I wonder whether this may be quite a likely outcome: No Deal followed by the resurrection of the Deal as an emergency measure (obviously with whatever legal changes need to be made for it to be adopted post facto).
I think that has already been ruled out. Legally it wouldn't work.
I used to be quite happy with being British, but the sheer incompetence of the govt & opposition, the venom and xenophobia of many leavers and the foolish antics of thr ultras have fatally tarnished my Britishness.
I am lucky enough to have dual nationality and i now prefer to describe myself as Irish.
Brexit hss destroyed the UK
Anyone who has hedged their bets with dual nationality was clearly only "quite happy" being British.... Someone who drives both a Mini and a Land Rover is never going to be more than "quite happy" on the all-terrain road-holding of the Mini.
Anyway, discussions around "Britishness" are utterly misplaced on a Six Nations weekend.
I never "hedged [my] bets". I never even thought about being Irish until Brexit forced it on me. The Union Jack is a striking flag and denotes coming together with the union of the crosses of the various parts (except poor Wales).
Brexit is not a British project, it is an English (and Welsh) one.
Embracing my Irish citizenship is a symptom of the divisiveness of Brexit and it is forcing many other people into similar decisions. Not being English, Little-Englandism has zero appeal to me.
It is neither of those things. It is a decision that full European Union membership is no longer right for Britain, particularly given the way it is going.
You're certainly right to say it's divisive, which is very sad, but it's not an English project either. It's a UK decision. In 1975 Scotland was the most eurosceptic nation of them all.
Brexit shows that the UK is no longer right for Britain. It should be dissolved so that the English, as well as British nationalists in the other nations of the UK, are able to see themselves as equal Europeans.
At a minimum, Brexit has shown that the UK in its current form is not fit for purpose. England needs to go it alone.
Provincial England. Why drag London into this? It’s the region of the U.K. that is most staunchly opposed to the narrow backward-looking nationalism of provincial England.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
Well done David. Stlylishly written. It doesn't seem to contain an attractive solution but for that we can blame Hartlepool not you.
James Naughty pointed out that we have two nations of the UK for Remain and two for Leave. If Brexit happens the two nations which voted Remain will never accept the result and vice versa.The likely outcome is that we move to a more federal structure which will move the goalposts all over the place and change the nature of the UK more than Brexit ever could
I think this is one of the most interesting posts. While the hard brexit may be the simplest for government it is in a practical sense the hardest to implement. Listening to LBC recently and it seems that most of the WTO supporters are already retired. Are they going to man the borders in Newry or expect it to be executed by a workforce who largely did not vote for or support the plan.
In business we have something called change control which manages the process of changing procedures. After initial risk analysis the most important step is building consensus amongst those who the change impacts most that it is a good idea. Plans dictated from on high with out adequate ground support almost always fail.
I'd be more concerned by the rise of a potential party beyond that (a sort of SWP to Labour, although the two are now rather closer than they were). Can see that happening.
If we left with no deal, and stayed out, I wonder what would happen to I Can't Believe It's Not UKIP.
Both are essential reading and in some ways companion pieces. Britain is in an awful mess that is getting worse.
Only one was essential, the other was a ten-a-penny standard europhile rant.
I don't share your pessimism about the UK. We will be fine.
You see, the problem you have is that you are discounting inconvenient facts in favour of truthiness. Earlier in the week you had steam coming out of your ears at what you imagined Donald Tusk had said, even after it was repeatedly pointed out to you that he had said no such thing. The article you discount is full of carefully put together argument, leading the reader step by step. But you don’t like it so you junk it.
Brexit has not turned out remotely like you originally envisaged. Yet you are even more vehement about it than you were beforehand. Time to stand back, reassess Brexit from first principles and ask yourself - is the country in a better place than it was in 2015? It would be a very one-eyed man who answered yes.
I used to be quite happy with being British, but the sheer incompetence of the govt & opposition, the venom and xenophobia of many leavers and the foolish antics of thr ultras have fatally tarnished my Britishness.
I am lucky enough to have dual nationality and i now prefer to describe myself as Irish.
Brexit hss destroyed the UK
Anyone who has hedged their bets with dual nationality was clearly only "quite happy" being British.... Someone who drives both a Mini and a Land Rover is never going to be more than "quite happy" on the all-terrain road-holding of the Mini.
Anyway, discussions around "Britishness" are utterly misplaced on a Six Nations weekend.
I never "hedged [my] bets". I never even thought about being Irish until Brexit forced it on me. The Union Jack is a striking flag and denotes coming together with the union of the crosses of the various parts (except poor Wales).
Brexit is not a British project, it is an English (and Welsh) one.
Embracing my Irish citizenship is a symptom of the divisiveness of Brexit and it is forcing many other people into similar decisions. Not being English, Little-Englandism has zero appeal to me.
It is neither of those things. It is a decision that full European Union membership is no longer right for Britain, particularly given the way it is going.
You're certainly right to say it's divisive, which is very sad, but it's not an English project either. It's a UK decision. In 1975 Scotland was the most eurosceptic nation of them all.
We are not talking 1975 and Scotland voted to stay in the EU. We will rejoin once we are independent though.
Didn't you vote for Brexit?
My point is that a nationalist argument based on the europhilia of England dragging Scotland into the EEC against its will could have been made in 1975, just as the opposite is made now.
I did but only to further second independence referendum, I prefer to be in EU. However just again proves that no matter what Scotland wants it never gets it as England makes the decisions every time. Perfect example of why the union is terrible for Scotland. Just a pity England had to go xenophobic gaga for it to be clear.
If you really had to have 3 options then the solution is to have two rounds: 1) What's Brexit? Deal vs No Deal. 2) Do it or not? Winner vs Remain.
This has the benefit that the final round gives you a 50%+ winner. We election nerds understand that you could do basically the same thing quicker and cheaper with AV or similar, but two rounds are harder to demagogue.
/pedant hat
We election nerds know that AV does not of course guarantee a 50%+ winner due to discarded ballots.
This is also the question of boycott raised by Brexiteers. If voters from round 1 boycott round 2, you can't guarantee the 50% threshold.
/pedantry
Well, having two rounds (not AV) guarantees you get 50%+ of the voters who vote in that round.
That said, the complication with a two-round thing is that you get to have an almighty bun-fight about whether it should be considered one referendum, two referendums or something in between. This also affects media coverage and funding: For instance, if you have a funding limit per-option-per-election you end up giving the Leave options 3x as much money as Remain. OTOH if you say it's one election with equal funding per option, you still give Leave 2x the money, but the winning Leave option can argue they woz robbed because they had to fight two campaigns on the same money that Remain had for one.
I don't think so. I only ever holiday in Europe for a few weeks, or work there on short-trips. That'll be unaffected.
Those retiring there (people generally only retire to one place) will simply need to get a residency visa. Just as Brits do for Australia.
A residency visa for non-EU nationals in Spain involves a minimum €500,000 property investment. Fine for very wealthy Brits, not so good for the rest. But at least you’ll be OK. Phew!
The odds are 3 on leaving on time, with no deal, on Ladbrokes. Backed it at 4 a while ago.
Also, backed Ireland at 1.9 to beat Scotland even with a -6 point handicap (Ladbrokes), though the price has since lengthened a little to 2. So, let's hope the Irish enjoy a 7 point (or more) triumph over the Scots.
Let's hope Scotland target the defensive liability that is Keith Earls as effectively as England did and crush them.
The whole reason we are exiting is because ultimately most people in these islands don't see themselves as European. Geographically speaking it could be argued either way. But I don't see an English Nationalist, or to a lesser extent a Scottish or Welsh Nationalist buying into some 'European' identity. That's not how they go (in my experience of Welsh Nationalists, it's the other way round).
If “these islands” includes Ireland, then the very high levels of support for the EU in Ireland present a challenge to that argument. The strong Remain vote in Scotland, with a nationalist government, presents another.
You are confusing 'support for the EU' with 'feeling European.' That is of course a dichotomy they encourage and which my less than brilliantly chosen words above seem to have reinforced.
I think you would be surprised, possibly unpleasantly so, at how much of that support is because the EU is seen as a powerful and highly effective counterweight to nine centuries of English political hegemony in the British Isles.
It wouldn't disappoint me at all. One of the points of the EU is to render meaningless the struggle for hegemony between powerful European states, and neutralise their domination over smaller ones.
All nations have good and bad parts to their history. Your claims are significantly overblown, however.
(Snip)
As an example: Britain's role in the slave trade was horrible, and it casts a shadow over our history. There can be no excuses for it.
Last Saturday I walked part of the London Loop walk. On the way, I passed the Wilberforce Oak, where Wilberforce and Pitt the Younger decided to table a bill to abolish the slave trade. It took many decades, but eventually it was done.
But Britain did not just abolish our slave trade: we actively enforced a ban. The work of the West Africa Squadron cost a massive amount of treasure (2% of annual income annually for sixty years) and lives of our sailors, mainly to disease. 25% of sailors died in one year alone.
But the results were significant: "Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans." And that does not count the ones who were prevented from boarding slaving ships.
Does this in some way compensate for the previous 120 years of active r actions.
(Awaits Ydoethur...)
Why? Can't see what's wrong with the analysis.
You do perhaps miss how the slave trade was abolished as part of a wider trade embargo on Napoleonic France, but as that was basically a trick to slide it past the Liverpool block vote I don't see it's particulary relevant.
It was 200 years ago, only relevant as a historical fact. All these snowflakes wanting us to self flagellate over things done hundreds of years ago need to get a life. It is called history for a reason.
I generally agree. It's important we know what we did, good and bad, very important, but people obsess over it. And it often seems the most self flagellating don't know about others' history or they'd know awful stuff happens a lot in other places too and I don't think most are making an academic assessment of who is worse. We have done bad things and shouldn't ignore that. We have done good things and shouldn't ignore that. But neither should overwhelm us dealing with the present, which fantasists and bemoaners do.
And while I'm sure we personally disagree on the worthiness of a continuation of the UK and it's place in the world moving forward, it is a big, rich nation and more are ok with that even without being empire fantasists, than detractors seem to accept sometimes.
I'd be more concerned by the rise of a potential party beyond that (a sort of SWP to Labour, although the two are now rather closer than they were). Can see that happening.
If we left with no deal, and stayed out, I wonder what would happen to I Can't Believe It's Not UKIP.
I think the new Tommy Robinson UKIP is now probably the "SWP" of the Right you are thinking of.
I hear Chris Grayling has had another shocker over the ferry contract. I have no idea why he is in the cabinet other than we have a non functioning government and he makes up a leave view. He should never have been near a ministerial role or in the cabinet
Last night I listened to Stephen Nolan on 5 live interview the female leader of the new brexit party and it was such a disturbing interview I really thought I was in a nightmare. Everything wrong with our Country was due to 'foreigners' (her words) and it was the nasty tone that really grated. She could not explain a policy on anything else, such as the nhs, education or housing, and was a disgrace to our attitudes of tolerance and kindness. And Farage wants to lead this rabble of prejeudice and conservative members want to join them. For me, as a one nation conservative, the sooner these members resign the better and I will cheer as each and everyone of them takes their 'little englander' attitude out of my party
They say the darkest hour is before the dawn and I can only hope that we do eventually see a bright new dawn, but with the prejeudiced so vocal it may be a time away, sadly
I think that the moves by Labour this last week, particularly in the last couple of days, make no deal Brexit even less likely than the markets are indicating. The 5 conditions don't really seem to be conditions at all but undertakings about the parameters within which the real negotiations will take place in the transitional period.
The only really tricky one for May is commitment to a permanent CU which may not be available without other unacceptable conditions (FoM and large payments to the EU). It is tricky not so much because it is an aspiration but because it is anathema to a large part of her own party. Nevertheless, in my opinion May is committed to Brexit and will concede that condition if she has to. The ERG need to think that through.
In short, as Tusk himself recognised, both May and Corbyn are committed to delivering the outcome of the referendum and both are desperate to avoid a no deal scenario. In these circumstances, no matter how many of each party are unhappy, it seems inevitable to me that there will be a deal and it will go through Parliament.
Things could still go wrong. There are numerous players who are overplaying their hands including the EU, the Irish, the adamant remainers and the ERG but I think a 23% probability is on the high side.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
I've no sympathy with this anger and hatred. It's not constructive and it's not necessary. It's all just another form of the "othering" that Leave backers are routinely accused of (sometimes justly, often not) with respect to immigrants.
The basic message seems to be "the poor are ungrateful for our money, let's leave them to die." Which is all a very convenient way of avoiding the underlying question of whether the poor might not have been poor if the settlement of recent decades that has so benefited wealthy middle-class (and, entirely uncoincidentally, Remain-leaning areas) actually worked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
The whole reason we are exiting is because ultimately most people in these islands don't see themselves as European. Geographically speaking it could be argued either way. But I don't see an English Nationalist, or to a lesser extent a Scottish or Welsh Nationalist buying into some 'European' identity. That's not how they go (in my experience of Welsh Nationalists, it's the other way round).
If “these islands” includes Ireland, then the very high levels of support for the EU in Ireland present a challenge to that argument. The strong Remain vote in Scotland, with a nationalist government, presents another.
You are confusing 'support for the EU' with 'feeling European.' That is of course a dichotomy they encourage and which my less than brilliantly chosen words above seem to have reinforced.
I think you would be surprised, possibly unpleasantly so, at how much of that support is because the EU is seen as a powerful and highly effective counterweight to nine centuries of English political hegemony in the British Isles.
It wouldn't disappoint me at all. One of the points of the EU is to render meaningless the struggle for hegemony between powerful European states, and neutralise their domination over smaller ones.
I think that the moves by Labour this last week, particularly in the last couple of days, make no deal Brexit even less likely than the markets are indicating. The 5 conditions don't really seem to be conditions at all but undertakings about the parameters within which the real negotiations will take place in the transitional period.
The only really tricky one for May is commitment to a permanent CU which may not be available without other unacceptable conditions (FoM and large payments to the EU). It is tricky not so much because it is an aspiration but because it is anathema to a large part of her own party. Nevertheless, in my opinion May is committed to Brexit and will concede that condition if she has to. The ERG need to think that through.
In short, as Tusk himself recognised, both May and Corbyn are committed to delivering the outcome of the referendum and both are desperate to avoid a no deal scenario. In these circumstances, no matter how many of each party are unhappy, it seems inevitable to me that there will be a deal and it will go through Parliament.
Things could still go wrong. There are numerous players who are overplaying their hands including the EU, the Irish, the adamant remainers and the ERG but I think a 23% probability is on the high side.
You're making the mistake of assuming because they want to avoid no deal, supposedly adamantly, they will take other actions they are adamantly against to prevent it, even at cost to their own parties .
Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
Bollocks
Many of the people most excited about Brexit are millionaires who expect to get even richer.
Those who are going to suffer most are the "working class" that voted for it.
The ferry company with no ferries is Brexit all over. The utter cluelessness of our Buccaneering Brexiteers is almost performance art. On every level they have proved themselves to be hopelessly out of their depth, boom boom. When they find their special place in hell it probably will freeze over!
Only a complete moron - read Buccaneering Brexiteer - would ever have thought otherwise. And that’s before the Irish-American lobby gets to work!
I would agree that a comprehensive free trade deal with the US is not desirable. But it is funny that the Europhiles who scream about how bad trade deals with the US would be in terms of pharmaceutical costs then trumpet trade deals with the EU as being a good thing. CETA has added massively to pharmaceutical costs in Canada as a result of an extension of the patent protection for drugs which means generic versions cannot be produced for an additional 2 years. Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated a minimum cost to healthcare services of $600 million CAN per year.
I do find it ever more difficult to find anything to celebrate in these big set piece comprehensive trade deals.
Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
Bollocks
Many of the people most excited about Brexit are millionaires who expect to get even richer.
Those who are going to suffer most are the "working class" that voted for it.
Many of those desperate to stay in the EU are millionaires who already did get rich at the cost of their fellow citizens.
The whole reason we are exiting is because ultimately most people in these islands don't see themselves as European. Geographically speaking it could be argued either way. But I don't see an English Nationalist, or to a lesser extent a Scottish or Welsh Nationalist buying into some 'European' identity. That's not how they go (in my experience of Welsh Nationalists, it's the other way round).
If “these islands” includes Ireland, then the very high levels of support for the EU in Ireland present a challenge to that argument. The strong Remain vote in Scotland, with a nationalist government, presents another.
You are confusing 'support for the EU' with 'feeling European.' That is of course a dichotomy they encourage and which my less than brilliantly chosen words above seem to have reinforced.
I think you would be surprised, possibly unpleasantly so, at how much of that support is because the EU is seen as a powerful and highly effective counterweight to nine centuries of English political hegemony in the British Isles.
It wouldn't disappoint me at all. One of the points of the EU is to render meaningless the struggle for hegemony between powerful European states, and neutralise their domination over smaller ones.
A very good point.
No it isn't. What has in fact happened is that it has formalised in law a permanent hegemony for the largest EU states over the smaller ones.
Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
Bollocks
Many of the people most excited about Brexit are millionaires who expect to get even richer.
Those who are going to suffer most are the "working class" that voted for it.
You haven't contradicted his point about the working classes voting for it, so its not bollocks. Youre merely talking about separate issue of a strand of the the non working class supported. And that you think the working classes acted against it's own interests. So again, not contradicting the point but introducing a separate one. Perhaps you should save the bollocks for when you actually rebut a point.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
I've no sympathy with this anger and hatred. It's not constructive and it's not necessary. It's all just another form of the "othering" that Leave backers are routinely accused of (sometimes justly, often not) with respect to immigrants.
The basic message seems to be "the poor are ungrateful for our money, let's leave them to die." Which is all a very convenient way of avoiding the underlying question of whether the poor might not have been poor if the settlement of recent decades that has so benefited wealthy middle-class (and, entirely uncoincidentally, Remain-leaning areas) actually worked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
If you subscribe to a mid-20th century view of class then undoubtedly what you describe applies to some parts of England and Wales.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
I've no sympathy with this anger and hatred. It's not constructive and it's not necessary. It's all just another form of the "othering" that Leave backers are routinely accused of (sometimes justly, often not) with respect to immigrants.
The basic message seems to be "the poor are ungrateful for our money, let's leave them to die." Which is all a very convenient way of avoiding the underlying question of whether the poor might not have been poor if the settlement of recent decades that has so benefited wealthy middle-class (and, entirely uncoincidentally, Remain-leaning areas) actually worked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
The hate comes mainly from Leavers. The whole Leave campaign was constructed around whipping up unfounded fear of foreigners. Since then the accusations of treachery, saboteurs, traitors, enemies of the people, mutiny have been constant. The EU is routinely compared with Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance.
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This isn't because of Brexit which is a peripheral issue. It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
I would agree that a comprehensive free trade deal with the US is not desirable. But it is funny that the Europhiles who scream about how bad trade deals with the US would be in terms of pharmaceutical costs then trumpet trade deals with the EU as being a good thing. CETA has added massively to pharmaceutical costs in Canada as a result of an extension of the patent protection for drugs which means generic versions cannot be produced for an additional 2 years. Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated a minimum cost to healthcare services of $600 million CAN per year.
I do find it ever more difficult to find anything to celebrate in these big set piece comprehensive trade deals.
CPTPP is pretty good. TPP had all kinds of odious extensions of statutory monopolies at the insistence of the Americans, but then Trump bailed on it and everyone else took that stuff out went ahead with what's basically a proper free trade deal.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
Actually Remain voting England - being mostly concentrated in the urban wastelands - is utterly dependent on Leave voting England for all its basic necessities. If and when civilisation collapses you can be sure Lincolnshire will fare far better than London.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
I've no sympathy with this anger and hatred. It's not constructive and it's not necessary. It's all just another form of the "othering" that Leave backers are routinely accused of (sometimes justly, often not) with respect to immigrants.
The basic message seems to be "the poor are ungrateful for our money, let's leave them to die." Which is all a very convenient way of avoiding the underlying question of whether the poor might not have been poor if the settlement of recent decades that has so benefited wealthy middle-class (and, entirely uncoincidentally, Remain-leaning areas) actually worked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
The hate comes mainly from Leavers. The whole Leave campaign was constructed around whipping up unfounded fear of foreigners. Since then the accusations of treachery, saboteurs, traitors, enemies of the people, mutiny have been constant. The EU is routinely compared with Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
Well if this place is any judge it is you who have been the purveyor of most if the unreconciled hate towards your opponents so I would suggest you are in no position at all to judge others.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Is it the complaint over the article or that the BBC issued UK flags at an event to select the UK entry to a competition? A competition that has had 43 entries and thus is significantly larger than the rEU27.
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance...
It's the prospect of leaving the EU for unplanned chaos that concerns me.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Underpinned by 40 years membership of the EU.
Which we are in the process of torching...
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Underpinned by 40 years membership of the EU.
Which we are in the process of torching...
None of what David mentioned was in any way underpinned by our membership of the EU. You are deluded.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
I've no sympathy with this anger and hatred. It's not constructive and it's not necessary. It's all just another form of the "othering" that Leave backers are routinely accused of (sometimes justly, often not) with respect to immigrants.
The basic message seems to be "the poor are ungrateful for our money, let's leave them to die." Which is all a very convenient way of avoiding the underlying question of whether the poor might not have been poor if the settlement of recent decades that has so benefited wealthy middle-class (and, entirely uncoincidentally, Remain-leaning areas) actually worked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
The hate comes mainly from Leavers. The whole Leave campaign was constructed around whipping up unfounded fear of foreigners. Since then the accusations of treachery, saboteurs, traitors, enemies of the people, mutiny have been constant. The EU is routinely compared with Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
"The hate mainly comes from Leavers." "Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse."
Alastair, do you see the contradiction here? The latter statement condemns most of England and Wales outside the big cities, and the 2016 vote as an irrational 'impulse'.
As for 'reactionary', the most reactionary behaviour has come from Remainers who regret that ordinary people including Northerners and those without degrees were allowed to vote on an important issue. I honestly think some of them would repeal the Representation of the People Act if given the chance.
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance...
It's the prospect of leaving the EU for unplanned chaos that concerns me.
That would be unwise and damaging in the short term. We need to avoid such a self inflicted mistake. But our underlying strengths are immense and would eventually overcome such an error.
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
Thick bugger! Did he think 'free movement' only worked one way? During the Ref campaign we've learnt more about the English psyche than we could have ever wanted to know. When English football crowds sang 'two world wars and one world cup' we thought it was just British humour (albeit in poor taste)-not that there was an ugly English nationalism afoot.
I spoke earlier this week to one of my ex-colleagues who took the EU shilling and is now in possession of a large pension from them. He was incandescent with rage at the Brexit vote and took it as a personal insult. "I despise leavers," he said, before looking at me and adding. "Well. most of then anyway."
I was surprised by his anger, but it appears he wanted a European passport and now he can't have one. or so he suspects. When I mentioned democracy (I try not to tease him too much but it can be irresistible), he almost ignited. As this is before the watershed, I 'll just say he's not a fan.
In the end, we'll have to coalesce around a softish form of Leave and I think deep-down, he realises that. There will be a few extremists and they're probably slightly more concentrated on these opinion boards but que sera, sera.
I've no sympathy with this anger and hatred. It's not constructive and it's not necessary. It's all just another form of the "othering" that Leave backers are routinely accused of (sometimes justly, often not) with respect to immigrants.
The basic message seems to be "the poor are ungrateful for our money, let's leave them to die." Which is all a very convenient way of avoiding the underlying question of whether the poor might not have been poor if the settlement of recent decades that has so benefited wealthy middle-class (and, entirely uncoincidentally, Remain-leaning areas) actually worked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
The hate comes mainly from Leavers. The whole Leave campaign was constructed around whipping up unfounded fear of foreigners. Since then the accusations of treachery, saboteurs, traitors, enemies of the people, mutiny have been constant. The EU is routinely compared with Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
"The hate mainly comes from Leavers." "Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse."
Alastair, do you see the contradiction here? The latter statement condemns most of England and Wales outside the big cities, and the 2016 vote as an irrational 'impulse'.
As for 'reactionary', the most reactionary behaviour has come from Remainers who regret that ordinary people including Northerners and those without degrees were allowed to vote on an important issue. I honestly think some of them would repeal the Representation of the People Act if given the chance.
It was, an animal irrational impulse propelled primarily by emotion. The many claims of Leavers have been falsified by events but far from reconsidering in the light of new evidence they have become still more emotionally attached to the totem of Brexit. No sacrifice is too great to secure it. Of course it’s an irrational impulse.
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance.
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This isn't because of Brexit which is a peripheral issue. It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
My father is a professor at Oxford university who like most of his colleagues is completely anti Brexit. Hijacking their efforts to sell you dodgy plan is the ultimate insult.
Why don’t you start with. We understand that most intellectuals and business people hate our plan but it will work because .....
Farage in full flow in Telegraph over his new Brexit party. It will not have an NEC, but will be run by the leader "like a company" with a board the leader appoints himself.
He believes in the long run it will be a threat to the main parties, as voters now divide over Leave/Remain rather than other issues.
This development was probably inevitable, since most European countries have a right nationalist/populist party (separate from any existing centre-right unit).
Deeply worrying imho.
I'm not so sure we can just hope FPTP will save us from this man.
There is certainly a viable constituency in England for nationalist populism. We see it elsewhere in Europe, indeed all over the world, and there is no magical reason why we should be immune.
What a new party devoted to this needs to flourish are the right conditions (which we have) and an effective leader. Loathe him or just dislike him intensely, Nigel Farage is such a leader. He is a very talented politician. An excellent communicator.
Will FPTP snuff it out? Not necessarily and nor should it. Any strand of political opinion that is compatible with the law deserves official representation if it is sufficiently widespread.
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
None of what David mentioned was in any way underpinned by our membership of the EU. You are deluded.
The UK was a great place for the EMA to be.
High quality staff from home and abroad, stable legal system, university links.
All gone as we leave the EU.
And of course Airbus have made the same point. Great place to do business, while we were in the EU. If we leave in a chaotic manner, not so much...
The EMA is an EU bureaucracy. Nice to have because they spend money like its going out of fashion but hardly a key element. And look what percentage of their staff are refusing to leave.
We should not leave the EU on a chaotic basis, the no dealers are delusional, but Airbus were not here just because we were in the EU. They were here because our universities, science and high tech is up there with the very best whilst our cost base was relatively low.
Thick bugger! Did he think 'free movement' only worked one way? During the Ref campaign we've learnt more about the English psyche than we could have ever wanted to know. When English football crowds sang 'two world wars and one world cup' we thought it was just British humour (albeit in poor taste)-not that there was an ugly English nationalism afoot.
In the end, we'll have to coalesce around a softish form of Leave and I think deep-down, he realises that. There will be a few extremists and they're probably slightly more concentrated on these opinion boards but que sera, sera.
The one thing we can say with certainty is that history will not stop after March. It's all very well to say we should coalesce around a soft form of Leave, but that could only be a holding pattern because it's a less stable arrangement than the one we're leaving.
Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
Bollocks
Many of the people most excited about Brexit are millionaires who expect to get even richer.
Those who are going to suffer most are the "working class" that voted for it.
You haven't contradicted his point about the working classes voting for it, so its not bollocks. Youre merely talking about separate issue of a strand of the the non working class supported. And that you think the working classes acted against it's own interests. So again, not contradicting the point but introducing a separate one. Perhaps you should save the bollocks for when you actually rebut a point.
This article makes a good point. There are plenty of people with the vulgar habit of telling anybody who’ll listen how much tax they pay, who also vote for parties who demand more tax than others. Does that make them naive patsies?
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance.
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This isn't because of Brexit which is a peripheral issue. It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
My father is a professor at Oxford university who like most of his colleagues is completely anti Brexit. Hijacking their efforts to sell you dodgy plan is the ultimate insult.
Why don’t you start with. We understand that most intellectuals and business people hate our plan but it will work because .....
I am not hijacking their efforts, I am noting that they have been very successful in a very successful country. And they get 1 vote each on its future progress, just like the rest of us.
I am not hijacking their efforts, I am noting that they have been very successful in a very successful country. And they get 1 vote each on its future progress, just like the rest of us.
But unlike you they didn't vote to torch that success...
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance.
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This isn't because of Brexit which is a peripheral issue. It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
We are about to make it a whole lot harder for our world class universities to recruit the world's best post-graduate talent - that will be particularly felt on the R&D side. In the same way, we are going to be putting our thriving tech start-up community under increasing strain. Brexit was never a great idea economically, but the clusterfuck it has become - thanks largely to May's red lines on freedom of movement and the CJEU - will mean it will do way more harm than it needed to. We have spent two and a half years telling foreign people they are not welcome in our country. The ones who will hear that loudest and clearest are the ones we most want to attract.
I often make the point that the EU is in a state of flux. It's unfinished business and retains the faults of both forms of government. It's an inefficient bureaucracy until it creates a stable single country but it cannot push on too fast or it will lose its constituent parts.
The one option you miss is revoke as part of a second referendum as I suspect that would be the only way to get the EU to give us enough time to host it.
Said referendum would have to have remain on the ballot but what the other options would need to be is open to debate..
All nations have good and bad parts to their history. Your claims are significantly overblown, however.
What's it like to dislike your own country so much?
I have a UK passport, and was born in England, but am not ethnically British. The Maybot would define me as a "citizen of nowhere".
Well, that applies to me too as I am half-Irish, half-Italian. But I am proud of the best of Britain, of the best that Britain has been and can be. It does seem a great shame that relatively little of that is on show these days.
And being British I take very seriously and treasure my freedom to criticise my government and country when it behaves badly. Those who say that I am not being patriotic when doing so show how little they understand what true Britishness and patriotism mean.
I spoke earlier this week to one of my ex-colleagues who took the EU shilling and is now in possession of a large pension from them. He was incandescent with rage at the Brexit vote and took it as a personal insult. "I despise leavers," he said, before looking at me and adding. "Well. most of then anyway."
I was surprised by his anger, but it appears he wanted a European passport and now he can't have one. or so he suspects. When I mentioned democracy (I try not to tease him too much but it can be irresistible), he almost ignited. As this is before the watershed, I 'll just say he's not a fan.
In the end, we'll have to coalesce around a softish form of Leave and I think deep-down, he realises that. There will be a few extremists and they're probably slightly more concentrated on these opinion boards but que sera, sera.
As I and many others have observed, too many Remain fanatics only like democracy when they are winning. Such are the depths of their arrogance that when they don't win it must be that terrible form of democracy they call populism.
I spoke earlier this week to one of my ex-colleagues who took the EU shilling and is now in possession of a large pension from them. He was incandescent with rage at the Brexit vote and took it as a personal insult. "I despise leavers," he said, before looking at me and adding. "Well. most of then anyway."
I was surprised by his anger, but it appears he wanted a European passport and now he can't have one. or so he suspects. When I mentioned democracy (I try not to tease him too much but it can be irresistible), he almost ignited. As this is before the watershed, I 'll just say he's not a fan.
In the end, we'll have to coalesce around a softish form of Leave and I think deep-down, he realises that. There will be a few extremists and they're probably slightly more concentrated on these opinion boards but que sera, sera.
The Starmer plan is the one that would win most support in the country and would no doubt get through the Commons if there were a free vote. I just do not see how it can happen, though.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
Actually Remain voting England - being mostly concentrated in the urban wastelands - is utterly dependent on Leave voting England for all its basic necessities. If and when civilisation collapses you can be sure Lincolnshire will fare far better than London.
In a hyperinflation scenario... Lincolnshire has the 🥔 s !
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
None of what David mentioned was in any way underpinned by our membership of the EU. You are deluded.
The UK was a great place for the EMA to be.
High quality staff from home and abroad, stable legal system, university links.
All gone as we leave the EU.
And of course Airbus have made the same point. Great place to do business, while we were in the EU. If we leave in a chaotic manner, not so much...
The Japanese have said the same, of course. It's really not brain surgery - if your market shrinks from 450 million to 65 million consumers then it is not as attractive an investment proposition.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Underpinned by 40 years membership of the EU.
Which we are in the process of torching...
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
The UK's universities suffered a huge brain drain in the 70s and 80s.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Underpinned by 40 years membership of the EU.
Which we are in the process of torching...
None of what David mentioned was in any way underpinned by our membership of the EU. You are deluded.
Freedom of movement has been hugely beneficial to both our university and tech sectors. In fact, it is hard to think of an area where the UK is world class that has not benefited from it.
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance.
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This isn't because of Brexit which is a peripheral issue. It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
We are about to make it a whole lot harder for our world class universities to recruit the world's best post-graduate talent - that will be particularly felt on the R&D side. In the same way, we are going to be putting our thriving tech start-up community under increasing strain. Brexit was never a great idea economically, but the clusterfuck it has become - thanks largely to May's red lines on freedom of movement and the CJEU - will mean it will do way more harm than it needed to. We have spent two and a half years telling foreign people they are not welcome in our country. The ones who will hear that loudest and clearest are the ones we most want to attract.
That assumes the world's best post graduate talent is all in the EU - which is clearly ludicrous. This is another one of those Remainer myths like the one about the majority of those Britons who work overseas doing so in the EU. It is simply not true, by a very, very long way.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Underpinned by 40 years membership of the EU.
Which we are in the process of torching...
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
The UK's universities suffered a huge brain drain in the 70s and 80s.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Underpinned by 40 years membership of the EU.
Which we are in the process of torching...
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
The UK's universities suffered a huge brain drain in the 70s and 80s.
You mean when we were in the EU and had freedom of movement?
The whole reason we are exiting is because ultimately most people in these islands don't see themselves as European. Geographically speaking it could be argued either way. But I don't see an English Nationalist, or to a lesser extent a Scottish or Welsh Nationalist buying into some 'European' identity. That's not how they go (in my experience of Welsh Nationalists, it's the other way round).
If “these islands” includes Ireland, then the very high levels of support for the EU in Ireland present a challenge to that argument. The strong Remain vote in Scotland, with a nationalist government, presents another.
You are confusing 'support for the EU' with 'feeling European.' That is of course a dichotomy they encourage and which my less than brilliantly chosen words above seem to have reinforced.
I think you would be surprised, possibly unpleasantly so, at how much of that support is because the EU is seen as a powerful and highly effective counterweight to nine centuries of English political hegemony in the British Isles.
It wouldn't disappoint me at all. One of the points of the EU is to render meaningless the struggle for hegemony between powerful European states, and neutralise their domination over smaller ones.
A very good point.
No it isn't. What has in fact happened is that it has formalised in law a permanent hegemony for the largest EU states over the smaller ones.
Have a look at the growth tables Foxy put up the other day. The biggest growth in nearly all instances is in the smallest economies. Just as it was supposed to be. Malta first.... Germany last (UK second last!)
One mistake in David's article is not to distinguish between the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. Both "May's deal" and "A different deal" still involve the same withdrawal agreement, but the EU have been very open to rewriting the political declaration.
As a Londoner born and bred I have a lot of sympathy with that. I’d only note that many of the most dynamic parts of England - Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Leamington (!!) - are pretty much on the same page. Leave voting England is utterly dependent on Remain voting England. It’s very much like the red and blue states in the US.
I've no sympathy with this anger and hatred. It's not constructive and it's not necessary. It's all just another form of the "othering" that Leave backers are routinely accused of (sometimes justly, often not) with respect to immigrants.
orked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
The hate comes mainly from Leavers. The whole Leave campaign was constructed around whipping up unfounded fear of foreigners. Since then the accusations of treachery, saboteurs, traitors, enemies of the people, mutiny have been constant. The EU is routinely compared with Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
Thanks to people like you, and the extreme Brexiters on the other side, it's never going to end. You've all whipped up hatred and deepened the chasm between the well off and the majority of the voters that aren't doing so well. Whether we leave or not, your legacy is going be that you didn't do enough to bring the poor and marginalised along with you and only offered insults and derision once the decision didn't go your way. There should have been away to leave the EU that didn't end like this, but your gang and the Brexiteers never really put their back into it. You share the blame. You never put the work in. You were happy for things to tick along nicely for you, from your nice homes in London and Hungary. Now all you do is bleat and cry about London with only scorn for the parts of the country that you despise. Own what you and your ilk have done.
The ferry company with no ferries is Brexit all over. The utter cluelessness of our Buccaneering Brexiteers is almost performance art. On every level they have proved themselves to be hopelessly out of their depth, boom boom. When they find their special place in hell it probably will freeze over!
Only a complete moron - read Buccaneering Brexiteer - would ever have thought otherwise. And that’s before the Irish-American lobby gets to work!
I would agree that a comprehensive free trade deal with the US is not desirable. But it is funny that the Europhiles who scream about how bad trade deals with the US would be in terms of pharmaceutical costs then trumpet trade deals with the EU as being a good thing. CETA has added massively to pharmaceutical costs in Canada as a result of an extension of the patent protection for drugs which means generic versions cannot be produced for an additional 2 years. Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated a minimum cost to healthcare services of $600 million CAN per year.
I do find it ever more difficult to find anything to celebrate in these big set piece comprehensive trade deals.
Strong IP clauses generally in EU trade deals have always been a UK priority because we produce so much of it - whether it be patent-protected pharmaceuticals or copyright-protected content. The rewritten and recently signed NAFTA deal also has stronger IP provisions than its predecessor. The Canadians have had to accept these too. That's the reality of international trade deals - the smaller party in the negotiation has to make the concessions.
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance.
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This isn't because of Brexit which is a peripheral issue. It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
We are about to make it a whole lot harder for our world class universities to recruit the world's best post-graduate talent - that will be particularly felt on the R&D side. In the same way, we are going to be putting our thriving tech start-up community under increasing strain. Brexit was never a great idea economically, but the clusterfuck it has become - thanks largely to May's red lines on freedom of movement and the CJEU - will mean it will do way more harm than it needed to. We have spent two and a half years telling foreign people they are not welcome in our country. The ones who will hear that loudest and clearest are the ones we most want to attract.
That assumes the world's best post graduate talent is all in the EU - which is clearly ludicrous. This is another one of those Remainer myths like the one about the majority of those Britons who work overseas doing so in the EU. It is simply not true, by a very, very long way.
In part too the world's best post-graduate talent become that because they're studying at our universities.
The hate comes mainly from Leavers. The whole Leave campaign was constructed around whipping up unfounded fear of foreigners. Since then the accusations of treachery, saboteurs, traitors, enemies of the people, mutiny have been constant. The EU is routinely compared with Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
"The hate mainly comes from Leavers." "Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse."
Alastair, do you see the contradiction here? The latter statement condemns most of England and Wales outside the big cities, and the 2016 vote as an irrational 'impulse'.
As for 'reactionary', the most reactionary behaviour has come from Remainers who regret that ordinary people including Northerners and those without degrees were allowed to vote on an important issue. I honestly think some of them would repeal the Representation of the People Act if given the chance.
It was, an animal irrational impulse propelled primarily by emotion. The many claims of Leavers have been falsified by events but far from reconsidering in the light of new evidence they have become still more emotionally attached to the totem of Brexit. No sacrifice is too great to secure it. Of course it’s an irrational impulse.
Now Leave voters are animals? (I mean obviously we are, all humans are animals, but you meant it as an insult.) It's not irrational to have a different set of priorities to you or to politicians whose only goal is short-term GDP maximisation.
As for new evidence, Remain has produced the same stories it did during the referendum campaign while the economy has continued to chug along quite nicely. Maybe the EU hasn't made a good deal quickly in the manner that some Leavers hoped - but the contempt and nastiness of characters like Donald Tusk is in itself a further argument for Leave.
It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
Underpinned by 40 years membership of the EU.
Which we are in the process of torching...
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
The UK's universities suffered a huge brain drain in the 70s and 80s.
You mean when we were in the EU and had freedom of movement?
Maastricht introduced freedom of movement in its current form.
It is not underpinned by the EU membership Scott. We had those strengths and characteristics before. Was the EU a net gain? Possibly, especially in the first couple of decades but it is peripheral. We will still be a great country to live in once we have left the EU.
None of what David mentioned was in any way underpinned by our membership of the EU. You are deluded.
The UK was a great place for the EMA to be.
High quality staff from home and abroad, stable legal system, university links.
All gone as we leave the EU.
And of course Airbus have made the same point. Great place to do business, while we were in the EU. If we leave in a chaotic manner, not so much...
The Japanese have said the same, of course. It's really not brain surgery - if your market shrinks from 450 million to 65 million consumers then it is not as attractive an investment proposition.
The Japanese want us to join CPTPP. There is very little point in being a large market if your ability to make trade deals with the growing parts of the world is inhibited by protectionism.
Airbus is here because BAe (as was then) was part of the original consortium. There’s a coherent argument that Airbus UK has been on borrowed time since 2002.
The pessimism about the UK's prospects is being massively overdone by those who think leaving the EU for a looser arrangement is somehow turning our back on the world or condemning us to parochial insignificance.
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
We are about to make it a whole lot harder for our world class universities to recruit the world's best post-graduate talent - that will be particularly felt on the R&D side. In the same way, we are going to be putting our thriving tech start-up community under increasing strain. Brexit was never a great idea economically, but the clusterfuck it has become - thanks largely to May's red lines on freedom of movement and the CJEU - will mean it will do way more harm than it needed to. We have spent two and a half years telling foreign people they are not welcome in our country. The ones who will hear that loudest and clearest are the ones we most want to attract.
That assumes the world's best post graduate talent is all in the EU - which is clearly ludicrous. This is another one of those Remainer myths like the one about the majority of those Britons who work overseas doing so in the EU. It is simply not true, by a very, very long way.
No, it assumes some of it is. It will now be harder to attract that talent to the UK; and as we are not making it easier to attract it from elsewhere the net result is a loss.
The hate comes mainly from Leavers. The whole Leave campaign was constructed around whipping up unfounded fear of foreigners. Since then the accusations of treachery, saboteurs, traitors, enemies of the people, mutiny have been constant. The EU is routinely compared with Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
"The hate mainly comes from Leavers." "Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse."
Alastair, do you see the contradiction here? The latter statement condemns most of England and Wales outside the big cities, and the 2016 vote as an irrational 'impulse'.
As for 'reactionary', the most reactionary behaviour has come from Remainers who regret that ordinary people including Northerners and those without degrees were allowed to vote on an important issue. I honestly think some of them would repeal the Representation of the People Act if given the chance.
It was, an animal irrational impulse propelled primarily by emotion. The many claims of Leavers have been falsified by events but far from reconsidering in the light of new evidence they have become still more emotionally attached to the totem of Brexit. No sacrifice is too great to secure it. Of course it’s an irrational impulse.
Now Leave voters are animals? (I mean obviously we are, all humans are animals, but you meant it as an insult.) It's not irrational to have a different set of priorities to you or to politicians whose only goal is short-term GDP maximisation.
As for new evidence, Remain has produced the same stories it did during the referendum campaign while the economy has continued to chug along quite nicely. Maybe the EU hasn't made a good deal quickly in the manner that some Leavers hoped - but the contempt and nastiness of characters like Donald Tusk is in itself a further argument for Leave.
“Some Leavers”. Remind me which Leavers were explaining before the referendum was held that the supermarkets might be warning of disruption to food supplies and that it couldn’t be guaranteed that there would be no deaths caused by medical shortages.
The reaction of some Leavers to what Donald Tusk said is a handy identifier of the cultists, demonstrating the difference between those who can read and those who just want to get angry.
I spoke earlier this week to one of my ex-colleagues who took the EU shilling and is now in possession of a large pension from them. He was incandescent with rage at the Brexit vote and took it as a personal insult. "I despise leavers," he said, before looking at me and adding. "Well. most of then anyway."
I was surprised by his anger, but it appears he wanted a European passport and now he can't have one. or so he suspects. When I mentioned democracy (I try not to tease him too much but it can be irresistible), he almost ignited. As this is before the watershed, I 'll just say he's not a fan.
In the end, we'll have to coalesce around a softish form of Leave and I think deep-down, he realises that. There will be a few extremists and they're probably slightly more concentrated on these opinion boards but que sera, sera.
The Starmer plan is the one that would win most support in the country and would no doubt get through the Commons if there were a free vote. I just do not see how it can happen, though.
It doesn't alter the WA, so there is no issue for the EU. As I and others have said it is a smart move on many fronts.
Comments
In business we have something called change control which manages the process of changing procedures. After initial risk analysis the most important step is building consensus amongst those who the change impacts most that it is a good idea. Plans dictated from on high with out adequate ground support almost always fail.
I'd be more concerned by the rise of a potential party beyond that (a sort of SWP to Labour, although the two are now rather closer than they were). Can see that happening.
If we left with no deal, and stayed out, I wonder what would happen to I Can't Believe It's Not UKIP.
Brexit has not turned out remotely like you originally envisaged. Yet you are even more vehement about it than you were beforehand. Time to stand back, reassess Brexit from first principles and ask yourself - is the country in a better place than it was in 2015? It would be a very one-eyed man who answered yes.
Perfect example of why the union is terrible for Scotland. Just a pity England had to go xenophobic gaga for it to be clear.
That said, the complication with a two-round thing is that you get to have an almighty bun-fight about whether it should be considered one referendum, two referendums or something in between. This also affects media coverage and funding: For instance, if you have a funding limit per-option-per-election you end up giving the Leave options 3x as much money as Remain. OTOH if you say it's one election with equal funding per option, you still give Leave 2x the money, but the winning Leave option can argue they woz robbed because they had to fight two campaigns on the same money that Remain had for one.
And while I'm sure we personally disagree on the worthiness of a continuation of the UK and it's place in the world moving forward, it is a big, rich nation and more are ok with that even without being empire fantasists, than detractors seem to accept sometimes.
Thanks Cameron.
Masterclass.
I hear Chris Grayling has had another shocker over the ferry contract. I have no idea why he is in the cabinet other than we have a non functioning government and he makes up a leave view. He should never have been near a ministerial role or in the cabinet
Last night I listened to Stephen Nolan on 5 live interview the female leader of the new brexit party and it was such a disturbing interview I really thought I was in a nightmare. Everything wrong with our Country was due to 'foreigners' (her words) and it was the nasty tone that really grated. She could not explain a policy on anything else, such as the nhs, education or housing, and was a disgrace to our attitudes of tolerance and kindness. And Farage wants to lead this rabble of prejeudice and conservative members want to join them. For me, as a one nation conservative, the sooner these members resign the better and I will cheer as each and everyone of them takes their 'little englander' attitude out of my party
They say the darkest hour is before the dawn and I can only hope that we do eventually see a bright new dawn, but with the prejeudiced so vocal it may be a time away, sadly
The only really tricky one for May is commitment to a permanent CU which may not be available without other unacceptable conditions (FoM and large payments to the EU). It is tricky not so much because it is an aspiration but because it is anathema to a large part of her own party. Nevertheless, in my opinion May is committed to Brexit and will concede that condition if she has to. The ERG need to think that through.
In short, as Tusk himself recognised, both May and Corbyn are committed to delivering the outcome of the referendum and both are desperate to avoid a no deal scenario. In these circumstances, no matter how many of each party are unhappy, it seems inevitable to me that there will be a deal and it will go through Parliament.
Things could still go wrong. There are numerous players who are overplaying their hands including the EU, the Irish, the adamant remainers and the ERG but I think a 23% probability is on the high side.
The basic message seems to be "the poor are ungrateful for our money, let's leave them to die." Which is all a very convenient way of avoiding the underlying question of whether the poor might not have been poor if the settlement of recent decades that has so benefited wealthy middle-class (and, entirely uncoincidentally, Remain-leaning areas) actually worked.
At root, Brexit is a class issue. The 2016 referendum was possibly the first major vote since 1945 in which the majority of the working class voted one way, the majority of the middle class voted the other, and the working class side of the argument won a decisive victory. Everything that has gone on since has been the product of one long temper-tantrum by an awful lot of well-to-do types who find that they have been thwarted, and that they are being made to give up something important to them for the first time in their entire lives - and their hate-driven response to these circumstances. It really has to stop.
Many of the people most excited about Brexit are millionaires who expect to get even richer.
Those who are going to suffer most are the "working class" that voted for it.
https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/1093904711437217793
I do find it ever more difficult to find anything to celebrate in these big set piece comprehensive trade deals.
https://reaction.life/nigel-farages-new-brexit-party-scare-living-daylights-tories/
"Brexit has not turned out remotely like you originally envisaged."
Oh? We've Brexited, have we? When did that happen?
It is entirely an act of self harm, with the mistaken hope that some "others" will be harmed more than them
In Hell I will be in good company.
Motes and beams, motes and beams.
Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse. It is an unmitigatable disaster. The only question is when it ends.
In the real world it is worth looking at this list: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/out-now-qs-world-university-rankings-2019
4 of the top 10 Universities in the world are in the UK. If you keep looking down that list you will eventually find, at number 50, the first University in the EU after we leave, the Universite PSL in Paris. We have 8 with more bubbling under that top 50.
Our economy is dependent on services which have consistently grown faster than manufacturing in most developed countries. We are well placed to continue to grow faster than western EU countries as we have done since 2008.
This isn't because of Brexit which is a peripheral issue. It is because we are a brilliant country with an absurdly internationally dominant legal system that is respected world wide for its integrity and predictability, the leading international centre for international financial services, a stable if somewhat overly consumption driven economy, a rapidly growing IT sector, very low crime rates and a basic decency which, along with English, makes us a place very, very large numbers of people aspire to live in.
We have problems, of course we do, but so does everyone else and we are much better placed than most. The doomsters have lost all sense of perspective and need to get a grip. I read posters saying that they are ashamed to be British and I am frankly bewildered. We are so lucky to live here.
Which we are in the process of torching...
"Leave is a reactionary provincial impulse."
Alastair, do you see the contradiction here? The latter statement condemns most of England and Wales outside the big cities, and the 2016 vote as an irrational 'impulse'.
As for 'reactionary', the most reactionary behaviour has come from Remainers who regret that ordinary people including Northerners and those without degrees were allowed to vote on an important issue. I honestly think some of them would repeal the Representation of the People Act if given the chance.
High quality staff from home and abroad, stable legal system, university links.
All gone as we leave the EU.
And of course Airbus have made the same point. Great place to do business, while we were in the EU. If we leave in a chaotic manner, not so much...
I was surprised by his anger, but it appears he wanted a European passport and now he can't have one. or so he suspects. When I mentioned democracy (I try not to tease him too much but it can be irresistible), he almost ignited. As this is before the watershed, I 'll just say he's not a fan.
In the end, we'll have to coalesce around a softish form of Leave and I think deep-down, he realises that. There will be a few extremists and they're probably slightly more concentrated on these opinion boards but que sera, sera.
Why don’t you start with. We understand that most intellectuals and business people hate our plan but it will work because .....
What a new party devoted to this needs to flourish are the right conditions (which we have) and an effective leader. Loathe him or just dislike him intensely, Nigel Farage is such a leader. He is a very talented politician. An excellent communicator.
Will FPTP snuff it out? Not necessarily and nor should it. Any strand of political opinion that is compatible with the law deserves official representation if it is sufficiently widespread.
So I agree with you - this is coming.
We should not leave the EU on a chaotic basis, the no dealers are delusional, but Airbus were not here just because we were in the EU. They were here because our universities, science and high tech is up there with the very best whilst our cost base was relatively low.
https://twitter.com/colettebrowne/status/1094155903748792320
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/01/poorer-brexiters-worse-off-working-class-leavers
I often make the point that the EU is in a state of flux. It's unfinished business and retains the faults of both forms of government. It's an inefficient bureaucracy until it creates a stable single country but it cannot push on too fast or it will lose its constituent parts.
Said referendum would have to have remain on the ballot but what the other options would need to be is open to debate..
And being British I take very seriously and treasure my freedom to criticise my government and country when it behaves badly. Those who say that I am not being patriotic when doing so show how little they understand what true Britishness and patriotism mean.
There should have been away to leave the EU that didn't end like this, but your gang and the Brexiteers never really put their back into it. You share the blame. You never put the work in. You were happy for things to tick along nicely for you, from your nice homes in London and Hungary. Now all you do is bleat and cry about London with only scorn for the parts of the country that you despise.
Own what you and your ilk have done.
As for new evidence, Remain has produced the same stories it did during the referendum campaign while the economy has continued to chug along quite nicely. Maybe the EU hasn't made a good deal quickly in the manner that some Leavers hoped - but the contempt and nastiness of characters like Donald Tusk is in itself a further argument for Leave.
One day, maybe, you'll figure it out.
Airbus is here because BAe (as was then) was part of the original consortium. There’s a coherent argument that Airbus UK has been on borrowed time since 2002.
This desperate attempt to legitimize this act of self harm and place laudable principles on it just wants to avoid the uncomfortable truth .
The UK has some of the thickest and most uninformed voters in the western world who like drones followed the garbage spewed by the right wing media .
The reaction of some Leavers to what Donald Tusk said is a handy identifier of the cultists, demonstrating the difference between those who can read and those who just want to get angry.