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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/31/brexiters-dont-mind-freedom-of-movement-as-long-as-youre-rich-enough-to-pay-for-it
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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
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| Brexiters don’t mind freedom of movement – as long as you’re rich enough to pay for it | Brexiters don’t mind freedom of movement – as long as you’re rich enough to pay for it |
| (5 days later) | |
| Legatum founder Christopher Chandler campaigned for leave but has now bought Maltese citizenship. Was making open borders an elite privilege the idea all along? | Legatum founder Christopher Chandler campaigned for leave but has now bought Maltese citizenship. Was making open borders an elite privilege the idea all along? |
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| Wed 31 Jan 2018 16.52 GMT | Wed 31 Jan 2018 16.52 GMT |
| Last modified on Mon 5 Feb 2018 12.50 GMT | |
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| This article is the subject of a legal complaint made on behalf of Christopher Chandler. | |
| It’s an advert by an ancestry-DNA company, meant to be funny, in a trolling way, but actually quite tear-jerking: some Swedish fishermen singing in charming baritone; a French lady peeling potatoes; some rugby players from Ireland, all singing Rick Astley’s Together Forever. It’s mainly the unbearable sweetness of the 80s pop hit rendered by regular human voice, but also the message: we may be leaving Europe, but the average British person has 60% European DNA. So we’re always welcome. | It’s an advert by an ancestry-DNA company, meant to be funny, in a trolling way, but actually quite tear-jerking: some Swedish fishermen singing in charming baritone; a French lady peeling potatoes; some rugby players from Ireland, all singing Rick Astley’s Together Forever. It’s mainly the unbearable sweetness of the 80s pop hit rendered by regular human voice, but also the message: we may be leaving Europe, but the average British person has 60% European DNA. So we’re always welcome. |
| Brexit emotions tend to conflict: you can’t laugh at Tory disarray while simultaneously worrying about the sheer scope of their incompetence. Even the cognitive gear shift involved in opposing Brexit because it is stupid, and wondering whether it’s legitimate to oppose a stupid thing when it’s what other people want, I’ve been finding a little difficult. So “ineffable sadness” and “detached satirical scorn” have barely had a look in this week, the mood of which has been set by the citizenship arrangements of one Christopher Chandler. | Brexit emotions tend to conflict: you can’t laugh at Tory disarray while simultaneously worrying about the sheer scope of their incompetence. Even the cognitive gear shift involved in opposing Brexit because it is stupid, and wondering whether it’s legitimate to oppose a stupid thing when it’s what other people want, I’ve been finding a little difficult. So “ineffable sadness” and “detached satirical scorn” have barely had a look in this week, the mood of which has been set by the citizenship arrangements of one Christopher Chandler. |
| Founder of the Dubai-based investment group Legatum, Chandler is the main backer of the Legatum Institute Foundation, a forceful pro-Brexit voice, heavily in favour of retaking our sovereignty, right up to the point where that might mean we lose our freedom of movement. But he didn’t get where he is today by not planning ahead, people: Chandler bought himself a Maltese passport, under a citizenship deal known informally as “yours for €800,000”. Many European nations have such provision: we ourselves have an “investor visa”, available for £1m-worth of government bonds, although that is becoming rather a niche purchase, somewhere between a chocolate fireguard and a piss in some wind. You can’t blame an international man of business (Chandler is originally from New Zealand; his CEO, Mark Stoleson, also a newly minted Malteser, is American) for wanting a passport that allows you to move freely from one place to another. | Founder of the Dubai-based investment group Legatum, Chandler is the main backer of the Legatum Institute Foundation, a forceful pro-Brexit voice, heavily in favour of retaking our sovereignty, right up to the point where that might mean we lose our freedom of movement. But he didn’t get where he is today by not planning ahead, people: Chandler bought himself a Maltese passport, under a citizenship deal known informally as “yours for €800,000”. Many European nations have such provision: we ourselves have an “investor visa”, available for £1m-worth of government bonds, although that is becoming rather a niche purchase, somewhere between a chocolate fireguard and a piss in some wind. You can’t blame an international man of business (Chandler is originally from New Zealand; his CEO, Mark Stoleson, also a newly minted Malteser, is American) for wanting a passport that allows you to move freely from one place to another. |
| It was always going to work like this: ending freedom of movement only ever meant ending the free freedom. People who could afford it were always going to have it. Nigel Farage, just after the referendum, was spotted in a queue at the German embassy, sparking rumours (denied by a spokesman) that he was applying for dual citizenship. The self-protection of the average Ukip leader, guarding against the consequences of their own actions by taking the precaution of a continental wife, turned out to be only short-lived – Farage’s wife is estranged, Henry Bolton’s was dumped by text – although I’m not sure this marks the end of their migration opportunities. | It was always going to work like this: ending freedom of movement only ever meant ending the free freedom. People who could afford it were always going to have it. Nigel Farage, just after the referendum, was spotted in a queue at the German embassy, sparking rumours (denied by a spokesman) that he was applying for dual citizenship. The self-protection of the average Ukip leader, guarding against the consequences of their own actions by taking the precaution of a continental wife, turned out to be only short-lived – Farage’s wife is estranged, Henry Bolton’s was dumped by text – although I’m not sure this marks the end of their migration opportunities. |
| Beneath the charming paradox is the ice-cold mirthless racket of what money can buy: first, it buys you a thinktank, then it buys you a campaign, then it buys you a victory, in the prosecution of an agenda wherein all the rights that have been painstakingly, collectively accrued over decades are overturned, and then it buys you back those rights, secure in the knowledge that now only you have them. The shamelessness is so vast that it’s hard to divine its motive. Did Chandler deliberately set out to turn a universal right into an elite privilege? Or was that just an unfortunate side-effect? | Beneath the charming paradox is the ice-cold mirthless racket of what money can buy: first, it buys you a thinktank, then it buys you a campaign, then it buys you a victory, in the prosecution of an agenda wherein all the rights that have been painstakingly, collectively accrued over decades are overturned, and then it buys you back those rights, secure in the knowledge that now only you have them. The shamelessness is so vast that it’s hard to divine its motive. Did Chandler deliberately set out to turn a universal right into an elite privilege? Or was that just an unfortunate side-effect? |
| I miss the days when we didn’t worry about the inner workings of the super-rich. I miss it being irrelevant where your DNA was from, because international cooperation was such a foregone conclusion it didn’t need a genetic imprint. I miss Rick Astley. Thank God, the sadness is back. Anger is so tiring. | I miss the days when we didn’t worry about the inner workings of the super-rich. I miss it being irrelevant where your DNA was from, because international cooperation was such a foregone conclusion it didn’t need a genetic imprint. I miss Rick Astley. Thank God, the sadness is back. Anger is so tiring. |
| Liz Truss’s digs fall flatte | Liz Truss’s digs fall flatte |
| Liz Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury, unleashed the hellfire of her logic upon Momentum members this week, noting that they “meet in buildings built by private companies, sip lattes made by private firms, tweet about how terrible private companies are – on a social media platform run by a private company”. Checkmate, revolutionaries. You’re probably wearing pants stitched by a private company, as you munch a sandwich made with bread, which Adam Smith already proved was the work of perfect market forces, turned by the invisible hand into a yeasty and delicious treat. | Liz Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury, unleashed the hellfire of her logic upon Momentum members this week, noting that they “meet in buildings built by private companies, sip lattes made by private firms, tweet about how terrible private companies are – on a social media platform run by a private company”. Checkmate, revolutionaries. You’re probably wearing pants stitched by a private company, as you munch a sandwich made with bread, which Adam Smith already proved was the work of perfect market forces, turned by the invisible hand into a yeasty and delicious treat. |
| Obviously, having taken the precaution of being born in a private hospital, attending a private school, taking a degree from a private university some decades before such a thing existed, travelling only by helicopter and never once being ill or calling the police, Truss herself is true to her values in a way that the rest of us can only watch in awe. | Obviously, having taken the precaution of being born in a private hospital, attending a private school, taking a degree from a private university some decades before such a thing existed, travelling only by helicopter and never once being ill or calling the police, Truss herself is true to her values in a way that the rest of us can only watch in awe. |
| I have a tiny problem with the way that “latte” has become the go-to insult of political hypocrisy, and only one’s opponents ever “sip”. Sipping is a natural adaptation to a drink that is hot; as a general rule, if a chinchilla can do it, it’s an apolitical act. And a latte is just a very milky coffee. It is not an endpoint signifier of privilege. When your socialists can no longer afford imaginary champagne, you know your rhetoric has gone bust. | I have a tiny problem with the way that “latte” has become the go-to insult of political hypocrisy, and only one’s opponents ever “sip”. Sipping is a natural adaptation to a drink that is hot; as a general rule, if a chinchilla can do it, it’s an apolitical act. And a latte is just a very milky coffee. It is not an endpoint signifier of privilege. When your socialists can no longer afford imaginary champagne, you know your rhetoric has gone bust. |
| Later the same day, Truss tweeted that Jeremy Corbyn was probably planning a Bitcoin miners’ strike, ramming her drollery home with the hashtag #bitcoinminersstrike. With two data points of nonsense, it is plain that an intern has hacked her passwords and started chewing through her wires, like when you let a rabbit near your TV. MPs really need to get a grip on online security. | Later the same day, Truss tweeted that Jeremy Corbyn was probably planning a Bitcoin miners’ strike, ramming her drollery home with the hashtag #bitcoinminersstrike. With two data points of nonsense, it is plain that an intern has hacked her passwords and started chewing through her wires, like when you let a rabbit near your TV. MPs really need to get a grip on online security. |
| Animal attraction | Animal attraction |
| You can take whatever dog you like to a pub, but only with a Staffordshire bull terrier will you get a stranger standing by your table going: “Oh, staffy-staffy-staffy.” Nobody ever coos “Oh, spaniel-spaniel-spaniel”, and this is because spaniels are not as good. After a good few years of this, the dog, like a truffle pig, will get his own ideas, pulling violently towards the pub like a second home, at any time, even eight in the morning, with this speechful look saying: “Where are you going, fool, you’re just about to walk right past it.” It’s like being married to Denis Thatcher. | You can take whatever dog you like to a pub, but only with a Staffordshire bull terrier will you get a stranger standing by your table going: “Oh, staffy-staffy-staffy.” Nobody ever coos “Oh, spaniel-spaniel-spaniel”, and this is because spaniels are not as good. After a good few years of this, the dog, like a truffle pig, will get his own ideas, pulling violently towards the pub like a second home, at any time, even eight in the morning, with this speechful look saying: “Where are you going, fool, you’re just about to walk right past it.” It’s like being married to Denis Thatcher. |
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