Presumably you consider the end of alluminium smelting in the UK and the demolition of the last smelter at Alnmouth at the weekend, together with the closure of the blast furnace at Redcar, and the current threat to steel processing at Hartlepool, Lackenby and Skinningrove all because of the EU Carbon Floor taxation regimes making those plants uneconomical, is what exactly.;.. A SUCCESS.
Brexit could not be any worse, than the destruction the EU has imposed on our heavy industry going all the way back to the forced end of our civil shipbuilding, when the EU refused to allow the re-opening of a shipyard on the Wear at Sunderland, whilst supporting expansion on the continent.
I real;cannot believe you are from the North East with your view.
It was this Tory Government who has welcomed the dumping of Chinese steel with open arms. That tells me they would not have used tariffs given the chance to protect our industries. Leaving the EU will not make them any more bothered about happens in areas that vote red.
They will not have the excuse of the EU.
They won't need it. They have the leafy shires and Nuneaton. They can frack and mistreat us all they like
Before anyone gets too excited in Quebec in 1995 all the final polls had Yes narrowly ahead but No won 51% to 49% after don't knows swung for the status quo at the last minute but certainly the momentum with Leave
Overheard conversation in waiting room at work. Several retired old fellows moaning about the money going to the EU rather than NHS.
Overheard conversation between 3 nurses, one white British, one Indian and one Filipino (all naturalised so eligible to vote). All undecided, but leaning Leave over the subject of immigration.
I think both these memes are hollow, but they are working.
Why do you think remain are so incensed by the £350m figure?
It is a blatent lie and sounds like a lot of money. It is a meme (with immigration) that strikes a chord.
And to think Remain keep falling for the trap of calling it a lie, its only 250 or so million etc....
Presumably you consider the end of alluminium smelting in the UK and the demolition of the last smelter at Alnmouth at the weekend, together with the closure of the blast furnace at Redcar, and the current threat to steel processing at Hartlepool, Lackenby and Skinningrove all because of the EU Carbon Floor taxation regimes making those plants uneconomical, is what exactly.;.. A SUCCESS.
Brexit could not be any worse, than the destruction the EU has imposed on our heavy industry going all the way back to the forced end of our civil shipbuilding, when the EU refused to allow the re-opening of a shipyard on the Wear at Sunderland, whilst supporting expansion on the continent.
I real;cannot believe you are from the North East with your view.
It was this Tory Government who has welcomed the dumping of Chinese steel with open arms. That tells me they would not have used tariffs given the chance to protect our industries. Leaving the EU will not make them any more bothered about happens in areas that vote red.
They will not have the excuse of the EU.
They won't need it. They have the leafy shires and Nuneaton. They can frack and mistreat us all they like
Fracking would be a massive benefit for energy intensive industry.
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that would cause the apocalypse according to Cameron. Our governments have built an economy that is very dependent on an almost continuous source of cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
Crikey, ladies and gents what on earth has happened that so many of you are starting on the port mortem ten days before the vote even takes place.?
This mood started on here after Cameron's first major TV interview of the campaign but this evening it is positively macabre; like having the wake before the diagnosis never mind the death. Even Mr. Dawning is talking about Leave's unstoppable momentum.
As regular readers will know I am staunchly for Leave and have been for 20 odd years, but I don't think the fight is won.
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Are they really bothered? This is to their advantage.
You think that the PLP are going to be happy about the UK leaving the EU, or their own very lacklustre Remain campaign under Corbyn's stewardship?
The PLP were content to watch Brown takeover unopposed. They were also content not to mount a challenge to Brown or Ed Miliband despite all the polling and local election data. So why would they do anything about Corbyn?
I hope and expect that the doom mongering from people here will prove to be fictitious and that we will be successful independent. If that is the case then there will be a number of nations watching us to see how we succeed or fail outside the project.
For too long we have been the sulky child in the back of the Franco-German Eurocar. France and Germany taking turns at the wheel picking the the destination with us grumbling since the late eighties "I don't want to go there".
Now is the chance for us to get our own car and chart our own course. To lead by example and regain our national confidence and pride.
Overheard conversation in waiting room at work. Several retired old fellows moaning about the money going to the EU rather than NHS.
Overheard conversation between 3 nurses, one white British, one Indian and one Filipino (all naturalised so eligible to vote). All undecided, but leaning Leave over the subject of immigration.
I think both these memes are hollow, but they are working.
Why do you think remain are so incensed by the £350m figure?
It is a blatent lie and sounds like a lot of money. It is a meme (with immigration) that strikes a chord.
Are you Soros in disguise? To me £350,000,000 does sound like a lot of money (and even £200,000,000 is just out of my price range).
Presumably you consider the end of alluminium smelting in the UK and the demolition of the last smelter at Alnmouth at the weekend, together with the closure of the blast furnace at Redcar, and the current threat to steel processing at Hartlepool, Lackenby and Skinningrove all because of the EU Carbon Floor taxation regimes making those plants uneconomical, is what exactly.;.. A SUCCESS.
Brexit could not be any worse, than the destruction the EU has imposed on our heavy industry going all the way back to the forced end of our civil shipbuilding, when the EU refused to allow the re-opening of a shipyard on the Wear at Sunderland, whilst supporting expansion on the continent.
I real;cannot believe you are from the North East with your view.
I didn't say that Brexit would be a disaster for the North East...
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that would cause the apocalypse according to Cameron. Our governments have built an economy that is very dependent on an almost continuous source of cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
No we're evidently not going to agree. At least when tim was here arguing for a Labour government I could respect his position which, although I disagreed with it passionately, was well considered, well thought out and coherent.
The Leave argument is the opposite of that. Incoherent (Norway, Albania, Canada, free movement, no free movement , EEA, no, EFTA, single market, no, no single market, points, no...) and has been arrived at with about as much consideration to it as it takes to shout "Cry Freedom!"
@CD13 Everyone loses sometimes. I'm in the Remain camp less because I'm enthusiastic for Remain and more because of what Leave represents. If Remain lose, it won't be people like me who suffer.
I agree with you that Remain are still favourites for me. The damage done to the social fabric of this country by a Leave campaign based on xenophobic impossibilism will, however, be long lasting, whichever side wins.
No xenophobia here my friend. My little boy is in a class with a Lithuanian girl, a Bangladeshi girl, a boy whose father is African and a Pole. They are all lovely people and I live in deepest darkest Wales.
It's not where they are from (I'd swap those guys for some of the indigenous any day of the week), it's the driving down of working class wages and the fact that much of their wages aren't being spent here. The parents of the Lithuanian girl openly say they are sending their money back home to pay for a lovely home and a better life there. They work round the clock, probably for pittance on zero hour contracts... and fair play to them. But I can't see how what they do is good for our economy or for the working classes (and there are lots and lots of us).
We aren't all gilded lilies who live in leafy parts of Shire England. Life really is tough for many of us.
Even though I think the Remain camp will win, I hope the establishment are shocked into realising how tough it is for us over this side of the fence and stop just labelling us as xenophobic, small-minded, uneducated, unsophisticated neanderthals. Unlimited EU immigration has not made our lives easier, better or wealthier. This EU Referendum has given us a chance to make our feelings clear on that.
I do love this - I was brought up mostly by my Aunty Dorothy and Uncle Bart until I was about ten. Bart's from Sierra Leone - and my 6 cousins are black as the ace of spades. His teeth were capped with gold like a pirate and I loved it. We gutted local fish together. He was a dentist - and had been a member of the diplomatic corps.
The pathetic posturing of some Remainers makes me laugh - it's just a way to justify how superior they are.
Overheard conversation in waiting room at work. Several retired old fellows moaning about the money going to the EU rather than NHS.
Overheard conversation between 3 nurses, one white British, one Indian and one Filipino (all naturalised so eligible to vote). All undecided, but leaning Leave over the subject of immigration.
I think both these memes are hollow, but they are working.
Why do you think remain are so incensed by the £350m figure?
It is a blatent lie and sounds like a lot of money. It is a meme (with immigration) that strikes a chord.
It's not a blatant lie. It's what we give to them then they give us a chunk back - but they tell us how to spend it. It is one valid way of expressing our contribution, along with others.
This was another major error by REMAIN. By continuously bitching about this figure they simply made everyone look at the figure and gasp in horror. £350m a week, £250m a week - these ALL seem like huge numbers to most voters.
I think that was the idea. A very brave and bold move. Typical for Matthew Elliott. Now why did Cameron and Osborne not bring him into Govt?
We may even find out that there are various hidden costs that make the £350m an understatement.
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that would cause the apocalypse according to Cameron. Our governments have built an economy that is very dependent on an almost continuous source of cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
Presumably you consider the end of alluminium smelting in the UK and the demolition of the last smelter at Alnmouth at the weekend, together with the closure of the blast furnace at Redcar, and the current threat to steel processing at Hartlepool, Lackenby and Skinningrove all because of the EU Carbon Floor taxation regimes making those plants uneconomical, is what exactly.;.. A SUCCESS.
Brexit could not be any worse, than the destruction the EU has imposed on our heavy industry going all the way back to the forced end of our civil shipbuilding, when the EU refused to allow the re-opening of a shipyard on the Wear at Sunderland, whilst supporting expansion on the continent.
I real;cannot believe you are from the North East with your view.
Absolutely.....and you only need look at GDP growth rates (and even more in terms of GDP per capital growth rates) in decline across the economic cycles since 1973 on the government's own figures to see that all the economic scaremongering is just that. The 1st October 2015 turning point that I alluded to on here last year we are seeing increasingly on here was the peak in government. The default voter position to trust the government at moments like that has just evaporated amongst so many of the population, and the power of government to influence events along with it.
And we have a rising cycle of civil unrest going into 2020 too - we're really starting to see that ferment at Euro 2016 sadly. Expect an awful lot more civil unrest over the next 3.5 years - it's the old story of being able to get away with a number of lies but eventually there comes the point that the lies start to stack up and a tipping point is reached. Many in the population have reached that tipping point........and I would suggest given how the remain campaign has been conducted over the past month that it is the remain establishment that are living in cloud cuckoo land in the past.
So the conclusion Cameron drew from the Scottish indyref was to run exactly the same campaign that lost a 30 point lead down to 10
There isn't a positive argument to be made in favour of the EU that the public will stomach. It has to be presented as the least worst option which means Leave has to be presented as such a huge risk as to make the EU look palatable. With the anti-politics feeling among so many, I'm not certain that an establishment campaign is going to work.
The Remain campaign requires the voters to be played for mugs, which may be why they are having such a lack of traction...
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that would cause the apocalypse according to Cameron. Our governments have built an economy that is very dependent on an almost continuous source of cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
No we're evidently not going to agree. At least when tim was here arguing for a Labour government I could respect his position which, although I disagreed with it passionately, was well considered, well thought out and coherent.
The Leave argument is the opposite of that. Incoherent (Norway, Albania, Canada, free movement, no free movement , EEA, no, EFTA, single market, no, no single market, points, no...) and has been arrived at with about as much consideration to it as it takes to shout "Cry Freedom!"
And if we do Leave, rest assured that very few in the leave camp will be involved in what happens afterwards. They are not the government.
We discussed this last night. It's awful campaigning, though Islamophobia would be a better term. The Daily Mail presenting a Turkish visa waiver program as one of the signs of the End Times are a'coming is revolting.
Many of us have found ourselves in peculiar circumstances in the last few months. I'm a Brexiter disgusted by my own side's campaign...that seems to be winning the day. Oof, the dissonance.
If the tweet from Wintour is right, then it is over.
If Senior Labour Figures argue the migration deal is insufficient and go public, then there is no way that Cameron can win.
Labour voters are not going to vote for Cameron if their own side is telling them the deal is bad.
There is definitely an opportunity here for Labour. They can disassociate themselves from the defeat and let the Tories own it.
Permanent opt-out on freedom of movement will be on the table within 7 days.
They can't promise that though, not in sincerity. Other countries wouldn't accept it and the Treaty would take years to draft and then get vetoed by Poland and Bulgaria, and probably France, embittered at our special treatment.
I guess they could lie. Yes. That's what they will do. They will lie.
Overheard conversation in waiting room at work. Several retired old fellows moaning about the money going to the EU rather than NHS.
Overheard conversation between 3 nurses, one white British, one Indian and one Filipino (all naturalised so eligible to vote). All undecided, but leaning Leave over the subject of immigration.
I think both these memes are hollow, but they are working.
Why do you think remain are so incensed by the £350m figure?
It is a blatent lie and sounds like a lot of money. It is a meme (with immigration) that strikes a chord.
It's not a blatant lie. It's what we give to them then they give us a chunk back - but they tell us how to spend it. It is one valid way of expressing our contribution, along with others.
This was another major error by REMAIN. By continuously bitching about this figure they simply made everyone look at the figure and gasp in horror. £350m a week, £250m a week - these ALL seem like huge numbers to most voters.
It is a lie, but even after the rebate and net spend still a large amout of money. Truth no longer matters once the lie is established. In the post-modern world there is no absolute truth, just opinions that even when illinformed are held to be of equal value.
We are one of the wealthier countries in Europe and I am reasonably happy about subsidising the poorer areas of Europe to develop, just as a higher rate taxpayer I expect to subsidise poorer members of society. No one makes that argument though.
Are you disappointed with the Remain campaign for not calling it out? They could have put the positive case for Turkey joining, which is still government policy. They could have said "Turkey won't be joining anytime soon, but we think Turkey and the rest will, in the long run, add to the cultural diversity of the EU. The Leave campaign are simply trying to tap into the xenophobia that is rife among Leave supporters."
Southam is correct on Cameron. I'm shocked that such a smart politician made such a big mistake over the 'negotiations'. It just all felt weak and contrived and the minute Cameron shrugged his shoulders and said the government would campaign for IN anyway, I had the feeling things might go pear-shaped for him.
The next big mistake of the Remain campaign was the negativity. I really thought that the range of establishment figures would eulogise about the wonders of the EU and win us all over. Send us away thinking, oh yeah I can see it now, the EU really is worth it after all.
But I've heard barely a positive word uttered.
Then Gisela Stuart came on radio earlier saying how the establishment people warned against the bringing down of the Berlin Wall, veiling the continent in fear. Yet it turned into one of the most liberating moments ever for Europe.
That one sentence from her left me feeling more positive than the whole of the Remain campaign combined.
As MaxPB said a few weeks back - in arguably the most striking comment of the campaign - the Remain campaign has been shite largely because the EU is shite.
Overheard conversation in waiting room at work. Several retired old fellows moaning about the money going to the EU rather than NHS.
Overheard conversation between 3 nurses, one white British, one Indian and one Filipino (all naturalised so eligible to vote). All undecided, but leaning Leave over the subject of immigration.
I think both these memes are hollow, but they are working.
Why do you think remain are so incensed by the £350m figure?
It is a blatent lie and sounds like a lot of money. It is a meme (with immigration) that strikes a chord.
It's not a blatant lie. It's what we give to them then they give us a chunk back - but they tell us how to spend it. It is one valid way of expressing our contribution, along with others.
This was another major error by REMAIN. By continuously bitching about this figure they simply made everyone look at the figure and gasp in horror. £350m a week, £250m a week - these ALL seem like huge numbers to most voters.
It is a lie, but even after the rebate and net spend still a large amout of money. Truth no longer matters once the lie is established. In the post-modern world there is no absolute truth, just opinions that even when illinformed are held to be of equal value.
We are one of the wealthier countries in Europe and I am reasonably happy about subsidising the poorer areas of Europe to develop, just as a higher rate taxpayer I expect to subsidise poorer members of society. No one makes that argument though.
Same question as I just gave to Mr Meeks - are you disappointed that the Remain side have not made the positive case for subsidising the poorer areas of Europe?
@CD13 Everyone loses sometimes. I'm in the Remain camp less because I'm enthusiastic for Remain and more because of what Leave represents. If Remain lose, it won't be people like me who suffer.
I agree with you that Remain are still favourites for me. The damage done to the social fabric of this country by a Leave campaign based on xenophobic impossibilism will, however, be long lasting, whichever side wins.
Yes, Leave's campaign has been awesome, but it's had to step into some dark places to achieve its ends. But one thing we can all agree on: Boris made possibly the greatest career decision in history.
The great and the good will never allow Boris to be Prime minister.
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that would cause the apocalypse according to Cameron. Our governments have built an economy that is very dependent on an almost continuous source of cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
No we're evidently not going to agree. At least when tim was here arguing for a Labour government I could respect his position which, although I disagreed with it passionately, was well considered, well thought out and coherent.
The Leave argument is the opposite of that. Incoherent (Norway, Albania, Canada, free movement, no free movement , EEA, no, EFTA, single market, no, no single market, points, no...) and has been arrived at with about as much consideration to it as it takes to shout "Cry Freedom!"
And if we do Leave, rest assured that very few in the leave camp will be involved in what happens afterwards. They are not the government.
No they are not, but the public will have voted based upon what the leave camp said. It would be beholden upon the government to respect the manifesto that won Leave its victory.
Guardian "The figures will make grim reading for David Cameron, George Osborne and the Labour party."
Why grim reading for the Labour party? They end up with a new PM, an untested new Govt and massive splits in the Conservative party. The only Labour people upset are the bulk of their MPs but they were unhappy before the referendum and are out of touch with members (on Corbyn) and out of touch with a large part of Labour's voters (about the referendum).
Labour voters are clearly singing from a different hymn sheet to their leaders who relentlessly advocate for immigration.
The public are not dumb.
They go into supermarkets, ride the tube, sit in GP waiting rooms, work on building sites, ride minicabs and visit Costa Coffee and know migration is not majorly made up of Greek doctors and German financiers as the immigration fantasists like to contend.
It's also foolhardy to make the assumption that BAME voters are any different to white voters when they see considerable change in their communities.
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that would cause the apocalypse according to Cameron. Our governments have built an economy that is very dependent on an almost continuous source of cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
No we're evidently not going to agree. At least when tim was here arguing for a Labour government I could respect his position which, although I disagreed with it passionately, was well considered, well thought out and coherent.
The Leave argument is the opposite of that. Incoherent (Norway, Albania, Canada, free movement, no free movement , EEA, no, EFTA, single market, no, no single market, points, no...) and has been arrived at with about as much consideration to it as it takes to shout "Cry Freedom!"
And if we do Leave, rest assured that very few in the leave camp will be involved in what happens afterwards. They are not the government.
They will be the government. Most of the current front bench will have to go.
RE: 350m. I don't think it's the use of the figure that really rules the remain campaign. It is the assertion by leading Tory politicians that they would spend repatriated funds on the NHS when they blatantly wouldn't
Southam is correct on Cameron. I'm shocked that such a smart politician made such a big mistake over the 'negotiations'. It just all felt weak and contrived and the minute Cameron shrugged his shoulders and said the government would campaign for IN anyway, I had the feeling things might go pear-shaped for him.
The next big mistake of the Remain campaign was the negativity. I really thought that the range of establishment figures would eulogise about the wonders of the EU and win us all over. Send us away thinking, oh yeah I can see it now, the EU really is worth it after all.
But I've heard barely a positive word uttered.
Then Gisela Stuart came on radio earlier saying how the establishment people warned against the bringing down of the Berlin Wall, veiling the continent in fear. Yet it turned into one of the most liberating moments ever for Europe.
That one sentence from her left me feeling more positive than the whole of the Remain campaign combined.
As MaxPB said a few weeks back - in arguably the most striking comment of the campaign - the Remain campaign has been shite largely because the EU is shite.
Nuff said.
Yep. The EU is shite. But, to channel Boris' hero, it is the worst possible post-war trade grouping for the UK to be a member of, apart from...
I hope and expect that the doom mongering from people here will prove to be fictitious and that we will be successful independent. If that is the case then there will be a number of nations watching us to see how we succeed or fail outside the project.
For too long we have been the sulky child in the back of the Franco-German Eurocar. France and Germany taking turns at the wheel picking the the destination with us grumbling since the late eighties "I don't want to go there".
Now is the chance for us to get our own car and chart our own course. To lead by example and regain our national confidence and pride.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
Give us a break, it those "least able to afford it" that are the most passionate voters for leave. The fans of the EU are the educated AB professional classes who are not affected by thousands of low skilled EU migrants taking their jobs.
Crikey, ladies and gents what on earth has happened that so many of you are starting on the port mortem ten days before the vote even takes place.?
This mood started on here after Cameron's first major TV interview of the campaign but this evening it is positively macabre; like having the wake before the diagnosis never mind the death. Even Mr. Dawning is talking about Leave's unstoppable momentum.
As regular readers will know I am staunchly for Leave and have been for 20 odd years, but I don't think the fight is won.
We're having a bit of fun - only SO seems to think we're going to win - and we all know how accurate his predictions are.
@CD13 Everyone loses sometimes. I'm in the Remain camp less because I'm enthusiastic for Remain and more because of what Leave represents. If Remain lose, it won't be people like me who suffer.
I agree with you that Remain are still favourites for me. The damage done to the social fabric of this country by a Leave campaign based on xenophobic impossibilism will, however, be long lasting, whichever side wins.
Yes, Leave's campaign has been awesome, but it's had to step into some dark places to achieve its ends. But one thing we can all agree on: Boris made possibly the greatest career decision in history.
The great and the good will never allow Boris to be Prime minister.
They said that about Corbyn. He didn't stand a chance etc. We live in interesting times, as the curse has it.
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Yep, Corbyn will have a great deal of responsibility too; not that he will give a flying fig. Don't think I'd blame the SNP, though. Scotland looks sure to vote Remain. The fact is that this is Cameron's campaign, just as it was his decision to buy off his right wing with the referendum promise in the first place. He spent eight years talking down the EU and making negative noises about immigration solely, it turns out, for electoral advantage. He has inflicted this defeat on himself and will be judged accordingly.
Corbyn and Sturgeon are going to be the big winners out of all of this. Sturgeon will pounce immediately after Leave's victory, demanding another SindyRef and probably winning it. Corbyn will then have, in his eyes, a stranded England ripe for revolution. Brexit will have humiliated the Labour moderates too, leaving them redundant and the far-Left in charge of Labour for ever.
I have been waiting for signs that news editors will swing behind Remain and stab Leave, but that doesn't seem to be happening. It's almost as if it's all over.
Any poll which gives the Tories the best position is known as the Gold Standard (Platinum Standard if it is a particularly stonking lead). How long have you been on PB?
Before anyone gets too excited in Quebec in 1995 all the final polls had Yes narrowly ahead but No won 51% to 49% after don't knows swung for the status quo at the last minute but certainly the momentum with Leave
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Yep, Corbyn will have a great deal of responsibility too; not that he will give a flying fig. Don't think I'd blame the SNP, though. Scotland looks sure to vote Remain. The fact is that this is Cameron's campaign, just as it was his decision to buy off his right wing with the referendum promise in the first place. He spent eight years talking down the EU and making negative noises about immigration solely, it turns out, for electoral advantage. He has inflicted this defeat on himself and will be judged accordingly.
Corbyn and Sturgeon are going to be the big winners out of all of this. Sturgeon will pounce immediately after Leave's victory, demanding another SindyRef and probably winning it. Corbyn will then have, in his eyes, a stranded England ripe for revolution. Brexit will have humiliated the Labour moderates too, leaving them redundant and the far-Left in charge of Labour for ever.
Woah, hold your horses there Tonto. Remain are still likely to win this. The markets are going to go batshit, and we've still major interventions from the IMF, BoE and Boy George to come. It's time to dial Project Fear up to 11, 12, 13 or whatever it takes.
I hope and expect that the doom mongering from people here will prove to be fictitious and that we will be successful independent. If that is the case then there will be a number of nations watching us to see how we succeed or fail outside the project.
For too long we have been the sulky child in the back of the Franco-German Eurocar. France and Germany taking turns at the wheel picking the the destination with us grumbling since the late eighties "I don't want to go there".
Now is the chance for us to get our own car and chart our own course. To lead by example and regain our national confidence and pride.
The one thing we've never been able to say is "Are We There Yet?"
Gosh. You go out to deliver some more leaflets and find you have single handedly lost Leave the support of a floating voter called Saddened and that the same poll has gone from a 10% lead for Remain to a 6% lead for Leave.
Saddened I wondered if you still think Leave made a mistake by leading on migration (29 May)?
Our local Leave campaign is apparently ready to concentrate on key areas now with 'dawn raid leaflets' next week. God we never had this sort of thing in the Tories!
I doubt there will be any concession on free movement. It is too much a part of the Single Market. What we'll see post-Brexit vote is a lot of negotiation and a deal that will disappoint a lot of Leave voters. Domestically, that will be very interesting to watch play out. More importantly, we just have to hope that Boris has it in him to get a good deal from the EU and to reassure the rest of the world that the UK is still serious. Brexit will genuinely astound people. That may not be a bad thing if played properly. What we don't want is silly Boris saying he can't negotiate with Hillary because it is her time of the month or that the Chinese President hates Britain because of something we did to his grandfather. And no more picaninnies.
I have mentioned it a few times before, but if I were Boris one of my fist acts would be symbolic: change the colour of the UK passport. People will love it. Even a lot of Remainers. I know I would.
'A narrow defeat would see Ukip go “from strength to strength, get a lot bigger and attract more funding”. A win would change his role to one of making sure David Cameron does not try to back out of a Brexit.
“That’s what I fear he would try — and that’s why he has got to go,” he adds, savagely. No love lost there.
“The last chat I had with Cameron was in December at Evgeny Lebedev’s party,” he recalls with a laugh.
“He said ‘How are you getting on with Douglas Carswell?’ I said: ‘About as well as you did, Prime Minister!’ ” Of the Tories who might take over, he trusts Boris but mulls: “Michael Gove is the form horse, isn’t he?”
Liam Fox, he suggests, is the dark horse, adding with a happy cackle: “Even I feel quite pro-EU next to him....“I’m only a mid-First Division drinker,” he apologises. “Now, Juncker, he’s Premier League. I like him." '
Somebody earlier did mention that Northern Ireland wasn't polled. Sorry to rain on the parade, but that will cause a net 1% swing to Remain. How many expats will vote?
Are we 3 days away from a Juncker intervention? "Juncker had to promise British Prime Minister David Cameron that the EU executive branch would stay out of the Brexit debate. " "Juncker only managed to convince Cameron to give him a small loophole: If Brexit supporters have a clear lead in polls in the week prior to the June 23 referendum, the Commission president will be allowed to make his voice heard. That, of course, would be too late to significantly shift public opinion..." http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/why-eu-leaders-are-not-speaking-out-about-brexit-a-1094261.html
@John_M That's the mandate that Leave is seeking: an anti-immigration, pull-up-the-drawbridge, scared about Muslims mandate.
If you want that, vote for it. But don't fool yourself that voting Leave means anything else.
Most immigrants nowadays are Christian or Hindu.
Doesn't matter. Who the fuck is frightened of a Hindu? I wrote the other day about hating -phobic as a suffix, but a lot of people are clearly scared of Muslims, completely disproportionately to the risks they pose.
Guardian "The figures will make grim reading for David Cameron, George Osborne and the Labour party."
Why grim reading for the Labour party? They end up with a new PM, an untested new Govt and massive splits in the Conservative party. The only Labour people upset are the bulk of their MPs but they were unhappy before the referendum and are out of touch with members (on Corbyn) and out of touch with a large part of Labour's voters (about the referendum).
Labour voters are clearly singing from a different hymn sheet to their leaders who relentlessly advocate for immigration. The public are not dumb. They go into supermarkets, ride the tube, sit in GP waiting rooms, work on building sites, ride minicabs and visit Costa Coffee and know migration is not majorly made up of Greek doctors and German financiers as the immigration fantasists like to contend. It's also foolhardy to make the assumption that BAME voters are any different to white voters when they see considerable change in their communities.
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Yep, Corbyn will have a great deal of responsibility too; not that he will give a flying fig. Don't think I'd blame the SNP, though. Scotland looks sure to vote Remain. The fact is that this is Cameron's campaign, just as it was his decision to buy off his right wing with the referendum promise in the first place. He spent eight years talking down the EU and making negative noises about immigration solely, it turns out, for electoral advantage. He has inflicted this defeat on himself and will be judged accordingly.
Corbyn and Sturgeon are going to be the big winners out of all of this. Sturgeon will pounce immediately after Leave's victory, demanding another SindyRef and probably winning it. Corbyn will then have, in his eyes, a stranded England ripe for revolution. Brexit will have humiliated the Labour moderates too, leaving them redundant and the far-Left in charge of Labour for ever.
Sadly, Corbyn is the Tory get out of jail free card. This is a huge opportunity for Labour that the membership will undoubtedly squander.
I have mentioned it a few times before, but if I were Boris one of my fist acts would be symbolic: change the colour of the UK passport. People will love it. Even a lot of Remainers. I know I would.
Back to the old style navy passport - that would be my first move if I was Boris taking over from Cameron post Leave vote
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Yep, Corbyn will have a great deal of responsibility too; not that he will give a flying fig. Don't think I'd blame the SNP, though. Scotland looks sure to vote Remain. The fact is that this is Cameron's campaign, just as it was his decision to buy off his right wing with the referendum promise in the first place. He spent eight years talking down the EU and making negative noises about immigration solely, it turns out, for electoral advantage. He has inflicted this defeat on himself and will be judged accordingly.
Corbyn and Sturgeon are going to be the big winners out of all of this. Sturgeon will pounce immediately after Leave's victory, demanding another SindyRef and probably winning it. Corbyn will then have, in his eyes, a stranded England ripe for revolution. Brexit will have humiliated the Labour moderates too, leaving them redundant and the far-Left in charge of Labour for ever.
Woah, hold your horses there Tonto. Remain are still likely to win this. The markets are going to go batshit, and we've still major interventions from the IMF, BoE and Boy George to come. It's time to dial Project Fear up to 11, 12, 13 or whatever it takes.
Southam is correct on Cameron. I'm shocked that such a smart politician made such a big mistake over the 'negotiations'. It just all felt weak and contrived and the minute Cameron shrugged his shoulders and said the government would campaign for IN anyway, I had the feeling things might go pear-shaped for him.
The next big mistake of the Remain campaign was the negativity. I really thought that the range of establishment figures would eulogise about the wonders of the EU and win us all over. Send us away thinking, oh yeah I can see it now, the EU really is worth it after all.
But I've heard barely a positive word uttered.
Then Gisela Stuart came on radio earlier saying how the establishment people warned against the bringing down of the Berlin Wall, veiling the continent in fear. Yet it turned into one of the most liberating moments ever for Europe.
That one sentence from her left me feeling more positive than the whole of the Remain campaign combined.
As MaxPB said a few weeks back - in arguably the most striking comment of the campaign - the Remain campaign has been shite largely because the EU is shite.
Nuff said.
I missed Gisela saying that. What a fab point to make - she's a star and growing in my estimations every day.
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Yep, Corbyn will have a great deal of responsibility too; not that he will give a flying fig. Don't think I'd blame the SNP, though. Scotland looks sure to vote Remain. The fact is that this is Cameron's campaign, just as it was his decision to buy off his right wing with the referendum promise in the first place. He spent eight years talking down the EU and making negative noises about immigration solely, it turns out, for electoral advantage. He has inflicted this defeat on himself and will be judged accordingly.
If we vote to Leave, history may not judge Mr Cameron too harshly - after all, he did allow us the EU Referendum, even if it was only for electoral advantage. No-one else was willing to risk it, even for that.
I think it will depend on how things pan out after a Brexit.
I doubt there will be any concession on free movement. It is too much a part of the Single Market. What we'll see post-Brexit vote is a lot of negotiation and a deal that will disappoint a lot of Leave voters. Domestically, that will be very interesting to watch play out. More importantly, we just have to hope that Boris has it in him to get a good deal from the EU and to reassure the rest of the world that the UK is still serious. Brexit will genuinely astound people. That may not be a bad thing if played properly. What we don't want is silly Boris saying he can't negotiate with Hillary because it is her time of the month or that the Chinese President hates Britain because of something we did to his grandfather. And no more picaninnies.
I have mentioned it a few times before, but if I were Boris one of my fist acts would be symbolic: change the colour of the UK passport. People will love it. Even a lot of Remainers. I know I would.
The is a gap opening between the single market and those pursuing ever closer union.
That's the opening to change the rules on freedom of movement, possibly.
I doubt there will be any concession on free movement. It is too much a part of the Single Market. What we'll see post-Brexit vote is a lot of negotiation and a deal that will disappoint a lot of Leave voters. Domestically, that will be very interesting to watch play out. More importantly, we just have to hope that Boris has it in him to get a good deal from the EU and to reassure the rest of the world that the UK is still serious. Brexit will genuinely astound people. That may not be a bad thing if played properly. What we don't want is silly Boris saying he can't negotiate with Hillary because it is her time of the month or that the Chinese President hates Britain because of something we did to his grandfather. And no more picaninnies.
I have mentioned it a few times before, but if I were Boris one of my fist acts would be symbolic: change the colour of the UK passport. People will love it. Even a lot of Remainers. I know I would.
Agree on that last point.
I've just never understood why free movement is such a thing in a continent with 121 or so languages and massive disparities in living standards.
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Yep, Corbyn will have a great deal of responsibility too; not that he will give a flying fig. Don't think I'd blame the SNP, though. Scotland looks sure to vote Remain. The fact is that this is Cameron's campaign, just as it was his decision to buy off his right wing with the referendum promise in the first place. He spent eight years talking down the EU and making negative noises about immigration solely, it turns out, for electoral advantage. He has inflicted this defeat on himself and will be judged accordingly.
Corbyn and Sturgeon are going to be the big winners out of all of this. Sturgeon will pounce immediately after Leave's victory, demanding another SindyRef and probably winning it. Corbyn will then have, in his eyes, a stranded England ripe for revolution. Brexit will have humiliated the Labour moderates too, leaving them redundant and the far-Left in charge of Labour for ever.
Sadly, Corbyn is the Tory get out of jail free card. This is a huge opportunity for Labour that the membership will undoubtedly squander.
That's wishful thinking on the Tory side.
The Tories are on the brink of a historic disaster. They've turned on the Cameron centrist project and will take over seems poised to immediately destroy any trust by lurching towards a deal that won't end free movement.
Corbyn couldn't wish for a better set of circumstances.
"In less than eleven days time we might see The UK voting to end her membership of the EU, and the end of David Cameron’s Premiership, interesting times ahead."
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that would cause the apocalypse according to Cameron. Our governments have built an economy that is very dependent on an almost continuous source of cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
No we're evidently not going to agree. At least when tim was here arguing for a Labour government I could respect his position which, although I disagreed with it passionately, was well considered, well thought out and coherent.
The Leave argument is the opposite of that. Incoherent (Norway, Albania, Canada, free movement, no free movement , EEA, no, EFTA, single market, no, no single market, points, no...) and has been arrived at with about as much consideration to it as it takes to shout "Cry Freedom!"
Mr. Topping, I fear your memory is betraying you. Tim never argued a positive case for anything, he was entirely negative.
Now I am a Leaver and would be delighted to honestly discuss with you my thoughts on what the UK should be doing. It wouldn't amount to much though would it because I am never going to be in a position to implement my vision. Farage has set forth his vision very clearly in the Telegraph, but he like me will never be in position to implement it. The same goes for Boris, Gove, Hooey et al.. However, we are not being asked to choose between visions of the future, just whether we want to remain a member of the EU.
If we vote to leave what comes next is down to elected government of the UK.
Wintour? Hmmmm.... Labour blaming the Tories that Labour voters wouldn't, er, vote for the Tories. It requires some brass neck to pull that one off.
Cameron sowed the seeds of his own destruction. You can't spend years talking in negative terms about the EU and immigration, and then expect the voting public to take you seriously when you change your mind completely and with no real explanation. History will judge him harshly, but perhaps not as harshly as the Leavers who take over from him.
And Jeremy Corbyn has been a huge fan of the EU project for years, oh wait...
Twitter Kenny Farquharson @KennyFarq 8h8 hours ago SNP and Labour leaderships will be equally culpable if there's a Brexit vote in the 23rd.
Yep, Corbyn will have a great deal of responsibility too; not that he will give a flying fig. Don't think I'd blame the SNP, though. Scotland looks sure to vote Remain. The fact is that this is Cameron's campaign, just as it was his decision to buy off his right wing with the referendum promise in the first place. He spent eight years talking down the EU and making negative noises about immigration solely, it turns out, for electoral advantage. He has inflicted this defeat on himself and will be judged accordingly.
Corbyn and Sturgeon are going to be the big winners out of all of this. Sturgeon will pounce immediately after Leave's victory, demanding another SindyRef and probably winning it. Corbyn will then have, in his eyes, a stranded England ripe for revolution. Brexit will have humiliated the Labour moderates too, leaving them redundant and the far-Left in charge of Labour for ever.
Woah, hold your horses there Tonto. Remain are still likely to win this. The markets are going to go batshit, and we've still major interventions from the IMF, BoE and Boy George to come. It's time to dial Project Fear up to 11, 12, 13 or whatever it takes.
I don't think fear is enough.
They could do with a terrorist attack in Europe. It would kill the news cycle and potentially generate sympathy for our neighbours.
@John_M That's the mandate that Leave is seeking: an anti-immigration, pull-up-the-drawbridge, scared about Muslims mandate.
If you want that, vote for it. But don't fool yourself that voting Leave means anything else.
I really don't think it is. Granted, the messages from Leave have not been coherent about the post-EU vision, but it's certainly not all been as you describe. The only vision Leave has to unify around is 'Not this'. Describing one post-EU vision and saying it applies to all Leave voters is just as tendentious as claiming every vote for a Remain is a vote for full-speed-ahead ever-closer-union.
It's like Sindyref but LEAVE were always a lot closer from the off
Cameron's euroVow better be good
He's damaged goods with an 18% trust rating - the midas touch has gone, a vow at this stage after everything else he has done in the past month isn't going to move things with trust ratings that low. Its simply too late for that.
I have been waiting for signs that news editors will swing behind Remain and stab Leave, but that doesn't seem to be happening. It's almost as if it's all over.
I assume you mean today - there has been plenty of covert bias towards Remain - when you're used to seeing it per pro the Labour party, you can spot it a mile off.
Try some BBCology - look at the faces - are they happy, sad or poker face?
Somebody earlier did mention that Northern Ireland wasn't polled. Sorry to rain on the parade, but that will cause a net 1% swing to Remain. How many expats will vote?
I do not think that NI will add much more than 0.6% to REMAIN. Main unionist party is for LEAVE. So a 1% swing is the maximum.
Before anyone gets too excited in Quebec in 1995 all the final polls had Yes narrowly ahead but No won 51% to 49% after don't knows swung for the status quo at the last minute but certainly the momentum with Leave
Oh please do not spoil it with historical facts.
Just sayin'!
It is a fact. If you put a gun to my head and told me to bet my life on the result, I'd still go for REMAIN.
Tho it will probably be a lot closer than my Nojam prediction of 56/44 IN/OUT
What's obvious is that REMAIN are going to win a painfully narrow win AT BEST. Think this is curtains for Cameron. It also means the issue will fester. And that's if REMAIN wins.
Indeed, at the moment I have shifted from 52% 48% Remain to 51% 49% Remain, I think Leave definitely win England outside London and probably Wales too, it will go to the wire. If it festers then that will boost UKIP
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
Disagree. No-one would believe Cameron now. He has sown the seeds of his own destruction and there is nothing he can do about it. His only hope is that the markets react very badly and that spooks enough people for Remain to scrape over the line. Failing that, it's curtains and over to Boris.
Yes, possibly right.
OTOH it would work coming from the EU itself, maybe?
Dunno.
But surely REMAIN has to try something, and something special, if they REALLY believe that OUT means the End of the Known World. If they just sit back and calmly await defeat, it means that they were wholly and knowingly exaggerating all along, AKA lying.
It does mean the end of the known world, western civilisation etc etc, no sooner do you write this and up comes Tusk right on Q
Britain leaving the EU could trigger the end of Western civilisation and the Dinosaurs. Ok scrub the last one that's already sorted.
European Council president Donald Tusk said we could cause the collapse of the global order as we know i
Soooooo that's WW3 , the end of western civilisation used......so only the end of the world, collapse of the Milky Way and galactic implosion into the nearest black hole left now.
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
Gosh. You go out to deliver some more leaflets and find you have single handedly lost Leave the support of a floating voter called Saddened and that the same poll has gone from a 10% lead for Remain to a 6% lead for Leave.
Saddened I wondered if you still think Leave made a mistake by leading on migration (29 May)?
Our local Leave campaign is apparently ready to concentrate on key areas now with 'dawn raid leaflets' next week. God we never had this sort of thing in the Tories!
Keep going Leavers.
This is all so exciting - even if we don't win, it's been a helluva campaign and we aren't turning back.
Somebody earlier did mention that Northern Ireland wasn't polled. Sorry to rain on the parade, but that will cause a net 1% swing to Remain. How many expats will vote?
I do not think that NI will add much more than 0.6% to REMAIN. Main unionist party is for LEAVE. So a 1% swing is the maximum.
I have been waiting for signs that news editors will swing behind Remain and stab Leave, but that doesn't seem to be happening. It's almost as if it's all over.
I assume you mean today - there has been plenty of covert bias towards Remain - when you're used to seeing it per pro the Labour party, you can spot it a mile off.
Try some BBCology - look at the faces - are they happy, sad or poker face?
You better not ask me for my opinion of the BBC right now. Its sunk even lower that the depths it was at before a person that I spoke to on Saturday. They are on borrowed time in more ways than one.
Any poll which gives the Tories the best position is known as the Gold Standard (Platinum Standard if it is a particularly stonking lead). How long have you been on PB?
Ha Ha! Certainly I would want to see what the ORB poll tonight and the other polls this week are showing too
Overheard conversation in waiting room at work. Several retired old fellows moaning about the money going to the EU rather than NHS.
Overheard conversation between 3 nurses, one white British, one Indian and one Filipino (all naturalised so eligible to vote). All undecided, but leaning Leave over the subject of immigration.
I think both these memes are hollow, but they are working.
Why do you think remain are so incensed by the £350m figure?
It is a blatent lie and sounds like a lot of money. It is a meme (with immigration) that strikes a chord.
It's not a blatant lie. It's what we give to them then they give us a chunk back - but they tell us how to spend it. It is one valid way of expressing our contribution, along with others.
This was another major error by REMAIN. By continuously bitching about this figure they simply made everyone look at the figure and gasp in horror. £350m a week, £250m a week - these ALL seem like huge numbers to most voters.
It is a lie, but even after the rebate and net spend still a large amout of money. Truth no longer matters once the lie is established. In the post-modern world there is no absolute truth, just opinions that even when illinformed are held to be of equal value.
We are one of the wealthier countries in Europe and I am reasonably happy about subsidising the poorer areas of Europe to develop, just as a higher rate taxpayer I expect to subsidise poorer members of society. No one makes that argument though.
But the poorer countries in Europe are locked in sclerosis. Our membership doesn't appear to be doing them any good either.
The altruistic argument is noble, but just because an agreement is bad for us doesn't mean it's necessarily good for someone else - or at least not for the someone else that we might intend. Meanwhile, we're stopping impoverished African farmers from trading with us.
@John_M That's the mandate that Leave is seeking: an anti-immigration, pull-up-the-drawbridge, scared about Muslims mandate.
If you want that, vote for it. But don't fool yourself that voting Leave means anything else.
I really don't think it is. Granted, the messages from Leave have not been coherent about the post-EU vision, but it's certainly not all been as you describe. The only vision Leave has to unify around is 'Not this'. Describing one post-EU vision and saying it applies to all Leave voters is just as tendentious as claiming every vote for a Remain is a vote for full-speed-ahead ever-closer-union.
Thank you, well and eloquently said. I do think there's a tendency to just assume the other side are monolithic.
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
The problem is that even that cheap, well qualified and motivated new labour to grow. Governments of both stripes have lied about that reality and people have now woken up to what is being done to their country. And they don't like it.
And you are happy for the country to go cold turkey over it by voting out? That is even stranger.
We won't go cold turkey. Immigration won't stop. It may not even slow down much but the government of the day will own the problem and have to account for the consequences of their actions. And that is a good thing.
And we will find that we have increased our administrative burden immensely by all of a sudden being outside our largest trading bloc and having engendered no small amount of ill-feeling.
Which in old money equals value destruction. A huge opportunity cost borne not by you, who sees in elegant theoretical terms how interesting a project a UK out of the EU might be, but by those least able to afford it.
I see our exiting the EU in exactly the same terms as I do a Labour government. It will do its thing and life will go on, but a huge amount of value will be destroyed, and opportunity cost incurred for the sake of a flawed ideological premise.
We're not going to agree. I do not believe the current model is sustainable and I do not believe the current path of the EU is in our interests. We need to leave and then negotiate sensible arrangements with them for our mutual benefit from outside.
No we're evidently not going to agree. At least when tim was here arguing for a Labour government I could respect his position which, although I disagreed with it passionately, was well considered, well thought out and coherent.
The Leave argument is the opposite of that. Incoherent (Norway, Albania, Canada, free movement, no free movement , EEA, no, EFTA, single market, no, no single market, points, no...) and has been arrived at with about as much consideration to it as it takes to shout "Cry Freedom!"
Mr. Topping, I fear your memory is betraying you. Tim never argued a positive case for anything, he was entirely negative.
Now I am a Leaver and would be delighted to honestly discuss with you my thoughts on what the UK should be doing. It wouldn't amount to much though would it because I am never going to be in a position to implement my vision. Farage has set forth his vision very clearly in the Telegraph, but he like me will never be in position to implement it. The same goes for Boris, Gove, Hooey et al.. However, we are not being asked to choose between visions of the future, just whether we want to remain a member of the EU.
If we vote to leave what comes next is down to elected government of the UK.
As mentioned to @MaxPB I just don't think it credible for the government of whichever stripe not to incorporate the VLTC manifesto into its future EU policy.
The Labour anecdata is arguably more important than the polls. For Labour figures to say this about migration (migration!) must mean they are absolutely panicked.
REMAIN is losing. And the Labour dudes are right. Some kind of vow is needed. Cameron has to go UDI - say we need control on migration, in the next two years, or we leave.
Put a gun to the heads of the other EU states. See who blinks.
Would it work? No idea. But if Dave really believes half the crap he's spouted about Apocalypse Impending, he needs to do it, or something similar
Disagree. No-one would believe Cameron now. He has sown the seeds of his own destruction and there is nothing he can do about it. His only hope is that the markets react very badly and that spooks enough people for Remain to scrape over the line. Failing that, it's curtains and over to Boris.
Yes, possibly right.
OTOH it would work coming from the EU itself, maybe?
Dunno.
But surely REMAIN has to try something, and something special, if they REALLY believe that OUT means the End of the Known World. If they just sit back and calmly await defeat, it means that they were wholly and knowingly exaggerating all along, AKA lying.
It does mean the end of the known world, western civilisation etc etc, no sooner do you write this and up comes Tusk right on Q
Britain leaving the EU could trigger the end of Western civilisation and the Dinosaurs. Ok scrub the last one that's already sorted.
European Council president Donald Tusk said we could cause the collapse of the global order as we know i
Soooooo that's WW3 , the end of western civilisation used......so only the end of the world, collapse of the Milky Way and galactic implosion into the nearest black hole left now.
That demonstrates as much as anything else that they've given up doing the right thing for society at large. Their game now is a self-preservation exercise for their own jobs. Its too pathetic for any words to convey.
Somebody earlier did mention that Northern Ireland wasn't polled. Sorry to rain on the parade, but that will cause a net 1% swing to Remain. How many expats will vote?
I do not think that NI will add much more than 0.6% to REMAIN. Main unionist party is for LEAVE. So a 1% swing is the maximum.
"Northern Ireland voters are overwhelmingly in favour of the UK remaining in the European Union, but Protestants are far more divided than Catholics on the issue."
Talk about misleading subtitle. They never asked if they were in favour of remaining/leaving, they asked if they thought it would make the UK weaker.
I still cant get over that there are over 700 volunteers in Newham campaining and leafleting for leave in Newham.
Even if its half that it is astonishing.
This is what elrctions in the 50s and 60s must have been like when party memberships wrere seven figures.
So much for modern apathy of the people. It wasnt apathy, it was abstension owing to the parties losing touch with the people
This might not even be close, it could be a rout for "leave". Differential turnout and all that. 700 volunteers for flipping Newham - surely that's terrible news for 'remain'.
Comments
https://media.guim.co.uk/02b230449f750df147b3f85fa7ce060bae0b325a/494_0_3002_1801/3002.jpg
http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/article_large/public/thumbnails/image/2016/06/06/15/vote-leave-map.png
This mood started on here after Cameron's first major TV interview of the campaign but this evening it is positively macabre; like having the wake before the diagnosis never mind the death. Even Mr. Dawning is talking about Leave's unstoppable momentum.
As regular readers will know I am staunchly for Leave and have been for 20 odd years, but I don't think the fight is won.
They were also content not to mount a challenge to Brown or Ed Miliband despite all the polling and local election data.
So why would they do anything about Corbyn?
For too long we have been the sulky child in the back of the Franco-German Eurocar. France and Germany taking turns at the wheel picking the the destination with us grumbling since the late eighties "I don't want to go there".
Now is the chance for us to get our own car and chart our own course. To lead by example and regain our national confidence and pride.
The Leave argument is the opposite of that. Incoherent (Norway, Albania, Canada, free movement, no free movement , EEA, no, EFTA, single market, no, no single market, points, no...) and has been arrived at with about as much consideration to it as it takes to shout "Cry Freedom!"
The pathetic posturing of some Remainers makes me laugh - it's just a way to justify how superior they are.
We may even find out that there are various hidden costs that make the £350m an understatement.
And we have a rising cycle of civil unrest going into 2020 too - we're really starting to see that ferment at Euro 2016 sadly. Expect an awful lot more civil unrest over the next 3.5 years - it's the old story of being able to get away with a number of lies but eventually there comes the point that the lies start to stack up and a tipping point is reached. Many in the population have reached that tipping point........and I would suggest given how the remain campaign has been conducted over the past month that it is the remain establishment that are living in cloud cuckoo land in the past.
Many of us have found ourselves in peculiar circumstances in the last few months. I'm a Brexiter disgusted by my own side's campaign...that seems to be winning the day. Oof, the dissonance.
We are one of the wealthier countries in Europe and I am reasonably happy about subsidising the poorer areas of Europe to develop, just as a higher rate taxpayer I expect to subsidise poorer members of society. No one makes that argument though.
Meeks is perhaps more emotional than AA Gill.
The next big mistake of the Remain campaign was the negativity. I really thought that the range of establishment figures would eulogise about the wonders of the EU and win us all over. Send us away thinking, oh yeah I can see it now, the EU really is worth it after all.
But I've heard barely a positive word uttered.
Then Gisela Stuart came on radio earlier saying how the establishment people warned against the bringing down of the Berlin Wall, veiling the continent in fear. Yet it turned into one of the most liberating moments ever for Europe.
That one sentence from her left me feeling more positive than the whole of the Remain campaign combined.
As MaxPB said a few weeks back - in arguably the most striking comment of the campaign - the Remain campaign has been shite largely because the EU is shite.
Nuff said.
The public are not dumb.
They go into supermarkets, ride the tube, sit in GP waiting rooms, work on building sites, ride minicabs and visit Costa Coffee and know migration is not majorly made up of Greek doctors and German financiers as the immigration fantasists like to contend.
It's also foolhardy to make the assumption that BAME voters are any different to white voters when they see considerable change in their communities.
If you want that, vote for it. But don't fool yourself that voting Leave means anything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPOM0IUsd_0
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/06/general-election-2015-labour-tories-final-guardian-icm-poll
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_EU_referendum_polling.svg
Saddened I wondered if you still think Leave made a mistake by leading on migration (29 May)?
Our local Leave campaign is apparently ready to concentrate on key areas now with 'dawn raid leaflets' next week. God we never had this sort of thing in the Tories!
Keep going Leavers.
I have mentioned it a few times before, but if I were Boris one of my fist acts would be symbolic: change the colour of the UK passport. People will love it. Even a lot of Remainers. I know I would.
'A narrow defeat would see Ukip go “from strength to strength, get a lot bigger and attract more funding”. A win would change his role to one of making sure David Cameron does not try to back out of a Brexit.
“That’s what I fear he would try — and that’s why he has got to go,” he adds, savagely. No love lost there.
“The last chat I had with Cameron was in December at Evgeny Lebedev’s party,” he recalls with a laugh.
“He said ‘How are you getting on with Douglas Carswell?’ I said: ‘About as well as you did, Prime Minister!’ ” Of the Tories who might take over, he trusts Boris but mulls: “Michael Gove is the form horse, isn’t he?”
Liam Fox, he suggests, is the dark horse, adding with a happy cackle: “Even I feel quite pro-EU next to him....“I’m only a mid-First Division drinker,” he apologises. “Now, Juncker, he’s Premier League. I like him." '
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage-wealthy-londoners-dont-want-to-rock-the-boat-with-brexit-a3270626.html
"Juncker had to promise British Prime Minister David Cameron that the EU executive branch would stay out of the Brexit debate. " "Juncker only managed to convince Cameron to give him a small loophole: If Brexit supporters have a clear lead in polls in the week prior to the June 23 referendum, the Commission president will be allowed to make his voice heard. That, of course, would be too late to significantly shift public opinion..."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/why-eu-leaders-are-not-speaking-out-about-brexit-a-1094261.html
Clinton 39, Trump 36, Johnson 6, Stein 4
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2016/SUSA_June_2016_National.pdf
Might as well throw in the 2.2bn a year we have to hand over from VAT collections as well, thats another 40 odd million a week on its own.
I think it will depend on how things pan out after a Brexit.
That's the opening to change the rules on freedom of movement, possibly.
I've just never understood why free movement is such a thing in a continent with 121 or so languages and massive disparities in living standards.
It is non sensical.
The Tories are on the brink of a historic disaster. They've turned on the Cameron centrist project and will take over seems poised to immediately destroy any trust by lurching towards a deal that won't end free movement.
Corbyn couldn't wish for a better set of circumstances.
Bring it on, we can but dream.
Now I am a Leaver and would be delighted to honestly discuss with you my thoughts on what the UK should be doing. It wouldn't amount to much though would it because I am never going to be in a position to implement my vision. Farage has set forth his vision very clearly in the Telegraph, but he like me will never be in position to implement it. The same goes for Boris, Gove, Hooey et al.. However, we are not being asked to choose between visions of the future, just whether we want to remain a member of the EU.
If we vote to leave what comes next is down to elected government of the UK.
Farage and his Jolly Green Giants with the corpse of the EU post referendum.
Try some BBCology - look at the faces - are they happy, sad or poker face?
Britain leaving the EU could trigger the end of Western civilisation and the Dinosaurs. Ok scrub the last one that's already sorted.
European Council president Donald Tusk said we could cause the collapse of the global order as we know i
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3638953/Project-Panic-Eurocrat-warns-Britain-leaving-EU-trigger-end-Western-civilisation.html#ixzz4BTypa6y6
Soooooo that's WW3 , the end of western civilisation used......so only the end of the world, collapse of the Milky Way and galactic implosion into the nearest black hole left now.
I'm out on chunks later this week.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/eu-referendum/eu-referendum-northern-ireland-says-no-to-brexit-34747509.html
In 10 days the UK is poised to make a monumental mistake that we will rue for decades.
The altruistic argument is noble, but just because an agreement is bad for us doesn't mean it's necessarily good for someone else - or at least not for the someone else that we might intend.
Meanwhile, we're stopping impoverished African farmers from trading with us.
Even if its half that it is astonishing.
This is what elrctions in the 50s and 60s must have been like when party memberships wrere seven figures.
So much for modern apathy of the people. It wasnt apathy, it was abstension owing to the parties losing touch with the people
Talk about misleading subtitle. They never asked if they were in favour of remaining/leaving, they asked if they thought it would make the UK weaker.