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  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,141
    Foxy said:

    viewcode said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    Am increasingly annoyed with the oft-parroted, North equals Leave mantra. The 2 most Leavey regions are the East and West Midlands.
    The Brexit vote was won there.

    Silly analysis. The massive Brexit vote - 17.4m votes, the largest mandate in British political history - was won everywhere. Remember that Remain, according to Dave Cameron and Mr Nabavi, seriously expected to win by about 70/30. Their misjudgment was epochal and enormous.

    So, as I say, the unexpected Leave vote came from EVERYWHERE. 40% of Londoners. A majority of women. Milliions of young people, 40% of Scots. The way Remainers talk, Leave was won by a small group of sad pensioners in Nuneaton.

    No. A nation voted for Brexit it in unprecedented numbers. Woe betide the politician that frustrates this mandate.
    Indeed. I do not disagree with you. My point was that it was not a particularly Northern thing as many seem to assume. Therefore implicitly it came from everywhere. As much from Guildford as St. Helens or Blyth.
    Indeed. What struck me about the entire campaign was the surprising people I met, before the vote, who came out for Leave. An aristo friend. The Chinese wife of one of my best friends. A billionaire. A naturalized French dude. My 24 year old niece.

    It was a nationwide thing.
    Sean would those people still vote leave again if another referendum was called ?
    I am not Sean, but my estimate would be "yes, they would".

    The only people who might change their mind would be those who voted Leave in order to get more money and a better deal. But those who voted on sovereignity, or immigration, or any of the other grounds, have no reason to change their vote and in some cases will have those reasons reinforced. I'm not expecting a Remain win in a putative second referendum.

    It's an opportune time to point out what I wrote here the weekend after the vote. A second referendum is desirable, but a second referendum requires a second deal. A second deal requires the UK to seek one (to stay) and the EU to offer one. The UK has not sought a better deal to stay and the EU has not offered one. No second deal, no win in a second referendum.
    I know some that have changed their minds, including some naturalised Phillipino nurses who have seen their remittences devalued, and my mother in law who has seen the effect on her grandchildren. There is some churn the other way too.

    Anything could happen in a second referendum. It is even possible that there could be a less indecisive outcome.
    Indeed.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,206
    edited September 2018
    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    kle4 said:

    SeanT said:

    Given the shameful, and widely condemned decision to offer succour to Orban by Tory MEPs, Corbyn's anti-Semitism issue won't shift votes.

    Both major parties will be seen as disreputable as each other when it comes to anti-Semitism.

    I doubt 5% of uk voters know who Orban is, and fewer care.

    But the Labour antisemitism stuff has finally reached the masses. You can feel it. I doubt many voters are pro Israel but it’s the iffy pong of bigotry and extremism that they remember. And dislike.

    Hence these polls.

    I'm skeptical of that. I do agree that whatever one thinks on the Orban issue it won't have impacted on most people even if it should (though Labour would be wise to bring it up all the time) but I just don't see 'the masses' being rocked by the anti-semtism stuff. It definitely escalated over the summer, there were some people openly calling Corbyn personally antisemitic when very few even of his stern critics did so before, but it's not like they are falling massively behind, and I'm inclined to think that while it is wrong to think it certain that in a new GE campaign any Tory lead would evaporate again, if the impact on polling at the moment is just that the Tories have started to get more regular small leads, then not that many people are very put off, which means those who are are probably easier to entice back when push comes to shove.
    I think the recent small Tory lead is that the Tories have attracted back some Kippers and Labour have lost a small share to the LibDems. I suspect it is much more to do with Brexit positioning and nothing at all to do with anti-semitism.
    What's happened recently for the Tories to win back Kippers? It's all been about the Chequers betrayal. If anything they might have won back a few Remain voters.
    I'm just looking at the moving average of the polls. Over the last month UKIP has slipped 0.6% to 4.9%, Tories have stayed on 39%, Labour has slipped 0.9% to 38% and LibDems have gained 1.0% to 9.5%.

    According to Electoral Calculus that results in:

    Con 306 (+10 compared with a month ago)
    Lab 265 (-11)
    LD 17 (+1)
    UKIP 0
    Green 1
    PC 3
    SNP 40
    NI 18

    Tories 20 short of an overall majority.
    Most likely outcome of that is the Tories largest party and likely winning a majority in England but Corbyn is PM propped up by the SNP and PC and Greens and Corbyn relying on LD votes on an issue by issue basis to get anything through. In short the most divided Parliament and weakest government since WW2
  • https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/1043540819670642689

    These will be the people who spent a decade moaning about Tony and Gordon's obsessive control of ministers, message and conference right?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,141
    HYUFD said:

    viewcode said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    Am increasingly annoyed with the oft-parroted, North equals Leave mantra. The 2 most Leavey regions are the East and West Midlands.
    The Brexit vote was won there.

    Silly analysis. The massive Brexit vote - 17.4m votes, the largest mandate in British political history - was won everywhere. Remember that Remain, according to Dave Cameron and Mr Nabavi, seriously expected to win by about 70/30. Their misjudgment was epochal and enormous.

    So, as I say, the unexpected Leave vote came from EVERYWHERE. 40% of Londoners. A majority of women. Milliions of young people, 40% of Scots. The way Remainers talk, Leave was won by a small group of sad pensioners in Nuneaton.

    No. A nation voted for Brexit it in unprecedented numbers. Woe betide the politician that frustrates this mandate.
    Indeed. I do not disagree with you. My point was that it was not a particularly Northern thing as many seem to assume. Therefore implicitly it came from everywhere. As much from Guildford as St. Helens or Blyth.
    Indeed. What struck me about the entire campaign was the surprising people I met, before the vote, who came out for Leave. An aristo friend. The Chinese wife of one of my best friends. A billionaire. A naturalized French dude. My 24 year old niece.

    It was a nationwide thing.
    Sean would those people still vote leave again if another referendum was called ?
    I am not Sean, but my estimate would be "yes, they would".

    The only people who might change their mind would be those who voted Leave in order to get more money and a better deal. But those who voted on sovereignity, or immigration, or any of the other grounds, have no reason to change their vote and in some cases will have those reasons reinforced. I'm not expecting a Remain win in a putative second referendum.

    It's an opportune time to point out what I wrote here the weekend after the vote. A second referendum is desirable, but a second referendum requires a second deal. A second deal requires the UK to seek one (to stay) and the EU to offer one. The UK has not sought a better deal to stay and the EU has not offered one. No second deal, no win in a second referendum.
    The most likely scenario for a second referendum is No Deal, which Remain would probably win.

    Otherwise the most likely outcome is a transition period from March with FTA talks kicked into the transition, rendering a second referendum pointless
    I agree with your point about the transition period, but I'm not sure about a Remain win in a second referendum. People are getting emotional.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,141
    Foxy said:

    ...I am not alone in finding alien much of the political expression in our country...

    A horrible truth is that no matter what one's standpoint is, there will be people in the world who find that standpoint abhorrent and would cause you great harm for it. It's a sign of adulthood in realising this and carrying on regardless... :(

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,206
    viewcode said:

    HYUFD said:

    viewcode said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    Am increasingly annoyed with the oft-parroted, North equals Leave mantra. The 2 most Leavey regions are the East and West Midlands.
    The Brexit vote was won there.

    Silly analysis. The massive Brexit vote - 17.4m votes, the largest mandate in British political history - was won everywhere. Remember that Remain, according to Dave Cameron and Mr Nabavi, seriously expected to win by about 70/30. Their misjudgment was epochal and enormous.

    So, as I say, the unexpected Leave vote came from EVERYWHERE. 40% of Londoners. A majority of women. Milliions of young people, 40% of Scots. The way Remainers talk, Leave was won by a small group of sad pensioners in Nuneaton.

    No. A nation voted for Brexit it in unprecedented numbers. Woe betide the politician that frustrates this mandate.
    Indeed. I do not disagree with you. My point was that it was not a particularly Northern thing as many seem to assume. Therefore implicitly it came from everywhere. As much from Guildford as St. Helens or Blyth.
    Indeed. What struck me about the entire campaign was the surprising people I met, before the vote, who came out for Leave. An aristo friend. The Chinese wife of one of my best friends. A billionaire. A naturalized French dude. My 24 year old niece.

    It was a nationwide thing.
    Sean would those people still vote leave again if another referendum was called ?
    I am not Sean, but my estimate would be "yes, they would".

    The only people who might change their mone. No second deal, no win in a second referendum.
    The most likely scenario for a second referendum is No Deal, which Remain would probably win.

    Otherwise the most likely outcome is a transition period from March with FTA talks kicked into the transition, rendering a second referendum pointless
    I agree with your point about the transition period, but I'm not sure about a Remain win in a second referendum. People are getting emotional.
    In a Remain v No Deal second referendum virtually all the polls show Remain would win by about 10%.

    In a straight Remain v Leave referendum though ie presuming a deal of some form, it is neck and neck
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,690
    HYUFD said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    kle4 said:

    SeanT said:

    Given the shameful, and widely condemned decision to offer succour to Orban by Tory MEPs, Corbyn's anti-Semitism issue won't shift votes.

    Both major parties will be seen as disreputable as each other when it comes to anti-Semitism.

    I doubt 5% of uk voters know who Orban is, and fewer care.

    But the Labour antisemitism stuff has finally reached the masses. You can feel it. I doubt many voters are pro Israel but it’s the iffy pong of bigotry and extremism that they remember. And dislike.

    Hence these polls.

    I'm skeptical of that. I do agree that whatever one thinks on the Orban issue it won't have impacted on most people even if it should (though Labour would be wise to bring it up all the time) but I just don't see 'the masses' being rocked by the anti-semtism stuff. It definitely escalated over the summer, there were some people openly calling Corbyn personally antisemitic when very few even of his stern critics did so before, but it's not like they are falling massively behind, and I'm inclined to think that while it is wrong to think it certain that in a new GE campaign any Tory lead would evaporate again, if the impact on polling at the moment is just that the Tories have started to get more regular small leads, then not that many people are very put off, which means those who are are probably easier to entice back when push comes to shove.
    I think the recent small Tory lead is that the Tories have attracted back some Kippers and Labour have lost a small share to the LibDems. I suspect it is much more to do with Brexit positioning and nothing at all to do with anti-semitism.
    What's happened recently for the Tories to win back Kippers? It's all been about the Chequers betrayal. If anything they might have won back a few Remain voters.
    I'm just looking at the moving average of the polls. Over the last month UKIP has slipped 0.6% to 4.9%, Tories have stayed on 39%, Labour has slipped 0.9% to 38% and LibDems have gained 1.0% to 9.5%.

    According to Electoral Calculus that results in:

    Con 306 (+10 compared with a month ago)
    Lab 265 (-11)
    LD 17 (+1)
    UKIP 0
    Green 1
    PC 3
    SNP 40
    NI 18

    Tories 20 short of an overall majority.
    Most likely outcome of that is the Tories largest party and likely winning a majority in England but Corbyn is PM propped up by the SNP and PC and Greens and Corbyn relying on LD votes on an issue by issue basis to get anything through. In short the most divided Parliament and weakest government since WW2
    Weak and Wobbly
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,414
    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    Am increasingly annoyed with the oft-parroted, North equals Leave mantra. The 2 most Leavey regions are the East and West Midlands.
    The Brexit vote was won there.

    Silly analysis. The massive Brexit vote - 17.4m votes, the largest mandate in British political history - was won everywhere. Remember that Remain, according to Dave Cameron and Mr Nabavi, seriously expected to win by about 70/30. Their misjudgment was epochal and enormous.

    So, as I say, the unexpected Leave vote came from EVERYWHERE. 40% of Londoners. A majority of women. Milliions of young people, 40% of Scots. The way Remainers talk, Leave was won by a small group of sad pensioners in Nuneaton.

    No. A nation voted for Brexit it in unprecedented numbers. Woe betide the politician that frustrates this mandate.
    Indeed. I do not disagree with you. My point was that it was not a particularly Northern thing as many seem to assume. Therefore implicitly it came from everywhere. As much from Guildford as St. Helens or Blyth.
    Indeed. What struck me about the entire campaign was the surprising people I met, before the vote, who came out for Leave. An aristo friend. The Chinese wife of one of my best friends. A billionaire. A naturalized French dude. My 24 year old niece.

    It was a nationwide thing.
    TBH though, there were some equally surprising Remainers. It was also a Nationwide split. My aged parents, both in their late 70's from an ex-mining area were, and still are, vociferous in their remainery which they leafletted and campaigned for. They know quite a few like them. The Total Rugby League Forum is also surprisingly pro-Remain majority.
  • Just realised it is after midnight.

    Been reading the Mail on Sunday which continues its support for TM

    Needless to say it does not like Corbyn and his coterie

    Have a good night everyone

    Good night folks
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,141
    On a happier point in an increasing unhappy time, Max Hastings has a new book out. This one is on Vietnam, and you can get more details here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vietnam-Tragedy-1945-1975-Max-Hastings-ebook/dp/B07C96DX1C/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited September 2018
    viewcode said:

    On a happier point in an increasing unhappy time, Max Hastings has a new book out. This one is on Vietnam, and you can get more details here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vietnam-Tragedy-1945-1975-Max-Hastings-ebook/dp/B07C96DX1C/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

    I'm really looking forward to reading this book, based on the positive reviews.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,414
    viewcode said:

    On a happier point in an increasing unhappy time, Max Hastings has a new book out. This one is on Vietnam, and you can get more details here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vietnam-Tragedy-1945-1975-Max-Hastings-ebook/dp/B07C96DX1C/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

    Crumbs . If Vietnam 45 to 75 counts as a happier note...
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    Am increasingly annoyed with the oft-parroted, North equals Leave mantra. The 2 most Leavey regions are the East and West Midlands.
    The Brexit vote was won there.

    Silly analysis. The massive Brexit vote - 17.4m votes, the largest mandate in British political history - was won everywhere. Remember that Remain, according to Dave Cameron and Mr Nabavi, seriously expected to win by about 70/30. Their misjudgment was epochal and enormous.

    So, as I say, the unexpected Leave vote came from EVERYWHERE. 40% of Londoners. A majority of women. Milliions of young people, 40% of Scots. The way Remainers talk, Leave was won by a small group of sad pensioners in Nuneaton.

    No. A nation voted for Brexit it in unprecedented numbers. Woe betide the politician that frustrates this mandate.
    Indeed. I do not disagree with you. My point was that it was not a particularly Northern thing as many seem to assume. Therefore implicitly it came from everywhere. As much from Guildford as St. Helens or Blyth.
    It was a nationwide thing.
    I think Anne Applebaum puts her finger on something in this piece:

    From my point of view, the Dreyfus affair is most interesting because it was sparked by a single cause célèbre. Just one court case—one disputed trial—plunged an entire country into an angry debate, creating unresolvable divisions between people who had previously not known that they disagreed with one another. But this shows that vastly different understandings of what is meant by “France” were already there, waiting to be discovered.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/poland-polarization/568324/
    That’s a great quote.

    And now, from moonlit Kefalonia, where it is 1am (and I fly home at noon tomorrow) yamas and goodnight.
    This is another brilliant quote by someone called Pauli Mrray that I've just read in an Andrew Sullivan article:

    "I was struck in Haidt and Lukianoff’s book by a quote that is almost a perfect inversion of today’s political conversation. “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them.” Those words were written in 1945 by Pauli Murray, a transgender, black civil rights activist. Her words foreshadowed the approach taken by Martin Luther King, a humanizing approach that today’s cultural revolutionaries have little time for. But Murray and King made a huge practical difference in moving everyone forward a little. They made things better by including more."

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/andrew-sullivan-america-land-of-brutal-binaries.html
  • TykejohnnoTykejohnno Posts: 7,362
    viewcode said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    Am increasingly annoyed with the oft-parroted, North equals Leave mantra. The 2 most Leavey regions are the East and West Midlands.
    The Brexit vote was won there.

    Silly analysis. The massive Brexit vote - 17.4m votes, the largest mandate in British political history - was won everywhere. Remember that Remain, according to Dave Cameron and Mr Nabavi, seriously expected to win by about 70/30. Their misjudgment was epochal and enormous.

    So, as I say, the unexpected Leave vote came from EVERYWHERE. 40% of Londoners. A majority of women. Milliions of young people, 40% of Scots. The way Remainers talk, Leave was won by a small group of sad pensioners in Nuneaton.

    No. A nation voted for Brexit it in unprecedented numbers. Woe betide the politician that frustrates this mandate.
    Indeed. I do not disagree with you. My point was that it was not a particularly Northern thing as many seem to assume. Therefore implicitly it came from everywhere. As much from Guildford as St. Helens or Blyth.
    Indeed. What struck me about the entire campaign was the surprising people I met, before the vote, who came out for Leave. An aristo friend. The Chinese wife of one of my best friends. A billionaire. A naturalized French dude. My 24 year old niece.

    It was a nationwide thing.
    Sean would those people still vote leave again if another referendum was called ?
    I am not Sean, but my estimate would be "yes, they would".

    The only people who might change their mind would be those who voted Leave in order to get more money and a better deal. But those who voted on sovereignity, or immigration, or any of the other grounds, have no reason to change their vote and in some cases will have those reasons reinforced. I'm not expecting a Remain win in a putative second referendum.

    It's an opportune time to point out what I wrote here the weekend after the vote. A second referendum is desirable, but a second referendum requires a second deal. A second deal requires the UK to seek one (to stay) and the EU to offer one. The UK has not sought a better deal to stay and the EU has not offered one. No second deal, no win in a second referendum.
    Thanks viewcode.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,206
    viewcode said:

    On a happier point in an increasing unhappy time, Max Hastings has a new book out. This one is on Vietnam, and you can get more details here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vietnam-Tragedy-1945-1975-Max-Hastings-ebook/dp/B07C96DX1C/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

    Heard Max Hastings at the Hay Festival and got a signed copy of his last book on WW1 for my father, he is always excellent value in his writing and hopefully his Vietnam book will be more of the same
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,414
    viewcode said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    SeanT said:

    dixiedean said:

    Am increasingly annoyed with the oft-parroted, North equals Leave mantra. The 2 most Leavey regions are the East and West Midlands.
    The Brexit vote was won there.

    Silly analysis. The massive Brexit vote - 17.4m votes, the largest mandate in British political history - was won everywhere. Remember that Remain, according to Dave Cameron and Mr Nabavi, seriously expected to win by about 70/30. Their misjudgment was epochal and enormous.

    So, as I say, the unexpected Leave vote came from EVERYWHERE. 40% of Londoners. A majority of women. Milliions of young people, 40% of Scots. The way Remainers talk, Leave was won by a small group of sad pensioners in Nuneaton.

    No. A nation voted for Brexit it in unprecedented numbers. Woe betide the politician that frustrates this mandate.
    Indeed. I do not disagree with you. My point was that it was not a particularly Northern thing as many seem to assume. Therefore implicitly it came from everywhere. As much from Guildford as St. Helens or Blyth.
    Indeed. What struck me about the entire campaign was the surprising people I met, before the vote, who came out for Leave. An aristo friend. The Chinese wife of one of my best friends. A billionaire. A naturalized French dude. My 24 year old niece.

    It was a nationwide thing.
    Sean would those people still vote leave again if another referendum was called ?
    I am not Sean, but my estimate would be "yes, they would".

    The only people who might change their mind would be those who voted Leave in order to get more money and a better deal. But those who voted on sovereignity, or immigration, or any of the other grounds, have no reason to change their vote and in some cases will have those reasons reinforced. I'm not expecting a Remain win in a putative second referendum.

    It's an opportune time to point out what I wrote here the weekend after the vote. A second referendum is desirable, but a second referendum requires a second deal. A second deal requires the UK to seek one (to stay) and the EU to offer one. The UK has not sought a better deal to stay and the EU has not offered one. No second deal, no win in a second referendum.
    And those who voted to be rid of Dave?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677



    Total chaos - more so than now if that is possible

    Remember when the defining crisis of British politics was tax on pasties? That seems like something as far removed as the Book of Kells now.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    edited September 2018
    notme said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I don't see any evidence that a fresh general election, which would presumably include Theresa May campaigning, would result in a House of Commons any more decisive than the last.

    The most likely result would be the Tories lost another 15-20 seats and it was even more hung.

    Seems perfectly possible. But of course the real reason for a GE would not be to resolve anything, it would be to see the Tories lose seats. And it is pretty obviously that is the reason, and even if someone thinks that is a worthy goal in itself, Brexit resolution is what is needed.

    Which is another reason I think a referendum, though still unlikely, has more chance - it would not resolve things perfectly either, I expect, but would at least be focused, depending on the questions, on the Brexit issue to some degree, whether an endorsement of no deal or switch to remain was being sought.
    A second referendum solves nothing.
    In our current situation, everything solves nothing.

    Brexit does not solve the countries issues, and seriously pisses off about half the country, and a majority of those in 2 of the home nations.

    Rescinding it pisses off the other half. There is no middle position.
    EEA really was the middle way. Out of the EU but retain 100% of the economic benefits. May’s obsession with immigration made free movement a red line. It was foolish to rule it out at the beginning. She should have used the opportunity to redefine how we award in and out of work benefits to remove/reform the aspects that act as pulls to disproportionate numbers of migrants.

    Somehow EEA became the option nobody wanted, despite it being the compromise that would have been easy to sell. Hard brexiteers wanted nothing to do with the EU whatsoever, and remainers were quite keen to trash the idea of an EEA in the hope of overturning the actual result.

    It became difficult to distinguish between those who desired a soft Brexit and those who desired to overturn the result. The debate became, you are either for Brexit or against. Hence the traitors etc.
    In practical terms everything else is inferior to EU membership. Which is what you should expect. Leaving a club leads to a loss of benefit. The best outcome is the one we have formally.rejected. EEA equivalent is the other option with the least loss of benefit, although we will chafe under implementing rules that we have no say over. It deals with the Northern Ireland issue and is relatively quick to implement. I think that's where we will end up. Everything else is too difficult.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,936
    edited September 2018
    FF43 said:

    notme said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I don't see any evidence that a fresh general election, which would presumably include Theresa May campaigning, would result in a House of Commons any more decisive than the last.

    The most likely result would be the Tories lost another 15-20 seats and it was even more hung.

    Seems perfectly possible. But of course the real reason for a GE would not be to resolve anything, it would be to see the Tories lose seats. And it is pretty obviously that is the reason, and even if someone thinks that is a worthy goal in itself, Brexit resolution is what is needed.

    Which is another reason I think a referendum, though still unlikely, has more chance - it would not resolve things perfectly either, I expect, but would at least be focused, depending on the questions, on the Brexit issue to some degree, whether an endorsement of no deal or switch to remain was being sought.
    A second referendum solves nothing.
    In our current situation, everything solves nothing.

    Brexit does not solve the countries issues, and seriously pisses off about half the country, and a majority of those in 2 of the home nations.

    Rescinding it pisses off the other half. There is no middle position.
    EEA really was the middle way. Out of the EU but retain 100% of the economic benefits. May’s obsession with immigration made free movement a red line. It was foolish to rule it out at the beginning. She should have used the opportunity to redefine how we award in and out of work benefits to remove/reform the aspects that act as pulls to disproportionate numbers of migrants.

    Somehow EEA became the option nobody wanted, despite it being the compromise that would have been easy to sell. Hard brexiteers wanted nothing to do with the EU whatsoever, and remainers were quite keen to trash the idea of an EEA in the hope of overturning the actual result.

    It became difficult to distinguish between those who desired a soft Brexit and those who desired to overturn the result. The debate became, you are either for Brexit or against. Hence the traitors etc.
    In practical terms everything else is inferior to EU membership. Which is what you should expect. Leaving a club leads to a loss of benefit. The best outcome is the one we have formally.rejected. EEA equivalent is the other option with the least loss of benefit, although we will chafe under implementing rules that we have no say over. It deals with the Northern Ireland issue and is relatively quick to implement. I think that's where we will end up. Everything else is too difficult.
    Everything is inferior to EU membership? You do have to wonder why everyone isn't clamouring to become a member.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,220
    Looks like Ford is a Democrat plot to try and stop Kavanaugh getting to SCOTUS to me.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,220
    Pulpstar said:

    Looks like Ford is a Democrat plot to try and stop Kavanaugh getting to SCOTUS to me.

    Unravelling tonight lol
  • RobD said:

    FF43 said:

    notme said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I don't see any evidence that a fresh general election, which would presumably include Theresa May campaigning, would result in a House of Commons any more decisive than the last.

    The most likely result would be the Tories lost another 15-20 seats and it was even more hung.

    Seems perfectly possible. But of course the real reason for a GE would not be to resolve anything, it would be to see the Tories lose seats. And it is pretty obviously that is the reason, and even if someone thinks that is a worthy goal in itself, Brexit resolution is what is needed.

    Which is another reason I think a referendum, though still unlikely, has more chance - it would not resolve things perfectly either, I expect, but would at least be focused, depending on the questions, on the Brexit issue to some degree, whether an endorsement of no deal or switch to remain was being sought.
    A second referendum solves nothing.
    In our current situation, everything solves nothing.

    Brexit does not solve the countries issues, and seriously pisses off about half the country, and a majority of those in 2 of the home nations.

    Rescinding it pisses off the other half. There is no middle position.
    It was foolish to rule it out at the beginning. She should have used the opportunity to redefine how we award in and out of work benefits to remove/reform the aspects that act as pulls to disproportionate numbers of migrants.

    Somehow EEA became the option nobody wanted, despite it being the compromise that would have been easy to sell. Hard brexiteers wanted nothing to do with the EU whatsoever, and remainers were quite keen to trash the idea of an EEA in the hope of overturning the actual result.

    It became difficult to distinguish between those who desired a soft Brexit and those who desired to overturn the result. The debate became, you are either for Brexit or against. Hence the traitors etc.
    In practical terms everything else is inferior to EU membership. Which is what you should expect. Leaving a club leads to a loss of benefit. The best outcome is the one we have formally.rejected. EEA equivalent is the other option with the least loss of benefit, although we will chafe under implementing rules that we have no say over. It deals with the Northern Ireland issue and is relatively quick to implement. I think that's where we will end up. Everything else is too difficult.
    Everything is inferior to EU membership? You do have to wonder why everyone isn't clamouring to become a member.
    30 years of Tory rag propaganda.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,628
    viewcode said:

    On a happier point in an increasing unhappy time, Max Hastings has a new book out. This one is on Vietnam, and you can get more details here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vietnam-Tragedy-1945-1975-Max-Hastings-ebook/dp/B07C96DX1C/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

    £15 in WH Smith - £3.24 cheaper than Amazon!
  • Barnesian said:

    I suspect this story is not about Tory aides preparing for a Tory inspired snap general election but wargaming a general election forced by Labour.
    How does LAB force a general election? It doesn't have the numbers and probably can't rely on the 35 SNP MPs to back such a move
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