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Apologising for Brexit – politicalbetting.com
Apologising for Brexit – politicalbetting.com
Next week marks 9 years since the EU referendum; most Britons would now support rejoiningCloser relationship without rejoining: 67% supportRejoining: 56%Status quo: 28%Further loosening ties: 18%yougov.co.uk/politics/art…
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I know we could have done more to seize the potential upsides of Brexit but there has been a reluctance to do this, principally because failure to keep our regulatory regimes in lockstep with the EU makes closer alignment more difficult. This is a reasonable point but it should be looked at in a case by case basis rather than across the board.
Anybody think the EU has spent those 9 years learning lessons on implementing democracy? Nah, me neither.
Rejoin the EU and within a year two thirds of people would be blaming that for the state of the country.
With some justification as taxes rise and the immigration numbers soared.
Brexit has happened and a lot has changed but it seems rejoining is not a priority by 44% to 37%
I voted remain, but just cannot see a path to rejoin that is likely and would the EU even want us back and on what terms
In today's uncertain world there are many more important causes, though a closer relationship with the EU is sensible
As far as blaming the conservatives, it seems that an even more anti EU party is dominating the political agenda
I would just gently say all the parties contributed to the present position as they fought a battle from an extreme Brexit to overturning the result and remain when they should have agreed together a Norway style arrangement
They can't back away from Brexit without losing a hefty chunk of support to the Faragists. Besides, who is there on the Conservative front bench (or even the back benches) who can credibly say that Brexit was a mistake? For nearly all of them, it would be the sort of U-turn requiring instant retirement to a remote monastery.
But by continuing to endorse Brexit in general, and this version in particular, they put a ceiling on their support at "nowhere near enough".
There's that strange writer chap who said Brexit is like having a baby. If it is, it's in the sense of a weird smell and staining that never quite goes away after the poonami incident. Me? I don't know how to advise the Conservatives, except "don't start from here".
Was reminded of the great Gene Hunt line "She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujxDA9VsQG4
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/may2025
And an idiot Labour MP prefers to resign rather than do anything to slow future borrowing increases.
Kemi: I’m reely, reely thorry
Public: why is this lying bastard lying to us?
Were you feeling hot and bothered? Needed to start another argument on the same topic?
You have to be impressed by the opening and also calling Liz Truss the Anglo-Zanzibar war of Prime Ministers.
And why the Conservatives got into the position of cheerleading for something that's unpopular with the public.
Still, mustn't hang around here. I'm having real trouble finding Independence Day (© Dan Hannan) fireworks in the shops. Must be that they're all sold out.
"Borrowing in the financial year to May 2025 was £37.7 billion; this was £1.6 billion more than in the same two-month period of 2024 and the third-highest April to May borrowing since monthly records began, after those of 2020 and 2021."
And Reeves answer to this was a public spending round that will eventually add another £140bn to current spending. We are heading for a disaster and those who put their hands over their ears and hum are doing those that need protection no good at all in the medium term.
It'll be fun if it happens under a Reform government.
Closer relationship without rejoining: 67% support
Rejoining: 56% support
The thread today will be dominated with stale arguments. Out to enjoy the sun instead.
More importantly I don't think Starmer's "Brexit red lines" are doing him much good.
She truly is appalling.
No, they shouldnt.
'Damage from Brexit' is 'ice free Arctic by 2015'
Yougov was less biased towards Remain, but still showed a Remain lead of 51% -49%.
If the polls were this wrong back then, then what guarantee do we have that they are correct now ?
56% is hardly the type of overwhelming public support that would justify a public apology or active steps by the government to rejoin.
Amazons Prime
The telling thing might be that support for Brexit has declined more or less in conjunction with its decline as a big political issue. If Starmer (say) made a speech today advocating re-entry then there would almost certainly be a swing back towards staying out in polls such as these.
We can ameliorate this to some extent by acting now but everything Reeves does makes it worse. These ridiculous arguments about whether she can make her ridiculous targets make those realigning the deck chairs on the Titanic look both purposeful and useful.
Normally, political mistakes get reversed. The Poll Tax lasted three years. Labour's original WFA plan lasted less than a year. Brexit, whatever its backers might wish, is seen as a mistake by the public. But it's not going anywhere for now. The way that spills into the wider political game is likely to be odd.
How's that working out ?
I imagine we'll hear the same old mantras of "supply side reform", "50% haircut for public sector pensions", "tax cuts and spending cuts" from the usual suspects but was any of that on offer last July? Is any of that on offer now? You won't hear it from Labour, Reform, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or Greens - is there some other political movement advocating a return to a blanced budget? How would they achieve it?
"Putting your hands over your ears and humming", as you put it, isn't fair. Plenty of people see the problem but, as with the "small boats", no one has come up with an easy, popular and cheap solution - if there were one, we'd have done it by now.
So it comes back to who has to feel the pain - which group can you demonise enough so everyone will say "yeah, let them suffer" - public sector workers, pensioners, others on welfare, the wealthy, property owners, Scottish lawyers, children - where would you like to start?
No, the usual whingeing every month about the borrowing numbers belies the fact of how we got here and the fact previous Governments allowed us to reach this point. I know what I would do but when I've proposed it, I've had a barrage of abuse from those who already feel "overtaxed" and complain "they" can't pay any more but someone else could and should.
Take all the money of Ed Miliband and well immediately be 28 billion better off, There's lots of things we can do but our politicians lack the resolve to take their sacred cows off to the abbatoir.
We certainly need to increase taxes and by substantial amounts.
We need to cut the headcount of the public sector by at least 1m, possibly more. Deregulation, and a massive cut back in our regulatory sector, would be where I would start but this would be a massively challenging task that cannot be dealt with adequately in a post like this. It requires at least a decade of the grinding progress that was made in the decade after 2010 and which has since been reversed.
I think we need to address the chronic unfairness of those who work past 67 because of their inadequate pensions paying so much tax to fund the pensions of those that retire at or even before 60. The differential benefits of public sector pensions have become indefensible.
+2% basic income tax
+5% top rate income tax
+20% council tax plus extra council tax bands
+10p fuel duty
End of the triple lock on pensions
End of pensions credits
End of WFA
Rapid increase in state retirement age to 70
20% reduction in invalidity benefits
Immediate conversion of future public sector pension schemes from DB to DC
10% reduction in current DB payments over £50k pa
10% reduction in public sector pay above £100k pa
Don't know how much all that would save but I doubt it would be enough.
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy. We lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software. New industries, from 3D printing to driverless cars, have sprung up around the country. Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again.
The EU, meanwhile, continues to turn inwards, clinging to its dream of political amalgamation as the euro and migration crises worsen. Its population is ageing, its share of world GDP shrinking and its peoples protesting. “We have the most comprehensive workers’ rights in the world”, complains Jean-Claude Juncker, who has recently begun in his second term as President of the European Federation, “but we have fewer and fewer workers”.
The last thing most EU leaders wanted, once the shock had worn off, was a protracted argument with the United Kingdom which, on the day it left, became their single biggest market. Terms were agreed easily enough. Britain withdrew from the EU’s political structures and institutions, but kept its tariff-free arrangements in place. The rights of EU nationals living in the UK were confirmed, and various reciprocal deals on healthcare and the like remained. For the sake of administrative convenience, Brexit took effect formally on 1 July 2019, to coincide with the mandates of a new European Parliament and Commission.
The Sultan didn't fire his own cannons into his own palace.
The wider problem is this, and it’s one that applies in many Western democracies. You can no longer keep, within the same party, voters who favour free movement of people and capital, and voters who favour borders and traditions.
It's fascinating to see those desperately defending our decision to leave the European Union to the point it's become totemic, a symbol of the triumph of democracy, literally, the people's will.
Cards on the table, I voted to leave as well. Why? Simply because our relationship, as it had become, with the EU, was unsustainable for both sides. We were half hearted, obstructive, rebate-obsessed, whingeing, complaining members standing often on the sidelines, often in a minority of one. They were implacable in their desire for greater political and financial integration.
Whether Cameron generally believed after his unexpected (and I suspect unwanted) 2015 election win (aided and abetted by Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and Alex Salmond), he could persuade the EU to accept a form of semi-detached membership for the UK I don't know, but the fact it came down to an IN/OUT vote rather than a ratification of a redefined membership is as much down to the EU leaders at the time as it was Cameron's negotiation skills.
Nine years on and for most people most of the time nothing has changed - we all have nice new passports and those who wanted to retire to Spain and Portugal now have a much harder though not impossible task but generally the EU is as invisible now we are out of it as we were when we were in it.
That's perhaps the tragedy and the irony - as OGH repeatedly showed, it didn't really matter to most people but it was whipped into a symbolic issue of sovereignty and identity by a well-organised campaign to which those seeking to defend the status quo had no real response. It became in the end a cry of frustration and anger from many who didn't usually participate in the democratic process yet has leaving the EU resolved that frustration and anger?
Wrong tense.
Easy peasy just needs some bollocks.
I'm a little twitchy about reductions in invalidity benefits but we also need to tackle the social care issue which is bankrupting even well-run councils and needs a more comprehensive national approach.
On tax I'd have 25p basic and a single top rate of 50p BUT I would restore the thresholds to where they would have been allowing for inflation - in other words, eliminate the iniquitous Conservative "fiscal drag".
Tax, spend, borrow always happens under Labour and our grandchildren will pay the price
Hopefully Labour will be out of Office within 4 years
Now it looks like he will be replaced by the guy who ran THOSE posters in the Brexit campaign. Why? Because he has filled that void, coming up with policies that Starmer tries to look like he wants to implement - but just seeming ever more desperate to be relevent.
Big deal
Maybe they should pay Mauritius to take it and rent it back from them
Regressive as the poorest pay by far the highest percentage of income on fuel; while the wealthiest not only pay a small percentage of income on fuel, but can avoid the tax altogether if they get an electric vehicle.
Stupid as its a tax that is getting phased out. It will raise nothing in the future so raising it won't address the budget in the future at all.
They're every bit as complacent and condescending as anything Cameron managed in his failed referendum campaign.
Good morning, everyone.
The people who wish to join (there is no “rejoin”) the EU increasingly look like the Referendum Party of 1997 in reverse. Obsessed bores with no sense of reality.
I think it's progressive, not regressive, to try and get the the workshy and unproductive to pay their fair share of taxes and reward the enterprising and productive, who already pay far more than their fair share.
The cash should be used to cut the REALLY regressive levies, on employment, income and enterprise.
These examples confuse because 'prime' and 'general' can be either.
You can put what has happened since July last year at Starmer's door but what about the eight years between the Referendum and that election when the Conservatives were in Government?
What did the Conservatives do to deal with the frustration and anger? They promised "levelling up" - what happened? Nothing. They borrowed huge amounts leaving the current and future Governments with a legacy of debt and deficit and what did they achieve? Nothing.
Unless and until the Conservative Party and its supporters start admitting to their complicity in the current state of the country rather than simply blaming Starmer and Reeves, they won't get a hearing and they won't deserve to. Rishi Sunak's mea culpa on the morning of July 5th is the only significant admission of failure and acceptance of responsibility I've heard from any leading Conservative.
Um, how can I put this...
Go after pensions if you like, but the cut that is needed are the false market structures. We need more doctors and teachers, not more administrators, contracts and competing administrative units.
This month’s debt and tax figures were not actually that bad. But not that good either. Reeves badly needs a BoE base rate cut, and we badly need that Israel-Iran spat to end so the oil price can settle back.
Also I wouldn't necessarily assume that there would be a swing back if talk of re-entry became more serious.
Russian attacks regularly transit (for example) Romanian airspace, without hindrance.
NATO is the sort of self defense organization that would rather mass migrate a thousand airplanes across the atlantic ocean in a giant air refueling conga line to shoot down a single shahed in Jordan rather than shoot down the shahed in its own air space.
https://x.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1935841909811167729
It’s the nature of final or average salary schemes - take away current contributions and the employer (in this case all of us) is on the hook for all preserved rights for many years. This costs more, not less.
That is not necessarily analogous of Sir Nige.