Best Of

As far as re-joining the EU is concerned, my view is encapsulated by a line from the classic The Boys of Summer - "those days are gone forever, I should just let them go".

We can't go back to the half-hearted, mean spirited, rebate-focussed, banana-obsessed membership we endured from 1973 to 2016. It does us no good and the EU wouldn't want that.

There were only two coherent policy positions and the Hokey Cokey expressed them beautifully - "you put your whole self in, your whole self out". That's still the case - we can quite happily stay out and make whatever kind of economic and political relationship we want with the EU or we can seek to re-join on the basis of being full and enthusiastic members. I imagine there remains no constituency for the Euro or even Schengen so I'm not sure what kind of membership we could have or would be acceptable and the big stumbling block remains Freedom of Movement within the Single Market.

I can't see any possibility of any British Government anytime soon being able to sell Freedom of Movement - without that, we can't join the Single Market as I understand it.

If we are going to rejoin, then we need to go in balls-deep. Get the full-fat, no opt-outs, wrap ourselves in that rag of a flag version of EU membership, with Schengen, Euro, the works.

If we are going to be subservient to the unelected capitalist hegemony in Brussels let's do it in style.

The referendum could only promise that HMG would apply to join the EU. It couldn’t promise it actually happening.

So the UK govt wins a referendum. Negotiates. What then ? Put the deal to the public ? What if the EU tell us to go swivel.

One step at a time.

A government would have to win a referendum first. 54% is not much of a lead to be going into a referendum campaign with.

Any government seriously considering a rejoin referendum would surely have to speak to the EU first, to have any sort of idea about what a rejoin referendum would actually mean.

Get elected on the promise of exploring it, then if the EU are interested, deliver the referendum, but don't for the love of god start from the referendum first.

Sadiq Khan is proposing putting seeking to rejoin the EU in the next Labour manifesto.
Then Labour have a mandate to seek to rejoin without a referendum.
Sounds good to me.
If LibDems do the same, then even a minority Labour government with LD support will have a mandate.

They will CLAIM a mandate. Doesn't mean they will HAVE one.

Parliament can do what it likes with legislation, but democratic legitimacy is a matter of opinion and persuasion. And reversing a decision taken by referendum won't have it unless a future referendum overturns it, just as leaving the EU required a referendum, in practice if not in theory.

The public may be less keen when they see what concessions the EU wants in return.

Stop talking the UK down.

It’ll be the easiest deal in history, the EU needs more than we need them.

TSE still bitter, ten years on...

Leave 52%

Remain 48%

[runs and hides!]

That doesn't really help.

Makes me feel better....

The Leave vote was without doubt my biggest political disappointment.

All but 25 of my 64 years have been Tory Governments, but each election disappointment "could" be rectified within five years. The Farage smoke and mirrors fiasco was for life.

It's entirely the wrong attitude to lock something in for the long-term against the wishes of British electorate.

That's the principle for which many of us voted Leave in the first place.

I agree - I never understood why people got so upset at Cameron for holding the referendum, and the fact Leave won entirely vindicated his policy.

But by the same token we should probably be thinking about another referendum. 20 point gap at the moment - I think at 30 points (and 15 year wait. so 2030 onward), you'd have to support another referendum to avoid being a hypocrite.

Or, we could all agree full EU membership wasn't (and never will be) the right model for British involvement in European politics in the long-term, and find a hybrid that would instead.

Then, we'd have peace.

Sure.

But would you vote against another referendum on those terms? 2030s, re-join consistently showing 30-point leads?

There are no circumstances under which I'd accept rejoining the EU.

You need to accept that, and that you can't bounce the country into it.

That doesn't make sense. If you are right the Wilson vote should have been the last Referendum on EU membership. I'll concede a vote on Maastricht if you like. A vote Major would have won.

There was over 40 years after Wilson's vote until the next one.

What this is about for you is finding a ripe time to hold your referendum so you can "win" it and then use it to silence any further dissent for decades, by which you think the country would be so unrecognisable that it'd never be the same again. Which is why we'd fight you tooth and nail.

Do you think we're stupid?

Why so aggressive? You won, suck it up.

Nothing aggressive about it.

And yes, we won, which is why if you tried to reverse it we wouldn't suck it up.

As far as re-joining the EU is concerned, my view is encapsulated by a line from the classic The Boys of Summer - "those days are gone forever, I should just let them go".

We can't go back to the half-hearted, mean spirited, rebate-focussed, banana-obsessed membership we endured from 1973 to 2016. It does us no good and the EU wouldn't want that.

There were only two coherent policy positions and the Hokey Cokey expressed them beautifully - "you put your whole self in, your whole self out". That's still the case - we can quite happily stay out and make whatever kind of economic and political relationship we want with the EU or we can seek to re-join on the basis of being full and enthusiastic members. I imagine there remains no constituency for the Euro or even Schengen so I'm not sure what kind of membership we could have or would be acceptable and the big stumbling block remains Freedom of Movement within the Single Market.

I can't see any possibility of any British Government anytime soon being able to sell Freedom of Movement - without that, we can't join the Single Market as I understand it.

"Nigel Farage
Reform will repeal the generational smoking ban
The puritanical spirit of Oliver Cromwell again stalks the land" (£)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/23/reform-will-repeal-the-generational-smoking-ban/

Not sure it will many votes, but I do think we are in general overly keen on banning things.

Let's ban fewer things and stick to banning a small number of really bad things. Like, say, banning cigarettes generationally.

Then let's suck it up and ban smoking for everyone. I don't feel comfortable about the idea of banning a legal product for a certain cohort. It seems absurd to ban a 70 year old from doing something an 80 year old cam do perfectly legally

Bit hard to quit.

Take up vaping.

I naturally fall on the side of not banning things. Likewise drugs currently banned.

But if you're going to ban, then it should be banned for everyone. Not some ludicrous position where in 30 years a 45 year old can smoke legally, while his 44 year old wife would be breaking the law to join him.

I understand that 'banning stuff for people who can't yet vote' is a political vote winner. But it's still a crap policy.

NHS is all in on vaping:

https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/ready-to-quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/

Hope it doesn't look silly in twenty years...

It’s not risk free but is widely seen as better than cigarettes. One issue is vaping synthetic canabinoids (think ‘spice’) which are horrendously variable in content and some may be lethal. And then heating chemicals at relatively low temps can still produce reaction products. We have a PhD student starting later this year looking at just this.

BREAKING

I can report that Whitstable is rather charming, in the mild spring sunshine. In a gritty, authentic English coastal way

We holidayed there in 2022. Had a bad oyster.

Well, I’ve just ordered nine rocks and natives at the Royal Whitstable Oyster Company, so I’m hoping you’re wrong!

It’s a really pleasant gaff, like a really good oyster bar in Brittany mixed with a Cornish gastropub. But in Kent

I might come to Whitstable more often

I'm from Whitstable, well the nearby village of Blean anyway, and am typing this from the family beach hut just past the Hotel Continental over on Tankerton Slopes. I'd give you directions and offer you a beer but I guess I'm in at least the bottom 3 of PBers you'd want to meet in person.

In case of interest, you're next door to where I lost my virginity, back of the Whitstable umbrella, in May 1990. Good times

You are really lucky! It’s a rather pleasant place. Cheers!

And no you are not on any list, I generally don’t meet any PBers because I’ve discovered that if I do - eg @rcs1000 and @Peter_the_Punter - I end up liking them, and then I can’t really insult and abuse them on the site. And I love hurling insults and abuse, obvs

I shall however make a pilgrimage to your cherry popping spot

If you want to reciprocate, mine was Room 247 in Ramsay Hall of Residence, London W1, deep in Fitzrovia, my first year at UCL

She sounds posh.

Deep could be embellishment of the story.

Anyway PB fun over, back to work.

Her recollection was that it happened in Littlehampton.