Ben Waite — A battle for the meaning of British Conservatism

There are several types of conservatism. 

There is traditional conservatism that favors an authoritarian state (monarchy), a state religion and an established order as guardians of tradition and custom and bulwarks against innovation and change. This is called Traditionalism. It's chief opponent is Liberalism. Traditionalism is reactionary, and it regards Liberalism as radicalism.

The other type of conservatism is actually an aspect of Liberalism. This sort of conservatism tends to be  economically liberal but politically and socially traditional. This is the conservative-liberal divide in US and UK politics for example.

Within the conservative aspect of Liberalism there are several approaches. One is neoliberalism and the other compassionate conservatism. This article explores this dichotomy in UK politics, specifically the differences in approaches of David Cameron and Theresa May. 

While the Cameron government espoused the neoliberal principals of fiscal consolidation and austerity economically and globalism and open borders politically, the May government has jettisoned that approach in favor of a more inclusive capitalism, declaring the age of Thatcherism over in favor of nationalism and using the power of the state for public purpose including promoting the general welfare. 

The post suggests that instead of abandoning of conservatism, this can be viewed as returning to the policy approach of Benjamin Disraeli's One Nation Toryism.

Longish, but worth the read. Although it is about the UK specifically, the issues are similar in the US. A good summary of conservatism within the Liberal political tradition.

Open Democracy
A battle for the meaning of British Conservatism

Ben Waite

Defend Democracy — After Iraq, British parliamentarians discover Libya – how Cameron and Sarkozy destroyed it

Astounding incompetence based on bad intelligence, faulty analysis, and wishful thinking.

The disturbing thing is that the report is OK with provoking regime change in a sovereign country. The report criticizes the means instead. Imperialism and colonialism are alive and well as "the white man's burden."

Defend Democracy
After Iraq, British parliamentarians discover Libya – how Cameron and Sarkozy destroyed it

Vladimir Rodzianko — ‘Who must go, Mr. Cameron?’, asks Assad

The Duran
‘Who must go, Mr. Cameron?’, asks Assad
Vladimir Rodzianko

See also

How Greeks View The Brexit In One Simple Meme

Alex Christoforou

Joe Mellor — VIDEO – “Put on a proper suit!” PM Chooses to Abuse Corbyn at PMQs

David Cameron pulls (class) rank, talks to Jeremy Corbyn like a school boy about his dress.

The London Economic 

VIDEO – “Put on a proper suit!” PM Chooses to Abuse Corbyn at PMQs
Joe Mellor

Alex MacDonald — Who are the 70,000 fighters the UK will be backing in Syria?

UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday delivered a speech to the House of Commons in which he set out future plans for UK military intervention in Syria.

In response to criticism that airstrikes in Syria would not be enough to ensure the defeat of Islamic State, the Prime Minister stated that there were 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters “who do not belong to extremist groups" able to fight against IS and work with the US-led coalition forces.

In a statement accompanying the speech - which came in response to a broadly critical report by the Foreign Affairs Committee - Cameron stated that allies in Syria included the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army.

He also referred to “moderate armed groups in northern Syria” who had managed to defend “territory north of Aleppo” from IS.

The question of supporting “moderate” groups in Syria has, however, proved controversial in the past, as a large number of groups in Syria opposed to both the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and IS have been identified as Islamist or Salafist Jihadist....

Michael Stephens, Research Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told Middle East Eye that he had received information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the 70,000 number cited by David Cameron did not include some 50,000 troops of the YPG.

Though the Kurdish YPG is seen as "moderate" and have been one of the most effective ground forces against IS, their desire to primarily liberate land seen as part of a future Kurdish state has meant their scope has been limited, with Cameron today warning that "only moderate Sunni Arabs can retake traditionally Sunni Arab areas such as Raqqa".

Stephens added that the only information given to him was that the 70,000 number included groups that fought both Assad and IS. No specific groups were mentioned. 

“It's unclear as to the composition of the groups and this needs to be clarified,” Stephens said....

Middle East Eye
Who are the 70,000 fighters the UK will be backing in Syria?

Alex MacDonald

RT — Breaking international law in Syria

The war drums are getting louder in the aftermath of ISIS attacks in Paris, as Western countries gear up to launch further airstrikes in Syria. But obscured in the fine print of countless resolutions and media headlines is this: the West has no legal basis for military intervention. Their strikes are illegal.

“It is always preferable in these circumstances to have the full backing of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) but I have to say what matters most of all is that any actions we would take would… be legal,” explained UK Prime Minister David Cameron to the House of Commons last Wednesday.

Legal? No, there’s not a scrap of evidence that UK airstrikes would be lawful in their current incarnation.

Then just two days later, on Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2249, aimed at rallying the world behind the fairly obvious notion that ISIS is an “unprecedented threat to international peace and security.”

"It's a call to action to member states that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures against (ISIS) and other terrorist groups," British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters.

The phrase “all necessary measures” was broadly interpreted – if not explicitly sanctioning the “use of force” in Syria, then as a wink to it.

Let’s examine the pertinent language of UNSCR 2249:

The resolution “calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter…on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq.”

Note that the resolution demands “compliance with international law, in particular with the UN Charter.” This is probably the most significant explainer to the “all necessary measures” phrase. Use of force is one of the most difficult things for the UNSC to sanction – it is a last resort measure, and a rare one. The lack of Chapter 7 language in the resolution pretty much means that ‘use of force’ is not on the menu unless states have other means to wrangle “compliance with international law.”….

There are a lot of laws that seek to govern and prevent wars, but the Western nations looking to launch airstrikes in Syria have made things easy for us – they have cited the law that they believe justifies their military intervention: specifically, Article 51 of the UN Charter. It reads, in part:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

So doesn’t France, for instance, enjoy the inherent right to bomb ISIS targets in Syria as an act of self-defense - in order to prevent further attacks? 

And don’t members of the US-led coalition, who cite the “collective self-defense” of Iraq (the Iraqi government has formally made this request), have the right to prevent further ISIS attacks from Syrian territory into Iraqi areas?

Well, no. Article 51, as conceived in the UN Charter, refers to attacks between territorial states, not with non-state actors like ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Syria, after all, did not attack France or Iraq – or Turkey, Australia, Jordan or Saudi Arabia.
And here’s where it gets interesting.

Western leaders are employing two distinct strategies to obfuscate the lack of legal justification for intervention in Syria. The first is the use of propaganda to build narratives about Syria that support their legal argumentation. The second is a shrewd effort to cite legal “theory” as a means to ‘stretch’ existing law into a shape that supports their objectives.…

If there was any lingering doubt about the illegality of coalition activities in Syria, the Syrian government put these to rest in September, in two letters to the UNSC that denounced foreign airstrikes as unlawful:

“If any State invokes the excuse of counter-terrorism in order to be present on Syrian territory without the consent of the Syrian Government whether on the country’s land or in its airspace or territorial waters, its action shall be considered a violation of Syrian sovereignty.”

Yet still, upon the adoption of UNSC Resolution 2249 last Friday, US Deputy Representative to the United Nations Michele Sison insisted that “in accordance with the UN Charter and its recognition of the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense,” the US would use “necessary and proportionate military action” in Syria.

The website for the European Journal of International Law (EJIL) promptly pointed out the obvious:

“The resolution is worded so as to suggest there is Security Council support for the use of force against IS. However, though the resolution, and the unanimity with which it was adopted, might confer a degree of legitimacy on actions against IS, the resolution does not actually authorize any actions against IS, nor does it provide a legal basis for the use of force against IS either in Syria or in Iraq.”

These are some high points that are not intended as a summary because the details that have been omitted are important. Read the whole piece. It contains a lot of information that debunks Western propaganda to justify breaking international law — which one of Vladimir Putin's chief indictments of the West.

If the ‘international community’ wants to return ‘peace and stability’ to the Syrian state, it seems prudent to point out that its very first course of action should be to stop breaking international law in Syria.

Smackdown.

RT

Breaking international law in Syria

Sharmine Narwani | a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics, and former senior associate at St. Antony's College, Oxford University

John Helmer — After Merkel Finishes Destroying Germany, Cameron Europe, And After Obama Loses His War Against The Kremlin, Putin Will Be The Last Man Flying — That’s Russia Without The Oligarchs

Caution — geniuses at work.

Dances with Bears
After Merkel Finishes Destroying Germany, Cameron Europe, And After Obama Loses His War Against The Kremlin, Putin Will Be The Last Man Flying — That’s Russia Without The Oligarchs
John Helmer

John Ward — If Cameron Says He Can Negotiate With A Triumphalist Germany, Then He Is A Liar

In just ten years, Europeans experienced total Soviet collapse, reunified Germany, accepted federalism, scoped out EMU, and launched the euro. Only recently have increasing numbers of EU and eurozone citizens really grasped the sloppiness, corruption and corner-cutting involved in this process. But still hardly anyone gets why German-led globalism and control freakery have turned the Union from fluffy dream to anarchic nightmare…and totally removed the potential for long term peace.…

The European Union, far from keeping the peace in Europe, has become a creator of tectonic tensions and social divisiveness which, after North Korea and the USA, represents the greatest threat to peace and prosperity in the contemporary world.

Why does any of this matter for Brexit?

It matters for one reason above all others. It matters for a reason that invites Leftist UK voters to take off their blinkers about the EU, and Rightist voters to do the same in relation to David Cameron.

The British Left needs to face facts: the EU is not a force for peace and harmony, it is a directionless seed blowing with the wind of neoliberalism. It is a born catalyst for social division, growing wealth divides, and yes – even civil war.

The British Right needs to face facts: David Cameron is not a brave and principled reformer out to do battle with the Horrid Hun and Beastly Brussels. The British Prime Minister is a convinced corporacrat in favour of multinational globalist banking and business, and therefore desperate to compete in that pigswill with all the other sociopathic hogs.

For all Britons regardless of political affiliation, there is an acid Troika of test questions that can be put to the occupant of Number Ten Downing Street:
Can you bring about EU reform that will bring key Sovereign powers back to the UK?
Can you get the EU to abandon federalism, and go back to being a purely economic community of nations?

Can you persuade Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt to cut their losses on the euro, and stop blaming innocent European citizens for an ill-conceived and hubris-fuelled mistake?
If he can answer a straight ‘Yes’ to all three – and if he has succeeded by the time of the referendum – then we should all vote to stay in.

But if he can’t and they won’t, we should all vote to leave at the earliest opportunity.

The Slog

Saturday Essay Special: If Cameron Says He Can Negotiate With A Triumphalist Germany, Then He Is A Liar

John Ward

RT Using Magna Carta to justify Human Rights Act repeal ‘insult to British history’ – Amnesty

David Cameron goes over over the top.

The Magna Carta was not about human rights. It was a limitation of the monarch's power over the barons. It was not even a bourgeois document but a feudal one. It was a liberal advance in the context of the times, of which the British people can be proud, but it is irrelevant now operationally and is merely of historical interest.

RT
Using Magna Carta to justify Human Rights Act repeal ‘insult to British history’ – Amnesty

Looks like voters give David Cameron another term and a big win for Conservatives.

Looks like the U.K. just re-elected Cameron and the Conservatives by a big margin. Pretty amazing. Austerity rules. Is this a global epidemic of masochism?

Republicans here in the U.S. taking over Congress. Faux liberals in France and Geece. I've never seen so many people vote so heavily against their interest in my life.

Looks like things will have to get a lot, lot, worse before there's any chance of them getting better and by that time, it won't be as a result of the polls, but probably bloody revolution.

Robert Skidelsky — Conservative Election Manifesto

The Conservatives have continued to spin their familiar yarn of having rescued Britain from ‘Labour’s Great Recession’. This, as they must know, is the mother of all lies. The Great Recession was caused by the banks. Governments, the Labour government included, by bailing out the banks and continuing to spend, stopped the Great Recession from turning into a Great Depression. Yet practically everyone seems to believe that the Great Recession was manufactured by Gordon Brown.

The Conservatives claim that ‘by halving the deficit we have restored confidence to the economy’. This cheerfully ignores the near academic consensus that their deficit-reduction policies over the last 5 years have made the British economy between 5 and 10% smaller than it would have been with more sensible policies.….

Conservative Election Manifesto
Robert Skidelsky

ht Brad DeLong

Ann Pettifore — Is there no such thing as public money, only taxpayers money, as PM asserts? Was £375bn of QE raised from taxpayers?

Lump of money fallacy.

We disagree with the ‘there is no money’ mantra. Within a sound financial and monetary system, there need never be a shortage of money to meet society’s needs. There may be limited resources, and limited brainpower but there need never be a shortage of money. In this briefing I set out to explain why.....

Debtonation
Is there no such thing as public money, only taxpayers money, as PM asserts? Was £375bn of QE raised from taxpayers?

Ann Pettifore

Also put up by Ann today:

Eurozone QE: Better ways to boost the economy and employment

New Publication on Islamic Finance

Alex Little — Cameron channels Thatcher to remind us what the Conservatives really stand for

“Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.” – Margaret Thatcher, Speech to Conservative Party Conference, 1983

I was six months old when Thatcher gave this speech. It was nonsense then and it is still nonsense now. That hasn’t stopped David Cameron from channeling the spirit of his hero in a speech given on the campaign trail today saying: 

“We know that there is no such thing as public money – there is only taxpayers’ money. And we know how we’d rather see it spent: Not on bureaucracy or bloat or the latest crackpot Government scheme but on you, your family – your future.
“Quite simply, it’s your money – you earned it. And we believe it’s people – not politicians – who know best how to spend their own money. And that’s what today is all about.”....

The UK government is the issuer of pounds. They don’t come from anywhere else, so in order for us to have money to pay our taxes, government must spend the money into the economy first, and it must generally spend more than it taxes back in order for the supply of money to increase sustainably.

Now I don’t think Cameron wants to shrink the size of government to nothing (I don’t think he really believes in anything really), but this section of his speech shows a willingness to gently lie to people in order to push policies which seem to benefit all, but are really squarely aimed at benefiting those at the top. Those at the top can afford the best of everything. They don’t need public services. Everyone else though doesn’t have that luxury though, which is why pooling our resources makes sense in so many areas. Cameron also talked about the “immorality” of government spending, but providing useful public services is not immoral, it’s just common sense!

alittleecon — There is an alternative

Cameron channels Thatcher to remind us what the Conservatives really stand for

Bill Mitchell — British fiscal statement – continues the lie about austerity

Most of the commentary about George Osborne’s Fiscal Statement has been about the fact that the fiscal strategy is designed not for the long-term benefit of the British economy and hence its people but rather has a 50 days time target – to shore up political support for the Conservatives at the upcoming general election in May. That appears to be true. 

But the more compelling aspect of the exercise from my perspective is that it continues the fraud that austerity worked....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
British fiscal statement – continues the lie about austerity
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Mike Bird — Cameron: We're willing to take sanctions on Russia 'to a whole different level'

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is taking a harder stance on Russian President Vladimir Putin than his French and German colleagues. 

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published early Friday, Cameron said the UK would be ready to take Russian sanctions "to a whole different level" if there were another surge in violence in eastern Ukraine and that Western nations should prepare themselves for a long-term struggle against Russia. 

Cameron, unlike French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was not in Minsk for the cease-fire talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Putin. Cameron was thought to be closer to the US position, which is more open to helping further arm the Ukrainian government in its struggle against Russian-backed separatists. 

Here's The Journal on Cameron: 

On events in Ukraine, he said the West must be prepared "to settle in for a long and determined position" of pitting the weight of the U.S. and the EU against Russia.
"If Russia is going to rip up the rule book of the 21st century and destabilize a sovereign country, then the rest of the world should be prepared to say to Russia, 'Well you can't rip up one part of the international rule book while still having access to international markets, international finance, international systems,'" Mr. Cameron said....

I guess David Cameron hasn't heard of blowback. Or maybe he hasn't heard that the British Empire is over and thinks they still own the global economy.

Business Insider
Cameron: We're willing to take sanctions on Russia 'to a whole different level'

Mike Bird

James Chapman — Europe must 'shell out' to save Greece: Boris Johnson warns of 'huge contagious impact' of country crashing out of the single currency

• Boris said eurozone will unravel unless leaders 'shell out' to Greece
• London Mayor urged end to 'stand-off' between Athens and Europe
• He warned of 'contagious impact' of Greece crashing out of single currency
• David Cameron urged Greek PM Alexis Tsipras to reach a compromise

Is the City getting cold feet? Or is Syriza holding their feet to the fire?

Daily Mail

Europe must 'shell out' to save Greece: Boris Johnson warns of 'huge contagious impact' of country crashing out of the single currency
James Chapman for the Daily Mail

ht Clonal

Keiser Report: Ruble’s Baptism by Fire

Published on Dec 20, 2014

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert are joined by Liam Halligan of BNE.eu. They talk rubles, sanctions and diversifying the economy with some technology investments. In the second half, Max interviews Konstantin Gurdgiev about the ruble, the Russian budget and David Cameron’s take on the causes and consequences of the crisis and sanctions. They also discuss the ruble’s ‘baptism by fire’ as it only just joined the five trillion dollar per day forex markets.

Keiser Report: Ruble’s Baptism by Fire

Joe Weisenthal — Here's David Cameron Calling For Permanent Austerity In Front Of All Kinds Of Ridiculous Gold Things

Business Insider
Here's David Cameron Calling For Permanent Austerity In Front Of All Kinds Of Ridiculous Gold Things
Joe Weisenthal
h/t Jan Milch

Time to tighten the cummerbunds.

George Monbiot — The Insatiable God

Sacrificing all to the insatiable god of capital for the next spurt of growth.

George Monbiot
The Insatiable God
h/t Eric Ashelman

Robert Stevens — UK Tories in conflict with Merkel government over limiting EU immigration

On Monday, German news magazine Der Spiegel quoted anonymous high-level sources within the German government stating they were prepared to accept Britain leaving the European Union (EU). 

British Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking to renegotiate key terms of Britain’s membership in the EU, including limiting migration from EU states. The Conservative Party leader has pledged to have a referendum vote on Britain’s continued membership of the bloc in 2017. Der Spiegel reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Cameron at last week’s EU summit in Brussels that she would not accept restrictions on the free movement of EU citizens within the bloc. 

“For the first time, according to an assessment by the Chancellery and the Foreign Ministry, Cameron is pushing his country toward a ‘point of no return’ when it comes to European Union membership—a point at which Germany would cease doing all it can to convince Britain to remain a member of the EU,” the news magazine wrote.

WSWS

UK Tories in conflict with Merkel government over limiting EU immigration
Robert Stevens