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  • Options
    TabmanTabman Posts: 1,046
    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    eristdoof said:

    MattW said:

    CatMan said:
    Meanwhile in the real world manufacturing output is higher now than it was before the referendum:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/timeseries/k22a/diop
    More than somm. And this is a survey amongst members of IOD.

    There wil be relatively few complete relocations, but a lot of busnesses will set up op

    Of course. The biggest damage will not be the big headline problems. It will be a constant underperformance in UK-PLC. Ther will only be a few companies giving up on the UK totally but many companies will doing significanlty less in the UK or less trade with UK businesses. A few jobs in Amsterdam rather than Manchester this year, a couple more jobs in Frankfurt rather than London the next year. Sourcing components from Antwerp rather than Rochester. A French expert in aeronautics not applying for a Job in Hampshire because he can get a job in Stuttgart with no need to apply for a work visa. Students chosing Ireland or Australia over the UK for a study abroad year...

    Yep, the slow drip-drip of fewer opportunities and lower investment. Unless, of course, the politicians can get us to an EFTA/EEA departure. Then there will be no reason to relocate or set up an office in the Single Market. I always thought this is where we would end up, so was not that bothered by the referendum result initially. But I put to much faith in the Tories' claims to be pro-business.

    Not to mention the high-end jobs in research, and the erosion of collaboration/input into cutting edge knowledge/tech jobs.
    All these futurities presume only the bad things happen, post Brexit. And nothing good. They also suggest the EU is always beneficial for industry, trade, etc.

    Is that plausible? Maybe not. After Brexit, and unprotected by the EU, Britain will eventually be forced to confront harsh realities: ageing, inequality, poor productivity, debt. We will, sooner or later, be obliged to take the free trading, deregulated route: the UK will aim to be Singapore, albeit with a rust belt. It will be painful. Ultimately it will surely be good for us.

    Whether the pain is worth it, we will only know in 10-20 years. And of course it depends whether Corbyn can be excluded from power interim.
    It will probably be moot in 20 years as we'll be in ecological meltdown.
  • Options
    Mr. Tabman, if it weren't an issue then UKIP would never have won elections, and the three main parties, as were, would not have promised a referendum on Lisbon.

    As for the EU not being an issue outside the Conservatives: the Lib Dems had the remain/leave referendum as a policy before the Conservatives did!
  • Options
    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
  • Options
    TabmanTabman Posts: 1,046
    eristdoof said:

    Tabman said:


    Not to mention the high-end jobs in research, and the erosion of collaboration/input into cutting edge knowledge/tech jobs.

    and yet when all these things moved off shore over the last two decades you didnt give a shit.

    why the sudden change of mind ?
    The UK was doing very well in high-end Research Jobs.

    I remember New Scientist had an editorial in the early nineties, saying that: if there is a brain drain to the USA, UK scientists should not complain too loud about it, as the UK does very well from other "brains" coming into the UK. Since then the number of people willing to move overseas has substantially increased and in this employment sector the UK is certainly a net winner.
    There are a lot of researchers from PIGS in the UK at the moment due to the lack of government funding in those countries.
  • Options
    Tabman said:

    eristdoof said:

    MattW said:

    CatMan said:
    Meanwhile in the real world manufacturing output is higher now than it was before the referendum:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/timeseries/k22a/diop
    More than somm. And this is a survey amongst members of IOD.

    There wil be relatively few complete relocations, but a lot of busnesses will set up op

    Of course. The biggest damage will not be the big headline problems. It will be a constant underperformance in UK-PLC. Ther will only be a few companies giving up on the UK totally but many companies will doing significanlty less in the UK or less trade with UK businesses. A few jobs in Amsterdam rather than Manchester this year, a couple more jobs in Frankfurt rather than London the next year. Sourcing components from Antwerp rather than Rochester. A French expert in aeronautics not applying for a Job in Hampshire because he can get a job in Stuttgart with no need to apply for a work visa. Students chosing Ireland or Australia over the UK for a study abroad year...

    Yep, the slow drip-drip of fewer opportunities and lower investment. Unless, of course, the politicians can get us to an EFTA/EEA departure. Then there will be no reason to relocate or set up an office in the Single Market. I always thought this is where we would end up, so was not that bothered by the referendum result initially. But I put to much faith in the Tories' claims to be pro-business.

    Not to mention the high-end jobs in research, and the erosion of collaboration/input into cutting edge knowledge/tech jobs.
    None of this is a problem. There is a way of sorting it all out by waving your hand in the air and blurbling vague generalities.

    No doubt the secret is in the wrist action......
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    NooNoo Posts: 2,380
    edited September 2019
    Flanner said:

    Johnsonism has probably now lost the Tories the seat forever.

    Witney? You really think the Lib Dems can take it?
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    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,754
    edited September 2019
    eristdoof said:

    Tabman said:


    Not to mention the high-end jobs in research, and the erosion of collaboration/input into cutting edge knowledge/tech jobs.

    and yet when all these things moved off shore over the last two decades you didnt give a shit.

    why the sudden change of mind ?
    The UK was doing very well in high-end Research Jobs.

    I remember New Scientist had an editorial in the early nineties, saying that: if there is a brain drain to the USA, UK scientists should not complain too loud about it, as the UK does very well from other "brains" coming into the UK. Since then the number of people willing to move overseas has substantially increased and in this employment sector the UK is certainly a net winner.
    There was a time when the UK aimed for a high wage high skills economy. that died somewhere in the 1990s. Now we aim for a low wage economy supporting high executive wages.
  • Options
    eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,891

    eristdoof said:

    MattW said:

    CatMan said:
    Meanwhile in the real world manufacturing output is higher now than it was before the referendum:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/timeseries/k22a/diop
    More than somewhat misleading by Mr Jukes. Horribly cherrypicked.

    He has conflated "relocate from UK" with "set up operations outside UK". The actual number planning substantial relocation is 5%. Full relocation will be even smaller.

    Fuller context supplied by Faisal Islam. And this is a survey amongst members of IOD.

    There wil be relatively few complete relocations, but a lot of busnesses will set up operations inside the single market so they can carry on doing what they used to do from the UK. As an example, we are looking at running our events business out of an office in Amsterdam or Barcelona. Money we would have invested in the UK to run that business will now be spent in the Netherlands or Spain. That will mean we'll create fewer jobs in the UK and pay less Corporation Tax. It adds more paperwork to our operaiton, but is relatively painless, so is an easy option. On our own it will make no difference to anything. But if you add all the businesses together that will do the same or similar then you have an issue. And what does the UK gain to counter-balance this?

    Of course. The biggest damage will not be the big headline problems. It will be a constant underperformance in UK-PLC. Ther will only be a few companies giving up on the UK totally but many companies will doing significanlty less in the UK or less trade with UK businesses. A few jobs in Amsterdam rather than Manchester this year, a couple more jobs in Frankfurt rather than London the next year. Sourcing components from Antwerp rather than Rochester. A French expert in aeronautics not applying for a Job in Hampshire because he can get a job in Stuttgart with no need to apply for a work visa. Students chosing Ireland or Australia over the UK for a study abroad year...
    All other things being equal.

    But they won’t.

    The U.K. or the EU, or both could screw up.

    We’ll never know.
    True, but then this is like saying
    "Smokers have an increased chance of getting lung cancer, all other things being equal. But they're not, so I'm not going to give up smoking"
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,525
    edited September 2019
    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    I think you will find promises to do everything you have ever heard of on all 26 sides of every argument ever held by the LDs - so they can be placed at least historically at the front of every campaign.

    Was there not one clip floating around in the Sun of the sainted Jo demanding an In-Out referendum on the EU in Parliament?

    (FTAOD I *have* voted Lib Dem in the past - you just need to accept that they are the ultimate small-m machiavellians. Without the power 97% of the time).
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    TabmanTabman Posts: 1,046

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
  • Options
    Gabs2Gabs2 Posts: 1,268

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,926
    edited September 2019
    Gabs2 said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.
    Given the amount the left/remain cause bangs on about parliamentary sovereignty as a pastiched reply to brexiteers, I'd have thought they'd be only too happy to accept that parliament is indeed sovereign on this matter.
  • Options
    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


  • Options
    edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,150
    edited September 2019
    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
  • Options
    eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,891
    Tabman said:

    eristdoof said:

    Tabman said:


    Not to mention the high-end jobs in research, and the erosion of collaboration/input into cutting edge knowledge/tech jobs.

    and yet when all these things moved off shore over the last two decades you didnt give a shit.

    why the sudden change of mind ?
    The UK was doing very well in high-end Research Jobs.

    I remember New Scientist had an editorial in the early nineties, saying that: if there is a brain drain to the USA, UK scientists should not complain too loud about it, as the UK does very well from other "brains" coming into the UK. Since then the number of people willing to move overseas has substantially increased and in this employment sector the UK is certainly a net winner.
    There are a lot of researchers from PIGS in the UK at the moment due to the lack of government funding in those countries.
    Agreed. But there are also a lot of researchers coming from countries that do invest sensibly in research.
  • Options

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Blair not Brown.
  • Options
    TabmanTabman Posts: 1,046

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    Yes fair enough. I was thinking of the ory pollies not Farage & Co
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,926

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    Best of luck retaining them if they offer any sort of supply to Corbyn.
  • Options
    justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    eristdoof said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Fascinating that Corbyn intends to do away with General Elections

    Eh, John Major waited until the last minute for the 92 election. Was that "Doing away with general elections"?
    The 1992 election was held on 9th April - but could have been delayed until July that year.
  • Options
    TabmanTabman Posts: 1,046
    eristdoof said:

    Tabman said:

    eristdoof said:

    Tabman said:


    Not to mention the high-end jobs in research, and the erosion of collaboration/input into cutting edge knowledge/tech jobs.

    and yet when all these things moved off shore over the last two decades you didnt give a shit.

    why the sudden change of mind ?
    The UK was doing very well in high-end Research Jobs.

    I remember New Scientist had an editorial in the early nineties, saying that: if there is a brain drain to the USA, UK scientists should not complain too loud about it, as the UK does very well from other "brains" coming into the UK. Since then the number of people willing to move overseas has substantially increased and in this employment sector the UK is certainly a net winner.
    There are a lot of researchers from PIGS in the UK at the moment due to the lack of government funding in those countries.
    Agreed. But there are also a lot of researchers coming from countries that do invest sensibly in research.
    Indeed - because the UK iswas the lead on many supra-national projects. That stopped in 2016, and whilst the money carries on until 2020, the timelines mean that these 3-5 year projects have now dried up. As Mrs Tabman informs me.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 40,927
    edited September 2019

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Exactly. A point I made many times, at the time
  • Options
    TabmanTabman Posts: 1,046
    Pulpstar said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    Best of luck retaining them if they offer any sort of supply to Corbyn.
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/23/jo-swinson-rules-out-lib-dem-pact-with-labour-under-jeremy-corbyn
  • Options
    ByronicByronic Posts: 3,578

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, at the time of the ref, it was EU policy, enthusiastically endorsed by Cameron, that Turkey could and would join, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,926
    justin124 said:

    eristdoof said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Fascinating that Corbyn intends to do away with General Elections

    Eh, John Major waited until the last minute for the 92 election. Was that "Doing away with general elections"?
    The 1992 election was held on 9th April - but could have been delayed until July that year.
    Corbyn says he will... "never" suspend Parliament though. I contend the best case scenario here is that he's being very liberal with the word "never".
  • Options
    ChrisChris Posts: 11,121
    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    Yes fair enough. I was thinking of the ory pollies not Farage & Co
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    The fact of Johnson supporting this campaign, as the descendant of a Turkish immigrant to the UK, is enough to mark him out as a rank hypocrite, regardless of all the other deplorable stuff he's done.
  • Options
    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, at the time of the ref, it was EU policy, enthusiastically endorsed by Cameron, that Turkey could and would join, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The liar Penny Mordaunt on behalf of Vote Leave said that a UK could not veto Turkish membership.
  • Options
    Gabs2Gabs2 Posts: 1,268

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    As long as EU membership remains the most important issue to you, yes. But you are right. It means the party system will more permanently realign along the Brexit axis. Which is devastating to us pro-Europeans. We need to win every time. The Tories (or a Tory-Brexit coalition) only needs to win once. Our membership in the EU will now never be secure.

    If we had instead put democracy first and made the referendum result sacrosanct, we could have united around a CU/SM Brexit with minimal disruption. We could then have fought for another referendum in 10 years and rejoined easily. The Brexiteers could only have exited again with another 50%+ referendum win, against the forces of generational change and ongoing EU migration. Now they just need a single GE win on 35%. My fellow Remainers have truly fucked it.
  • Options
    Gabs2 said:

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    Assuming that the Tories are electable after this fiasco... or that the Tory Party that emerges is still a Brexit Party. If they lose this election, I expect purges and splits.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,754

    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, at the time of the ref, it was EU policy, enthusiastically endorsed by Cameron, that Turkey could and would join, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The liar Penny Mordaunt on behalf of Vote Leave said that a UK could not veto Turkish membership.
    maybe if Dave had spent more time talking to people outside his social circle hed still be PM
  • Options
    Pulpstar said:

    Gabs2 said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.
    Given the amount the left/remain cause bangs on about parliamentary sovereignty as a pastiched reply to brexiteers, I'd have thought they'd be only too happy to accept that parliament is indeed sovereign on this matter.

    We've been there before. Labour's 1983 manifesto had a commitment to leave the EEC, as was, without a referendum.

  • Options

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Blair not Brown.
    It was Brown who signed the thing
  • Options

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
  • Options
    ByronicByronic Posts: 3,578

    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, at the time of the ref, it was EU policy, enthusiastically endorsed by Cameron, that Turkey could and would join, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The liar Penny Mordaunt on behalf of Vote Leave said that a UK could not veto Turkish membership.
    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.
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    FlannerFlanner Posts: 408
    Noo said:

    Flanner said:

    Johnsonism has probably now lost the Tories the seat forever.

    Witney? You really think the Lib Dems can take it?
    I really, really, think the LibDems can take it - and will soon take the local council, whose boundaries are identical to the parliamentary constituency. Though poss in some deal with Labour. The tidal wave of LD support among voters is overwhelming.

    Whether the LDs will take the seat at the next General Election, though, is down to campaigning skills and resources. Comment on LD parliamentary prospects often forgets how dependent the LDs are on ground campaigning.

    In the Oxford-Cheltenham cluster of target seats, many just as geographically huge, there's a real shortage of campaigners and considerable competition between equally juicy seats. At least part of the logic for Swinson's "revoke" strategy is the need to convert switching members (who round here, are switching from parties with little local campaigning culture) into active campaigners. Something that may take longer than this Parliament is prepared to wait.

    I think it's in the LDs' interest to have a few general elections between now and 2025.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,754

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    In your dreams.

    The EU will have a raft of ever closer Union issues which will keep the pot boiling for years.
  • Options
    Byronic said:

    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, at the time of the ref, it was EU policy, enthusiastically endorsed by Cameron, that Turkey could and would join, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The liar Penny Mordaunt on behalf of Vote Leave said that a UK could not veto Turkish membership.
    Eff off.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.
    Basically, it was in the UK’s strategic interest for Turkey to know we were fully supportive of it joining the EU, in the full knowledge that various member states in the EU would always veto it.

    Hard to campaign on something so cynical.
  • Options


    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.

    Well, it feels like an election-losing proposition in this hypothetical possible world, but BXP or whatever Farage party is driving will still be running on brexiting - will the Tories be able to resist? Bear in mind that they've been heavily entryized...
  • Options

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.

    That is wishful thinking.
  • Options

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    The important point though is that the Lib Dems are not going to win a majority at the next election but have made it explicit that they agree that a majority Parliament can make these decisions without reference to the public by a referendum.

    Personally I disagree with that but they are making a rod for their own backs with this line.
  • Options
    Byronic said:

    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The membership.
    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Mordaunt did tell an outright lie, though.

    I agree that Cameron and Osborne caused a lot of their own problems. You can't spend 10 years dogwhistling about the harm that the EU and free movement does and then look credible when you, in effect, turn around and say actually we didn't mean it.

  • Options


    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.

    Well, it feels like an election-losing proposition in this hypothetical possible world, but BXP or whatever Farage party is driving will still be running on brexiting - will the Tories be able to resist? Bear in mind that they've been heavily entryized...
    No they haven't. YouGov debunked that:

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/07/11/does-conservative-party-have-problem-entryism
  • Options
    nico67nico67 Posts: 4,502
    Lord Pannick is at his best when answering the judges questions.

    Clear though so far that the dissenting judges in the original Gina Miller case are giving him a harder time .

  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,115
    Gabs2 said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    As long as EU membership remains the most important issue to you, yes. But you are right. It means the party system will more permanently realign along the Brexit axis. Which is devastating to us pro-Europeans. We need to win every time. The Tories (or a Tory-Brexit coalition) only needs to win once. Our membership in the EU will now never be secure.
    And the EU have realised this. All the effort of keeping us in will be like keeping in a werewolf. All may be well for now, but you know a full moon is coming.

    You hear him howlin' around your kitchen door
    You better not let him in
    Little old lady got mutilated late last night
    Werewolves of London again.....
  • Options
    ByronicByronic Posts: 3,578

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    Look at Scotland. Has Sindy been killed off by its defeat in 2016? No. It is very much a live topic. Personally I think Sindyref2 won't happen, but there are millions of Scots who want it to happen, this afternoon. They haven't been silenced by loss.

    The same will happen to Brexit. If it is annulled, we will be like Scotland times ten. The issue will convulse our politics. The subject will never go away. The Tories will become an outright Brexit party, and, as Gabs2 points out, thanks to the insane Lib Dem Revoke policy, there will be huge pressure on the Tory leadership to have a vote-for-us-we-leave commitment, without a referendum (and why bother having a referendum, anyway, if they can just be ignored?)

    The only way to avoid this terrible fate, for the whole country, is for MPs and Remainers to shut the fuck up, and sign up to a deal, any deal.
  • Options
    Pulpstar said:

    justin124 said:

    eristdoof said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Fascinating that Corbyn intends to do away with General Elections

    Eh, John Major waited until the last minute for the 92 election. Was that "Doing away with general elections"?
    The 1992 election was held on 9th April - but could have been delayed until July that year.
    Corbyn says he will... "never" suspend Parliament though. I contend the best case scenario here is that he's being very liberal with the word "never".
    Well he wouldn't because the Beeb would refer to it as a Prorogation and jump on anyone who called it a suspension !
  • Options
    ByronicByronic Posts: 3,578

    Byronic said:

    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The membership.
    Eff o lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Mordaunt did tell an outright lie, though.

    I agree that Cameron and Osborne caused a lot of their own problems. You can't spend 10 years dogwhistling about the harm that the EU and free movement does and then look credible when you, in effect, turn around and say actually we didn't mean it.

    Yes, both sides lied. Mordaunt's lie was blatant.

    And yes, Cameron manufactured of lot of this grief for himself, with his airy Etonian fibs, over the years.
  • Options

    Gabs2 said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    As long as EU membership remains the most important issue to you, yes. But you are right. It means the party system will more permanently realign along the Brexit axis. Which is devastating to us pro-Europeans. We need to win every time. The Tories (or a Tory-Brexit coalition) only needs to win once. Our membership in the EU will now never be secure.
    And the EU have realised this. All the effort of keeping us in will be like keeping in a werewolf. All may be well for now, but you know a full moon is coming.

    You hear him howlin' around your kitchen door
    You better not let him in
    Little old lady got mutilated late last night
    Werewolves of London again.....
    Voting, polling
    Blogging, trolling
    And now I'm all alone
    In Brexit-Land my only home
  • Options
    Byronic said:


    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Quite right. On PB you will be found out if you talk nonsense.

    So here's another example of that phenomenon: the poster which you are discussing has absolutely nothing to do with whether Turkey might join the EU, as a cursory glance at it will demonstrate. It's a profoundly dishonest (as well as crudely xenophobic) poster about Turkish tourists being able to travel in the Schengen area, with a chunk of irrelevant racism thrown in via the reference to Syria.
  • Options
    Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,816
    Gabs2 said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    As long as EU membership remains the most important issue to you, yes. But you are right. It means the party system will more permanently realign along the Brexit axis. Which is devastating to us pro-Europeans. We need to win every time. The Tories (or a Tory-Brexit coalition) only needs to win once. Our membership in the EU will now never be secure.

    If we had instead put democracy first and made the referendum result sacrosanct, we could have united around a CU/SM Brexit with minimal disruption. We could then have fought for another referendum in 10 years and rejoined easily. The Brexiteers could only have exited again with another 50%+ referendum win, against the forces of generational change and ongoing EU migration. Now they just need a single GE win on 35%. My fellow Remainers have truly fucked it.
    With four credible national parties plus local nationalist parties and smaller parties, the threshold for a majority on FPTP can be well below 35%

    Blair got a 60 seat majority on 35.2%. If, say, the Iraq War had pushed more Labourites to Lib Dem, he could still have won a bare majority on 32% (assuming those left went Lib Dem).

    That's with three main parties. Add a fourth, and we're definitely looking at possibilities in the high twenties.

    If the Lib Dems do get a boost and the Brexit Party take more Tory votes (say, in a GE after an extension), the next General Election could be subtitled: "When Bad Voting Systems Attack"
  • Options

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
  • Options
    Gabs2 said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.
    I think the Lib Dems plan is to also implement PR, and are betting that the pro-EU parties will always have more popular support than anti-EU parties. It's hell of a gambit, though.
  • Options
    TabmanTabman Posts: 1,046

    Gabs2 said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    As long as EU membership remains the most important issue to you, yes. But you are right. It means the party system will more permanently realign along the Brexit axis. Which is devastating to us pro-Europeans. We need to win every time. The Tories (or a Tory-Brexit coalition) only needs to win once. Our membership in the EU will now never be secure.
    And the EU have realised this. All the effort of keeping us in will be like keeping in a werewolf. All may be well for now, but you know a full moon is coming.

    You hear him howlin' around your kitchen door
    You better not let him in
    Little old lady got mutilated late last night
    Werewolves of London again.....
    Voting, polling
    Blogging, trolling
    And now I'm all alone
    In Brexit-Land my only home
    You're always tease, tease, tease
    Somehow you've got me on my knees
    One day it's white and next it's black.
    So if you want me off your back.
    Now you've got to let me know ....
    Should I remain or should I go.
  • Options


    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.

    Well, it feels like an election-losing proposition in this hypothetical possible world, but BXP or whatever Farage party is driving will still be running on brexiting - will the Tories be able to resist? Bear in mind that they've been heavily entryized...
    No they haven't. YouGov debunked that:

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/07/11/does-conservative-party-have-problem-entryism
    That's not much of a debunking, it has 52% of members having joined since the EU referendum, only 71% of the new members voting Conservative in 2015, and basically nobody in the entire party voting Conservative in the Euro elections. What conceals the entryism a little bit is that it'll also have been quite heavily exit-ized: The Richard Nabavis of the party have left, so the profile of the people who are still in it is more like Brexit enthusiasts who joined after the referendum.
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    Flanner said:

    Noo said:

    Flanner said:

    Johnsonism has probably now lost the Tories the seat forever.

    Witney? You really think the Lib Dems can take it?
    I really, really, think the LibDems can take it - and will soon take the local council, whose boundaries are identical to the parliamentary constituency. Though poss in some deal with Labour. The tidal wave of LD support among voters is overwhelming.

    Whether the LDs will take the seat at the next General Election, though, is down to campaigning skills and resources. Comment on LD parliamentary prospects often forgets how dependent the LDs are on ground campaigning.

    In the Oxford-Cheltenham cluster of target seats, many just as geographically huge, there's a real shortage of campaigners and considerable competition between equally juicy seats. At least part of the logic for Swinson's "revoke" strategy is the need to convert switching members (who round here, are switching from parties with little local campaigning culture) into active campaigners. Something that may take longer than this Parliament is prepared to wait.

    I think it's in the LDs' interest to have a few general elections between now and 2025.
    On current polling I would expect the Lib Dems to run the Tories pretty close (within 4%) but not to win it, although there would still be a decent Labour vote (19% is my guess) to squeeze if tactical voting really took hold. The challenge is that Labour got more votes than the Lib Dems last time, so it might take some particularly "creative" bar charts to persuade Labour voters to switch this time around. As you say, at the next but one GE, with the Lib Dems established as the clear challenger, that squeeze might be more feasible.
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,288
    edited September 2019
    Byronic said:



    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Hey, Sean!

    Since 2016 accession negotiations have stalled.[7] The EU has accused and criticized Turkey for human rights violations and deficits in rule of law.[8] In 2017, EU officials expressed that planned Turkish policies violate the Copenhagen criteria of eligibility for an EU membership.[9] On 26 June 2018, the EU's General Affairs Council stated that "the Council notes that Turkey has been moving further away from the European Union. Turkey’s accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen."[10][11]


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
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    ByronicByronic Posts: 3,578

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    Yes. As in Scotland. A total realignment around the indy issue, and no sign of it returning to "normal", ever. We are copying what happened there, exactly, but with added farce and better drama.
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,115
    Byronic said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    Look at Scotland. Has Sindy been killed off by its defeat in 2016? No. It is very much a live topic. Personally I think Sindyref2 won't happen, but there are millions of Scots who want it to happen, this afternoon. They haven't been silenced by loss.

    The same will happen to Brexit. If it is annulled, we will be like Scotland times ten. The issue will convulse our politics. The subject will never go away. The Tories will become an outright Brexit party, and, as Gabs2 points out, thanks to the insane Lib Dem Revoke policy, there will be huge pressure on the Tory leadership to have a vote-for-us-we-leave commitment, without a referendum (and why bother having a referendum, anyway, if they can just be ignored?)

    The only way to avoid this terrible fate, for the whole country, is for MPs and Remainers to shut the fuck up, and sign up to a deal, any deal.
    And until they do, everything that goes wrong in the UK will be down to Brexit Denied.

    Of course, once we do Brexit, it dooms the Union, because for Scotland, everything that goes wrong will be down to Brexit Delivered. The only answer to that is to make post-Brexit UK a rip-snorting success - such that the wavering semi-Unionists won't take the risk of missing out.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,115

    Byronic said:



    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Hey, Sean!

    Since 2016 accession negotiations have stalled.[7] The EU has accused and criticized Turkey for human rights violations and deficits in rule of law.[8] In 2017, EU officials expressed that planned Turkish policies violate the Copenhagen criteria of eligibility for an EU membership.[9] On 26 June 2018, the EU's General Affairs Council stated that "the Council notes that Turkey has been moving further away from the European Union. Turkey’s accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen."[10][11]


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
    The Referendum was 2016. Your point?
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    eristdoof said:

    TOPPING said:

    isam said:



    TOPPING said:


    UKIP campaigned for a referendum. They made it clear that their votes would go to whomever promised one. They comprised 4m/12% of the electorate and had until that point been effectively disenfranchised. David Cameron promised a referendum in order to attract those votes and form the next government.

    Pressure group exerts pressure on political party for political ends.

    It's precisely how democracy is supposed to work.

    As we have seen, a referendum is not an end in itself.

    UKIP should have been challenged to campaign for what they wanted - leaving the EU - rather than on having a vote about it.
    Had they got more than one seat for 12% of the vote, we would have heard what they had to say loud and clear. It suited people who didn’t want to hear what they had to say to ignore that injustice.
    While as I stated earlier I have tremendous sympathy for the first part of this, the second part of your post implies that there is some great conspiracy against UKIP whereas as we know it is simply the good old British electoral system that we know and love and that the UK decided against changing when asked.
    AV, of course, would have made it harder for small parties to be represented.
    Please show me your working.
    I can't see that it would be worse than under FPTP system. At the moment many people would like to vote Ind, Brexit or Green etc. but feel forced to vote for one of the big two.
    Because, ultimately, they have to get to 50% of the vote in the final round. This will always be harder for a smaller party that struggles to be heard.
  • Options

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Blair not Brown.
    It was Brown who signed the thing
    It was Blair who decided that following the downgrading of the treaty after the French and Dutch referendums, it was no longer relevant. By all means, disagree with the decision if you wish but Blair was PM when it was taken.
  • Options
    ByronicByronic Posts: 3,578

    Byronic said:


    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Quite right. On PB you will be found out if you talk nonsense.

    So here's another example of that phenomenon: the poster which you are discussing has absolutely nothing to do with whether Turkey might join the EU, as a cursory glance at it will demonstrate. It's a profoundly dishonest (as well as crudely xenophobic) poster about Turkish tourists being able to travel in the Schengen area, with a chunk of irrelevant racism thrown in via the reference to Syria.
    It must be hard for you to accept that yer man Cameron is, it turns out, a bewildered fool of limited insight, because that is the ineluctable conclusion for anyone reading his execrable "memoirs". I feel your pain.
  • Options

    Byronic said:



    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Hey, Sean!

    Since 2016 accession negotiations have stalled.[7] The EU has accused and criticized Turkey for human rights violations and deficits in rule of law.[8] In 2017, EU officials expressed that planned Turkish policies violate the Copenhagen criteria of eligibility for an EU membership.[9] On 26 June 2018, the EU's General Affairs Council stated that "the Council notes that Turkey has been moving further away from the European Union. Turkey’s accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen."[10][11]


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
    The Referendum was 2016. Your point?
    At this rate, Turkey won't join before 3000!
  • Options

    Tabman said:

    eristdoof said:

    MattW said:

    CatMan said:
    Meanwhile in the real world manufacturing output is higher now than it was before the referendum:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/timeseries/k22a/diop
    More than somewhat misleading by Mr Jukes. Horribly cherrypicked.

    He has conflated "relocate from UK" with "set up operations outside UK". The actual number planning substantial relocation is 5%. Full relocation will be even smaller.

    Fuller context supplied by Faisal Islam. And this is a survey amongst members of IOD.

    There wil be relatively few complete relocations, but a lot of busnesses will set up operations inside the single market so they can carry on doing what they used to do from the UK. As an example, we are looking at running our events business out of an office in Amsterdam or Barcelona. Money we would have invested in the UK to run that business will now be spent in the Netherlands or Spain. That will mean we'll create fewer jobs in the UK and pay less Corporation Tax. It adds more paperwork to our operaiton, but is relatively painless, so is an easy option. On our own it will make no difference to anything. But if you add all the businesses together that will do the same or similar then you have an issue. And what does the UK gain to counter-balance this?

    Of course. The biggest damag abroad year...

    Yep, the slow drip-drip of fewer opportunities and lower investment. Unless, of course, the politicians can get us to an EFTA/EEA departure. Then there will be no reason to relocate or set up an office in the Single Market. I always thought this is where we would end up, so was not that bothered by the referendum result initially. But I put to much faith in the Tories' claims to be pro-business.

    Not to mention the high-end jobs in research, and the erosion of collaboration/input into cutting edge knowledge/tech jobs.
    and yet when all these things moved off shore over the last two decades you didnt give a shit.

    why the sudden change of mind ?
    How would one demonstrate previously "giving a shit" to satisfy you?

    I can say that I did, but perhaps you would only accept opposition to the EU as sufficient evidence.
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    The important point though is that the Lib Dems are not going to win a majority at the next election but have made it explicit that they agree that a majority Parliament can make these decisions without reference to the public by a referendum.

    Personally I disagree with that but they are making a rod for their own backs with this line.

    The point I'm making is that it's not a rod for the LibDems' backs, it's a rod for the backs of LibDem-curious voters in Tory-held seats, who will be forced to seek protection in the eternal embrace of the LibDems.
  • Options

    Shami Chakrabati confident of victory, Sumption lacks the gumption to be so sure and predicts a government victory.

    Personally I want justice to win. Am I an extremist?
    It’s a hard case to call. I’m very suspicious about anyone who is confident on either side. If pushed, I’d be less surprised by a government victory, I think.
    My non-expert prediction:

    1. I expect the court to rule unambiguously that the decision to prorogue parliament is in principle justiciable, since no executive power can be completely unfettered and it is easy to come up with examples where that power could be exercised in a completely egregious and unreasonable way (for example, proroguing parliament for two years, or in order to evade losing a VONC).

    2. However, I expect the court to rule that the PM's discretion is very wide, and to set a very high bar for anyone seeking to challenge a prorogation. The mere fact that political considerations or party advantage have been factors in a PM's decision won't be sufficient, the prorogation would have to be clearly egregious and unreasonable.

    3. As to whether this particular prorogation meets that test, I agree with you that it's hard to say but that the government will probably win it (very likely with a dissenting judgement). It seems to me that this is just on the borderline of being unreasonable.

    4. I expect there will be some pretty scathing criticism of the government's approach to the case.
    Very good.

    I wonder if they might also set out (under 2) some future basic rules for that test, and thereby set a precedent?

    All this could have been avoided if Boris had simply let Parliament sit for a further week.

    What on Earth would he have lost from that?
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,965
    Tabman said:

    dixiedean said:

    TOPPING said:

    isam said:



    TOPPING said:


    UKIP campaigned for a referendum. They made it clear that their votes would go to whomever promised one. They comprised 4m/12% of the electorate and had until that point been effectively disenfranchised. David Cameron promised a referendum in order to attract those votes and form the next government.

    Pressure group exerts pressure on political party for political ends.

    It's precisely how democracy is supposed to work.

    As we have seen, a referendum is not an end in itself.

    UKIP should have been challenged to campaign for what they wanted - leaving the EU - rather than on having a vote about it.
    Had they got more than one seat for 12% of the vote, we would have heard what they had to say loud and clear. It suited people who didn’t want to hear what they had to say to ignore that injustice.
    While as I stated earlier I have tremendous sympathy for the first part of this, the second part of your post implies that there is some great conspiracy against UKIP whereas as we know it is simply the good old British electoral system that we know and love and that the UK decided against changing when asked.
    AV, of course, would have made it harder for small parties to be represented.
    Small parties on the radical fringes that is. Small parties of the centre would benefit by being transfer friendly.
    No surprise then the LDs wanted it.
    The Lib Dems wanted STV. The Tories vetoed that. AV was the only method they could agree on.
    They agreed on it. They campaigned for it. Therefore they wanted it. Same as tuition fees and the rest of the Coalition policies. Cameron/Osborne ran rings round the LDs. No wonder they thought they could pull off the same trick with Farage and co.
  • Options


    The important point though is that the Lib Dems are not going to win a majority at the next election but have made it explicit that they agree that a majority Parliament can make these decisions without reference to the public by a referendum.

    Personally I disagree with that but they are making a rod for their own backs with this line.

    The point I'm making is that it's not a rod for the LibDems' backs, it's a rod for the backs of LibDem-curious voters in Tory-held seats, who will be forced to seek protection in the eternal embrace of the LibDems.
    A fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
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    nico67nico67 Posts: 4,502
    Lord Pannick is brilliant , citing what the government is likely to cite in their argument and pulling it apart .
  • Options
    Byronic said:

    Byronic said:


    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Quite right. On PB you will be found out if you talk nonsense.

    So here's another example of that phenomenon: the poster which you are discussing has absolutely nothing to do with whether Turkey might join the EU, as a cursory glance at it will demonstrate. It's a profoundly dishonest (as well as crudely xenophobic) poster about Turkish tourists being able to travel in the Schengen area, with a chunk of irrelevant racism thrown in via the reference to Syria.
    It must be hard for you to accept that yer man Cameron is, it turns out, a bewildered fool of limited insight, because that is the ineluctable conclusion for anyone reading his execrable "memoirs". I feel your pain.
    LOL, not the most sophisticated of attempts to change the subject and cover over the fact that you were talking garbage.

    Still, on that subject, my pain is entirely about Cameron's successors, not Cameron.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 40,927
    .

    Byronic said:

    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The membership.

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Mordaunt did tell an outright lie, though.

    I agree that Cameron and Osborne caused a lot of their own problems. You can't spend 10 years dogwhistling about the harm that the EU and free movement does and then look credible when you, in effect, turn around and say actually we didn't mean it.

    Cameron got elected, just about, in 2010, by promising to cut immigration to the tens of thousands, then oversaw it rise to record levels in the mid three hundred thousands, then called a referendum where he promised that if we voted Leave we will leave, it wasn’t for politicians to decide, and he would stay around to handle it all... we voted Leave and haven’t left, politicians decided that, and he resigned straight away... and people say he’s a straight up guy with a sense of duty!
  • Options

    Byronic said:



    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Hey, Sean!

    Since 2016 accession negotiations have stalled.[7] The EU has accused and criticized Turkey for human rights violations and deficits in rule of law.[8] In 2017, EU officials expressed that planned Turkish policies violate the Copenhagen criteria of eligibility for an EU membership.[9] On 26 June 2018, the EU's General Affairs Council stated that "the Council notes that Turkey has been moving further away from the European Union. Turkey’s accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen."[10][11]


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
    The Referendum was 2016. Your point?
    So, things have changed since the last referendum? Excellent. I guess that's grounds for another referendum then, given the importance Vote Leave seemed to give to Turkey's impending membership in the last one. People can vote to remain in the EU, safe in the knowledge that no horde of Turks will descend upon the UK.
  • Options

    Byronic said:


    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Quite right. On PB you will be found out if you talk nonsense.

    So here's another example of that phenomenon: the poster which you are discussing has absolutely nothing to do with whether Turkey might join the EU, as a cursory glance at it will demonstrate. It's a profoundly dishonest (as well as crudely xenophobic) poster about Turkish tourists being able to travel in the Schengen area, with a chunk of irrelevant racism thrown in via the reference to Syria.
    That said, in the ten years following Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 over one million Poles moved here. In large part for economic reasons.

    Poland has a population of 38 million. Turkey has a population of 82 million, and is an even poorer country.

    If Turkey had joined the EU, how many would have moved to the UK?

    Half-a-million? A million? Two million? Three million? ...Four?

    Regardless of the exact number it would have been extremely unpopular, outside the pages of the FT and Economist, so there was a prospective long-term political argument to be made there given Turkey was an official candidate to join and the principles of free movement.

    I think both sides were very cynical in what they said and didn’t say about it, however.
  • Options

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
  • Options
    Gabs2Gabs2 Posts: 1,268

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
    Immigration would remain an issue for at least 40% of the country, which is more than enough for the Tories to win a majority sooner or later and pull us out. And the Lib Dems have now legitimized that.
  • Options

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    We'll see. I think it more likely that Brexit will be seen as an epic, never-to-be-repeated failure.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,720
    Gabs2 said:


    [snipped]

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.

    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
    Immigration would remain an issue for at least 40% of the country, which is more than enough for the Tories to win a majority sooner or later and pull us out. And the Lib Dems have now legitimized that.
    Now you put it that way, the LDs have also legitimised an instant withdrawal of Scotland from the UK, sans referendum, given the pro-independence majorities at both Holyrood and Westminster (Scots MPs). No wonder that Ms Swinson is denying this so emphatically, and LDs more generally are carefully insisting that any such 'legitimisation' has to await another election. And that would give the Tories an instant boost towards gaining a majorsity in the rump UK.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,993
    Gabs2 said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
    Immigration would remain an issue for at least 40% of the country, which is more than enough for the Tories to win a majority sooner or later and pull us out. And the Lib Dems have now legitimized that.
    Yes EFTA might be fine in 10 years time once immigration is under control but not now and legally Boris cannot now No Deal unless he wins a Tory majority at the next general election anyway
  • Options
    Gabs2Gabs2 Posts: 1,268
    Byronic said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    Yes. As in Scotland. A total realignment around the indy issue, and no sign of it returning to "normal", ever. We are copying what happened there, exactly, but with added farce and better drama.
    The key difference is that, per the main Remain party's new position, the EU issue can be decided on a single election majority, while the SNP require a referendum.
  • Options

    Byronic said:


    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Quite right. On PB you will be found out if you talk nonsense.

    So here's another example of that phenomenon: the poster which you are discussing has absolutely nothing to do with whether Turkey might join the EU, as a cursory glance at it will demonstrate. It's a profoundly dishonest (as well as crudely xenophobic) poster about Turkish tourists being able to travel in the Schengen area, with a chunk of irrelevant racism thrown in via the reference to Syria.
    That said, in the ten years following Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 over one million Poles moved here. In large part for economic reasons.

    Poland has a population of 38 million. Turkey has a population of 82 million, and is an even poorer country.

    If Turkey had joined the EU, how many would have moved to the UK?

    Half-a-million? A million? Two million? Three million? ...Four?

    Regardless of the exact number it would have been extremely unpopular, outside the pages of the FT and Economist, so there was a prospective long-term political argument to be made there given Turkey was an official candidate to join and the principles of free movement.

    I think both sides were very cynical in what they said and didn’t say about it, however.
    I think because of what happened with Poland, no feasible government would have realistically countenanced letting Turkey in the EU (certainly not without any transitional controls this time, anyway).
  • Options
    isam said:

    .

    Byronic said:

    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Dave said Turkey was on course to join the EU in the year 3000.

    The membership.

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Mordaunt did tell an outright lie, though.

    I agree that Cameron and Osborne caused a lot of their own problems. You can't spend 10 years dogwhistling about the harm that the EU and free movement does and then look credible when you, in effect, turn around and say actually we didn't mean it.

    Cameron got elected, just about, in 2010, by promising to cut immigration to the tens of thousands, then oversaw it rise to record levels in the mid three hundred thousands, then called a referendum where he promised that if we voted Leave we will leave, it wasn’t for politicians to decide, and he would stay around to handle it all... we voted Leave and haven’t left, politicians decided that, and he resigned straight away... and people say he’s a straight up guy with a sense of duty!
    There’s no getting away from the fact that adding a million extra people to the UK population every three years is going to remain very unpopular, if unchecked.
  • Options
    dyedwooliedyedwoolie Posts: 7,786
    If the SC ruled on say Friday that prorogation was illegal and parliament is recalled could BJ not introduce a one line bill for an election on the day of Corbyns conference speech?
  • Options
    GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,079
    HYUFD said:

    Gabs2 said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
    Immigration would remain an issue for at least 40% of the country, which is more than enough for the Tories to win a majority sooner or later and pull us out. And the Lib Dems have now legitimized that.
    Yes EFTA might be fine in 10 years time once immigration is under control but not now and legally Boris cannot now No Deal unless he wins a Tory majority at the next general election anyway
    Immigration is under control. Stop scaremongering.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,720
    Gabs2 said:

    Byronic said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    Yes. As in Scotland. A total realignment around the indy issue, and no sign of it returning to "normal", ever. We are copying what happened there, exactly, but with added farce and better drama.
    The key difference is that, per the main Remain party's new position, the EU issue can be decided on a single election majority, while the SNP require a referendum.
    At the moment. But it's early days. They could adopt the same principle (as Mrs Thatcher did in the Scottish context) as the LDs, and now, perhaps, Tories.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,926
    Carnyx said:


    Now you put it that way, the LDs have also legitimised an instant withdrawal of Scotland from the UK, sans referendum, given the pro-independence majorities at both Holyrood and Westminster (Scots MPs). No wonder that Ms Swinson is denying this so emphatically, and LDs more generally are carefully insisting that any such 'legitimisation' has to await another election. And that would give the Tories an instant boost towards gaining a majorsity in the rump UK.

    It's certainly a mahoosive can of worms that has been opened. Colossal.

    But if we're going to ignore referenda then surely the Lib Dem and the subsequent potential unintended consequences re Brexit and Scottish independence make perfect logical sense ?
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 40,927
    How many Brexiteers would have got this clue wrong in the way I just did... 🙈



  • Options
    NooNoo Posts: 2,380
    Gabs2 said:

    Byronic said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    Yes. As in Scotland. A total realignment around the indy issue, and no sign of it returning to "normal", ever. We are copying what happened there, exactly, but with added farce and better drama.
    The key difference is that, per the main Remain party's new position, the EU issue can be decided on a single election majority, while the SNP require a referendum.
    A more important difference is that the UK parliament can unilaterally decide to leave the EU, without seeking permission from the EU.
    The Scottish Parliament does not have the power to cause Scotland to become independent without Westminster agreeing.
  • Options
    ByronicByronic Posts: 3,578
    Carnyx said:

    Gabs2 said:


    [snipped]

    You can take anot'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.

    ion.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
    Immigration would remain an issue for at least 40% of the country, which is more than enough for the Tories to win a majority sooner or later and pull us out. And the Lib Dems have now legitimized that.
    Now you put it that way, the LDs have also legitimised an instant withdrawal of Scotland from the UK, sans referendum, given the pro-independence majorities at both Holyrood and Westminster (Scots MPs). No wonder that Ms Swinson is denying this so emphatically, and LDs more generally are carefully insisting that any such 'legitimisation' has to await another election. And that would give the Tories an instant boost towards gaining a majorsity in the rump UK.
    If we do annul the vote, whether by referendum or revoke, we will, inter alia, have delegitimized any further referendums. No one will bother voting in them, again, given that they can simply be overturned if politicians don't like the answer.

    This will do quiet and terrible damage to our democracy.

    We approach the abyss. The only answer is a deal, and out. But Remainers are too stupid to see the damage they are doing, they now think they can "win". But they will make a desert, and call it victory.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,298
    Byronic said:

    Tabman said:

    Tabman said:

    Mr. Nick, that does ignore the significant rise of UKIP and the fact said referendum was, until quite recently, Lib Dem policy.

    Ironically, some of those who criticised Cameron in the past for not holding a referendum have since defected to the yellows:
    https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1173872755982426112

    If we'd had the promised referendum on Lisbon then things would be very different. But Brown and the Lib Dems determined that manifesto pledges should be tossed overboard and the electorate shouldn't have a say.

    The seeds of discontent were planted by such duplicitous acts as this.

    Except polling evidence from then shows it barely moved the dial. Europe was not an issue amongst the population; just the Tory right.
    You're looking in the wrong place.

    Look at the polling about concerns about immigration, it tightly correlates with increases of EU citizens moving to the UK.
    Indeed. But the leaver argument is couched in terms of parliamentary sovereignty and economic opportunity.
    The Leave campaign are liars, you know that, I know that, but we can judge them on the their vile xenophobic campaign that used stuff like this.


    Er, at the time of the ref, it was EU policy, enthusiastically endorsed by Cameron, that Turkey could and would join, ASAP.

    The fact that the EU was bluffing, and Cameron was lying, cannot be blamed on Vote Leave
    Ah. The Ruinart is kicking in I see.

    As a relative newcomer to the site you would not be aware of the times we have been over this discussion before wherein the view you espouse has been thoroughly discredited.
  • Options

    HYUFD said:

    Gabs2 said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    Se.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
    Immigration would remain an issue for at least 40% of the country, which is more than enough for the Tories to win a majority sooner or later and pull us out. And the Lib Dems have now legitimized that.
    Yes EFTA might be fine in 10 years time once immigration is under control but not now and legally Boris cannot now No Deal unless he wins a Tory majority at the next general election anyway
    Immigration is under control. Stop scaremongering.
    There are controls on immigration.

    The Government has consistently failed to meet its targets on immigration.

    The public still thinks immigration levels are too high.

    It’s proven hard to agree further controls versus the economic or geopolitical consequences.

    All of these can be true.
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    Byronic said:

    Look at Scotland. Has Sindy been killed off by its defeat in 2016? No. It is very much a live topic. Personally I think Sindyref2 won't happen, but there are millions of Scots who want it to happen, this afternoon. They haven't been silenced by loss.

    The same will happen to Brexit. If it is annulled, we will be like Scotland times ten. The issue will convulse our politics. The subject will never go away. The Tories will become an outright Brexit party, and, as Gabs2 points out, thanks to the insane Lib Dem Revoke policy, there will be huge pressure on the Tory leadership to have a vote-for-us-we-leave commitment, without a referendum (and why bother having a referendum, anyway, if they can just be ignored?)

    The only way to avoid this terrible fate, for the whole country, is for MPs and Remainers to shut the fuck up, and sign up to a deal, any deal.

    Signing up to a deal only makes things worse now.

    For one thing we would then have to start negotiating the real deal, the final deal, not the transitional arrangements and the settling of existing liabilities. Where's the consensus on what that should look like? We would be signing up to debate Brexit for years to come.

    More importantly, any deal will be passed with the votes of Remainer MPs, with pure-of-heart Leaver MPs voting against. Anything bad that happens will be blamed on the quisling traitors who sold the country down the river.

    We can only start to make things better by correcting the original mistake - holding a referendum that proposed a change the government was opposed to. That means we have to revoke.
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    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,720
    Noo said:

    Gabs2 said:

    Byronic said:

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    Yes. As in Scotland. A total realignment around the indy issue, and no sign of it returning to "normal", ever. We are copying what happened there, exactly, but with added farce and better drama.
    The key difference is that, per the main Remain party's new position, the EU issue can be decided on a single election majority, while the SNP require a referendum.
    A more important difference is that the UK parliament can unilaterally decide to leave the EU, without seeking permission from the EU.
    The Scottish Parliament does not have the power to cause Scotland to become independent without Westminster agreeing.
    It's a construct of the 1990s by the Labour Party, with modifications since. But in the long term, is it a sustainable position if a clear majority arises? It's also an odd doctrine for a Liberal Democrat like Ms Swinson in particular.
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    Byronic said:


    Eff off. I'm not stupid. He only came out with that absurd Year 3000 line DURING the referendum, when he panicked because losing. Until then he was breezily reassuring Turkey that it could join tomorrow, hopefully.

    "David Cameron has strongly supported Turkey's application to join the European Union on a visit to the country.

    Speaking in Ankara, the Prime Minister said that he was "angry" at the lack of progress in the negotiations.

    He said that the UK will do everything it can to help Turkey "pave the road from Ankara to Brussels"."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-10773007/cameron-uk-strongly-supports-turkey-eu-membership-bid

    lol. Why do you bother with these pathetic lies? This is PB. You will be found out.

    Quite right. On PB you will be found out if you talk nonsense.

    So here's another example of that phenomenon: the poster which you are discussing has absolutely nothing to do with whether Turkey might join the EU, as a cursory glance at it will demonstrate. It's a profoundly dishonest (as well as crudely xenophobic) poster about Turkish tourists being able to travel in the Schengen area, with a chunk of irrelevant racism thrown in via the reference to Syria.
    That said, in the ten years following Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 over one million Poles moved here. In large part for economic reasons.

    Poland has a population of 38 million. Turkey has a population of 82 million, and is an even poorer country.

    If Turkey had joined the EU, how many would have moved to the UK?

    Half-a-million? A million? Two million? Three million? ...Four?

    Regardless of the exact number it would have been extremely unpopular, outside the pages of the FT and Economist, so there was a prospective long-term political argument to be made there given Turkey was an official candidate to join and the principles of free movement.

    I think both sides were very cynical in what they said and didn’t say about it, however.
    I think because of what happened with Poland, no feasible government would have realistically countenanced letting Turkey in the EU (certainly not without any transitional controls this time, anyway).
    The transition controls would have needed to be like the lease of the New Territories of Hong Kong for it to fly.
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    Gabs2Gabs2 Posts: 1,268

    Gabs2 said:


    People seem to be ignoring the main implication of this. Remainers are now arguing a General Election majority with a manifesto pledge can now overrule a referendum result.

    So if we have a second referendum, the Tory party can overrule this with a manifesto pledge to leave the EU and a majority. Given the Tories have now become a committed Brexit party, they will have this manifesto pledge every General Election from now on, and it won't matter if there is a second referendum result for Remain in the meantime. The left will not keep out the Tories forever. The Lib Dems have made Brexit inevitable.

    You can take another step and look at the party-political upshot of this, which is that if you're an ex-Tory Remainer in one of the many seats across the south that the LibDems are hoping to gain from Con, it won't be enough to merely vote LibDem this time, then revert to your former allegiance.

    To prevent Brexit from rising zombie-like from its grave, you'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.
    TBH I don't think many people will be trying to revive Brexit after it has been killed off, an outcome which is looking increasingly likely. The leavers will be too busy blaming each other for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and everyone else will get on with their lives, very relieved that the issue has gone away. The EU was not a big issue to most people outside the Tory Party before 2016 and it will return to that position.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    We'll see. I think it more likely that Brexit will be seen as an epic, never-to-be-repeated failure.
    Even if it seen as that among 60% of the public, it won't be enough to put it to bed. Especially when the mess has been caused partially through Remain majorities voting against every form of Brexit and changing parliamentary rules to block it. Leavers will now always blame the mess on Remainers and say Brexit has never been tried.
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    GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,079
    Byronic said:

    Carnyx said:

    Gabs2 said:


    [snipped]

    You can take anot'll have to *keep voting Liberal Democrat, again and again, for the rest of your life*.

    ion.
    I am afraid you are very sadly mistaken. Leave will not just die. They will make sure this remains an issue for every party and at every election going forward.
    It might well do. But I'm increasingly wondering if the outcome will be BINO like this:

    1. Boris somehow no-deals us
    2. The Conservatives are voted out at a sudden election when things go pear-shaped
    3. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition takes us back into EFTA+CU imminently, under heavy pressure (on both us and EFTA) from the EU, who won't want us back but also don't want us destabilising the region.

    A few ultra-Leavers and diehard Remainers™ would be upset, but most people would be glad it's over. By and large, Leave would die and Remain would die.
    Immigration would remain an issue for at least 40% of the country, which is more than enough for the Tories to win a majority sooner or later and pull us out. And the Lib Dems have now legitimized that.
    Now you put it that way, the LDs have also legitimised an instant withdrawal of Scotland from the UK, sans referendum, given the pro-independence majorities at both Holyrood and Westminster (Scots MPs). No wonder that Ms Swinson is denying this so emphatically, and LDs more generally are carefully insisting that any such 'legitimisation' has to await another election. And that would give the Tories an instant boost towards gaining a majorsity in the rump UK.
    If we do annul the vote, whether by referendum or revoke, we will, inter alia, have delegitimized any further referendums. No one will bother voting in them, again, given that they can simply be overturned if politicians don't like the answer.

    This will do quiet and terrible damage to our democracy.

    We approach the abyss. The only answer is a deal, and out. But Remainers are too stupid to see the damage they are doing, they now think they can "win". But they will make a desert, and call it victory.
    Stop making this about Remainers. We didn’t scorch the middle ground. We didn’t oppose compromise. We didn’t expect Brexit not to happen.

    EFTA/EEA was always the answer and it was Leavers who ruined that.

    Leavers and the Conservative Party have got us to this point. Nobody else.
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    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,586

    Shami Chakrabati confident of victory, Sumption lacks the gumption to be so sure and predicts a government victory.

    Personally I want justice to win. Am I an extremist?
    It’s a hard case to call. I’m very suspicious about anyone who is confident on either side. If pushed, I’d be less surprised by a government victory, I think.
    My non-expert prediction:

    1. I expect the court to rule unambiguously that the decision to prorogue parliament is in principle justiciable, since no executive power can be completely unfettered and it is easy to come up with examples where that power could be exercised in a completely egregious and unreasonable way (for example, proroguing parliament for two years, or in order to evade losing a VONC).

    2. However, I expect the court to rule that the PM's discretion is very wide, and to set a very high bar for anyone seeking to challenge a prorogation. The mere fact that political considerations or party advantage have been factors in a PM's decision won't be sufficient, the prorogation would have to be clearly egregious and unreasonable.

    3. As to whether this particular prorogation meets that test, I agree with you that it's hard to say but that the government will probably win it (very likely with a dissenting judgement). It seems to me that this is just on the borderline of being unreasonable.

    4. I expect there will be some pretty scathing criticism of the government's approach to the case.
    Very good.

    I wonder if they might also set out (under 2) some future basic rules for that test, and thereby set a precedent?
    Probably not - they've got enough to do to get this right within a very short space of time, and there is little urgency or reason to give future PMs guidelines on just how far they might stretch things.
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    isamisam Posts: 40,927
    .

    Byronic said:

    Look at Scotland. Has Sindy been killed off by its defeat in 2016? No. It is very much a live topic. Personally I think Sindyref2 won't happen, but there are millions of Scots who want it to happen, this afternoon. They haven't been silenced by loss.

    The same will happen to Brexit. If it is annulled, we will be like Scotland times ten. The issue will convulse our politics. The subject will never go away. The Tories will become an outright Brexit party, and, as Gabs2 points out, thanks to the insane Lib Dem Revoke policy, there will be huge pressure on the Tory leadership to have a vote-for-us-we-leave commitment, without a referendum (and why bother having a referendum, anyway, if they can just be ignored?)

    The only way to avoid this terrible fate, for the whole country, is for MPs and Remainers to shut the fuck up, and sign up to a deal, any deal.

    Signing up to a deal only makes things worse now.

    For one thing we would then have to start negotiating the real deal, the final deal, not the transitional arrangements and the settling of existing liabilities. Where's the consensus on what that should look like? We would be signing up to debate Brexit for years to come.

    More importantly, any deal will be passed with the votes of Remainer MPs, with pure-of-heart Leaver MPs voting against. Anything bad that happens will be blamed on the quisling traitors who sold the country down the river.

    We can only start to make things better by correcting the original mistake - holding a referendum that proposed a change the government was opposed to. That means we have to revoke.
    The status quo is that a referendum proposed a change that the current government is in favour of, so what’s the problem?
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    stodgestodge Posts: 12,854
    Afternoon all :)

    First, I'm not bothered what somebody said or how they voted in 2013 - that was an eternity ago - it's what they say now that matters.

    As for Lisbon, we didn't have a referendum on Maastricht either as I recall. We also had a Labour Government with a majority of 60 or so from 2005 to 2010 so the likes of Cameron and later Clegg were powerless to get a referendum if Labour whipped to oppose.

    Once the Treaty was enacted both leaders realised it would be pointless to oppose it. In that instance, the sovereignty of Parliament and our representatives had prevailed.

    Again, let's not forget Cameron did not suggest an In/Out referendum in 2013 or indeed in 2015. He wanted to renegotiate the basis of the UK's membership and put that back to the electorate. I can't recall what a NO vote would have meant but I think he thought, and especially in the light of his 2015 GE majority, his perceived popularity would enable him to a) get a "better" membership deal b) sell the deal and c) close down the European division in his own Party.

    As with so much, history is rewritten and policies misrepresented by the partisans on both sides.
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    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,720
    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:


    Now you put it that way, the LDs have also legitimised an instant withdrawal of Scotland from the UK, sans referendum, given the pro-independence majorities at both Holyrood and Westminster (Scots MPs). No wonder that Ms Swinson is denying this so emphatically, and LDs more generally are carefully insisting that any such 'legitimisation' has to await another election. And that would give the Tories an instant boost towards gaining a majorsity in the rump UK.

    It's certainly a mahoosive can of worms that has been opened. Colossal.

    But if we're going to ignore referenda then surely the Lib Dem and the subsequent potential unintended consequences re Brexit and Scottish independence make perfect logical sense ?
    Well, quite. I hadn't quite grasped the implications of the LD policy on remain till this thread. And, as I said, if a simple SNP majority of MPs in Scottish constituencies was enough for Mrs Thatcher to give up and cede the matter ...
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