This can be classed as a bona fide Brexit dividend – politicalbetting.com
This can be classed as a bona fide Brexit dividend – politicalbetting.com
Despite significant negativity towards the EU in some member states, support for leaving remains limitedFrance: 27% would vote to leave EUItaly: 27%Poland: 26%Romania: 20%Netherlands: 20%Germany: 17%Spain: 14%Denmark: 13%Lithuania: 11%yougov.co.uk/internationa…
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I don't think those figures mean much - I don't know if "Europe" is in the political background as much as it was for us from rebates via Bruges via Maastricht to the Euro to Lisbon etc. We had 35 years of Europe being in our politics from Thatcher to Major to Blair to Brown to Cameron - each one of them had "issues" with the EEC and later the EU.
Arguably, it destroyed the Conservative Party - now, whether you think that's another "dividend" or not is up to you but I'm certain the party would not be where it is now otherwise but every party had a fracture on this issue of some degree.
I wonder what that number would have been in 2005?
The British number was over 50% pre-referendum campaign.
"..The Speaker may not use his statutory obligation to administer the oath under 2
U.S.C. § 25 to arbitrarily delay seating a member when there is no dispute as to the election or
qualifications and no practical reason why he is unable to administer the oath..."
"...The question of whether an individual has a right to a House seat, and whether the
House is wrongfully denying that person admission, is justiciable and is not a political question.
Powell, 395 U.S. at 548..."
"..It is a constitutional qualification for office that a member take the oath of office
before assuming office. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 3 (“The … Representatives … shall be bound by
Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.”)..."
"36. The Constitution provides neither the language of the oath nor any requirements as
to who must administer it.
37. One statute, 5 U.S.C. § 3331, gives the language of the oath, but does not specify
how it is to be administered.
38. A second statute, 2 U.S.C. § 25, describes the procedure for swearing in the Speaker
and members-elect.
39. Per that process, “any Member of the House of Representatives” swears in the
Speaker upon the Speaker’s election. The Speaker then swears in the members-elect. But the
individual who swears in the Speaker (usually the Dean of the House) has not yet been sworn for
that Congress, and so is at that time a member-elect, establishing that non-members of the House
may and do constitutionally administer the oath.
40. Nothing in 2 U.S.C. § 25 makes the administration of the oath discretionary on the
part of the Speaker..."
Note that there is no practicable way to change the constitution before the midterms.
The procedures for seating House members are set out in statutory law (see above). To make any change to that would (along with the Senate and Presidential conformation) require the House to come back in session. And in any event, there will be at least a handful of GOP members who would stop short of the kind of insanity we're talking about.
So while on the one hand, this is a democratic outrage, on the other it does not in itself provide a route for preventing a Democratic majority Congress seating itself in January 2027.
Interesting to see how inflation has changed in different areas - the problem with grocery inflation is everyone notices it because we all have to eat (whether at home, Claridge's or the Cafe in the Barking Road) and some of the price changes have been dramatic.
Fuel on the other hand is, I believe, much closer to where it was and may even continue to fall as demand slackens .
Swing meet roundabout. As others have said, the return of a more normal monetary policy after years of artificially low interest rates along with the post-Covid inflationary splurge (which was foreseeable and could have been mitigated but wasn't) has impacted Governments and governed alike and whatever the stripe of the Government, it's been affected.
We may all want a return to the days of cheap food, cheap fuel, cheap money and endlessly rising asset values but those days are gone now and the new economic reality is a lot less pleasant for most of us.
All 3 make European Unity more appealing.
My real point is that the likes of Putin haven’t really tried to interfere on these numbers yet as there’s no obvious route to a vote that can be influenced.
I might have wanted Brexit but I fully accept Putin did too, and feel dirty that he helped*. If I was him, looking at these numbers, I’d see fertile ground.
*And irritated that the EU decided to help cause the division afterwards rather than help us pour oil on the waters - it took Russian over reach in Ukraine to pull us back together, but our alliance really could have crumbled.
The precedent set is that there is a democratic outrage - not swearing in an elected member - and there is very little pushback on it. Certainly no-one on the GOP side appears to have any qualms about it.
It makes ignoring elections simply part of how politics is done in America now, a normal part of the partisan struggle. When there is an affront to democracy in the midterms it will be easier for the public to shrug it off as just one of those political arguments in Washington that they are tired of, rather than an end to their ability to get rid of politicians they don't like.
In that sense, it's like any other real long-term relationship with another real person (as opposed to an AI avatar, or someone rented by the minute or regular traded in for a younger, hotter version.)
..Because there is no dispute as to Ms. Grijalva’s election or qualifications, the Court should:
A. Issue a declaratory judgment stating that Ms. Grijalva shall be deemed a Member
of the House of Representatives once she has taken the oath prescribed by law, see 5 U.S.C. § 3331;
B. Issue a declaratory judgment stating that if Speaker Johnson has not administered
the oath, the oath may be administered to Ms. Grijalva by any person authorized by law to
administer oaths under the law of the United States, the District of Columbia, or the State of
Arizona
That would be very similar to the form of request to a court made by a Democratic majority in the midterms.
I don't think there would be a majority, even on the current Supreme Court, who would overturn the constitution in order to deny this.
The bigger danger is what Trump and his lawless administration might so by exercise of executive power.
But. They are still polling more than Ed Daley’s apparently hugely sucessful Lib Dem’s, and pretty close to the party who won a huge majority last year.
Those who would welcome the extinction of conservatism should be careful what they wish. Conservative politics isn’t right wing nastiness. It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
And if you have no conservatives, you risk being left with Reform.
It also looks like the Ukranians are taking more territory around Pokrovsk, and even the Russian newspapers are now running stories of economic “difficulties”.
Meanwhile, what you could consider to be an actual, if unintended, Brexit benefit, of UK drivers’ details no longer being handed over to EU authorities wanting to pursue penalties for minor traffic offences such as speed cameras and the like, is soon coming to an end.
The party of which you speak is dead.
Within weeks of leaving the EU the UK experienced the biggest and deepest recession in our history, that is a fact.
Which is all the more reason why a low score of 49% in France and Italy should be a concern.
Here Lam explicitly sets out her proposal - which is official Conservative Party policy - to deport long-standing legal permanent residents who have *ever* claimed any benefit, including the state pension or child benefit (even if the child is British), or who earn less than £39K.
https://bsky.app/profile/jdportes.bsky.social/post/3m3q7sr5k5c27
And without a simultaneous worldwide pandemic.
I said I would never join the Lib Dems but between Katie Lam and Robert Jenrick I might just have to.
I get the impression that locals think that after a century of coal mining its now regarded as another part of the country's (ie the South) turn to have its environment disrupted to provide energy for the nation.
That's a cheery thought to start the day
"The biggest story in economics" - could we be heading for an AI bubble similar to the dotcom crash of the 90s/2000s? Some fun listening on your way to work courtesy of
@EdConwaySky
https://x.com/skynewsniall/status/1980895102932512839
As a remainer, I'd not be particularly unhappy to have been proved wrong, by Brexit having been an unqualified economic success.
That's so obviously not the case, that a fair proportion of leavers now regret their choice.
They will say anything and do anything to achieve that goal. If they achieve it then Farage will be 70 by the time of the general election afterwards (in 2034), and the Tories can reasonably hope that FPTP will make them the main choice for voters wishing to be rid of Labour.
The danger is that this strategy is doomed to failure, and all they're achieving is to make BNP policy more widely acceptable to Reform's benefit. No-one will believe that the Tories will reverse the immigration that happened when they were in government.
Zelensky is meeting the Swedish Prime Minister in Linkoping, home to SAAB, the manufacturer of Gripen jets.
What's the incentive of abiding by the law if a cabal of shysters can retroactively change it and throw you out anyway?
....
I'm rather irked by this.
Ultimately, the whole thing was a complete waste of time effort and money that could have been better spent but the header touches on and yet somewhat misses the point of our departure - it destroyed the EU's belief in ineluctable unification and led to them behaving somewhat more cautiously. No idiots like Juncker saying 'if it's yes, we go on and if it's no, we continue' any more.
That's actually been a very good thing for the EU and in itself done a lot to quiet discontent. If they'd had that attitude before 2016 odds are it would have tipped enough to Remain to win the vote.
Once upon a time the LDs were the party who could go either way, and would possibly sustain either a Tory or a Labour government. Almost certainly now they would support a Labour but not a Tory (and a fortiori Reform) one.
The seesaw now belongs to the Tories, who are about 20/1 to be forming the next government. A key question for former and non Reform Tories - there are millions of them - is who would Tories support if the GE were finely balanced?
So far it looks as if a Tory vote is a Reform vote.
The Conservatives clearly aren't "dead" but they aren't well - look at the results in Surrey last week. Towns like Caterham and Whyteleafe were once strongholds of the party - now, it's not just they are a close second to the LDs, they are a poor third .
Yes, you can be as waspish about the LDs as you like but in their historical context, 72 seats is a success, albeit for the most part built on the Conservative Party's collapse (but you can say the same about Labour, Reform and Green - we are all picking over the corpse of a once formidable electoral winning machine).
It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
As the cobbler would tell you, time wounds all heels and in a couple of decades, there may be an opportunity for a "new" Conservative Party, predicated on the old principles of one nation Conservatism, to emerge and in all probability return to Government but that requires a clearout of augean proportions both of who are in the Party now and of their half-baked thinking.
Because it won't stop at the dog whistled group that's for sure. Just as wishing to deport illegal law breakers wasn't quite enough for many.
REFORM 31% (+1)
LABOUR 22% (nc)
CONSERVATIVE 19% (-1)
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS 13% (-2)
GREEN 10% (+1)
SNP 2% (-1)
OTHERS: 2% (nc)
For the misdemeanour of not being born British.
*very proud*
Undoubtedly it hurt the economy, but there wasnt an immediate recession.
The conned (52%) by the conmen (Johnson, Farage, every right wing newspaper editor and hedge fund manager) would still have voted to Leave.
Now if the Starmer-Corbyn led Remain campaign hadn't been so dire that might have helped.
https://x.com/tweet4anna_nafo/status/1980771743473033515
A big well done to all of the citizen journalists in Ukraine, who spend their days reading and translating Russian Telegram channels mostly full of their own Russian propaganda and gloating, so the rest of the world can see what’s behind the curtain.
Seriously, we're not that far away from not only pogroms against brown people but parties including the "Conservative" party competing with the far right on how many they can deport if elected.
WTAF has happened to our politics?
And my take on this is the same as the people who whined that their participation in the Unite the Fascists march in no way was an endorsement of fascism or the fascists who organised the march or the fascists handing out flags to them or the fascists screaming racist abuse from the platform.
If you're in it, you're associated with it.
The most cleansing moment of my life in politics was sitting in that special Labour CLP meeting - called at the party's insistence - so that we could all have anti-semitism training. I read the pamphlet handed out, with a forward by party leader Corbyn saying that association with AS is a Bad Thing actually. I looked at the photos just released of Corbyn marching with screaming anti-semites. I observed the argument going on across the room where pro-Corbyn supporters were screaming about AS being a weapon used against Corbyn.
And in a moment of absolute clarity I knew my 25 years of membership was done. It was warm. Peaceful. And I got up, picked up my coat and left.
I urge friends in the Conservative Party appalled by this policy to consider when their own moment of absolute clarity might arrive.
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-08-12/uk-enters-recession-after-coronavirus-crisis-shrinks-the-economy
Brexit was in 2020 not 2016 and the recession was caused by the pandemic
They may annoy you, act childishly and petulantly, lie, bargain, make you give in to things you never wanted and occasionally vomit all over the soft furnishings, but they become an integrated part of your life, you help to shape them and they become capable over time. While you once thought you were essential, you find that they can thrive without you and - when you go your separate ways - you can't help feeling a little bit tired, old and irrelevant and nostalgic for the old days.
Something like that, wasn't it?
Perhaps that makes her remarks even more gruesome, as many of the objections to those refugees in the 1930s were about "cultural coherence".
The Tories are in a doomed race to out-reform Reform and unsurprisingly that is a race they can't win, however BNP Lam and Jenrick get.
'I'm staying inside, hopefully for not too much more time.'
The EU members are not going to exit the EU and if anything the Ukraine war has drawn them closer
I read earlier in the week that Starmer's EU reset is coming up against the same problem seen previously, that the EU are not going to agree any significant changes posing the question why should the UK get the 'good bits' but not be a member ?
Indeed the article suggested the EU are not remotely interested in the UK rejoining and why would they with an anti EU party riding high in the polls
Yesterday my wife and I received a letter from the DWP confirming we each will receive £150 WFA in the next few weeks
Today's inflation rate for 2026 benefits is 3.8% but thanks to the idiotic triple lock, pensioners will receive 1% more at 4.8%
This is madness, and speaks terribly of a government with a landslide win twisting and turning trying to capture popularity and at the same time failing in its duty as the guardian of the economy
Not only is Reeves looking for huge tax rises and seeks reduction in public spending, but is willing to abolish the 2 child cap !!!!!
This is financial incontinence and makes one despair
And on despair, what on earth is Lam thinking in her policy of deportations and this has to be rejected as conservative policy, or I really will be politically homeless for the first time in my 81 plus years
This utter lack of courtesy is not just disrespectful to the argument, it is, quite frankly.the root of the chaos that the Leavers have inflicted on the UK. It is time that every whinge and moan was called out for what it is: drivel. You got what you wanted- it is a failure. We now need to correct this failure in order to forestall a long term crisis that will leave the UK much poorer and much weaker unless we re-engage or rejoin the EU. That is now the choice, not the delusions of Singapore on Thames or "wider still and wider".
It is because neither Cameron nor the Leavers were prepared to have a grown up conversation about the choices that we face(d) that British politics has become so trivial.
By all means attack the EU, but you must make the case based on more than a pathetic whinge. The failure is not that of the EU. The failure is Brexit, so stop whinging. The fact that you were bought and sold for Russian and/or American gold is going to come out sooner or later, and the leaders of the Leave campaign, from Gove to Mogg were rightly removed from British politics. The sooner Farage follows, the quicker we can start the recovery from the disaster that they caused.
Andrew Bowie
@AndrewBowie_MP
Now confirmed Labour are giving Scotland only get a “Barnett Share” of the new Fishing Fund.
That’s less than 8%. Despite landing 60% of Britain’s fish.
Disgrace.
They’ve screwed farmers. They’ve screwed oil workers. Now they’re screwing fishermen.
Labour are screwing Scotland
https://x.com/AndrewBowie_MP/status/1980674040403726528
Plus of course plenty of European nations like Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Serbia, Albania, Monaco, Andorra, the Vatican City, and Iceland have managed outside the EU even before the UK left it
It's a pretty negative reason, but realpolitik is not all sunshine and roses. And I think it also points to a mistake the British always made, which was to imagine the EU as a coherent whole, rather than a somewhat chaotic sum of its parts.
That is the policy of the Greens for those PBers who have expressed their interest in the party recently.
This is unrecognisable as the Conservative Party I once voted for.
If its devolved then the Scottish fishing industry is Holyrood's responsibility.