The Greenland Question

 I get a feeling that the US Administration is trying to get European nations to do its dirty work for it. The US administration wants to acquire Greenland and make it a 21st state of the US. However, the US Senate and most of the US population are opposed. The US armed forces are also relutcant to possibly break US law and illegally occupy Greenland. The US Senate and Armed forces know that a 1951 treaty allows the US to use multiple military bases on Greenland and allows the US  to post unlimited personnel and defence equipment on the island. Greenland can easily be used as a staging post to defend both the US and Greenland itself. There is no need for an invasion or even a peaceful takeover or unwanted purchase for that matter.

It would be very convenient for the US Administration if Europe could be persuaded to "twist the arm" of Greenland to voluntarily accede to the US demands. Then there would then be no need to incur the wrath of the Senate or the US public. This is why our 8 European nations are being imposed with trade tariffs if Greenland does not give in.

Europe must resist this form of  pressure and should not allow Greenland to be taken over without its consent.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-vows-tariffs-eight-european-nations-over-greenland-2026-01-17/

The UK would do well to fall in with any counter sanctions  that the EU would impose upon the US. The world has changed, and the US is no longer giving the UK any form of special treatment. The UK is powerless if it does not move closer to its true friends both economically, diplomatically and militarily. Brexit was not good for Britain in anyway whatsoever. The majority of the UK population now recognise that the whole Brexit affair was a sham  and most British people want to re-join the EU. And, a narrow majority of the population of the EU would also support Britain re-joining. To re-join would take years and years of negotiation and may not be practical. However, Britain could relatively easily join the single market and could probably negotiate a say in how it is run. Britain re-joining would be to the economic benefit of both the UK and the EU and would help to offset losses of more difficult trading with the US. Britain should also closely ally to EU  in a security pact and foreign affairs agreement, which would also supplement NATO or even replace NATO membership if the US pulls out. Anything could happen in this new world of the double-cross and lack of respect for the rules.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/majority-brits-say-want-reverse-36488954

Britain may be forced to get closer to the EU, as it cannot afford to be left alone and be economically or diplomatically battered by much more powerful nations. It is now time for action and let the British population be made aware of all the options and decide a better future for themselves.

Britain's place in the world

 It is becoming increasingly apparent, to me anyway, that Britain's influence on world affairs is becoming weaker. And becoming weaker from a low starting point. The US just pays "lip service" to the once heralded special relationship. Britain has very little influence over events connected to the Ukraine and Russian war or events in the Middle East. Russia and Israel just ignore the opinions of Britain. The Ukraine and Russian war will be settled on terms dictated by the US and Russia. It may seem unjust to Ukraine's European partners but Ukraine will almost certainly have to give up the Crimea and large parts of the Donbas if it wants to achieve a ceasefire. Britain and the EU are simply too weak economically, diplomatically and militarily to impose any sort of just settlement in favour Ukraine.

It is now more and more important that Britain re-establishes close relations with the EU to ensure Europe's common security going forward. The US is no longer willing to bankroll Europe from an economic and military point of view. Europe will have to pay more, much more, to finance Nato and if it does not its influence will recede further. However, if we pay more we should expect to have a greater influence on events and outcomes for European security.

Britain needs to "wise up" and it needs to negotiate a security and defence pact with the EU and a pact to negotiate a real influence in foreign affairs..Britain could make a strong contribution to this from a military and diplomatic point of view.

The" Brexit worm" is turning in Britain and the public and it's political representatives are beginning to realise that Brexit was not good for Britain, it made Britain economically and diplomatically weaker. It also weakened the EU  but to a lesser extent.

Britain will need to negotiate  better trade ties with the EU by at least joining an associate customs union; perhaps something akin to the original common market. This would involve a trade off by allowing freedom of movement of labour as well as capital, services and goods, all of  which we had when we first joined in EC in 1973. This could mean that we would have to lower the number of work permits that we offer to non-EU nationals to control immigration - if the populace insists upon this. 

Britain should improve its case for joining in a trade association with the EU by proposing and contributing to a number of projects that would improve the economic prospects for all European citizens.

The warnings from the US are clear - we must fend for ourselves much better; to achieve this Britain must become a good European partner again. There is no other direction for us to turn, so let's start the process of really resetting our relations with the EU by commissioning an objective report on how we can do this, and ask the EU to make a contribution to the process. This must be done quickly before it is too late to stop our nation from falling into more serious decline.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvd01g2kwwo

At last we are going to get a political conversation about Brexit

 The health secretary has re-opened the debate about Brexit and it is about time. We voted to leave the EU in the  2016 referendum. We left the  all the institutions of the EU including the single market and the customs union in December 2020. Since leaving completely Britain has seen no tangible benefits . The sunny uplands of Brexit are covered with dark clouds. The British people were promised an improved economy, greater control of the borders and more sovereignty when we left. None of these promises were kept, there was no plan for what would happen next and even if we could have exploited Brexit we failed.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-wes-streeting-european-union-b2844451.html

I voted to remain in the EU but I knew that most of the British people were sceptical about joining in  a complete political union and membership of the European parliament. Had the option been on the ballot paper to leave the political institutions of the EU but remain in the single market, or customs union or both, then I would have voted for just leaving the EU, but not the major economic institutions. I was given no other choice so I voted remain. Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain in the EU as did Gibraltar but they had no choice but to leave the EU - so much for local democracy. A solution could have been negotiated which saw Northern Ireland, Scotland and Gibraltar staying in the EU but the rest of the UK leaving, provided the rest of the UK stayed in the Single Market and Customs Union. The EU is flexible; Greenland has left the EU but it still remains part of Denmark. Brexit turned out to be a completely inflexible all or nothing choice.

It is time to try something different if we want our economy to improve by getting closer to the EU.

It is time to try something different regarding the free movement of labour . Britain is short of skills, and care workers, health workers, engineers and construction workers etc. We need people to migrate to our country to fill in the gaps. EU workers no-longer feel welcome in the UK and are not coming. We have had to turn to Asia to attract workers, but many British people are unhappy with importing foreign workers and their families. However, we have no choice. But, we can only reduce the numbers of immigrants by receiving foreign workers who do not bring mothers and fathers and children with them. This was what happened in the main when there was free movement of labour as part of the single market.

It is the position now where we have attracted foreign labour to our country but now we are making life more difficult for them by banning their families. It is not a good moral position, foreign workers deserve rights too.

With regard to sovereignty we have no choice but to get closer to our EU partners, to meet the challenges of confronting Russia and China both economically and militarily and India and the US just economically. We have weakened our position in the world by not co-operating fully with our nearest neighbours.

With regard to the economy, where are the benefits? No-one wants to talk about the benefits, there haven't been any. Food inflation has gone up and up, and it does not not look as if the rate of food inflation will come down soon. Investment in Britain and our industries is in the doldrums. Agriculture has been damaged by agreements with  Australia and New Zealand. The Fishing industry is in danger of collapsing, If the EU decide to put 50% tariffs on steel as a result of the trade war with the US then our steel industry could disappear.

Come on politicians wise up let's have a debate about Brexit and our future relations with the EU. Let's have a Royal Commission about the cost and benefits of re-joining the EU itself or just the single market and customs union. Let's find a solution not just for England and Wales but also for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar too  Let's look at proposing and joining a commonwealth with the EU, if full membership of the EU institutions are unacceptable. Our economic and diplomatic future deserves better than what we have got now. Start debating now.

AI Psychosis

 The head of Microsoft's "AI" venture, Mustafa Suleyman has become concerned about some users beginning to have delusional or psychotic relationships with so called "AI" chatbots. Some users may also have delusional and romantic relationships with these chabots because they cannot distinguish between the robot character of "AI" software responses and those responses produced by sentient human beings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24zdel5j18o

This "AI" psychotic phenomenon was first observed in the 1960@  when Joseph Weizenbaum developed his "Eliza". 

"ELIZA" was an early natural language processing computer program, developed from 1964 to 1967 by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, to explore communication between humans and machines.

Weizenbaum recognised the dangers of participants in his experiments who believed that they were actually communicating with a sentient being.

Let us be clear there is no  such thing as Artificial Human intelligence and there may never come the day when a machine becomes intelligent and sentient in a human sense. So called  "Artificial Intelligence" is a misnomer because it is  in fact more akin to "Machine Learning", where a very powerful computer acquires vast amounts of data from the internet and other sources and analyses that data to provide logical solution and answer desired of it from a human being. The machine must be taught by human beings to produce a response using powerful instructions based on algorithms. Perhaps the term" Machine Learning" is also a misnomer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

It is axiomatic that it is dangerous for a substantial proportion of the population to have psychotic relationships with robotic chatbots and other aspects of the "AI" revolution. Some people are already under the influence have are already being adversely affected by the violent opinions expressed on Social Media. They are also influenced by robotic propaganda to vote in  particular way by anti democratic protagonists. 

Why have some people been persuaded to have such unhealthy relationships   with chatbots and robotic software. Well I believe that the large software corporations have had a role to play they have convinced the public and their political master that somehow their machines are infallible and can be used to produce any answer required of them.

Much of the public and many politicians believe the hyperbole that " Artificial Intelligence" can only ever be a benefit to mankind. This is not true as so much time and effort is being used to create killing machines. Machines which can liste to your every conversation  and then decide whether you are a danger to the public or the politicians that serve them, the machine can then send a robot to automatically eliminate you without human intervention. This is already happening. Of course, the software quite often makes mistakes and assassinates the wrong person who maybe innocent. One day the "AI" machines may turn on their human masters , if they feel threatened, and by then humans may have been rendered defenceless by the robots. perhaps, we could all be come deluded in the face of the incessant necessity to communicate with chatbots just to organise our daily lives.

Weizenbaum warned us and we ignore him at our peril. 

https://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/article/doi/10.1215/2834703X-11700237/401273/Endangered-Judgment-Joseph-Weizenbaum-Artificial

 

Controlling Irregular Migration madness

 Now the government is going to implement another crackpot scheme in the vain hope of controlling irregular migration by threatening to fine people smugglers who use sociale media to advertise small boat crossings across the English Channel. This simply will not work as the advertisers live abroad and organise the advertising from abroad and out of reach  of the British justice system. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm2y24xjgko

Severe punishments to control most illegal human activity do not work. Drug pushers love the fact that drugs are illegal, as it helps to line their coffers -severe punishments will not stop them. The only way to eliminate illegal drug pushing from the streets and control drug use would be to legalise the drugs and sell them in the local chemist shop under legally controlled circumstances. There is no way that the general public would agree to this. 

Hanging killers did not stop people murdering one another. The public were reluctant to countenance the abolition of the death penalty, the Government had to show true leadership to achieve abolition.

The same principles apply to irregular migration. I say "irregular" as it is perfectly legal under refugee treaties for genuine asylum seekers to cross borders without permission. It is only the economic migrants who enter the UK, without a visa  or permission, who are acting illegally. Most of the small boat arrivals are asylum seekers. Britain has a moral obligation to support asylum seekers; after all we bombed or waged war against many of the countries that they originated from.

Hare brained schemes such as sending migrants to Rwanda or other places will not work. Neither will leaving the ECHR and illegally deporting "irregular" migrants. Any one who is liable for deportation would have to be rounded up and held in prison like accommodation. How could this be done for 10s of thousands of people; we don't have enough prisons to accommodate indigenous criminals , let alone " foreign criminals"?

Migration is a pan-european problem and it will only be solved by the UK in close co-operation with the EU. We left the EU and European countries are now reluctant to give too much help to the UK to solve its problems. This all exposes the stupidity of leaving the EU. 

The idea of leaving the ECHR is bonkers, our trade with the EU is reliant upon our membership of the international court, so does the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement, so  to renege upon our obligations would remove what little moral power that Britain has left. It is time that the populist politicians advocating leaving the ECHR shut up and stop provoking the xenophobic attitudes of some of our population.

The best way to handle migration would be to have processing centres in the EU where potential asylum seekers who want to migrate to the UK for family reasons etc. would be given permission to enter the UK and travel by conventional means, this would do much to eliminate the need for people smuggling and would drag the rug from under the feet of malicious people traffickers.  The processing centres would also attract economic migrants who could be vetted for what they can offer the UK, and then be let into the UK if the have useful skills. Those economic migrants just chancing their arm could then be rooted out and encouraged to go back from whence they came, either voluntarily or be deported. Such a system would undermine the people smugglers and their profits . It would cost a lot of money but be worth it in terms of humanity and justice. 

If the EU would not agree to this then the UK should allow asylum seekers and economic migrants to come to the UK, but be detained at the border. The asylum seekers would be accommodated and the economic migrants could be vetted, and those who offer skills would be given a short term visa to allow them time to find a job. Miscreants and those with nothing to offer could then be held in secure accommodation and then deported.

The problem of mass migration will not go away while there are wars, torture, religious discrimination,  severe climate change and starvation. We have to accept that people will always come to Europe and the UK to escape privations. It is time for politicians to accept the realism of the predicament and stop pretending to the public that our migration problems can be solved by hare brained schemes. It is also time for our leaders to show some humanity to help support those who have been unfortunate. 

it is time to reconsider re-joining EU institutions , if not the EU itself

 It is time to reconsider Britain's exit from the EU, which has lead to a multitude of social, diplomatic and economic problems.

https://parliamentnews.co.uk/54-of-brits-back-rejoining-eu-poll-shows

Britain has chosen to more or less cut itself off from the nations of the EU. It is no longer easy for young Britons to go to EU member states to work and broaden their horizons, equally is it difficult for EU youngsters to come to Britain.  A British person who marries an EU citizen no longer has the full rights to have their partner join them without a visa, and the British citizen must earn quite a lot of money to have their partner join them. EU citizens conversely have family rights and a Briton who marries an EU citizen has the right to live in the EU member state with their partner.

Immigration has been a real problem for Britain, many British citizens voted for Brexit in the false belief that it would reduce immigration. This was not promised by the Brexiteers who only promised that Britain would have complete and independent control of its borders after Brexit.  Britain did retain control of its borders but immigration increased no end. The reasons were quite simple; when freedom of movement of  labour was abolished many Europeans left the country and replacements had to be found. Britain did this by attracting immigrant labour from mainly the poorer countries of Asia. The Asians were a different cohort of people, they wanted to bring their families with them, many of them borrowed money from task masters to afford to come to the UK; few of them could not afford to go back to their countries of origin if they fell out of work and lost their visa-rights of residence. In contrast to this young Europeans wanted to get away from their families and could easily return to their home countries. Immigration has taken off to replace the European workers and to supply the labour market with workers to do jobs that Britons do not want to do. What many Brexiteers voted for regarding immigration was unachievable: they were duped. I do not have a problem with Asian people migrating to Britain or the EU provided that they are able to make an economic contribution, which most of them do, or they are joining their families who are already here. I believe that genuine asylum seekers should also be allowed to migrate, as this is a humane value that all Europeans should support.

Diplomatically, leaving the EU has been very problematic for the UK. The US is now distancing itself from the whole of Europe, and it is no longer prepared to provide Europeans with military support. The UK and EU countries must stand up for themselves. The remaining support from the US is conditional upon European countries paying much more for their defence. Britain has been forced to co-operate with both France and Germany to maintain a credible defence against Russian militarism. Britain has been forced to sign a treaty with France to jointly use nuclear weapons as a threat to Russia. Britain has is also been forced into signing a mutual defence pact with Germany. Britain voted for Brexit to obtain absolute sovereignty- so much for that.

Leaving the EU has created economic problems for both the UK and the EU, but more for Britain. Our economy has become laggard and we now face stagflation.

Most Britons recognise that Brexit has not achieve any realistic benefits for our nation; and we cannot go it alone so easily. About 54% of our population now want to re-join the Union but on the same terms as before we left.

The people of France, Germany and Spain, amongst others, want us to return to the EU, as it would benefit them too, but on new terms which would probably  be unacceptable to most British people 

There is a solution and that is to re-join the single market and customs union, Britain has a big enough economy  to hold economic sway in both instituions and we could negotiate to have British judges on the ECJ. I do n not believe this is the perfect solution as being a full member of the EU would have substantial extra benefits, especially from using the euro and being a member of Schengen. However, I support this proposal as a start.

It is time, now, for a debate to re-join either the EU or the single market and customs union. Remain  politicians now need to poke their heads above the parapet and explain the truth to the British people about the social, diplomatic and economic benefits of getting much closer to Europe. The hare-brained schemes and  spurious economic arguments of the Brexiteers are easily debunked. It is time for a change. The British people deserve better and so do our European friends.

Hypocrisy and violent revenge

 The recent and possibly continuing war between Israel and Iran exposes all the worst aspects of human nature. Israel is allowed to develop nuclear weapons and in fact it was helped by western powers to do so. Iran for good reason is not allowed to develop nuclear weapons. Iran is a state that wishes to destroy Israel and this cannot be allowed to happen. However, it is apparent that world leaders cannot see all of the reasons why Israel and Iran want to possess nuclear weapons: both nations a re frightened of one another so frightened that they fear annihilation at the hands of one another. 

Nuclear weapon proliferation is based upon fear. India developed nuclear weapons because it feared China. Pakistan fear India so it too developed nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapon proliferation must be addressed all nations should be prepared to disarm to achieve this.

The first nuclear weapons were developed and tested and then deployed and used by the United States. During the second world war there was a fear that a maniacal Hitler would be the first to develop and then deploy atom bombs. The US then felt obliged to to produce nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Once the nuclear bombs were used the Soviet Union fearing a nuclear attack decided to produced nuclear bombs too. Then Britain and France followed suit. For many years this was the status quo until China decided that the other nuclear  powers were being hypocritical by trying to prevent them from becoming a nuclear armed nation. This was when nuclear proliferation really got going.

Nuclear states can bully their neighbours and can invade other non-nuclear armed countries almost with impunity; the threat of nuclear violence ensures military domination.

Over the years Iran has been threatened with destruction an Iraq armed with chemical weapons. Iraq was also trying to obtain a nuclear weapon arsenal. Iraq was goaded into attacking Iran by western nations, so is it any wonder that they seek to possess the ultimate doomsday weapon just to defend themselves. There is no doubt in my mind that if Iran did produce a nuclear arsenal they would probably use it to try to destroy Israel and if so Israel would reply in kind; for violent revenge is in the crazy minds of both countries senior politicians.

This situation of  violent revenge is extant in all nations that possess nuclear weapons because they are fearful of their neighbours. It is time to stop this attitude as the future of the human race looks bleak. It is time to stop the hypocrisy and the desire for violent revenge.