Ignoring the referendum is a non-starter IMO: OUT will mean OUT. But OUT has a number of different manifestations, as we know. I expect that the government will pursue these options provisionally and that a further choice will be presented in a another referendum. But this will not be an IN/OUT referendum.
True, but if there is to be such a referendum it should be a YES/NO referendum on whatever deal the government has negotiated.
OK Leave Wins , a deal is negotiated , a referendum held , deal rejected , are we in or out or in limbo land ?
Surely a second referendum would be designed not to leave room for such ambiguity.
I'm not saying there aren't xenophobes, perhaps a great deal of them. Merely that you cannot presume everyone voting leave was attracted by that part of the campaign. People vote for all sorts of reasons. You may still be sad that, in your cview, so many people are xenophobes, but even if leave win it won't be a majority of xenophobes, unless the remainer xenophobes push the number over the edge.
Quite. As I have said from the beginning, it is a meaningless question.
The pressure is now on Remain and they are making errors - spectacular ones in Kinnock jrs case.
I gather the valleys are very pro leave. Labour in south Wales will go the same way as in Scotland if they are not careful.
Not without someone to go to. Plaid is still too language-and-dragons, while UKIP is still too Tory. But either could change in the next five years and yes, Labour is strategically vulnerable there in a way it's never been before.
'Language and Dragons'
Lol.
Is that like A Game of Thrones but with less boobs?
Actually, I do fancy Leanne Wood and her Welsh accent. Just a little bit.
Not sure about whose boobs I'd want to see.
(Did I really just say that?)
It's OK, you only typed it. And there's only a small chance that Leanne reads this blog.
On the parliamentary arithmetic, unless Labour had a whipped vote against a new UK-EU deal I can't see it failing to pass the commons.
Let's be pessimistic: the SNP will definitely vote against, Green/SDLP/LD/Plaid too and Labour too
Conversely, Carswell/DUP/UUP/Tory leadership for (but with 40 Tory rebels and abstentions) except a dozen or so Labour Brexit rebels join them
I get about 308 MPs for the new deal and 299 against. That's with all other Labour MPs obeying the whip.
The bigger problem will be getting it through the Lords, IMHO.
The Lords should be abolished and we should have a unicameral Parliament but can you seriously imagine the unelected Lords attempting to override not just the elected Commons but a referendum result with millions of voters too?
I'd think the Crossbenchers would almost all vote in line with the referendum result for that reason. Tories plus Crossbenchers is a majority.
The Lords have become extremely adept at discovering reasons for frustrating this Government's agenda, particularly the Lib Dem undead.
Personally, I'd just take the flak and appoint another 40 Tory peers and get on with it.
Or just repeal the disbarring of the hereditaries
Champion idea! But that too would need to pass the existing Lords.
I thought the Lords had no say in Bills affecting their own existence? Wasn't that the whole point of the 1910 crisis?
Mr. Betting, yep, then it'd be subject to inheritance tax.
Thanks for the replies [obviously if anyone has further insight, do offer it].
The situation appears to be: pay no tax [as yet, anyway] get a letter or suchlike saying "This is a gift" just in case HMRC are suspicious of me being in possession of money ensure the giver does not become deceased for 7 years [pay inheritance tax if so]
A referendum seen to be a fake would lose all credibility
It's not a fake. If we vote leave, we leave.
But the terms are not set by the Faragists.
It's true that if the public don't like the terms that are agreed, they can vote out the Government, but it's not clear they can vote out a majority of MPs who want the maximum economic benefit from the EU, even if that means free movement of people.
If Leave were to win it would now be clearly with a mandate to stop foreigners coming.
That may be a deplorable indictment of the British people, but Parliament should respect it.
It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
From a more long-term stand point it would also be seen as perfidious Albion writ large. The EEC/EU has allowed Britain to go from being the sick man of Europe with a dysfunctional domestic politics to getting back on its feet and becoming a successful modern country.
If we now take our ball back and abandon the club it will be a gross betrayal, and at a time when Europe is once more in the front line of the schism which will define this generation, between secular Western values and political Islam.
I will be deeply ashamed of my country if we vote to leave.
Mr. Crosby, thanks for that piece of advice, although that seems to have a feel of guilty until proven innocent about it.
Well you are, in the eyes of HMRC. And they have the force of law behind them.
But it's a pretty extreme scenario, really only something like:-
Grannie: "Tommy, I've been sticking £50 notes under the mattress for the last 30 years. There's quite a lot of them now, and I'd like to give them to you."
After handing over the dosh, Grannie dies. How can Tommy prove he didn't earn the money doing some undeclared work? He can't, and HMRC (assuming they found out about the money) would be entitled to tax it and also penalize Tommy.
2015 "Peter Kellner told business leaders Ed Miliband will become Prime Minister by a hair’s breadth and with less seats than the Conservatives. One week before the General Election, he said: “This is the most uncertain election that I can recall. At the moment, I think we’re heading for a really quite interesting and fraught outcome in which the Conservatives will have more seats than Labour, but not enough to carry on in government.” He projected that the Conservatives would win a minority victory with 280 seats – just ten more than Labour at 270."
Even the 10pm Poll did not predict a Conservative Majority.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
Mr. Betting, yep, then it'd be subject to inheritance tax.
Thanks for the replies [obviously if anyone has further insight, do offer it].
The situation appears to be: pay no tax [as yet, anyway] get a letter or suchlike saying "This is a gift" just in case HMRC are suspicious of me being in possession of money ensure the giver does not become deceased for 7 years [pay inheritance tax if so]
If it's a large amount you can take out life insurance on the giver for your potential tax liability for the gift. (And also inheritance tax generally if there is a large potential).
Mr. Crosby, thanks for that piece of advice, although that seems to have a feel of guilty until proven innocent about it.
Well you are, in the eyes of HMRC. And they have the force of law behind them.
But it's a pretty extreme scenario, really only something like.
Grannie: "Tommy, I've been sticking £50 notes under the mattress for the last 30 years. There's quite a lot of them now, and I'd like to give them to you."
After handing over the dosh, Grannie dies. How can Tommy prove he didn't earn the money doing some undeclared work? He can't, and HMRC (assuming they found out about the money) would be entitled to tax it and also penalize Tommy.
So you'd advise Tommy asking granny to write a note explaining the money before she croaked?
And now back to time away from PB. I thought I'd be more argumentative through lack of arguing online, but not so. Strange.
Mr. Betting, yep, then it'd be subject to inheritance tax. Thanks for the replies [obviously if anyone has further insight, do offer it]. The situation appears to be: pay no tax [as yet, anyway] get a letter or suchlike saying "This is a gift" just in case HMRC are suspicious of me being in possession of money ensure the giver does not become deceased for 7 years [pay inheritance tax if so]
iht only if deceased's estate over their allowance.
@Indigo So what about all these posts I've read on here about how in the event of Remain winning the Conservatives needed to depose David Cameron and replace him with a Leaver, the better to pursue the Leave agenda?
I don't personally support that idea, Leavers come in all sorts just like remainers, I would however be highly surprised if Cameron decided to stay on after a Leave vote, there isn't anything in it for him except months of hassle and ridicule, and he has better things to do with his life.
Mr. Betting, yep, then it'd be subject to inheritance tax. Thanks for the replies [obviously if anyone has further insight, do offer it]. The situation appears to be: pay no tax [as yet, anyway] get a letter or suchlike saying "This is a gift" just in case HMRC are suspicious of me being in possession of money ensure the giver does not become deceased for 7 years [pay inheritance tax if so]
iht only if deceased's estate over their Nil Rate Band allowance/s. They also have another £3k allowance per year for gifts. As other/s have said, keep records in writing.
Mr. Crosby, thanks for that piece of advice, although that seems to have a feel of guilty until proven innocent about it.
Well you are, in the eyes of HMRC. And they have the force of law behind them.
But it's a pretty extreme scenario, really only something like.
Grannie: "Tommy, I've been sticking £50 notes under the mattress for the last 30 years. There's quite a lot of them now, and I'd like to give them to you."
After handing over the dosh, Grannie dies. How can Tommy prove he didn't earn the money doing some undeclared work? He can't, and HMRC (assuming they found out about the money) would be entitled to tax it and also penalize Tommy.
So you'd advise Tommy asking granny to write a note explaining the money before she croaked?
And now back to time away from PB. I thought I'd be more argumentative through lack of arguing online, but not so. Strange.
1. As i see it, leave now has about a 55% chance of winning, with the victory margin being very tight.
Assuming it is leave: 2. Cameron will stay on. 3. The EU Council meeting starting on the Tuesday after the referendum will stretch into a third day, with the usual media cooing over the theatrics. 4. Cameron will emerge, and announce a 'dramatic' (billed as 'Associate Membership') deal, and that he will be invoking Article 50 in the coming days after a cabinet reshuffle. 5. A couple of days later Cameron will make a major speech on the above, the real purpose of which is to keep the number of letters on Graham Brady's desk below 50 (or whatever the magic number is). The speech will include a further referendum on the Associate Membership, and lots of pious words on immigration. 6. Cabinet reshuffle brings Gove and Johnson in.
Associate Membership can of course mean pretty much anything; it's entirely dependent on the detail. It might be a complete 'fake' leave or it might be less Europe than the EEA.
I see almost no chance of a GE any time soon; it just isn't in the interests of any of the players.
@GuidoFawkes: Personal request, could #Leave & #Remain campaigns stop accusing each other of being "desperate". You're both desperate to win. That is all.
Mr. Crosby, thanks for that piece of advice, although that seems to have a feel of guilty until proven innocent about it.
Well you are, in the eyes of HMRC. And they have the force of law behind them.
But it's a pretty extreme scenario, really only something like.
Grannie: "Tommy, I've been sticking £50 notes under the mattress for the last 30 years. There's quite a lot of them now, and I'd like to give them to you."
After handing over the dosh, Grannie dies. How can Tommy prove he didn't earn the money doing some undeclared work? He can't, and HMRC (assuming they found out about the money) would be entitled to tax it and also penalize Tommy.
So you'd advise Tommy asking granny to write a note explaining the money before she croaked?
And now back to time away from PB. I thought I'd be more argumentative through lack of arguing online, but not so. Strange.
2015 "Peter Kellner told business leaders Ed Miliband will become Prime Minister by a hair’s breadth and with less seats than the Conservatives. One week before the General Election, he said: “This is the most uncertain election that I can recall. At the moment, I think we’re heading for a really quite interesting and fraught outcome in which the Conservatives will have more seats than Labour, but not enough to carry on in government.” He projected that the Conservatives would win a minority victory with 280 seats – just ten more than Labour at 270."
Even the 10pm Poll did not predict a Conservative Majority.
Even at 10pm Kellner was (I believe) not predicting Cons back in govt.
First, I doubt Parliament gets any say in the invocation of Article 50- surely that's down to Cameron (or technically the Queen in Council)?
Second, given we would be leaving the EU, the electorate has the ability to remind MPs that they are only in Parliament at the electorate's pleasure, which may easily be withdrawn.
The headline implies the MPs will take a vote to Leave and overrule it with a choice to Remain. The content is that the MPs will take a vote to Leave and guide us into one specific Leave scenario - the Single Market one.
Is that why he is heading up the REMAIN campaign? The REMAIN campaign seem to be ignoring the feedback that the polls give. Right at this moment Mr -53% trust Cameron is yet again fronting a REMAIN speech.
... if Parliament does intend to follow this course of action, an early election seems very likely, it is 10/1 on an election in 2016
Not long enough.
Leave aside the likelihood of such a result for a moment and just think about the mechanics.
The referendum is later this month; parliament will break up for the summer within a few weeks and if it's a Leave, chances are that the summer will see a Tory leadership election after the PM falls on his sword, which will delay the start of meaningful negotiations until September at the earliest. If Cameron tries to stay on then if he tries to negotiation continued membership then it'd just be a deferred leadership election amid even worse blood. Only if he were to lead negotiations based on exiting the Single Market could his position be even remotely tenable.
If the leadership election isn't declared until September - or if there's a delayed one - then there certainly won't be time to conclude even preliminary negotiations, bring a deal back to parliament, have it voted down, go through a Commons VoNC in the govt and then hold an election by mid-December.
On the other hand, if Cameron is trusted to lead negotiations - itself an unlikely double following a Remain - then there might just be time to fit in the parliamentary argy-bargy but it still requires intensive negotiations with the EU over the summer, which I suspect is also highly unlikely given both the usual annual holiday round and, more pressingly, the continuing migrants/Turkey situation that the EU also needs to handle.
Either way, negotiations are unlikely to get underway in any meaningful sense until September - and that's simply too late for the chain of events to lead to a 2016 election. It might be worth taking, say, 33+/1 against the offchance of the Conservatives imploding and losing a VoNC on some related issue but not the 10/1 on offer.
Mr. Crosby, thanks for that piece of advice, although that seems to have a feel of guilty until proven innocent about it.
Well you are, in the eyes of HMRC. And they have the force of law behind them.
But it's a pretty extreme scenario, really only something like.
Grannie: "Tommy, I've been sticking £50 notes under the mattress for the last 30 years. There's quite a lot of them now, and I'd like to give them to you."
After handing over the dosh, Grannie dies. How can Tommy prove he didn't earn the money doing some undeclared work? He can't, and HMRC (assuming they found out about the money) would be entitled to tax it and also penalize Tommy.
So you'd advise Tommy asking granny to write a note explaining the money before she croaked?
And now back to time away from PB. I thought I'd be more argumentative through lack of arguing online, but not so. Strange.
Menawhile the news from Northern Ireland has Mr "2% view him as a Leader" Osborne in Northern Ireland this morning, leading the campaign to persuade NI voters to vote LEAVE.... or have I read the impact of Osborne the wrong way?
The pressure is now on Remain and they are making errors - spectacular ones in Kinnock jrs case.
I gather the valleys are very pro leave. Labour in south Wales will go the same way as in Scotland if they are not careful.
Not without someone to go to. Plaid is still too language-and-dragons, while UKIP is still too Tory. But either could change in the next five years and yes, Labour is strategically vulnerable there in a way it's never been before.
'Language and Dragons'
Lol.
Is that like A Game of Thrones but with less boobs?
Mr. Betting, yep, then it'd be subject to inheritance tax. Thanks for the replies [obviously if anyone has further insight, do offer it]. The situation appears to be: pay no tax [as yet, anyway] get a letter or suchlike saying "This is a gift" just in case HMRC are suspicious of me being in possession of money ensure the giver does not become deceased for 7 years [pay inheritance tax if so]
iht only if deceased's estate over their allowance.
Or in the case or a widow or widower over 2*NRB if the deceased spouse did not use their NRB.
First, I doubt Parliament gets any say in the invocation of Article 50- surely that's down to Cameron (or technically the Queen in Council)?
Second, given we would be leaving the EU, the electorate has the ability to remind MPs that they are only in Parliament at the electorate's pleasure, which may easily be withdrawn.
Ask Scottish Labour MP s how that feels.....
Indeed, but of course none of them apart from Carswell stood for election on a manifesto commitment to leave.
If we have another GE, I am not as convinced as some that Kippers would sweep 350 seats or more
Mr. Betting, yep, then it'd be subject to inheritance tax. Thanks for the replies [obviously if anyone has further insight, do offer it]. The situation appears to be: pay no tax [as yet, anyway] get a letter or suchlike saying "This is a gift" just in case HMRC are suspicious of me being in possession of money ensure the giver does not become deceased for 7 years [pay inheritance tax if so]
iht only if deceased's estate over their allowance.
Or in the case or a widow or widower over 2*NRB if the deceased spouse did not use their NRB.
Yes and the usual RNRB with all its permutations... Osborne, worse than Brown.
TSE in thread above: " But if Parliament does intend to follow this course of action, an early election seems very likely, it is 10/1 on an election in 2016, and 10/1 on an election in 2017, if you’re not on already, you should be."
As I pointed out earlier this morning SkyBet are offering odds of 12/1 against a General Election being held in 2016 and the same odds are also available for 2017. I've just checked and these odds are still available for both years. DYOR.
Spent the morning crunching the latest numbers on trade with the EU.
UK exports to the EU as a proportion of GDP in 2015, 9.6%
EU exports to the UK as a proportion of EU GDP 2.8%
The former figure is falling and the latter is rising. On current trends the delta will be down from 6.8% to under 4% within five years.
Leaving the EU isn't as big an economic gamble as people are being led to believe.
I very much doubt - irrespective of the vote - if the delta will be under 4% in five years.
I'd also note that the raw numbers don't measure value add. So, we import gas from Norway (non-EU import), and then we export it to Ireland (EU export). Although it's a really big number, it also has a negligible impact on the British economy.
This is after accounting for re-exports and re-imports. I think the basic reason is that the EU is still a production based economy so exporting goods is a much larger part of their economic foundation than the UK which has a consumption based economy, meaning we import vast amounts of goods from everywhere, including the EU, at an ever increasing rate, while at the same time our exports to the EU are falling in absolute terms and the economy is growing both in real and nominal terms.
Have you read Melissa Kidd's pieces on the UK economy? She's increasingly bearish, and thinks - irrespective of the vote - that we barely achieve 1% growth this year and next.
Indeed. But if you think that the British parliament would do anything other than respect the will of the nation as expressed in a referendum then in that event, I expect you to be uncomfortably surprised.
That is not what is being proposed.
Also important to note the distinction between Government and Parliament
Parliament will respect the will of the British people (out of the EU) but there may be a majority in Parliament for EFTA/EEA
Since that is not on the ballot paper, parliament would not be subverting the will of the British people by implementing that
And it may be true that the Government would be voted out of office, but I am still not sure it would result in a UKIP majority
And for those who claim that all of this would be avoided if the Tories had a Brexiteer instead of Cameron, they had IDS. If they had him again, Ed would be PM (or Gordo for that matter)
There will no doubt be polls at the time to guide MPs and the govt.
However, given the prominence of immigration as an issue in the EURef campaign, and of the threats of Turks down the road - both of which are clearly related to freedom of movement, which itself is directly related to membership of the Single market - I can't see how a Leave can meaningfully be implemented without breaking with that membership.
A referendum seen to be a fake would lose all credibility
It's not a fake. If we vote leave, we leave.
But the terms are not set by the Faragists.
It's true that if the public don't like the terms that are agreed, they can vote out the Government, but it's not clear they can vote out a majority of MPs who want the maximum economic benefit from the EU, even if that means free movement of people.
If Leave were to win it would now be clearly with a mandate to stop foreigners coming.
That may be a deplorable indictment of the British people, but Parliament should respect it.
It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
From a more long-term stand point it would also be seen as perfidious Albion writ large. The EEC/EU has allowed Britain to go from being the sick man of Europe with a dysfunctional domestic politics to getting back on its feet and becoming a successful modern country.
If we now take our ball back and abandon the club it will be a gross betrayal, and at a time when Europe is once more in the front line of the schism which will define this generation, between secular Western values and political Islam.
I will be deeply ashamed of my country if we vote to leave.
.That's an interesting post. I don't think you can talk about 'this country' anymore as a homogeneous entity. Laura Kuenssberg or similar went to a bingo hall in Preston and asked for a show of hands which way they would vote.
It was unanimous for Leave. She then asked individuals why and every reply she got was racist. There's not much anyone can do to modernise these elderly Bingo players in Preston but surely we can hope for better from our politicians than they set out to appeal to these prejudices
... if Parliament does intend to follow this course of action, an early election seems very likely, it is 10/1 on an election in 2016
Not long enough.
Leave aside the likelihood of such a result for a moment and just think about the mechanics.
The referendum is later this month; parliament will break up for the summer within a few weeks and if it's a Leave, chances are that the summer will see a Tory leadership election after the PM falls on his sword, which will delay the start of meaningful negotiations until September at the earliest. If Cameron tries to stay on then if he tries to negotiation continued membership then it'd just be a deferred leadership election amid even worse blood. Only if he were to lead negotiations based on exiting the Single Market could his position be even remotely tenable.
If the leadership election isn't declared until September - or if there's a delayed one - then there certainly won't be time to conclude even preliminary negotiations, bring a deal back to parliament, have it voted down, go through a Commons VoNC in the govt and then hold an election by mid-December.
On the other hand, if Cameron is trusted to lead negotiations - itself an unlikely double following a Remain - then there might just be time to fit in the parliamentary argy-bargy but it still requires intensive negotiations with the EU over the summer, which I suspect is also highly unlikely given both the usual annual holiday round and, more pressingly, the continuing migrants/Turkey situation that the EU also needs to handle.
Either way, negotiations are unlikely to get underway in any meaningful sense until September - and that's simply too late for the chain of events to lead to a 2016 election. It might be worth taking, say, 33+/1 against the offchance of the Conservatives imploding and losing a VoNC on some related issue but not the 10/1 on offer.
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
I recall a long series of posts from Richard Tyndall arguing that the EU can't force us out of the EEA against our will. As this referendum is strictly about EU membership, a government so-minded could say that a Leave vote does not give a mandate to leave the single market anyway. A sizeable number of Brexiters have been making this very argument for a long time.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
I agree with Roger (and I never thought I would say that) and williamglenn and a few others on this site. Leave winning would be the most depressing election result in my lifetime and the consequences for our country and the population at large don't bear thinking about. On the plus side, I am sure we can make a fortune printing "DON'T BLAME ME...I VOTED REMAIN" merchandise.
And it may be true that the Government would be voted out of office, but I am still not sure it would result in a UKIP majority
I dont think it needs to.
UKIP 40 seats would be enough. Cameron would then have a choice of coalition with the Kippers, or with Corbyn. The former would demand leaving the EU "properly", the later would leave so little of the Conservative Party that dental records would be needed to recognise it.
Spent the morning crunching the latest numbers on trade with the EU.
UK exports to the EU as a proportion of GDP in 2015, 9.6%
EU exports to the UK as a proportion of EU GDP 2.8%
The former figure is falling and the latter is rising. On current trends the delta will be down from 6.8% to under 4% within five years.
Leaving the EU isn't as big an economic gamble as people are being led to believe.
I very much doubt - irrespective of the vote - if the delta will be under 4% in five years.
I'd also note that the raw numbers don't measure value add. So, we import gas from Norway (non-EU import), and then we export it to Ireland (EU export). Although it's a really big number, it also has a negligible impact on the British economy.
This is after accounting for re-exports and re-imports. I think the basic reason is that the EU is still a production based economy so exporting goods is a much larger part of their economic foundation than the UK which has a consumption based economy, meaning we import vast amounts of goods from everywhere, including the EU, at an ever increasing rate, while at the same time our exports to the EU are falling in absolute terms and the economy is growing both in real and nominal terms.
Have you read Melissa Kidd's pieces on the UK economy? She's increasingly bearish, and thinks - irrespective of the vote - that we barely achieve 1% growth this year and next.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
I agree with Roger (and I never thought I would say that) and williamglenn and a few others on this site. Leave winning would be the most depressing election result in my lifetime and the consequences for our country and the population at large don't bear thinking about. On the plus side, I am sure we can make a fortune printing "DON'T BLAME ME...I VOTED REMAIN" merchandise.
Ofcourse if our economy was doing nicely after 3-4 years that merchandise would be at the back of the cupboard collecting dust and all the remainers would be claiming that they had always supported it really, but they were just being loyal to Dave/Jez/Tim.
UKIP 40 seats would be enough. Cameron would then have a choice of coalition with the Kippers, or with Corbyn. The former would demand leaving the EU "properly", the later would leave so little of the Conservative Party that dental records would be needed to recognise it.
A Rainbow coalition of parties committed to free trade with the EU would be more likely than either of those
On the parliamentary arithmetic, unless Labour had a whipped vote against a new UK-EU deal I can't see it failing to pass the commons.
Let's be pessimistic: the SNP will definitely vote against, Green/SDLP/LD/Plaid too and Labour too
Conversely, Carswell/DUP/UUP/Tory leadership for (but with 40 Tory rebels and abstentions) except a dozen or so Labour Brexit rebels join them
I get about 308 MPs for the new deal and 299 against. That's with all other Labour MPs obeying the whip.
The bigger problem will be getting it through the Lords, IMHO.
The Lords should be abolished and we should have a unicameral Parliament but can you seriously imagine the unelected Lords attempting to override not just the elected Commons but a referendum result with millions of voters too?
I'd think the Crossbenchers would almost all vote in line with the referendum result for that reason. Tories plus Crossbenchers is a majority.
The Lords have become extremely adept at discovering reasons for frustrating this Government's agenda, particularly the Lib Dem undead.
Personally, I'd just take the flak and appoint another 40 Tory peers and get on with it.
Or just repeal the disbarring of the hereditaries
Champion idea! But that too would need to pass the existing Lords.
I thought the Lords had no say in Bills affecting their own existence? Wasn't that the whole point of the 1910 crisis?
No, that was over the Lords having no say over money bills.
In fact, the Lords held up the Attlee government's bill that reduced the time the Upper House could block legislation for, to the extent that it needed the 1911 version of the Parliament Act to push the amending legislation through.
I recall a long series of posts from Richard Tyndall arguing that the EU can't force us out of the EEA against our will. As this referendum is strictly about EU membership, a government so-minded could say that a Leave vote does not give a mandate to leave the single market anyway. A sizeable number of Brexiters have been making this very argument for a long time.
Good luck with that.
Aside from no Vote Leaver standing for no change on free movement, the EU has made it clear that for an economy the size of the UK, an EEA option is not feasible.
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
Being an MP is not like being a brain surgeon. If someone is going to operate on my brain, I want them to be properly qualified.
But, being an MP requires no special qualification. Most of the time, and with honourable exceptions, MPs will vote as they are directed by their party whips. So, while some MPs may indeed have impressive expertise in specific areas, there's no reason to believe they're more likely in general to vote in the public interest than the average voters is.
This story just illustrates Cameron's folly in his stupid referendum.
Nobody knows what "leave" actually means.
So I would struggle to see why a pro-EU majority in Parliament voting to leave the EU but remain in the single market, ie, remain in the EEA, should be a major issue.
Because "leave" is self-evidently a leap in the dark, I am now firming up on my view that the only rational option, at this point in time, is to vote to Remain.
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
I would assume because politicians of all shades and on all sides have spent most of the last three months lying through their teeth, and in many cases obviously and stupidly lying through their teeth. Politicians can hardly then look all surprised that the public doesn't trust them.
A referendum seen to be a fake would lose all credibility
It's not a fake. If we vote leave, we leave.
But the terms are not set by the Faragists.
It's true that if the public don't like the terms that are agreed, they can vote out the Government, but it's not clear they can vote out a majority of MPs who want the maximum economic benefit from the EU, even if that means free movement of people.
If Leave were to win it would now be clearly with a mandate to stop foreigners coming.
That may be a deplorable indictment of the British people, but Parliament should respect it.
It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
From a more long-term stand point it would also be seen as perfidious Albion writ large. The EEC/EU has allowed Britain to go from being the sick man of Europe with a dysfunctional domestic politics to getting back on its feet and becoming a successful modern country.
If we now take our ball back and abandon the club it will be a gross betrayal, and at a time when Europe is once more in the front line of the schism which will define this generation, between secular Western values and political Islam.
I will be deeply ashamed of my country if we vote to leave.
.That's an interesting post. I don't think you can talk about 'this country' anymore as a homogeneous entity. Laura Kuenssberg or similar went to a bingo hall in Preston and asked for a show of hands which way they would vote.
It was unanimous for Leave. She then asked individuals why and every reply she got was racist. There's not much anyone can do to modernise these elderly Bingo players in Preston but surely we can hope for better from our politicians than they set out to appeal to these prejudices
Be careful, Roger. It sounds like your new pal is calling for a pan-European crusade against Islam.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
I agree with Roger (and I never thought I would say that) and williamglenn and a few others on this site. Leave winning would be the most depressing election result in my lifetime and the consequences for our country and the population at large don't bear thinking about. On the plus side, I am sure we can make a fortune printing "DON'T BLAME ME...I VOTED REMAIN" merchandise.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
First, I doubt Parliament gets any say in the invocation of Article 50- surely that's down to Cameron (or technically the Queen in Council)?
Second, given we would be leaving the EU, the electorate has the ability to remind MPs that they are only in Parliament at the electorate's pleasure, which may easily be withdrawn.
Ask Scottish Labour MP s how that feels.....
Scottish Labour MP (and shadow minister for Scotland) is on Any Questions this week. Don't forget to tune in
Because "leave" is self-evidently a leap in the dark, I am now firming up on my view that the only rational option, at this point in time, is to vote to Remain.
Give us a break, you have been firmly of that view for months and haven't been shy about telling us.
On the parliamentary arithmetic, unless Labour had a whipped vote against a new UK-EU deal I can't see it failing to pass the commons.
Let's be pessimistic: the SNP will definitely vote against, Green/SDLP/LD/Plaid too and Labour too
Conversely, Carswell/DUP/UUP/Tory leadership for (but with 40 Tory rebels and abstentions) except a dozen or so Labour Brexit rebels join them
I get about 308 MPs for the new deal and 299 against. That's with all other Labour MPs obeying the whip.
The bigger problem will be getting it through the Lords, IMHO.
The Lords should be abolished and we should have a unicameral Parliament but can you seriously imagine the unelected Lords attempting to override not just the elected Commons but a referendum result with millions of voters too?
I'd think the Crossbenchers would almost all vote in line with the referendum result for that reason. Tories plus Crossbenchers is a majority.
The Lords have become extremely adept at discovering reasons for frustrating this Government's agenda, particularly the Lib Dem undead.
Personally, I'd just take the flak and appoint another 40 Tory peers and get on with it.
Or just repeal the disbarring of the hereditaries
Champion idea! But that too would need to pass the existing Lords.
I thought the Lords had no say in Bills affecting their own existence? Wasn't that the whole point of the 1910 crisis?
No, that was over the Lords having no say over money bills.
In fact, the Lords held up the Attlee government's bill that reduced the time the Upper House could block legislation for, to the extent that it needed the 1911 version of the Parliament Act to push the amending legislation through.
Ah so they do have no power but that was from 1911?
I recall a long series of posts from Richard Tyndall arguing that the EU can't force us out of the EEA against our will. As this referendum is strictly about EU membership, a government so-minded could say that a Leave vote does not give a mandate to leave the single market anyway. A sizeable number of Brexiters have been making this very argument for a long time.
Good luck with that.
Aside from no Vote Leaver standing for no change on free movement, the EU has made it clear that for an economy the size of the UK, an EEA option is not feasible.
It's in both sides interests for there to be as little disruption as possible, so I suspect EFTA/EEA would be on the table.
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
I would assume because politicians of all shades and on all sides have spent most of the last three months lying through their teeth, and in many cases obviously and stupidly lying through their teeth. Politicians can hardly then look all surprised that the public doesn't trust them.
There's several MPs who postured as Eurosceptics to get selected/elected, and then transformed into Remainers. They'll discover what this means career wise, whatever the result.
I recall a long series of posts from Richard Tyndall arguing that the EU can't force us out of the EEA against our will. As this referendum is strictly about EU membership, a government so-minded could say that a Leave vote does not give a mandate to leave the single market anyway. A sizeable number of Brexiters have been making this very argument for a long time.
Good luck with that.
Aside from no Vote Leaver standing for no change on free movement, the EU has made it clear that for an economy the size of the UK, an EEA option is not feasible.
Do the EU actually get a say in whether we join the EEA or not ?
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
The UK is a successful and prosperous democracy right now, despite what Brexit claim
This story just illustrates Cameron's folly in his stupid referendum.
Nobody knows what "leave" actually means.
So I would struggle to see why a pro-EU majority in Parliament voting to leave the EU but remain in the single market, ie, remain in the EEA, should be a major issue.
Because "leave" is self-evidently a leap in the dark, I am now firming up on my view that the only rational option, at this point in time, is to vote to Remain.
Not only that, but Michael "brain the size of a planet" Gove has shown that he has absolutely no clue about a post-Leave scenario. The post-Leave scenario that he has wanted ever since his poor old father was hoofed out of a job by Charles de Gaulle.
The headline implies the MPs will take a vote to Leave and overrule it with a choice to Remain. The content is that the MPs will take a vote to Leave and guide us into one specific Leave scenario - the Single Market one.
Agreed - the story seems to be that because Brexit 'has not been defined' less Eurosceptic MPs are willing to force their Brexit scenario on whatever government is in place off the back of a Leave vote by blocking any leave option that doesn't look to their taste. Though it says 'single-market' rather than explicitly EEA, that's what I assume they are gunning at.
What I'm not clear on are the mechanisms they would be using to force parliamentary will on an ongoing external negotiation. Just suppose a post-Brexit government does manage to get a half-decent non-single-market free-trade deal from the negotiations in a timely manner. Are we really saying that parliament would knock it back and say 'negotiate again' when that comes to be presented to parliament? If we ever reach that point then it would be Remain playing fast and loose with the economic future, and that would be a very different calculation for those MPs to make from how things look now.
A referendum seen to be a fake would lose all credibility
It's not a fake. If we vote leave, we leave.
But the terms are not set by the Faragists.
It's true that if the public don't like the terms that are agreed, they can vote out the Government, but it's not clear they can vote out a majority of MPs who want the maximum economic benefit from the EU, even if that means free movement of people.
If Leave were to win it would now be clearly with a mandate to stop foreigners coming.
That may be a deplorable indictment of the British people, but Parliament should respect it.
It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
From a more long-term stand point it would also be seen as perfidious Albion writ large. The EEC/EU has allowed Britain to go from being the sick man of Europe with a dysfunctional domestic politics to getting back on its feet and becoming a successful modern country.
If we now take our ball back and abandon the club it will be a gross betrayal, and at a time when Europe is once more in the front line of the schism which will define this generation, between secular Western values and political Islam.
I will be deeply ashamed of my country if we vote to leave.
.That's an interesting post. I don't think you can talk about 'this country' anymore as a homogeneous entity. Laura Kuenssberg or similar went to a bingo hall in Preston and asked for a show of hands which way they would vote.
It was unanimous for Leave. She then asked individuals why and every reply she got was racist. There's not much anyone can do to modernise these elderly Bingo players in Preston but surely we can hope for better from our politicians than they set out to appeal to these prejudices
Be careful, Roger. It sounds like your new pal is calling for a pan-European crusade against Islam.
I said political Islam. Don't try to tar me with that brush.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
The UK is a successful and prosperous democracy right now, despite what Brexit claim
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
This is a fundamentally illiberal view.
When at school, I had to read EM Forster's Two Cheers for Democracy. Go back and read it. He makes the following point.
The intelligentsia or the elites or whatever do not have the right to take decisions on the part of the stupid or the masses or whatever.
Forster saw the duty of the intelligentsia to explain the pros and cons of any decision. They can make their case.
But, they cannot abrogate democracy because the man in the street is taking the wrong decision.
I believe you claim to be a Liberal Democrat. With these view, your party label is a lie. You are neither Liberal nor Democratic.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
I agree with Roger (and I never thought I would say that) and williamglenn and a few others on this site. Leave winning would be the most depressing election result in my lifetime and the consequences for our country and the population at large don't bear thinking about. On the plus side, I am sure we can make a fortune printing "DON'T BLAME ME...I VOTED REMAIN" merchandise.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
The UK was the sick man of Europe in 1975, and is now a prosperous and successful democracy. What a disaster membership of the EU has been for us.
A psychological moment - Ladbrokes have cut Brexit odds to 2/1
Corals and Stan James both also go 2/1. The best price for LEAVE is currently Betfair Sportsbook at 2.3/1. OGH must have made a small fortune trading out his 4/1 position and it's not as if he didn't tell us at the time!
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
Being an MP is not like being a brain surgeon. If someone is going to operate on my brain, I want them to be properly qualified.
But, being an MP requires no special qualification. Most of the time, and with honourable exceptions, MPs will vote as they are directed by their party whips. So, while some MPs may indeed have impressive expertise in specific areas, there's no reason to believe they're more likely in general to vote in the public interest than the average voters is.
So what is the point of electing anyone then? If you are right, we might as well give up now and just appoint people to run the country like we do for jury service. You don't need to know anything, you don't need any skills or knowledge, none of them have any concept of public or national or human interest, according to you. Really? I mean, really?
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
According to the Treasury's figures Osborne missing his own targets is doing more damage to the economy than leaving the EU will. Maybe we should be having a referendum about Osborne?
The headline implies the MPs will take a vote to Leave and overrule it with a choice to Remain. The content is that the MPs will take a vote to Leave and guide us into one specific Leave scenario - the Single Market one.
Agreed - the story seems to be that because Brexit 'has not been defined' less Eurosceptic MPs are willing to force their Brexit scenario on whatever government is in place off the back of a Leave vote by blocking any leave option that doesn't look to their taste. Though it says 'single-market' rather than explicitly EEA, that's what I assume they are gunning at.
I think even that is risky. As the recent success Leave has been having shows, its immigration that is the salient factor with the voters. If parliament chose to hand wave aside the reason why a lot of people vote Leave, there is going to be hell to pay. At the very least a lot of Leave voters are going to conclude that you can't trust the Tories, and UKIP will benefit considerably.
I recall a long series of posts from Richard Tyndall arguing that the EU can't force us out of the EEA against our will. As this referendum is strictly about EU membership, a government so-minded could say that a Leave vote does not give a mandate to leave the single market anyway. A sizeable number of Brexiters have been making this very argument for a long time.
Good luck with that.
Aside from no Vote Leaver standing for no change on free movement, the EU has made it clear that for an economy the size of the UK, an EEA option is not feasible.
It's in both sides interests for there to be as little disruption as possible, so I suspect EFTA/EEA would be on the table.
''Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?''
Breathtaking arrogance, sneering and contempt for the voter.
In the early days of the campaign every time they were criticised for not knowing what Brexit meant the refrain was that it won't be up to us.
I remain convinced that Leave are whipping up the anti-immigration vote knowing full well that a single market option with F0M will follow. I just think Boris & Gove hope they will be able blame someone else when it happens.
The Tories that dominate the Leave campaign will look on the angry UKIP brigade as the poor bloody infantry. Their views will be dispensed with the moment they have served their purpose. As someone who could live with EEA/EFTA I don't mind but that is how I see it panning out.
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
I would assume because politicians of all shades and on all sides have spent most of the last three months lying through their teeth, and in many cases obviously and stupidly lying through their teeth. Politicians can hardly then look all surprised that the public doesn't trust them.
There's several MPs who postured as Eurosceptics to get selected/elected, and then transformed into Remainers. They'll discover what this means career wise, whatever the result.
They are already feeling the heat. Steve Brine in Winchester for example.
I recall a long series of posts from Richard Tyndall arguing that the EU can't force us out of the EEA against our will. As this referendum is strictly about EU membership, a government so-minded could say that a Leave vote does not give a mandate to leave the single market anyway. A sizeable number of Brexiters have been making this very argument for a long time.
Good luck with that.
Aside from no Vote Leaver standing for no change on free movement, the EU has made it clear that for an economy the size of the UK, an EEA option is not feasible.
It's in both sides interests for there to be as little disruption as possible, so I suspect EFTA/EEA would be on the table.
At least in the short term it would have to be. The interesting thing is how to make it sustainable. You'd need to upgrade the institutional framework of EFTA/EEA so that it became, in effect, the same as Associate Member status of the EU. Perhaps the ultimate effect of an aborted Brexit will be for the EU to gain some new members on an associate basis.
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
Being an MP is not like being a brain surgeon. If someone is going to operate on my brain, I want them to be properly qualified.
But, being an MP requires no special qualification. Most of the time, and with honourable exceptions, MPs will vote as they are directed by their party whips. So, while some MPs may indeed have impressive expertise in specific areas, there's no reason to believe they're more likely in general to vote in the public interest than the average voters is.
So what is the point of electing anyone then? If you are right, we might as well give up now and just appoint people to run the country like we do for jury service. You don't need to know anything, you don't need any skills or knowledge, none of them have any concept of public or national or human interest, according to you. Really? I mean, really?
There is no professional qualification for being an MP. Anybody can get elected.
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
A very good post. It's like appointing a jury but not requiring any of them to have looked at the evidence.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
I agree with Roger (and I never thought I would say that) and williamglenn and a few others on this site. Leave winning would be the most depressing election result in my lifetime and the consequences for our country and the population at large don't bear thinking about. On the plus side, I am sure we can make a fortune printing "DON'T BLAME ME...I VOTED REMAIN" merchandise.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
The UK was the sick man of Europe in 1975, and is now a prosperous and successful democracy. What a disaster membership of the EU has been for us.
Who can say if in the last 40 years we might have done just fine anyway, or possibly even better than we did in the EU. You don't know, I don't know, so perhaps best to stop bleating about it.
If Cameron goes to Brussels after a Leave vote and comes back with an associate membership that allows some restraint on freedom of movement (whilst respecting all existing rights) and continued membership of the Single Market in exchange for a reasonable contribution (ie about half of what we are paying now) I would be genuinely ecstatic.
My only disappointment would be that he didn't get that in his original negotiations and spare us all this pain.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
Not quite true. We were desperate to get into the EEC for the sake of economic prosperity. Have you never heard of the "sick man of Europe" label applied to the UK in the 1970s?
I recall a long series of posts from Richard Tyndall arguing that the EU can't force us out of the EEA against our will. As this referendum is strictly about EU membership, a government so-minded could say that a Leave vote does not give a mandate to leave the single market anyway. A sizeable number of Brexiters have been making this very argument for a long time.
Good luck with that.
Aside from no Vote Leaver standing for no change on free movement, the EU has made it clear that for an economy the size of the UK, an EEA option is not feasible.
It's in both sides interests for there to be as little disruption as possible, so I suspect EFTA/EEA would be on the table.
I'm sure that once we have voted Leave there will be a whole lot on the table. Equally, the EU has effectively said: don't be ridiculous, when the idea of EEA/EFTA has been brought up.
And thinking about it, although elegant theoretically, you would have an enormous economy, somehow accepting all the regulatory diktats from Brussels (yes sure, we could veto their incorporation into the agreement), and effectively becoming a marginalised player as far as the EU is concerned. We are too big for that.
It makes no sense, no matter the fact that it seems to cut Stephen Kinnock's Gordian Knot.
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
Well:
Let's have a referendum on the European Constitution - Oh hell France and the Netherlands have voted it down so we can't trust you lot to vote the right way, so we'll rename it the Lisbon Treaty, call it a "tidying up exercise" and sneak Gordo in under cover of darkness to sign it. Nobody will notice.
Let's abolish Tuition fees; Oh bugger that's wildly impractical and we only said it 'cos we never actually thought we'd have bums in ministerial cars so we'll forget about that. Nobody will care.
Let's reduce immigration to "tens of thousands". Oh that's a bit harder than we thought and actually there's sod all we can do about it legally as 100M in eastern Europe could turn up tomorrow if they wanted so we'll just kind of shuffle our feet and look awkward and say it's "good for the economy". So that's OK then.
That's one each from the three parties of Govt over the past ten years, I'm sure there are others.
Anyway I certainly don't want a society where our rulers are put on some kind of bloody pedestal. Sure they have power delegated to them they can run things, as far as I am concerned they don't really have to give a running commentary as much as 24 hour news seems to demand, but they are, and will remain accountable to the people.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
I agree with Roger (and I never thought I would say that) and williamglenn and a few others on this site. Leave winning would be the most depressing election result in my lifetime and the consequences for our country and the population at large don't bear thinking about. On the plus side, I am sure we can make a fortune printing "DON'T BLAME ME...I VOTED REMAIN" merchandise.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
The UK was the sick man of Europe in 1975, and is now a prosperous and successful democracy. What a disaster membership of the EU has been for us.
Who can say if in the last 40 years we might have done just fine anyway, or possibly even better than we did in the EU. You don't know, I don't know, so perhaps best to stop bleating about it.
The reforms of the 1980s were far more responsible for British prosperity than EU membership.
TSE I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc. Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
Being an MP is not like being a brain surgeon. If someone is going to operate on my brain, I want them to be properly qualified.
But, being an MP requires no special qualification. Most of the time, and with honourable exceptions, MPs will vote as they are directed by their party whips. So, while some MPs may indeed have impressive expertise in specific areas, there's no reason to believe they're more likely in general to vote in the public interest than the average voters is.
So what is the point of electing anyone then? If you are right, we might as well give up now and just appoint people to run the country like we do for jury service. You don't need to know anything, you don't need any skills or knowledge, none of them have any concept of public or national or human interest, according to you. Really? I mean, really?
I do actually have some sympathy with the view that we elect parliamentarians to do a job for us, and then spend our time distrusting anything they say or do, even more so than is deserved as wariness of the political class. Most people are happy to entrust very important decisions on issues to their MP, but not on their issue of choice, and the problem is when don't we trust them to make the decision? When should we hold referenda, can we agree on the criteria, on what issues we don't want to be represented but to take the decision ourselves? There should be rules in place, otherwise the logical endpoint is we don't want them to do anything as they cannot be trusted.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
Not quite true. We were desperate to get into the EEC for the sake of economic prosperity. Have you never heard of the "sick man of Europe" label applied to the UK in the 1970s? I believe that was due to labour disputes and the unions sticking with outdated practices holding us back. The fact that Labour had to go to the IMF for a loan also suggests that the reasons for being the sick man of Europe were not unconnected with socialism.
FPT. A first post by 'RealBritain' from the end of the last thread.
RealBritain Posts: 1 9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes "It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
I agree with Roger (and I never thought I would say that) and williamglenn and a few others on this site. Leave winning would be the most depressing election result in my lifetime and the consequences for our country and the population at large don't bear thinking about. On the plus side, I am sure we can make a fortune printing "DON'T BLAME ME...I VOTED REMAIN" merchandise.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
The UK was the sick man of Europe in 1975, and is now a prosperous and successful democracy. What a disaster membership of the EU has been for us.
The UK had problems with overmighty trade unions in 1975, together with a civil war in Northern Ireland.
Other than that, it was a prosperous and successful State. Describing it as "the Sick Man of Europe" is hyperbole. The UK's standard of living was double what it had been 30 years previously.
Most of the world's countries in 1975 would have been happy to have the UK's problems.
Comments
Greens bring a bicycle event.
It's OK, you only typed it. And there's only a small chance that Leanne reads this blog.
(Small, as in less than 1.)
We can't go back. We can have the new deal, or no deal. There is no 3rd door...
Thanks for the replies [obviously if anyone has further insight, do offer it].
The situation appears to be:
pay no tax [as yet, anyway]
get a letter or suchlike saying "This is a gift" just in case HMRC are suspicious of me being in possession of money
ensure the giver does not become deceased for 7 years [pay inheritance tax if so]
If we now take our ball back and abandon the club it will be a gross betrayal, and at a time when Europe is once more in the front line of the schism which will define this generation, between secular Western values and political Islam.
I will be deeply ashamed of my country if we vote to leave.
But it's a pretty extreme scenario, really only something like:-
Grannie: "Tommy, I've been sticking £50 notes under the mattress for the last 30 years. There's quite a lot of them now, and I'd like to give them to you."
After handing over the dosh, Grannie dies. How can Tommy prove he didn't earn the money doing some undeclared work? He can't, and HMRC (assuming they found out about the money) would be entitled to tax it and also penalize Tommy.
RealBritain Posts: 1
9:16AM
Roger said:
» show previous quotes
"It is a deplorable indightment of the British people as much as the leaers promoting it. Their whole campaign is based on xenophobia and that's how it will be seen around the world. A reputation which Britain has built up over centuries will be lost in a single day"
RealBritain
It is grim and depressing. If people vote for a campaign that is openly, unabashedly xenophobic, and which ranges from campaigning on "foreign criminals" to ther prospect of sex attacks on British women if we stay in the EU, this country will deserve absolutely everything it gets from the economic disaster of Brexit.
And now back to time away from PB. I thought I'd be more argumentative through lack of arguing online, but not so. Strange.
1. As i see it, leave now has about a 55% chance of winning, with the victory margin being very tight.
Assuming it is leave:
2. Cameron will stay on.
3. The EU Council meeting starting on the Tuesday after the referendum will stretch into a third day, with the usual media cooing over the theatrics.
4. Cameron will emerge, and announce a 'dramatic' (billed as 'Associate Membership') deal, and that he will be invoking Article 50 in the coming days after a cabinet reshuffle.
5. A couple of days later Cameron will make a major speech on the above, the real purpose of which is to keep the number of letters on Graham Brady's desk below 50 (or whatever the magic number is). The speech will include a further referendum on the Associate Membership, and lots of pious words on immigration.
6. Cabinet reshuffle brings Gove and Johnson in.
Associate Membership can of course mean pretty much anything; it's entirely dependent on the detail. It might be a complete 'fake' leave or it might be less Europe than the EEA.
I see almost no chance of a GE any time soon; it just isn't in the interests of any of the players.
Second, given we would be leaving the EU, the electorate has the ability to remind MPs that they are only in Parliament at the electorate's pleasure, which may easily be withdrawn.
Ask Scottish Labour MP s how that feels.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36424018
The headline implies the MPs will take a vote to Leave and overrule it with a choice to Remain.
The content is that the MPs will take a vote to Leave and guide us into one specific Leave scenario - the Single Market one.
Not long enough.
Leave aside the likelihood of such a result for a moment and just think about the mechanics.
The referendum is later this month; parliament will break up for the summer within a few weeks and if it's a Leave, chances are that the summer will see a Tory leadership election after the PM falls on his sword, which will delay the start of meaningful negotiations until September at the earliest. If Cameron tries to stay on then if he tries to negotiation continued membership then it'd just be a deferred leadership election amid even worse blood. Only if he were to lead negotiations based on exiting the Single Market could his position be even remotely tenable.
If the leadership election isn't declared until September - or if there's a delayed one - then there certainly won't be time to conclude even preliminary negotiations, bring a deal back to parliament, have it voted down, go through a Commons VoNC in the govt and then hold an election by mid-December.
On the other hand, if Cameron is trusted to lead negotiations - itself an unlikely double following a Remain - then there might just be time to fit in the parliamentary argy-bargy but it still requires intensive negotiations with the EU over the summer, which I suspect is also highly unlikely given both the usual annual holiday round and, more pressingly, the continuing migrants/Turkey situation that the EU also needs to handle.
Either way, negotiations are unlikely to get underway in any meaningful sense until September - and that's simply too late for the chain of events to lead to a 2016 election. It might be worth taking, say, 33+/1 against the offchance of the Conservatives imploding and losing a VoNC on some related issue but not the 10/1 on offer.
10/1 against 2017, on the other hand, is value.
If we have another GE, I am not as convinced as some that Kippers would sweep 350 seats or more
As I pointed out earlier this morning SkyBet are offering odds of 12/1 against a General Election being held in 2016 and the same odds are also available for 2017.
I've just checked and these odds are still available for both years.
DYOR.
However, given the prominence of immigration as an issue in the EURef campaign, and of the threats of Turks down the road - both of which are clearly related to freedom of movement, which itself is directly related to membership of the Single market - I can't see how a Leave can meaningfully be implemented without breaking with that membership.
It was unanimous for Leave. She then asked individuals why and every reply she got was racist. There's not much anyone can do to modernise these elderly Bingo players in Preston but surely we can hope for better from our politicians than they set out to appeal to these prejudices
I would agree with the idea that people would punish MPs for going against the will of the electorate, were it not for the fact that a significant part of #Leave actually want the UK to continue to have a trade agreement with Europe a la Norway etc.
Besides, the alternative is to have to negotiate painful agreements which would take longer, be less advantageous, damage exports, damage the economy etc etc. Could it be that the majority in Parliament are right and we need free trade with the EU?
Why is it that we have allowed ourselves to get our democracy into such a state that we think politicians know less about what is good for the country than the man in the street, who knows absolutely nothing about anything to do with the subject whatsoever and believes a load of nonsense because they think the person who spouts it is more matey than the other side?
UKIP 40 seats would be enough. Cameron would then have a choice of coalition with the Kippers, or with Corbyn. The former would demand leaving the EU "properly", the later would leave so little of the Conservative Party that dental records would be needed to recognise it.
In fact, the Lords held up the Attlee government's bill that reduced the time the Upper House could block legislation for, to the extent that it needed the 1911 version of the Parliament Act to push the amending legislation through.
Aside from no Vote Leaver standing for no change on free movement, the EU has made it clear that for an economy the size of the UK, an EEA option is not feasible.
But, being an MP requires no special qualification. Most of the time, and with honourable exceptions, MPs will vote as they are directed by their party whips. So, while some MPs may indeed have impressive expertise in specific areas, there's no reason to believe they're more likely in general to vote in the public interest than the average voters is.
Nobody knows what "leave" actually means.
So I would struggle to see why a pro-EU majority in Parliament voting to leave the EU but remain in the single market, ie, remain in the EEA, should be a major issue.
Because "leave" is self-evidently a leap in the dark, I am now firming up on my view that the only rational option, at this point in time, is to vote to Remain.
Hint: Remain is a leap in the dark as well.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/10/if-leaving-the-eu-is-a-leap-in-the-dark-then-staying-in-is-a-lea/
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/in-this-eu-referendum-every-vote-will-be-a-leap-in-the-dark/
How did it all go so wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_of_Egypt
we can add:
hysteria.
What I'm not clear on are the mechanisms they would be using to force parliamentary will on an ongoing external negotiation. Just suppose a post-Brexit government does manage to get a half-decent non-single-market free-trade deal from the negotiations in a timely manner. Are we really saying that parliament would knock it back and say 'negotiate again' when that comes to be presented to parliament? If we ever reach that point then it would be Remain playing fast and loose with the economic future, and that would be a very different calculation for those MPs to make from how things look now.
When at school, I had to read EM Forster's Two Cheers for Democracy. Go back and read it. He makes the following point.
The intelligentsia or the elites or whatever do not have the right to take decisions on the part of the stupid or the masses or whatever.
Forster saw the duty of the intelligentsia to explain the pros and cons of any decision. They can make their case.
But, they cannot abrogate democracy because the man in the street is taking the wrong decision.
I believe you claim to be a Liberal Democrat. With these view, your party label is a lie. You are neither Liberal nor Democratic.
OGH must have made a small fortune trading out his 4/1 position and it's not as if he didn't tell us at the time!
Breathtaking arrogance, sneering and contempt for the voter.
Simply breathtaking.
I remain convinced that Leave are whipping up the anti-immigration vote knowing full well that a single market option with F0M will follow. I just think Boris & Gove hope they will be able blame someone else when it happens.
The Tories that dominate the Leave campaign will look on the angry UKIP brigade as the poor bloody infantry. Their views will be dispensed with the moment they have served their purpose. As someone who could live with EEA/EFTA I don't mind but that is how I see it panning out.
My only disappointment would be that he didn't get that in his original negotiations and spare us all this pain.
The UK was a successful and prosperous democracy prior to joining the EU, and it will remain a prosperous and successful democracy if it leaves the EU.
Not quite true. We were desperate to get into the EEC for the sake of economic prosperity. Have you never heard of the "sick man of Europe" label applied to the UK in the 1970s?
And thinking about it, although elegant theoretically, you would have an enormous economy, somehow accepting all the regulatory diktats from Brussels (yes sure, we could veto their incorporation into the agreement), and effectively becoming a marginalised player as far as the EU is concerned. We are too big for that.
It makes no sense, no matter the fact that it seems to cut Stephen Kinnock's Gordian Knot.
I know I usually do!
Let's have a referendum on the European Constitution - Oh hell France and the Netherlands have voted it down so we can't trust you lot to vote the right way, so we'll rename it the Lisbon Treaty, call it a "tidying up exercise" and sneak Gordo in under cover of darkness to sign it. Nobody will notice.
Let's abolish Tuition fees; Oh bugger that's wildly impractical and we only said it 'cos we never actually thought we'd have bums in ministerial cars so we'll forget about that. Nobody will care.
Let's reduce immigration to "tens of thousands". Oh that's a bit harder than we thought and actually there's sod all we can do about it legally as 100M in eastern Europe could turn up tomorrow if they wanted so we'll just kind of shuffle our feet and look awkward and say it's "good for the economy". So that's OK then.
That's one each from the three parties of Govt over the past ten years, I'm sure there are others.
Anyway I certainly don't want a society where our rulers are put on some kind of bloody pedestal. Sure they have power delegated to them they can run things, as far as I am concerned they don't really have to give a running commentary as much as 24 hour news seems to demand, but they are, and will remain accountable to the people.
Not quite true. We were desperate to get into the EEC for the sake of economic prosperity. Have you never heard of the "sick man of Europe" label applied to the UK in the 1970s?
I believe that was due to labour disputes and the unions sticking with outdated practices holding us back. The fact that Labour had to go to the IMF for a loan also suggests that the reasons for being the sick man of Europe were not unconnected with socialism.
Other than that, it was a prosperous and successful State. Describing it as "the Sick Man of Europe" is hyperbole. The UK's standard of living was double what it had been 30 years previously.
Most of the world's countries in 1975 would have been happy to have the UK's problems.