I and nobody else is saying Brexit is illegal because there were lies told.
Just wanting Brexiteers to acknowledge there were lies told in the campaign. Remain lied too.
I am comfortable with admitting that - because I want to move on. But Brexiteers it seems cannot and that is why they must lose power and let others take over now. You had your change and you've become a death cult.
William G is not a Brexiteer. I don’t know what he is. He spent much of his time until 2019 as the most hardcore of Remainers.
Otherwise your point is broadly right, This government must go down, because it is built on a tissue of lies. It has been an incredibly damaging period for British public life.
I wasn't saying William was a Brexiteer. I am saying he is calling black white and not agreeing that lies were told.
They plainly were, only a muppet would say otherwise. Remain lied too.
I am sure the Brexit faithful will be able to explain why an ad which said Turkey is joining the EU actually wasn't a lie.
I just checked, Turkey is still not a member of the EU.
Predictions don't really count as lies, though. In 2016 Turkey was going through the process of admission to the EU, so it was true that it was going to join. The only answer I have seen to this point is that the EU was actually lying to Turkey and stringing it along, with no intention of actually admitting it. Not a great Europhile argument. I hate everything about Brexit, but there's enough valid arguments against it without advancing bogus ones.
It's true it had started the admission process.
But not everyone who starts the admissions process ends up a member. (See also, for example, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway - all of whom have applied for EU membership, and none of which are members.)
The difference is that all of them have formally frozen or withdrawn their applications.
Come off it, the difference is that they are white and not (nominally) Muslim.
I and nobody else is saying Brexit is illegal because there were lies told.
Just wanting Brexiteers to acknowledge there were lies told in the campaign. Remain lied too.
I am comfortable with admitting that - because I want to move on. But Brexiteers it seems cannot and that is why they must lose power and let others take over now. You had your change and you've become a death cult.
William G is not a Brexiteer. I don’t know what he is. He spent much of his time until 2019 as the most hardcore of Remainers.
Otherwise your point is broadly right, This government must go down, because it is built on a tissue of lies. It has been an incredibly damaging period for British public life.
I wasn't saying William was a Brexiteer. I am saying he is calling black white and not agreeing that lies were told.
They plainly were, only a muppet would say otherwise. Remain lied too.
I and nobody else is saying Brexit is illegal because there were lies told.
Just wanting Brexiteers to acknowledge there were lies told in the campaign. Remain lied too.
I am comfortable with admitting that - because I want to move on. But Brexiteers it seems cannot and that is why they must lose power and let others take over now. You had your change and you've become a death cult.
William G is not a Brexiteer. I don’t know what he is. He spent much of his time until 2019 as the most hardcore of Remainers.
Otherwise your point is broadly right, This government must go down, because it is built on a tissue of lies. It has been an incredibly damaging period for British public life.
I wasn't saying William was a Brexiteer. I am saying he is calling black white and not agreeing that lies were told.
They plainly were, only a muppet would say otherwise. Remain lied too.
For the record, what were the Remain lies?
There would be an immediate recession on a vote to Leave.
I am sure the Brexit faithful will be able to explain why an ad which said Turkey is joining the EU actually wasn't a lie.
I just checked, Turkey is still not a member of the EU.
Predictions don't really count as lies, though. In 2016 Turkey was going through the process of admission to the EU, so it was true that it was going to join. The only answer I have seen to this point is that the EU was actually lying to Turkey and stringing it along, with no intention of actually admitting it. Not a great Europhile argument. I hate everything about Brexit, but there's enough valid arguments against it without advancing bogus ones.
It's true it had started the admission process.
But not everyone who starts the admissions process ends up a member. (See also, for example, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway - all of whom have applied for EU membership, and none of which are members.)
The difference is that all of them have formally frozen or withdrawn their applications.
As opposed to making no progress on the acquis for a decade?
You can perhaps blame Merkel for the way Turkey became a focus during the referendum campaign:
Germany is ready to help drive forward Turkey’s European Union accession process, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday (18 October 2015), extending support to Ankara in exchange for Turkish help in stemming the flow of refugees to Europe.
“How can we organise the accession process more dynamically?” Merkel asked at a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
“Germany is ready this year to open Chapter 17, and the make preparations for (chapters) 23 and 24. We can talk about the details,” she said.
Merkel said Germany could help accelerate the path to visa-free travel to the EU for Turks and push forward Ankara’s protracted EU membership talks.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
A rejuvenated Johnson might. The newly minted MP for Henley could replace Sunak in a post-election putsch, shelve the enquiry and go on to enjoy the longest premiership of the last hundred years, increasing Sunak's slim majority into a landslide after a couple of years, after getting the credit from Zelensky for a victory over Putin.
I am sure the Brexit faithful will be able to explain why an ad which said Turkey is joining the EU actually wasn't a lie.
I just checked, Turkey is still not a member of the EU.
Predictions don't really count as lies, though. In 2016 Turkey was going through the process of admission to the EU, so it was true that it was going to join. The only answer I have seen to this point is that the EU was actually lying to Turkey and stringing it along, with no intention of actually admitting it. Not a great Europhile argument. I hate everything about Brexit, but there's enough valid arguments against it without advancing bogus ones.
It's true it had started the admission process.
But not everyone who starts the admissions process ends up a member. (See also, for example, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway - all of whom have applied for EU membership, and none of which are members.)
The difference is that all of them have formally frozen or withdrawn their applications.
Same with Turkey.
"On 20 February 2019, a European parliament committee voted to suspend the accession talks, sparking criticism from the government of Turkey.[11][12][13] Turkey's accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
Are we really repeating the debate about the Turkey ad? That alone is a sign we've all gone absolutely bananas.
It was abundantly clear the intended implication was the EU accession was an imminent prospect for Turkey, rather than simply a stated goal which had already by that point stalled to put it mildly. There's nothing gained by going 'Yes, but technically....' since if the ad was about the technical possibilities it would not have had the intended message - does anyone seriously believe the intended message was that years/decades down the line Turkey would be joining?
That was too insulting to believe when I was backing Leave, and it's too insulting to believe now - let's give the Leave campaign some credit for their messaging, rather than pretend they meant the technical situation instead.
Turkey's human rights record means it can never join the EU It needs to stop arresting journalists, stop torturing its opponents, etc. Anyone who thought otherwise probably also believed that Saddam Hussein could nuke the UK...
The poster was just another lie like the £350m on the side of the bus, or like the German car industry handling us a great deal, and so on.
There was either an immense amount of gullibility or else an immense amount of stupidity fuelling the Leave campaign.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
The government are not going to these lengths to protect slim chance of Boris comeback. If missing WhatsApp are found and become public, Sunak won’t even make it to 2024.
This enquiry want Hancocks Landlord and Lady Mone to come and give evidence, Sunak’s government are right to back away from this enquiry and to start running it down and scaling it back, the whole thing clearly being structured to cause as much damage to the Tory Party as possible. If the enquiry’s head is any relation to Harriet Harmon or Labour grandees will need to be looked into.
After Brexit, Tories face "long-term electoral oblivion" | UK politics | The New Statesman
One for @HYUFD and the Tories to watch. I doubt they will do anything about it, just keep calling people like me thick, woke and brainwashed.
From the New Statesman, what a surprise.
If Labour win in 2024 but fail to cut inflation and reduce the cost of living, increase taxes and see strikes return the Tory opposition will be ahead in the polls again by the end of 2025
If people still will not accept that the Brexit campaign lied - as did the Remain campaign - we will NEVER be able to resolve Brexit. We are doomed.
It's life. Nothing is ever completely resolved. Everything is always potentially up for grabs. It might be a faff, it might need a decent interval before the subject should be raised again, but remakably few political policies last that long.
The mandate of an election win is a mandate to try some ideas out. If they are generally seen to have worked, to have made life better for lots of people, there's a good chance that they will stick after you have gone. If not, it's likely that those in charge in the future will try to do something else. That might be reversal, or it might be something different.
The alternative is to say that a political decision, once taken, shouldn't be undone. What was sneeringly described as "one man, one vote, one time only" when it was done by ex-colonial nations. Although the sneery tone wasn't particularly nice, the criticism of shaky democracies was sound. And the 2016 vote was about strengthening British democracy- wasn't it?
After Brexit, Tories face "long-term electoral oblivion" | UK politics | The New Statesman
One for @HYUFD and the Tories to watch. I doubt they will do anything about it, just keep calling people like me thick, woke and brainwashed.
From the New Statesman, what a surprise.
If Labour win in 2024 but fail to cut inflation and reduce the cost of living, increase taxes and see strikes return the Tory opposition will be ahead in the polls again by the end of 2025
Why don't you address it rather than ignoring it. These are people from TORY think-tanks.
SKS has nothing to worry about if you are the future of the party. You clearly hold me in contempt.
I and nobody else is saying Brexit is illegal because there were lies told.
Just wanting Brexiteers to acknowledge there were lies told in the campaign. Remain lied too.
I am comfortable with admitting that - because I want to move on. But Brexiteers it seems cannot and that is why they must lose power and let others take over now. You had your change and you've become a death cult.
William G is not a Brexiteer. I don’t know what he is. He spent much of his time until 2019 as the most hardcore of Remainers.
Otherwise your point is broadly right, This government must go down, because it is built on a tissue of lies. It has been an incredibly damaging period for British public life.
I wasn't saying William was a Brexiteer. I am saying he is calling black white and not agreeing that lies were told.
They plainly were, only a muppet would say otherwise. Remain lied too.
For the record, what were the Remain lies?
There would be an immediate recession on a vote to Leave.
That wasn’t a lie, it was a prediction. A prediction perhaps exaggerated under orders of George Osborne. It would have come true, too, had the Bank of England not been on stand-by.
We need a more sophisticated typology. I don’t view this is a lie.
Much of the broader Treasury predictions have actually come true.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I LITERALLY said Remain lied too, in my first post.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
You conceded that they lied. I'm just pointing out that they were also not not above indulging in racism and islamophobia.
Yes I did - now you should concede the Leave side lied too. Last chance.
All political campaigns involve a degree of lying. The only coherent counter-argument is to say that universal suffrage should be abolished because most people are too susceptible to manipulation.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I LITERALLY said Remain lied too, in my first post.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
You conceded that they lied. I'm just pointing out that they were also not not above indulging in racism and islamophobia.
Yes I did - now you should concede the Leave side lied too. Last chance.
All political campaigns involve a degree of lying. The only coherent counter-argument is to say that universal suffrage should be abolished because most people are too susceptible to manipulation.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I believe someone did actually note Albania as an example of a European country that was outside the EU, and the single market.
Not sure this is a lie, then.
I just checked. Yes, Gove did hold up Albania as a potential model. I’m sure he didn’t mean that the UK should follow Albania in all aspects, but I think the poster is legitimate.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
Nothing to do with tricking people then?
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
No, it's not. Especially since so many have subsequently changed their minds.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I LITERALLY said Remain lied too, in my first post.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
You conceded that they lied. I'm just pointing out that they were also not not above indulging in racism and islamophobia.
Yes I did - now you should concede the Leave side lied too. Last chance.
All political campaigns involve a degree of lying. The only coherent counter-argument is to say that universal suffrage should be abolished because most people are too susceptible to manipulation.
You're utterly mad. How can you jump from condemning trickery to saying that democracy needs to be thrown away?
Everybody can get tricked. You, me, them, everybody. That's why trickery and lies are wrong. That doesn't mean we take the vote away from people. The proper response is to acknowledge and condemn lies. I naively thought that would be an easy thing, but watching you thrash around and leap to anti-democratic conclusions I'm wondering whether I was just lying to myself.
It wasn't uncommon for people to bang on about how it was only advisory and say that MPs should use their superior wisdom to dismiss the advice. It's not such an outlandish argument, but most people don't make it honestly.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I believe someone did actually note Albania as an example of a European country that was outside the EU, and the single market.
Not sure this is a lie, then.
It was that nice Mr Gove:
"Here is a free-trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU," he said.
"After we vote to leave we will remain in the zone. The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Ukraine would remain part of this free-trade area — and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus — is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker [President of the European Commission] joining Ukip."
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I believe someone did actually note Albania as an example of a European country that was outside the EU, and the single market.
Not sure this is a lie, then.
I just checked. Yes, Gove did hold up Albania as a potential model. I’m sure he didn’t mean that the UK should follow Albania in all aspects, but I think the poster is legitimate.
It's not a lie, but it's clearly mocking Albania as a country rather than commenting on the trade relationship they have with the EU.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I believe someone did actually note Albania as an example of a European country that was outside the EU, and the single market.
Not sure this is a lie, then.
I just checked. Yes, Gove did hold up Albania as a potential model. I’m sure he didn’t mean that the UK should follow Albania in all aspects, but I think the poster is legitimate.
It's not a lie, but it's clearly mocking Albania as a country rather than commenting on the trade relationship they have with the EU.
So not a lie, then. The idea that Albania had a viable model which Britain might emulate seems eminently mockable, to be honest.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I believe someone did actually note Albania as an example of a European country that was outside the EU, and the single market.
Not sure this is a lie, then.
It was that nice Mr Gove:
"Here is a free-trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU," he said.
"After we vote to leave we will remain in the zone. The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Ukraine would remain part of this free-trade area — and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus — is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker [President of the European Commission] joining Ukip."
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I LITERALLY said Remain lied too, in my first post.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
You conceded that they lied. I'm just pointing out that they were also not not above indulging in racism and islamophobia.
Yes I did - now you should concede the Leave side lied too. Last chance.
All political campaigns involve a degree of lying. The only coherent counter-argument is to say that universal suffrage should be abolished because most people are too susceptible to manipulation.
Not really. The safety net for politicians lying is that they, or their parties, face re-election.
Make an untrue promise? Expect to be pounded like a colourful TSE metaphor when the voters next have their say. If you're not sure what that feels like, ask Nick Clegg.
That's why most politicans keep their untruthfulness to "Tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But the whole truth? You're having a laugh." The referendum was a bit different, because it was played as a one-round game, with the assumption of no comebacks.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I LITERALLY said Remain lied too, in my first post.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
You conceded that they lied. I'm just pointing out that they were also not not above indulging in racism and islamophobia.
Yes I did - now you should concede the Leave side lied too. Last chance.
All political campaigns involve a degree of lying. The only coherent counter-argument is to say that universal suffrage should be abolished because most people are too susceptible to manipulation.
Not really. The safety net for politicians lying is that they, or their parties, face re-election.
Make an untrue promise? Expect to be pounded like a colourful TSE metaphor when the voters next have their say. If you're not sure what that feels like, ask Nick Clegg.
That's why most politicans keep their untruthfulness to "Tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But the whole truth? You're having a laugh." The referendum was a bit different, because it was played as a one-round game, with the assumption of no comebacks.
That might turn out to have been naive.
Except there were two further General Elections before we actually left the EU. There was ample time for people to have their mistake explained to them.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Which European neighbours are we running ahead of? Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
I don't believe productivity numbers tell you anything useful. France has great "productivity" because social charges means that firms can't afford to employ lower skilled workers.
I seemed to remember somebody once did a really interesting video on this ;-)
Are we really repeating the debate about the Turkey ad? That alone is a sign we've all gone absolutely bananas.
It was abundantly clear the intended implication was the EU accession was an imminent prospect for Turkey, rather than simply a stated goal which had already by that point stalled to put it mildly. There's nothing gained by going 'Yes, but technically....' since if the ad was about the technical possibilities it would not have had the intended message - does anyone seriously believe the intended message was that years/decades down the line Turkey would be joining?
That was too insulting to believe when I was backing Leave, and it's too insulting to believe now - let's give the Leave campaign some credit for their messaging, rather than pretend they meant the technical situation instead.
Turkey's human rights record means it can never join the EU It needs to stop arresting journalists, stop torturing its opponents, etc. Anyone who thought otherwise probably also believed that Saddam Hussein could nuke the UK...
The poster was just another lie like the £350m on the side of the bus, or like the German car industry handling us a great deal, and so on.
There was either an immense amount of gullibility or else an immense amount of stupidity fuelling the Leave campaign.
Of course there was, but that doesn't justify the misrepresentations you make. Turkey was being allowed to go through the motions of applying to join, and was not being told its human rights record was a bar to joining until after the July 2016 coup and its aftermath. Note the date.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
That. Is. A. Disgrace. Greengrocer's quotation marks, and the full stop wrongly placed and therefore wrongly coloured.
It looks fine to me. Perhaps your English teacher was American?
You seem to be right about British vs US punctuation. But it looks hideous and the question remains why Albania has to be red, and in quotation marks, in the first place.
"A New York lawyer is facing a court hearing of his own after his firm used AI tool ChatGPT for legal research. A judge said the court was faced with an "unprecedented circumstance" after a filing was found to reference example legal cases that did not exist. The lawyer who used the tool told the court he was "unaware that its content could be false". ChatGPT creates original text on request, but comes with warnings it can "produce inaccurate information"."
"A New York lawyer is facing a court hearing of his own after his firm used AI tool ChatGPT for legal research. A judge said the court was faced with an "unprecedented circumstance" after a filing was found to reference example legal cases that did not exist. The lawyer who used the tool told the court he was "unaware that its content could be false". ChatGPT creates original text on request, but comes with warnings it can "produce inaccurate information"."
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
No, it was saying Turkey was joining the EU, it went alongside the ad which literally said "Turkey is joining the EU".
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
It was:
The EU tourist deal, FFS Turkey wasn't even in the EU!
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
No, it was saying Turkey was joining the EU, it went alongside the ad which literally said "Turkey is joining the EU".
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
It was:
The EU tourist deal, FFS Turkey wasn't even in the EU!
4 May 2016: European Commission opens way for decision by June on visa-free travel for citizens of Turkey
So, the UK borders the US as we have visa free travel for Americans to the UK?
It does anyway - we share the Atlantic Ocean as our border. Of course it's quite wide do all of the American migrant boats back to blighty might take a while....
This might technically qualify as a moderate Russian pundit. It got pretty heated on Solovyov’s show last night
The host tried to convince his cronies that nuking Europe was the only way of convincing the West to stop helping Ukraine. He insisted the US wouldn’t respond but even regular panellist Andrei Sidorov thought he was deluded https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1662025321590435842
LOL! Some of these guys are totally deluded, but it’s good to see Russian TV now talking about the war much more than before.
No, nuking Europe will not be ignored by NATO, and yes Moscow - including all of you idiot commentators - will be made of glass within hours if you try it.
I am sure the Brexit faithful will be able to explain why an ad which said Turkey is joining the EU actually wasn't a lie.
I just checked, Turkey is still not a member of the EU.
Predictions don't really count as lies, though. In 2016 Turkey was going through the process of admission to the EU, so it was true that it was going to join. The only answer I have seen to this point is that the EU was actually lying to Turkey and stringing it along, with no intention of actually admitting it. Not a great Europhile argument. I hate everything about Brexit, but there's enough valid arguments against it without advancing bogus ones.
"Britain's new border is with Syria and Iraq" isn't a prediction. It's a falsifiable statement, and it's false. It was made by people who knew the claim was false. It was a lie. It's about the clearest lie you could ever hope to find.
If it were a straight-up lie, then David Cameron would have said it was a lie.
Instead, he reacted like Starmer does when he’s asked “What is a woman?”, because it was at the time official government and EU policy that Turkey was on the road to accession, and he was absolutely furious that the Leave campaigns had picked up on it. The meeting of the “EU-Turkey accession council” the week before the vote, certainly didn’t help!
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I LITERALLY said Remain lied too, in my first post.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
You conceded that they lied. I'm just pointing out that they were also not not above indulging in racism and islamophobia.
Yes I did - now you should concede the Leave side lied too. Last chance.
All political campaigns involve a degree of lying. The only coherent counter-argument is to say that universal suffrage should be abolished because most people are too susceptible to manipulation.
Not really. The safety net for politicians lying is that they, or their parties, face re-election.
Make an untrue promise? Expect to be pounded like a colourful TSE metaphor when the voters next have their say. If you're not sure what that feels like, ask Nick Clegg.
That's why most politicans keep their untruthfulness to "Tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But the whole truth? You're having a laugh." The referendum was a bit different, because it was played as a one-round game, with the assumption of no comebacks.
That might turn out to have been naive.
Except there were two further General Elections before we actually left the EU. There was ample time for people to have their mistake explained to them.
In 2019 most voters voted for parties wanting a further referendum. It was only FPTP that saved Brexit.
Let's be honest, Dominic Cummings chose Turkey because Syria and Iraq have Muslims and black people in them. Otherwise he'd have Poland, or Romania.
The Remain campaign can't claim the moral high ground, I'm afraid...
I LITERALLY said Remain lied too, in my first post.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
You conceded that they lied. I'm just pointing out that they were also not not above indulging in racism and islamophobia.
Yes I did - now you should concede the Leave side lied too. Last chance.
All political campaigns involve a degree of lying. The only coherent counter-argument is to say that universal suffrage should be abolished because most people are too susceptible to manipulation.
Not really. The safety net for politicians lying is that they, or their parties, face re-election.
Make an untrue promise? Expect to be pounded like a colourful TSE metaphor when the voters next have their say. If you're not sure what that feels like, ask Nick Clegg.
That's why most politicans keep their untruthfulness to "Tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But the whole truth? You're having a laugh." The referendum was a bit different, because it was played as a one-round game, with the assumption of no comebacks.
That might turn out to have been naive.
Except there were two further General Elections before we actually left the EU. There was ample time for people to have their mistake explained to them.
In 2019 most voters voted for parties wanting a further referendum. It was only FPTP that saved Brexit.
How people vote on a GE isn't necessarily the same as how they might vote on a single issue referendum.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
The CPTPP is a bigger trade bloc than the EU.
It is also growing considerably faster and has more potential than the EU.
If the CPTPP is 'poor' then what does that say about the EU?
The CPTPP is a bigger trade bloc than the EU.The EU is not a "trading bloc" it is a single market. The key perk of CPTPP is *greater* access to each other's markets, not unfettered, and a pledge to eliminate or reduce *95%* of import charges or tariffs. Not all of them. That reduces its value significantly. Furthermore we already had trade deals with all of the members if CPTPP as part of the EU, the only exceptions being Brunei and Malaysia.
It is also growing considerably faster and has more potential than the EU. The first of these is true, the second a hostage to fortune. What does the future hold? In the 80s/early 90s the future "potential" was Japanese (see numerous pop culture references to the same, Weyland-Yutani, Die Hard ("Pearl Harbor didn't work out so good, so we got you with tape-decks", https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JapanTakesOverTheWorld ) now it's certainly not. Japan, to use your favourite word, is 'sclerotic'. If, in 30 years, the same becomes true of China where does that leave us? Embarrassed in front of our biggest trading partners. What the future DOES hold is that we will always be part of Europe and events in Europe, from Rome to Napoleon and beyond, have been key to this country destiny. Now we have thrown away most influence in them. Only for a quite brief historical period, the height of the Second British Empire, a comparatively short lived phenomenon, that trade outside Europe was more important. That brief period, ended by events on the Continent, hasn't come back and is not showing any signs of doing so.
If the CPTPP is 'poor' then what does that say about the EU? What does this question mean? Gardenwalker set out clearly that it is poor *for us*. It might be fantastic for other countries but not for the UK. We are a culturally and geographically European nation, always have been and always will be. So why pretend we are Pacific one? So we can pretend to be Australia? The most Anglophobic country on the planet?
Comments
They plainly were, only a muppet would say otherwise. Remain lied too.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/merkel-says-ready-to-support-turkey-eu-accession-process/
Germany is ready to help drive forward Turkey’s European Union accession process, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday (18 October 2015), extending support to Ankara in exchange for Turkish help in stemming the flow of refugees to Europe.
“How can we organise the accession process more dynamically?” Merkel asked at a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
“Germany is ready this year to open Chapter 17, and the make preparations for (chapters) 23 and 24. We can talk about the details,” she said.
Merkel said Germany could help accelerate the path to visa-free travel to the EU for Turks and push forward Ankara’s protracted EU membership talks.
"On 20 February 2019, a European parliament committee voted to suspend the accession talks, sparking criticism from the government of Turkey.[11][12][13] Turkey's accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
The poster was just another lie like the £350m on the side of the bus, or like the German car industry handling us a great deal, and so on.
There was either an immense amount of gullibility or else an immense amount of stupidity fuelling the Leave campaign.
After Brexit, Tories face "long-term electoral oblivion" | UK politics | The New Statesman
One for @HYUFD and the Tories to watch. I doubt they will do anything about it, just keep calling people like me thick, woke and brainwashed.
Are you even reading my posts? I am not going to engage with you if you're not going to give me the courtesy of reading what I am writing.
If Labour win in 2024 but fail to cut inflation and reduce the cost of living, increase taxes and see strikes return the Tory opposition will be ahead in the polls again by the end of 2025
The mandate of an election win is a mandate to try some ideas out. If they are generally seen to have worked, to have made life better for lots of people, there's a good chance that they will stick after you have gone. If not, it's likely that those in charge in the future will try to do something else. That might be reversal, or it might be something different.
The alternative is to say that a political decision, once taken, shouldn't be undone. What was sneeringly described as "one man, one vote, one time only" when it was done by ex-colonial nations. Although the sneery tone wasn't particularly nice, the criticism of shaky democracies was sound. And the 2016 vote was about strengthening British democracy- wasn't it?
SKS has nothing to worry about if you are the future of the party. You clearly hold me in contempt.
A prediction perhaps exaggerated under orders of George Osborne.
It would have come true, too, had the Bank of England not been on stand-by.
We need a more sophisticated typology.
I don’t view this is a lie.
Much of the broader Treasury predictions have actually come true.
Not sure this is a lie, then.
Write the words, Leave lied.
Yes, Gove did hold up Albania as a potential model.
I’m sure he didn’t mean that the UK should follow Albania in all aspects, but I think the poster is legitimate.
Especially since so many have subsequently changed their minds.
"Here is a free-trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU," he said.
"After we vote to leave we will remain in the zone. The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Ukraine would remain part of this free-trade area — and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus — is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker [President of the European Commission] joining Ukip."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36204533
He’s not a typical Brexiter.
The idea that Albania had a viable model which Britain might emulate seems eminently mockable, to be honest.
Gove, eh? That rogue.
Make an untrue promise? Expect to be pounded like a colourful TSE metaphor when the voters next have their say. If you're not sure what that feels like, ask Nick Clegg.
That's why most politicans keep their untruthfulness to "Tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But the whole truth? You're having a laugh." The referendum was a bit different, because it was played as a one-round game, with the assumption of no comebacks.
That might turn out to have been naive.
“The Leave Campaign want…”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65735769
"A New York lawyer is facing a court hearing of his own after his firm used AI tool ChatGPT for legal research. A judge said the court was faced with an "unprecedented circumstance" after a filing was found to reference example legal cases that did not exist. The lawyer who used the tool told the court he was "unaware that its content could be false". ChatGPT creates original text on request, but comes with warnings it can "produce inaccurate information"."
https://www.channel5.com/show/the-blackouts-of-74-when-britain-went-dark
It does make me wonder if there is rather less to the allegations that I had hitherto thought.
"To my Russian brothers and sisters, I’m sorry right now that American elites are choosing to have such an aggressive stance."
Yep, nothing to do with Russia invading Ukraine, it's all about the bloody US elites.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65759537
(Seen from my hotel window)
No, nuking Europe will not be ignored by NATO, and yes Moscow - including all of you idiot commentators - will be made of glass within hours if you try it.
Instead, he reacted like Starmer does when he’s asked “What is a woman?”, because it was at the time official government and EU policy that Turkey was on the road to accession, and he was absolutely furious that the Leave campaigns had picked up on it. The meeting of the “EU-Turkey accession council” the week before the vote, certainly didn’t help!
It is also growing considerably faster and has more potential than the EU. The first of these is true, the second a hostage to fortune. What does the future hold? In the 80s/early 90s the future "potential" was Japanese (see numerous pop culture references to the same, Weyland-Yutani, Die Hard ("Pearl Harbor didn't work out so good, so we got you with tape-decks", https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JapanTakesOverTheWorld ) now it's certainly not. Japan, to use your favourite word, is 'sclerotic'. If, in 30 years, the same becomes true of China where does that leave us?
Embarrassed in front of our biggest trading partners. What the future DOES hold is that we will always be part of Europe and events in Europe, from Rome to Napoleon and beyond, have been key to this country destiny. Now we have thrown away most influence in them. Only for a quite brief historical period, the height of the Second British Empire, a comparatively short lived phenomenon, that trade outside Europe was more important. That brief period, ended by events on the Continent, hasn't come back and is not showing any signs of doing so.
If the CPTPP is 'poor' then what does that say about the EU? What does this question mean? Gardenwalker set out clearly that it is poor *for us*. It might be fantastic for other countries but not for the UK. We are a culturally and geographically European nation, always have been and always will be. So why pretend we are Pacific one? So we can pretend to be Australia? The most Anglophobic country on the planet?
It's all demonstrable bollocks.