I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
On current evidence he is even more remote.
He may well step down, but only if he has suitably extreme placemen in all the relevant positions of power throughout the party, and his successor is as committed as he is to electoral suicide.
I have no doubt he will reform the party in his own image, but Labour have a solid bloc vote which will still turn out and win around 250-270 seats.
A coalition with the SNP as the we'll control the nutter party ( like LDs claimed on the Tories ) might look different to voters after Osborne's recession.
I have a middle class Labour voting friend, he is obsessed in drawing dividing lines between himself and the WWC. Single child sent to public school, objected to Tesco opening a store in Moseley (!) because rif raf. Voting for the EU is looking good to him now, he takes the moral high ground and the WWC is pushed out of homes they have had for generations. Voting Labour when Blair was in charge was quite safe for him as Blair was on side of the middle class.
But it is not looking so bad for me either - I can vote for this:
" The Deputy Prime Minister said he was confident that the Conservatives would agree to Liberal Democrat demands to increase the tax take from "the top 10 per cent". It suggests that anyone earning more than £50,500 will be targeted with higher "wealth" taxes.
Mr Clegg indicated yesterday that the rules on stamp duty, capital gains tax and other levies may be tightened. The Liberal Democrats also claim there is growing Conservative support for a mansion tax on multi–million pound homes.
The Deputy Prime Minister's warning that 10 per cent of taxpayers will be targeted will lead to speculation that tax relief on pensions may be curtailed for higher rate taxpayers, a Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment. "
That's just the Liberal manifesto for 2015, I wonder what the Labour government of 2020 is going to do?
Does your friend know you hold him in such contempt?
What can we now when the EU comes calling for this or that?
We can have another referendum. Or leave.
Are you mad? It's taken 40 years for the establishment to give us this referendum. There won't be another one while any of us are still alive (Jack W might be)
And we can't "just leave" can we? If we left this organisation the sky would would fall in and everything would go to hell, Cameron and Osborne have told us so...
That's a tough one, If I'd known how Cameron's "renegotiation" was going to turn out I certainly wouldn't have voted for him...
Would I have voted for Miliband or just done what I did in 2001 and sit it out. I'm not sure?
If you had ended up with Miliband, there would have been no negotiation and no referendum
That's what you want, right?
oh, wait...
Actually, yes, the status quo (i.e. no referendum) under Miliband would have been better than what's going to happen now that Cameron has won the referendum...
What's coming will be far more "integration" then we'd have had to put up had we not had this referendum. Think about it. We're about to be locked in to the EU, irrevocably and forever... What can we now do when the EU comes calling for this or that?
A President. An army. The single currency. It's all coming in the next few years on this back of this referendum. Would have been far, far better for Miliband to have won the 2015 election and the whole thing would have essentially been parked for five years.
Unless Remain win by more than 60% I don't think the single currency at least is on the cards
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
Ridiculous, unless Remain get over 60% then many bitter Leave voting Tories will switch to UKIP, the Tory civil war has barely begun. Cameron may have the centre but will be assailed on the left by Corbyn and the right by UKIP
That will result in the return of a further majority Conservative government.
Jezza losing voters to the centre and UKIP. The latter piling up votes for a handful of seats and PM Theresa May in Downing Street until 2025.
Rinse and repeat until Labour come to their senses, UKIP ditch Farage and the SNP implode.
Exactly ....
You are currently betting the Jacobite estate on Jezza.
You will be pie meat if Jezza steps down and lets someone else run.
Labour members are Mr W's safety net. No-one is going to lose money backing their stupidity.
I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
You can bet your house on the Labour membership choosing the worst possible successor. If there's someone even less credible than Jezza Nick & Co will hunt them out and put them in charge.
It's important not to get carried away by the succession of phone polls we've seen. If online polls are still at variance with the phone polls, we aren't much further forward in understanding what's going on.
And this is an important point. We have no particularly good reason to believe that the phone polls are better than the online ones. The May elections don't give conclusive evidence either way but some online polls did very well (check the last Scottish poll YouGov conducted, for example).
Just as we shouldn't dismiss polls we don't like the result of, even if there are anomalies in the findings, so we shouldn't believe polls we do like the look of if there's no particular reason to do so above others.
We can certainly suggest reasons why phones might be better than online - activist participation influencing online panels - but if that were the case, one would have expected the May results to be further out than they were.
I'm in the 'not convinced' camp on either set of data. I do however think that Remain looks likely to win given the apparent lack of momentum within Leave and the usual reversion to the status quo among undecideds that occurs in referendums.
Re activists skewing the online poll, you are correct that online did OK in May but I am wondering if Brexit activists are more passionate than anyone was about the outcome of anything in May?
The best comparison would probably be with Indyref and I can't remember how phone/online faired in that case, though I am sure someone will remind me!
Sheesh Remainers get good poll news and spend the morning getting grumpy.
Laughing at idiots is not 'grumpy' - it's just laughing at idiots.
Hmm
sour winners don't make good reading.
Look on the bright side the papers are all about deep Tory splits.
Daves on track to win a referendum and lose his party.
hyperbole.. and so early in the morning!
Merely reporting what the UK press is saying.
If you think there's no risk of Conservative rifts getting deeper then good luck with that.
the press reports in its own prejudiced way.. You just shouldn't read the Daily Mail.
Actually just tracking the Tory feud across PB is interesting enough.
Tories on this site have become increasingly shrill in their abuse towards each other.
Based on some of the positions taken to date I increasingly wonder how they can all stay in the same party.
That's the impression I get. I don't post very often, but still pop in most days to have a lurk, and the Tory split on here is visceral. I know PB isn't like real life, but if the atmosphere here is indicative of the feeling in the Tory party, there's no way they can just kiss and make up after June 23rd.
Handbags being swung every which way , it is a hoot.
They should really take a lesson from the SNP and focus on sex and money rather than all this splitting nonsense.
Trust the Tartan Tories to take over the mantle of Tory scandal!
Still haven't quite worked out why Hosie resigning from his party position is 'the right thing', while not resigning from Westminster is because 'we've moved on'.....But then Nicola's going to have to get increasingly adept at managing contradictions.....
'Second or third parties have no right to dictate to the government' (unless its at Westminster) 'Scare stories put voters off' (unless its in the cause of independence from Brussels Westminster, in which case VOTE FOR INDEPENDENCE TO SAVE THE NHS!!!)
Well if having a silly affair was a basis for resigning from Parliament we might be checking rules on quorum. But betraying one of Nicola's best buds means no party position.
@Charles Why are we bothering to have a referendum if Leave aren't going to respect the result?
Leave will respect the result. And then, if they have lost, will continue to campaign for us to Leave the EU. It is funny that those who don't actually understand democracy like yourself seem to think that once a vote has been held everyone has to agree and just give up. I am sure some of the socialist paradises that you dream of might work that way but in the real world people just get on and start campaigning again, waiting for the next opportunity to have their say.
It is just like any other election except in this case the initiative will all be with the Eurosceptics as the EU continues to act in exactly the same way it has for the last 40 years and exactly the same way we predicted. In the end you and the other Europhiles will lose. It is just that having missed this opportunity to Leave, the next time will be all the more painful for both sides - but all the more necessary.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
@another_richard To be completely clear on the subject, if Leave win, even by one vote, that's it - we're out. The idea of rerunning the vote in such circumstances is absurd.
Ridiculous, unless Remain get over 60% then many bitter Leave voting Tories will switch to UKIP, the Tory civil war has barely begun. Cameron may have the centre but will be assailed on the left by Corbyn and the right by UKIP
That will result in the return of a further majority Conservative government.
Jezza losing voters to the centre and UKIP. The latter piling up votes for a handful of seats and PM Theresa May in Downing Street until 2025.
Rinse and repeat until Labour come to their senses, UKIP ditch Farage and the SNP implode.
Exactly ....
You are currently betting the Jacobite estate on Jezza.
You will be pie meat if Jezza steps down and lets someone else run.
Labour members are Mr W's safety net. No-one is going to lose money backing their stupidity.
I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
You can bet your house on the Labour membership choosing the worst possible successor. If there's someone even less credible than Jezza Nick & Co will hunt them out and put them in charge.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
That's a tough one, If I'd known how Cameron's "renegotiation" was going to turn out I certainly wouldn't have voted for him...
Would I have voted for Miliband or just done what I did in 2001 and sit it out. I'm not sure?
If you had ended up with Miliband, there would have been no negotiation and no referendum
That's what you want, right?
oh, wait...
Actually, yes, the status quo (i.e. no referendum) under Miliband would have been better than what's going to happen now that Cameron has won the referendum...
What's coming will be far more "integration" then we'd have had to put up had we not had this referendum. Think about it. We're about to be locked in to the EU, irrevocably and forever... What can we now do when the EU comes calling for this or that?
A President. An army. The single currency. It's all coming in the next few years on this back of this referendum. Would have been far, far better for Miliband to have won the 2015 election and the whole thing would have essentially been parked for five years.
Unless Remain win by more than 60% I don't think the single currency at least is on the cards
For people like Heseltine and Clarke (so I assume Cameron and Osborne agree with them but typically don't [yet] have the guts to admit it) the Euro is and always has been "end game".
This referendum will be used to "plough" ahead... Stand bye for "project Euro" to begin in earnest on 24th June when all sorts of propaganda will suddenly starts appearing about how much better off we'd be in the Single Currency.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
Democracy is a price worth paying. Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
Ridiculous, unless Remain get over 60% then many bitter Leave voting Tories will switch to UKIP, the Tory civil war has barely begun. Cameron may have the centre but will be assailed on the left by Corbyn and the right by UKIP
That will result in the return of a further majority Conservative government.
Jezza losing voters to the centre and UKIP. The latter piling up votes for a handful of seats and PM Theresa May in Downing Street until 2025.
Rinse and repeat until Labour come to their senses, UKIP ditch Farage and the SNP implode.
Exactly ....
You are currently betting the Jacobite estate on Jezza.
You will be pie meat if Jezza steps down and lets someone else run.
Labour members are Mr W's safety net. No-one is going to lose money backing their stupidity.
I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
You can bet your house on the Labour membership choosing the worst possible successor. If there's someone even less credible than Jezza Nick & Co will hunt them out and put them in charge.
Are you mad? It's taken 40 years for the establishment to give us this referendum. There won't be another one while any of us are still alive (Jack W might be)
Unlike you, I am not (yet) so cynical about politics.
This referendum was in the manifesto of the party that one a majority and we are having it.
So far score 1 for the politicians.
I hope that the same politicians will respect the result of this referendum either way.
But, there is also a law on the statute books that says any transfer of sovereignty requires another referendum. I expect any future Government of any colour to honour that.
And if the circumstances dictate that out is better than in, so be it, although read the FT article I just posted. Most of the people shouting loudest for OUT right now are those that can afford it. Any future such decision must be taken in the same light.
Ridiculous, unless Remain get over 60% then many bitter Leave voting Tories will switch to UKIP, the Tory civil war has barely begun. Cameron may have the centre but will be assailed on the left by Corbyn and the right by UKIP
That will result in the return of a further majority Conservative government.
Jezza losing voters to the centre and UKIP. The latter piling up votes for a handful of seats and PM Theresa May in Downing Street until 2025.
Rinse and repeat until Labour come to their senses, UKIP ditch Farage and the SNP implode.
Exactly ....
You are currently betting the Jacobite estate on Jezza.
You will be pie meat if Jezza steps down and lets someone else run.
Labour members are Mr W's safety net. No-one is going to lose money backing their stupidity.
I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
You can bet your house on the Labour membership choosing the worst possible successor. If there's someone even less credible than Jezza Nick & Co will hunt them out and put them in charge.
Amid all the breathless excitement about this telephone poll of I believe all of 800 people I cant see it mentioned that Remains lead is actually down on the previous poll by the same lot a week ago despite their finding of a Blue Rinse for Leave coven.
I think you are imagining the "breathless excitement" to be honest.
Majority of posters on here treat the polls with some scepticism. Having said that all the recent ones have been more encouraging for Remain than Leave,
With the last 2 online polls showing Remain 4% ahead the next few online will be very interesting.
No it will result in a hung parliament, Corbyn will not gain votes but he will not lose many either, the losses will be Tory to UKIP. The Tories will likely be largest party but without a majority
My dear fellow if you think the British public is going to lose it collective senses and reward Jezza(lite) with anything close to their 2015 share of the vote then I fear you have been ingesting considerable quantities of inferior pies or illegal substances and most likely both!!
Jezza(lite) will be in Michael Foot territory if lucky.
Heard a chap on LBC yesterday (I think it was Matt Chorley from The Times) say JCorbyn is planning a reshuffle because his team is now "buoyed up" after the poll showing his support is increasing etc, etc. If so, then will probably happen after the Referendum and could take some of the heat off the PM. Personally, I don't think it will.
As I thought, the Referendum has become a "male p-----g contest." I think Andrea Leadsom and Suzanne Evans have both been excellent and if there were more women of their calibre, I think the whole debate could have been very different.
But, there is also a law on the statute books that says any transfer of sovereignty requires another referendum. I expect any future Government of any colour to honour that.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
It is exactly that sort of short term thinking that led to 2008. Things slowing down? Inflate the bubble a little more, push long term problems down the road, maybe they will go away,maybe they won't but that is tomorrow's problem. Live for the day.
I accept that the uncertainty caused by a Leave vote will have a short term effect on growth, not least in the polling industry, but I think in the medium and longer term this country and the people in it will be better off out.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
@Charles Why are we bothering to have a referendum if Leave aren't going to respect the result?
Leave will respect the result. And then, if they have lost, will continue to campaign for us to Leave the EU. It is funny that those who don't actually understand democracy like yourself seem to think that once a vote has been held everyone has to agree and just give up. I am sure some of the socialist paradises that you dream of might work that way but in the real world people just get on and start campaigning again, waiting for the next opportunity to have their say.
It is just like any other election except in this case the initiative will all be with the Eurosceptics as the EU continues to act in exactly the same way it has for the last 40 years and exactly the same way we predicted. In the end you and the other Europhiles will lose. It is just that having missed this opportunity to Leave, the next time will be all the more painful for both sides - but all the more necessary.
Since you're always right about everything, Richard, I take it that the reason you approve of elections is that they provide an opportunity for the rest of us to show by what margin we are inferior to you
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
It is exactly that sort of short term thinking that led to 2008. Things slowing down? Inflate the bubble a little more, push long term problems down the road, maybe they will go away,maybe they won't but that is tomorrow's problem. Live for the day.
I accept that the uncertainty caused by a Leave vote will have a short term effect on growth, not least in the polling industry, but I think in the medium and longer term this country and the people in it will be better off out.
a Leave vote will have a short term effect on growth, not least in the polling industry
Umm - well that's democratic. More vote again until you agree with me... The EC has already instructed Polish judges to strike down decisions made by the Polish parliament.
Like all lefties, they believe in democracy unless they don't get what they want.
Say those campaigning in a second referendum because they think the public got the last one wrong.
If the first referendum is free and fair, perhaps.
But can a referendum be said to be fair in the mass media age when one side can legally outspend the other by more than two to one?
Perhaps you should also factor in the non-stop free Brexit propaganda coming from most of the press. With most of the press screaming for Brexit I don't think an "it's not fair" meme is going to resonate.with many.
Ridiculous, unless Remain get over 60% then many bitter Leave voting Tories will switch to UKIP, the Tory civil war has barely begun. Cameron may have the centre but will be assailed on the left by Corbyn and the right by UKIP
That will result in the return of a further majority Conservative government.
Jezza losing voters to the centre and UKIP. The latter piling up votes for a handful of seats and PM Theresa May in Downing Street until 2025.
Rinse and repeat until Labour come to their senses, UKIP ditch Farage and the SNP implode.
Exactly ....
You are currently betting the Jacobite estate on Jezza.
You will be pie meat if Jezza steps down and lets someone else run.
Labour members are Mr W's safety net. No-one is going to lose money backing their stupidity.
I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
You can bet your house on the Labour membership choosing the worst possible successor. If there's someone even less credible than Jezza Nick & Co will hunt them out and put them in charge.
You'll still vote for them though.
Not a chance.
LOL you said that last time and then did :-)
I'd vote for an EdM-led Labour party over the Tories again, even though I thought he was useless. But Corbyn Labour is a different beast. I can't vote for a party led by people who actively support declared enemies of this country.
@another_richard To be completely clear on the subject, if Leave win, even by one vote, that's it - we're out. The idea of rerunning the vote in such circumstances is absurd.
Mr. Gin, must agree on the referendum lock. I wasn't sceptical at first, but am now.
Mr Dancer, I've read upon the EU/Polish Judges story.
At first glance the Polish Government has acted illegally and unconstitutionally-, whilst trying to pass illegal/unconstitutional laws, and they've also tried to nobble the judiciary, hence why a lot of Poles have taken to the streets.
There are many issues to criticise the EU, but in this instance the EU is on the right side of the argument.
@another_richard To be completely clear on the subject, if Leave win, even by one vote, that's it - we're out. The idea of rerunning the vote in such circumstances is absurd.
You know that isn't true.
How close does the vote have to be before it's an embarrassment to either or even both campaigns?
@another_richard I'm not suggesting it won't be argued for. The idea is still absurd.
Whichever side loses, loses. Both sides have had months to make their arguments. At the end, we will have a vote where we can be tolerably sure that the public will see the matter as settled.
Anyone on the losing side - whichever that may be - who refuses to accept the result will correctly be laughed to scorn.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
It is exactly that sort of short term thinking that led to 2008. Things slowing down? Inflate the bubble a little more, push long term problems down the road, maybe they will go away,maybe they won't but that is tomorrow's problem. Live for the day.
I accept that the uncertainty caused by a Leave vote will have a short term effect on growth, not least in the polling industry, but I think in the medium and longer term this country and the people in it will be better off out.
I daresay that Janan Ganesh, had he been around in the 1930s, would have been staunch for the Earl of Halifax.
Umm - well that's democratic. More vote again until you agree with me... The EC has already instructed Polish judges to strike down decisions made by the Polish parliament.
Like all lefties, they believe in democracy unless they don't get what they want.
Say those campaigning in a second referendum because they think the public got the last one wrong.
If the first referendum is free and fair, perhaps.
But can a referendum be said to be fair in the mass media age when one side can legally outspend the other by more than two to one?
Perhaps you should also factor in the non-stop free Brexit propaganda coming from most of the press. With most of the press screaming for Brexit I don't think an "it's not fair" meme is going to resonate.with many.
Free and Fair when one side can legally outspend the other. Makes one think of those Tories who allegedly illegally outspent their rivals.
If such a change is on amongst pensioners, then perhaps some thought as to why.
Both the Vote.Leave and Stronger.In meeting that I went to were mostly over 65's, as indeed most political meetings tend to be.
My impression is that the increasingly strident xenophobia of the Leave campaign is repelling undecideds and soft Leavers.
A second factor is the "Appeals to Authority" which tend to work better on the elderly than more truculent youth.
Moaning about straight bananas is one thing, but the EU is plainly not some sinister Hitlerian organisation. The accusation just does not ring true. One of the premises of advertising is that the message has to be plausible. Leave have failed here.
Still plenty of time for things to change, but IMO it is Leave's own campaign that is repelling voters.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head. If people vote Leave it will be despite the Leave campaign not because of it.
I always felt that if Leave degenerated into a UKIP, anti-immigrant ranting mode then the game was up. Could still be wrong of course and everyone can take something from the polls to give them comfort.
If Leave had run a single-minded campaign focussed on moving to EEA/EFTA and explaining what that would mean then it could have been a lot closer. However running the Leave campaign has to be like herding cats, no chance of anyone staying on message for long even if they could agree what the message was in the first place.
@another_richard To be completely clear on the subject, if Leave win, even by one vote, that's it - we're out. The idea of rerunning the vote in such circumstances is absurd.
If Leave win by one vote, that won't be it: there'll be all sorts of legal challenges from people who say they were denied a vote. There could very easily be a second referendum ordered by a court, rather like in Winchester 1997.
Ridiculous, unless Remain get over 60% then many bitter Leave voting Tories will switch to UKIP, the Tory civil war has barely begun. Cameron may have the centre but will be assailed on the left by Corbyn and the right by UKIP
That will result in the return of a further majority Conservative government.
Jezza losing voters to the centre and UKIP. The latter piling up votes for a handful of seats and PM Theresa May in Downing Street until 2025.
Rinse and repeat until Labour come to their senses, UKIP ditch Farage and the SNP implode.
Exactly ....
You are currently betting the Jacobite estate on Jezza.
You will be pie meat if Jezza steps down and lets someone else run.
Labour members are Mr W's safety net. No-one is going to lose money backing their stupidity.
I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
You can bet your house on the Labour membership choosing the worst possible successor. If there's someone even less credible than Jezza Nick & Co will hunt them out and put them in charge.
But even then, I think my bet on Andy Burnham never becoming leader of the Labour party is still safe.
No it will result in a hung parliament, Corbyn will not gain votes but he will not lose many either, the losses will be Tory to UKIP. The Tories will likely be largest party but without a majority
My dear fellow if you think the British public is going to lose it collective senses and reward Jezza(lite) with anything close to their 2015 share of the vote then I fear you have been ingesting considerable quantities of inferior pies or illegal substances and most likely both!!
Jezza(lite) will be in Michael Foot territory if lucky.
The question is how well the Tories will do though. Jezza doesn't need a majority to form a government. He doesn't even need Labour to be the largest party, just Con +NI odds and sods to be < Lab+SNP+other odds and sods.
We had the unmentionable Yougov the other week using gold standard social research methodology.
It's field period ended 12th May. It isn't even included in the table above.
If you look two threads back you will see the YouGov dual mode polls in the table. I assume they are missing from this one because the surveys actually started in late April, so they are not entirely current-month polls.
You should know by now everything is an anti-Leave conspiracy, OGH even needed to change the colour of the background to the Leave poll results yesterday. It's going to get worse between now and June 24th.
I CARE ABOUT THIS REFERENDUM MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED
As anyone who read my comments from last night will attest: I am quite upset. Indeed, I am borderline psychotic with anger. Because LEAVE is losing.
But I have no idea why I am so overwrought, so consumed with bitterness. After all, I have said all along that REMAIN will win quite easily, and I've never diverted from that. My NOJAM prediction was 56.3 REMAIN and 43.7 LEAVE. Therefore, what I have long predicted is simply coming to pass, and yet I am surprisingly and emotionally roiled, at the sight of my country and its people being bullied and betrayed.
For that is what it looks like to me, and that is what I feel. And if I am feeling this, many more must feel the same. I now understand the passions that so exercised the Cybernats. There is something about referendums on Nationality which strike deep and primal chords, concepts of identity and loyalty, and the result is explosive.
What does this mean? It surely means war on the right. I sincerely believe people like TSE, Nabavi and Meeks, and their equivalents in the wider world, are quislings. Traitors. Just the worst. They have betrayed my country, my daughter's country. I loathe them. I'm not sure I will ever be able to sit down and have a civil discussion with them again.
Or they me, presumably, after what I have said.
It also means the European boil, far from being lanced by this vote, will suppurate and eventually turn poisonous, particularly as the EU will gleefully come for more of our sovereignty, the moment we meekly vote REMAIN (and the REMAINIANS know this, which is possibly the worst of their lies, and what makes them such vermin).
Lastly, it means I need to get a life. It's a beautiful day, I am rich and lucky, my older daughter is ten this very day, her sister will be ten next week. They are happy and healthy.
Yet I sit on here hating people. Really hating them. Not good, not good. But there it is.
Now I can have breakfast. My name is Sean and I'm a LEAVER. Hello Sean.
I CARE ABOUT THIS REFERENDUM MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED
As anyone who read my comments from last night will attest: I am quite upset. Indeed, I am borderline psychotic with anger. Because LEAVE is losing.
But I have no idea why I am so overwrought, so consumed with bitterness. After all, I have said all along that REMAIN will win quite easily, and I've never diverted from that. My NOJAM prediction was 56.3 REMAIN and 43.7 LEAVE. Therefore, what I have long predicted is simply coming to pass, and yet I am surprisingly and emotionally roiled, at the sight of my country and its people being bullied and betrayed.
For that is what it looks like to me, and that is what I feel. And if I am feeling this, many more must feel the same. I now understand the passions that so exercised the Cybernats. There is something about referendums on Nationality which strike deep and primal chords, concepts of identity and loyalty, and the result is explosive.
What does this mean? It surely means war on the right. I sincerely believe people like TSE, Nabavi and Meeks, and their equivalents in the wider world, are quislings. Traitors. Just the worst. They have betrayed my country, my daughter's country. I loathe them. I'm not sure I will ever be able to sit down and have a civil discussion with them again.
Or they me, presumably, after what I have said.
It also means the European boil, far from being lanced by this vote, will suppurate and eventually turn poisonous, particularly as the EU will gleefully come for more of our sovereignty, the moment we meekly vote REMAIN (and the REMAINIANS know this, which is possibly the worst of their lies, and what makes them such vermin).
Lastly, it means I need to get a life. It's a beautiful day, I am rich and lucky, my older daughter is ten this very day, her sister will be ten next week. They are happy and healthy.
Yet I sit on here hating people. Really hating them. Not good, not good. But there it is.
Now I can have breakfast. My name is Sean and I'm a LEAVER. Hello Sean.
I still can't take ORB remotely seriously. 3% DK. Yeah, right.
The most blatantly one-eyed poster trashes a poll with Remain ahead. Colour me surprised.
We are all partisan but the hypocrisy of some people really is shameless.
The polls are certainly all over the place but the trend is all in the same direction and as this very poster used to lecture us several weeks ago, it is the trend that matters (Although of course that what matter now the trend is the other way)
Perhaps the kids have finally got round to phoning their grandparents!
I do wonder why you read my posts at all. Given I used to vote Labour - and even once LD, I find your analysis rather lacking.
Let's be honest you find anything said by a Remainer sadly laking.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Once we reach a point when we can no longer leave, when the percentage of EU born migrants in the UK exceeds a certain point there is no going back. We permanently become a confederation or a federal structure (depending on ECR or EPP winning) - but whatever it is, it is no longer our nationstate parliamentary democracy. This is about political union, de facto for perpetuity.
@another_richard I'm not suggesting it won't be argued for. The idea is still absurd.
Whichever side loses, loses. Both sides have had months to make their arguments. At the end, we will have a vote where we can be tolerably sure that the public will see the matter as settled.
Anyone on the losing side - whichever that may be - who refuses to accept the result will correctly be laughed to scorn.
The idea that all the international organisations, government organisations, business organisations and all the other establishment organisations are going to meekly accept something they have so vehemently opposed is IMO absurd.
They haven't in other countries when referenda go against their will and they wont in Britain either.
I CARE ABOUT THIS REFERENDUM MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED
As anyone who read my comments from last night will attest: I am quite upset. Indeed, I am borderline psychotic with anger. Because LEAVE is losing.
But I have no idea why I am so overwrought, so consumed with bitterness. After all, I have said all along that REMAIN will win quite easily, and I've never diverted from that. My NOJAM prediction was 56.3 REMAIN and 43.7 LEAVE. Therefore, what I have long predicted is simply coming to pass, and yet I am surprisingly and emotionally roiled, at the sight of my country and its people being bullied and betrayed.
For that is what it looks like to me, and that is what I feel. And if I am feeling this, many more must feel the same. I now understand the passions that so exercised the Cybernats. There is something about referendums on Nationality which strike deep and primal chords, concepts of identity and loyalty, and the result is explosive.
What does this mean? It surely means war on the right. I sincerely believe people like TSE, Nabavi and Meeks, and their equivalents in the wider world, are quislings. Traitors. Just the worst. They have betrayed my country, my daughter's country. I loathe them. I'm not sure I will ever be able to sit down and have a civil discussion with them again.
Or they me, presumably, after what I have said.
It also means the European boil, far from being lanced by this vote, will suppurate and eventually turn poisonous, particularly as the EU will gleefully come for more of our sovereignty, the moment we meekly vote REMAIN (and the REMAINIANS know this, which is possibly the worst of their lies, and what makes them such vermin).
Lastly, it means I need to get a life. It's a beautiful day, I am rich and lucky, my older daughter is ten this very day, her sister will be ten next week. They are happy and healthy.
Yet I sit on here hating people. Really hating them. Not good, not good. But there it is.
Now I can have breakfast. My name is Sean and I'm a LEAVER. Hello Sean.
Ridiculous, unless Remain get over 60% then many bitter Leave voting Tories will switch to UKIP, the Tory civil war has barely begun. Cameron may have the centre but will be assailed on the left by Corbyn and the right by UKIP
That will result in the return of a further majority Conservative government.
Jezza losing voters to the centre and UKIP. The latter piling up votes for a handful of seats and PM Theresa May in Downing Street until 2025.
Rinse and repeat until Labour come to their senses, UKIP ditch Farage and the SNP implode.
Exactly ....
You are currently betting the Jacobite estate on Jezza.
You will be pie meat if Jezza steps down and lets someone else run.
Labour members are Mr W's safety net. No-one is going to lose money backing their stupidity.
I'm still waiting to see if Jezza is quite as remote from real life as tories hope he is. He may just have the sense to step down and make 2020 a contested election.
You can bet your house on the Labour membership choosing the worst possible successor. If there's someone even less credible than Jezza Nick & Co will hunt them out and put them in charge.
But even then, I think my bet on Andy Burnham never becoming leader of the Labour party is still safe.
you've got quite a long wait for a payout on that one
@another_richard To be completely clear on the subject, if Leave win, even by one vote, that's it - we're out. The idea of rerunning the vote in such circumstances is absurd.
If Leave win by one vote, that won't be it: there'll be all sorts of legal challenges from people who say they were denied a vote. There could very easily be a second referendum ordered by a court, rather like in Winchester 1997.
Which resulted in the bad losers getting absolutely smashed.
@SeanT neatly illustrating that Remainers think the referendum is an argument while Leavers think it is a crusade.
Take your own advice, SeanT. Enjoy this beautiful day. We all have fewer beautiful days to enjoy than we think we have.
Crusade? "a vigorous campaign for political, social, or religious change." ? It is a campaign for or against political change. It is vigorous ("strong, healthy, and full of energy.") because people care about their country and how they are governed or otherwise.
I'm assuming this was an attempt to sweepingly generalise all LEAVErs, which is wrong not only because of the sweeping generalisation but also because you are shooting the messenger not the message.
I CARE ABOUT THIS REFERENDUM MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED
dawning self-awareness snipped
Good morning Sean, enjoy the day it truly is beautiful.
I think you are angry because you are stupid. You are sharp, witty, droll, acute and all those things of course, but stupid in that you haven't bothered (because you aren't a details man) to work out what being in or out of the EU actually means.
Hence your admitted cybernat/FREEDOM feelings. Absolutely understandable: you are feeling overwhelmed and so lash out.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Once we reach a point when we can no longer leave, when the percentage of EU born migrants in the UK exceeds a certain point there is no going back. We permanently become a confederation or a federal structure (depending on ECR or EPP winning) - but whatever it is, it is no longer our nationstate parliamentary democracy. This is about political union, de facto for perpetuity.
Must be like that in parts of Spain and France; majority EU born immigrants.
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
It is exactly that sort of short term thinking that led to 2008. Things slowing down? Inflate the bubble a little more, push long term problems down the road, maybe they will go away,maybe they won't but that is tomorrow's problem. Live for the day.
I accept that the uncertainty caused by a Leave vote will have a short term effect on growth, not least in the polling industry, but I think in the medium and longer term this country and the people in it will be better off out.
@SeanT neatly illustrating that Remainers think the referendum is an argument while Leavers think it is a crusade.
Take your own advice, SeanT. Enjoy this beautiful day. We all have fewer beautiful days to enjoy than we think we have.
The beautiful day will come when we get revenge. And we will. Because the EU will do exactly as I predict - demand this, take that, seize the rest - and then the voters will turn on REMAINAINS in disgust and fury. And REMAINIANS won't have anywhere to hide.
The EU will be the REMAINIACS' *thing*, their flag, their team, they side, what they wanted, what they lied to protect, what they bullied the voters into accepting. They will have to defend the EU and all its works. They will face the brutal anger every time the EU does something unwanted.
Other than that, yes. I will take a day off hating the pb REMAINERS. But I fear the emotions will return, very easily and quickly, for a long time to come. Sad but true.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Once we reach a point when we can no longer leave, when the percentage of EU born migrants in the UK exceeds a certain point there is no going back. We permanently become a confederation or a federal structure (depending on ECR or EPP winning) - but whatever it is, it is no longer our nationstate parliamentary democracy. This is about political union, de facto for perpetuity.
Must be like that in parts of Spain and France; majority EU born immigrants.
Ultimately I oppose continental political governance for the same reason I oppose world governance. It monopolises (or creates an oligopoly in the case of continents) jurisdiction and governance which makes it more difficult to avoid bad governance and reduces political innovation through the reduction of competition.
Anyone who thinks they are right-wing or centre right should understand why monopolies are disastrous in the areas where they are imposed. I cannot avoid applying this principle to the political governance.
@Charles Why are we bothering to have a referendum if Leave aren't going to respect the result?
Leave will respect the result. And then, if they have lost, will continue to campaign for us to Leave the EU. It is funny that those who don't actually understand democracy like yourself seem to think that once a vote has been held everyone has to agree and just give up. I am sure some of the socialist paradises that you dream of might work that way but in the real world people just get on and start campaigning again, waiting for the next opportunity to have their say.
It is just like any other election except in this case the initiative will all be with the Eurosceptics as the EU continues to act in exactly the same way it has for the last 40 years and exactly the same way we predicted. In the end you and the other Europhiles will lose. It is just that having missed this opportunity to Leave, the next time will be all the more painful for both sides - but all the more necessary.
Exactly right.
What too many on the Remain side seem to wish for is for eurosceptics to simply shut up and go away.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Exactly it's not as though Boris, Gove and IDS are going to need to worry about any economic downturn.
I am realistic enough to know that the economic future is uncertain either way but I think the FT hit the nail on the head when they said that it is the fact that most Brexiters dot seem to care if leaving the EU has a negative effect on lots of peoples livelihoods that is alarming.
Mr. Eagles, if you think the UN meddles as regularly as the EU or that it has the same appetite for constant expansion of its powers, or that the ultimate goal of the UN is to become a nation itself [the goal of the EU] then that's a valid comparison.
@SeanT neatly illustrating that Remainers think the referendum is an argument while Leavers think it is a crusade.
Take your own advice, SeanT. Enjoy this beautiful day. We all have fewer beautiful days to enjoy than we think we have.
Crusade? "a vigorous campaign for political, social, or religious change." ? It is a campaign for or against political change. It is vigorous ("strong, healthy, and full of energy.") because people care about their country and how they are governed or otherwise.
I'm assuming this was an attempt to sweepingly generalise all LEAVErs, which is wrong not only because of the sweeping generalisation but also because you are shooting the messenger not the message.
It is, of course, worth remembering that during the last five years - a period when appalling levels of unemployment in Eurozone countries and the accession of poor countries such as Romania to the EU led to unprecedented levels of migration - our population was swelled by...
1.5%
I've been to Latvia; a country where the Soviet Union forced Latvians to leave their homes, to be replaced by ethnic Russians.
If the USSR - over the course of a half century of policies mean to extinguish Latvia as a nation, with all the weapons of the gulag, forced migrations and the secret police - couldn't do it, I don't think the EU will it.
Let's be realistic here. At some point in the next decade or 15 years, the EU will want to do something that is extremely politically unpopular in the UK. Maybe it's an EU army, maybe it's Turkish accession. Whatever it is, it will be impossible for a UK government to remain in power and sign up to that transfer of powers. Another referendum will be held, almost certainly with the government supporting EFTA/EEA, and which will be won.
Mr. Eagles, if you think the UN meddles as regularly as the EU or that it has the same appetite for constant expansion of its powers, or that the ultimate goal of the UN is to become a nation itself [the goal of the EU] then that's a valid comparison.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Exactly it's not as though Boris, Gove and IDS are going to need to worry about any economic downturn.
I am realistic enough to know that the economic future is uncertain either way but I think the FT hit the nail on the head when they said that it is the fact that most Brexiters dot seem to care if leaving the EU has a negative effect on lots of peoples livelihoods that is alarming.
No - a possible temporary negative affect on people, that we can overcome, and that leads to a far more positive effect for people - is the benefit of Brexit.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Exactly it's not as though Boris, Gove and IDS are going to need to worry about any economic downturn.
I am realistic enough to know that the economic future is uncertain either way but I think the FT hit the nail on the head when they said that it is the fact that most Brexiters dot seem to care if leaving the EU has a negative effect on lots of peoples livelihoods that is alarming.
The Janan Ganesh article is vapid bilge of the worst sort. One of the reasons I am for LEAVE is because I do not believe the working class people of this country can or should endure unchecked and unstoppable mass immigration from low-wage Europe for much longer.
It's the fucking REMAINAINS who are dumping all over the poor. The REMAINIANS get cheap plumbers, so they think Sod the bigoted chavs.
See. I'm angry again. Really really really angry. If only I could divert this energy into finding a plot for my next book. lol
In the long run, we all receive what our skills command on the world market. You put a hack Italian writer out of a job, or diminish his income because an Italian chose your book over his.
@Charles Why are we bothering to have a referendum if Leave aren't going to respect the result?
Leave will respect the result. And then, if they have lost, will continue to campaign for us to Leave the EU. It is funny that those who don't actually understand democracy like yourself seem to think that once a vote has been held everyone has to agree and just give up. I am sure some of the socialist paradises that you dream of might work that way but in the real world people just get on and start campaigning again, waiting for the next opportunity to have their say.
It is just like any other election except in this case the initiative will all be with the Eurosceptics as the EU continues to act in exactly the same way it has for the last 40 years and exactly the same way we predicted. In the end you and the other Europhiles will lose. It is just that having missed this opportunity to Leave, the next time will be all the more painful for both sides - but all the more necessary.
Exactly right.
What too many on the Remain side seem to wish for is for eurosceptics to simply shut up and go away.
@another_richard To be completely clear on the subject, if Leave win, even by one vote, that's it - we're out. The idea of rerunning the vote in such circumstances is absurd.
If Leave win by one vote, that won't be it: there'll be all sorts of legal challenges from people who say they were denied a vote. There could very easily be a second referendum ordered by a court, rather like in Winchester 1997.
Which resulted in the bad losers getting absolutely smashed.
Presumably, the same logic would apply if Remain won by one vote too.
I CARE ABOUT THIS REFERENDUM MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED
dawning self-awareness snipped
Good morning Sean, enjoy the day it truly is beautiful.
I think you are angry because you are stupid. You are sharp, witty, droll, acute and all those things of course, but stupid in that you haven't bothered (because you aren't a details man) to work out what being in or out of the EU actually means.
Hence your admitted cybernat/FREEDOM feelings. Absolutely understandable: you are feeling overwhelmed and so lash out.
But don't worry. It will pass. All will be well.
So sorry @TOPPING. You and others like you have sold your country for a pottage. Like Esau with Jacob you will sell your soul for supposedly immediate gain, destroying your heritage in the process.
Cameron and Co have held out the pottage economic disasters and the voting public seem to have sniffed the lies but cannot keep their hands of the supposed goodies. So Great Britain becomes Little Britain in fact, and eventually No Britain.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Exactly it's not as though Boris, Gove and IDS are going to need to worry about any economic downturn.
I am realistic enough to know that the economic future is uncertain either way but I think the FT hit the nail on the head when they said that it is the fact that most Brexiters dot seem to care if leaving the EU has a negative effect on lots of peoples livelihoods that is alarming.
No - a possible temporary negative affect on people, that we can overcome, and that leads to a far more positive effect for people - is the benefit of Brexit.
It's only the Remainians that are alarming.
Can I politely propose (feel free to ignore me) we use Remainiacs (Re-maniacs) instead of Remainians - the parallel with Romanians unsettles me. To this day I'm not sure if such a parallel is intentional from whoever started it.
I CARE ABOUT THIS REFERENDUM MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED
As anyone who read my comments from last night will attest: I am quite upset. Indeed, I am borderline psychotic with anger. Because LEAVE is losing.
But I have no idea why I am so overwrought, so consumed with bitterness. After all, I have said all along that REMAIN will win quite easily, and I've never diverted from that. My NOJAM prediction was 56.3 REMAIN and 43.7 LEAVE. Therefore, what I have long predicted is simply coming to pass, and yet I am surprisingly and emotionally roiled, at the sight of my country and its people being bullied and betrayed.
For that is what it looks like to me, and that is what I feel. And if I am feeling this, many more must feel the same. I now understand the passions that so exercised the Cybernats. There is something about referendums on Nationality which strike deep and primal chords, concepts of identity and loyalty, and the result is explosive.
What does this mean? It surely means war on the right. I sincerely believe people like TSE, Nabavi and Meeks, and their equivalents in the wider world, are quislings. Traitors. Just the worst. They have betrayed my country, my daughter's country. I loathe them. I'm not sure I will ever be able to sit down and have a civil discussion with them again.
Or they me, presumably, after what I have said.
It also means the European boil, far from being lanced by this vote, will suppurate and eventually turn poisonous, particularly as the EU will gleefully come for more of our sovereignty, the moment we meekly vote REMAIN (and the REMAINIANS know this, which is possibly the worst of their lies, and what makes them such vermin).
Lastly, it means I need to get a life. It's a beautiful day, I am rich and lucky, my older daughter is ten this very day, her sister will be ten next week. They are happy and healthy.
Yet I sit on here hating people. Really hating them. Not good, not good. But there it is.
Now I can have breakfast. My name is Sean and I'm a LEAVER. Hello Sean.
For a lot of us, referendums are false choices. Yes/No; black and white; take it or leave it. Whereas we see the alternatives as maybe, up to a point, a trade-off.
Those that want referendums for constitutional change (the SNP, Tory Outers) don't see them as choices at all. For them they are simply a mechanism to achieve that change. For them any No vote on the arguments is spurious.
People vote against because proponents of change fail to make a convincing case that things will be better for it.
Would you really choose the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy because you are worried about one year long recession? That is huge short termism in my opinion and is regrettable.
And people wonder why Brexiteers get labelled extreme...
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Exactly it's not as though Boris, Gove and IDS are going to need to worry about any economic downturn.
I am realistic enough to know that the economic future is uncertain either way but I think the FT hit the nail on the head when they said that it is the fact that most Brexiters dot seem to care if leaving the EU has a negative effect on lots of peoples livelihoods that is alarming.
The Janan Ganesh article is vapid bilge of the worst sort. One of the reasons I am for LEAVE is because I do not believe the working class people of this country can or should endure unchecked and unstoppable mass immigration from low-wage Europe for much longer.
It's the fucking REMAINAINS who are dumping all over the poor. The REMAINIANS get cheap plumbers, so they think Sod the bigoted chavs.
See. I'm angry again. Really really really angry. If only I could divert this energy into finding a plot for my next book. lol
The notion that working class people do not need plumbers is a quaint one that indicates a certain level of detachment from the real world.
There is so much bollocks written about the working class - white or otherwise - on PB. Do you know what's really fucked up countless working class communities in the UK? Drugs, the buying and selling of. The middle class has played a huge part in that. Heading off to Tottenham to get another fix as the place got ruined by the gangs that sprung up to feed the demand. How immensely patriotic.
Comments
A coalition with the SNP as the we'll control the nutter party ( like LDs claimed on the Tories ) might look different to voters after Osborne's recession.
And we can't "just leave" can we? If we left this organisation the sky would would fall in and everything would go to hell, Cameron and Osborne have told us so...
What damns the Leavers is not their belief that the Treasury forecast is wrong. It is the hint they give off that they do not really mind if it is right. They can live with a recession if they must. If others cannot, well, nobody said the path to freedom is lined with cherry blossom. Their nonchalance is all the worse for their pose as underdog yeomen, a droll routine that has cabinet members and an Etonian former mayor of London deploring the “establishment”, presumably while buffing each other’s brass necks.
As a picture of decadence, politicos who cannot lose their jobs shrugging at percentage points of GDP here and there will stick in the mind. Mostly drawn from the right, they resemble nothing so much as the rich Londoners who voted for the far-left Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader because “winning isn’t everything”. If you are poor enough to taste government policy, winning elections really is everything. If your next contract hinges on economic calm, a downturn this year is not just a detour on the way to national destiny.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1fe4e0ec-1e96-11e6-a7bc-ee846770ec15.html#ixzz49Yg0WVcX
Nor for that matter when the EU ignores any result it doesn't like.
The best comparison would probably be with Indyref and I can't remember how phone/online faired in that case, though I am sure someone will remind me!
It is just like any other election except in this case the initiative will all be with the Eurosceptics as the EU continues to act in exactly the same way it has for the last 40 years and exactly the same way we predicted. In the end you and the other Europhiles will lose. It is just that having missed this opportunity to Leave, the next time will be all the more painful for both sides - but all the more necessary.
This referendum will be used to "plough" ahead... Stand bye for "project Euro" to begin in earnest on 24th June when all sorts of propaganda will suddenly starts appearing about how much better off we'd be in the Single Currency.
This referendum was in the manifesto of the party that one a majority and we are having it.
So far score 1 for the politicians.
I hope that the same politicians will respect the result of this referendum either way.
But, there is also a law on the statute books that says any transfer of sovereignty requires another referendum. I expect any future Government of any colour to honour that.
And if the circumstances dictate that out is better than in, so be it, although read the FT article I just posted. Most of the people shouting loudest for OUT right now are those that can afford it. Any future such decision must be taken in the same light.
Jezza(lite) will be in Michael Foot territory if lucky.
As I thought, the Referendum has become a "male p-----g contest." I think Andrea Leadsom and Suzanne Evans have both been excellent and if there were more women of their calibre, I think the whole debate could have been very different.
Well more fool you.
I accept that the uncertainty caused by a Leave vote will have a short term effect on growth, not least in the polling industry, but I think in the medium and longer term this country and the people in it will be better off out.
"the defacto end of nation-state parliamentary democracy" is not on the ballot paper, and if a year long recession meant I might lose my job or home (which is what the article is about) then yes, I would have pause for thought.
Perhaps you should also factor in the non-stop free Brexit propaganda coming from most of the press. With most of the press screaming for Brexit I don't think an "it's not fair" meme is going to resonate.with many.
At first glance the Polish Government has acted illegally and unconstitutionally-, whilst trying to pass illegal/unconstitutional laws, and they've also tried to nobble the judiciary, hence why a lot of Poles have taken to the streets.
There are many issues to criticise the EU, but in this instance the EU is on the right side of the argument.
@JBeattieMirror: Don't often plug rivals but @MattChorley is inspired this morning on Brexit:
https://t.co/Jzl8OyxoyP
Whichever side loses, loses. Both sides have had months to make their arguments. At the end, we will have a vote where we can be tolerably sure that the public will see the matter as settled.
Anyone on the losing side - whichever that may be - who refuses to accept the result will correctly be laughed to scorn.
Makes one think of those Tories who allegedly illegally outspent their rivals.
If Leave had run a single-minded campaign focussed on moving to EEA/EFTA and explaining what that would mean then it could have been a lot closer. However running the Leave campaign has to be like herding cats, no chance of anyone staying on message for long even if they could agree what the message was in the first place.
Clinton 57 .. Sanders 39
Clinton 52 .. Trump 38
http://abc7.com/politics/poll-clinton-poised-to-defeat-sanders-in-california-primary/1351808/
You should know by now everything is an anti-Leave conspiracy, OGH even needed to change the colour of the background to the Leave poll results yesterday. It's going to get worse between now and June 24th.
This is about political union, de facto for perpetuity.
http://www.themalcontent.rocks/here-is-some-content/2016/5/18/p-lod-2016
Hilary's space alien boyfriend and other tales
They haven't in other countries when referenda go against their will and they wont in Britain either.
And now time for me to do some work.
Take your own advice, SeanT. Enjoy this beautiful day. We all have fewer beautiful days to enjoy than we think we have.
https://twitter.com/PlatoSays/status/735026735037751296
Most of the rest of us see a Conservative party turning Cheddar Gorge in to the Grand canyon
It is a campaign for or against political change.
It is vigorous ("strong, healthy, and full of energy.") because people care about their country and how they are governed or otherwise.
I'm assuming this was an attempt to sweepingly generalise all LEAVErs, which is wrong not only because of the sweeping generalisation but also because you are shooting the messenger not the message.
I think you are angry because you are stupid. You are sharp, witty, droll, acute and all those things of course, but stupid in that you haven't bothered (because you aren't a details man) to work out what being in or out of the EU actually means.
Hence your admitted cybernat/FREEDOM feelings. Absolutely understandable: you are feeling overwhelmed and so lash out.
But don't worry. It will pass. All will be well.
https://twitter.com/Joey7Barton/status/316656105545666560
Anyone who thinks they are right-wing or centre right should understand why monopolies are disastrous in the areas where they are imposed. I cannot avoid applying this principle to the political governance.
You are predicting a UKIP majority of nearly 600 seats then?
What too many on the Remain side seem to wish for is for eurosceptics to simply shut up and go away.
Exactly it's not as though Boris, Gove and IDS are going to need to worry about any economic downturn.
I am realistic enough to know that the economic future is uncertain either way but I think the FT hit the nail on the head when they said that it is the fact that most Brexiters dot seem to care if leaving the EU has a negative effect on lots of peoples livelihoods that is alarming.
1.5%
I've been to Latvia; a country where the Soviet Union forced Latvians to leave their homes, to be replaced by ethnic Russians.
If the USSR - over the course of a half century of policies mean to extinguish Latvia as a nation, with all the weapons of the gulag, forced migrations and the secret police - couldn't do it, I don't think the EU will it.
Let's be realistic here. At some point in the next decade or 15 years, the EU will want to do something that is extremely politically unpopular in the UK. Maybe it's an EU army, maybe it's Turkish accession. Whatever it is, it will be impossible for a UK government to remain in power and sign up to that transfer of powers. Another referendum will be held, almost certainly with the government supporting EFTA/EEA, and which will be won.
No - a possible temporary negative affect on people, that we can overcome, and that leads to a far more positive effect for people - is the benefit of Brexit.
It's only the Remainians that are alarming.
Cameron and Co have held out the pottage economic disasters and the voting public seem to have sniffed the lies but cannot keep their hands of the supposed goodies. So Great Britain becomes Little Britain in fact, and eventually No Britain.
Those that want referendums for constitutional change (the SNP, Tory Outers) don't see them as choices at all. For them they are simply a mechanism to achieve that change. For them any No vote on the arguments is spurious.
People vote against because proponents of change fail to make a convincing case that things will be better for it.
There is so much bollocks written about the working class - white or otherwise - on PB. Do you know what's really fucked up countless working class communities in the UK? Drugs, the buying and selling of. The middle class has played a huge part in that. Heading off to Tottenham to get another fix as the place got ruined by the gangs that sprung up to feed the demand. How immensely patriotic.