One interesting Q of obvious relevance to now is whether a leader can recover from ratings as bad as Johnson's are now? The answer generally seems to be "no". Corbyn, Major, Brown and Foot all went on to heavy defeats at the next GE. Thatcher was removed. https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1486750137686937602
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
I think the rugby team has been nicknamed 'the Chiefs' for the best part of a century. But associating the name with Native American imagery is only a recent phenomenon.
I did not know that bit still fail to see whats wrong . In a way its a bit of self identification - you may feel an affinity with native americans (maybe felt sorry for them in John Wayne films!) and thus like to dress up as one on your Saturday trip to rugby - What is wrong with that ? Its rather nice in a way. I though self identification was all the rage anyway these days
The only thing I see wrong is if it trivializes the culture in question.
But what is “trivialization”? To some it will be “just a laugh” to others it will be “cruel mockery”
It’s all nonsense. As we discussed the other day, global cuisine would be infinitely poorer if Asia had not “appropriated” the chili pepper, and tomatoes, and much else
And as for music, the glorious golden age of pop and rock - 1955-2005 - was all about black and white cultures borrowing from each other, and making it better. Should white people not play the Blues, or jazz? Should black people be barred from playing Mozart, or borrowing Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto to make Sketches of Spain?
“Cultural Appropriation” is one of the most sterile, desolating concept humans have ever created. Stay in your lane. Get in your silo. Shut your eyes and ears. Do not borrow anything, get offended by everything. UGH
It is about respect for another's culture. Borrowing and even copying is fine, but mocking and parodying is not. So we no longer have blackface minstrel shows for example.
But the Wokestapo have going way beyond banning blackface. Indeed they have come for cuisine:
“Jamie Oliver says he's hired cultural appropriation specialists to advise on cookbooks Jeevan Ravindran, CNN • Published 24th January 2022”
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
If Cameron hadn't flounced there wouldn't have been a 2017 election, and wecould have been in the EEA before a 2019 or 2020 election.
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
Completely agreed. I backed the BLM protests and defended the acquittal of the statue pullers, I too think I'm very woke on race but the one thing I can not understand is 'cultural appropriation'.
Isn't cultural appropriation what we used to call multiculturalism or being a melting pot.
Learning and adopting and adapting elements from other cultures is a key strength and benefit of immigration and having an open and welcoming society so how can it be a bad thing?
[SNIP] But I do agree that the names are not chosen as terms of ridicule or disrepect, but more out of a wish to project a fierce, proud image. .
Still, the sport with the best names in the world - ancient and modern, here and abroad - is, I have to admit, football. Consider England: Sheffield Wednesday. That would baffle the Americans. Is Wednesday the fiercest day of the week? possibly not. Kudos to Sheffield Wednesday for sticking with it into the modern age. Consider Scotland: Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Really, really Scottish. More Scottish than Partick Thistle. Consider also the bafflingly poetic Heart of Midlothian and Queen of the South. Again, would baffle the Americans. Consider the wonderful semi-final of the (I think) 1904 FA Cup, between Thornaby Utopians and Middlesbrough Ironopolis. Consider Bolivia, where, historically, the two most successful teams are called "The Strongest" and "Always Ready". The Strongest normally win - apart from, presumably, when they are not ready. Consider Europe: Go-Ahead Eagles, Young Boys of Berne. Helpfully, these advertise their silliness by naming themselves in English: I'm sure there are names just as baffling if you are able to delve into other languages.
AC Milan also have an English name, weirdly. They are not AC Milano.
And I can't believe you missed out Grasshoppers Zurich!
There have been a couple of Welsh league teams who changed their team name for sponsors - Total Network Solutions, who now call themselves The New Saints FC; and don’t forget Vauxhall Motors FC, from Ellesmere Port.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
Yes but Leave did not win because 52% wanted slightly more control of widget making from the EFTA court rather than ECJ and a few fishermen wanted to leave the CFP (which is the only difference between the EU and EEA for us given we were not in the Eurozone anyway).
No, Leave only got 52% in part because the Leave campaign promised to end EU free movement and replace it with a points system, thus getting redwall voters out to vote Leave.
If Leave had just campaigned on EEA I suspect Remain would have won as redwallers would not have bothered to vote.
Tories haven't had a poll lead since the Redfield & Wilton poll on Dec 6th.
And haven't deserved one either.
I think Boris is going to survive this. He's going to have to do something Houdini-like to get the Tories back on track though.
Problem for him is that the less interested in politics electorate sometimes take a while to catch up with someone being a waste of space. It took them a while with Corbyn. Once they get there, there is no going back. I think Labour would have loved it if he had resigned, but he is currently an asset to them staying, so it is a win-win for them.
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
I think the rugby team has been nicknamed 'the Chiefs' for the best part of a century. But associating the name with Native American imagery is only a recent phenomenon.
Unless I am wrong the head honcho (is that OK?) of a Scots clan (itself a 19th C invention, at least in part) is described as a Chief. Chief of the Clan Mackay or something like that. How would the chap (or chapess) have been described in the 16th C?
And I agree with Mr Go Away; my ancestors, like others in these islands appear to be a mixture of Celt and Saxon, and three of my grandchildren have mixed British Isles/Thai and possibly Cambodian heritage.
Clans certainly were not C19 inventions - my Scots professional historian friends are most unimpressed with this theory that all tartan came into being thanks to Wattie Scott. It would certainly surprise anyone who was involve din the '15 and '45, for a start. But anyway. 'Clan Chieftain' is a usual term, at least in Scotland, or simply The MacWhosoever if naming only one; the Gaelic usage is more idiomatic, bit IANAE. Edit: but one does get clan 'Chiefs' too. No idea about the Welsh or Cornwelsh.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
I was not of a firm opinion and was genuinely undecided how to vote for in the campaign, only deciding in the final days to vote Leave. At the start of the campaign I was backing Remain.
I don't recall the term "hard Brexit" or "soft Brexit" being discussed during the referendum, quite the opposite.
The Leave campaign made a few promises which are still visible on the Vote Leave website: to leave the ECJ, regain control of laws and trade and migration, and to have a free trade agreement outside of the Single Market.
As far as I can tell every single one of those promises has been fulfilled, so I'm not seeing how anyone was hoodwinked.
PS the binary yes/no on leaving the Single Market was from memldy asked by Andrew Neil during his series of interviews. He also compiled those answers and used them on the Daily Politics afterwards.
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
I think the rugby team has been nicknamed 'the Chiefs' for the best part of a century. But associating the name with Native American imagery is only a recent phenomenon.
I did not know that bit still fail to see whats wrong . In a way its a bit of self identification - you may feel an affinity with native americans (maybe felt sorry for them in John Wayne films!) and thus like to dress up as one on your Saturday trip to rugby - What is wrong with that ? Its rather nice in a way. I though self identification was all the rage anyway these days
The only thing I see wrong is if it trivializes the culture in question.
But what is “trivialization”? To some it will be “just a laugh” to others it will be “cruel mockery”
It’s all nonsense. As we discussed the other day, global cuisine would be infinitely poorer if Asia had not “appropriated” the chili pepper, and tomatoes, and much else
And as for music, the glorious golden age of pop and rock - 1955-2005 - was all about black and white cultures borrowing from each other, and making it better. Should white people not play the Blues, or jazz? Should black people be barred from playing Mozart, or borrowing Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto to make Sketches of Spain?
“Cultural Appropriation” is one of the most sterile, desolating concepts humans have ever created. Stay in your lane. Get in your silo. Shut your eyes and ears. Do not borrow anything, get offended by everything. UGH
I agree, the general concept of cultural appropriation is just plain silly and damaging - it is against spread of the best ideas and practices, it is against human learning, it is against the creativity that comes from fusion of different cultures and perspectives, and it is against different cultures actually coming together.
But I do think the issue of sports teams names - naming teams after groups of people whose land and heritage was robbed from them not just once but multiple times by the still dominant 'tribe' and then representing their culture with little more than drunken grunts - is somewhat different than accusing some Brit who is drinking a margharita that he or she is guilty of cultural appropriation and that they should take off that sombrero forthwith.
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
But that's the question, whose identity is being appropriated? Welsh and Cornish people don't tend to see themselves as "Celtic", they tend to see themselves as Welsh or Cornish. As a supercategory of those, it's being used in an enormously loose way. Most of the English have as much Celtic ancestry. The only tiny thing I can see is language, and, well, most Welsh and Cornish people speak English and only English. So genetically we're "all" Celtic (and equally, not), culturally, none of us are, and linguistically only a few of us are but in any case it's not the way we tend to think of it most of time. Welsh is Welsh first, Brythonic second, and Celtic third. And I just don't think anyone really cares.
Cultural appropriation can't really happen without there being an identifiable culture, and I just can't find it.
Speaking as an Uber-echt Cornishman, I can confidently say you are wrong. There is a definite strand in Cornish self-image which says “We are Celtic, we are more like the Bretons and the Welsh, who are also Celts, than we are like the English, who are Germanic”
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
If Cameron hadn't flounced there wouldn't have been a 2017 election, and wecould have been in the EEA before a 2019 or 2020 election.
Cameron would not have got EEA through parliament given the Tory majority of just 12, the vast majority of Tory backbenchers, Rees Mogg, Francois and the ERG etc would have combined with diehard Remainers on the opposition benches to vote it down.
Remember EEA was also defeated in the Commons on the indicative votes in 2019
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
Completely agreed. I backed the BLM protests and defended the acquittal of the statue pullers, I too think I'm very woke on race but the one thing I can not understand is 'cultural appropriation'.
Isn't cultural appropriation what we used to call multiculturalism or being a melting pot.
Learning and adopting and adapting elements from other cultures is a key strength and benefit of immigration and having an open and welcoming society so how can it be a bad thing?
[SNIP] But I do agree that the names are not chosen as terms of ridicule or disrepect, but more out of a wish to project a fierce, proud image. .
Still, the sport with the best names in the world - ancient and modern, here and abroad - is, I have to admit, football. Consider England: Sheffield Wednesday. That would baffle the Americans. Is Wednesday the fiercest day of the week? possibly not. Kudos to Sheffield Wednesday for sticking with it into the modern age. Consider Scotland: Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Really, really Scottish. More Scottish than Partick Thistle. Consider also the bafflingly poetic Heart of Midlothian and Queen of the South. Again, would baffle the Americans. Consider the wonderful semi-final of the (I think) 1904 FA Cup, between Thornaby Utopians and Middlesbrough Ironopolis. Consider Bolivia, where, historically, the two most successful teams are called "The Strongest" and "Always Ready". The Strongest normally win - apart from, presumably, when they are not ready. Consider Europe: Go-Ahead Eagles, Young Boys of Berne. Helpfully, these advertise their silliness by naming themselves in English: I'm sure there are names just as baffling if you are able to delve into other languages.
Can't believe that the Maryland Terrapins - the Fighting Turtles - did not make the list.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
Yes but Leave did not win because 52% wanted slightly more control of widget making from the EFTA court rather than ECJ and a few fishermen wanted to leave the CFP (which is the only difference between the EU and EEA for us given we were not in the Eurozone anyway).
No, Leave only got 52% in part because the Leave campaign promised to end EU free movement and replace it with a points system, thus getting redwall voters out to vote Leave.
If Leave had just campaigned on EEA I suspect Remain would have won as redwallers would not have bothered to vote.
Not necessarily, because some eurosceptic remain voters (yes there were plenty) might have voted for a sensible well negotiated EEA option rather than vote remain. They voted remain because they didn't like the upheaval proposed by the headbangers perhaps? You see, alternate histories are not that black and white are they?
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
But that's the question, whose identity is being appropriated? Welsh and Cornish people don't tend to see themselves as "Celtic", they tend to see themselves as Welsh or Cornish. As a supercategory of those, it's being used in an enormously loose way. Most of the English have as much Celtic ancestry. The only tiny thing I can see is language, and, well, most Welsh and Cornish people speak English and only English. So genetically we're "all" Celtic (and equally, not), culturally, none of us are, and linguistically only a few of us are but in any case it's not the way we tend to think of it most of time. Welsh is Welsh first, Brythonic second, and Celtic third. And I just don't think anyone really cares.
Cultural appropriation can't really happen without there being an identifiable culture, and I just can't find it.
Speaking as an Uber-echt Cornishman, I can confidently say you are wrong. There is a definite strand in Cornish self-image which says “We are Celtic, we are more like the Bretons and the Welsh, who are also Celts, than we are like the English, who are Germanic”
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
Culturally it's bollocks too. Unless you can tell me what Cornish culture consists of that is distinct from, say, people in Durham.
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
But that's the question, whose identity is being appropriated? Welsh and Cornish people don't tend to see themselves as "Celtic", they tend to see themselves as Welsh or Cornish. As a supercategory of those, it's being used in an enormously loose way. Most of the English have as much Celtic ancestry. The only tiny thing I can see is language, and, well, most Welsh and Cornish people speak English and only English. So genetically we're "all" Celtic (and equally, not), culturally, none of us are, and linguistically only a few of us are but in any case it's not the way we tend to think of it most of time. Welsh is Welsh first, Brythonic second, and Celtic third. And I just don't think anyone really cares.
Cultural appropriation can't really happen without there being an identifiable culture, and I just can't find it.
Speaking as an Uber-echt Cornishman, I can confidently say you are wrong. There is a definite strand in Cornish self-image which says “We are Celtic, we are more like the Bretons and the Welsh, who are also Celts, than we are like the English, who are Germanic”
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
Culturally it's bollocks too. Unless you can tell me what Cornish culture consists of that is distinct from, say, people in Durham.
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
Tories haven't had a poll lead since the Redfield & Wilton poll on Dec 6th.
And haven't deserved one either.
I think Boris is going to survive this. He's going to have to do something Houdini-like to get the Tories back on track though.
Problem for him is that the less interested in politics electorate sometimes take a while to catch up with someone being a waste of space. It took them a while with Corbyn. Once they get there, there is no going back. I think Labour would have loved it if he had resigned, but he is currently an asset to them staying, so it is a win-win for them.
+1 - Boris stays and his broken promises make the next election easier to fight. Boris goes and Labour score a head but risk the new leader escaping the issues that can be pinned on Boris.
I think it's very much in Labours interest that Boris remains in place which is why no real effort is occurring on the Labour side to encourage Tory MPs to get rid of him.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
I was not of a firm opinion and was genuinely undecided how to vote for in the campaign, only deciding in the final days to vote Leave. At the start of the campaign I was backing Remain.
I don't recall the term "hard Brexit" or "soft Brexit" being discussed during the referendum, quite the opposite.
The Leave campaign made a few promises which are still visible on the Vote Leave website: to leave the ECJ, regain control of laws and trade and migration, and to have a free trade agreement outside of the Single Market.
As far as I can tell every single one of those promises has been fulfilled, so I'm not seeing how anyone was hoodwinked.
PS the binary yes/no on leaving the Single Market was from memldy asked by Andrew Neil during his series of interviews. He also compiled those answers and used them on the Daily Politics afterwards.
Your recollection is different to mine, and tbh, I can't be arsed to look it up, because it is a dead duck argument, but I do recall a number of Leave campaigners referring to the "Norway option".
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
But that's the question, whose identity is being appropriated? Welsh and Cornish people don't tend to see themselves as "Celtic", they tend to see themselves as Welsh or Cornish. As a supercategory of those, it's being used in an enormously loose way. Most of the English have as much Celtic ancestry. The only tiny thing I can see is language, and, well, most Welsh and Cornish people speak English and only English. So genetically we're "all" Celtic (and equally, not), culturally, none of us are, and linguistically only a few of us are but in any case it's not the way we tend to think of it most of time. Welsh is Welsh first, Brythonic second, and Celtic third. And I just don't think anyone really cares.
Cultural appropriation can't really happen without there being an identifiable culture, and I just can't find it.
Speaking as an Uber-echt Cornishman, I can confidently say you are wrong. There is a definite strand in Cornish self-image which says “We are Celtic, we are more like the Bretons and the Welsh, who are also Celts, than we are like the English, who are Germanic”
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
Culturally it's bollocks too. Unless you can tell me what Cornish culture consists of that is distinct from, say, people in Durham.
They speak Cornish?
Edit: some do.
Vast majority of people in Durham at the moment speak upper class Rah...
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
But that's the question, whose identity is being appropriated? Welsh and Cornish people don't tend to see themselves as "Celtic", they tend to see themselves as Welsh or Cornish. As a supercategory of those, it's being used in an enormously loose way. Most of the English have as much Celtic ancestry. The only tiny thing I can see is language, and, well, most Welsh and Cornish people speak English and only English. So genetically we're "all" Celtic (and equally, not), culturally, none of us are, and linguistically only a few of us are but in any case it's not the way we tend to think of it most of time. Welsh is Welsh first, Brythonic second, and Celtic third. And I just don't think anyone really cares.
Cultural appropriation can't really happen without there being an identifiable culture, and I just can't find it.
Speaking as an Uber-echt Cornishman, I can confidently say you are wrong. There is a definite strand in Cornish self-image which says “We are Celtic, we are more like the Bretons and the Welsh, who are also Celts, than we are like the English, who are Germanic”
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
Culturally it's bollocks too. Unless you can tell me what Cornish culture consists of that is distinct from, say, people in Durham.
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
Completely agreed. I backed the BLM protests and defended the acquittal of the statue pullers, I too think I'm very woke on race but the one thing I can not understand is 'cultural appropriation'.
Isn't cultural appropriation what we used to call multiculturalism or being a melting pot.
Learning and adopting and adapting elements from other cultures is a key strength and benefit of immigration and having an open and welcoming society so how can it be a bad thing?
[SNIP] But I do agree that the names are not chosen as terms of ridicule or disrepect, but more out of a wish to project a fierce, proud image. .
Still, the sport with the best names in the world - ancient and modern, here and abroad - is, I have to admit, football. Consider England: Sheffield Wednesday. That would baffle the Americans. Is Wednesday the fiercest day of the week? possibly not. Kudos to Sheffield Wednesday for sticking with it into the modern age. Consider Scotland: Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Really, really Scottish. More Scottish than Partick Thistle. Consider also the bafflingly poetic Heart of Midlothian and Queen of the South. Again, would baffle the Americans. Consider the wonderful semi-final of the (I think) 1904 FA Cup, between Thornaby Utopians and Middlesbrough Ironopolis. Consider Bolivia, where, historically, the two most successful teams are called "The Strongest" and "Always Ready". The Strongest normally win - apart from, presumably, when they are not ready. Consider Europe: Go-Ahead Eagles, Young Boys of Berne. Helpfully, these advertise their silliness by naming themselves in English: I'm sure there are names just as baffling if you are able to delve into other languages.
AC Milan also have an English name, weirdly. They are not AC Milano.
And I can't believe you missed out Grasshoppers Zurich!
There have been a couple of Welsh league teams who changed their team name for sponsors - Total Network Solutions, who now call themselves The New Saints FC; and don’t forget Vauxhall Motors FC, from Ellesmere Port.
PSV Eiindhoven are named for Philips Sporting Club, so there is quite some tradition.
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
Yes but Leave did not win because 52% wanted slightly more control of widget making from the EFTA court rather than ECJ and a few fishermen wanted to leave the CFP (which is the only difference between the EU and EEA for us given we were not in the Eurozone anyway).
No, Leave only got 52% in part because the Leave campaign promised to end EU free movement and replace it with a points system, thus getting redwall voters out to vote Leave.
If Leave had just campaigned on EEA I suspect Remain would have won as redwallers would not have bothered to vote.
Not necessarily, because some eurosceptic remain voters (yes there were plenty) might have voted for a sensible well negotiated EEA option rather than vote remain. They voted remain because they didn't like the upheaval proposed by the headbangers perhaps? You see, alternate histories are not that black and white are they?
The number of Remain voters who wanted EEA rather than EU was about 1%.
Leave got to 52% by combining those who wanted to Leave the EU for EEA and those who wanted to leave the EU and EEA and Customs Union and end free movement and do our own trade deals as now. The latter were a bigger part of the Leave vote than the former and the main reason Leave won the North, the Midlands and Wales and East.
Pro EEA and pro free movement Leavers were mainly concentrated in the South East of England, with some fishermen in the Southwest happy as long as we left the CFP
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
But that's the question, whose identity is being appropriated? Welsh and Cornish people don't tend to see themselves as "Celtic", they tend to see themselves as Welsh or Cornish. As a supercategory of those, it's being used in an enormously loose way. Most of the English have as much Celtic ancestry. The only tiny thing I can see is language, and, well, most Welsh and Cornish people speak English and only English. So genetically we're "all" Celtic (and equally, not), culturally, none of us are, and linguistically only a few of us are but in any case it's not the way we tend to think of it most of time. Welsh is Welsh first, Brythonic second, and Celtic third. And I just don't think anyone really cares.
Cultural appropriation can't really happen without there being an identifiable culture, and I just can't find it.
Speaking as an Uber-echt Cornishman, I can confidently say you are wrong. There is a definite strand in Cornish self-image which says “We are Celtic, we are more like the Bretons and the Welsh, who are also Celts, than we are like the English, who are Germanic”
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
Part of my family is Cornish. They very much see themselves as "Celts" and more akin to the Welsh. The (revived) language is very similar and the mining heritage meant that the two populations mixed a great deal. Cornish male voice choirs are just as good to my ear as Welsh.
Tories haven't had a poll lead since the Redfield & Wilton poll on Dec 6th.
And haven't deserved one either.
I think Boris is going to survive this. He's going to have to do something Houdini-like to get the Tories back on track though.
Problem for him is that the less interested in politics electorate sometimes take a while to catch up with someone being a waste of space. It took them a while with Corbyn. Once they get there, there is no going back. I think Labour would have loved it if he had resigned, but he is currently an asset to them staying, so it is a win-win for them.
Yep - I think you've entirely nailed the issue. He's almost universally seen as being crap now, and that's easy to achieve (although Boris did it in an astonishing record time), but very, very hard to row back from.
Politicians that have managed any headway against the tide are few and far between. (Maggie perhaps. Farage did so too. Lammy doing so now.) Nobody has ever managed to get close to leaping the hurdle Boris has set himself.
Tories haven't had a poll lead since the Redfield & Wilton poll on Dec 6th.
And haven't deserved one either.
I think Boris is going to survive this. He's going to have to do something Houdini-like to get the Tories back on track though.
Problem for him is that the less interested in politics electorate sometimes take a while to catch up with someone being a waste of space. It took them a while with Corbyn. Once they get there, there is no going back. I think Labour would have loved it if he had resigned, but he is currently an asset to them staying, so it is a win-win for them.
It just seems so strange that some Tories here genuinely seem to be still pro-Johnson.
I mean you can understand a cynic being willing to keep a stupid, incompetent, idle liar on the basis that he is personally popular, but now?
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
But that's the question, whose identity is being appropriated? Welsh and Cornish people don't tend to see themselves as "Celtic", they tend to see themselves as Welsh or Cornish. As a supercategory of those, it's being used in an enormously loose way. Most of the English have as much Celtic ancestry. The only tiny thing I can see is language, and, well, most Welsh and Cornish people speak English and only English. So genetically we're "all" Celtic (and equally, not), culturally, none of us are, and linguistically only a few of us are but in any case it's not the way we tend to think of it most of time. Welsh is Welsh first, Brythonic second, and Celtic third. And I just don't think anyone really cares.
Cultural appropriation can't really happen without there being an identifiable culture, and I just can't find it.
Speaking as an Uber-echt Cornishman, I can confidently say you are wrong. There is a definite strand in Cornish self-image which says “We are Celtic, we are more like the Bretons and the Welsh, who are also Celts, than we are like the English, who are Germanic”
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
Yes but Leave did not win because 52% wanted slightly more control of widget making from the EFTA court rather than ECJ and a few fishermen wanted to leave the CFP (which is the only difference between the EU and EEA for us given we were not in the Eurozone anyway).
No, Leave only got 52% in part because the Leave campaign promised to end EU free movement and replace it with a points system, thus getting redwall voters out to vote Leave.
If Leave had just campaigned on EEA I suspect Remain would have won as redwallers would not have bothered to vote.
Not necessarily, because some eurosceptic remain voters (yes there were plenty) might have voted for a sensible well negotiated EEA option rather than vote remain. They voted remain because they didn't like the upheaval proposed by the headbangers perhaps? You see, alternate histories are not that black and white are they?
The number of Remain voters who wanted EEA rather than EU was about 1%.
Leave got to 52% by combining those who wanted to Leave the EU for EEA and those who wanted to leave the EU and EEA and Customs Union and end free movement and do our own trade deals as now. The latter were a bigger part of the Leave vote than the former and the main reason Leave won the North, the Midlands and Wales and East.
Pro EEA and pro free movement Leavers were mainly concentrated in the South East of England, with some fishermen in the Southwest happy as long as we left the CFP
The Remain voter is suddenly an expert on why people voted Leave.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA.
You only won Brexit with a promise to tighten immigration controls, tough
The Mail's own illustration of the syllabus's warning shows that it is about the theories/analyses applied to the book, not the book itself. So, as usual a concocted culture war by tabloid dissemblers.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
I couldn't have put it better myself Richard. An EEA option would have been a typical British compromise and one that most, except the most ardent headbangers on both ends could have accepted. It is a shame that it was not properly offered. It would have been easy to have offered an additional confirmatory referendum that only offered EEA or hard Brexit, and this would not have in any way negated the first result.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
If Cameron hadn't flounced there wouldn't have been a 2017 election, and wecould have been in the EEA before a 2019 or 2020 election.
Cameron would not have got EEA through parliament given the Tory majority of just 12, the vast majority of Tory backbenchers, Rees Mogg, Francois and the ERG etc would have combined with diehard Remainers on the opposition benches to vote it down.
Remember EEA was also defeated in the Commons on the indicative votes in 2019
If Cameron hadn't flounced and had proposed EEA, would the diehard Remainers really have preferred "no deal"?
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
Completely agreed. I backed the BLM protests and defended the acquittal of the statue pullers, I too think I'm very woke on race but the one thing I can not understand is 'cultural appropriation'.
Isn't cultural appropriation what we used to call multiculturalism or being a melting pot.
Learning and adopting and adapting elements from other cultures is a key strength and benefit of immigration and having an open and welcoming society so how can it be a bad thing?
[SNIP] But I do agree that the names are not chosen as terms of ridicule or disrepect, but more out of a wish to project a fierce, proud image. .
Still, the sport with the best names in the world - ancient and modern, here and abroad - is, I have to admit, football. Consider England: Sheffield Wednesday. That would baffle the Americans. Is Wednesday the fiercest day of the week? possibly not. Kudos to Sheffield Wednesday for sticking with it into the modern age. Consider Scotland: Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Really, really Scottish. More Scottish than Partick Thistle. Consider also the bafflingly poetic Heart of Midlothian and Queen of the South. Again, would baffle the Americans. Consider the wonderful semi-final of the (I think) 1904 FA Cup, between Thornaby Utopians and Middlesbrough Ironopolis. Consider Bolivia, where, historically, the two most successful teams are called "The Strongest" and "Always Ready". The Strongest normally win - apart from, presumably, when they are not ready. Consider Europe: Go-Ahead Eagles, Young Boys of Berne. Helpfully, these advertise their silliness by naming themselves in English: I'm sure there are names just as baffling if you are able to delve into other languages.
AC Milan also have an English name, weirdly. They are not AC Milano.
And I can't believe you missed out Grasshoppers Zurich!
There have been a couple of Welsh league teams who changed their team name for sponsors - Total Network Solutions, who now call themselves The New Saints FC; and don’t forget Vauxhall Motors FC, from Ellesmere Port.
PSV Eiindhoven are named for Philips Sporting Club, so there is quite some tradition.
Tories haven't had a poll lead since the Redfield & Wilton poll on Dec 6th.
And haven't deserved one either.
I think Boris is going to survive this. He's going to have to do something Houdini-like to get the Tories back on track though.
Problem for him is that the less interested in politics electorate sometimes take a while to catch up with someone being a waste of space. It took them a while with Corbyn. Once they get there, there is no going back. I think Labour would have loved it if he had resigned, but he is currently an asset to them staying, so it is a win-win for them.
It just seems so strange that some Tories here genuinely seem to be still pro-Johnson.
I mean you can understand a cynic being willing to keep a stupid, incompetent, idle liar on the basis that he is personally popular, but now?
To be fair, I think there are only about 3 or 4 posters at most that are right of centre who would like to see him stay. I am proud to have been an early adopter in the "Right of Centre Boris is Shit Club", but latter day conversions are still welcome.
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
Yes but Leave did not win because 52% wanted slightly more control of widget making from the EFTA court rather than ECJ and a few fishermen wanted to leave the CFP (which is the only difference between the EU and EEA for us given we were not in the Eurozone anyway).
No, Leave only got 52% in part because the Leave campaign promised to end EU free movement and replace it with a points system, thus getting redwall voters out to vote Leave.
If Leave had just campaigned on EEA I suspect Remain would have won as redwallers would not have bothered to vote.
And it would have been cruel to have deprived our fishermen of the delirium they have enjoyed from the actual outcome?
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
Tories haven't had a poll lead since the Redfield & Wilton poll on Dec 6th.
And haven't deserved one either.
I think Boris is going to survive this. He's going to have to do something Houdini-like to get the Tories back on track though.
Problem for him is that the less interested in politics electorate sometimes take a while to catch up with someone being a waste of space. It took them a while with Corbyn. Once they get there, there is no going back. I think Labour would have loved it if he had resigned, but he is currently an asset to them staying, so it is a win-win for them.
Yep - I think you've entirely nailed the issue. He's almost universally seen as being crap now, and that's easy to achieve (although Boris did it in an astonishing record time), but very, very hard to row back from.
Politicians that have managed any headway against the tide are few and far between. (Maggie perhaps. Farage did so too. Lammy doing so now.) Nobody has ever managed to get close to leaping the hurdle Boris has set himself.
I think it was Warren Buffet or some wise person that said it takes years to build a good reputation but only minutes to lose it. The Conservative Party risks taking years to rebuild trust after this idiot inevitably steps down.
The Mail's own illustration of the syllabus's warning shows that it is about the theories/analyses applied to the book, not the book itself. So, as usual a concocted culture war by tabloid dissemblers.
An the increasingly bizarre belief structure that Harry Potter *must* be retcon'd into conforming to various social structure, after the fact, is what?
Combining the lists, here's the all time worst ratings for either party's leaders across 45 years of MORI polls: 1.Corbyn (Sep 19): -60 2.Major (Aug 94): -59 3=Thatcher (Mar 90): -56 3= Foot (Aug 82): -56 5. Brown (Jul 08): -51 6. Johnson (Jan 22): -46
Those were extermination ratings for previous leaders, who were all out on their ear shortly after. Question is whether Johnson with a marginly less cataclysmic rating is in the same zone.
Edit worth reading the thread. The only leader ever to recover from a similar low was Thatcher in 1981 thanks to the Falklands War.
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
I would expect we all share the desire to witness one of politics great moments when Boris stands at the dispatch box with the Sue Gray report in his hand
It will be pure drama and I expect the Speaker will struggle to contain the noise
We should have a reasonable idea after the debate if Boris fights on or is on his way out
I couldn't have put it better myself Richard. An EEA option would have been a typical British compromise and one that most, except the most ardent headbangers on both ends could have accepted. It is a shame that it was not properly offered. It would have been easy to have offered an additional confirmatory referendum that only offered EEA or hard Brexit, and this would not have in any way negated the first result.
It's interesting to hear Gavin Barwell on the consideration that Theresa May's team have to a new referendum. Although she apparently rejected it, supposedly on principle (but presumably also party management issues), it's easy to see how she could have gone for it if she'd not backed herself into a corner in the first 3 months of her leadership (when she really did not have to do so).
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
I'll ask again, but slightly different. Please tell us, oh wise one, how does one gain access to these parallel universes that you seem to have access to to talk in such certainty. Have you been fortunate enough to have had visitation from some of Leon's extra-terrestrial friends with their anal probes ?
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
Combining the lists, here's the all time worst ratings for either party's leaders across 45 years of MORI polls: 1.Corbyn (Sep 19): -60 2.Major (Aug 94): -59 3=Thatcher (Mar 90): -56 3= Foot (Aug 82): -56 5. Brown (Jul 08): -51 6. Johnson (Jan 22): -46
Those were extermination ratings for previous leaders, who were all out on their ear shortly after. Question is whether Johnson with a marginly less cataclysmic rating is in the same zone.
Wrong, Brown led Labour at the 2010 election and did not lose, it was a hung parliament.
Major also led the Tories to election 1997 and Foot led Labour to election 1983 and Corbyn led Labour to election 2019 even if they lost.
Of the leaders listed only Thatcher was removed but only as polls showed a Major led Tories leading Kinnock Labour. No current polls show even a Sunak led Tories leading Starmer Labour
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Boris looks safer each day for sure, the rebellion has collapsed like a pack of paper cards
Even if you are right, his demise has simply shifted from the current fiasco to the next one. Which, given his track record, won’t be that long in coming.
Didn't TSE claim that part of the reason Cameron resigned was because he believed another Tory leader might have been keep us in the single market (as the ERG would have demanded a hard brexit as a precondition for Cameron staying, if he had)? Not that him going made any difference in that regard, of course.
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
There was no legal need to do so, but there was no legal need to leave the EU post referendum either if you want to play that game.
During the referendum both parties (leavers and remainers) said that we'd leave the Single Market if we voted Leave. Boris literally said it in yes/no format during the referendum as did Gove as did Cummings' Vote Leave campaign.
So ethically we had to. Not legally. And we knew that pre referendum.
This was not my view, and while I am probably as biased as you (in opposite direction) I did follow it pretty closely. This issue was largely left ambiguous by Leave, and quite deliberately. If a hard Brexit had been offered it would have scared the horses. Many people thought we would end up with an EEA solution, and I suspect had the Leave campaign been more explicit they might have lost. . If Cameron hadn't been so arrogant, the sensible thing would have been to have given three options: Hard Brexit (like we ended up with) EEA or status quo/remain with a single transferable vote for those who wish to use it. There then should have been a confirmatory vote to confirm the final deal. It was absolutely dumb to have had a binary vote on something so complex and important. I suspect we would have ended up with EEA as a good compromise, which of course is not what the headbangers want, so they essentially conned the British electorate.
Too late now though, and in case you are wondering I am not in favour of rejoin.
Yes but Leave did not win because 52% wanted slightly more control of widget making from the EFTA court rather than ECJ and a few fishermen wanted to leave the CFP (which is the only difference between the EU and EEA for us given we were not in the Eurozone anyway).
No, Leave only got 52% in part because the Leave campaign promised to end EU free movement and replace it with a points system, thus getting redwall voters out to vote Leave.
If Leave had just campaigned on EEA I suspect Remain would have won as redwallers would not have bothered to vote.
Leave won by promising different things to different people. It was Schrodinger's Brexit. Since only one version can be implemented in reality, a majority wish we hadn't left. It will be taught in politics classes the world over as a textbook example of bad decision-making.
Combining the lists, here's the all time worst ratings for either party's leaders across 45 years of MORI polls: 1.Corbyn (Sep 19): -60 2.Major (Aug 94): -59 3=Thatcher (Mar 90): -56 3= Foot (Aug 82): -56 5. Brown (Jul 08): -51 6. Johnson (Jan 22): -46
Those were extermination ratings for previous leaders, who were all out on their ear shortly after. Question is whether Johnson with a marginly less cataclysmic rating is in the same zone.
Wrong, Brown led Labour at the 2010 election and did not lose, it was a hung parliament.
Major also led the Tories to election 1997 and Foot led Labour to election 1983 and Corbyn led Labour to election 2019 even if they lost.
Of the leaders listed only Thatcher was removed but only as polls showed a Major led Tories leading Kinnock Labour. No current polls show even a Sunak led Tories leading Starmer Labour
They were out as leaders following the poor ratings, either because they were thrown out by their parties or didn't win the subsequent election.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
We can still try for an EFTA deal with Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein which preserves some elements of the single market and free movement. UKIP may protest a little but the referendum was about leaving the EU not ending all immigration and trade completely
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
I wouldn’t worry too much. To me the extreme edges if it are just the same old stuff that’s been going on in university faculties since the 60s, but now we have the internet and social media so it’s more visible.
Same with far right nativists or far left tankies: they were always there, but now get to plaster their nonsense everywhere through anonymous Twitter accounts.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
If Boris Brexit had been the promise, leave would have lost.
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
I think the Chinese quite like ballet. https://www.shenyun.com. That said, if you perform badly you might find yourself performing a grande jete to the firing squad.
If white people can’t have ballet as it is so white, surely every black dance must now be equally diverse, and incorporate white themes and memes, or it risks similar cancellation?
So if anyone is caught twerking, they also need, as they twerk, to honour the Gregorian chant, the Viennese Waltz, Adrian Mole and the theory of calculus
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
We can still try for an EFTA deal with Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein which preserves some elements of the single market and free movement. UKIP may protest a little but the referendum was about leaving the EU not ending all immigration and trade completely
Best hope for joining EFTA is if Lib Dems asked for it in return for giving confidence and supply to a Labour minority government.
The Mail's own illustration of the syllabus's warning shows that it is about the theories/analyses applied to the book, not the book itself. So, as usual a concocted culture war by tabloid dissemblers.
An the increasingly bizarre belief structure that Harry Potter *must* be retcon'd into conforming to various social structure, after the fact, is what?
I'm not aware of them amending the texts of the literature they are studying. They may discuss and analyse it in light of all sorts of theories - but I think for good or for ill that is what literary studies is, right?
In more 'woke doesn't exist' news, Exeter Chiefs are to rebrand after being accused of cultural appropriation (by, if I remember the original story correctly, an utter pain in the arse). They will retain the name but base it on Celtic imagery instead. Although I do sort of get it I'm slightly puzzled as to why cultural appropriation of Native Americans is wrong but of Celts is ok. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/27/exeter-chiefs-replace-native-american-themed-imagery-end-season/
I don't want to get too dragged into this discussion, but most people in the UK are descended from the pre-Saxon native peoples, including Celts, the Anglo-Saxon incomers, AND the Norman incomers post-Hastings. Probably few people here have significant Native American heritage. Moreover, Celtic culture is basically extinct. All that's left are some pockets of Brythonic and Goidelic language, which are grand-daughter languages of any possible proto-Celtic language. Celtic as an identity is distant and loosely held, in much the same way as, say, Goths. There comes a point when there's nobody really left to feel offended. When was the last time you met someone who described their identity as "Celt"?
A lot of what passes for Celtic culture is an invention of the Romantic period, as with much of the ancient origins of the various national identities of Europe. It serves fairly directly as the bedrock for non-English identity in the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Is Exeter far enough West to claim a lineage from the "Celts" in the South West of England? I don't know.
On the one hand it is all a nonsense, but on the other hand it touches at a deep level on people's sense of identity. It's easy to feel a bit annoyed that they're exploiting other people's identity to make money. That doesn't sit comfortably with me.
Exeter has a long and colourful history as a Roman garrison, home to early English poetry, a loyal Royalist city, and more. Surely the rugby club can create a club identity based on some of the real local history instead of lazily appropriating somebody else's?
I consider myself fairly woke on race (if not quite other stuff) as my daughter is mixed race, my wife from a indian muslim heritage and dont believe in borders really . Honestly though I really dont get the argument about cultural appropriation especially when not done to ridicule etc. If the world never did any cultural appropriation then it would be a very insular,ignorant of other cultures and divided world . I am not a huge fan of sports teams being given hyped up names and prefer a straight Exeter/colchester./liverpool FC etc but if they are to have hyped up nicknames I dont think Exeter have anything to feel sorry for with their Chiefs nickname. After all isn't copying a form of flattery ?
I think the rugby team has been nicknamed 'the Chiefs' for the best part of a century. But associating the name with Native American imagery is only a recent phenomenon.
I did not know that bit still fail to see whats wrong . In a way its a bit of self identification - you may feel an affinity with native americans (maybe felt sorry for them in John Wayne films!) and thus like to dress up as one on your Saturday trip to rugby - What is wrong with that ? Its rather nice in a way. I though self identification was all the rage anyway these days
The only thing I see wrong is if it trivializes the culture in question.
But what is “trivialization”? To some it will be “just a laugh” to others it will be “cruel mockery”
It’s all nonsense. As we discussed the other day, global cuisine would be infinitely poorer if Asia had not “appropriated” the chili pepper, and tomatoes, and much else
And as for music, the glorious golden age of pop and rock - 1955-2005 - was all about black and white cultures borrowing from each other, and making it better. Should white people not play the Blues, or jazz? Should black people be barred from playing Mozart, or borrowing Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto to make Sketches of Spain?
“Cultural Appropriation” is one of the most sterile, desolating concept humans have ever created. Stay in your lane. Get in your silo. Shut your eyes and ears. Do not borrow anything, get offended by everything. UGH
It is about respect for another's culture. Borrowing and even copying is fine, but mocking and parodying is not. So we no longer have blackface minstrel shows for example.
But the Wokestapo have going way beyond banning blackface. Indeed they have come for cuisine:
“Jamie Oliver says he's hired cultural appropriation specialists to advise on cookbooks Jeevan Ravindran, CNN • Published 24th January 2022”
I think that is in relation to his new series, a contest for a new cookbook.
He got some criticism for his "jerk rice", not least because it wasn't "jerk" in any meaningful sense. The critics weren't complaining of using ingredients and flavours, but rather about misleading about a cuisine.
Didn't TSE claim that part of the reason Cameron resigned was because he believed another Tory leader might have been keep us in the single market (as the ERG would have demanded a hard brexit as a precondition for Cameron staying, if he had)? Not that him going made any difference in that regard, of course.
Not quite, Dave believed that after losing the referendum he would have no credibility with both the EU countries and the Leavers to negotiate any deal.
As he pointed out the Leave campaign promised to leave both the single market and the customs union if he tried to keep the UK in either it would be an affront to democracy, particularly if he was the one doing it.
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
I wouldn’t worry too much. To me the extreme edges if it are just the same old stuff that’s been going on in university faculties since the 60s, but now we have the internet and social media so it’s more visible.
Same with far right nativists or far left tankies: they were always there, but now get to plaster their nonsense everywhere through anonymous Twitter accounts.
No. You are completely and dangerously wrong. Think again
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
If Boris Brexit had been the promise, leave would have lost.
Boris got 43.6% in 2019 for his Brexit Deal. Add the Brexit Party's 3% and that is 46% for a hard Brexit outside the EEA and CU.
I doubt EEA plus free movement would even have got to 40% in a straight fight with Remain in 2016
Combining the lists, here's the all time worst ratings for either party's leaders across 45 years of MORI polls: 1.Corbyn (Sep 19): -60 2.Major (Aug 94): -59 3=Thatcher (Mar 90): -56 3= Foot (Aug 82): -56 5. Brown (Jul 08): -51 6. Johnson (Jan 22): -46
Those were extermination ratings for previous leaders, who were all out on their ear shortly after. Question is whether Johnson with a marginly less cataclysmic rating is in the same zone.
Wrong, Brown led Labour at the 2010 election and did not lose, it was a hung parliament.
Major also led the Tories to election 1997 ...
I think you missed the word "disaster" out after "election".
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
Dear RP
You voted for Brexit didnt you?
Regards
some arse
Brexit is leaving the EU.
Our problems now are because we have left the EEA
The EEA is not the EU.
We could have created a free trade deal with the EU which allowed free trade to continue to flow. We have chosen not to. That was done by the Conservative government elected in 2019. Which I did not vote for.
If the EEA was a serious option then, it would be a serious option now. It isn't and it wasn't.
So we made a mistake with (hard) Brexit. So let's back up and try again .... Sorry, it's not happening.
(FAOD I do think there are things we can do to limit the damage of Brexit. If you have made a rather big mistake that you will not or cannot reverse, it's sensible to look at mitigations)
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
I wouldn’t worry too much. To me the extreme edges if it are just the same old stuff that’s been going on in university faculties since the 60s, but now we have the internet and social media so it’s more visible.
Same with far right nativists or far left tankies: they were always there, but now get to plaster their nonsense everywhere through anonymous Twitter accounts.
There is always the joy when an extremist find that the extremist cult they are a part of has just cancelled them for being a heretic.
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
I wouldn’t worry too much. To me the extreme edges if it are just the same old stuff that’s been going on in university faculties since the 60s, but now we have the internet and social media so it’s more visible.
Same with far right nativists or far left tankies: they were always there, but now get to plaster their nonsense everywhere through anonymous Twitter accounts.
The difference now being that, thanks to social media, it’s escaped from theoretical discussions in university faculties, and moved into institutions of state and commerce.
Tories haven't had a poll lead since the Redfield & Wilton poll on Dec 6th.
And haven't deserved one either.
I think Boris is going to survive this. He's going to have to do something Houdini-like to get the Tories back on track though.
Problem for him is that the less interested in politics electorate sometimes take a while to catch up with someone being a waste of space. It took them a while with Corbyn. Once they get there, there is no going back. I think Labour would have loved it if he had resigned, but he is currently an asset to them staying, so it is a win-win for them.
+1 - Boris stays and his broken promises make the next election easier to fight. Boris goes and Labour score a head but risk the new leader escaping the issues that can be pinned on Boris.
I think it's very much in Labours interest that Boris remains in place which is why no real effort is occurring on the Labour side to encourage Tory MPs to get rid of him.
Getting rid of a PM is far better than not doing so on the risk a new Tory might do better.
On something this huge an actual win now is better than worrying about that win having other effects.
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
As for joining the EEA I shall tell you what Michael Gove privately thinks about that.
Not going to happen, the Leavers (and The Notorious CRG in particular) would view it as a stepping stone to rejoining and oust any Tory PM to try it.
Labour will not offer to join the EEA as they know the Tories and Farage will spin it as trying to overturn democracy.
The other not so inconsiderable problem is getting our European friends to agree, after the whole Brexit farrago and exit deal they really don't want to have to go through that again.
The only terms they'd offer is something so humiliating and one sided that no UK Prime Minister could ever countenance it.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
Not wanting to dig up all the Brexit stuff again, but I have often wondered about this question. I think you are right, in that there was probably a statistical majority, something like 60% of the country, who would have accepted EEA membership with free movement remaining as a compromise in the immediate aftermath of the referendum. However, a large part of this group would have been remainers who were lukewarm about the idea. Negotiating such an exit would not have been easy or inevitable. I think it is very probable that the question of a second referendum would quickly raise its head, and a large group would have screamed betrayal. But we will never know.
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
We can still try for an EFTA deal with Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein which preserves some elements of the single market and free movement. UKIP may protest a little but the referendum was about leaving the EU not ending all immigration and trade completely
A Starmer government may well do a version of that, especially if reliant on LD confidence and supply. Though given he needs the redwall seats I doubt he would agree to full free movement again. In a generation or two even the Tories might accept that to get back to power.
However the Tories now will not touch it with a bargepole given the threat of leakage to Farage and Tice. Plus Boris' current deal still has immigration just using a points system not free movement and trade deals with the EU and beyond anyway
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
I wouldn’t worry too much. To me the extreme edges if it are just the same old stuff that’s been going on in university faculties since the 60s, but now we have the internet and social media so it’s more visible.
Same with far right nativists or far left tankies: they were always there, but now get to plaster their nonsense everywhere through anonymous Twitter accounts.
No. You are completely and dangerously wrong. Think again
The irony is that if there was a woke version of Leon, they would be the ones doing stuff like this, sensationalising it, misinterpreting it and aggressively and pointlessly taking woke to the extremes.
Oh and ballet is one of the worst forms of dance - a factory for creating eating disorders and wrecked feet.
I couldn't have put it better myself Richard. An EEA option would have been a typical British compromise and one that most, except the most ardent headbangers on both ends could have accepted. It is a shame that it was not properly offered. It would have been easy to have offered an additional confirmatory referendum that only offered EEA or hard Brexit, and this would not have in any way negated the first result.
It's interesting to hear Gavin Barwell on the consideration that Theresa May's team have to a new referendum. Although she apparently rejected it, supposedly on principle (but presumably also party management issues), it's easy to see how she could have gone for it if she'd not backed herself into a corner in the first 3 months of her leadership (when she really did not have to do so).
Mrs M felt constrained as a remainer and tried to accommodate the hard Brexiters within her cabinet, which was always going to be a mistake. They were never going to be satisfied. She should have spent the political capital she had during her honeymoon to spell out some truths to her party and the country, and steered towards a soft Brexit from the start.
As should Cameron, had he had the balls to have stuck around to clear up his own mess.
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
We can still try for an EFTA deal with Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein which preserves some elements of the single market and free movement. UKIP may protest a little but the referendum was about leaving the EU not ending all immigration and trade completely
Best hope for joining EFTA is if Lib Dems asked for it in return for giving confidence and supply to a Labour minority government.
I think that is quite likely. I am still an optimistic/naive (delete as you think appropriate) believer that in the end a sensible equilibrium returns with British politics, eventually. A non-EU membership but with close parallels and a common market for goods and services is the most logical outcome.
Wasting yet more time doing yet more fucking customs forms this time to export products which are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT from one place to another to declare that its the same fucking standards on one side of the border as it is on the other.
Seriously, this is why the Border Operating Model doesn't work and why we're completely gumming up our border so that everything takes an eternity to get through. Pointless red tape to declare that no tariff is payable, that no vat is payable, that no standards are different because our standards are their standards are our fucking standards. What is the point in all this?
Before some arse says "but you voted for this", no I didn't. "This" is the Boris Brexit deal. Where after decades of cutting red tape cost and petty bureaucracy the Tory party decided to fuck all that off and impose as much as possible. Not because we actually have diverged and there is anything to check. But because we might want to do so at some point in the future.
Madness. And still prannocks say "but this is much better for the country than we had before". Is it fuck.
This is what you voted for. They literally said we'd leave the Single Market and Customs Union during the campaign.
And there isn't a single non-EU EEA nation in the Customs Union anyway.
So if you wanted to leave the EU but still have all EU benefits then I'm sorry but that's your own mistake.
And we actually have diverged. UK customs rules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. UK tariff schedules are not 100% the same as EU ones anymore. So the divergence is very real which is what we voted for.
So fill in the forms and quit moaning.
There was no need to leave the Single Market when we left the EU. That is a specific decision taken by he post-referendum Government. The EEA always was and still is an option - indeed the best option. It is only he idiocy of the Governments since 2016 that has prevented it being seriously considered.
If either May or Boris had gone for full EEA and full free movement then no way would the Tories have won a majority in 2019 and Brexit would not have got done as Farage's Brexit Party would have got about 15-20% of the vote. The Leave vote would thus still have been split rather than united as it was in December 2019 behind Boris' Brexit Deal
I know how much you love quoting polls as if they are the only thing in the world that matters so here is one that I quoted in a PB thread header the day after Leave won the referendum.
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
So most Leave voters opposed EEA/EFTA, compared to the vast majority of Leave voters who voted for Boris' Deal in 2019.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA
Nope you are not right and that is not what the figures showed. Given that almost half of Leave voters wanted to remain in the EEA and, given that we were leaving, a large majority of Remain voters would have wanted to minimise the damage as they saw it, then there would have been - and I contend still will be - a clear majority in favour of EFTA/EEA membership. I have the figures behind me. You have nothing but your rather singular views.
99% of Remain voters would still have voted Remain over Leave to EEA in the 2016 referendum. However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
If Boris Brexit had been the promise, leave would have lost.
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Looks that way to me, The absence of Dom is the crucial factor.
Dom moves in a mysterious way. I wouldn't write him off just yet.
No, not quite, I agree.
I suspect he has some juicy titbits for use in the run up to the local elections. Johnson out by June is still my guess. I am putting it out to the universe.
🔷👀 MPs and insiders involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to shore up support for Boris Johnson amid partygate have told PoliticsHome they are “more and more confident” serious threats to his leadership from within have dampened
Looks that way to me. The absence of Dom is the crucial factor.
As I have said before it is reported Sue Gray told Cummings to provide all the information he has and suddenly confirmation photos have now been received
Probably already linked but this is quite some thread, about the Holocaust, by Hugo Rifkind. A very talented writer. Twitter when it is good is GOOD. And profoundly moving
Comments
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1486750137686937602
“Jamie Oliver says he's hired cultural appropriation specialists to advise on cookbooks
Jeevan Ravindran, CNN • Published 24th January 2022”
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/jamie-oliver-cultural-appropriation-scli-intl-gbr/index.html
No, Leave only got 52% in part because the Leave campaign promised to end EU free movement and replace it with a points system, thus getting redwall voters out to vote Leave.
If Leave had just campaigned on EEA I suspect Remain would have won as redwallers would not have bothered to vote.
I don't recall the term "hard Brexit" or "soft Brexit" being discussed during the referendum, quite the opposite.
The Leave campaign made a few promises which are still visible on the Vote Leave website: to leave the ECJ, regain control of laws and trade and migration, and to have a free trade agreement outside of the Single Market.
As far as I can tell every single one of those promises has been fulfilled, so I'm not seeing how anyone was hoodwinked.
PS the binary yes/no on leaving the Single Market was from memldy asked by Andrew Neil during his series of interviews. He also compiled those answers and used them on the Daily Politics afterwards.
But I do think the issue of sports teams names - naming teams after groups of people whose land and heritage was robbed from them not just once but multiple times by the still dominant 'tribe' and then representing their culture with little more than drunken grunts - is somewhat different than accusing some Brit who is drinking a margharita that he or she is guilty of cultural appropriation and that they should take off that sombrero forthwith.
Genetically it is almost pure bollocks, like much of this stuff, but emotionally and culturally it has validity and weight.
The University of Chester's English department has put a 'trigger warning' on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and advised any student who reads it to contact a member of staff if they have 'issues' with any of its content
https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1486688312618332161
Remember EEA was also defeated in the Commons on the indicative votes in 2019
That was the controversy when it first came out.
Edit: some do.
Boris goes and Labour score a head but risk the new leader escaping the issues that can be pinned on Boris.
I think it's very much in Labours interest that Boris remains in place which is why no real effort is occurring on the Labour side to encourage Tory MPs to get rid of him.
I hate Durham when term is on...
There is an Argentinian team called Arsenal too.
Leave got to 52% by combining those who wanted to Leave the EU for EEA and those who wanted to leave the EU and EEA and Customs Union and end free movement and do our own trade deals as now. The latter were a bigger part of the Leave vote than the former and the main reason Leave won the North, the Midlands and Wales and East.
Pro EEA and pro free movement Leavers were mainly concentrated in the South East of England, with some fishermen in the Southwest happy as long as we left the CFP
Politicians that have managed any headway against the tide are few and far between. (Maggie perhaps. Farage did so too. Lammy doing so now.) Nobody has ever managed to get close to leaping the hurdle Boris has set himself.
I mean you can understand a cynic being willing to keep a stupid, incompetent, idle liar on the basis that he is personally popular, but now?
"A Yougov poll on 8th June showed that 42% of Leave supporters would prefer the EFTA/EEA route post-Brexit with 45% opposing. I would contend that this would indicate that overall there would be a clear majority of the country that would choose EFTA/EEA over complete separation from the Single Market."
The Government governs for the whole country not just those who won one particular side of a vote. It was incumbent upon them to seek a compromise, especially given that it was likely a majority of the electorate would have been happy with a soft Brexit. That we didn't do that was entirely due to a PM who did not understand Brexit and thought it was all about keeping the 'furrners' out followed by a PM who would have trouble finding the fluff in his belly button without a map and instructions.
Thanks for confirming I was absolutely right and Remain would have won in 2016 if the alternative was just Leave to EEA and keep free movement as most Leavers would not have bothered to turn out to vote Leave for just EEA.
You only won Brexit with a promise to tighten immigration controls, tough
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/boris-johnson-backers-say-they-are-confident-serious-threats-of-a-tory-rebellion-have-been-placated
Never been so bored and disgusted with politics as I am just now
However plenty of working class Leave voters in the North and Midlands would have stayed home if Leave promised to keep free movement still and stay in the EEA.
So Remain would have won the referendum with about 60% of the vote and we would still be in the EU and no compromise would have been needed as there would have been no Brexit.
You won on the back of immigration control promises, EEA alone was never going to get you over 50% given we were outside the Eurozone in the EU anyway
Let himself down on Ernie's stuff.
Edit worth reading the thread. The only leader ever to recover from a similar low was Thatcher in 1981 thanks to the Falklands War.
It will be pure drama and I expect the Speaker will struggle to contain the noise
We should have a reasonable idea after the debate if Boris fights on or is on his way out
Monday looks like the day it will all kick off
CANCELLED
White, white supremacist, ableist, racist, and just evil. So says Princeton University
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/whitey-binds-her-feet-wokeness-princeton-ballet/
People who think “Wokeness” is just a silly rehash of “political correctness gone mad” are sinister morons. Woke is infinitely more dangerous. It seeks to deconstruct western cultural pride and self confidence, until the Chinese just stomp all over us
Major also led the Tories to election 1997 and Foot led Labour to election 1983 and Corbyn led Labour to election 2019 even if they lost.
Of the leaders listed only Thatcher was removed but only as polls showed a Major led Tories leading Kinnock Labour. No current polls show even a Sunak led Tories leading Starmer Labour
Not that him going made any difference in that regard, of course.
Same with far right nativists or far left tankies: they were always there, but now get to plaster their nonsense everywhere through anonymous Twitter accounts.
So if anyone is caught twerking, they also need, as they twerk, to honour the Gregorian chant, the Viennese Waltz, Adrian Mole and the theory of calculus
He got some criticism for his "jerk rice", not least because it wasn't "jerk" in any meaningful sense. The critics weren't complaining of using ingredients and flavours, but rather about misleading about a cuisine.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/shortcuts/2018/aug/20/jamie-oliver-jerk-rice-recipe-for-disaster-caribbean-marinade
As he pointed out the Leave campaign promised to leave both the single market and the customs union if he tried to keep the UK in either it would be an affront to democracy, particularly if he was the one doing it.
I doubt EEA plus free movement would even have got to 40% in a straight fight with Remain in 2016
I just thought it was a joke which he'd have appreciated.
So we made a mistake with (hard) Brexit. So let's back up and try again .... Sorry, it's not happening.
(FAOD I do think there are things we can do to limit the damage of Brexit. If you have made a rather big mistake that you will not or cannot reverse, it's sensible to look at mitigations)
On something this huge an actual win now is better than worrying about that win having other effects.
Not going to happen, the Leavers (and The Notorious CRG in particular) would view it as a stepping stone to rejoining and oust any Tory PM to try it.
Labour will not offer to join the EEA as they know the Tories and Farage will spin it as trying to overturn democracy.
The other not so inconsiderable problem is getting our European friends to agree, after the whole Brexit farrago and exit deal they really don't want to have to go through that again.
The only terms they'd offer is something so humiliating and one sided that no UK Prime Minister could ever countenance it.
However the Tories now will not touch it with a bargepole given the threat of leakage to Farage and Tice. Plus Boris' current deal still has immigration just using a points system not free movement and trade deals with the EU and beyond anyway
Oh and ballet is one of the worst forms of dance - a factory for creating eating disorders and wrecked feet.
As should Cameron, had he had the balls to have stuck around to clear up his own mess.
I suspect on partygate his course has run
https://twitter.com/hugorifkind/status/1486733736083292163?s=21