I recently had some Lance and Andy style Detectorists come to my place and ask if they could detectoristorise my fields. I wasn't home otherwise I would have just threatened to kill them if they didn't leave immediately so Mrs DA offered a graceful shrug and let them do it. After they had spent several hours on their essentially pointless and depressing pastime Mrs DA served them tea and biscuits. They are obviously not used to any gesture of hospitality as they received this as if she'd offered them the location of the Gold of Tolosa. Unprompted, they started discussing Brexit over Yorkshire Tea and Mrs DA's homemade Jaffa Cakes. The staunchest defence the leaver of the pair (the Lance) could offer was that, "At least it hasn't made things much worse." That's a fairly thin prospectus for the continuing viability and popular legitimacy of the project.
Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.
Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.
But we aren't rejoining the EU.
You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.
If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.
The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.
Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
And isn’t the point not that there is anything economically dynamic intrinsic to the EU, but that the huge single market and absence of trade barriers is a big leg up for those members, or those parts of the economy, that are (or wish to become) economically dynamic? Currently we’ve hobbled a huge number of import/export businesses large and small - with anecdotes of bankruptcies or firms simply giving up parts of their business - as well as sending a chunk of our workforce home, and devalued both our currency and world standing - yet have precisely nothing to show for the pain being endured.
Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.
The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.
It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.
It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.
It's implausible that the UK rejoins.
But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
I’m curious if the pattern that drove us to leave will be repeated in the opposite direction. Essentially the EU was used as an aunt Sally, blamed for all sorts of national problems like the democratic underperformance of Westminster or the reason the NHS was underfunded. Ultimately it was the successful campaigns that tied these problems to the EU that caused us to leave, not just the actual problems with the EU.
A future campaign to rejoin might do the same thing. As a precondition you will need a I insurgent group of people prepared to be as single minded and as opportunistic as the eurosceptics. There doesn’t seem to be that at the moment, nor any sign of that on the horizon.
Therefore if we ever were to rejoin, it will be done in another way. My hunch it will be done incrementally, by the slow hand of the conservative establishment. This process appears to be starting.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
There probably isn't a bigger Europhile on this Site than me and I have zero interest in rejoining
Then you aren't the biggest Europhile on this site, because there is at least one rejoiner in your midst.
Non-sequitur?
No; a Europhile, the way that I understand it, is someone who wants their country to be a part of the EU. Perhaps you mean something different, but in my understanding you really have to be in favour of membership to be the biggest Europhile around.
Well, by the dictionary it could be someone who truly loves Europe, but you’re right that in political parlance the word is rarely used to describe the “love Europe, hate the EU” brigade. Not least because those who fall into the latter half of that definition often struggle to demonstrate the first half.
I recently had some Lance and Andy style Detectorists come to my place and ask if they could detectoristorise my fields. I wasn't home otherwise I would have just threatened to kill them if they didn't leave immediately so Mrs DA offered a graceful shrug and let them do it. After they had spent several hours on their essentially pointless and depressing pastime Mrs DA served them tea and biscuits. They are obviously not used to any gesture of hospitality as they received this as if she'd offered them the location of the Gold of Tolosa. Unprompted, they started discussing Brexit over Yorkshire Tea and Mrs DA's homemade Jaffa Cakes. The staunchest defence the leaver of the pair (the Lance) could offer was that, "At least it hasn't made things much worse." That's a fairly thin prospectus for the continuing viability and popular legitimacy of the project.
Quite a good slogan for the next election though. "We won't make things much worse."
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
I'm not actually sure that is true in terms of actual working kit, and in view of the direction in which things are moving. And there is a big world beyond Europe.
There is also a difference between spending public money on your party donors and your future employer, and actuially spending it on working kit with half-adequate staffing.
We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):
Lab 51.4% (-1.6) Con 24.3% (+2.9) LD 8.9% (-0.7) Ref 5.2% (+1.2) SNP 4.4% (+0.4) Grn 4.3% (+0.2)
In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.
How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.
So, Lab and LD have lost 2.3pp between them. The Conservatives have gained 2.9 and Ref+SNP+Green 1.8. So, who lost the other 2.4 for this to balance out?
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap."
That has always been the issue. And something the EU leaders showed was non-negotiable, As far as they were concerned, the politics was the total reason for them existing. That's why Hungary is a problem, and Italy might become one. The battle between Germany and France is a natural side-show.
We aint returning, not unless we become political nerds. The EU was always a nice excuse for any political failures when we were in it, and being outside remains a nice excuse for any failures now. It's all very childish, but it makes us act like children.
That's why Remain concentrated on insulting their political opponents, and Leave exggerated whenever possible. It remains a school-yard and democracy was the victim. We voted to leave and that's what infuriated Remain. How dare they? Don't they realise we know better?
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap." No chance. Until that circle is squared, we'll remain outside.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
I'm not actually sure that is true in terms of actual working kit, and in view of the direction in which things are moving. And there is a big world beyond Europe.
There is also a difference between spending public money on your party donors and your future employer, and actuially spending it on working kit with half-adequate staffing.
You missed a golden opportunity there. You should have finished with 'as Russia is finding out.'
I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.
The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
While I am sympathetic to your argument, rcs1000, I think this claim depends how old you and Heathener are! A week is a long time in politics, and, say, 40 years is an eternity. I wouldn’t be making predictions that far out.
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap."
That has always been the issue. And something the EU leaders showed was non-negotiable, As far as they were concerned, the politics was the total reason for them existing. That's why Hungary is a problem, and Italy might become one. The battle between Germany and France is a natural side-show.
We aint returning, not unless we become political nerds. The EU was always a nice excuse for any political failures when we were in it, and being outside remains a nice excuse for any failures now. It's all very childish, but it makes us act like children.
That's why Remain concentrated on insulting their political opponents, and Leave exggerated whenever possible. It remains a school-yard and democracy was the victim. We voted to leave and that's what infuriated Remain. How dare they? Don't they realise we know better?
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap." No chance. Until that circle is squared, we'll remain outside.
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap."
That has always been the issue. And something the EU leaders showed was non-negotiable, As far as they were concerned, the politics was the total reason for them existing. That's why Hungary is a problem, and Italy might become one. The battle between Germany and France is a natural side-show.
We aint returning, not unless we become political nerds. The EU was always a nice excuse for any political failures when we were in it, and being outside remains a nice excuse for any failures now. It's all very childish, but it makes us act like children.
That's why Remain concentrated on insulting their political opponents, and Leave exggerated whenever possible. It remains a school-yard and democracy was the victim. We voted to leave and that's what infuriated Remain. How dare they? Don't they realise we know better?
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap." No chance. Until that circle is squared, we'll remain outside.
EU = politics EEA = trade
EEA is different to EU
Why did we leave the EEA?
Because a group of right wing wallies thought we could be Singapore on Thames.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
I'm not actually sure that is true in terms of actual working kit, and in view of the direction in which things are moving. And there is a big world beyond Europe.
There is also a difference between spending public money on your party donors and your future employer, and actuially spending it on working kit with half-adequate staffing.
You missed a golden opportunity there. You should have finished with 'as Russia is finding out.'
I was thinking of UK insistence on gold-plating to supposed UK requirements and insisting that only UK contractors could do what was wanted, and ending up spending 2x as much on not very much more capability (or slightly less*) much later.
*When I were a lad, they bought F-4 Phantoms off the shelf to replace the cancelled F.111s that replaced the cancelled TSR.2. However, tyhey didn't learn their lesson, and insisted on putting R-R engines in the Phantoms. The engines were absolutely fine in themselves - but needed bigger intakes in the Phantom, which ISTR caused more drag, and nullified the improved thrust ...
Why is it implausible that the EU will set up some sort of outer fringe relationship? They may not want to say they well, but the EU already has a range of outer fringe relationships, with the non-EU EEA members and what is effectively a bespoke arrangement for Switzerland.
I don't think it's impossible but the EU has been there before with the Inner Six/Outer Seven structure of the 60s and 70s. As economic winter started to bite the Outer Seven wanted to be closer to the campfire and were drawn into the inner circle.
Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.
The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.
It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.
It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.
It's implausible that the UK rejoins.
But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
Why is it implausible that the EU will set up some sort of outer fringe relationship? They may not want to say they well, but the EU already has a range of outer fringe relationships, with the non-EU EEA members and what is effectively a bespoke arrangement for Switzerland.
And the UK rejected those options in 2016-9, because they all involve a loss of control by the UK.
So. What is the arrangement that suits the UK that isn't pure cakeism?
"in a little over a decade the Tory party went from being pro Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage"
I feel it necessary to point out that most Conservatives voted against equal marriage. And the government that introduced it was a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.
People give the Tories way too much credit for equal marriage. Cameron deserves kudos, but the party was (is?) largely bigoted.
In my once-safe Tory Cotswold constituency, same-sex marriage - together with Cameron's reaction to climate change and Tory friendliness to overseas aid - did far more to promote UKIP among formerly loyal Tories in 2012-2015 than any dissatisfaction with the EU. Since Cameron was our MP at the time, reaction among our hardcore Tory neighbours to these other socially liberal shifts in official Tory policy partially explain the Tories' terrified response to the 2014 surge in UKIP.
And still explain the collapse in Tory activism that's turned this part of the Tory heartland into a Lib Dem-led local authority.
The EU had no intention of offering any benefits without commtting totally to the political dimension. "No cherry-picking," they called it, as did many of the Remainers. That will come back to haunt them, as it is starting to do so now.
Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.
The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.
It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.
It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.
It's implausible that the UK rejoins.
But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
The difference of course is the default has now flipped from 'stay in' to 'stay out.'
So unless we take a positive decision to do 3, or the EU takes a positive decision to consider 2, it will be 1.
You're a physicist. How important is the power of inertia?
Inertia might have worked for a soft EEA-like Brexit, perhaps even for the May plan.
Paradoxically, Johnson's attempt to secure Brexit for the ages by pulling us far from the EU has created forces to pull us back.
We aren't joining the Euro. Therefore it's very hard to see the UK rejoining the EU in its present form. Beyond that, it's very difficult to predict the future direction of travel.
The EU is an utterly dysfunctional political body that can muddle through only by allowing a small elite to effectively run the show, and is riven with economic tensions that seem to be getting more rather less acute. There are all sorts of possibilities, and they should include scenarios where the EU starts to fragment further with the possibility of the UK joining a loose political association which includes one or more other former EU states, just as much as other possibilities involving rowing back on Brexit to some degree.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
I'm not actually sure that is true in terms of actual working kit, and in view of the direction in which things are moving. And there is a big world beyond Europe.
There is also a difference between spending public money on your party donors and your future employer, and actuially spending it on working kit with half-adequate staffing.
You missed a golden opportunity there. You should have finished with 'as Russia is finding out.'
I was thinking of UK insistence on gold-plating to supposed UK requirements and insisting that only UK contractors could do what was wanted, and ending up spending 2x as much on not very much more capability (or slightly less*) much later.
*When I were a lad, they bought F-4 Phantoms off the shelf to replace the cancelled F.111s that replaced the cancelled TSR.2. However, tyhey didn't learn their lesson, and insisted on putting R-R engines in the Phantoms. The engines were absolutely fine in themselves - but needed bigger intakes in the Phantom, which ISTR caused more drag, and nullified the improved thrust ...
... but I forget the Malmesbury Doctrine, that (if I paraphrase correctly) supporting corporate arms suppliers is the primary function of MoD, and the F-4 business sure helped R-R and employment in (presumably) Derby.
I think there's a tendency for the conversation about Brexit to be a rehash of the previous arguments since everyone wants to justify what they said before and people kind of get stuck in rails. But you also have to think about the way the ground has shifted, and the geopolitical situation has changed since the referendum.
There's now an actual war of Russia vs The West, there's a real risk of China attacking Taiwan, and China has become a huge manufacturing powerhouse that can stand up to the West. The rivalry with Russia one of the main reasons conservatives wanted to join the EU in the first place, and also the reason Thatcher wanted eastern expansion, even though it meant letting low-paid workers in from a place other than the Commonwealth.
The situation with China really does seem like it'll start to put the world into blocs that are trying to avoid depending on each other. The US has just taken fairly radical steps to clobber China's ability to create a semiconductor industry in a way that will affect a lot of other technology. Increasingly it seems like they'll be trying to avoid letting their supply chain get dependent on China. This is hard, because you need to source production elsewhere, and if you lose the ability to trade with China you need to increase trade elsewhere if you don't want to end up too poor.
If you step back from all the culture war stuff and think, "how do the US allies win the war against the Russia/China axis", I think you want to maximize trade within the EU, and strengthen EU defence which is more easily done with the UK inside. So I think the way rejoin happens is that people in the west really feel like they're in an existential conflict and the Americans say, "I think you guys should go back into the EU". In circumstances like these it wouldn't necessarily need a referendum.
The EU had no intention of offering any benefits without commtting totally to the political dimension. "No cherry-picking," they called it, as did many of the Remainers. That will come back to haunt them, as it is starting to do so now.
*sigh*. We left the EU. We did not need to leave the EEA. The EU is not the EEA. You can be a member of the EEA and not be a member of the EU.
The reason we had to leave all is because of hard Brexit wazzocks. We will now crawl back because the economic "rationale" of 3rd country status has completely collapsed.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
Interesting paper on what next for defence in light of recent events:
I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.
The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
While I am sympathetic to your argument, rcs1000, I think this claim depends how old you and Heathener are! A week is a long time in politics, and, say, 40 years is an eternity. I wouldn’t be making predictions that far out.
That’s within some PBers’ lifetimes.
Was it Arthur C Clarke who said something along the lines that everyone vastly overestimates the change that will happen in five years and vastly underestimates that which happens in fifty years?
Why is it implausible that the EU will set up some sort of outer fringe relationship? They may not want to say they well, but the EU already has a range of outer fringe relationships, with the non-EU EEA members and what is effectively a bespoke arrangement for Switzerland.
I don't think it's impossible but the EU has been there before with the Inner Six/Outer Seven structure of the 60s and 70s. As economic winter started to bite the Outer Seven wanted to be closer to the campfire and were drawn into the inner circle.
Rather than returning us to the outer circle Boris Johnson unilaterally took us into the midst of the campfire. There is no return from such folly.
On behalf of the EU, I have no desire to see us return. We were like members of a golf club, who vandalised all the lockers at every visit.
Advantageous trading terms and freedom of movement would nonetheless be desirable.
Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.
The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.
It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.
It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.
It's implausible that the UK rejoins.
But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
Why is it implausible that the EU will set up some sort of outer fringe relationship? They may not want to say they well, but the EU already has a range of outer fringe relationships, with the non-EU EEA members and what is effectively a bespoke arrangement for Switzerland.
And the UK rejected those options in 2016-9, because they all involve a loss of control by the UK.
So. What is the arrangement that suits the UK that isn't pure cakeism?
We’re not talking about the cakeism of 2016-9, but about a changed political climate in the UK today that now sees Leave as a mistake.
I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.
The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
While I am sympathetic to your argument, rcs1000, I think this claim depends how old you and Heathener are! A week is a long time in politics, and, say, 40 years is an eternity. I wouldn’t be making predictions that far out.
That’s within some PBers’ lifetimes.
Was it Arthur C Clarke who said something along the lines that everyone vastly overestimates the change that will happen in five years and vastly underestimates that which happens in fifty years?
It's probably yet another indicator of extreme psychopathy on my part, but I'm not really fussed by all the death and stuff in Threads. Too busy being appalled at the thought I was an adult in a world where cars and telephones and clothes and haircuts looked like that.
We need them more than they need us but I think they need us enough to come to a special arrangement. We are a G7 economy, we do have multiple areas of excellence and expertise, we are a major global financial hub and we do have a relatively large, affluent population. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of all that if you could when it’s on your doorstep?
The stumbling block to any serious discussion of this - let alone progress - is the maximalist, sovereignty first, ideology that pervades the current government.
There’s no chance of joining the EEA because that means a pooling of sovereignty in some areas and the non-supremacy of UK-created law. No Tory could suggest that and hope to be a government minister, even less a member of the Cabinet or PM. It’s one reason, among many, why the Tories need a period in opposition. They need that time to think more seriously about Brexit and how to make it work.
But it seems many of Scotland’s MSPs know better than Sinead. They also know better than Dr Hilary Cass, whose interim review into gender identity services in England led to the closure of the Tavistock clinic, which provided the same services as Sandyford.
The know better than NHS England who this week issued guidance warning medics that most children identifying as transgender are going through a “transient phase”. And they think they know better than those desperate parents looking for moral and practical support, only to be told they are bigots.
You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
UFOs is my favourite of his.
Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.
Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.
But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.
He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.
I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
Some here used to claim that Heathener was a Russian troll, now you're wondering if he's Sean in disguise. Is this progress?
Personally I think Sean is simply an intelligent and fluent writer who enjoys winding people up and sometimes goes OTT. I doubt if he seriously believes half of what he writes. As long as one doesn't get drawn in he's usually quite fun, part of PB's diverse landscape.
I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.
The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
While I am sympathetic to your argument, rcs1000, I think this claim depends how old you and Heathener are! A week is a long time in politics, and, say, 40 years is an eternity. I wouldn’t be making predictions that far out.
That’s within some PBers’ lifetimes.
Was it Arthur C Clarke who said something along the lines that everyone vastly overestimates the change that will happen in five years and vastly underestimates that which happens in fifty years?
I thought it was people overestimate the change that will happen in 1 year and underestimate that which will happen in 5 years. Maybe things have speeded up since Clarke…
"in a little over a decade the Tory party went from being pro Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage"
I feel it necessary to point out that most Conservatives voted against equal marriage. And the government that introduced it was a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.
People give the Tories way too much credit for equal marriage. Cameron deserves kudos, but the party was (is?) largely bigoted.
In my once-safe Tory Cotswold constituency, same-sex marriage - together with Cameron's reaction to climate change and Tory friendliness to overseas aid - did far more to promote UKIP among formerly loyal Tories in 2012-2015 than any dissatisfaction with the EU. Since Cameron was our MP at the time, reaction among our hardcore Tory neighbours to these other socially liberal shifts in official Tory policy partially explain the Tories' terrified response to the 2014 surge in UKIP.
And still explain the collapse in Tory activism that's turned this part of the Tory heartland into a Lib Dem-led local authority.
If you think that was a collapse wait till you see the effect of the abrogation of their democratic birth right to vote in a Penny Sunak standoff.
I try to be fair, but I do just think it is professionally dubious to write a glowing column about the PM in the Comment pages of the Times without mentioning he’s your best friend and was best man at your wedding.
Depends if this is a one-off or regular column. I'd be surprised if any readers of Forsyth's Spectator column are blissfully ignorant. I know, and I don't read either publication. They must have mentioned it on Spectator TV on Youtube. Forsyth is married to Allegra Stratton who was media spox for Boris for about a week, as well as being Rishi's BFF.
Maybe the Times should print it each week but it would probably come across as boasting.
Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.
The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.
It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.
It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.
It's implausible that the UK rejoins.
But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
Why is it implausible that the EU will set up some sort of outer fringe relationship? They may not want to say they well, but the EU already has a range of outer fringe relationships, with the non-EU EEA members and what is effectively a bespoke arrangement for Switzerland.
And the UK rejected those options in 2016-9, because they all involve a loss of control by the UK.
So. What is the arrangement that suits the UK that isn't pure cakeism?
We’re not talking about the cakeism of 2016-9, but about a changed political climate in the UK today that now sees Leave as a mistake.
Fundamentally we need to fix our trading relationship, for all of the reasons mentioned so far. The case for not doing so is lots of theoretical waffle - sovrinty, vassalism etc. Or we bin all that and start trading freely again.
Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.
The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.
It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.
It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.
It's implausible that the UK rejoins.
But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
Why is it implausible that the EU will set up some sort of outer fringe relationship? They may not want to say they well, but the EU already has a range of outer fringe relationships, with the non-EU EEA members and what is effectively a bespoke arrangement for Switzerland.
It is actually happening fronted by Macron and they have had their first meeting which Truss attended
The next meeting is to be held in London and the outer countries include not just UK, but also Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and others
You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
UFOs is my favourite of his.
Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.
Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.
But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.
He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.
I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
Some here used to claim that Heathener was a Russian troll, now you're wondering if he's Sean in disguise. Is this progress?
Personally I think Sean is simply an intelligent and fluent writer who enjoys winding people up and sometimes goes OTT. I doubt if he seriously believes half of what he writes. As long as one doesn't get drawn in he's usually quite fun, part of PB's diverse landscape.
PB was more fun the other day when he was busy on some foreign trip and conversation here wasn’t constantly derailed by far right talking points and conspiracy theories.
The non-EU political organisation (I forget the name) is an interesting concept, and to be cautiously welcomed.
Tough line to walk, though. Has to do enough to be of value without just being dominated by EU members and hence an expansion, effectively, of EU power.
You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
UFOs is my favourite of his.
Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.
Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.
But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.
He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.
I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
Some here used to claim that Heathener was a Russian troll, now you're wondering if he's Sean in disguise. Is this progress?
Personally I think Sean is simply an intelligent and fluent writer who enjoys winding people up and sometimes goes OTT. I doubt if he seriously believes half of what he writes. As long as one doesn't get drawn in he's usually quite fun, part of PB's diverse landscape.
"in a little over a decade the Tory party went from being pro Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage"
I feel it necessary to point out that most Conservatives voted against equal marriage. And the government that introduced it was a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.
People give the Tories way too much credit for equal marriage. Cameron deserves kudos, but the party was (is?) largely bigoted.
In my once-safe Tory Cotswold constituency, same-sex marriage - together with Cameron's reaction to climate change and Tory friendliness to overseas aid - did far more to promote UKIP among formerly loyal Tories in 2012-2015 than any dissatisfaction with the EU. Since Cameron was our MP at the time, reaction among our hardcore Tory neighbours to these other socially liberal shifts in official Tory policy partially explain the Tories' terrified response to the 2014 surge in UKIP.
And still explain the collapse in Tory activism that's turned this part of the Tory heartland into a Lib Dem-led local authority.
Interestingly, the Conservative votes and vote share in the Witney constituency increased from 2010 to 2015. Let's look at the council, though, since that's what you're talking about...
Oh, the number of Conservative councillors increased after equal marriage, and only fell off a cliff after... 2016. Jeez, I wonder if something else is at play. Something that happened in 2016. Hmmm
Not sure who is arguing with whom at this stage but the frankness of the agenda ascribed in flanner's post to cotswold Tories - screw the poofs, the planet and poor foreigners - is remarkable.
Do you trust politicians? Many people do not unless they see good evidence for why they should. And they may be correct. After 25 years of denying it was a political grouping first and foremost, they came round to saying it was always so, and we should have read the small print.
We have good relations with many of the countries - I went to European meetings (on the scientific side), and it was always cordial. But politics was always in the background. And it always will be.
Many smaller countries are happy with the economics benefits. Ireland is a good example. It is a worthy project, but there's no denying the political aspect looms large. Eventually, they'll come clean and become a united state. It makes a lot of sense once the degrees of nationalism are removed. But that's the difficulty. That pesky democracy.
Softly, softly, catchee monkey. Even if it means misleading people a little. Even if the aim is worthy?
I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.
The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
While I am sympathetic to your argument, rcs1000, I think this claim depends how old you and Heathener are! A week is a long time in politics, and, say, 40 years is an eternity. I wouldn’t be making predictions that far out.
Do you trust politicians? Many people do not unless they see good evidence for why they should. And they may be correct. After 25 years of denying it was a political grouping first and foremost, they came round to saying it was always so, and we should have read the small print.
We have good relations with many of the countries - I went to European meetings (on the scientific side), and it was always cordial. But politics was always in the background. And it always will be.
Many smaller countries are happy with the economics benefits. Ireland is a good example. It is a worthy project, but there's no denying the political aspect looms large. Eventually, they'll come clean and become a united state. It makes a lot of sense once the degrees of nationalism are removed. But that's the difficulty. That pesky democracy.
Softly, softly, catchee monkey. Even if it means misleading people a little. Even if the aim is worthy?
That's ultimately what it boils down to and why it's not a realistic option for us.
Do you trust politicians? Many people do not unless they see good evidence for why they should. And they may be correct. After 25 years of denying it was a political grouping first and foremost, they came round to saying it was always so, and we should have read the small print.
We have good relations with many of the countries - I went to European meetings (on the scientific side), and it was always cordial. But politics was always in the background. And it always will be.
Many smaller countries are happy with the economics benefits. Ireland is a good example. It is a worthy project, but there's no denying the political aspect looms large. Eventually, they'll come clean and become a united state. It makes a lot of sense once the degrees of nationalism are removed. But that's the difficulty. That pesky democracy.
Softly, softly, catchee monkey. Even if it means misleading people a little. Even if the aim is worthy?
You are - once again - talking about the EU. I am not. The EEA is not the EU. We do not need to join a "become a united state" project to freely trade with it as Norway and Iceland do. We do not need to accept the "political aspect" to remove our self-imposed self-harming trade barriers.
Rcs on Musk: “I wish him well, and I'm sure he'll do a better job than the previous owners, but I suspect it will never pay back the $44bn.”
I suspect this comment is going to look quite amusing in a few years. Musk was drawing up plans for the “everything app” way back in his PayPal days and before Wechat even existed. He bought the x.com brand years ago and has had it sat there doing nothing ever since. Waiting for something.
The market timing of his acquisition was poor certainly. But I reckon he’s got to the place where a lot of the heavy lifting from him at Tesla is done, it’s on a self sustaining path now to fast expanding cashflow growth. SpaceX still has hurdles to cross to be sure with Starship but the satellite business is close to reaching sufficient scale to take the company’s valuation to another next level, which should mean the financial means for it to act as the bus to Mars are secure, even if there are crinkles to iron out on what to do upon arrival!
So he’s decided to spend more time on the thing he gave most headspace to early in his career, before he was eased out of PayPal.
Well, we'll see.
But here's why I am sceptical:
(1) There is (effectively) no Apple in China. Everyone is on Android, and there's no dominant handset software provider. You can do the "Everything App" in China, because there's no handset lockin. To do it in the West, the "everything app" has to fit around Apple's plans. And Apple are bastards.
(2) Inertia is a powerful thing. And real innovation tends to come from smaller companies. Yes, people will go to Twitter (or pb.com) because that's what they've always done. But something new and killer... well if I had a killer app idea, I'd quit and launch it myself. Musk may have that killer app idea... but he also may not.
(3) There's no cashflow to milk at Twitter. And the cost of maintaining the platform is non-trivial. Sure - as I said - I reckon he'll do better than previous owners. But to make the $5bn/year post tax necessary to ultimately justify the price, he needs to probably triple sales, while holding costs flat. In a business which is losing, not gaining, relevance.
(4) Musk himself. Not only is he becoming increasingly Marmite; he might find himself in regulatory difficulties, particularly in Europe.
Tesla feels less and less like an aspirational brand and more like a signal to the world that you're a Musk simp.
Rcs on Musk: “I wish him well, and I'm sure he'll do a better job than the previous owners, but I suspect it will never pay back the $44bn.”
I suspect this comment is going to look quite amusing in a few years. Musk was drawing up plans for the “everything app” way back in his PayPal days and before Wechat even existed. He bought the x.com brand years ago and has had it sat there doing nothing ever since. Waiting for something.
The market timing of his acquisition was poor certainly. But I reckon he’s got to the place where a lot of the heavy lifting from him at Tesla is done, it’s on a self sustaining path now to fast expanding cashflow growth. SpaceX still has hurdles to cross to be sure with Starship but the satellite business is close to reaching sufficient scale to take the company’s valuation to another next level, which should mean the financial means for it to act as the bus to Mars are secure, even if there are crinkles to iron out on what to do upon arrival!
So he’s decided to spend more time on the thing he gave most headspace to early in his career, before he was eased out of PayPal.
Well, we'll see.
But here's why I am sceptical:
(1) There is (effectively) no Apple in China. Everyone is on Android, and there's no dominant handset software provider. You can do the "Everything App" in China, because there's no handset lockin. To do it in the West, the "everything app" has to fit around Apple's plans. And Apple are bastards.
(2) Inertia is a powerful thing. And real innovation tends to come from smaller companies. Yes, people will go to Twitter (or pb.com) because that's what they've always done. But something new and killer... well if I had a killer app idea, I'd quit and launch it myself. Musk may have that killer app idea... but he also may not.
(3) There's no cashflow to milk at Twitter. And the cost of maintaining the platform is non-trivial. Sure - as I said - I reckon he'll do better than previous owners. But to make the $5bn/year post tax necessary to ultimately justify the price, he needs to probably triple sales, while holding costs flat. In a business which is losing, not gaining, relevance.
(4) Musk himself. Not only is he becoming increasingly Marmite; he might find himself in regulatory difficulties, particularly in Europe.
Tesla feels less and less like an aspirational brand and more like a signal to the world that you're a Musk simp.
Naah. It remains *the* benchmark for EVs and the sales figures back this up.
Do you trust politicians? Many people do not unless they see good evidence for why they should. And they may be correct. After 25 years of denying it was a political grouping first and foremost, they came round to saying it was always so, and we should have read the small print.
We have good relations with many of the countries - I went to European meetings (on the scientific side), and it was always cordial. But politics was always in the background. And it always will be.
Many smaller countries are happy with the economics benefits. Ireland is a good example. It is a worthy project, but there's no denying the political aspect looms large. Eventually, they'll come clean and become a united state. It makes a lot of sense once the degrees of nationalism are removed. But that's the difficulty. That pesky democracy.
Softly, softly, catchee monkey. Even if it means misleading people a little. Even if the aim is worthy?
That's ultimately what it boils down to and why it's not a realistic option for us.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
The transition of Brexiteers from 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos it'll be great' to 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos iwe've fcuked it up so badly that the EU wouldn't touch us with a shitty stick' is a remarkable thing.
The saddest thing is that I don’t even think they realise that they’re doing it themselves.
Rcs on Musk: “I wish him well, and I'm sure he'll do a better job than the previous owners, but I suspect it will never pay back the $44bn.”
I suspect this comment is going to look quite amusing in a few years. Musk was drawing up plans for the “everything app” way back in his PayPal days and before Wechat even existed. He bought the x.com brand years ago and has had it sat there doing nothing ever since. Waiting for something.
The market timing of his acquisition was poor certainly. But I reckon he’s got to the place where a lot of the heavy lifting from him at Tesla is done, it’s on a self sustaining path now to fast expanding cashflow growth. SpaceX still has hurdles to cross to be sure with Starship but the satellite business is close to reaching sufficient scale to take the company’s valuation to another next level, which should mean the financial means for it to act as the bus to Mars are secure, even if there are crinkles to iron out on what to do upon arrival!
So he’s decided to spend more time on the thing he gave most headspace to early in his career, before he was eased out of PayPal.
Well, we'll see.
But here's why I am sceptical:
(1) There is (effectively) no Apple in China. Everyone is on Android, and there's no dominant handset software provider. You can do the "Everything App" in China, because there's no handset lockin. To do it in the West, the "everything app" has to fit around Apple's plans. And Apple are bastards.
(2) Inertia is a powerful thing. And real innovation tends to come from smaller companies. Yes, people will go to Twitter (or pb.com) because that's what they've always done. But something new and killer... well if I had a killer app idea, I'd quit and launch it myself. Musk may have that killer app idea... but he also may not.
(3) There's no cashflow to milk at Twitter. And the cost of maintaining the platform is non-trivial. Sure - as I said - I reckon he'll do better than previous owners. But to make the $5bn/year post tax necessary to ultimately justify the price, he needs to probably triple sales, while holding costs flat. In a business which is losing, not gaining, relevance.
(4) Musk himself. Not only is he becoming increasingly Marmite; he might find himself in regulatory difficulties, particularly in Europe.
Tesla feels less and less like an aspirational brand and more like a signal to the world that you're a Musk simp.
Naah. It remains *the* benchmark for EVs and the sales figures back this up.
The drivetrain technology and charging network are still ahead of everybody else... just...
The 'Tesla' brand is still definitely very valuable but their product lifecycles are too slow, probably because they don't have decades of experience in the car business, and the Tier 1 OEMs like VAG, Stellantis and recent BEV converts Toyota are catching them.
Do you trust politicians? Many people do not unless they see good evidence for why they should. And they may be correct. After 25 years of denying it was a political grouping first and foremost, they came round to saying it was always so, and we should have read the small print.
We have good relations with many of the countries - I went to European meetings (on the scientific side), and it was always cordial. But politics was always in the background. And it always will be.
Many smaller countries are happy with the economics benefits. Ireland is a good example. It is a worthy project, but there's no denying the political aspect looms large. Eventually, they'll come clean and become a united state. It makes a lot of sense once the degrees of nationalism are removed. But that's the difficulty. That pesky democracy.
Softly, softly, catchee monkey. Even if it means misleading people a little. Even if the aim is worthy?
But it has always been crystal clear that it’s a political entity, seeking ever closer union. It’s in the founding charter.
I posted ages ago a link to a Twitter thread that some diligent soul had compiled that proved this was debated endlessly when we voted to go in, reams of links to newspaper articles and clips of TV debates that prove the concept of ever closer political union was explicitly, repeatedly discussed. It’s not something that has been sneaked in by the back door by those treacherous continentals.
The thing that depresses me most about some (although far from all leavers) is the constant claim that Brexit is done and give credit to Boris for doing so. We have left but Brexit isn't done. Just look at NI for proof of that. This even goes to the extent that @Driver (sp) repeatedly uses the fact that he doesn't have an MEP that Brexit is done. Honestly what did they think being in the EU was? Just MEPs and Burgundy passports or maybe a little more.
Hopefully going forward we tidy up the mess and that doesn't mean rejoining but getting Brexit done properly.
You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
UFOs is my favourite of his.
Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.
Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.
But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.
He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.
I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
I genuinely don’t think he’s good enough to pull it off. Some PB’ers will remember Byronic, the first regeneration of the original account, who when it first appeared claimed to be a Remain voter living in Richmond. That cover story lasted only a handful of messages before it was quite obvious both the style and political opinions were as before.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
The transition of Brexiteers from 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos it'll be great' to 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos iwe've fcuked it up so badly that the EU wouldn't touch us with a shitty stick' is a remarkable thing.
The saddest thing is that I don’t even think they realise that they’re doing it themselves.
Nationalists whose arguments are exposed as total BS very often don't. And it can be quite tragic to watch...
We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):
Lab 51.4% (-1.6) Con 24.3% (+2.9) LD 8.9% (-0.7) Ref 5.2% (+1.2) SNP 4.4% (+0.4) Grn 4.3% (+0.2)
In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.
How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.
they should have picked Boris
I agree, in terms of what it would’ve done for Con VI, however not in terms of its effect on public life.
My guesstimate is that we’d’ve seen a 10 point rise straight away, with the Tories maybe reaching a peak about the mid 30s. Sunak’s floor is lower, but if he does an exceptionally good job, I think his ceiling is higher that The Oaf’s.
The thing that depresses me most about some (although far from all leavers) is the constant claim that Brexit is done and give credit to Boris for doing so. We have left but Brexit isn't done. Just look at NI for proof of that. This even goes to the extent that @Driver (sp) repeatedly uses the fact that he doesn't have an MEP that Brexit is done. Honestly what did they think being in the EU was? Just MEPs and Burgundy passports or maybe a little more.
Hopefully going forward we tidy up the mess and that doesn't mean rejoining but getting Brexit done properly.
I think this is just Brexit meaning different things to different people. To mean Brexit IS done, because we have formally left the EU, no longer pay money in, no longer have the benefits of membership and no longer have an open work market for every member of an EU state. So for me Brexit is done. Of course the end state is still a work in progress, but it ALWAYS will be. We have have a relationship with Europe since the Stone Age. Different governments at different times will be closer to or further away from the EU. We may end up in the EEA, or even ultimately rejoin. Or the EU may collapse, or shrink. Difficult to say.
As an example when was WW2 over? VJ Day? Or when rationing stopped in the U.K? Or when we finally stopped paying off our war debts? Do you see the parallel?
Those who want us to join the single market still have to address the fact that it was economically catastrophic for us, not because there is anything wrong with either the concept or the theory of the SM but because of the policies that we elected in this country. If we return we would need to cut consumption sharply, increase our savings and investment ratios, think hard about how to encourage import substitution and work out how we are going to pay our way in the world. This means higher interest rates, higher taxes on consumption and a lower standard of living for the majority.
Many of those necessary steps are of course good things and things we should be working on in or out but a return means our politicos need to divert their eyes from the successes of the City and work how the rest of the country remains competitive. Repeating our previous mistakes without addressing these problems would have the same disastrous consequences.
There probably isn't a bigger Europhile on this Site than me and I have zero interest in rejoining
Then you aren't the biggest Europhile on this site, because there is at least one rejoiner in your midst.
Non-sequitur?
No; a Europhile, the way that I understand it, is someone who wants their country to be a part of the EU. Perhaps you mean something different, but in my understanding you really have to be in favour of membership to be the biggest Europhile around.
I'm with Peter.
I was desperate for a best of three EURef, but once that ferry had sailed out of Dover Harbour I realised the game was up. We are where we are.
Let's be clear, if Labour and the Lib Dems could wave a magic wand which would mean we'd be in the EU without any electoral consequences for them, well they'd wave that magic wand. They'd definitely go back in if they could. So, what's stopping them? Well in Labour's case, they fear it would be difficult to sell freedom of movement in the Red Wall and they would lose power as a result if they were in government. So, for us to rejoin the EEA (let alone the EU itself) that means either: -A deal would need to be done with the EU over migration. Maybe, just maybe if the EU have learned their lesson, they might give a Starmer government a concession involving an 'emergency brake' (like Cameron initially wanted) -The electorate in the Red Wall and in traditional marginal seats in the Midlands becomes less concerned with immigration from the continent
I admit I'm bored with the arguments for closer union. What stared off as "The Common Market" is now the "European Union" and will eventually come one country.
The only argument is will we have a vote in that decision? And will we be in it?
You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
UFOs is my favourite of his.
Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.
Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.
But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.
He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.
I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):
Lab 51.4% (-1.6) Con 24.3% (+2.9) LD 8.9% (-0.7) Ref 5.2% (+1.2) SNP 4.4% (+0.4) Grn 4.3% (+0.2)
In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.
How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.
they should have picked Boris
I agree, in terms of what it would’ve done for Con VI, however not in terms of its effect on public life.
My guesstimate is that we’d’ve seen a 10 point rise straight away, with the Tories maybe reaching a peak about the mid 30s. Sunak’s floor is lower, but if he does an exceptionally good job, I think his ceiling is higher that The Oaf’s.
One of last nights by-elections saw a significant decrease in the Tory vote; the other one didn’t. So far the national polls are way ahead of actual votes in terms of seeing the Tory vote disappear.
I would be in favour of re-joining the EU (since I was a Remain voter) if there was a way of doing it without insulting the 17.4 million people who voted Leave. But there isn't.
Do you trust politicians? Many people do not unless they see good evidence for why they should. And they may be correct. After 25 years of denying it was a political grouping first and foremost, they came round to saying it was always so, and we should have read the small print.
We have good relations with many of the countries - I went to European meetings (on the scientific side), and it was always cordial. But politics was always in the background. And it always will be.
Many smaller countries are happy with the economics benefits. Ireland is a good example. It is a worthy project, but there's no denying the political aspect looms large. Eventually, they'll come clean and become a united state. It makes a lot of sense once the degrees of nationalism are removed. But that's the difficulty. That pesky democracy.
Softly, softly, catchee monkey. Even if it means misleading people a little. Even if the aim is worthy?
That's ultimately what it boils down to and why it's not a realistic option for us.
Why is it a realistic option for all those other European countries then? Do they misunderstand it? Have they not yet seen the light?
Or is *our* sovereignty of a stronger hue than theirs, more precious, such that it cannot be pooled to the same extent?
Robert Peston @Peston · 21m My colleague Amber de Botton is leaving ITV to be @RishiSunak ’s director of communications. She is a brilliant news editor and journalist, and leaves a huge hole at @itvnews
Robert Peston @Peston · 21m My colleague Amber de Botton is leaving ITV to be @RishiSunak ’s director of communications. She is a brilliant news editor and journalist, and leaves a huge hole at @itvnews
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I would be in favour of re-joining the EU (since I was a Remain voter) if there was a way of doing it without insulting the 17.4 million people who voted Leave. But there isn't.
If we rejoined we could *stop* insulting Leave voters. It'd be one of the benefits.
I admit I'm bored with the arguments for closer union. What stared off as "The Common Market" is now the "European Union" and will eventually come one country.
The only argument is will we have a vote in that decision? And will we be in it?
But “one country” without definition is potentially perjorative, since it conjures up the concept of somewhere heavily centralised like the USSR (or England!). Within the US the states have cultural and political identities of their own, including lots of rivalries, their own tax policies, state laws, etc, yet the US is one country which had to go some to override an American identity - achieved mostly through films, music and television - on top of the intensely regional identities of much of its history.
Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.
Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.
But we aren't rejoining the EU.
You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.
If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.
The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.
Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
And isn’t the point not that there is anything economically dynamic intrinsic to the EU, but that the huge single market and absence of trade barriers is a big leg up for those members, or those parts of the economy, that are (or wish to become) economically dynamic? Currently we’ve hobbled a huge number of import/export businesses large and small - with anecdotes of bankruptcies or firms simply giving up parts of their business - as well as sending a chunk of our workforce home, and devalued both our currency and world standing - yet have precisely nothing to show for the pain being endured.
A big part of the attraction of liberal democracies is that we do our best to let go-getting personalities go get. If people want to take risks and create wealth, then feel free, as long as you don’t hurt other people.
Brexit took a huge sledgehammer and whacked those people on the head. And the astonishing thing was that it wasn’t a socialist or green government which did it, but a supposedly pro-business one. It reminds me a little of the Tory abolition of the counties in the 1970s. Cherished and valued entities going back to the Middle Ages, perhaps further, and yet utterly vandalised by a “conservative” government. But Brexit is vandalism on steroids, on an epic scale.
I would be in favour of re-joining the EU (since I was a Remain voter) if there was a way of doing it without insulting the 17.4 million people who voted Leave. But there isn't.
The 81,000 Truss-voting Tory members didn’t get such consideration!
We aren't joining the Euro. Therefore it's very hard to see the UK rejoining the EU in its present form. Beyond that, it's very difficult to predict the future direction of travel.
The EU is an utterly dysfunctional political body that can muddle through only by allowing a small elite to effectively run the show, and is riven with economic tensions that seem to be getting more rather less acute. There are all sorts of possibilities, and they should include scenarios where the EU starts to fragment further with the possibility of the UK joining a loose political association which includes one or more other former EU states, just as much as other possibilities involving rowing back on Brexit to some degree.
you describe teh dysfunctional UK and try to project it as teh EU, incredible and perfectly highlights why England is Fcuked and taking us down wit hit. Led by donkeys right enough and more Billy No Mates than ever.
I would be in favour of re-joining the EU (since I was a Remain voter) if there was a way of doing it without insulting the 17.4 million people who voted Leave. But there isn't.
Just trying to see how this works. If someone voted Leave, then there's a new referendum, and they think leaving was a bad idea so they vote Rejoin, are they insulting themselves?
We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):
Lab 51.4% (-1.6) Con 24.3% (+2.9) LD 8.9% (-0.7) Ref 5.2% (+1.2) SNP 4.4% (+0.4) Grn 4.3% (+0.2)
In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.
How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.
So, Lab and LD have lost 2.3pp between them. The Conservatives have gained 2.9 and Ref+SNP+Green 1.8. So, who lost the other 2.4 for this to balance out?
The Wikipedia table I was using is deficient. Some fields are missing or “TBA” for some parties. I started digging out the tables to fill in the gaps, but gave up (life is too short). So, I suspect that the arithmetical anomaly you’ve noted is due to preposterous Others figures (ranging from 1% to 10%), plus a little rounding effect.
Classic HY to comb through a batch of polling stats that show most people now wanting a pragmatic, closer and positive relationship with the EU, including a good chunk of former leave voters, and pick out the one figure that can be presented to suggest the opposite.
I would be in favour of re-joining the EU (since I was a Remain voter) if there was a way of doing it without insulting the 17.4 million people who voted Leave. But there isn't.
I would be in favour of re-joining the EU (since I was a Remain voter) if there was a way of doing it without insulting the 17.4 million people who voted Leave. But there isn't.
The 81,000 Truss-voting Tory members didn’t get such consideration!
We aren't joining the Euro. Therefore it's very hard to see the UK rejoining the EU in its present form. Beyond that, it's very difficult to predict the future direction of travel.
The EU is an utterly dysfunctional political body that can muddle through only by allowing a small elite to effectively run the show, and is riven with economic tensions that seem to be getting more rather less acute. There are all sorts of possibilities, and they should include scenarios where the EU starts to fragment further with the possibility of the UK joining a loose political association which includes one or more other former EU states, just as much as other possibilities involving rowing back on Brexit to some degree.
you describe teh dysfunctional UK and try to project it as teh EU, incredible and perfectly highlights why England is Fcuked and taking us down wit hit. Led by donkeys right enough and more Billy No Mates than ever.
I value my country's independence. You don't. It's time that you changed the question on the referendum that you want. Leaving the UK in order to rejoin the EU is not voting for independence.
Classic HY to comb through a batch of polling stats that show most people now wanting a pragmatic, closer and positive relationship with the EU, including a good chunk of former leave voters, and pick out the one figure that can be presented to suggest the opposite.
A standard Mini Franco post follows this blueprint.
71% of housewives in East Lancashire and 81% in Hertfordshire expressed an interest in the concept of exotic ice-creams. Only 8% in Hertfordshire and 14% in Lancashire expressed positive hostility, whilst 5% expressed latent hostility. In Hertfordshire, 96% of the 50% who formed 20% of consumer spending were in favour. 0.6% told us where we could put our exotic ice creams.
This was a fun poll that's being quoted by either side to prove whatever they want, because they have exceptionally teensy numbers for both "rejoin" and "brexit as it actually exists". The way they get these numbers is by giving the voters multiple types of unicorn, including the epically vague option of "in a new kind of association with the EU unlike anything we know today".
The thing that depresses me most about some (although far from all leavers) is the constant claim that Brexit is done and give credit to Boris for doing so. We have left but Brexit isn't done. Just look at NI for proof of that. This even goes to the extent that @Driver (sp) repeatedly uses the fact that he doesn't have an MEP that Brexit is done. Honestly what did they think being in the EU was? Just MEPs and Burgundy passports or maybe a little more.
Hopefully going forward we tidy up the mess and that doesn't mean rejoining but getting Brexit done properly.
I think this is just Brexit meaning different things to different people. To mean Brexit IS done, because we have formally left the EU, no longer pay money in, no longer have the benefits of membership and no longer have an open work market for every member of an EU state. So for me Brexit is done. Of course the end state is still a work in progress, but it ALWAYS will be. We have have a relationship with Europe since the Stone Age. Different governments at different times will be closer to or further away from the EU. We may end up in the EEA, or even ultimately rejoin. Or the EU may collapse, or shrink. Difficult to say.
As an example when was WW2 over? VJ Day? Or when rationing stopped in the U.K? Or when we finally stopped paying off our war debts? Do you see the parallel?
Hi @turbtobbs. I would agree with you if it was clearly a misunderstanding over the meaning of words, but when this arises and you get in a discussion it clearly isn't (see Drivers posts). Boris made clear statements about NI and Brexit. He lied. None of it has happened. It's not done.
Also now we have spectacularly binned Singapore on Thames (which although I disagreed with was a logical direction) what on earth is the point of Brexit (as we have negotiated it) from an economic stand point. We have gone back to where were but with a whole lot more barriers to trade.
PS Yes there will always be tidying up, but this isn't just tidying up.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
The Polish Army is on an upwards trajectory. Perhaps a limited expeditionary capability, but I think it's plausible that the two strongest land armies in Europe by 2030 will be Poland's and Ukraine's. This may be more of a crisis of identity for the French than for us, but imagine the effect it might have on US foreign policy priorities.
It's notable that, although we've been enthusiastic supporters of Ukraine, Britain hasn't had all that much decent kit to contribute. Where we've done best seems to be in stumping up cash to help get hold of odds and ends from elsewhere.
You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
UFOs is my favourite of his.
Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.
Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
He was on here as early as that? I think I joined in 2010 or thereabouts.
Yes. I turned up in the first few days. I may actually be the longest-serving PBer, unless some posted on the inaugural posts and are still about and posting?
I’m pretty sure that Sean turned up within the first six months. Knowing his penchant for pseudonyms he may well have been around from the beginning too.
(1) We are not rejoining (2) We are not rejoining (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future (3a) We are not rejoining
It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.
So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.
Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
I think I'm one of the most robust posters on here in consistently arguing for higher defence spending.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
In terms of land Army the Poles are seriously upping their game.
I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.
The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.
It's perfectly plausible.
I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.
Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.
Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:
Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.
Your call.
Ha! So now your 'never in our lifetimes' has shrunk to 9 years and to 'Full Fat Membership.'
That's a massive moving of the goalposts.
I said that: 'If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.'
I'd go back to your original assertion, endlessly repeated, that it will never happen, then qualified by 'never happen in our lifetimes'.
I think you're missing the mood on this Robert. Not just anecdotally either. Polling.
So, that’s just a long winded way of saying no to Robert’s bet.
Alternatively, RCS1000 going from 0% chance in our lifetimes, to 10-1 in 10 years is either offering odds so miserly it would make the greediest bookie blush, or he's effectively admitting his other categorical statements were wrong. Only an idiot would take that bet.
What about 1000-1 on Britain becoming a full member by 2040?
He can hardly offer a bit fifty years hence.
Heathener is being disingenuous.,she should take the bet.
I would be in favour of re-joining the EU (since I was a Remain voter) if there was a way of doing it without insulting the 17.4 million people who voted Leave. But there isn't.
Why on earth would the EU allow us back in? It would be like, having got rid of the bullying and antisocial neighbours from your last house party, and cleaned up the mess, inviting them to your next party.
We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):
Lab 51.4% (-1.6) Con 24.3% (+2.9) LD 8.9% (-0.7) Ref 5.2% (+1.2) SNP 4.4% (+0.4) Grn 4.3% (+0.2)
In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.
How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.
they should have picked Boris
I agree, in terms of what it would’ve done for Con VI, however not in terms of its effect on public life.
My guesstimate is that we’d’ve seen a 10 point rise straight away, with the Tories maybe reaching a peak about the mid 30s. Sunak’s floor is lower, but if he does an exceptionally good job, I think his ceiling is higher that The Oaf’s.
One of last nights by-elections saw a significant decrease in the Tory vote; the other one didn’t. So far the national polls are way ahead of actual votes in terms of seeing the Tory vote disappear.
Much of the membership adored The Oaf. I wonder if that by-election where they did particularly poorly had lot of Boris-lovers in the local activist base, and they simply sat on their hands in a huff?
We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):
Lab 51.4% (-1.6) Con 24.3% (+2.9) LD 8.9% (-0.7) Ref 5.2% (+1.2) SNP 4.4% (+0.4) Grn 4.3% (+0.2)
In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.
How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.
Surely if this doesn't work, they *might* have the brains to realise that changing leader again isn't the best option.
All the polling suggests that Sunak isn't anything like as unpopular as the party, so if he can't drag them up, who can? Considering that another leadership election is likely to add to the overall negative opinion of the Conservative party, you'd need someone with god-like abilities.
Clearly the only person able to absolutely shake things up is Johnson, and all the polling suggests he doesn't have that magic anymore.
I can see reluctant acceptance, and maybe a little hope that a random event close to the election will change fortunes.
But it seems many of Scotland’s MSPs know better than Sinead. They also know better than Dr Hilary Cass, whose interim review into gender identity services in England led to the closure of the Tavistock clinic, which provided the same services as Sandyford.
The know better than NHS England who this week issued guidance warning medics that most children identifying as transgender are going through a “transient phase”. And they think they know better than those desperate parents looking for moral and practical support, only to be told they are bigots.
I'm reminded of the "won't someone think of the children" copy from the tabloids when trying to defend Section 28. Happy days.
Meanwhile, on the substance, you reject both the interim Cass review and the proposed NHS England guidelines, and are totally fine for Sandyford to “carry on castrating” on the basis of very limited supporting evidence, as their own clinicians admit?
Comments
After they had spent several hours on their essentially pointless and depressing pastime Mrs DA served them tea and biscuits. They are obviously not used to any gesture of hospitality as they received this as if she'd offered them the location of the Gold of Tolosa.
Unprompted, they started discussing Brexit over Yorkshire Tea and Mrs DA's homemade Jaffa Cakes. The staunchest defence the leaver of the pair (the Lance) could offer was that, "At least it hasn't made things much worse."
That's a fairly thin prospectus for the continuing viability and popular legitimacy of the project.
A future campaign to rejoin might do the same thing. As a precondition you will need a I insurgent group of people prepared to be as single minded and as opportunistic as the eurosceptics. There doesn’t seem to be that at the moment, nor any sign of that on the horizon.
Therefore if we ever were to rejoin, it will be done in another way. My hunch it will be done incrementally, by the slow hand of the conservative establishment. This process appears to be starting.
But, there are only two really serious defence players in Europe: us and the French.
You should copyright it.
There is also a difference between spending public money on your party donors and your future employer, and actuially spending it on working kit with half-adequate staffing.
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap."
That has always been the issue. And something the EU leaders showed was non-negotiable, As far as they were concerned, the politics was the total reason for them existing. That's why Hungary is a problem, and Italy might become one. The battle between Germany and France is a natural side-show.
We aint returning, not unless we become political nerds. The EU was always a nice excuse for any political failures when we were in it, and being outside remains a nice excuse for any failures now. It's all very childish, but it makes us act like children.
That's why Remain concentrated on insulting their political opponents, and Leave exggerated whenever possible. It remains a school-yard and democracy was the victim. We voted to leave and that's what infuriated Remain. How dare they? Don't they realise we know better?
"The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap." No chance. Until that circle is squared, we'll remain outside.
Easy
EEA = trade
EEA is different to EU
Why did we leave the EEA?
*When I were a lad, they bought F-4 Phantoms off the shelf to replace the cancelled F.111s that replaced the cancelled TSR.2. However, tyhey didn't learn their lesson, and insisted on putting R-R engines in the Phantoms. The engines were absolutely fine in themselves - but needed bigger intakes in the Phantom, which ISTR caused more drag, and nullified the improved thrust ...
So. What is the arrangement that suits the UK that isn't pure cakeism?
And still explain the collapse in Tory activism that's turned this part of the Tory heartland into a Lib Dem-led local authority.
The EU had no intention of offering any benefits without commtting totally to the political dimension. "No cherry-picking," they called it, as did many of the Remainers. That will come back to haunt them, as it is starting to do so now.
Paradoxically, Johnson's attempt to secure Brexit for the ages by pulling us far from the EU has created forces to pull us back.
The EU is an utterly dysfunctional political body that can muddle through only by allowing a small elite to effectively run the show, and is riven with economic tensions that seem to be getting more rather less acute. There are all sorts of possibilities, and they should include scenarios where the EU starts to fragment further with the possibility of the UK joining a loose political association which includes one or more other former EU states, just as much as other possibilities involving rowing back on Brexit to some degree.
There's now an actual war of Russia vs The West, there's a real risk of China attacking Taiwan, and China has become a huge manufacturing powerhouse that can stand up to the West. The rivalry with Russia one of the main reasons conservatives wanted to join the EU in the first place, and also the reason Thatcher wanted eastern expansion, even though it meant letting low-paid workers in from a place other than the Commonwealth.
The situation with China really does seem like it'll start to put the world into blocs that are trying to avoid depending on each other. The US has just taken fairly radical steps to clobber China's ability to create a semiconductor industry in a way that will affect a lot of other technology. Increasingly it seems like they'll be trying to avoid letting their supply chain get dependent on China. This is hard, because you need to source production elsewhere, and if you lose the ability to trade with China you need to increase trade elsewhere if you don't want to end up too poor.
If you step back from all the culture war stuff and think, "how do the US allies win the war against the Russia/China axis", I think you want to maximize trade within the EU, and strengthen EU defence which is more easily done with the UK inside. So I think the way rejoin happens is that people in the west really feel like they're in an existential conflict and the Americans say, "I think you guys should go back into the EU". In circumstances like these it wouldn't necessarily need a referendum.
The reason we had to leave all is because of hard Brexit wazzocks. We will now crawl back because the economic "rationale" of 3rd country status has completely collapsed.
https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/affording-the-integrated-review/#contents__accordion
On behalf of the EU, I have no desire to see us return. We were like members of a golf club, who vandalised all the lockers at every visit.
Advantageous trading terms and freedom of movement would nonetheless be desirable.
The stumbling block to any serious discussion of this - let alone progress - is the maximalist, sovereignty first, ideology that pervades the current government.
There’s no chance of joining the EEA because that means a pooling of sovereignty in some areas and the non-supremacy of UK-created law. No Tory could suggest that and hope to be a government minister, even less a member of the Cabinet or PM. It’s one reason, among many, why the Tories need a period in opposition. They need that time to think more seriously about Brexit and how to make it work.
The know better than NHS England who this week issued guidance warning medics that most children identifying as transgender are going through a “transient phase”. And they think they know better than those desperate parents looking for moral and practical support, only to be told they are bigots.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/gender-reform-scotland-who-else-will-have-the-courage-to-protect-our-children-in-our-mixed-up-world-susan-dalgety-3897184
Personally I think Sean is simply an intelligent and fluent writer who enjoys winding people up and sometimes goes OTT. I doubt if he seriously believes half of what he writes. As long as one doesn't get drawn in he's usually quite fun, part of PB's diverse landscape.
Maybe the Times should print it each week but it would probably come across as boasting.
The next meeting is to be held in London and the outer countries include not just UK, but also Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and others
Tough line to walk, though. Has to do enough to be of value without just being dominated by EU members and hence an expansion, effectively, of EU power.
I do miss tim, mind. Not sure who is arguing with whom at this stage but the frankness of the agenda ascribed in flanner's post to cotswold Tories - screw the poofs, the planet and poor foreigners - is remarkable.
Do you trust politicians? Many people do not unless they see good evidence for why they should. And they may be correct. After 25 years of denying it was a political grouping first and foremost, they came round to saying it was always so, and we should have read the small print.
We have good relations with many of the countries - I went to European meetings (on the scientific side), and it was always cordial. But politics was always in the background. And it always will be.
Many smaller countries are happy with the economics benefits. Ireland is a good example. It is a worthy project, but
there's no denying the political aspect looms large. Eventually, they'll come clean and become a united state. It makes a lot of sense once the degrees of nationalism are removed. But that's the difficulty. That pesky democracy.
Softly, softly, catchee monkey. Even if it means misleading people a little. Even if the aim is worthy?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-63426412
Next.
The 'Tesla' brand is still definitely very valuable but their product lifecycles are too slow, probably because they don't have decades of experience in the car business, and the Tier 1 OEMs like VAG, Stellantis and recent BEV converts Toyota are catching them.
I posted ages ago a link to a Twitter thread that some diligent soul had compiled that proved this was debated endlessly when we voted to go in, reams of links to newspaper articles and clips of TV debates that prove the concept of ever closer political union was explicitly, repeatedly discussed. It’s not something that has been sneaked in by the back door by those treacherous continentals.
Hopefully going forward we tidy up the mess and that doesn't mean rejoining but getting Brexit done properly.
I genuinely don’t think he’s good enough to pull it off. Some PB’ers will remember Byronic, the first regeneration of the original account, who when it first appeared claimed to be a Remain voter living in Richmond. That cover story lasted only a handful of messages before it was quite obvious both the style and political opinions were as before.
My guesstimate is that we’d’ve seen a 10 point rise straight away, with the Tories maybe reaching a peak about the mid 30s. Sunak’s floor is lower, but if he does an exceptionally good job, I think his ceiling is higher that The Oaf’s.
Of course the end state is still a work in progress, but it ALWAYS will be. We have have a relationship with Europe since the Stone Age. Different governments at different times will be closer to or further away from the EU. We may end up in the EEA, or even ultimately rejoin. Or the EU may collapse, or shrink. Difficult to say.
As an example when was WW2 over? VJ Day? Or when rationing stopped in the U.K? Or when we finally stopped paying off our war debts? Do you see the parallel?
Many of those necessary steps are of course good things and things we should be working on in or out but a return means our politicos need to divert their eyes from the successes of the City and work how the rest of the country remains competitive. Repeating our previous mistakes without addressing these problems would have the same disastrous consequences.
I was desperate for a best of three EURef, but once that ferry had sailed out of Dover Harbour I realised the game was up. We are where we are.
Brexit means Brexit, whatever Brexit means.
So, what's stopping them? Well in Labour's case, they fear it would be difficult to sell freedom of movement in the Red Wall and they would lose power as a result if they were in government. So, for us to rejoin the EEA (let alone the EU itself) that means either:
-A deal would need to be done with the EU over migration. Maybe, just maybe if the EU have learned their lesson, they might give a Starmer government a concession involving an 'emergency brake' (like Cameron initially wanted)
-The electorate in the Red Wall and in traditional marginal seats in the Midlands becomes less concerned with immigration from the continent
The only argument is will we have a vote in that decision? And will we be in it?
Or is *our* sovereignty of a stronger hue than theirs, more precious, such that it cannot be pooled to the same extent?
@Peston
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21m
My colleague Amber de Botton is leaving ITV to be
@RishiSunak
’s director of communications. She is a brilliant news editor and journalist, and leaves a huge hole at
@itvnews
Brexit took a huge sledgehammer and whacked those people on the head. And the astonishing thing was that it wasn’t a socialist or green government which did it, but a supposedly pro-business one. It reminds me a little of the Tory abolition of the counties in the 1970s. Cherished and valued entities going back to the Middle Ages, perhaps further, and yet utterly vandalised by a “conservative” government. But Brexit is vandalism on steroids, on an epic scale.
Just 7% of Conservative voters want to rejoin the full EU with a further 12% wanting to rejoin the single market
https://institute.global/policy/moving-how-british-public-views-brexit-and-what-it-wants-future-relationship-european-union
71% of housewives in East Lancashire and 81% in Hertfordshire expressed an interest in the concept of exotic ice-creams. Only 8% in Hertfordshire and 14% in Lancashire expressed positive hostility, whilst 5% expressed latent hostility. In Hertfordshire, 96% of the 50% who formed 20% of consumer spending were in favour. 0.6% told us where we could put our exotic ice creams.
(genius @Benpointer )
Also now we have spectacularly binned Singapore on Thames (which although I disagreed with was a logical direction) what on earth is the point of Brexit (as we have negotiated it) from an economic stand point. We have gone back to where were but with a whole lot more barriers to trade.
PS Yes there will always be tidying up, but this isn't just tidying up.
It's notable that, although we've been enthusiastic supporters of Ukraine, Britain hasn't had all that much decent kit to contribute. Where we've done best seems to be in stumping up cash to help get hold of odds and ends from elsewhere.
I’m pretty sure that Sean turned up within the first six months. Knowing his penchant for pseudonyms he may well have been around from the beginning too.
Heathener is being disingenuous.,she should take the bet.
A partial compensation for the silly flag, anthem and preening unelected nobodies flitting between Brussels and Strasbourg on the public purse.
All the polling suggests that Sunak isn't anything like as unpopular as the party, so if he can't drag them up, who can? Considering that another leadership election is likely to add to the overall negative opinion of the Conservative party, you'd need someone with god-like abilities.
Clearly the only person able to absolutely shake things up is Johnson, and all the polling suggests he doesn't have that magic anymore.
I can see reluctant acceptance, and maybe a little hope that a random event close to the election will change fortunes.
I really don’t know how we’d cope without Father-land.