The BBC have been reading PB, they’re inventing ‘culture wars’! Jon Sopel corrected them
You sure you’ve got this headline right? What brought her down was her inability to say that calling for a holocaust would be offensive to Jewish students. Condemned by left and right. And then plagiarism claims. Calling it ‘culture wars’ is lazy and misleading methinks
In hindsight it would have been better to have had a more precisely worded referendum in 2016. Something along the lines of “Should Britain trigger Article 50 to negotiate leaving the EU”. Then a second referendum in the actual terms of the negotiation versus remaining would have been democratically proper.
I believed at the time that it was logical to allow voters to endorse the actual exit deal before it’s implementation because it was impossible to know what shape it would take during the first referendum as there were so many different options available.
I think that a purely consultative referendum (subject to a later second vote) would have resulted in a huge win for Leave, because it was a free hit. But that would then have generated huge momentum in favour of Brexit.
I cannot help but think that she was very hard done by. At worst she was incompetent; I cannot help but think that she was very well-meaning. Some people should be hanging their heads in shame over the way she was treated.
Istr the clamour against her on here was pretty noisy.
Rightly so given Chris Cook's report. RIP.
Which may say more about Chris Cook than Camila Batmanghelidjh . There was an absolute witch-hunt against her.
The BBC have been reading PB, they’re inventing ‘culture wars’! Jon Sopel corrected them
You sure you’ve got this headline right? What brought her down was her inability to say that calling for a holocaust would be offensive to Jewish students. Condemned by left and right. And then plagiarism claims. Calling it ‘culture wars’ is lazy and misleading methinks
That's the decrease in average used sales price which isn't quite the same thing as depreciation.
Having said that, the BEV market is moving very quickly so there are bound to be some models that turn out to be unsellable duds.
I had an email asking me if I wanted a reservation for a BEV 718 for 2025 delivery. The demand must be quite weak if they are trying to get me to buy one.
Who the hell is going to order a BEV 718, when they’re still selling the 718 GTS 4.0 manual?
The BBC have been reading PB, they’re inventing ‘culture wars’! Jon Sopel corrected them
You sure you’ve got this headline right? What brought her down was her inability to say that calling for a holocaust would be offensive to Jewish students. Condemned by left and right. And then plagiarism claims. Calling it ‘culture wars’ is lazy and misleading methinks
I cannot help but think that she was very hard done by. At worst she was incompetent; I cannot help but think that she was very well-meaning. Some people should be hanging their heads in shame over the way she was treated.
Maybe - I am sure you have to be well meaning to get in that business, and incompetence is probably true. But, the Newsnight journalist has said (while offering condolences) he still stands by this report: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41644617 which doesn't suggest it was simply a case of an organisation getting too big too soon and not having the competence to deal with that.
Ultimately, though, that essentially was the finding. The criminal inquiry closed without charges, and the Official Receiver failed to secure a banning order against the trustees or Batmangelidjh. In that sense, Josias is right she was hard done by - many were left with the impression she was corrupt and that Kids Company was a haven for abuse, and these simply did not turn out to be true.
That doesn't, however, mean Newsnight was wrong to report on serious allegations that children were not being safeguarded by Kids Company. Journalists aren't the Police - they need to test the credibility of sources and give a fair chance to those against whom allegations are made to respond. But they aren't making out a case to that standard. And I am not aware Newsnight was sued by any trustee or Batmangelidjh - being hard done by in hindsight simply isn't the same as being libelled. And the alternative for Newsnight (and other journalists) would be to sweep serious allegations under the carpet.
As it turns out, the Newsnight report served tangentially to expose the financial weakness of Kids Company, contributed to by a CEO (Batmangelidjh) who was evangelical, passionate, but ultimately a poor manager, and trustees and government funders who offered her weak governance and challenge. It failed, fairly spectacularly, to survive the financial stress test provided by a very bad news story (the substance of which was not maliciously false, but was false). That wasn't the intention, but actually wasn't a terrible outcome in terms of lessons learned for the charity sector (lousy for Batmangelidjh and trustees though).
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
Not really, given that the implementation of a general election result is legally binding, but the implementation of the EU referendum was not. Obviously it would have been politically suicidal for the conservatives to have not implemented the referendum result, but there was no legal obligation for them to do so.
The implementation of a general election result is not legally binding. All an election does is elect MPs. Constitutional convention - and the dynamics and pressures of practical politics - requires the government not to have the express opposition of a majority of MPs on a confidence vote but that's not a legal obligation. Legally, there is nothing to stop the existing (and defeated) government staying on, the king not dismissing them, and a new election being called.
That's not correct.
The whole point of the Miller II case just before the 2019 election was that it established exercise of prerogative powers (in that case prorogation) is justicable by reference to common law principles, and that accountability of a government to Parliament was such a principle that the court would protect. Leaving Brexit completely aside, that's the legal and constitutional significance of the case.
It's not tested as to how this would be applied in the situation you describe (which is unlikely although, as Johnson's prorogation attempt shows, nothing is impossible). But it's certainly justicable, and indeed I'm pretty confident a court would find that the monarch was legally obliged to implement a general election result by dismissing the defeated PM and appointing the leader of the victorious party (assuming it was indeed clear that the individual could command a majority).
That's quite a bold assertion. Dissolutions and government forming are regarded as reserve powers of the monarch, unlike prorogation. ISTR (but may be wrong) that whether the act was done on ministerial advice played a role in the judgment.
Anyway, in such a scenario, I'd expect the public to scale up Winchester 1997 as a reaction against such an abuse rather than have the government dismissed on contestable judicial fiat.
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Dunno, but there was a fairly famous Luke around the turn of the zeroth millennium...
I cannot help but think that she was very hard done by. At worst she was incompetent; I cannot help but think that she was very well-meaning. Some people should be hanging their heads in shame over the way she was treated.
Istr the clamour against her on here was pretty noisy.
Rightly so given Chris Cook's report. RIP.
Which may say more about Chris Cook than Camila Batmanghelidjh . There was an absolute witch-hunt against her.
I think it completely fair to say that she ran the charity in a staggeringly bad fashion. Which ultimately failed the children it was supposed to help.
Mind you, it did give us the moment that a judge said that it would be unfair to hold legally liable the legally liable, legally appointed trustees of the charity. Because holding them legally liable might stop other people from being trustees of charities.
The BBC have been reading PB, they’re inventing ‘culture wars’! Jon Sopel corrected them
You sure you’ve got this headline right? What brought her down was her inability to say that calling for a holocaust would be offensive to Jewish students. Condemned by left and right. And then plagiarism claims. Calling it ‘culture wars’ is lazy and misleading methinks
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
The hero of Martin Amis’s great novel about darts was called Keith. Keith Talent to give him is full name, though Keith was an amateur with pretensions to professionalism.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
Anyone can say they will respect the result of a referendum, but the Act that is democratically passed says what is legally required. It would have been entirely legal to ignore the "yes" vote of the 2015 Act. It would not for the 2011 Act. The 2015 Act didn't say anything about how to leave the EU, what timeframe to use, etc., whereas the 2011 Act details what happens as soon as there is a "yes" vote.
Sure. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's the general consensus beforehand, or that it's right, or fair, or even constitutional.
When all sides say they will respect the result beforehand, the public has the right to expect that they will do so after the event too, whether they're legally bound to or not.
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
delayed yet again for 30 days
Jeff, just grab ‘em by the etc.
Donald Trump on Epstein: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Their fathers were brought up on Star Wars (released 1977) and wanted to have the chance to say "Luke, I am your father". Apparently that is really, actually the reason.
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Not a huge surprise. There are a lot of falling car prices in general - the market has been transformed by Covid. But that top 30 EV fallers? Look at the top 10. Cars which are old, cynical, crap, or all 3. 10. Renault Zoe. 12 years old design 9. Corsa-e. Overpriced & cynical (£32k base price vs £19k for the petrol one) 8. MX-30. Family car with a range of about 3 feet 7. Nissan Leaf. 12 years old design. 6. Jaguar i-Pace. Expensive, old, breaks a lot 5. Mokka-e. Don't. Just don't. 4. EQA. Outrageously expensive, cynical and preposterously thirsty 3. EQC. See EQA 2. u-UP. 12 years old design 1. Miie. 12 years old design
Plus a load of new EVs (and new production capacity) are coming on to the market over the next 12 to 18 months, with significantly better technology in them - and some of China's offerings are relatively cheap.
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Not a huge surprise. There are a lot of falling car prices in general - the market has been transformed by Covid. But that top 30 EV fallers? Look at the top 10. Cars which are old, cynical, crap, or all 3. 10. Renault Zoe. 12 years old design 9. Corsa-e. Overpriced & cynical (£32k base price vs £19k for the petrol one) 8. MX-30. Family car with a range of about 3 feet 7. Nissan Leaf. 12 years old design. 6. Jaguar i-Pace. Expensive, old, breaks a lot 5. Mokka-e. Don't. Just don't. 4. EQA. Outrageously expensive, cynical and preposterously thirsty 3. EQC. See EQA 2. u-UP. 12 years old design 1. Miie. 12 years old design
Plus a load of new EVs (and new production capacity) are coming on to the market over the next 12 to 18 months, with significantly better technology in them - and some of China's offerings are relatively cheap.
There was a huge shortage of EVs for a while - remember when Tesla had people piling in to order cars that were a year or more away?
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Dunno, but there was a fairly famous Luke around the turn of the zeroth millennium...
Ah yes I remember the names from scripture - Michael, Phil, Luke & Eric.
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
delayed yet again for 30 days
Jeff, just grab ‘em by the etc.
Donald Trump on Epstein: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
The Trump winged monkeys are already abroad on TwitterX claiming this photo is shopped, no doubt they'll also be claiming the quote is fake. It's probably been already observed but the greatest influence AI etc will have in the short term is to cast doubt on the authenticity of absolutely everything.
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
delayed yet again for 30 days
Jeff, just grab ‘em by the etc.
Donald Trump on Epstein: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Pretty sure Bill Clinton was more in Epstein's line.
With that hair I initially thought it was the new skinny (or ideally terminally ill) Johnson.
Terminally ill is a bit drastic. I want to see him kept alive to remind everyone what happens when you appoint a numbskull to power just because he went to Eton.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
Anyone can say they will respect the result of a referendum, but the Act that is democratically passed says what is legally required. It would have been entirely legal to ignore the "yes" vote of the 2015 Act. It would not for the 2011 Act. The 2015 Act didn't say anything about how to leave the EU, what timeframe to use, etc., whereas the 2011 Act details what happens as soon as there is a "yes" vote.
Sure. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's the general consensus beforehand, or that it's right, or fair, or even constitutional.
When all sides say they will respect the result beforehand, the public has the right to expect that they will do so after the event too, whether they're legally bound to or not.
I agree that the public had a right to expect that there would be a serious attempt made to implement the outcome of the referendum. I was contesting the argument you put forth that a second referendum would have necessarily been undemocratic.
It’s a Benelux day on the Eastern French motorways today. Belgians by the bucketload (enough to fill several Belgiums), quite a few Luxembourgeois, and a smattering - though fewer than sometimes - of Dutch. Not many Brits, they must have all booked Sat-Sat.
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Dunno, but there was a fairly famous Luke around the turn of the zeroth millennium...
Ah yes I remember the names from scripture - Michael, Phil, Luke & Eric.
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
delayed yet again for 30 days
Jeff, just grab ‘em by the etc.
Donald Trump on Epstein: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Pretty sure Bill Clinton was more in Epstein's line.
Epstein's line was the rich and powerful. As a combination of clients of his evil, cover, scam victims and useful contacts.
Sorting out which was which will take a long time.
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
I'm pretty sure I won't be on the list if that helps.
I saw a list a few years ago of those in Epstein's telephone book. Will it come as a surprise to learn that quite a few names were known to me through my work? I had even investigated one or two.
If there is a God, Trump will be on Epstein’s list.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
Not really, given that the implementation of a general election result is legally binding, but the implementation of the EU referendum was not. Obviously it would have been politically suicidal for the conservatives to have not implemented the referendum result, but there was no legal obligation for them to do so.
That would mean that MPs voted for there to be a referendum (which they did on all sides with the notable exception of the SNP) disingenuously.
If parliament knocks a difficult constitutional issue back to the electorate it must accept the verdict. The mistake was voting for the referendum in the first place which, as is now obvious, they did (some Con, almost all Lab and all LD) with insincerity and dishonesty.
I think that if a parliament knocks a difficult constitutional issue back to the electorate it must accept the verdict. But no parliament can bind a future parliament. In all other matters, it is accepted that a general election resets everything. If you have an election and parties saying "let's stop going down this path" win, then you stop going down that path.
David is quite right.
Those who argue otherwise are simply those who hated the referendum result and didn't want it to be implemented in the first place.
It's a very good thing for British democracy that they didn't win out.
Just been on another 2.5k power walk. I know that HIIT training is about smashing your heartrate up for short intense bursts with cool down spells in-between. I think my village 2.5k walk does that. There are several short but steep bits, so lets just say my heart is pumping hard having got to here from low street just out of shot in the distance...
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
I'm pretty sure I won't be on the list if that helps.
I saw a list a few years ago of those in Epstein's telephone book. Will it come as a surprise to learn that quite a few names were known to me through my work? I had even investigated one or two.
No. In my experience most people know full well who the wrong 'uns are, which are an open secret, but they never do anything about it.
One of the critics of Claudine Gay is political scientist Carol M. Swain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_M._Swain "Swain grew up in poverty, living in a shack without running water, and sharing two beds with her eleven siblings.[1] She did not have shoes and thus missed school whenever it snowed.[1] She did not finish high school, dropping out in ninth grade. . . . Swain received tenure as an associate professor of politics and public policy at Princeton University."
She has had an interesting life, to say the least:
And some years ago said she had faced more discrimination at Princeton as an evangelical -- than as a black woman.
Just been on another 2.5k power walk. I know that HIIT training is about smashing your heartrate up for short intense bursts with cool down spells in-between. I think my village 2.5k walk does that. There are several short but steep bits, so lets just say my heart is pumping hard having got to here from low street just out of shot in the distance...
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
Again, why are doing a go-over of the referendum? Its done.
There is a clear attack line which in summary is "why didn't you lot accept the result" - the past. Why not talk about what it has delivered - the present - and what we can now look forward too?
Oh yeah, no wonder reliving a previous battle is preferable...
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
Not really, given that the implementation of a general election result is legally binding, but the implementation of the EU referendum was not. Obviously it would have been politically suicidal for the conservatives to have not implemented the referendum result, but there was no legal obligation for them to do so.
That would mean that MPs voted for there to be a referendum (which they did on all sides with the notable exception of the SNP) disingenuously.
If parliament knocks a difficult constitutional issue back to the electorate it must accept the verdict. The mistake was voting for the referendum in the first place which, as is now obvious, they did (some Con, almost all Lab and all LD) with insincerity and dishonesty.
I think that if a parliament knocks a difficult constitutional issue back to the electorate it must accept the verdict. But no parliament can bind a future parliament. In all other matters, it is accepted that a general election resets everything. If you have an election and parties saying "let's stop going down this path" win, then you stop going down that path.
David is quite right.
Those who argue otherwise are simply those who hated the referendum result and didn't want it to be implemented in the first place.
It's a very good thing for British democracy that they didn't win out.
No it isn't. The problem with Brexit is that David Cameron asked the question before nailing down what shape Brexit would take. That is why it was so hard to implement. Even those who'd spent decades campaigning for Brexit had no clue what they wanted to happen next, just a set of more-or-less incompatible and often unattainable unicorns. That is how we found Leave MPs, including Boris, voting against leaving.
A deal or no deal referendum on whatever agreement was hammered out would have been a logical next step, but even better would be using a time machine and having Cameron ask the right question in the first place.
In hindsight it would have been better to have had a more precisely worded referendum in 2016. Something along the lines of “Should Britain trigger Article 50 to negotiate leaving the EU”. Then a second referendum in the actual terms of the negotiation versus remaining would have been democratically proper.
I believed at the time that it was logical to allow voters to endorse the actual exit deal before it’s implementation because it was impossible to know what shape it would take during the first referendum as there were so many different options available.
I think that a purely consultative referendum (subject to a later second vote) would have resulted in a huge win for Leave, because it was a free hit. But that would then have generated huge momentum in favour of Brexit.
What's funny is that so many of its proponents operate on the assumption people would have "seen the light".
They'd have been even more angry at the reality, and no doubt expanded their list of malign influencers, actors and invective.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
Not really, given that the implementation of a general election result is legally binding, but the implementation of the EU referendum was not. Obviously it would have been politically suicidal for the conservatives to have not implemented the referendum result, but there was no legal obligation for them to do so.
The implementation of a general election result is not legally binding. All an election does is elect MPs. Constitutional convention - and the dynamics and pressures of practical politics - requires the government not to have the express opposition of a majority of MPs on a confidence vote but that's not a legal obligation. Legally, there is nothing to stop the existing (and defeated) government staying on, the king not dismissing them, and a new election being called.
That's not correct.
The whole point of the Miller II case just before the 2019 election was that it established exercise of prerogative powers (in that case prorogation) is justicable by reference to common law principles, and that accountability of a government to Parliament was such a principle that the court would protect. Leaving Brexit completely aside, that's the legal and constitutional significance of the case.
It's not tested as to how this would be applied in the situation you describe (which is unlikely although, as Johnson's prorogation attempt shows, nothing is impossible). But it's certainly justicable, and indeed I'm pretty confident a court would find that the monarch was legally obliged to implement a general election result by dismissing the defeated PM and appointing the leader of the victorious party (assuming it was indeed clear that the individual could command a majority).
That's quite a bold assertion. Dissolutions and government forming are regarded as reserve powers of the monarch, unlike prorogation. ISTR (but may be wrong) that whether the act was done on ministerial advice played a role in the judgment.
Anyway, in such a scenario, I'd expect the public to scale up Winchester 1997 as a reaction against such an abuse rather than have the government dismissed on contestable judicial fiat.
Again, you're simply not correct in your reading of Miller II.
The courts make no such distinction between prerogative powers - dissolution, prorogation, dismissing and appointing PMs, are all prerogative powers and are all justicable by reference to common law principles. That's not my weird little spin on it - that is the whole point of the Supreme Court judgment in Miller II!
In relation to ministerial advice, you do indeed misremember. The point there was that Johnson' Government could have run a second line of defence saying, effectively, "even if this is justicable, you'll see that actually as we explained to Her Majesty, we were in no way seeking to undermine the principle of accountability to Parliament and actually had entirely legitimate reasons to do so". However, they didn't do so, and it was the glaring, unspoken truth that no minister would sign a statement of truth on that basis - essentially, they'd happily lied to the Queen but doing so in court would expose them to prosecution for perjury. That was shameful and scandalous, but wasn't the reason for the court's decision. Once they'd decided it was justicable, the Government had simply chosen not to provide any reason why the court shouldn't decide against them.
I agree with you it would be highly unlikely to arise in practice. Charles III or whoever the monarch is will always just call on the person who can command a majority following an election (i.e. the "winner"), dismissing the PM who has lost. So no need to go to court. But that simply wasn't your claim. You said "that's not a legal obligation". That statement isn't legally tested, but is very, very likely to be false for the reasons I explained. Certainly it's justicable (that's precisely what Miller II means) and very probably the court would find that the monarch was obliged to exercise his prerogative to appoint the "winner" in the absence of some incredibly compelling argument.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
Neither of us can be sure, but generally having unfettered access to a larger market is better for economies. The USA does this with even less friction than the EU entirely internally since it is one nation; but having full access to a market of 500 million is better than 70.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
Not really, given that the implementation of a general election result is legally binding, but the implementation of the EU referendum was not. Obviously it would have been politically suicidal for the conservatives to have not implemented the referendum result, but there was no legal obligation for them to do so.
That would mean that MPs voted for there to be a referendum (which they did on all sides with the notable exception of the SNP) disingenuously.
If parliament knocks a difficult constitutional issue back to the electorate it must accept the verdict. The mistake was voting for the referendum in the first place which, as is now obvious, they did (some Con, almost all Lab and all LD) with insincerity and dishonesty.
I think that if a parliament knocks a difficult constitutional issue back to the electorate it must accept the verdict. But no parliament can bind a future parliament. In all other matters, it is accepted that a general election resets everything. If you have an election and parties saying "let's stop going down this path" win, then you stop going down that path.
David is quite right.
Those who argue otherwise are simply those who hated the referendum result and didn't want it to be implemented in the first place.
It's a very good thing for British democracy that they didn't win out.
No it isn't. The problem with Brexit is that David Cameron asked the question before nailing down what shape Brexit would take. That is why it was so hard to implement. Even those who'd spent decades campaigning for Brexit had no clue what they wanted to happen next, just a set of more-or-less incompatible and often unattainable unicorns. That is how we found Leave MPs, including Boris, voting against leaving.
A deal or no deal referendum on whatever agreement was hammered out would have been a logical next step, but even better would be using a time machine and having Cameron ask the right question in the first place.
Cameron organised a kind of democratic abortion. The more time that passes, the more reprehensible his lazy contempt for constitutional safeguarding.
Nobody knew precisely what they were voting for, and it failed to carry critical constituencies (London, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the young).
Not a huge surprise. There are a lot of falling car prices in general - the market has been transformed by Covid. But that top 30 EV fallers? Look at the top 10. Cars which are old, cynical, crap, or all 3. 10. Renault Zoe. 12 years old design 9. Corsa-e. Overpriced & cynical (£32k base price vs £19k for the petrol one) 8. MX-30. Family car with a range of about 3 feet 7. Nissan Leaf. 12 years old design. 6. Jaguar i-Pace. Expensive, old, breaks a lot 5. Mokka-e. Don't. Just don't. 4. EQA. Outrageously expensive, cynical and preposterously thirsty 3. EQC. See EQA 2. u-UP. 12 years old design 1. Miie. 12 years old design
Plus a load of new EVs (and new production capacity) are coming on to the market over the next 12 to 18 months, with significantly better technology in them - and some of China's offerings are relatively cheap.
There was a huge shortage of EVs for a while - remember when Tesla had people piling in to order cars that were a year or more away?
New markets always go in fits and starts. Never be an early adopter unless the money doesn't matter to you, or you *really* need the product.
In hindsight it would have been better to have had a more precisely worded referendum in 2016. Something along the lines of “Should Britain trigger Article 50 to negotiate leaving the EU”. Then a second referendum in the actual terms of the negotiation versus remaining would have been democratically proper.
I believed at the time that it was logical to allow voters to endorse the actual exit deal before it’s implementation because it was impossible to know what shape it would take during the first referendum as there were so many different options available.
I think that a purely consultative referendum (subject to a later second vote) would have resulted in a huge win for Leave, because it was a free hit. But that would then have generated huge momentum in favour of Brexit.
What's funny is that so many of its proponents operate on the assumption people would have "seen the light".
They'd have been even more angry at the reality, and no doubt expanded their list of malign influencers, actors and invective.
No, that was always going to require experiencing the reality.
Why are they both called Luke? The darts finalists, Luke Littler v Luke Humphries. I've never met a Luke but suddenly they come along like darts-playing buses. Was there a famous Luke around the turn of the century?
Luke "look, I'm really only 16, honest, guv" Littler
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
Neither of us can be sure, but generally having unfettered access to a larger market is better for economies. The USA does this with even less friction than the EU entirely internally since it is one nation; but having full access to a market of 500 million is better than 70.
British export performance has been very poor since the referendum, it’s about as “sure” as it’s possible to find in economics.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
I voted to economically damage my country, and have no problem with that.
I figured the medium term political and social benefits would more than offset the short term economic damage, and there might even be longer term economic benefits as well.
Nothing that's happened since the referendum has changed my view on any of that.
I'm currently sitting in a cafe in Southborne, watching our house flood 160 miles away via our Ring camera system.
I'm in Somerset on the way home and lots of flooding here.
Farming on the levels must be becoming increasingly impractical.
Maybe switch to rice?
The thing I only discovered later in life about rice farming is that you don’t need the waterlogged fields. Rice grows fine without that. It’s just that the waterlogged fields are good at killing off weeds and the rice doesn’t mind.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
I voted to economically damage my country, and have no problem with that.
I figured the medium term political and social benefits would more than offset the short term economic damage, and there might even be longer term economic benefits as well.
Nothing that's happened since the referendum has changed my view on any of that.
Fair, and in my opinion the only reasonable “Brexitism”.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The claim from Brexit supporters at the time was that it would actively improve economic performance (breaking free from shackles of Brussels, trade deals etc).
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
I voted to economically damage my country, and have no problem with that.
I figured the medium term political and social benefits would more than offset the short term economic damage, and there might even be longer term economic benefits as well.
Nothing that's happened since the referendum has changed my view on any of that.
Me, likewise
Brexit is like having a baby. My God it hurts, and you will look and feel worse afterwards, for quite a long time
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
Neither of us can be sure, but generally having unfettered access to a larger market is better for economies. The USA does this with even less friction than the EU entirely internally since it is one nation; but having full access to a market of 500 million is better than 70.
British export performance has been very poor since the referendum, it’s about as “sure” as it’s possible to find in economics.
Outside of invisible / service exports our physical exports have always been very poor, we are expensive, low productivity (on the whole) due to lack of investment and have relatively high energy costs compared to elsewhere
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
Neither of us can be sure, but generally having unfettered access to a larger market is better for economies. The USA does this with even less friction than the EU entirely internally since it is one nation; but having full access to a market of 500 million is better than 70.
British export performance has been very poor since the referendum, it’s about as “sure” as it’s possible to find in economics.
The loss of ability to triangulate goods within the EU at zero rating (Without some serious and expensive hoop jumping) has barely had a mention post Brexit. Perhaps it's because our manufacturing sector is so moribund no one really notices it.
On the plus side the weakness of sterling has helped export
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
Neither of us can be sure, but generally having unfettered access to a larger market is better for economies. The USA does this with even less friction than the EU entirely internally since it is one nation; but having full access to a market of 500 million is better than 70.
British export performance has been very poor since the referendum, it’s about as “sure” as it’s possible to find in economics.
Outside of invisible / service exports our physical exports have always been very poor, we are expensive, low productivity (on the whole) due to lack of investment and have relatively high energy costs compared to elsewhere
That might be so, but Brexit has made it WORSE, which is easily observable by comparing export performance before and after Brexit with that of comparable countries.
I am very much of the view that British economic issues long predate Brexit. Brexit “merely” exacerbated and crystalised them.
I'm currently sitting in a cafe in Southborne, watching our house flood 160 miles away via our Ring camera system.
I'm in Somerset on the way home and lots of flooding here.
Farming on the levels must be becoming increasingly impractical.
Maybe switch to rice?
The thing I only discovered later in life about rice farming is that you don’t need the waterlogged fields. Rice grows fine without that. It’s just that the waterlogged fields are good at killing off weeds and the rice doesn’t mind.
Rice needs huge amounts of water though, so you do want your soil to be very wet, I believe. Flooding your field ensures that (normally to a couple of centimetres) even if standing water isn't strictly required.
Never buy a brand-new car. Just don't. It's throwing money out of the window.
3 years ago we bought a brand new car. It was an outgoing model, so we got it with such a big discount that we paid less than we were expecting to pay for a 1 year old vehicle.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
I voted to economically damage my country, and have no problem with that.
I figured the medium term political and social benefits would more than offset the short term economic damage, and there might even be longer term economic benefits as well.
Nothing that's happened since the referendum has changed my view on any of that.
Me, likewise
Brexit is like having a baby. My God it hurts, and you will look and feel worse afterwards, for quite a long time
Then Liz Truss hands you a bouncing baby trade deal allowing for pork pie exports to Namibia at slightly reduced tariffs, and it all seems worth it.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
This is the entirety of the woke debate. I think this I am right Other people are wrong Anyone who thinks they are right and I am wrong are woke
No, that is not the "entirety of the woke debate"
You surely know this, so why trot out this gibberish?
The BBC has an interesting take on the dismissal/resignation of Claudine Gay from Harvard after the scandalous testimony then plagiarism.
Basically it’s all down to the far right, Trump and pandering to fascists. Including a quote from someone giving that view.
BBC journalism is astonishingly poor and somewhat partisan.
The response in Germany to a scandal where a number of politicians were discovered to have plagiarised their theses was interesting.
A journalist realised that you could have a lot of fun by downloading the theses of various people and running them through a plagiarism detector.
A number of universities sequestered the theses of “notable” people, in response.
The plagiarism criticisms of Gay that I've seen were pretty trivial stuff, blown out of all proportion. There were, of course, other criticisms of Gay that are of more significance.
A, lot of "plagiarism" in academia is just careless footnoting. Any academic work typically, by convention, has to include a summary of the existing literature and debate, which by definition is not original work. Cribbing parts of that from an existing review article and failing to fully credit that is not a crime IMHO. Passing off someone else's original contribution as one's own is quite different. I've not seen the details of the criticism of Gay but it certainly, from a distance, has more than a whiff of a witch hunt about it.
There may be an agenda to get her, but it has been shown - indisputably - that Harvard STUDENTS have been rusticated for less serious examples of plagiarism than hers, and hers extend over several years and her entire output (and there is now querying of her data, as well)
You cannot have a situation where the President of Harvard is held to a less high standard of academic rigour than Harvard students. For a start it invites law suits from students if they get booted out, unlike Gay who stays (as was)
However I agree that her greater crime was her idiotic, offensive remarks in Congress
All three women should have resigned next day
AIUI (and I've not been following this very closely because I'm not American and don't really care what happens at Harvard) they were asked a factual question about whether certain remarks were against their university codes of conduct, and they said it was context specific - while they personally abhorred the comments. What if that is just factually accurate? America has remarkably robust free speech laws, and academic freedom is important, and perhaps it is the case that there is no hard and fast ban on any specific comment. Indeed I would imagine there isn't any such ban, how could there be, given the infinite array of potentially offensive comments one could make. Just seems like a gotcha tactic, an attempt to exercise power over an area of American life Republican politicians feel they have no control over.
No, that's complete bollocks. US universities generally have little interest in protecting free speech, and Harvard is among the worst in this respect. In particular, see here:
...this year, Harvard completed its downward spiral in dramatic fashion, coming in dead last with the worst score ever: 0.00 out of a possible 100.00. This earns it the notorious distinction of being the only school ranked this year with an “Abysmal” speech climate.
The article summarises the general issues with free speech pretty well, but for those who can't be bothered to click, here is a summary: - disinviting or banning guest speakers from campus whose views they don't agree with (and failing to stop protesters from actively disrupting the events that do go ahead) - sanctioning students who have expressed particular views on social media - hostile atmospheres in lectures and other academic contexts whereby right wing students are made afraid to express views that go against that of their professor
If I could sum it up in one sentence, it would be as follows: there are no other minority groupings for whom Claudine Gay and the other two imbeciles would have had any trouble saying that calling for their genocide was against university code of conduct.
John Gray made a good observation to the effect that freedom of thought at university is being replaced people seeking freedom from thought.
This observation is probably true of both sides , the right and the left; but those on the left cannot be shocked when the right enact its own version of cancel culture. It is a product of universities being so weak on free speech and caving in to "woke" mobs as they have done for the last decade or so. The correction was inevitable and probably necessary but the most successful and resilient institutions will be the ones who don't bow to the demands of either side.
This is the usual narrative that the Left is at fault and the Right are just reacting, and possibly over-reacting, to that. Which is nonsense.
There is a long debate about who should get to say what. We didn't live in some free speech utopia and then the Left came along and corrupted it. The Left and Right have both spent years going back and forth on what is a difficult matter. I'm old enough to remember when the Conservatives introduced laws in the UK that meant Gerry Adams' voice had to be replaced by an actor's.
It is a long debate and the howl of 'free speech' is usually a tactical one by the losing side. But instances of overreach by the left in academia over the past few years are well documented, for instance in 'the coddling of the American Mind' by Haidt and Lukiankoff. It was inevitable that the right would eventually popularise this and find a way of using it to their political advantage, even if the eventual outcome has little to do with free speech, it probably sets its cause backwards.
Ultimately something like 'critical race theory' should be studied, not censored (as is the case in florida), but without the influence of grand politicised assumptions about 'social justice'. But if universities redefine their mission as seeking 'justice' rather than 'truth' then the situation can easily get confused.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The claim from Brexit supporters at the time was that it would actively improve economic performance (breaking free from shackles of Brussels, trade deals etc).
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
I was and continue to do so. Those who claimed otherwise claimed that we would suffer long term declines in our exports and trade performance with the EU.
The statistics simply do not bear that out. In fact other than a very short term effect at the end of the transition period both our exports and imports from the EU have remained remarkably stable. There is a table on p31 of this report which shows the month by month figures:https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
Anyone who thought about our trade with non EU countries would have realised that this was likely to be the case, even in a no deal scenario, let alone the deals we currently have. The lack of a trade deal with the US did not stop them being our largest single trading partner or indeed us running a surplus with them.
The really grim thing is that the chronic trade deficit we built up whilst in the EU single market has not materially diminished. We continue to import far more (roughly £90bn a year) from them than we export. This continues to impoverish our country in a frankly unsustainable way.
Apologies again for the delay. We thought this story would be recapping the fairly well known Barrowman [aka Mr Michele Mone] contractor loan tax avoidance scheme. However we've actually found something much more serious, and evidence that we think should lead to a prosecution. More soon. https://twitter.com/DanNeidle/status/1742470778434568373
The firm consensus amongst the British population is that Brexit was a mistake. The only relevant question now is what, if anything, you are going to do to fix or mitigate that mistake?
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
I'm pretty sure I won't be on the list if that helps.
I saw a list a few years ago of those in Epstein's telephone book. Will it come as a surprise to learn that quite a few names were known to me through my work? I had even investigated one or two.
No. In my experience most people know full well who the wrong 'uns are, which are an open secret, but they never do anything about it.
I'm hoping we'll hear a good deal less from Bill Gates.
It’s what it leads to. Particularly if there’s a Mossad angle (which there may or may not be).
If there wasn't a Mossad angle it might be time for Israel to break its 'we never confirm or deny' rule.
Of course it suits Bibi for there to be a perpetual war footing. Like a shark depends on continual forward movement for its survival, Netanyahu needs perpetual crisis to avoid his just desserts.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The claim from Brexit supporters at the time was that it would actively improve economic performance (breaking free from shackles of Brussels, trade deals etc).
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
I was and continue to do so. Those who claimed otherwise claimed that we would suffer long term declines in our exports and trade performance with the EU.
The statistics simply do not bear that out. In fact other than a very short term effect at the end of the transition period both our exports and imports from the EU have remained remarkably stable. There is a table on p31 of this report which shows the month by month figures:https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
Anyone who thought about our trade with non EU countries would have realised that this was likely to be the case, even in a no deal scenario, let alone the deals we currently have. The lack of a trade deal with the US did not stop them being our largest single trading partner or indeed us running a surplus with them.
The really grim thing is that the chronic trade deficit we built up whilst in the EU single market has not materially diminished. We continue to import far more (roughly £90bn a year) from them than we export. This continues to impoverish our country in a frankly unsustainable way.
Perhaps you meant to reference a different report, as the one linked does not contain that graph.
In any case, the relevant analysis is to compare the UK with other economies.
As for the long-standing trade deficit, that is a result of the UK preferring consumption to savings. It has essentially been Britain’s economic model for the last 40 years; I agree it’s effects are pernicious.
I wonder which ones will be there, or not there, I wonder?
I'm pretty sure I won't be on the list if that helps.
I saw a list a few years ago of those in Epstein's telephone book. Will it come as a surprise to learn that quite a few names were known to me through my work? I had even investigated one or two.
No. In my experience most people know full well who the wrong 'uns are, which are an open secret, but they never do anything about it.
I'm hoping we'll hear a good deal less from Bill Gates.
Bill Gates has moved on from screwing computer markets. Saving African kids from malaria is probably a good thing, on balance.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The claim from Brexit supporters at the time was that it would actively improve economic performance (breaking free from shackles of Brussels, trade deals etc).
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
I was and continue to do so. Those who claimed otherwise claimed that we would suffer long term declines in our exports and trade performance with the EU.
The statistics simply do not bear that out. In fact other than a very short term effect at the end of the transition period both our exports and imports from the EU have remained remarkably stable. There is a table on p31 of this report which shows the month by month figures:https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
Anyone who thought about our trade with non EU countries would have realised that this was likely to be the case, even in a no deal scenario, let alone the deals we currently have. The lack of a trade deal with the US did not stop them being our largest single trading partner or indeed us running a surplus with them.
The really grim thing is that the chronic trade deficit we built up whilst in the EU single market has not materially diminished. We continue to import far more (roughly £90bn a year) from them than we export. This continues to impoverish our country in a frankly unsustainable way.
Doubling the number of foreign students would get rid of about a third of that......just saying......
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The claim from Brexit supporters at the time was that it would actively improve economic performance (breaking free from shackles of Brussels, trade deals etc).
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
I was and continue to do so. Those who claimed otherwise claimed that we would suffer long term declines in our exports and trade performance with the EU.
The statistics simply do not bear that out. In fact other than a very short term effect at the end of the transition period both our exports and imports from the EU have remained remarkably stable. There is a table on p31 of this report which shows the month by month figures:https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
Anyone who thought about our trade with non EU countries would have realised that this was likely to be the case, even in a no deal scenario, let alone the deals we currently have. The lack of a trade deal with the US did not stop them being our largest single trading partner or indeed us running a surplus with them.
The really grim thing is that the chronic trade deficit we built up whilst in the EU single market has not materially diminished. We continue to import far more (roughly £90bn a year) from them than we export. This continues to impoverish our country in a frankly unsustainable way.
Perhaps you meant to reference a different report, as the one linked does not contain that graph.
In any case, the relevant analysis is to compare the UK with other economies.
As for the long-standing trade deficit, that is a result of the UK preferring consumption to savings. It has essentially been Britain’s economic model for the last 40 years; I agree it’s effects are pernicious.
Sorry, its on p12/31. And I agree with you as to the cause. It was not nasty foreigners taking advantage, it was our own incompetence and reluctance to accept that our standard of living has to be earned.
Just been on another 2.5k power walk. I know that HIIT training is about smashing your heartrate up for short intense bursts with cool down spells in-between. I think my village 2.5k walk does that. There are several short but steep bits, so lets just say my heart is pumping hard having got to here from low street just out of shot in the distance...
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The claim from Brexit supporters at the time was that it would actively improve economic performance (breaking free from shackles of Brussels, trade deals etc).
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
I was and continue to do so. Those who claimed otherwise claimed that we would suffer long term declines in our exports and trade performance with the EU.
The statistics simply do not bear that out. In fact other than a very short term effect at the end of the transition period both our exports and imports from the EU have remained remarkably stable. There is a table on p31 of this report which shows the month by month figures:https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
Anyone who thought about our trade with non EU countries would have realised that this was likely to be the case, even in a no deal scenario, let alone the deals we currently have. The lack of a trade deal with the US did not stop them being our largest single trading partner or indeed us running a surplus with them.
The really grim thing is that the chronic trade deficit we built up whilst in the EU single market has not materially diminished. We continue to import far more (roughly £90bn a year) from them than we export. This continues to impoverish our country in a frankly unsustainable way.
Doubling the number of foreign students would get rid of about a third of that......just saying......
Which is a major reason why the government are so reluctant to act in respect of our largest single source of legal immigrants. Bluntly, we need the money.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
Because the alternative is wrong.
Britain's economic performance is indistinguishable from its neighbours and such failings as we do have are our own, and not dependent on our political relationship with out neighbours.
Can anybody explain why PB and the country seem obsessed with a pub game at this time of the year?
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Can anyone explain why half the country is still obsessed with a vote 8 years ago ?
Because most of the country thinks it has turned out shit?
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
You see youre obsessed.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
So if Lab wins the next election the country should just call it a day and say well that's that done with and settle down to a Lab govt for the next 50 years.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
Youre mixing up a referndum with a parliamentary election. I'd say give it a generation same as Indyref.
You'd say, would you? Good to know. Meanwhile taking back control surely means nothing unless it means giving the people the opportunity to vote in line with their beliefs. A "generation" is just wishful thinking.
Who's stopping you voting in line with your beliefs ?
No one. That is my point. In 2017 people voted in line with their beliefs and had there been a second referendum, apart from being impractical and an administrative nightmare, it would have been a perfect example of democracy in action.
It would have been a democratic outrage, it would have smashed public consensus to pieces, half the country would have abstained in the fraudulent second referendum - leaving us where, exactly.: still inside Europe on a 40% turnout without ever having enacted the Leave vote? Imagine the aftermath of THAT. The urgent, militant calls for a THIRD vote, and so on, and so on: a pure, unending nightmare
AND it might well have caused severe civil unrest (if they can ignore your vote, what is left but violence?) and it would have destroyed British democracy for two generations, as people abandoned voting in elections as well (again, what is the point if your vote can be flatly ignored or overruled?)
Other than that, a 2nd referendum was a great idea
We are certainly not going to spend the day discussing this so I will help out with the last word on the matter.
In 2017 the UK electorate (me, you, a few others) voted in a parliament that was divided on the matter. Hence the subsequent chaos was voted for directly by us. Perfectly democratic. If Lab had gained power on the promise of a second referendum then that again would have been perfectly democratic. As would the second referendum. If you are saying votes by the UK public do not constitute democracy then I'm not quite sure why you are qualified to post on this site and perhaps you should stick to the Knappers' Gazette which, I am told, pays you for your efforts.
As David Davis put it,
If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.
If the mind of the majority is to reverse Brexit, that will be the democratic thing to do. That wasn't the case in 2017-9, and I'm not sure it's the case now. It may never be the case, but every "oh, you'll never get support for that" barrier is being crossed, one at a time.
Don't worry, Leon. You'll still go down in history.
There are five stages to a fair democratic process. You need a 'yes' to all five for democracy to take place.
1. Can candidates, electors and parties register fairly and freely, without undue impediment? 2. Can candidates and parties campaign fairly, with reasonable access to the media and the public? 3. Can voters cast their votes equitably and in a simple and timely manner? 4. Are votes counted speedily and the result declared accurately? 5. Is the result implemented?
A second referendum before the first was implemented - other than on the nature of what Brexit would be - would have violated the fifth condition. Once Britain voted to leave, it was necessary that we left to complete that democratic exercise. Now we have left, that mandate is expired and if people want to rejoin that's an entirely legitimate campaign for them to engage in.
But not carrying out Brexit would have been like holding a general election, not changing the govt after it lost, and holding a second election instead.
I'm not convinced by this reasoning. There are numerous policies in any party's referendum that are never implemented after they win a general election. Does that mean we don't live in a democracy?
It takes time to implement results. If you set out to implement a result, but there's then another vote, is that democracy thwarted or followed?
The House of Commons voted not to accept the report into Owen Paterson on 3 November 2021. It subsequently voted again and accepted the report on 16 November. Was that a democratic process?
The challenge here is the difference between general elections and referendums, and how referendums are unusual in the UK system. The Brexit referendum was explicitly an advisory referendum, whereas other referendums have been self-executing.
Various things here.
Winning an election does not mean an automatic right to implement the entire manifesto without opposition; it means the right to form a government. The right to implement policies is still a grey area and governments have to persuade parliament that the details are right and workable.
On Paterson, the Commons didn't vote to reject the report; it parked it. Going on from there to subsequently accept it isn't an abuse - indeed, it's exactly what yo'd expect at some point.
And the Brexit referendum wasn't "explicitly advisory". On the contrary. All sides said beforehand that they'd respect the result.
The whole "it was advisory" and "a 2nd referendum would have been democratic" bollocks is - I am now sure - advanced by people who are, in retrospect, ashamed and uncomfortable that they supported a 2nd vote. Ashamed because it was so clearly foolish, immoral and dangerous as a policy
The problem was that the whole "advisory" narrative surfaced AFTER the referendum took place. That was incredibly damaging to any sort of rejoin cause in the medium - long term (Obviously we did need to leave). A far better tack would have been for remain inclined MPs to say "OK we accept the result, we will leave. And the day after we have left we will campaign to rejoin". The 17-19 parliament did not do this. They attempted to block us from leaving which was complete strategic folly. Imagine we'd voted for Corbyn in the 2017 referendum and instead of leaving Downing Street May had set up another poll to be sure we wanted Corbyn and remained in Downing Street. I hope we do go back in at some point, I believe we'll be more prosperous as a nation for it but the 2017-19 parliament was as bad as Trump.
Agree with all of that, except the first line of the final paragraph.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
I believe the kids call it “copium”.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The claim from Brexit supporters at the time was that it would actively improve economic performance (breaking free from shackles of Brussels, trade deals etc).
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
I was and continue to do so. Those who claimed otherwise claimed that we would suffer long term declines in our exports and trade performance with the EU.
The statistics simply do not bear that out. In fact other than a very short term effect at the end of the transition period both our exports and imports from the EU have remained remarkably stable. There is a table on p31 of this report which shows the month by month figures:https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
Anyone who thought about our trade with non EU countries would have realised that this was likely to be the case, even in a no deal scenario, let alone the deals we currently have. The lack of a trade deal with the US did not stop them being our largest single trading partner or indeed us running a surplus with them.
The really grim thing is that the chronic trade deficit we built up whilst in the EU single market has not materially diminished. We continue to import far more (roughly £90bn a year) from them than we export. This continues to impoverish our country in a frankly unsustainable way.
Doubling the number of foreign students would get rid of about a third of that......just saying......
Which is a major reason why the government are so reluctant to act in respect of our largest single source of legal immigrants. Bluntly, we need the money.
They act by working hard to increase the number of foreign students and then blame it on courts, liberal lawyers and scapegoat immigrants. And don't seem reluctant about any of it as they keep repeating the plan.
Comments
You sure you’ve got this headline right? What brought her down was her inability to say that calling for a holocaust would be offensive to Jewish students. Condemned by left and right. And then plagiarism claims. Calling it ‘culture wars’ is lazy and misleading methinks
https://x.com/jonsopel/status/1742468959734055285?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
That doesn't, however, mean Newsnight was wrong to report on serious allegations that children were not being safeguarded by Kids Company. Journalists aren't the Police - they need to test the credibility of sources and give a fair chance to those against whom allegations are made to respond. But they aren't making out a case to that standard. And I am not aware Newsnight was sued by any trustee or Batmangelidjh - being hard done by in hindsight simply isn't the same as being libelled. And the alternative for Newsnight (and other journalists) would be to sweep serious allegations under the carpet.
As it turns out, the Newsnight report served tangentially to expose the financial weakness of Kids Company, contributed to by a CEO (Batmangelidjh) who was evangelical, passionate, but ultimately a poor manager, and trustees and government funders who offered her weak governance and challenge. It failed, fairly spectacularly, to survive the financial stress test provided by a very bad news story (the substance of which was not maliciously false, but was false). That wasn't the intention, but actually wasn't a terrible outcome in terms of lessons learned for the charity sector (lousy for Batmangelidjh and trustees though).
Anyway, in such a scenario, I'd expect the public to scale up Winchester 1997 as a reaction against such an abuse rather than have the government dismissed on contestable judicial fiat.
Mind you, it did give us the moment that a judge said that it would be unfair to hold legally liable the legally liable, legally appointed trustees of the charity. Because holding them legally liable might stop other people from being trustees of charities.
When all sides say they will respect the result beforehand, the public has the right to expect that they will do so after the event too, whether they're legally bound to or not.
[edit: not them specofically!]
It's probably been already observed but the greatest influence AI etc will have in the short term is to cast doubt on the authenticity of absolutely everything.
Sorting out which was which will take a long time.
Those who argue otherwise are simply those who hated the referendum result and didn't want it to be implemented in the first place.
It's a very good thing for British democracy that they didn't win out.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/bxektEVnGHaHicdf8
Farming on the levels must be becoming increasingly impractical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_M._Swain
"Swain grew up in poverty, living in a shack without running water, and sharing two beds with her eleven siblings.[1] She did not have shoes and thus missed school whenever it snowed.[1] She did not finish high school, dropping out in ninth grade.
. . .
Swain received tenure as an associate professor of politics and public policy at Princeton University."
She has had an interesting life, to say the least:
And some years ago said she had faced more discrimination at Princeton as an evangelical -- than as a black woman.
Our economic performance if we'd Remained in the EU as opposed to how it is now, today, would be utterly indistinguishable and no-one spun round from 2015 and inserted in 2024 would be able to tell any difference.
There is a clear attack line which in summary is "why didn't you lot accept the result" - the past. Why not talk about what it has delivered - the present - and what we can now look forward too?
Oh yeah, no wonder reliving a previous battle is preferable...
A deal or no deal referendum on whatever agreement was hammered out would have been a logical next step, but even better would be using a time machine and having Cameron ask the right question in the first place.
They'd have been even more angry at the reality, and no doubt expanded their list of malign influencers, actors and invective.
The courts make no such distinction between prerogative powers - dissolution, prorogation, dismissing and appointing PMs, are all prerogative powers and are all justicable by reference to common law principles. That's not my weird little spin on it - that is the whole point of the Supreme Court judgment in Miller II!
In relation to ministerial advice, you do indeed misremember. The point there was that Johnson' Government could have run a second line of defence saying, effectively, "even if this is justicable, you'll see that actually as we explained to Her Majesty, we were in no way seeking to undermine the principle of accountability to Parliament and actually had entirely legitimate reasons to do so". However, they didn't do so, and it was the glaring, unspoken truth that no minister would sign a statement of truth on that basis - essentially, they'd happily lied to the Queen but doing so in court would expose them to prosecution for perjury. That was shameful and scandalous, but wasn't the reason for the court's decision. Once they'd decided it was justicable, the Government had simply chosen not to provide any reason why the court shouldn't decide against them.
I agree with you it would be highly unlikely to arise in practice. Charles III or whoever the monarch is will always just call on the person who can command a majority following an election (i.e. the "winner"), dismissing the PM who has lost. So no need to go to court. But that simply wasn't your claim. You said "that's not a legal obligation". That statement isn't legally tested, but is very, very likely to be false for the reasons I explained. Certainly it's justicable (that's precisely what Miller II means) and very probably the court would find that the monarch was obliged to exercise his prerogative to appoint the "winner" in the absence of some incredibly compelling argument.
This claim is commonly made by Brexity posters, because the alternative is conceding that you voted to economically damage your own country.
The more time that passes, the more reprehensible his lazy contempt for constitutional safeguarding.
Nobody knew precisely what they were voting for, and it failed to carry critical constituencies (London, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the young).
Never be an early adopter unless the money doesn't matter to you, or you *really* need the product.
I figured the medium term political and social benefits would more than offset the short term economic damage, and there might even be longer term economic benefits as well.
Nothing that's happened since the referendum has changed my view on any of that.
Well…https://x.com/gesfandiari/status/1742524707084063192?s=46
BRACE?
In a sense, that's fair enough - I don't agree with it but get the argument.
Casino's argument is the really odd one - essentially saying without evidence that fundamentally changing the trading relationship with by far our most significant trading partner would make no discernible difference one way or the other. Nobody was arguing a major policy intervention would basically have zero economic impact - it's a bizarre view.
Brexit is like having a baby. My God it hurts, and you will look and feel worse afterwards, for quite a long time
On the plus side the weakness of sterling has helped export
U of Penn = University of Pennsylvania (in Philadelphia, founded by Ben Franklin, befouled by Donald Trump)
I am very much of the view that British economic issues long predate Brexit. Brexit “merely” exacerbated and crystalised them.
Ultimately something like 'critical race theory' should be studied, not censored (as is the case in florida), but without the influence of grand politicised assumptions about 'social justice'. But if universities redefine their mission as seeking 'justice' rather than 'truth' then the situation can easily get confused.
The statistics simply do not bear that out. In fact other than a very short term effect at the end of the transition period both our exports and imports from the EU have remained remarkably stable.
There is a table on p31 of this report which shows the month by month figures:https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
Anyone who thought about our trade with non EU countries would have realised that this was likely to be the case, even in a no deal scenario, let alone the deals we currently have. The lack of a trade deal with the US did not stop them being our largest single trading partner or indeed us running a surplus with them.
The really grim thing is that the chronic trade deficit we built up whilst in the EU single market has not materially diminished. We continue to import far more (roughly £90bn a year) from them than we export. This continues to impoverish our country in a frankly unsustainable way.
https://twitter.com/DanNeidle/status/1742470778434568373
Another black swan?
Of course it suits Bibi for there to be a perpetual war footing. Like a shark depends on continual forward movement for its survival, Netanyahu needs perpetual crisis to avoid his just desserts.
In any case, the relevant analysis is to compare the UK with other economies.
As for the long-standing trade deficit, that is a result of the UK preferring consumption to savings. It has essentially been Britain’s economic model for the last 40 years; I agree it’s effects are pernicious.
Luke Goss. When will he be famous?
And rightly so - it just isn't cricket.
Britain's economic performance is indistinguishable from its neighbours and such failings as we do have are our own, and not dependent on our political relationship with out neighbours.