-in-the-Back Myth, holding that the original “outcome” of the 2016 Referendum is not respected. This Myth doesn’t recognise that this “outcome” was GIGO, but can still be a myth. Illusions in the UK of “having your cake and eat it” now meet with reality, and rather than accept reality a frustrated people might find it easier to blame the EU.
The EU and UK are surprisingly vague on the option of Bregret, i.e. that the UK retracts the invoking of Article 50. Theresa May mentioned it briefly in the UK House of Commons, and Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have not rejected it. The main reason for this vagueness must be political caution, namely not to spend attention to the elephant in the room. The EU and May (originally for Remain) might be depicted as targeting Bregret by designing a deal that the UK House of Commons would reject. This image would play into the Stab-in-the-Back Myth.
However, it is a Mission Impossible not to speak about Bregret. The topic would surface one way or another. To evade the topic is irresponsible, unless you really accept the prospect of a stagnating and ever more resentful UK, and unless you really believe in a EU of Member States only, without responsibility for Britons who are citizens of the EU too.
Addendum. Owen Jones in The Guardian 2018-11-28 warns about a Stab-in-the-Back Myth whether the UK takes the May-EU deal or rejects it. On December 9 there will be a Great Britain Betrayal protest in London and Jones calls for a counter-march. This again frames the issue as one of political preferences while the true problem is information.
Solution approach
When the proposed buddy-system has generated their findings, it is not unlikely that the UK switches to EPR and can have proper elections so that all voices in the UK are duly represented, finally for the first time. Parties can split along their Brexit views in order to offer voters the full spectrum. The Stab-in-the-Back Myth has less risk of developing when all people can see the true proportions of the different views on Brexit. With new elections, the House of Commons can finally start from proper proportions to negotiate between parties for a compromise. Compromises would focus on internal UK affairs, since there are no more negotiations with the EU. Options are the May-EU deal, Crash, and if possible return to the Status Quo Ex Ante if the EU allows. Potentially the EU would allow the UK time for such a fundamental reconsideration of its system of democracy and relation to the EU.
With this advised solution approach, it may still be that the UK leaves the EU perhaps in 2021 but at least then all votes have been treated properly, with prudence, justice, dignity and compassion, in equal proportion.
Disclaimer: I did not read the EU-May Deal but looked at abstracts.
Some parts of this text have been used earlier.
Angela Merkel throws a tear to Theresa May (Channel 4 screen shot)
Boycott Holland 