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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Thursday could end up becoming a referendum on Nigel Farage
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Thursday could end up becoming a referendum on Nigel Farage
I’ve just returned from three weeks in Spain – a holiday that was fixed well before the referendum date was announced and TSE, as usual, has been in charge of the site during my absence. Although I’ve continued to be very active on Twitter I have been viewing things from afar.
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Does any politician come out of this with much credit (apart from perhaps Michael Gove? ). You can't say it's a beauty contest - people rejecting Farage and on that logic endorsing Osborne. Its not about them, it's about the people voting. And that's the thing the politicians don't get and are most horrified by. Punters can't be bought or bullied on this one, they're not open to being patronised or insulted.
They're voting as they see fit for what they see are their own best interests. Democracy as revolution.
.....and hullo Mike. I hope you are rested enough to to walk to your local polling station on Thursday. Unless, like me, you've already posted your vote.
Welcome back Mike, hope your holiday was agreeable and your batteries are re-charged.
From Cameron's last two interviews I think we can make an educated guess that research has found the undecideds are worried about Farage and that this is an irreversible decision. He mentioned it repeatedly last night.
The poster was a gift. It always seemed likely REMAIN would concentrate the last few days on trying to link the LEAVE campaign with Farage and this can only have helped
The big question is how many undecideds are there out there?
Vote to fire Farage. Vote to make UKIP redundant. Vote Leave.
It would be oddly appropriate (if not necessarily helpful or enlightening) if the referendum did end up being about Farage - at its plainest, without Farage there would be no referendum.
No one else has managed to corral the fissiparous factions under the UKIP umbrella with such consummate skill. Without their electoral success, in votes, if not in seats, Cameron wouldn't have been spooked into making his spectacularly foolish immigration pledge. It would also be less likely that he'd have offered a referendum.
So, no Farage, no referendum, and no focus on immigration - which for all the lofty talk of sovereignty, may win it for LEAVE yet.
She was never in it.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/pumped-up-cameron-takes-pummelling-on-immigration
Despite Farage's best efforts he couldn't get Miliband into Downing Street which would have avoided this referendum.
I'm hoping despite Farage's best efforts he won't get this turned into being about him which will allow him to stay on the MEP gravy train if he does.
Vote Leave are merely the lace curtain version of Nigel Farage. They are following his strategy. If Leave wins, it will do so on his terms and it will be his victory.
Despite the fact Google says the population of Turkey is 79,622,062 I fail to see how a matter of fact is so offensive to you. It's the one figure all campaign that is indisputable.
If so, how would you do it?
As for Turkey joining the EU it's again a fact. They never said Turkey will be a member next week but Turkey is in the accession process which is supported by our government. In 1975 there were 9 nations from my recollection, come 41 years later there are 28 nations.
If this referendum settles the matter of our membership for 40 years like the last one did I fully expect Turkey to become a member as it is slated to in that period. The notion that if Turkey manages to complete the Acqusi Communautaire and resolve the Cyprus issue that our government would veto its membership is a complete non-starter.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/20/john-oliver-goes-off-on-brexit-britain-leaving-the-eu-is-absolutely-insane.html?via=twitter_page
Part of the global conspiracy......
b) Not by telling straightforward untruths to stir up fear of immigrants.
If I were opposed to membership of the EU I would be unutterably ashamed of how this campaign had been fought by the Leave campaign. I'm incredibly disappointed that so few Leave supporters can see just how disgraceful this campaign has been.
Does America grant free movement with Mexico and the rest of Latin America? And let Mexico and other nations write their laws with those other nations having enough votes to change American laws without any American votes or consent? That'd be comparable to the EU.
It is a fact that the EU will expand again in future with new member states. Over a time span of (potentially) decades if we vote Remain it is legitimate to point out how that might impact free movement. Turkey is an official accession country to the EU, not particularly well off, and with a higher population than the UK. Its admission in this timespan cannot be ruled out.
The Government (and the EU more broadly) have had plenty of opportunity to go on the record to say they'd either veto or not support Turkish entry.
They have declined to do so.
It is indeed possible that Turkey could be an EU member in 40 years time, but it'd be a secular, democratic Turkey that had withdrawn from Cyprus - which is not the one that's currently applying and is not the one that's going to be applying for the foreseeable future.
Whenever I do things with US broadcasters they like to locate me. Now I say Bedford - where John Oliver comes from. He us certainly more famous in the US than in the UK
If Remain had got traction with Osborne's "£4,300", or people seriously believed 3 million jobs would really be lost if we left the EU, we'd hear far fewer complaints from the Remain side.
Also, this was news to me, a Labour MP also switched from Leave to Remain:
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-mp-khalid-mahmood-backs-11451505
Then sickened by the Breaking Point poster, the Turkey lies, and other Leave antics
Those of a certain mindset used to lament that they could not get the staff anymore. Inside the EU that is not true and the local oiks can be safely ignored. Similarly, the tradesmen get put back in their place, thankful for what work they can get and their wages diminished. And it is pretty much impossible to get a council house in the south of England as larger and newly arrived families jump the queue. But that is not really a problem for the ABs either is it?
The greedy and selfish haves may prevail with their moral blackmail and blatant self interest on Thursday but I hope not.
And she was never Leave.
We won't hold you to it, but returning to these shores after a three week absence, added to your invariably sound judgement, could add a useful perpective for us bettors.
@BethRigby: Warsi: "How is that poster even defensible?" It's a Nudge Nudge wink wink xenophobic racist campaign" that creates "division & hate".#EUref
“Isn’t gonna happen during my time as PM so it’s a moot question"
Inevitably this has caused outrage. As one would expect this is because he didn’t answer a simple yes or no question. To those people in Leave screaming about this outrageous evasion I have a short message. Shut up you fucking idiots.
https://medium.com/@dizzy_thinks/vote-leaves-turkey-obsession-c0cd1a1d5580#.8uu7cuj39
So all that guff about sovereignty was just that, was it? Actually it boils down to the foreigners coming over here and taking our houses and jobs.
(David I always let me pre-first coffee posts wait a bit, perhaps re-read them before I press "post comment").
I usually work with a crew of about 40. In Europe all the equiptment is the same (nearly all German) all the names are the same all the jobs and job functions are the same and most of the ways of doing things are the same. It's the British system.
In the US almost everything is different down to the names of the smallest bits of equiptment. Even the rules governing truth and honesty in advertising are different. The rules on safety are different and the crewing levels are vastly different. Even PAs have PAs!
Maybe in other professions this isn't the case but I'd be surprised because even client meetings use a different format to the ones we use outside of the US.
Welcome back Mike. Hope the holiday went well.
Farage must be laughing his socks off at how the hoo hah over this poster has virtually stopped discussion on the economy.
I would guess that someone has calculated that this line of attack is going to bring more C2DEs to the ballot box than repelled undecideds.
For the rest of us leavers he is like the charismatic uncle who while indefagitable is prone to going too far and embarrasing us at family gatherings.
However someone has coldly calculated that C2DEs are not sufficiently fired up to vote for comfort. That is why that poster was released.
Personally I would have thought it was counterproductive, but if many C2DEs are still like they were 30 years ago when I worked as a laborouer cleaning out toilets before moving on via night school and university it might well work. What do I know.
It is pretty much impossible to get a council house in southern England because so many of them have been sold off and so few new ones have been built.
Given she declined an offer from Dan Hannan to join, has never attended a meeting or written a pro-Leave article - it's probably the most pathetic dead cat story I can think of. Still, she gets 10 mins of fame and to be called a liar. ITV has found a single tweet criticising the Leave campaign - and no other support for it.
The Neville Chamberlain line has stuck, Dave.
Thing is, what does it say about the Leave campaign's own view of the C2DEs?
Come aboard fellow racists? Hey stupid people, look at this?
Perhaps.
And there are lots of good reasons for voting Leave.
I might not like Farage. But he's a great politician.
Nothing to do with me guv' just won't wash. This appeared over 2 weeks on all stations
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07d6f8y/eu-referendum-campaign-broadcasts-vote-leave-23052016
It is possible that GDP might not rise as fast but neither will the population so whether that actually makes us worse off per capita is hard to predict.
But the corollary of Leave - that we get to push Farage off the gravy train, whilst closing down UKIP's major source of funding - that is a tasty by-product.
VOTE TO SACK FARAGE - VOTE LEAVE!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07d6f8y/eu-referendum-campaign-broadcasts-vote-leave-23052016
Here's one reason people find it difficult to find housing.
https://gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/525629/House_Building_Release_Mar_Qtr_2016.pdf
If successive governments had kept to their 200,000 houses per year promise presumably you would be happy.
Or is it the "small but significant" (NIESR) diminution in wages at the lower end which so upsets your conscience?
Of course with record high employment and record low unemployment, society doesn't seem all that broken, foreigners and all.
I was a little surprised he's not brought up Brexit before now, possibly because even though he's British it'll be spun as so done who doesn't know the issues.
I'm a big fan of his to be honest - he's leagues above the other Stewart imitators, and even if people don't think he's stewards equal, he's carved out his own approach with his 20 minute focuses on issues that, shocker, are not always about how crap republicans are. But it's not insane to leave, just risky.
Whatever else these noble C2DE voters are worried about, it's not jobs.
Is it being at the back of the queue for council houses or school lists? But hold on - I thought the reason that those pesky Polish plumbers can undercut our wages is that they are living 10 to a room in private rented accommodation?
Many of the legitimate concerns people (ABCDE) have can be laid at the feet of the government, not the EU.
Remain would like it to be a referendum on Farage, hence their 'Nigel Farage's Little England' nonsense.
I was amused to see Warsi's decision last night. I was more surprised she had ever pretended to be in favour of us leaving than her turncoat approach. The woman's a walking lesson in the perils of political appointment by demographics rather than merit.
F1: my post-race analysis of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix is up here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/azerbaijan-post-race-analysis-2016.html
Leave can give lots of positive reasons to support them, Remain can't give any. Its why a 20 or so point lead has evaporated.
Similarly, they can't acknowledge the level of expected migration when it comes to planning for health care and education needs and transport. So everybody in the country gets to suffer from over-crowded hospitals and schools and roads and rail, in a country where Government silently works on "creaking at the seams" as the operating standard.
One of the outcomes from a Leave vote is that we can discuss, as a society, what level of immigration we want, and then plan accordingly. A grown-up conversation. With none of these issues just handled by a series of patrician Governments making decisions for us all on the sly, because the "Little People", the "Little Englanders" aren't reliable in how they might react to the true nature of the system required for our collective well-being.
There was nothing clever about that poster. In one fell swoop it wiped out a large part of Leaves advantage in the one part of the argument they were ahead in.
And your evidence for that astonishing claim is....?
Rochdale, if I hear anymore of your "well pitched" schtick about that poster... Please read what you are writing.
But if you think that following a Leave vote somehow we will no longer be governed by "a series of patrician Governments making decisions for us all on the sly", then I very much doubt you will get your wish. Equally, voters have never been reliable, in the eyes of every party, in how they might react to one issue or another.
All of which doesn't detract from my view that we gain so much from being in the EU that we oughtn't to throw the baby out with the bathwater "just" to address the immigration issue.
We can still have the debate following a Remain vote, it will certainly be challenging, but we don't sacrifice all the benefits of EU membership.
Its a little too close too home in what it says about Farage and his supporters for some to endorse.