RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://standpointmag.co.uk/features-december-2018-george-schopflin-george-soros-central-european-university-fidesz-budapest

On October 25, the Rector of the Central European University (CEU), Michael Ignatieff, announced that unless the Hungarian government regularised the status of CEU by December 1, it would move to Vienna.

As so often with such stories — customarily presented in the Western media as a fight between good (the CEU) and evil (Orbán, Fidesz, the Hungarian government) — reality is infinitely more complex. There is indeed a contest between the CEU and the Hungarian government, but it’s far from being the simplified morality tale that is so widely propagated.

Matters began in 2005, when the CEU did a deal with the then left-wing government that it would be given a unique exception from the Hungarian education law and be able to grant both Hungarian and American diplomas. The American dimension of this arrangement was something free-floating, the CEU was registered in the US, but had no university presence there. But the new Hungarian education law of 2011 modernised the system and, inter alia, declared not unreasonably that all the 28 foreign institutions of higher education operating in Hungary would have to have a mother university in their country of origin. The CEU did not.

So when the Hungarian education office began its quinquennial review in 2016, it came upon the CEU’s anomalous status. Legally there were two CEUs. The CEU granted Hungarian diplomas (quite legally) and simultaneously American ones without the CEU having a US mother university. At this stage, the relationship between Hungary and the CEU was an administrative disagreement, which could certainly have been resolved at that level had there been the will to do so. The difficulty of there not being a US-based mother university could certainly have been circumvented. That’s what technocracies are for.

But at that point, the CEU opted to see dispute not as technocratic, but as political. The CEU is a private foundation supported by George Soros, but Soros also finances a range of NGOs and think-tanks that have moved into the political vacuum left behind the collapse of the left-wing opposition to Fidesz. The CEU was and was seen as a part of this left-wing anti-Fidesz constellation. Thereby, with the coming into force of the new law, a political motive has been neatly attributed to the Hungarian government.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/08/must-defeat-theresa-mays-wretched-brexit-deal-go-world-hope/

This week’s meaningful vote on the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement marks a watershed moment in British politics. Parliament will decide on the UK’s future relationship with the European Union for a generation to come. That’s not hype. This is the decisive moment.

We are being asked to shackle ourselves to a deal which hands over £39 Billion without anything guaranteed in return, which allows the European Court of Justice to continue to interfere in British law and our daily lives, and which breaks the Conservative manifesto promise to leave the customs union. As Margaret Thatcher once said “No, No, No.”

There is an alternative. We can stop grappling and start grasping the global opportunities available to the UK. The real Brexit prize is the opportunity to go out into the world and agree free trade deals with old friends and new allies.

The UK’s biggest export market is the United States, worth over £110 billion a year. That is almost double our next biggest trading partner, Germany. Our trade with the United States, China and Australia far exceeds our trade with Germany, France and the Netherlands. When we traded primarily in bulky goods, such as coal or steel, our closest trading partners were often our biggest. This is no longer the case. Distance is dead.

The world is changing rapidly, and the UK must keep up. We have to look beyond Europe and seize the opportunities Brexit presents for us to be a truly Global Britain. Let’s not restrict ourselves to obsessive discussion of EU internal market or tie ourselves in knots as to how future trade will be conducted within the EU.

Aside from a global trade deal, Brexit brings a host of new opportunities. We have the opportunity to scrap the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy, allowing us to better support farmers, fishermen and consumers, and prioritise animal welfare.

We are a world leader in several emerging sectors including artificial intelligence, life sciences and information technology. These are the sectors of the future, and the UK is well poised to take advantage.

But if we remain tied to EU rules and within the EU’s orbit we will not remain a global leader for long. The EU will seek to reign in our competitive advantage with stifling regulations. Imagine being a global power in an emerging industry but having no power to set the rules.

We cannot allow ourselves to be bound by the EU’s stifling bureaucracy. Nobody is calling for a Wild West of deregulation. But we can have smarter, more sensible rules that create a fertile environment for our industries to thrive.

At least 700 were arrested in Paris as 5,000 demonstrators faced off against 8,000 police in another violent demonstration by “yellow vest” protesters.

Riots broke out all over France despite the supposed cause of the violence being eliminated earlier in the week by the government of President Emmanuel Macron. The government had been claiming that a fuel tax increase was to blame for the protests, but the government rescinded the increase on Wednesday.

Donald Trump believes it was Macron’s climate change policies:

But the protesters themselves were giving the real reason for the violence — if anyone in Macron’s government was listening.

Fox News:

“We are not here to destroy Paris, we are here to tell Macron we are f–king fed up,” said one protester before the clashes with the police began, adding that the people are protesting ever-increasing taxes on the working class.

[…]

Many protesters slammed the French media for portraying the protests as led by violent agitators and for siding with Macron’s government.

“We are not black bloc [black clad anarchists], we are ordinary people voicing our anger,” said a protester who did not want to be identified.

Meanwhile, the contagion has spread to neighboring Belgium and the Netherlands.

ABCNews:

Belgian police fired tear gas and water cannons at yellow-vested protesters calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Charles Michel after they tried to breach a riot barricade, as the movement that started in France made its mark Saturday in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Protesters in Brussels threw paving stones, road signs, fireworks, flares and other objects at police blocking their entry to an area where Michel’s offices, other government buildings and the parliament are located.

Brussels police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said that around 400 protesters were gathered in the area.

About 100 were detained, many for carrying dangerous objects like fireworks or clothing that could be used as protection in clashes with police.

The reasons for the protests are not entirely clear. Neither Belgium nor the Netherlands has proposed a hike in fuel tax — the catalyst for the massive and destructive demonstrations in France in recent weeks.

Instead, protesters appeared to hail at least in part from a populist movement that is angry at government policy in general and what it sees as the widening gulf between mainstream politicians and the voters who put them in power. Some in Belgium appeared intent only on confronting police.