This YouGov poll is similar to the Rallings and Thrasher local elections projected national share which was Lab 35%, Con 33%.
Almost all Governments would kill for those mid-term numbers.
Has any Government with as good/better splits failed to be re-elected?
You make a great point which is being ignored on this site, Labour should have won the LE by 10-15 points not by 2.
I've not ignored it!! I have posted several times that the Lab numbers were terrible considering it is mid term after more than a decade of power with an unpopular leader and economic crisis. It was an appalling result frankly and I don't care how many times people say yeh but look we have to compare it to the number of councillors back when last contested. Balls. The projected overall vote share is dire for Labour at this point.
Wait until Aspire goes national, which it will off the back of what it did with Tower Hamlets.
Aspire won't appeal beyond wards which have very large numbers of very devout Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh. That's a very niche appeal.
Starmer is spewing Stagflation all across the despatch box today. He gets away with this becuase your golden rule there isn’t enough unemployment to call it stagflation doesn’t apply in the commons chamber?
Labour leader is economically illiterate and spouting bollocks?
That's not news. He gets away with it, because that's what Labour does. Those who dislike the Tories might say the same about their leader too.
Parliamentary privilege means he can say whatever he pleases.
I am sure if you can share with him your economic credentials, academic or industrial, he will evaluate them and let you know what he thinks. But then again, perhaps not.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
I have now read the Welsh government proposal. A party would only be excluded from the Senedd if it failed to win around 13-15% of the vote, across ANY of the pairs of 2 Westminster constituencies. For example, half of Cardiff, or Bangor and Holyhead, or a few towns in the valleys. If the Lib Dems get 15% anywhere they would be tantamount to elected there. Yes, it puts the fix in somewhat for the 3 large parties right now, but any small party with a local base should have some chances.
No (minor) party has achieved that except for the LDs in Mid Wales where they could pick up one or two SDs.
It is a very tall order, especially since the party system will further disincentivise independents.
Right, but winning 6% of the national vote is the problem for LDs there, not so much the exact nature of the system.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
Brexit was pointless. The more years that go by the more obvious that is. We have to live with it though. Doesn't stop us having a good laugh at those who would still try and justify it though.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
So Scots shouldn't be enabled to vote for what they want just because you can fiddle another answer at Westminster?
Where did you get that from what I wrote, nationalists are all so paranoid.
'Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales'
Very paranoid right wing statement, no?
Maybe.
Max is right though that among the various baleful effects, nationalism in Wales is guaranteed a permanent seat in power.
Worse still, how many cycles will it be until PC become the dominant party? Instead of Lab/PC it becomes PC/Lab and eventually PC. Just as we saw in Scotland. Worse, this time Labour are inviting the devil into the house and pretending he won't turn it into hell.
If the Welsh want to vote for PC you can't deny them that, in any good conscience.
This YouGov poll is similar to the Rallings and Thrasher local elections projected national share which was Lab 35%, Con 33%.
Almost all Governments would kill for those mid-term numbers.
Has any Government with as good/better splits failed to be re-elected?
You make a great point which is being ignored on this site, Labour should have won the LE by 10-15 points not by 2.
I've not ignored it!! I have posted several times that the Lab numbers were terrible considering it is mid term after more than a decade of power with an unpopular leader and economic crisis. It was an appalling result frankly and I don't care how many times people say yeh but look we have to compare it to the number of councillors back when last contested. Balls. The projected overall vote share is dire for Labour at this point.
Wait until Aspire goes national, which it will off the back of what it did with Tower Hamlets.
They will almost certainly start trying in Newham which is closest demographically to TH and the second largest Bangladeshi community in the UK where much of the core support has come
I have now read the Welsh government proposal. A party would only be excluded from the Senedd if it failed to win around 13-15% of the vote, across ANY of the pairs of 2 Westminster constituencies. For example, half of Cardiff, or Bangor and Holyhead, or a few towns in the valleys. If the Lib Dems get 15% anywhere they would be tantamount to elected there. Yes, it puts the fix in somewhat for the 3 large parties right now, but any small party with a local base should have some chances.
No (minor) party has achieved that except for the LDs in Mid Wales where they could pick up one or two SDs.
It is a very tall order, especially since the party system will further disincentivise independents.
Right, but winning 6% of the national vote is the problem for LDs there, not so much the exact nature of the system.
I’m not sure why you are happy with this.
By all means criticise the LDs, the Greens, or whatever RefUK call themselves these days for underperformance, but each of them had some chance of representation in the current system.
In turn, given Labour dominance, the LDs and Greens at least might have aspired to helping form a govenment. The LDs indeed did so, until the last election.
The proposals basically pull that away, and cement a permanent oligopoly in Wales.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
You understand that the country will be getting more prosperous over time, just that some models suggest the rate of increase will be lower than if we had remained? That is not the same as 'getting poorer and poorer'.
I understand what you are saying about the EU/UK relationship. Of course that will gone on forever. But that it not the same as saying Brexit isn't done. It is. The vote was honoured (in the end). We left.
Everything else is post brexit.
I would prefer a close trading relationship with the EU with as little dicking around as possible. I think that will come, but I also suspect there is an element of 'f*ck Britain' in some European nations. I also suspect some want to make it harder for us in order to prove leaving was a bad idea. We have also made poor choices ourselves.
We have though been hamstrung by NI. TBH if NI did leave the UK and re-unite with Ireland it would be no bad thing for rUK. Less money in the benefits bill for the rest to pay. No more internal border shit.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
So Scots shouldn't be enabled to vote for what they want just because you can fiddle another answer at Westminster?
Where did you get that from what I wrote, nationalists are all so paranoid.
'Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales'
Very paranoid right wing statement, no?
Maybe.
Max is right though that among the various baleful effects, nationalism in Wales is guaranteed a permanent seat in power.
So? All the Unionists have to do is to get more votes.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
You understand that the country will be getting more prosperous over time, just that some models suggest the rate of increase will be lower than if we had remained? That is not the same as 'getting poorer and poorer'.
I understand what you are saying about the EU/UK relationship. Of course that will gone on forever. But that it not the same as saying Brexit isn't done. It is. The vote was honoured (in the end). We left.
Everything else is post brexit.
I would prefer a close trading relationship with the EU with as little dicking around as possible. I think that will come, but I also suspect there is an element of 'f*ck Britain' in some European nations. I also suspect some want to make it harder for us in order to prove leaving was a bad idea. We have also made poor choices ourselves.
We have though been hamstrung by NI. TBH if NI did leave the UK and re-unite with Ireland it would be no bad thing for rUK. Less money in the benefits bill for the rest to pay. No more internal border shit.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
So Scots shouldn't be enabled to vote for what they want just because you can fiddle another answer at Westminster?
Where did you get that from what I wrote, nationalists are all so paranoid.
'Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales'
Very paranoid right wing statement, no?
Maybe.
Max is right though that among the various baleful effects, nationalism in Wales is guaranteed a permanent seat in power.
So? All the Unionists have to do is to get more votes.
It's no more and no less fixed than FPTP is.
It’s really not. I’m not especially a fan of FPTP.
If I had the time and/or the skills, I would show you by re-running the elections since 99 under this proposed system, and/or running simulations under reasonable projections (eg Lab 30-50%, PC, 10-30%, Con 20-40% etc).
This YouGov poll is similar to the Rallings and Thrasher local elections projected national share which was Lab 35%, Con 33%.
Almost all Governments would kill for those mid-term numbers.
Has any Government with as good/better splits failed to be re-elected?
You make a great point which is being ignored on this site, Labour should have won the LE by 10-15 points not by 2.
I've not ignored it!! I have posted several times that the Lab numbers were terrible considering it is mid term after more than a decade of power with an unpopular leader and economic crisis. It was an appalling result frankly and I don't care how many times people say yeh but look we have to compare it to the number of councillors back when last contested. Balls. The projected overall vote share is dire for Labour at this point.
Wait until Aspire goes national, which it will off the back of what it did with Tower Hamlets.
Aspire won't appeal beyond wards which have very large numbers of very devout Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh. That's a very niche appeal.
In Westminster terms, Poplar, Bethnal Green, East and West Ham most likely. Tower Hamlets and Newham basically
Things might not be going as well for Ukraine as we all (well, perhaps all) hope. The next few days might show whether Russia makes a breakthrough in Donbass and on the south coast.
Fingers crossed for Ukraine!
Interesting comment, what do you suspect is happening?
Warning: fog of war and all that.
It *appears* that the Russians have formed a bridgehead over a strategically-important river in the east using Spetsnaz troops, perhaps with more than one bridge over. If they can get enough troops and armour over, and the Ukrainians cannot destroy those bridge(s), then a number of Ukrainian brigades might be in trouble. Even the presence of Spetsnaz troops on the other bank could cause the Ukrainians a lot of headaches.
Perhaps.
Meanwhile, in the south, the Russians are apparently looking to force their way westwards along the coast from Kherson.
The Ukrainians are doing well to push the Russians back around Kharkiv. But the Russians might be concentrating elsewhere.
Basically: for all the videos we are seeing of Russian tanks being destroyed and their troops' idiocy, they're still a major threat.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
You understand that the country will be getting more prosperous over time, just that some models suggest the rate of increase will be lower than if we had remained? That is not the same as 'getting poorer and poorer'.
I understand what you are saying about the EU/UK relationship. Of course that will gone on forever. But that it not the same as saying Brexit isn't done. It is. The vote was honoured (in the end). We left.
Everything else is post brexit.
I would prefer a close trading relationship with the EU with as little dicking around as possible. I think that will come, but I also suspect there is an element of 'f*ck Britain' in some European nations. I also suspect some want to make it harder for us in order to prove leaving was a bad idea. We have also made poor choices ourselves.
We have though been hamstrung by NI. TBH if NI did leave the UK and re-unite with Ireland it would be no bad thing for rUK. Less money in the benefits bill for the rest to pay. No more internal border shit.
That's an interesting last paragraph ...
In what way? NI does cost the rest more than average - I've seen it given as one reason Eire is not necessarily keen on re-unification. It would also remove the need for an internal border, which is a disaster that should never have been allowed to happen. You would never do it between Devon and Cornwall say.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
Brexit was pointless. The more years that go by the more obvious that is. We have to live with it though. Doesn't stop us having a good laugh at those who would still try and justify it though.
Even Macron is tacitly admitting that the EU model doesn't work for Europe.
It's hypocritical for you to rail against "quasi-democracy", complain about constitutional questions being neglected and then turn around and say that Brexit is pointless. It may be right or wrong, and it may lead to a good long term outcome for Britain or not, but it's clearly not pointless.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
So Scots shouldn't be enabled to vote for what they want just because you can fiddle another answer at Westminster?
Where did you get that from what I wrote, nationalists are all so paranoid.
'Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales'
Very paranoid right wing statement, no?
Maybe.
Max is right though that among the various baleful effects, nationalism in Wales is guaranteed a permanent seat in power.
So? All the Unionists have to do is to get more votes.
It's no more and no less fixed than FPTP is.
It’s really not. I’m not especially a fan of FPTP.
If I had the time and/or the skills, I would show you by re-running the elections since 99 under this proposed system, and/or running simulations under reasonable projections (eg Lab 30-50%, PC, 10-30%, Con 20-40% etc).
There is also a rather obvious problem with the new model. LLafur and PC have one irreconciliable policy issue. Much more so than [edit] Slab-SLD coalition, at least at the time before the SLDs went all hard junior Tory and stayed that way.
I can't imagine a SNP-Slab coalition, because that issue has become so salient.
Starmer is spewing Stagflation all across the despatch box today. He gets away with this becuase your golden rule there isn’t enough unemployment to call it stagflation doesn’t apply in the commons chamber?
Labour leader is economically illiterate and spouting bollocks?
That's not news. He gets away with it, because that's what Labour does. Those who dislike the Tories might say the same about their leader too.
Parliamentary privilege means he can say whatever he pleases.
I actually agree with you. Everyday on PB is a classroom day and I learnt something, to call it stagflation it’s needs unemployment at levels and or increasing, lack of growth with high inflation alone shouldn’t be called Stagflation.
I wonder though if it’s one of those terms the common understanding of something doesn’t fit the text book definitions, (is the economic textbook term used more often sectorally than to describe countrys economy?) so if we enter recession with high inflation, not just Starmer but all the media and everyone will be referring to it as Stagflation?
Nb. If Starmer is still front bench politics by then 🤭
I suspect the monarchy will just fizzle out as the UK does.
Neither the monarchy or the UK will fizzle out
@SouthamObserver just WANTS the UK to fizzle out, because Brexit
They see it as a deserved punishment on ordinary Britons, for daring to upset the second home plans of their betters
Ordinary Britons really don't care that much about the UK. It's only the privileged right that get all hot and bothered about it - and that's largely driven by English nationalism. Most ordinary Britons are much more focused on their English, Scottish and Welsh identities. Even in Northern Ireland notions of Britishness are declining. I regret that, but it was happening way before Brexit. As for the monarchy, the Queen is the glue that keeps it all together, not the institution itself. If I think of my kids and their mates, it's something that doesn't even register with them.
Scots still voted to stay in the UK, every other home nation still has a majority of Unionist parties in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland Unionist parties still win more seats than Nationalists.
The monarchy was there for centuries before the Queen and will be there centuries after she dies. She was a reasonably good monarch but the monarchy is far more than her
Neither you nor I know what it's like to have another head of state - one that linked us to a pivotal time in our country's history. I don't think there will be any kind of mass movement to end the monarchy, I just think that there will come a time, relatively soon (but probably after I'm dead) when not enough people will care about keeping it, allowing those who feel strongly about getting rid of it to prevail.
But those who “feel strongly about getting rid of it” are a small rump of miserable incel non binary Remoanering volcano-loving republican Fascisto-socialists, like you - as @HYUFD correctly points out, with his normal forensic accuracy
Persuading the rest of the country to adopt your position will be like persuading Malaga holiday makers to become breatharians
The monarchy is genuinely popular in this country. I don't see that changing.
Would that be the case if it was Andrew ascending instead of Charles?
The monarchy is popular, so long as we have popular monarchs. The risk to the monarchy is that at some point we have an unpopular one.
I feel fairly comfortable that Charles and William will be fine. After that, who knows?*
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
DNA tests can also be problematic when looking at heirs to a peerage.
They tend to be of the form: male heirs of the body. This requires actual descents not just a child of your wife.
The case of "In the matter of the Baronetcy of Pringle of Stichill" https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/2016/16.html is an interesting read. This considered whether the elder son born in 1903 was actually the son of the eighth baronet based on DNA evidence.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
You understand that the country will be getting more prosperous over time, just that some models suggest the rate of increase will be lower than if we had remained? That is not the same as 'getting poorer and poorer'.
I understand what you are saying about the EU/UK relationship. Of course that will gone on forever. But that it not the same as saying Brexit isn't done. It is. The vote was honoured (in the end). We left.
Everything else is post brexit.
I would prefer a close trading relationship with the EU with as little dicking around as possible. I think that will come, but I also suspect there is an element of 'f*ck Britain' in some European nations. I also suspect some want to make it harder for us in order to prove leaving was a bad idea. We have also made poor choices ourselves.
We have though been hamstrung by NI. TBH if NI did leave the UK and re-unite with Ireland it would be no bad thing for rUK. Less money in the benefits bill for the rest to pay. No more internal border shit.
That's an interesting last paragraph ...
In what way? NI does cost the rest more than average - I've seen it given as one reason Eire is not necessarily keen on re-unification. It would also remove the need for an internal border, which is a disaster that should never have been allowed to happen. You would never do it between Devon and Cornwall say.
Wasn't disagreeing! I was struck by how it highlights the problem which the Brexiters have in being irredentist UK nationalists when it comes to NI at the same time as ditto when it comes to Brexit. Your solution neatly resolves the issue, but at least one PBer would be needing a new carpet if it was put into action.
I have now read the Welsh government proposal. A party would only be excluded from the Senedd if it failed to win around 13-15% of the vote, across ANY of the pairs of 2 Westminster constituencies. For example, half of Cardiff, or Bangor and Holyhead, or a few towns in the valleys. If the Lib Dems get 15% anywhere they would be tantamount to elected there. Yes, it puts the fix in somewhat for the 3 large parties right now, but any small party with a local base should have some chances.
No (minor) party has achieved that except for the LDs in Mid Wales where they could pick up one or two SDs.
It is a very tall order, especially since the party system will further disincentivise independents.
Right, but winning 6% of the national vote is the problem for LDs there, not so much the exact nature of the system.
I’m not sure why you are happy with this.
By all means criticise the LDs, the Greens, or whatever RefUK call themselves these days for underperformance, but each of them had some chance of representation in the current system.
In turn, given Labour dominance, the LDs and Greens at least might have aspired to helping form a govenment. The LDs indeed did so, until the last election.
The proposals basically pull that away, and cement a permanent oligopoly in Wales.
The LDs contributed to the last coalition because of the FPTP element. I think they won zero proportional seats even then. If FPTP is required for fairness, the LDs are being pretty facetious.
This YouGov poll is similar to the Rallings and Thrasher local elections projected national share which was Lab 35%, Con 33%.
Almost all Governments would kill for those mid-term numbers.
Has any Government with as good/better splits failed to be re-elected?
You make a great point which is being ignored on this site, Labour should have won the LE by 10-15 points not by 2.
I've not ignored it!! I have posted several times that the Lab numbers were terrible considering it is mid term after more than a decade of power with an unpopular leader and economic crisis. It was an appalling result frankly and I don't care how many times people say yeh but look we have to compare it to the number of councillors back when last contested. Balls. The projected overall vote share is dire for Labour at this point.
Wait until Aspire goes national, which it will off the back of what it did with Tower Hamlets.
Aspire won't appeal beyond wards which have very large numbers of very devout Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh. That's a very niche appeal.
In Westminster terms, Poplar, Bethnal Green, East and West Ham most likely. Tower Hamlets and Newham basically
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
You understand that the country will be getting more prosperous over time, just that some models suggest the rate of increase will be lower than if we had remained? That is not the same as 'getting poorer and poorer'.
I understand what you are saying about the EU/UK relationship. Of course that will gone on forever. But that it not the same as saying Brexit isn't done. It is. The vote was honoured (in the end). We left.
Everything else is post brexit.
I would prefer a close trading relationship with the EU with as little dicking around as possible. I think that will come, but I also suspect there is an element of 'f*ck Britain' in some European nations. I also suspect some want to make it harder for us in order to prove leaving was a bad idea. We have also made poor choices ourselves.
We have though been hamstrung by NI. TBH if NI did leave the UK and re-unite with Ireland it would be no bad thing for rUK. Less money in the benefits bill for the rest to pay. No more internal border shit.
That's an interesting last paragraph ...
In what way? NI does cost the rest more than average - I've seen it given as one reason Eire is not necessarily keen on re-unification. It would also remove the need for an internal border, which is a disaster that should never have been allowed to happen. You would never do it between Devon and Cornwall say.
Wasn't disagreeing! I was struck by how it highlights the problem which the Brexiters have in being irredentist UK nationalists when it comes to NI at the same time as ditto when it comes to Brexit. Your solution neatly resolves the issue, but at least one PBer would be needing a new carpet if it was put into action.
Ah - I took it as something else (don't know why, just assumed I was being accused of something bad! ). We were rather unlucky in having the GFA as it made leaving almost impossible. None of the proposed solutions works for everything. If Spain wanted to leave, say, there would be no such issue.
I have now read the Welsh government proposal. A party would only be excluded from the Senedd if it failed to win around 13-15% of the vote, across ANY of the pairs of 2 Westminster constituencies. For example, half of Cardiff, or Bangor and Holyhead, or a few towns in the valleys. If the Lib Dems get 15% anywhere they would be tantamount to elected there. Yes, it puts the fix in somewhat for the 3 large parties right now, but any small party with a local base should have some chances.
No (minor) party has achieved that except for the LDs in Mid Wales where they could pick up one or two SDs.
It is a very tall order, especially since the party system will further disincentivise independents.
Right, but winning 6% of the national vote is the problem for LDs there, not so much the exact nature of the system.
I’m not sure why you are happy with this.
By all means criticise the LDs, the Greens, or whatever RefUK call themselves these days for underperformance, but each of them had some chance of representation in the current system.
In turn, given Labour dominance, the LDs and Greens at least might have aspired to helping form a govenment. The LDs indeed did so, until the last election.
The proposals basically pull that away, and cement a permanent oligopoly in Wales.
The LDs contributed to the last coalition because of the FPTP element. I think they won zero proportional seats even then. If FPTP is required for fairness, the LDs are being pretty facetious.
I don’t support FPTP for the devolved nations (or in local government). I am agnostic about it’s use for Westminster.
My issue is not FPTP versus PR.
My issue is that *this* PR creates a permanent oligopoly in Wales. In simple terms, it’s a stitch-up.
And that’s before you come to qualitative issues (closed party lists, the so-called “ziplock”).
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice and the jam-for-all prospectus of the referendum.
This YouGov poll is similar to the Rallings and Thrasher local elections projected national share which was Lab 35%, Con 33%.
Almost all Governments would kill for those mid-term numbers.
Has any Government with as good/better splits failed to be re-elected?
You make a great point which is being ignored on this site, Labour should have won the LE by 10-15 points not by 2.
I've not ignored it!! I have posted several times that the Lab numbers were terrible considering it is mid term after more than a decade of power with an unpopular leader and economic crisis. It was an appalling result frankly and I don't care how many times people say yeh but look we have to compare it to the number of councillors back when last contested. Balls. The projected overall vote share is dire for Labour at this point.
Wait until Aspire goes national, which it will off the back of what it did with Tower Hamlets.
Aspire won't appeal beyond wards which have very large numbers of very devout Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh. That's a very niche appeal.
In Westminster terms, Poplar, Bethnal Green, East and West Ham most likely. Tower Hamlets and Newham basically
Some Brummie seats as well
Hall Green where Yaqoob stood for Respect has the closest demographic match if Aspire does not appeal beyond the sort of voters ot attracted in TH
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. I thing TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
Indeed. Although we also musn't forget that for herself, she was simply saving her skin. Cave in to the ERG = staying in power.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
Utter bullshit. Just because one hard brexit warrior defines Brexit as breaking the EU social model blah blah blah...
Brexit isn't done until better is delivered? WTAF?
Brexit (as regarded by 99.9% of normal people) is complete. We have left the EU. Do you deny that? We do not pay money directly to the EU. Do you deny that? We have no say over what the EU does - thats up to them. Do you deny that?
We are in the post Brexit era. Looks like its not going as well as some hoped. Its certainly not as bad as some of the remainer faction hoped either.
You are going for a thin definition of “Brexit done” that’s not the definition to be arguing over. Not the definition Boris used today I was commenting on. That’the political slogan version! 😃
If you still don’t understand I’ll have a go at explaining it to you.
Is Brexit done in terms of the arguments for it proven? Is brexit done in terms of the argument is won? Is brexit done in terms of it is history, the country has moved on?
In terms of the political slogan “brexit is done” the answers are NO, NO, and NO.
You are wheeling out the thin textbook version to try to disguise the elephant in the room here. You can’t see the elephant in the room because your Ostrich head is in the sand.
We are exactly where we we’re in 2016 in terms of the arguments the same, nothing proven, the current brexit deal can be quite dramatically altered and still be brexit. And the voting blocs in last weeks local elections in England were still remainer v leavers the country has not moved on and put this in the past.
Not one of those three questions I asked defining the political slogan version of Brexit is done can be answered yes?
In this “political slogan” interpretation of “brexit is done” you surely agree with me, brexit isn’t done?
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. I thing TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
Indeed. Although we musn't forget that for herself, she was simply saving her skin. Cave in to the ERG = staying in power.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
Chief amongst those cheering on a Trumpite outrage was the Leader of the Opposition. One of several reasons he is not fit to be PM, none of them curry related.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
He didn’t say that in his speech though.
The logic of your position is that we should stay as we are until Macron goes.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
He didn’t say that in his speech though.
The logic of your position is that we should stay as we are until Macron goes.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
Chief amongst those cheering on a Trumpite outrage was the Leader of the Opposition. One of several reasons he is not fit to be PM, none of them curry related.
There was no Trumpite outrage.
Only retarded people think that. And Leon, who is not retarded but likes to shit-stir.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
He didn’t say that in his speech though.
The logic of your position is that we should stay as we are until Macron goes.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
It’s the Brexit psychology.
Working with EU (or France, or Germany) is a humiliation too far.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
He didn’t say that in his speech though.
The logic of your position is that we should stay as we are until Macron goes.
I'm not sure that logic is a relevant concept here.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
I'm glad its not just me. I truly wonder what planet some people are on. I think if you asked the public whether Brexit was done you'd get a very different answer to asking PB.
I’m on a political planet where things don’t get done, ever, they merely move into a new phase, where you end up on the defence, not the attack.
Attack is always more fun, and easy to get the crowd shouting. 😝
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
No, Brexit is done, we have left, we can now achieve better or worse or indifferent based upon our own control.
The rest is post-Brexit or simply put, "democracy". Its up to whoever we elect to do whatever we elect them to do.
My mum and dad are both members of the Tory Party, my dad was and still is set against Brexit, my mum all for it from before she was born most likely. I didn’t vote, not that I didn’t take an interest, but I couldn’t work out from all the arguments if it was going to turn out better or worse for doing it in long run. I liked the idea of taking back control from a distant bureaucracy, so big decisions and calls are taken closer to home by people we can unelect. But I really didn’t like the idea of the country I love just getting poorer and poorer as the coming years tock by because of a poor relationship with worlds biggest trading bloc on our borders.
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
You understand that the country will be getting more prosperous over time, just that some models suggest the rate of increase will be lower than if we had remained? That is not the same as 'getting poorer and poorer'.
I understand what you are saying about the EU/UK relationship. Of course that will gone on forever. But that it not the same as saying Brexit isn't done. It is. The vote was honoured (in the end). We left.
Everything else is post brexit.
I would prefer a close trading relationship with the EU with as little dicking around as possible. I think that will come, but I also suspect there is an element of 'f*ck Britain' in some European nations. I also suspect some want to make it harder for us in order to prove leaving was a bad idea. We have also made poor choices ourselves.
We have though been hamstrung by NI. TBH if NI did leave the UK and re-unite with Ireland it would be no bad thing for rUK. Less money in the benefits bill for the rest to pay. No more internal border shit.
That's an interesting last paragraph ...
In what way? NI does cost the rest more than average - I've seen it given as one reason Eire is not necessarily keen on re-unification. It would also remove the need for an internal border, which is a disaster that should never have been allowed to happen. You would never do it between Devon and Cornwall say.
Wasn't disagreeing! I was struck by how it highlights the problem which the Brexiters have in being irredentist UK nationalists when it comes to NI at the same time as ditto when it comes to Brexit. Your solution neatly resolves the issue, but at least one PBer would be needing a new carpet if it was put into action.
Ah - I took it as something else (don't know why, just assumed I was being accused of something bad! ). We were rather unlucky in having the GFA as it made leaving almost impossible. None of the proposed solutions works for everything. If Spain wanted to leave, say, there would be no such issue.
Quite re GFA, as was obvious back in 2015-6 to even folk such as me. Arguably made an even worse problem now. At least they made a good start at easing NI out of the UK to achieve your solution intentionally or otherwise - but now?
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Don't let facts intrude. Remember that Brexit is all the fault of Remainers.
For Leon - 27 in Kingsbridge, Devon. Jamie has fun with his food!
Queen Elizabeth II's 70th Jubilee Banquet
Celebrating our beloved Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, we take you through a journey of the British classics, with a fine dining ‘Jamie twist’.
Available Thursday 2nd – Saturday 4th June, lunch & dinner - £90 per head Snacks: Spam fritters Dandelion & burdock 1937 – became a wartime delicacy. Chicken liver parfait And cherry 'Jammie Dodger' 1960 – the Queen’s favourite biscuit. Venison sausage roll Houses of Parliament sauce 1860 – the Royal Family preferred using venison from their estate. We’ve turned this into the British staple classic. Iced cream cheese, cucumber, & caviar “sandwich” 1830 – the Royal sandwich.
Main event: * One Windsor soup English muffin, Marmite butter 1890 - it doesn’t get more British than Marmite, and the Windsor soup is a Buckingham Palace favourite. * Two Coronation chicken Mango gel, curry emulsion, pickled shimeji, sultana dressing 1953 - a recipe invented for the Queen. * Three Great British fish and chips Turbot cooked on the bone, minted pea purée, pomme Anna, Béarnaise sauce 1967 - fish and chips first came to London in 1967. This is Jamie’s version. * Four Roast beef Yorkshire pudding stuffed with oxtail, cauliflower cheese purée, roasted carrot, braised red cabbage, duck fat potato fondant, bone marrow gravy 1485 - no explanation needed. * Five 'Eton tidy' Pimm’s jelly, English strawberries, meringue, clotted cream ice cream 1893 - strawberries and clotted cream; the best strawberries are British with Cornish clotted cream. * Six Rhubarb & custard Marcus Wareing’s custard tart, poached rhubarb, rhubarb ripple ice cream Served on the Queen’s 80th birthday. Her favourite pudding is rhubarb and custard. * To finish English tea Battenberg cake, treacle tart, petit fours This is the way the Queen takes her tea.
An all-English wine and champagne flight will be available.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
Utter bullshit. Just because one hard brexit warrior defines Brexit as breaking the EU social model blah blah blah...
Brexit isn't done until better is delivered? WTAF?
Brexit (as regarded by 99.9% of normal people) is complete. We have left the EU. Do you deny that? We do not pay money directly to the EU. Do you deny that? We have no say over what the EU does - thats up to them. Do you deny that?
We are in the post Brexit era. Looks like its not going as well as some hoped. Its certainly not as bad as some of the remainer faction hoped either.
You are going for a thin definition of “Brexit done” that’s not the definition to be arguing over. Not the definition Boris used today I was commenting on. That’the political slogan version! 😃
If you still don’t understand I’ll have a go at explaining it to you.
Is Brexit done in terms of the arguments for it proven? Is brexit done in terms of the argument is won? Is brexit done in terms of it is history, the country has moved on?
In terms of the political slogan “brexit is done” the answers are NO, NO, and NO.
You are wheeling out the thin textbook version to try to disguise the elephant in the room here. You can’t see the elephant in the room because your Ostrich head is in the sand.
We are exactly where we we’re in 2016 in terms of the arguments the same, nothing proven, the current brexit deal can be quite dramatically altered and still be brexit. And the voting blocs in last weeks local elections in England were still remainer v leavers the country has not moved on and put this in the past.
Not one of those three questions I asked defining the political slogan version of Brexit is done can be answered yes?
In this “political slogan” interpretation of “brexit is done” you surely agree with me, brexit isn’t done?
"Political slogan"?
The UK is no longer a member of the EU. That being the only meaning of the phrase "Brexit is done", Brexit is done.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
Chief amongst those cheering on a Trumpite outrage was the Leader of the Opposition. One of several reasons he is not fit to be PM, none of them curry related.
There was no Trumpite outrage.
Only retarded people think that. And Leon, who is not retarded but likes to shit-stir.
Christ, you are so thin-skinned about Brexit it is almost no fun winding you up.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. I thing TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
Indeed. Although we musn't forget that for herself, she was simply saving her skin. Cave in to the ERG = staying in power.
Yes, it wasn’t her autism. It was her cowardice.
One of the alternate histories that needs to be written at some point-
What if Boris had become Conservative leader in 2016?
Because to get from the Vote Leave prospectus to EEA would have been a helluva swerve (and would have left a lot of Vote Leave and Leave.EU fuming), and he's the only politician in the UK with the nerve to pull it off. Had he wanted to. Would he have wanted to?
This YouGov poll is similar to the Rallings and Thrasher local elections projected national share which was Lab 35%, Con 33%.
Almost all Governments would kill for those mid-term numbers.
Has any Government with as good/better splits failed to be re-elected?
You make a great point which is being ignored on this site, Labour should have won the LE by 10-15 points not by 2.
I've not ignored it!! I have posted several times that the Lab numbers were terrible considering it is mid term after more than a decade of power with an unpopular leader and economic crisis. It was an appalling result frankly and I don't care how many times people say yeh but look we have to compare it to the number of councillors back when last contested. Balls. The projected overall vote share is dire for Labour at this point.
Wait until Aspire goes national, which it will off the back of what it did with Tower Hamlets.
Aspire won't appeal beyond wards which have very large numbers of very devout Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh. That's a very niche appeal.
Maybe not even Pakistani, there's often a mistake made to lump both Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslims together but they are two distinct cultures which is why a victory in Tower Hamlets doesn't necessarily translate to a victory in Bradford.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Don't let facts intrude. Remember that Brexit is all the fault of Remainers.
Jess Phillips is having a good old dig on twitter about parties continuing over tonight's Downing Street shindig. I'm not sure why. Nor are her respondees.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. I thing TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
Indeed. Although we musn't forget that for herself, she was simply saving her skin. Cave in to the ERG = staying in power.
Yes, it wasn’t her autism. It was her cowardice.
One of the alternate histories that needs to be written at some point-
What if Boris had become Conservative leader in 2016?
Because to get from the Vote Leave prospectus to EEA would have been a helluva swerve (and would have left a lot of Vote Leave and Leave.EU fuming), and he's the only politician in the UK with the nerve to pull it off. Had he wanted to. Would he have wanted to?
I am not sure it would have been such a swerve. For a few months or so, there was a kind of general confusion over Brexit and it was left to May to define the possibilities.
This she failed to do, and so hardliners began to define the terrain for her.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Don't let facts intrude. Remember that Brexit is all the fault of Remainers.
Remind me which side May was on?
Technically a Remainer, too. Although by the time she fucked it up she had switched sides.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
Not to mention the EFTAs and Switzerland.
There was a learned article about a potential common front with Switzerland over common market access that I read the day which pointed out some of our likely demands had been on offer previously by the EU or mooted by EU think tanks.
I would try to find if and post here but can’t be arsed and Marquee Mark et al won’t read it anyway.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Don't let facts intrude. Remember that Brexit is all the fault of Remainers.
Remind me which side May was on?
Emotionally always a bit of a leaver, pragmatically a very quiet and reluctant remainer for career reasons, generally pretty neutral pre the vote.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
It’s the Brexit psychology.
Working with EU (or France, or Germany) is a humiliation too far.
It reveals quite primitive insecurity.
No, it’s just obvious. Saves time
Macron is not going to offer a good deal to Brexit Britain
I’ll happily look at it, but I’ll tell you now it won’t be anything we want. It’s like accepting the first offer in an acrimonious divorce
- “How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?” (net)
Scotland -63 London -38 North -26 Midlands & Wales -20 Rest of South -18
GB -26
(YouGov/The Times; Sample Size: 1707; Fieldwork: 5-6 May 2022)
Yesterday SKS was given a golden opportunity to show he's a leader and he took it This is his second. The EU can be a big vote winner. He needs to grab it with both hands. Do a Blair. Don't be scared off because the so called Red Wall don't like foreigners. Sell it to them and get the best talent available to help you do it.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
It’s the Brexit psychology.
Working with EU (or France, or Germany) is a humiliation too far.
It reveals quite primitive insecurity.
No, it’s just obvious. Saves time
Macron is not going to offer a good deal to Brexit Britain
I’ll happily look at it, but I’ll tell you now it won’t be anything we want. It’s like accepting the first offer in an acrimonious divorce
Brexit is partly driven by the desire for old men to moan. You are therefore right that any deal we get won't be good enough for the hardcore Brexiteers, if they gave us everything we listed, they would still have done it offensively somehow. But you are wrong that it can't be good for Britain.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
“Wrecked travel”
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Brexit made it slightly harder to get into Schengen but that's about it really.
No, it took away the legal right to live, work, study and travel freely at will in around 30 European countries. But, to be fair, most people will just notice the extra queues in airports and seaports.
Strange. I still manage to live, work and travel around the EU quite nicely thankyou. I am too busy for the study bit at the moment. Apart from a couple of extra bits of paper, working inside the EEA is no harder now than it was 5 years ago.
If you are a UK citizen, you cannot now just move from, say, Norway to Sweden to live and work. You now need the permission of the Swedish government and must fulfil the criteria they set for non-EU/EEA citizens to stay in their country. That never used to be the case. But, as I say, this will not have an impact on most people. They'll just spend longer in queues.
Personally I am all in favour of complete freedom of movement for everyone from anywhere - something even the most ardent of Europhiles seem to be strangely averse to. But on a practical level, the actual work involved in going to live or work in Norway, France, Italy, Spain or anywhere else in the EU is no worse than it was before. It is a bit more paperwork. Hardly the end of the world.
That depends on the country and what you want to do. You can't just hop on an Easyjet and go get a bar job for the summer in Spain anymore, for example. Like the UK, many EU countries will have salary bands for non-EU/EEA workers and income requirements for those who want to settle. Again, Spain does. For example, if you want to retire there now you need to prove an income of around €2150 per month for the first individual, plus another €500 or so for a partner and any dependents. On top of that you have to pay health insurance.
Indeed correct. Meaning it is much harder to settle in an EU country armed with just a UK passport. Before, it was a right. Now you need to apply for it.
And yet more British Nationals are managing to get residency in EU countries than ever before. In 2021 Portugal had its highest ever increase in British Nationals taking up residency - up 8% on the previous year and the 6th year in a row it had increased. Now one might reasonably ask why all these people want to leave the UK and settle elsewhere but that is not the argument. It puts a lie to the idea it is now significantly harder than it was previously.
To be fair to Dan, the last couple of weeks were meant to be when he broke the big stories that showed he was a real journalist. The scandals that brought down a party leader.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. I thing TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
Indeed. Although we musn't forget that for herself, she was simply saving her skin. Cave in to the ERG = staying in power.
Yes, it wasn’t her autism. It was her cowardice.
One of the alternate histories that needs to be written at some point-
What if Boris had become Conservative leader in 2016?
Because to get from the Vote Leave prospectus to EEA would have been a helluva swerve (and would have left a lot of Vote Leave and Leave.EU fuming), and he's the only politician in the UK with the nerve to pull it off. Had he wanted to. Would he have wanted to?
I am not sure it would have been such a swerve. For a few months or so, there was a kind of general confusion over Brexit and it was left to May to define the possibilities.
This she failed to do, and so hardliners began to define the terrain for her.
I would add that the electoral maths suggested that any reasonable Brexit could only be passed with cross-party support.
Theresa was not willing to reach out beyond her own party, and did not have the confidence to believe that such a solution might be in turn be rewarded electorally.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
“Wrecked travel”
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Brexit made it slightly harder to get into Schengen but that's about it really.
No, it took away the legal right to live, work, study and travel freely at will in around 30 European countries. But, to be fair, most people will just notice the extra queues in airports and seaports.
Strange. I still manage to live, work and travel around the EU quite nicely thankyou. I am too busy for the study bit at the moment. Apart from a couple of extra bits of paper, working inside the EEA is no harder now than it was 5 years ago.
If you are a UK citizen, you cannot now just move from, say, Norway to Sweden to live and work. You now need the permission of the Swedish government and must fulfil the criteria they set for non-EU/EEA citizens to stay in their country. That never used to be the case. But, as I say, this will not have an impact on most people. They'll just spend longer in queues.
Personally I am all in favour of complete freedom of movement for everyone from anywhere - something even the most ardent of Europhiles seem to be strangely averse to. But on a practical level, the actual work involved in going to live or work in Norway, France, Italy, Spain or anywhere else in the EU is no worse than it was before. It is a bit more paperwork. Hardly the end of the world.
That depends on the country and what you want to do. You can't just hop on an Easyjet and go get a bar job for the summer in Spain anymore, for example. Like the UK, many EU countries will have salary bands for non-EU/EEA workers and income requirements for those who want to settle. Again, Spain does. For example, if you want to retire there now you need to prove an income of around €2150 per month for the first individual, plus another €500 or so for a partner and any dependents. On top of that you have to pay health insurance.
Indeed correct. Meaning it is much harder to settle in an EU country armed with just a UK passport. Before, it was a right. Now you need to apply for it.
And yet more British Nationals are managing to get residency in EU countries than ever before. In 2021 Portugal had its highest ever increase in British Nationals taking up residency - up 8% on the previous year and the 6th year in a row it had increased. Now one might reasonably ask why all these people want to leave the UK and settle elsewhere but that is not the argument. It puts a lie to the idea it is now significantly harder than it was previously.
Did people have to acquire residency pre Brexit or could they spend some time there without all the faff?
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Don't let facts intrude. Remember that Brexit is all the fault of Remainers.
Remind me which side May was on?
Ah, yes. I still remember her famous quote, "Remain means Remain".
These are the photos of wounded Ukrainian soldiers at Azovstal, published by the Azov regiment. There are no sterile bandages and medicines to treat them. 'We call on ICRC, UN to prove your humanity and save wounded people who are not combatants anymore', their statement reads https://mobile.twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1524045896304009218
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
- “How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?” (net)
Scotland -63 London -38 North -26 Midlands & Wales -20 Rest of South -18
GB -26
(YouGov/The Times; Sample Size: 1707; Fieldwork: 5-6 May 2022)
Yesterday SKS was given a golden opportunity to show he's a leader and he took it This is his second. The EU can be a big vote winner. He needs to grab it with both hands. Do a Blair. Don't be scared off because the so called Red Wall don't like foreigners. Sell it to them and get the best talent available to help you do it.
I admire the sentiment, but it was St Tony who ruined politics with bloody focus groups. The man was a follower, not a leader.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
“Wrecked travel”
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Brexit made it slightly harder to get into Schengen but that's about it really.
No, it took away the legal right to live, work, study and travel freely at will in around 30 European countries. But, to be fair, most people will just notice the extra queues in airports and seaports.
Strange. I still manage to live, work and travel around the EU quite nicely thankyou. I am too busy for the study bit at the moment. Apart from a couple of extra bits of paper, working inside the EEA is no harder now than it was 5 years ago.
If you are a UK citizen, you cannot now just move from, say, Norway to Sweden to live and work. You now need the permission of the Swedish government and must fulfil the criteria they set for non-EU/EEA citizens to stay in their country. That never used to be the case. But, as I say, this will not have an impact on most people. They'll just spend longer in queues.
Personally I am all in favour of complete freedom of movement for everyone from anywhere - something even the most ardent of Europhiles seem to be strangely averse to. But on a practical level, the actual work involved in going to live or work in Norway, France, Italy, Spain or anywhere else in the EU is no worse than it was before. It is a bit more paperwork. Hardly the end of the world.
Do you think I could apply for a job in France/Germany without a work permit or work visa? Like before 2016? I don't think so...
So you need to do a bit of paperwork. Boohoo. So do I for almost anywhere I work in the world. If that is giving you pause for thought then clearly you are not suited for working overseas because take it from me, a bit of paperwork is the least of your problems in most places in the world.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. I thing TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
Indeed. Although we musn't forget that for herself, she was simply saving her skin. Cave in to the ERG = staying in power.
Yes, it wasn’t her autism. It was her cowardice.
One of the alternate histories that needs to be written at some point-
What if Boris had become Conservative leader in 2016?
Because to get from the Vote Leave prospectus to EEA would have been a helluva swerve (and would have left a lot of Vote Leave and Leave.EU fuming), and he's the only politician in the UK with the nerve to pull it off. Had he wanted to. Would he have wanted to?
I am not sure it would have been such a swerve. For a few months or so, there was a kind of general confusion over Brexit and it was left to May to define the possibilities.
This she failed to do, and so hardliners began to define the terrain for her.
I would add that the electoral maths suggested that any reasonable Brexit could only be passed with cross-party support.
Theresa was not willing to reach out beyond her own party, and did not have the confidence to believe that such a solution might be in turn be rewarded electorally.
Indeed. And this despite the fact that an EFTA-type solution probably had the greatest theoretical ceiling of support.
Really? We have left the EU. We no longer pay money directly to the EU and have no say in what they do. We have made a horlicks off it and no mistake, but why do you people persist with Brexit isn't done? It is. We now have post Brexit issues.
Take WW2 - you lot would dispute VE day as the countries finances were fecked and the consequences ran on for decades (arguably still running on). but WW2 was over on May 8th.
Ha ha ha. 😂. What a crazy post. Absolute fantasy land. What’s my lot then? Point 1. Lord Frost and his supporters are adamant, we have the power to break now with the EU social model we never had before, we don’t achieve Brexit, it’s not done till we use those powers and break from the European Social Model. So not done from that point of view.
Point 2. Brexit is never done till “better” is delivered. UK better than before removal itself from worlds biggest trading bloc is a tangible that can certainly be measured. No Brexit till “better” as in doing better, feeling better about things, is delivered, is it fair to say. And at this point of point 2 the point 1 brigade may concur.
Utter bullshit. Just because one hard brexit warrior defines Brexit as breaking the EU social model blah blah blah...
Brexit isn't done until better is delivered? WTAF?
Brexit (as regarded by 99.9% of normal people) is complete. We have left the EU. Do you deny that? We do not pay money directly to the EU. Do you deny that? We have no say over what the EU does - thats up to them. Do you deny that?
We are in the post Brexit era. Looks like its not going as well as some hoped. Its certainly not as bad as some of the remainer faction hoped either.
You are going for a thin definition of “Brexit done” that’s not the definition to be arguing over. Not the definition Boris used today I was commenting on. That’the political slogan version! 😃
If you still don’t understand I’ll have a go at explaining it to you.
Is Brexit done in terms of the arguments for it proven? Is brexit done in terms of the argument is won? Is brexit done in terms of it is history, the country has moved on?
In terms of the political slogan “brexit is done” the answers are NO, NO, and NO.
You are wheeling out the thin textbook version to try to disguise the elephant in the room here. You can’t see the elephant in the room because your Ostrich head is in the sand.
We are exactly where we we’re in 2016 in terms of the arguments the same, nothing proven, the current brexit deal can be quite dramatically altered and still be brexit. And the voting blocs in last weeks local elections in England were still remainer v leavers the country has not moved on and put this in the past.
Not one of those three questions I asked defining the political slogan version of Brexit is done can be answered yes?
In this “political slogan” interpretation of “brexit is done” you surely agree with me, brexit isn’t done?
Was walking the dog. Ask the public, not PB, if Brexit is done. Its not a thin definition.
The arguments over right/wrong and all the rest will go on for decades. You don't know and I don't know how it will all turn out. Right now, the version we have chosen, looks poor. A future government may change that.
Your assertions are pointless - people argue about historical events forever.
And yes, the country has moved on, narrow, geeky, political obsessed wonks like us, have not.
This YouGov poll is similar to the Rallings and Thrasher local elections projected national share which was Lab 35%, Con 33%.
Almost all Governments would kill for those mid-term numbers.
Has any Government with as good/better splits failed to be re-elected?
You make a great point which is being ignored on this site, Labour should have won the LE by 10-15 points not by 2.
I've not ignored it!! I have posted several times that the Lab numbers were terrible considering it is mid term after more than a decade of power with an unpopular leader and economic crisis. It was an appalling result frankly and I don't care how many times people say yeh but look we have to compare it to the number of councillors back when last contested. Balls. The projected overall vote share is dire for Labour at this point.
Wait until Aspire goes national, which it will off the back of what it did with Tower Hamlets.
Aspire won't appeal beyond wards which have very large numbers of very devout Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh. That's a very niche appeal.
Maybe not even Pakistani, there's often a mistake made to lump both Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslims together but they are two distinct cultures which is why a victory in Tower Hamlets doesn't necessarily translate to a victory in Bradford.
It's not even clear that devout religion is anything to do with it, as opposed to NI-style sectarian shenanigans.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
It was Theresa May who first excluded EFTA, which was also the beginning of making a mockery of a democratic choice, and the jam-for-all prospectus offered by Vote Leave at the referendum.
Agreed. Entirely. Her stupid “red-lines” were a disaster. Just for that she has some claim to being the worst prime minister of the last 100 years
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. I thing TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
Indeed. Although we musn't forget that for herself, she was simply saving her skin. Cave in to the ERG = staying in power.
Yes, it wasn’t her autism. It was her cowardice.
One of the alternate histories that needs to be written at some point-
What if Boris had become Conservative leader in 2016?
Because to get from the Vote Leave prospectus to EEA would have been a helluva swerve (and would have left a lot of Vote Leave and Leave.EU fuming), and he's the only politician in the UK with the nerve to pull it off. Had he wanted to. Would he have wanted to?
I am not sure it would have been such a swerve. For a few months or so, there was a kind of general confusion over Brexit and it was left to May to define the possibilities.
This she failed to do, and so hardliners began to define the terrain for her.
I would add that the electoral maths suggested that any reasonable Brexit could only be passed with cross-party support.
Theresa was not willing to reach out beyond her own party, and did not have the confidence to believe that such a solution might be in turn be rewarded electorally.
That was her other problem- the double lock.
Any Brexit proposal had to have a majority in her party (so she couldn't be VONC'd) and Parliament as a whole (to get into law). With the numbers she had, not easy and maybe impossible.
She played her cards badly, but it was a poor hand with opponents on both sides gunning for her.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
That’s not the offer, though.
Co-operation is just code for "do what we say".
Jim Hacker: He's got to learn to co-operate.
Bernard Woolley: What do you mean co-operate?
Jim Hacker: I mean obey my commands. That's what co-operate means when you're Prime Minister.
To be fair to Dan, the last couple of weeks were meant to be when he broke the big stories that showed he was a real journalist. The scandals that brought down a party leader.
And it's all going pearshaped.
I feel like he pushed the story against his better judgement. One feels like he is trying - with increasing looniness - to demonstrate his loyalty.
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
Chief amongst those cheering on a Trumpite outrage was the Leader of the Opposition. One of several reasons he is not fit to be PM, none of them curry related.
There was no Trumpite outrage.
Only retarded people think that. And Leon, who is not retarded but likes to shit-stir.
Did you miss 2019's general election? Johnson has an 80 seat majority because the British publics sense of fair play was offended. Of course democracy means a second vote would have been democratic. But the public, on the whole, disagreed and wanted the vote honoured as it was set out.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
That’s not the offer, though.
Co-operation is just code for "do what we say".
Possibly, we shall have to see.
As it is you are dangerously close to the DUP/Spartan philosophy of 'Anything the EU would agree to is something by definition we cannot agree to', meaning no agreements could ever be reached on anything.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
That’s not the offer, though.
Co-operation is just code for "do what we say".
Ha, OK.
I don’t recognise this view of the world. I find it barren and futile.
On a host of issues, including cross-channel migrants, it is right that we co-operate with France.
- “How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?” (net)
Scotland -63 London -38 North -26 Midlands & Wales -20 Rest of South -18
GB -26
(YouGov/The Times; Sample Size: 1707; Fieldwork: 5-6 May 2022)
Yesterday SKS was given a golden opportunity to show he's a leader and he took it This is his second. The EU can be a big vote winner. He needs to grab it with both hands. Do a Blair. Don't be scared off because the so called Red Wall don't like foreigners. Sell it to them and get the best talent available to help you do it.
You're Andrew Adonis and I claim my £5 Do we still do that?
The other interesting thing about the Welsh proposal is that it perma-locks PC into government.
And, presuming that PC would rather suicide than coalesce with the Tories, it does the same to Labour.
This is a gerrymander.
It's changing the electoral system without consulting the people to favour the ruling parties, it's the kind of thing we'd condemn were it to happen in Africa or South America.
It somewhat staggers me that we ever have the audacity to criticise other people's systems. We should be rightly proud of our freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law (except if your name is Boris), but our system of democracy is quasi-democracy at best. FPTP and the arbitrary nature of constituencies is ludicrous, and the HoL anachronistic. Then there is asymmetric devolution and some mayors in some places and not in others. It is a dogs dinner of a system. It needs wholesale reform, but both major parties make excuses and very little happens.
FPTP has been endorsed by voters, so whatever one thinks of it the voting system has popular support. Whatever they are doing in Wales hasn't been put to the people, they are quietly ramming it through and hoping that no one notices it locks the two parties proposing it in power in perpetuity.
Labour tried to do this in Scotland and look at how badly it's fucked up, it emboldened nationalists to become a "safe haven" for dissenters until suddenly nationalism in Scotland became a serious threat. This will produce the same idiotic result in Wales.
As for everything else in the UK, ultimately when we had big decisions to make the government put those decisions to the people. Changing the voting system and leaving the EU were both put to the people, not done on a whim. Few governments has that record of trusting the people and then following through with the decision, you might not agree with Brexit, but the fact that the people voted for it and we actually left the EU is a very powerful statement of democracy in the UK. There's not a lot of countries that would accept such a controversial vote and would try and undo it or have second, third, fourth votes until they got the "right" answer.
Perhaps you think that because it was "the right answer" for you. No doubt if it had been the "wrong answer" you might have been clamouring for another vote like the SNP. Democracy is a fickle and complex thing. People tend to claim the primacy of the democratic vote rather like those who claim God is on their side in time of war. My own view is that the 2016 vote had to be enacted. Was it "democratic"? Almost certainly very flakey. "The people" did not get to vote on anything real, only blandishments and guesses. Cameron et al should have had a two phase vote that enabled people to endorse the final deal. That would have been genuinely democratic, but of course Brexiteers didn't want that, they wanted the hardest Brexit possible. No-one, including people on this site knew what the final deal would look like. Most would have probably settled for an EEA type compromise. It was never on offer. Not very democratic.
Subtler than that, I reckon.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
That’s fair
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
Chief amongst those cheering on a Trumpite outrage was the Leader of the Opposition. One of several reasons he is not fit to be PM, none of them curry related.
There was no Trumpite outrage.
Only retarded people think that. And Leon, who is not retarded but likes to shit-stir.
Did you miss 2019's general election? Johnson has an 80 seat majority because the British publics sense of fair play was offended. Of course democracy means a second vote would have been democratic. But the public, on the whole, disagreed and wanted the vote honoured as it was set out.
First, I think that’s a misread of the 2019 election, and second your interpretation doesn’t imply a “Trumpite outrage” anyway.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
Better, why not try to influence what is on offer ? If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
No, fuck all that noise. Any "offer" from the EU that involves any kind of membership should be rejected out of hand. Anything that binds us to them is a loser for us. Imagine being bound by EU foreign policy objectives. Ukraine would now be part of Russia because the UK would have been bound to EU objectives of a quick ending to the war, rather than doing what's right.
That’s not the offer, though.
Co-operation is just code for "do what we say".
Possibly, we shall have to see.
As it is you are dangerously close to the DUP/Spartan philosophy of 'Anything the EU would agree to is something by definition we cannot agree to', meaning no agreements could ever be reached on anything.
The spartan philosophy of telling them to get fucked for a few years is the only way forwards. The whole farce of negotiations showed why, until that I was still ok with the idea of staying in the single market but it's clear that the EU fears not having any control over the UK and any steps they make will try and achieve wresting back control of the UK. All of their moves are aimed at that, why else grant equivalence to NZ agriculture which is not aligned to the EU but not to the UK which is?
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
“Wrecked travel”
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Brexit made it slightly harder to get into Schengen but that's about it really.
No, it took away the legal right to live, work, study and travel freely at will in around 30 European countries. But, to be fair, most people will just notice the extra queues in airports and seaports.
Strange. I still manage to live, work and travel around the EU quite nicely thankyou. I am too busy for the study bit at the moment. Apart from a couple of extra bits of paper, working inside the EEA is no harder now than it was 5 years ago.
If you are a UK citizen, you cannot now just move from, say, Norway to Sweden to live and work. You now need the permission of the Swedish government and must fulfil the criteria they set for non-EU/EEA citizens to stay in their country. That never used to be the case. But, as I say, this will not have an impact on most people. They'll just spend longer in queues.
Personally I am all in favour of complete freedom of movement for everyone from anywhere - something even the most ardent of Europhiles seem to be strangely averse to. But on a practical level, the actual work involved in going to live or work in Norway, France, Italy, Spain or anywhere else in the EU is no worse than it was before. It is a bit more paperwork. Hardly the end of the world.
Do you think I could apply for a job in France/Germany without a work permit or work visa? Like before 2016? I don't think so...
So you need to do a bit of paperwork. Boohoo. So do I for almost anywhere I work in the world. If that is giving you pause for thought then clearly you are not suited for working overseas because take it from me, a bit of paperwork is the least of your problems in most places in the world.
It's much more than a bit of paperwork. As an example, UK ski instructors and chalet staff who work in EU countries each winter have come unstuck big time. Ski schools and chalet companies must advertise to EU member state citizens for a period of time (not sure how long) and must have unfilled vacancies thereafter before UK citizens can apply for a visa and fill those jobs. This has proved a particular issue for the ski instructors as there is no shortage of local instructors to be hired.
Edit: it's also meant that UK school ski trips have stopped because the operators the schools use and travel with (and accompanying teachers) count as working bods and therefore require visas now.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
It’s the Brexit psychology.
Working with EU (or France, or Germany) is a humiliation too far.
It reveals quite primitive insecurity.
No, it’s just obvious. Saves time
Macron is not going to offer a good deal to Brexit Britain
I’ll happily look at it, but I’ll tell you now it won’t be anything we want. It’s like accepting the first offer in an acrimonious divorce
Brexit is partly driven by the desire for old men to moan. You are therefore right that any deal we get won't be good enough for the hardcore Brexiteers, if they gave us everything we listed, they would still have done it offensively somehow. But you are wrong that it can't be good for Britain.
Do you really think this endless sneering at “old men” and the “gammonazi” and so on and so forth, does you any favours?
Here’s a tiny, subtle hint: THIS IS ONE REASON YOU LOST YOU STUPID HOPELESS F****
And why you would lose again. And again. And again. Look at the pathetic spectacle of “Roger” below. It’s risibly sad
Your entire cause is envenomed with snobbery and a weird quasi-racism.
The Irish fought to be free, and for a while they were poorer, Ditto the USA. I don’t see either of them clamouring to rejoin the UK. Calling the Irish who wanted independence “stupid thick old Paddies” would not have helped anyone hoping to head off Irish secession
The best bet is for Remoaners to simply pretend Brexit is like some irreversible Biblical event, for a decade or so, and never mention it. Because when they do mention it they look like the most awful arseholes
That is honest advice. Freely given. You’re welcome
- “How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?” (net)
Scotland -63 London -38 North -26 Midlands & Wales -20 Rest of South -18
GB -26
(YouGov/The Times; Sample Size: 1707; Fieldwork: 5-6 May 2022)
Yesterday SKS was given a golden opportunity to show he's a leader and he took it This is his second. The EU can be a big vote winner. He needs to grab it with both hands. Do a Blair. Don't be scared off because the so called Red Wall don't like foreigners. Sell it to them and get the best talent available to help you do it.
You're Andrew Adonis and I claim my £5 Do we still do that?
We haven't for a while, but lets bring it back. I earlier suggested @CorrectHorseBattery might just be Keir Starmer. He has not said he's not, so I'm claiming my £5...
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
“Wrecked travel”
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Brexit made it slightly harder to get into Schengen but that's about it really.
No, it took away the legal right to live, work, study and travel freely at will in around 30 European countries. But, to be fair, most people will just notice the extra queues in airports and seaports.
Strange. I still manage to live, work and travel around the EU quite nicely thankyou. I am too busy for the study bit at the moment. Apart from a couple of extra bits of paper, working inside the EEA is no harder now than it was 5 years ago.
With respect, you’re talking pish. Unless you have an EU passport, your UK passport will get stamped on entry to and exit from the EU. And if you spend more than 90 days in any 180-day period in the EU, you will be liable to sanction. (Of course if you have a visa for a particular EU country, some of the above may apply differently).
Nope you are the one talking pish. All you have to be doing is a job that needs doing. Just like anywhere else in the world. Indeed here's a bit of news for you. Post pandemic countries both inside and outside the EU are actually asking for people to come and work in them rather than doing the jobs remotely - which is perfectly doable. They are doing this because it is easier for them to ensure the correct taxes are paid in their country. People doing jobs for big companies from outside the country means their governments are losing tax income so they are encouraging people to work 'in country'. I work in and out of the EU continuously through the year and the only limit on my time is how much work needs to be done.
Macron’s speech the other day was important in that it described a “not quite EU” as not just possible but desirable.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
The UK will never accept crumbs offered by macron. He hates Brexit and he hates Brexit Britain. In his view the UK must not and cannot succeed ex-EU because if it does that undermines the entire postwar French project of EU unity as a way of projecting French power
Non. Non non non
Why not see what is on offer instead of just rejecting it out of hand?
It’s the Brexit psychology.
Working with EU (or France, or Germany) is a humiliation too far.
It reveals quite primitive insecurity.
No, it’s just obvious. Saves time
Macron is not going to offer a good deal to Brexit Britain
I’ll happily look at it, but I’ll tell you now it won’t be anything we want. It’s like accepting the first offer in an acrimonious divorce
Brexit is partly driven by the desire for old men to moan. You are therefore right that any deal we get won't be good enough for the hardcore Brexiteers, if they gave us everything we listed, they would still have done it offensively somehow. But you are wrong that it can't be good for Britain.
Do you really think this endless sneering at “old men” and the “gammonazi” and so on and so forth, does you any favours?
Here’s a tiny, subtle hint: THIS IS ONE REASON YOU LOST YOU STUPID HOPELESS F****
And why you would lose again. And again. And again. Look at the pathetic spectacle of “Roger” below. It’s risibly sad
Your entire cause is envenomed with snobbery and a weird quasi-racism.
The Irish fought to be free, and for a while they were poorer, Ditto the USA. I don’t see either of them clamouring to rejoin the UK. Calling the Irish who wanted independence “stupid thick old Paddies” would not have helped anyone hoping to head off Irish secession
The best bet is for Remoaners to simply pretend Brexit is like some irreversible Biblical event, for a decade or so, and never mention it. Because when they do mention it they look like the most awful arseholes
That is honest advice. Freely given. You’re welcome
Comments
Here’s the kicker, Six years on those 2016 arguments have not been settled. PB can’t agree today it’s better or worse in the long run. No one can yet. History might show it was possible for Brexit to achieve better than being in EU yet implementation was messed up hence it was called failed.
Here’s the problem with your post. We can have so many very different relationships with EU, that on basis on democracy or sovereignty people can claim it’s not Brexit or argue back it still is, because democracy and sovereignty aren’t fundamental natural laws, just vague and arguable concepts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCPHK0EGKCI
By all means criticise the LDs, the Greens, or whatever RefUK call themselves these days for underperformance, but each of them had some chance of representation in the current system.
In turn, given Labour dominance, the LDs and Greens at least might have aspired to helping form a govenment. The LDs indeed did so, until the last election.
The proposals basically pull that away, and cement a permanent oligopoly in Wales.
I understand what you are saying about the EU/UK relationship. Of course that will gone on forever. But that it not the same as saying Brexit isn't done. It is. The vote was honoured (in the end). We left.
Everything else is post brexit.
I would prefer a close trading relationship with the EU with as little dicking around as possible. I think that will come, but I also suspect there is an element of 'f*ck Britain' in some European nations. I also suspect some want to make it harder for us in order to prove leaving was a bad idea. We have also made poor choices ourselves.
We have though been hamstrung by NI. TBH if NI did leave the UK and re-unite with Ireland it would be no bad thing for rUK. Less money in the benefits bill for the rest to pay. No more internal border shit.
It's no more and no less fixed than FPTP is.
Every leaver wanted a decisive break with the EU in some way or other (freedom of movement, control of fish, no foreign judges, stepping off ever closer union, strengthening UK-NI links by weakening NI-Eire links et cetera). My hunch is that a lot of people assumed that, apart from their personal bonnet bee, things would bumble along much as before.
What everyone missed was that the only way to fulfil all the spoken wishes of everyone was an adamantine hard Brexit (the alternative being that the rest of the continent would wake themselves from their reverie, facepalm themselves and say "Of course, all this careful work on the single market was unnecessary! What chumps we all were"). And in doing that, what was sacrificed was the mostly unspoken bumbling along bit. Which is what EEA Brexit would be, relatively harmless, not much point and not Taking Back Control.
This choice has the consequences we continue to see around us.
I’m not especially a fan of FPTP.
If I had the time and/or the skills, I would show you by re-running the elections since 99 under this proposed system, and/or running simulations under reasonable projections (eg Lab 30-50%, PC, 10-30%, Con 20-40% etc).
It *appears* that the Russians have formed a bridgehead over a strategically-important river in the east using Spetsnaz troops, perhaps with more than one bridge over. If they can get enough troops and armour over, and the Ukrainians cannot destroy those bridge(s), then a number of Ukrainian brigades might be in trouble. Even the presence of Spetsnaz troops on the other bank could cause the Ukrainians a lot of headaches.
Perhaps.
Meanwhile, in the south, the Russians are apparently looking to force their way westwards along the coast from Kherson.
The Ukrainians are doing well to push the Russians back around Kharkiv. But the Russians might be concentrating elsewhere.
Basically: for all the videos we are seeing of Russian tanks being destroyed and their troops' idiocy, they're still a major threat.
It's hypocritical for you to rail against "quasi-democracy", complain about constitutional questions being neglected and then turn around and say that Brexit is pointless. It may be right or wrong, and it may lead to a good long term outcome for Britain or not, but it's clearly not pointless.
I can't imagine a SNP-Slab coalition, because that issue has become so salient.
I wonder though if it’s one of those terms the common understanding of something doesn’t fit the text book definitions, (is the economic textbook term used more often sectorally than to describe countrys economy?) so if we enter recession with high inflation, not just Starmer but all the media and everyone will be referring to it as Stagflation?
Nb. If Starmer is still front bench politics by then 🤭
The monarchy is popular, so long as we have popular monarchs. The risk to the monarchy is that at some point we have an unpopular one.
I feel fairly comfortable that Charles and William will be fine. After that, who knows?*
* Well, I'll be dead, so I certainly won't.
I benignly assumed Brexit would end up as 10 years in EFTA then a rethink. And if Remainers had accepted that, that’s where we’d be now
The attempt to overthrow the primal vote (peoples referendum!) was a Trumpite outrage and that polarised everyone and that has led us to this ultimate Brexit. Perhaps that was inevitable, who can say
In the end I still believe we are happier governing ourselves and we will prosper eventually thereby. But I totally understand Remainers who point and say Look it’s a shit-show
If only they hadn’t tried to subvert the democratic process before, they’d get more of a hearing
🤷♂️
They tend to be of the form: male heirs of the body. This requires actual descents not just a child of your wife.
The case of "In the matter of the Baronetcy of Pringle of Stichill" https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/2016/16.html is an interesting read. This considered whether the elder son born in 1903 was actually the son of the eighth baronet based on DNA evidence.
We were rather unlucky in having the GFA as it made leaving almost impossible. None of the proposed solutions works for everything. If Spain wanted to leave, say, there would be no such issue.
My issue is not FPTP versus PR.
My issue is that *this* PR creates a permanent oligopoly in Wales. In simple terms, it’s a stitch-up.
And that’s before you come to qualitative issues (closed party lists, the so-called “ziplock”).
I excepted some form of EFTA.
The UK should grab onto it with both hands.
I know people on here don’t like others using the A-word. But what the hell. TMay is autistically insensitive and unable to read a room and in this case not reading the room was catastrophic
If you still don’t understand I’ll have a go at explaining it to you.
Is Brexit done in terms of the arguments for it proven?
Is brexit done in terms of the argument is won?
Is brexit done in terms of it is history, the country has moved on?
In terms of the political slogan “brexit is done” the answers are NO, NO, and NO.
You are wheeling out the thin textbook version to try to disguise the elephant in the room here. You can’t see the elephant in the room because your Ostrich head is in the sand.
We are exactly where we we’re in 2016 in terms of the arguments the same, nothing proven, the current brexit deal can be quite dramatically altered and still be brexit. And the voting blocs in last weeks local elections in England were still remainer v leavers the country has not moved on and put this in the past.
Not one of those three questions I asked defining the political slogan version of Brexit is done can be answered yes?
In this “political slogan” interpretation of “brexit is done” you surely agree with me, brexit isn’t done?
Non. Non non non
At the end of the day, he wants an inner core in which France can maintain top-dog status.
We want an outer ring with access to the single market and co-operation only on those things we want to co-operate on.
Those two positions are reconcilable, with fancy diplomacy.
It was her cowardice.
The logic of your position is that we should stay as we are until Macron goes.
Only retarded people think that. And Leon, who is not retarded but likes to shit-stir.
4 point swing away from self declared moral probity
Enjoy stagflation.
Working with EU (or France, or Germany) is a humiliation too far.
It reveals quite primitive insecurity.
Attack is always more fun, and easy to get the crowd shouting. 😝
Queen Elizabeth II's 70th Jubilee Banquet
Celebrating our beloved Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, we take you through a journey of the British classics, with a fine dining ‘Jamie twist’.
Available Thursday 2nd – Saturday 4th June, lunch & dinner - £90 per head
Snacks:
Spam fritters
Dandelion & burdock
1937 – became a wartime delicacy.
Chicken liver parfait
And cherry 'Jammie Dodger'
1960 – the Queen’s favourite biscuit.
Venison sausage roll
Houses of Parliament sauce
1860 – the Royal Family preferred using venison from their estate.
We’ve turned this into the British staple classic.
Iced cream cheese, cucumber, & caviar “sandwich”
1830 – the Royal sandwich.
Main event:
*
One
Windsor soup
English muffin, Marmite butter
1890 - it doesn’t get more British than Marmite, and the Windsor soup is a Buckingham Palace favourite.
*
Two
Coronation chicken
Mango gel, curry emulsion, pickled shimeji, sultana dressing
1953 - a recipe invented for the Queen.
*
Three
Great British fish and chips
Turbot cooked on the bone, minted pea purée, pomme Anna, Béarnaise sauce
1967 - fish and chips first came to London in 1967. This is Jamie’s version.
*
Four
Roast beef
Yorkshire pudding stuffed with oxtail, cauliflower cheese purée, roasted carrot, braised red cabbage, duck fat potato fondant, bone marrow gravy
1485 - no explanation needed.
*
Five
'Eton tidy'
Pimm’s jelly, English strawberries, meringue, clotted cream ice cream
1893 - strawberries and clotted cream; the best strawberries are British with Cornish clotted cream.
*
Six
Rhubarb & custard
Marcus Wareing’s custard tart, poached rhubarb, rhubarb ripple ice cream
Served on the Queen’s 80th birthday. Her favourite pudding is rhubarb and custard.
*
To finish
English tea
Battenberg cake, treacle tart, petit fours
This is the way the Queen takes her tea.
An all-English wine and champagne flight will be available.
The UK is no longer a member of the EU. That being the only meaning of the phrase "Brexit is done", Brexit is done.
Almost.
What if Boris had become Conservative leader in 2016?
Because to get from the Vote Leave prospectus to EEA would have been a helluva swerve (and would have left a lot of Vote Leave and Leave.EU fuming), and he's the only politician in the UK with the nerve to pull it off. Had he wanted to. Would he have wanted to?
If this were simply about us, then that might be difficult. Alongside Ukraine, and possibly other easter european countries, there is perhaps some leverage.
I'm not sure why. Nor are her respondees.
This she failed to do, and so hardliners began to define the terrain for her.
I’d never consciously heard him before. Jeez, what a wooden topped bluffer.
Makes Grayling sound like Talleyrand.
There was a learned article about a potential common front with Switzerland over common market access that I read the day which pointed out some of our likely demands had been on offer previously by the EU or mooted by EU think tanks.
I would try to find if and post here but can’t be arsed and Marquee Mark et al won’t read it anyway.
Dan has officially lost it though
Macron is not going to offer a good deal to Brexit Britain
I’ll happily look at it, but I’ll tell you now it won’t be anything we want. It’s like accepting the first offer in an acrimonious divorce
In addition to being a rebellious jock, I am a trade union rep. My colleagues nickname me “The Bulldozer”. Nuff said.
And it's all going pearshaped.
Theresa was not willing to reach out beyond her own party, and did not have the confidence to believe that such a solution might be in turn be rewarded electorally.
https://mobile.twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1524045896304009218
The arguments over right/wrong and all the rest will go on for decades. You don't know and I don't know how it will all turn out. Right now, the version we have chosen, looks poor. A future government may change that.
Your assertions are pointless - people argue about historical events forever.
And yes, the country has moved on, narrow, geeky, political obsessed wonks like us, have not.
Any Brexit proposal had to have a majority in her party (so she couldn't be VONC'd) and Parliament as a whole (to get into law). With the numbers she had, not easy and maybe impossible.
She played her cards badly, but it was a poor hand with opponents on both sides gunning for her.
Bernard Woolley: What do you mean co-operate?
Jim Hacker: I mean obey my commands. That's what co-operate means when you're Prime Minister.
Does the Mail have a new editor?
Of course democracy means a second vote would have been democratic. But the public, on the whole, disagreed and wanted the vote honoured as it was set out.
As it is you are dangerously close to the DUP/Spartan philosophy of 'Anything the EU would agree to is something by definition we cannot agree to', meaning no agreements could ever be reached on anything.
I don’t recognise this view of the world.
I find it barren and futile.
On a host of issues, including cross-channel migrants, it is right that we co-operate with France.
Do we still do that?
Edit: it's also meant that UK school ski trips have stopped because the operators the schools use and travel with (and accompanying teachers) count as working bods and therefore require visas now.
Here’s a tiny, subtle hint: THIS IS ONE REASON YOU LOST YOU STUPID HOPELESS F****
And why you would lose again. And again. And again. Look at the pathetic spectacle of “Roger” below. It’s risibly sad
Your entire cause is envenomed with snobbery and a weird quasi-racism.
The Irish fought to be free, and for a while they were poorer, Ditto the USA. I don’t see either of them clamouring to rejoin the UK. Calling the Irish who wanted independence “stupid thick old Paddies” would not have helped anyone hoping to head off Irish secession
The best bet is for Remoaners to simply pretend Brexit is like some irreversible Biblical event, for a decade or so, and never mention it. Because when they do mention it they look like the most awful arseholes
That is honest advice. Freely given. You’re welcome
When were the Americans poorer?