Is it? Anyone claiming disability or unemployment benefits gets put through the wringer before the claim is allowed, so their symptoms are independently and harshly assessed.
There are lots of issues around the self reporting aspect of long covid. I'm not aware of a consistent clinically agreed set of symptoms. Its incredibly complex. For some there is certainly physical damage, such as scar tissue in the lungs that will contribute. Others seem much close to FND, including a case that was covered in the Times a couple of months ago. The treatment was psychological for what manifested as panic attacks, rather than other long covid symptoms. I suspect that the 'fear' element that our and other governments used to control the population have had serious downstream consequences. Notably so on those who report no significant covid illness, but self report themselves as 'long covid sufferers'
All need help, but the self reporting aspect (especially as beloved of iSAGE) does no one any favours.
How tiresome of an illness to fail to conform to a set of reporting guidelines. Can we report it to the WHO and get it struck off, or something?
Its been remarked on here before but the symptoms reported are in some cases the classic symptoms of anxiety and depression.
That's not to say long covid does not exist, but the savage psychological effects of the lockdown and the propaganda that went along with it are starting to be understood and documented.
Sajid Javid was among those who said that coming out of lockdown and reducing restrictions would reduce the toll of psychological distress they were causing. Except I looked at the data on this and the picture is much more complicated. Distress hasn’t shown notable improvements since the end of restrictions. Paper just out: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395622003466 (and see further papers cited therein).
We do need to address high levels of mental health problems in the population.
Fair enough but restrictions have been replaced by other crises - notably the cost of living.
Governments have got used to liking crises - maybe they make populations more malleable...?? Sunak wanted to declare yet another one as part of his manifesto for PM.
There is a sizable minority who have gone down the rabbit hole of zero covid, its still super dangerous out there etc etc etc, in the same way as a group of people went down the anti-vax rabbit hole.
I have seen this even among highly educated people who won't go to any event with a groups of people, won't attend in person meetings, continually go on about how masks should still be in place for basically everything....despite being young, vaccinated, no underlying conditions. They have lost any perspective of real risk and scared shitless.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Is there a medical "long covid" diagnosis with clear symptoms and a programme of treatment? Otherwise isn't it all going be self-diagnosed?
My dad suffered for decades from post-polio syndrome, which the first line of the NHS page on it describes as "a poorly understood condition". Suspect LC will go the same way.
I'm definitely sleeping a lot more (on average +40 minutes) and yet feeling more tired and having to nap during the day, since I recovered from the acute phase of Covid. I'd self-report that as Long Covid.
The GP reckons it's a symptom of depression, but I've never slept more as a result of depression, and I'd been depressed for months (this time) before catching Covid. Nor has my medication changed.
The NHS was already crap at dealing with chronic conditions and it looks like the same will be true of Long Covid.
Much the same as me. I haven't missed a days work with long covid, and I am not the slightest bit anxious or depressed, indeed I am my usual chirpy self.
I am sleeping longer, and fall asleep very easily as soon as I sit down. I am getting old, but it is step change on pre-covid.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Vote Starmer...
And dynamically align with EU policies and regulation.
Simply introduce a functioning national identity database and enforce the 3 month grace period before people have to leave.
Benefits could become Bismarckian/contributory. Defined pots could also ease the introduction of private health and pension managers into the public system.
It would have suited Leon perfectly - people of independent means can swan around Europe like extras in an Agatha Christie movie, while the undesirables are gently ushered to the door by economic pressures - like an upmarket eatery on Upper Street, such as Ottolenghi.
There really was no reason not to enforce such rules - except some influential IEA donors were dead set against it.
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I like the idea of a feeble, talentless Thatcher wannabe climbing instantly to power courtesy of the Tory backwoodsmen, and then falling spectacularly from grace and ushering in a generation of Labour government.
She needs to be quick, she has to engineer a showdown in time to have something to say There is No Alternative about by party conference.
"You switch if you want to..."
The giveaway will be if her conference speech involves a section involving whipping things into shape. And she produces one of her whips as a prop. Or she is carried onto stage carried by members of her cabinet all dressed as babies.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Vote Starmer...
And dynamically align with EU policies and regulation.
Simply introduce a functioning national identity database and enforce the 3 month grace period before people have to leave.
Benefits could become Bismarckian/contributory. Defined pots could also ease the introduction of private health and pension managers into the public system.
It would have suited Leon perfectly - people of independent means can swan around Europe like extras in an Agatha Christie movie, while the undesirables are gently ushered to the door by economic pressures - like an upmarket eatery on Upper Street, such as Ottolenghi.
There really was no reason not to enforce such rules - except some influential IEA donors were dead set against it.
Have Leon and Agatha Christie ever been seen in the same room?
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I got my first chainsaw (Bosch, bit with an Oregon chain) last winter. Just think before you saw and it will be fine. Have managed so far not to slice off anything that isn't wood. And yes, the mountain of lumber now stored in the garage will keep us going for years. Thanks Arwen!
I think all chains and blades are Oregon
I have used the things before, just fed up of pull start petrol stuff with 4 different filters to replace every 3 minutes
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
You do away with customs, tariffs, and quotas.
I thought we had a free trade agreement with the EU? Still need checks apparently. I for one did not appreciate this before the referendum, but I have the luxury of having voted remain, unlike others, such as @RochdalePioneers
A free trade agreement where all goods have to be categorised and notarised and catalogued is not free trade. Yes the goods I import are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT. But the reams of paperwork needed are slow expensive and pointlessly bureaucratic. Have 3 pallets on a truck and it suffers a breakdown on route and the truck gets swapped out? All your paperwork is invalid and it can't cross until all companies with pallets on board get new ones.
Vs put goods on truck, drive truck, unload truck.
How do we get back to that? Without freedom of movement? Is it all about accepting EU standards (and judgement)?
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I got my first chainsaw (Bosch, bit with an Oregon chain) last winter. Just think before you saw and it will be fine. Have managed so far not to slice off anything that isn't wood. And yes, the mountain of lumber now stored in the garage will keep us going for years. Thanks Arwen!
Bravo. I'm too scared. I limit myself to a bow saw which limits what I am willing to do. I borrowed a reciprocating saw to see if it was worth buying one, but it was too slow.
So I limit myself to an axe, wedge, sledge hammer and bow saw and get someone in if I need a chainsaw.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Have you forgotten the May era already? She asked for a deep and special partnership, with a common rule book and proposed multiple customs options, and was mocked and told this was cakeism.
Honestly, if Truss had stood up and said: “my goal is that every criminal case is tried within a year” that would be something I would absolutely be 100% behind. The current situation is failing everyone.
Truss says she wants lots of things to happen in terms of public services, but there’s never any talk of resourcing. It’s as if her sheer force of will alone will make struggling public services suddenly more productive.
Indeed. Clearly the galley slaves (those remaining anyway) just need to be flogged rather harder and their rations cut further for everything to become hunky dory again.
The productivity of our galley slaves is a national disgrace and something certainly needs to be done about it. In reality they hardly wave an oar in anger anymore.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
Is it? Anyone claiming disability or unemployment benefits gets put through the wringer before the claim is allowed, so their symptoms are independently and harshly assessed.
There are lots of issues around the self reporting aspect of long covid. I'm not aware of a consistent clinically agreed set of symptoms. Its incredibly complex. For some there is certainly physical damage, such as scar tissue in the lungs that will contribute. Others seem much close to FND, including a case that was covered in the Times a couple of months ago. The treatment was psychological for what manifested as panic attacks, rather than other long covid symptoms. I suspect that the 'fear' element that our and other governments used to control the population have had serious downstream consequences. Notably so on those who report no significant covid illness, but self report themselves as 'long covid sufferers'
All need help, but the self reporting aspect (especially as beloved of iSAGE) does no one any favours.
How tiresome of an illness to fail to conform to a set of reporting guidelines. Can we report it to the WHO and get it struck off, or something?
Which is not the point. The point is 'long covid' is currently an umbrella term, and finding out the correct help for those who believe they have it is crucial. Its also not sensible to use self reporting statistics without qualification to establish prevalance, which is something that has driven much apocalyptic scare mongering about 'long covid'.
It is sensible to use self-reported statistics, with caution. We have a brand new condition. We’re still trying to understand it. That takes time. But we can’t sit around waiting for an agreed clinical diagnosis. We still need to understand the epidemiology of what is going on. Doing studies of self-reported cases is a good place to start.
Pay my university £1250, IIRC, and you can come on a research methods course.
The 'with caution' is my point, I think. I've 30 years experience of research (still learning though) and stats is not my expertise, although I try.
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I got my first chainsaw (Bosch, bit with an Oregon chain) last winter. Just think before you saw and it will be fine. Have managed so far not to slice off anything that isn't wood. And yes, the mountain of lumber now stored in the garage will keep us going for years. Thanks Arwen!
I also bought one (with trepidation) but as you say, think before you saw.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Not just leftie lawyers having a meltdown about Sunak.
Byline Times, the Waitrose shopper’s Skwawkbox, has had to distance itself from a xenophobic tweet sent by their Global Correspondent. The tweet’s text was bad enough, claiming “Muslims in Britain and India fear potential UK PM Rishi Sunak”. The accompanying image was even more eyebrow-raising…
Um... I may be having a sense of humour bypass here but I think we should make it clear that Byline Times has nothing to do with Waitrose (AFAIUI).
Never having heard of Byline Times, I initially read it as being a Waitrose house mag/website.
Guido's suggesting Byline Times is seen as more respectable than Sqwawkbox. I have no idea if that is fair and, like you, I've never heard of Byline Times.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
Jesus. Butt the fuck out you tiresome twat. I'm not even talking to you, I'm talking to @kinabalu about something different
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I got my first chainsaw (Bosch, bit with an Oregon chain) last winter. Just think before you saw and it will be fine. Have managed so far not to slice off anything that isn't wood. And yes, the mountain of lumber now stored in the garage will keep us going for years. Thanks Arwen!
I also bought one (with trepidation) but as you say, think before you saw.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Not just leftie lawyers having a meltdown about Sunak.
Byline Times, the Waitrose shopper’s Skwawkbox, has had to distance itself from a xenophobic tweet sent by their Global Correspondent. The tweet’s text was bad enough, claiming “Muslims in Britain and India fear potential UK PM Rishi Sunak”. The accompanying image was even more eyebrow-raising…
Um... I may be having a sense of humour bypass here but I think we should make it clear that Byline Times has nothing to do with Waitrose (AFAIUI).
Never having heard of Byline Times, I initially read it as being a Waitrose house mag/website.
Guido's suggesting Byline Times is seen as more respectable than Sqwawkbox. I have no idea if that is fair and, like you, I've never heard of Byline Times.
No, he is saying it is audience are more middle / upper class, attracts a more "respectable" audience for its left wing content, but that on many occasions have put out pretty baseless conspiracy theorist stuff.
I am pretty sure you will have seen one of their videos / clips from them without knowing. They have been done for false reporting in the past and like Sqwawkbox have some very iffy stuff....but from time to time have an interesting report e.g the report on what all the American Sweets Shop on Oxford street are up to.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
You do away with customs, tariffs, and quotas.
I thought we had a free trade agreement with the EU? Still need checks apparently. I for one did not appreciate this before the referendum, but I have the luxury of having voted remain, unlike others, such as @RochdalePioneers
A free trade agreement where all goods have to be categorised and notarised and catalogued is not free trade. Yes the goods I import are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT. But the reams of paperwork needed are slow expensive and pointlessly bureaucratic. Have 3 pallets on a truck and it suffers a breakdown on route and the truck gets swapped out? All your paperwork is invalid and it can't cross until all companies with pallets on board get new ones.
Vs put goods on truck, drive truck, unload truck.
How do we get back to that? Without freedom of movement? Is it all about accepting EU standards (and judgement)?
The Good News is that EU standards are our standards are EU standards - because we wrote them. There is one example now of where they have banned something we have not - a metallic food additive which isn't widely used. Our government is pledged to increasing food standards so it won't be long before we follow suit.
The judgement bit is a red herring. Companies make products which are as universally compliant as possible. As so much our external trade is with the EEA we can't wander too far away and design decisions are made to make universality work. Was watching a Doug Demuro video reviewing the (mental) Land Rover Defender 90 V8, and he commented that some of the things it was missing or was forced to have are for compliance in other markets.
Anyway, remember that most other EU countries act first and worry about being taken to a Euro court later. Other countries illegally intervene to save their steel industries from Chinese ramping and deal with the slap on the wrists later. Britain was fairly unique in saying "no sorry your industry has to die we aren't allowed to pump money into you. As if they actually wanted to - the ECJ was always just an excuse.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
How much experience of export within the EU do you have ?
Brexit is an absolubte pain in the arse for exporters.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Have you forgotten the May era already? She asked for a deep and special partnership, with a common rule book and proposed multiple customs options, and was mocked and told this was cakeism.
I think at the time some in the EU, encouraged by some UK politicians thought they might have been able to call the whole thing off. When had they ever seen a referendum vote they didn’t like being respected? We’d just have to do it again until we got the right answer, like everybody else had done.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Have you forgotten the May era already? She asked for a deep and special partnership, with a common rule book and proposed multiple customs options, and was mocked and told this was cakeism.
Because it was cakeism. She wanted to go off and do what she wanted and still be a member of the club. Do a Norway - close enough for access, far enough away not to be dragged into things you don't want to do.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
It may well be what you hope for, but that isn't happening. Each poll on the subject shows a gradual shift against Brexit and for Rejoin. It won't be on the cards for English parties at the next GE, but cannot be ignored forever.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I got my first chainsaw (Bosch, bit with an Oregon chain) last winter. Just think before you saw and it will be fine. Have managed so far not to slice off anything that isn't wood. And yes, the mountain of lumber now stored in the garage will keep us going for years. Thanks Arwen!
I also bought one (with trepidation) but as you say, think before you saw.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Have you forgotten the May era already? She asked for a deep and special partnership, with a common rule book and proposed multiple customs options, and was mocked and told this was cakeism.
Because it was cakeism. She wanted to go off and do what she wanted and still be a member of the club. Do a Norway - close enough for access, far enough away not to be dragged into things you don't want to do.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
What you are failing to get is that although you are putting up a valid argument for staying in the UK, and for all you insults to those who don't want to (and by the way it doesn't include me), there are arguments on the other side. The same applied to the EU.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Have you forgotten the May era already? She asked for a deep and special partnership, with a common rule book and proposed multiple customs options, and was mocked and told this was cakeism.
Because it was cakeism. She wanted to go off and do what she wanted and still be a member of the club. Do a Norway - close enough for access, far enough away not to be dragged into things you don't want to do.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
What you are failing to get is that although you are putting up a valid argument for staying in the UK, and for all you insults to those who don't want to (and by the way it doesn't include me) there are arguments on the other side. The same applied to the EU.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
One more time before I blow a gasket
I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO TALK TO YOU. THIS WAS AN ANSWER TO @kinabalu
V difficult to now defend the thesis that Stonewall represents anything good or useful. Reputation is lost by bad behaviour. It’s almost impossible to reclaim. Time to start again with people committed to fairness and justice. A shame, but there it is.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
What you are failing to get is that although you are putting up a valid argument for staying in the UK, and for all you insults to those who don't want to (and by the way it doesn't include me) there are arguments on the other side. The same applied to the EU.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
One more time before I blow a gasket
I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO TALK TO YOU. THIS WAS AN ANSWER TO @kinabalu
GRRRRRRRR
a) One more time? First time you have said that to me. Although I note you said it to someone else the other day and got taken down a peg or two.
b) Tough it is a forum for us all to participate. I will respond to you as much as I see fit. Go private if you want a private discussion.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
How much experience of export within the EU do you have ?
Brexit is an absolubte pain in the arse for exporters.
From the ONS for May: "Goods exports to the EU reached £16.9 billion in May 2022, their highest level since the series began in 1997; likely related to rising prices in 2022. Removing the effect of inflation, exports to the EU, excluding unspecified goods, rose to £13.9 billion in May 2022, the highest levels since December 2020."
The ONS also points out that the figures are more volatile, and I would not want to put too much emphasis on a months figures but the links I set out in my earlier post show that things are back to at least normal. The gloom laden predictions of a collapse of UK exports have proven to be nonsense. Some of us may be more surprised than others.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
How much experience of export within the EU do you have ?
Brexit is an absolubte pain in the arse for exporters.
From the ONS for May: "Goods exports to the EU reached £16.9 billion in May 2022, their highest level since the series began in 1997; likely related to rising prices in 2022. Removing the effect of inflation, exports to the EU, excluding unspecified goods, rose to £13.9 billion in May 2022, the highest levels since December 2020."
The ONS also points out that the figures are more volatile, and I would not want to put too much emphasis on a months figures but the links I set out in my earlier post show that things are back to at least normal. The gloom laden predictions of a collapse of UK exports have proven to be nonsense. Some of us may be more surprised than others.
Scott_P is not so much surprised as heartbroken.....
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
I don't think they will, and even if they do, "Vote for a much worse deal than Switzerland's" isn't exactly a winning slogan. Nor would it stick, when we realise that we'd have to obey EU rules without any say into them.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
What you are failing to get is that although you are putting up a valid argument for staying in the UK, and for all you insults to those who don't want to (and by the way it doesn't include me) there are arguments on the other side. The same applied to the EU.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
One more time before I blow a gasket
I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO TALK TO YOU. THIS WAS AN ANSWER TO @kinabalu
GRRRRRRRR
a) One more time? First time you have said that to me. Although I note you said it to someone else the other day and got taken down a peg or two.
b) Tough it is a forum for us all to participate. I will respond to you as much as I see fit. Go private if you want a private discussion.
Ooops noticed you did say a) but hadn't refreshed when I posted.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
What you are failing to get is that although you are putting up a valid argument for staying in the UK, and for all you insults to those who don't want to (and by the way it doesn't include me) there are arguments on the other side. The same applied to the EU.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
One more time before I blow a gasket
I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO TALK TO YOU. THIS WAS AN ANSWER TO @kinabalu
GRRRRRRRR
a) One more time? First time you have said that to me. Although I note you said it to someone else the other day and got taken down a peg or two.
b) Tough it is a forum for us all to participate. I will respond to you as much as I see fit. Go private if you want a private discussion.
OK, you're on Official Ignore until Assumption Day. Go ahead, keep ranting at me, knock yerself out, twit
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
What you are failing to get is that although you are putting up a valid argument for staying in the UK, and for all you insults to those who don't want to (and by the way it doesn't include me) there are arguments on the other side. The same applied to the EU.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
One more time before I blow a gasket
I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO TALK TO YOU. THIS WAS AN ANSWER TO @kinabalu
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
It is inconsistent and irrational. See how annoying that is? Almost as annoying as someone replying to you on a open forum when you want a private chat.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
The question is how long we expect these high gas prices and the suspension of using Russian supplies to last. We could see some sort of resolution over Ukraine. We will undoubtedly see Germany and everyone else moving further away from using gas and other fossil fuels. Meanwhile, fracking would take a while before it was producing anything. That makes it a risky investment.
And that’s ignoring the hugely damaging effects of burning fossil fuels on our world, and the damaging effects of fracking on local areas, of course.
It would be wiser to invest in onshore wind. It would be operational sooner. It would be valuable in the short term and in the long term. We could offer discounts to bills/taxes to those in the local area.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
What you are failing to get is that although you are putting up a valid argument for staying in the UK, and for all you insults to those who don't want to (and by the way it doesn't include me) there are arguments on the other side. The same applied to the EU.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
One more time before I blow a gasket
I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO TALK TO YOU. THIS WAS AN ANSWER TO @kinabalu
GRRRRRRRR
a) One more time? First time you have said that to me. Although I note you said it to someone else the other day and got taken down a peg or two.
b) Tough it is a forum for us all to participate. I will respond to you as much as I see fit. Go private if you want a private discussion.
OK, you're on Official Ignore until Assumption Day. Go ahead, keep ranting at me, knock yerself out, twit
I haven't ranted once. I'm just having a good laugh. It is you that is a tightly wound spring.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Have you forgotten the May era already? She asked for a deep and special partnership, with a common rule book and proposed multiple customs options, and was mocked and told this was cakeism.
Because it was cakeism. She wanted to go off and do what she wanted and still be a member of the club. Do a Norway - close enough for access, far enough away not to be dragged into things you don't want to do.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
Truss hasn't signed any trade deals. Rolling over the existing EU <> [insert country here] deal to apply to the UK still is not a new trade deal. The genuinely new ANZ deal hasn't started yet and definitely needs scrapping. And being a long distant associate of CPTPP does what exactly?
The reason why we trade so heavily with EU members is because they are so close...
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
I'd say a person who loves their country as they do their kids is a tad unusual - esp when it comes to them being sliced in two. But each to his own.
And here you've for some reason repeated all the stuff we'd already clarified - ie you're irrational about Brexit and Sindy because of your nationalistic and somewhat sentimentalized Patriotism - rather than tackle the next question.
Being - why does Britain have to be outside the EU to be true to itself when most other European countries feel no such thing?
But I did say that was for next Wednesday, I suppose.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
They should be thinking about underground coal gasification. All that coal stretching out under the North Sea. Combine it with CCS and we get a low carbon source of energy (blue hydrogen) from our own hydrocarbons to compliment intermittent renewables.
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I got my first chainsaw (Bosch, bit with an Oregon chain) last winter. Just think before you saw and it will be fine. Have managed so far not to slice off anything that isn't wood. And yes, the mountain of lumber now stored in the garage will keep us going for years. Thanks Arwen!
I also bought one (with trepidation) but as you say, think before you saw.
This entire discussion is terrifying me.
It seems to be setting up a kind of chain reaction.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
I don't think they will, and even if they do, "Vote for a much worse deal than Switzerland's" isn't exactly a winning slogan. Nor would it stick, when we realise that we'd have to obey EU rules without any say into them.
We don’t check goods coming in from the EU, so we’re already putting up with whatever the EU chooses without a say.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
Have you forgotten the May era already? She asked for a deep and special partnership, with a common rule book and proposed multiple customs options, and was mocked and told this was cakeism.
Because it was cakeism. She wanted to go off and do what she wanted and still be a member of the club. Do a Norway - close enough for access, far enough away not to be dragged into things you don't want to do.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
Not necessary in, say, EFTA or equivalent.
Because the bilateral trade deals we signed to give continuity to the UK would be negated by reinstating our place in the existing EU trade deals.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
Free movement was great. Happy to have that too.
The EU won't give us a bespoke arrangement similar to Switzerland's, which they hate. They were clear during the negotiations that it wasn't on offer.
They will. Not one similar to Switzerland, but something bespoke. Its what they do - look at how they have managed to find ways around various other hurdles. What they won't do is volunteer it - remember that we got the deal we asked for. So ask for something that isn't batshit like the one we asked for and go at it.
I don't think they will, and even if they do, "Vote for a much worse deal than Switzerland's" isn't exactly a winning slogan. Nor would it stick, when we realise that we'd have to obey EU rules without any say into them.
We wouldn't obey EU rules. We would obey EFTA rules...
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
Norway and Iceland must be "special" as well, being outside the EU. And Switzerland.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
I'd say a person who loves their country as they do their kids is a tad unusual - esp when it comes to them being sliced in two. But each to his own.
And here you've for some reason repeated all the stuff we'd already clarified - ie you're irrational about Brexit and Sindy because of your nationalistic and somewhat sentimentalized Patriotism - rather than tackle the next question.
Being - why does Britain have to be outside the EU to be true to itself when most other European countries feel no such thing?
But I did say that was for next Wednesday, I suppose.
You're so desperate to paint me as a "nationalist". It is poignant
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
They should be thinking about underground coal gasification. All that coal stretching out under the North Sea. Combine it with CCS and we get a low carbon source of energy (blue hydrogen) from our own hydrocarbons to compliment intermittent renewables.
The price is such that all kinds of schemes are surely now viable. Britain would potentially be a far more reliable gas partner for Germany than Russia.
A lot of these sites are in the Midlands and the North, which would magically turn into boom towns with no need of a dogsh1t 'levelling up' strategy.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
I'd say a person who loves their country as they do their kids is a tad unusual - esp when it comes to them being sliced in two. But each to his own.
And here you've for some reason repeated all the stuff we'd already clarified - ie you're irrational about Brexit and Sindy because of your nationalistic and somewhat sentimentalized Patriotism - rather than tackle the next question.
Being - why does Britain have to be outside the EU to be true to itself when most other European countries feel no such thing?
But I did say that was for next Wednesday, I suppose.
You're so desperate to paint me as a "nationalist". It is poignant
I don't think you are stupid enough to be a nationalist.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
This is muy importante, where the crunch is gonna come is lizzie believing her own maggie publicity and tAKIng oN tEh UNions. and losing. Very soon.
In related news, I have just assembled a new Oregon electric chainsaw and am off out to secure my fuel supplies/keep the major trauma unit at Derriford busy.
I got my first chainsaw (Bosch, bit with an Oregon chain) last winter. Just think before you saw and it will be fine. Have managed so far not to slice off anything that isn't wood. And yes, the mountain of lumber now stored in the garage will keep us going for years. Thanks Arwen!
I also bought one (with trepidation) but as you say, think before you saw.
This entire discussion is terrifying me.
It seems to be setting up a kind of chain reaction.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it as settled, and lost all residual patience I had left with Farage if - as he claimed at the time - he would've tried to use a narrowish defeat for Leave as a springboard to push for more referenda on the issue.
Mr. JS, I'm wondering if it's worth putting a little on Sunak.
Although all the mood music is rather grim for him.
I posted this back on July 13th
Any price needs to be based on both MPs and members.
Both Truss and Mordaunt are 1-10 shots vs Sunak, the members won't change their minds THAT much. It won't be by acclamation now - which is his only hope.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
Interesting. I hadn't appreciated that this has been going on so long. What we seem to be doing now is not just exporting the gas but electricity generated from it as the interconnectors have turned positive for us, almost for the first time. The exports to France in particular look substantial.
From what I have read the medium to larger businesses are now simply exporting to the EU in the same way as they do with the rest of the world and it is no big deal. Smaller businesses, who did some exports to the EU in the SM but very little to the ROW are undoubtedly finding it more difficult because they did not have the systems in place. The effect of this on our total exports seems small to non existent. Economic models which had built in assumptions about a reduction in such exports are, to use a technical term, wrong.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.
They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ? TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
That's simple
Truss wanted a trade agreement with someone regardless of the benefits because she knows no-one cares about the detail only the initial headline.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
The "benefit" was to make Liz Truss look like she was achieving something for the gullible fools who now dominate the membership of the Conservative Party.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it as settled, and lost all residual patience I had left with Farage if - as he claimed at the time - he would've tried to use a narrowish defeat for Leave as a springboard to push for more referenda on the issue.
Yes, one of the big benefits of having the referendum was - I naively hoped - that we would settle an issue which had bedevilled Britain - and the EU - for a generation or more. Removing all the toxins, finally
If we voted Remain, to my mind, that was it. We're in, probably for good, make the best job of it
But I thought the same of Leave, It never ever occurred to me - in my worst nightmares - that if we voted Leave half of the British Establishment would conspire to thwart and annul the democratic vote, and have another vote without enacting the first. Mind-boggling. Yes of course the Leave prospectus was mendacious and vague, but there were lies on all sides, but actually overturning 17 million winning votes? Doing a Donald Trump on the British people? Really??
And so we have had six years of poisonous rancour and even now it bubbles on
Sigh. Hopefully with Boris gone the bitterness might begin to drain away. But maybe I am being naive again
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it as settled, and lost all residual patience I had left with Farage if - as he claimed at the time - he would've tried to use a narrowish defeat for Leave as a springboard to push for more referenda on the issue.
A 52-48 win for Remain would have made a very clear statement that further transfer of powers would not be acceptable without explicit democratic consent. If there had been a Lisbon 2 situation with the electorate ignored, then I think that would have been fair game for agitation for another In/Out vote.
No doubt Nige would have been pushing for the second referendum anyway. And we’d have likely seen Continuity Leavers voting for him in great numbers. Perhaps 15% at the subsequent election against Prime Minister Osborne. Which would likely have meant we had PM Corbyn for both covid and the Russian-Ukraine War. So everyone should be thankful to us Brexit voters.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
Probably because your lot spent three years trying to overturn the democratic will of the people, and now you're off trying to Rejoin?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Mr. JS, I'm wondering if it's worth putting a little on Sunak.
Although all the mood music is rather grim for him.
Rishi has not had a good few days:
1. Roundly accepted to have come across poorly in the debate against Liz Truss on Monday (in the best case, narrowly squeezed out a win or a score draw). This is against a woman whose debating skills are abysmal.
2. Had all the bad luck re “the fainting” with the event allowing Liz to appear human (Liz very rarely manages to appear human).
3. Today, single handedly trashing all his attack lines and positioning in all the debates and media appearances up to now by pre-announcing tax cuts after spending weeks going around telling people off for how irresponsible it made them sound.
We also have to bear in mind that Liz was the favourite before all these things happened.
Might be value for a small punt given there is always the possibility in a two-horse race that the other horse pulls up due to scandal or unexpected event, but if the race proceeds to its finish now without those I think it is pretty much death-and-taxes level certainty that Liz is going to be the next PM.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
Probably because your lot spent three years trying to overturn the democratic will of the people, and now you're off trying to Rejoin?
I think most of us have accepted it, and the fact that we will have to live with it. Doesn't stop us from taking the piss out of the sad gullible folk/loonies that still believe in it though.
Tell, me though Leon, other than having a dark blue/black passport for you to get excited over when you can't manage to switch on PornHub, what are "the benefits of Brexit"?
PS. We could have had a black passport when part of the EU BTW.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Oh I am sure Farage would have agitated and complained, but he would have been leading a rump of malcontents
As @moonshine says, if Remain had won - say 52:48 - Remain would have had the support of the nation, all the Remainers plus a very large chunk of the Leavers - like me - who respect democracy. A solid solid majority
What you would never have seen is the British Establishment trying to reverse the narrow Remain win, by having another go, to get a Leave vote. Unthinkable
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
You do away with customs, tariffs, and quotas.
I thought we had a free trade agreement with the EU? Still need checks apparently. I for one did not appreciate this before the referendum, but I have the luxury of having voted remain, unlike others, such as @RochdalePioneers
A free trade agreement where all goods have to be categorised and notarised and catalogued is not free trade. Yes the goods I import are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT. But the reams of paperwork needed are slow expensive and pointlessly bureaucratic. Have 3 pallets on a truck and it suffers a breakdown on route and the truck gets swapped out? All your paperwork is invalid and it can't cross until all companies with pallets on board get new ones.
Vs put goods on truck, drive truck, unload truck.
How do we get back to that? Without freedom of movement? Is it all about accepting EU standards (and judgement)?
The Good News is that EU standards are our standards are EU standards - because we wrote them. There is one example now of where they have banned something we have not - a metallic food additive which isn't widely used. Our government is pledged to increasing food standards so it won't be long before we follow suit.
The judgement bit is a red herring. Companies make products which are as universally compliant as possible. As so much our external trade is with the EEA we can't wander too far away and design decisions are made to make universality work. Was watching a Doug Demuro video reviewing the (mental) Land Rover Defender 90 V8, and he commented that some of the things it was missing or was forced to have are for compliance in other markets.
Anyway, remember that most other EU countries act first and worry about being taken to a Euro court later. Other countries illegally intervene to save their steel industries from Chinese ramping and deal with the slap on the wrists later. Britain was fairly unique in saying "no sorry your industry has to die we aren't allowed to pump money into you. As if they actually wanted to - the ECJ was always just an excuse.
When Tata pulls out of Port Talbot, assuming government money for the electric arc furnace programme is not forthcoming, who can we blame?
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
Norway and Iceland must be "special" as well, being outside the EU. And Switzerland.
That's 3 (quite small but let's not diss them) countries which don't want to be in the EU for various reasons. But as against that, look at those who do.
Not saying this *proves* the EU or being a member of it is a good thing but it does beg the question I'm begging - why for many Brits and for Tories in particular does EU membership stop Britain being Proper Britain when other European countries don't feel this way at all about themselves in the EU. Or at least to anything like the same extent.
This, for me, is the most interesting of all questions about Brexit. If we can answer it we'll understand Brexit.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
You assume there exists large recoverable deposits - far from certain.
What's your timescale ? Exploratory drilling, and planning permissions would take years.
Who is going to assume the political risk ahead of the next election when their project might get cancelled anyway ?
And what value would be left when the war in Ukraine is over ?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Oh I am sure Farage would have agitated and complained, but he would have been leading a rump of malcontents
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Oh I am sure Farage would have agitated and complained, but he would have been leading a rump of malcontents
I'm not sure it would have played out like that. Imagine if 16 million people - more than had ever voted for a political party in a GE - voted against the status quo but still narrowly. That pressure would have had to go somewhere.
Mr. JS, I'm wondering if it's worth putting a little on Sunak.
Although all the mood music is rather grim for him.
Rishi has not had a good few days:
1. Roundly accepted to have come across poorly in the debate against Liz Truss on Monday (in the best case, narrowly squeezed out a win or a score draw). This is against a woman whose debating skills are abysmal.
2. Had all the bad luck re “the fainting” with the event allowing Liz to appear human (Liz very rarely manages to appear human).
3. Today, single handedly trashing all his attack lines and positioning in all the debates and media appearances up to now by pre-announcing tax cuts after spending weeks going around telling people off for how irresponsible it made them sound.
We also have to bear in mind that Liz was the favourite before all these things happened.
Might be value for a small punt given there is always the possibility in a two-horse race that the other horse pulls up due to scandal or unexpected event, but if the race proceeds to its finish now without those I think it is pretty much death-and-taxes level certainty that Liz is going to be the next PM.
The question is whether she breaks 65%+ or not.
Great summation.
The striking thing for me is the political chasm between many conservative MPs and their members (and voters?). If it were up to the MPs Rishi would be being crowned with fanfares right now, right?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Oh I am sure Farage would have agitated and complained, but he would have been leading a rump of malcontents
As @moonshine says, if Remain had won - say 52:48 - Remain would have had the support of the nation, all the Remainers plus a very large chunk of the Leavers - like me - who respect democracy. A solid solid majority
What you would never have seen is the British Establishment trying to reverse the narrow Remain win, by having another go, to get a Leave vote. Unthinkable
Yet that happened: with Remainers....
Lol! British Establishment = 'people in power whom you disagree with'.
My British Establishment is a different, but just as valid, set of people in power to yours.
Truth is, the BE were just as split as the rest of us.
Comments
I have seen this even among highly educated people who won't go to any event with a groups of people, won't attend in person meetings, continually go on about how masks should still be in place for basically everything....despite being young, vaccinated, no underlying conditions. They have lost any perspective of real risk and scared shitless.
I am sleeping longer, and fall asleep very easily as soon as I sit down. I am getting old, but it is step change on pre-covid.
Benefits could become Bismarckian/contributory. Defined pots could also ease the introduction of private health and pension managers into the public system.
It would have suited Leon perfectly - people of independent means can swan around Europe like extras in an Agatha Christie movie, while the undesirables are gently ushered to the door by economic pressures - like an upmarket eatery on Upper Street, such as Ottolenghi.
There really was no reason not to enforce such rules - except some influential IEA donors were dead set against it.
I have used the things before, just fed up of pull start petrol stuff with 4 different filters to replace every 3 minutes
So I limit myself to an axe, wedge, sledge hammer and bow saw and get someone in if I need a chainsaw.
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1194789737968268
I am pretty sure you will have seen one of their videos / clips from them without knowing. They have been done for false reporting in the past and like Sqwawkbox have some very iffy stuff....but from time to time have an interesting report e.g the report on what all the American Sweets Shop on Oxford street are up to.
The judgement bit is a red herring. Companies make products which are as universally compliant as possible. As so much our external trade is with the EEA we can't wander too far away and design decisions are made to make universality work. Was watching a Doug Demuro video reviewing the (mental) Land Rover Defender 90 V8, and he commented that some of the things it was missing or was forced to have are for compliance in other markets.
Anyway, remember that most other EU countries act first and worry about being taken to a Euro court later. Other countries illegally intervene to save their steel industries from Chinese ramping and deal with the slap on the wrists later. Britain was fairly unique in saying "no sorry your industry has to die we aren't allowed to pump money into you. As if they actually wanted to - the ECJ was always just an excuse.
Brexit is an absolubte pain in the arse for exporters.
Lols back to you!
Or the ONS. I think that the transmission of power created from LNG in the UK is a more recent phenomenon which will show up in this month's figures.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
For all your insults about these people being blinkered you are just as blinkered from your side for failing to understand their reasons for believing the opposite.
I am a remainer, but I don't have a strong view on Scottish independence and since Brexit I find the argument for independence weakened. However unlike you I don't call people who disagree with me cretins and don't accuse them of being narrow minded while demonstrating narrow mindedness myself.
I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO TALK TO YOU. THIS WAS AN ANSWER TO @kinabalu
GRRRRRRRR
Reputation is lost by bad behaviour. It’s almost impossible to reclaim.
Time to start again with people committed to fairness and justice.
A shame, but there it is.
https://twitter.com/SCynic1/status/155226716107856281
As Eric Heffer observed:
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
b) Tough it is a forum for us all to participate. I will respond to you as much as I see fit. Go private if you want a private discussion.
"Goods exports to the EU reached £16.9 billion in May 2022, their highest level since the series began in 1997; likely related to rising prices in 2022. Removing the effect of inflation, exports to the EU, excluding unspecified goods, rose to £13.9 billion in May 2022, the highest levels since December 2020."
The ONS also points out that the figures are more volatile, and I would not want to put too much emphasis on a months figures but the links I set out in my earlier post show that things are back to at least normal. The gloom laden predictions of a collapse of UK exports have proven to be nonsense. Some of us may be more surprised than others.
It's fab.
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
However b) still stands. Tough.
A bit of anger management would be appropriate.
Have you exploded yet?
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/politics-betting-2378961
And that’s ignoring the hugely damaging effects of burning fossil fuels on our world, and the damaging effects of fracking on local areas, of course.
It would be wiser to invest in onshore wind. It would be operational sooner. It would be valuable in the short term and in the long term. We could offer discounts to bills/taxes to those in the local area.
Although all the mood music is rather grim for him.
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1552229186995163136
The reason why we trade so heavily with EU members is because they are so close...
And here you've for some reason repeated all the stuff we'd already clarified - ie you're irrational about Brexit and Sindy because of your nationalistic and somewhat sentimentalized Patriotism - rather than tackle the next question.
Being - why does Britain have to be outside the EU to be true to itself when most other European countries feel no such thing?
But I did say that was for next Wednesday, I suppose.
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1552278512500973570
Yes, life is deeply unfair. That railing that did for Bob Dole was going to give way the next time anyone put weight on it.
A lot of these sites are in the Midlands and the North, which would magically turn into boom towns with no need of a dogsh1t 'levelling up' strategy.
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
Any price needs to be based on both MPs and members.
Both Truss and Mordaunt are 1-10 shots vs Sunak, the members won't change their minds THAT much.
It won't be by acclamation now - which is his only hope.
I think the true prices should be something like
Mordaunt 1.8
Truss 3
Sunak 10
Badenoch 30
Tugendhat 50
Zahawi 200
Braverman 200
Hunt 200
We're simply seeing the membership side play out now.
From what I have read the medium to larger businesses are now simply exporting to the EU in the same way as they do with the rest of the world and it is no big deal. Smaller businesses, who did some exports to the EU in the SM but very little to the ROW are undoubtedly finding it more difficult because they did not have the systems in place. The effect of this on our total exports seems small to non existent. Economic models which had built in assumptions about a reduction in such exports are, to use a technical term, wrong.
I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.
TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
Truss wanted a trade agreement with someone regardless of the benefits because she knows no-one cares about the detail only the initial headline.
If we voted Remain, to my mind, that was it. We're in, probably for good, make the best job of it
But I thought the same of Leave, It never ever occurred to me - in my worst nightmares - that if we voted Leave half of the British Establishment would conspire to thwart and annul the democratic vote, and have another vote without enacting the first. Mind-boggling. Yes of course the Leave prospectus was mendacious and vague, but there were lies on all sides, but actually overturning 17 million winning votes? Doing a Donald Trump on the British people? Really??
And so we have had six years of poisonous rancour and even now it bubbles on
Sigh. Hopefully with Boris gone the bitterness might begin to drain away. But maybe I am being naive again
No doubt Nige would have been pushing for the second referendum anyway. And we’d have likely seen Continuity Leavers voting for him in great numbers. Perhaps 15% at the subsequent election against Prime Minister Osborne. Which would likely have meant we had PM Corbyn for both covid and the Russian-Ukraine War. So everyone should be thankful to us Brexit voters.
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
1. Roundly accepted to have come across poorly in the debate against Liz Truss on Monday (in the best case, narrowly squeezed out a win or a score draw). This is against a woman whose debating skills are abysmal.
2. Had all the bad luck re “the fainting” with the event allowing Liz to appear human (Liz very rarely manages to appear human).
3. Today, single handedly trashing all his attack lines and positioning in all the debates and media appearances up to now by pre-announcing tax cuts after spending weeks going around telling people off for how irresponsible it made them sound.
We also have to bear in mind that Liz was the favourite before all these things happened.
Might be value for a small punt given there is always the possibility in a two-horse race that the other horse pulls up due to scandal or unexpected event, but if the race proceeds to its finish now without those I think it is pretty much death-and-taxes level certainty that Liz is going to be the next PM.
The question is whether she breaks 65%+ or not.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Tell, me though Leon, other than having a dark blue/black passport for you to get excited over when you can't manage to switch on PornHub, what are "the benefits of Brexit"?
PS. We could have had a black passport when part of the EU BTW.
As @moonshine says, if Remain had won - say 52:48 - Remain would have had the support of the nation, all the Remainers plus a very large chunk of the Leavers - like me - who respect democracy. A solid solid majority
What you would never have seen is the British Establishment trying to reverse the narrow Remain win, by having another go, to get a Leave vote. Unthinkable
Yet that happened: with Remainers....
Not saying this *proves* the EU or being a member of it is a good thing but it does beg the question I'm begging - why for many Brits and for Tories in particular does EU membership stop Britain being Proper Britain when other European countries don't feel this way at all about themselves in the EU. Or at least to anything like the same extent.
This, for me, is the most interesting of all questions about Brexit. If we can answer it we'll understand Brexit.
What's your timescale ?
Exploratory drilling, and planning permissions would take years.
Who is going to assume the political risk ahead of the next election when their project might get cancelled anyway ?
And what value would be left when the war in Ukraine is over ?
The striking thing for me is the political chasm between many conservative MPs and their members (and voters?). If it were up to the MPs Rishi would be being crowned with fanfares right now, right?
My British Establishment is a different, but just as valid, set of people in power to yours.
Truth is, the BE were just as split as the rest of us.