Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
Case data, Regional England, Pillar1, by specimen date.
Taken the last month, highlighted anything over 5.
Very interesting. We're using the same data. I've only looked at England as a whole, London and Leicester. Your chart clearly shows some other problem areas. It's not just Leicester.
What do those numbers signify, deaths or infections?
Reported infections.
Official data is here. You can download it to a spreadsheet, but it takes a lot of messing around to get it into a useful form. Malmesbury seems to have cracked the extraction. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Case data, Regional England, Pillar1, by specimen date.
Taken the last month, highlighted anything over 5.
Very interesting. We're using the same data. I've only looked at England as a whole, London and Leicester. Your chart clearly shows some other problem areas. It's not just Leicester.
What do those numbers signify, deaths or infections?
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
I don't buy that. There are plenty of people who on balance would prefer to remain in the EU for economic reasons, but the market for Euronationalism has always been much smaller. Even many avid Remainers shy away from the more federalist elements. Remain ran Project Fear because it was the best selling point for the product they were offering.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
"from the horse's mouth"??
LOL. The voting public are the horse's mouth. Not big bad Dom.
Dom Cummings in I don't want people to know I'm relying on a racist shock.
No you're making a fallacy.
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
I don't buy that. There are plenty of people who on balance would prefer to remain in the EU, but the market for Euronationalism has always been much smaller. Even many avid Remainers shy away from the more federalist elements. Remain ran Project Fear because it was the best selling point for the product they were offering.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
No, the only argument that had salience for me was the slogan I saw a advertised around London a few days before the vote: “Let’s Keep Britain Great”, accompanied by a Union Flag.
It was the argument that it was strongly in our national interest and enhanced Britain's power that would have won over soft eurosceptics. Particularly Tory ones.
Not wankety-wank over euronationalism that would only ever get AC Grayling excited and worry everyone else.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
Farage alone could only have got Leave to 30-35%.
That would be my assessment too. Maybe 40%. He was the lager in the lager top.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
No, the only argument that had salience for me was the slogan I saw a advertised around London a few days before the vote: “Let’s Keep Britain Great”, accompanied by a Union Flag.
It was the argument that it was strongly in our national interest and enhanced Britain's power that would have won over soft eurosceptics. Particularly Tory ones.
Not wankety-wank over euronationalism that would only ever get AC Grayling excited and worry everyone else.
"Let's Keep Britain Great" is almost exactly the same as Trump's 2020 campaign slogan.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
I don't buy that. There are plenty of people who on balance would prefer to remain in the EU for economic reasons, but the market for Euronationalism has always been much smaller. Even many avid Remainers shy away from the more federalist elements. Remain ran Project Fear because it was the best selling point for the product they were offering.
I agree. True liking for the EU was (sadly imo) not widespread.
They go low we go high would not have worked.
So we had to go low too - and it still didn't work.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
"from the horse's mouth"??
LOL. The voting public are the horse's mouth. Not big bad Dom.
Dom Cummings in I don't want people to know I'm relying on a racist shock.
No you're making a fallacy.
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
There's been a theory that Douglas Carswell defected to UKIP playing the long game with the exact same intention: to be able to be a UKIP voice against Farage leading the campaign.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
Hong Kong cannot survive this. Its economy will surely collapse.
It won't collapse - the Chinese won't allow that, if only for propaganda reasons - but it will erode. And a mass exodus is certainly possible.
If I had a foreign passport and I was in Hong Kong, I would now leave if I could. It's a pretty terrifying law.
I agree that "collapse" is probably hyperbole, there is too much invested. But business will swiftly divert - some will go to Shanghai (you might as well be in mainland China now, what's the benefit of HK?). Some will go to Singapore/Tokyo.
Beijing won't care. They clearly feel untouchable now. Too powerful.
I am really not sure why people are supposed to care what she thinks. After all very few did when she was PM and trying to sell her deal to the House of Commons.
Some people are not right for the top job but have much to offer in other roles.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
Farage alone could only have got Leave to 30-35%.
That's quite a high number for someone who some Leavers on here think was wholly peripheral to the Leave effort.
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
Hong Kong cannot survive this. Its economy will surely collapse.
Cannot see that bothering the Communist Party. Anything that makes Honk Kong weaker and more reliant on the rest of the country. Let's be real here, nothing can stop the Chinese authorities doing whatever they want in Hong Kong - it may well be there will be more of a reaction against the latest moves than they would like, but the endgame is the same; they will take the hits that do come in exchange for taking the place fully under its power.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
I don't buy that. There are plenty of people who on balance would prefer to remain in the EU for economic reasons, but the market for Euronationalism has always been much smaller. Even many avid Remainers shy away from the more federalist elements. Remain ran Project Fear because it was the best selling point for the product they were offering.
I agree. True liking for the EU was (sadly imo) not widespread.
They go low we go high would not have worked.
So we had to go low too - and it still didn't work.
But Vote Leave went high and that's what won me over.
It wasn't Farage banging on about immigrants that won it, it was Johnson, Gove etc giving a positive image about what we could do outside of Europe. It was Johnson's sunny optimism that won it.
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
Hong Kong cannot survive this. Its economy will surely collapse.
It won't collapse - the Chinese won't allow that, if only for propaganda reasons - but it will erode. And a mass exodus is certainly possible.
If I had a foreign passport and I was in Hong Kong, I would now leave if I could. It's a pretty terrifying law.
I agree that "collapse" is probably hyperbole, there is too much invested. But business will swiftly divert - some will go to Shanghai (you might as well be in mainland China now, what's the benefit of HK?). Some will go to Singapore/Tokyo.
Beijing won't care. They clearly feel untouchable now. Too powerful.
Taiwan is next.
Have you seen the piss take trolling China just performed on the disputed border with India?
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
Couldn't agree more. Leave's campaign was only brilliant in comparison to Remain.
Do you think if Leave had campaigned on immigration like Farage wanted instead of changing the battle onto extra money for the NHS etc that the Leave campaign would have been better or worse?
Leave would probably have done worse, although Immigration was a popular issue. Remain never managed to get on the front foot. It was absolute pants compared with 1975.
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
I voted Remain and I think Brexit a big strategic mistake for Britain. I think wanting to be masters of your own ship is a perfectly normal thing. I don't think "Take Back Control" is an especially brilliant slogan.
Remain's big error - more precisely Cameron's big error - we have to assume he wanted the UK to remain in the EU given he was fronting up the campaign - was to hold the unnecessary and actually quite stupid referendum in the first place.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
Farage alone could only have got Leave to 30-35%.
That's quite a high number for someone who some Leavers on here think was wholly peripheral to the Leave effort.
He wouldn’t have been responsible for all those votes.
But, that represents the ceiling of voters he wouldn’t have otherwise put off.
I am really not sure why people are supposed to care what she thinks. After all very few did when she was PM and trying to sell her deal to the House of Commons.
Some people are not right for the top job but have much to offer in other roles.
Yes, plus while I disagree with much that she has done (e.g. the hostile environment policy), she clearly (a) is competent, and (b) acts in what she considers to be the best interests of the country. "It doesn't matter what she thinks" is an easy put-down on Twitter, but I doubt anyone really believes it.
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
"from the horse's mouth"??
LOL. The voting public are the horse's mouth. Not big bad Dom.
Dom Cummings in I don't want people to know I'm relying on a racist shock.
No you're making a fallacy.
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
Yeah as I said whatever helps you sleep at night.
It's all very well to dismiss Philip Thompson's argument here with a sniffy 'whatever'. But his argument is careful, reasoned and liberal, deserving to be examined on its own terms. For my own part I entirely agree with his reasoning here (though not always!)
I would just add that the Brexit issue was a matter to be decided between centrists, as most of the UK population is situated in the political centre. There are enough of either extremists or racists for this to be a major factor in the debate or the result. Ignoring this skews the whole discussion.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
Hong Kong cannot survive this. Its economy will surely collapse.
Cannot see that bothering the Communist Party. Anything that makes Honk Kong weaker and more reliant on the rest of the country. Let's be real here, nothing can stop the Chinese authorities doing whatever they want in Hong Kong - it may well be there will be more of a reaction against the latest moves than they would like, but the endgame is the same; they will take the hits that do come in exchange for taking the place fully under its power.
The real prize for Beijing is Taiwan, slowly scaring them into accepting absorption. Though this has the added benefit of silencing annoying dissent and thereby cowing people inside China even more.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
No, the only argument that had salience for me was the slogan I saw a advertised around London a few days before the vote: “Let’s Keep Britain Great”, accompanied by a Union Flag.
It was the argument that it was strongly in our national interest and enhanced Britain's power that would have won over soft eurosceptics. Particularly Tory ones.
Not wankety-wank over euronationalism that would only ever get AC Grayling excited and worry everyone else.
"Let's Keep Britain Great" is almost exactly the same as Trump's 2020 campaign slogan.
Hence it’s brilliance (or it might have been, had it been used throughout) it had an emotional resonance to a group of target voters not typically enamoured by Europe.
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
I disagree. The Leave campaign was better than I expected while the Remain campaign was worse than expected.
Prior to the Referendum it was expected that Leave would campaign on immigration and Remain on the economy. Instead Leave took the battle onto what was perceived to be Remains ground and the economy debate became a question of how much money we pay the EU each year.
It was a tactical and strategic masterstroke. Had Leave been led by Farage and his ilk it'd have been immigration day in, day out and would have lost.
Leave was led by Farage and his ilk.
Nope wrong again.
You wish it were not so. You wish "Leave" was lead by sophisticated scholars of sovereignty all debating the merits or otherwise of Droite de Suite or the much prized ability to reduce VAT on home energy bills. But the reality is that it was absolutely lead by Farage and his ilk with their racist posters and message on immigration.
An honest leaver would accept that and note that it was worth hitching their wagon to such people for the greater good of sovereignty.
You seem to have a problem with basic comprehension and facts. No wonder you voted Remain.
Leave was led by Vote Leave. Farage was explicitly excluded and even threatened law suits when his lot were not declared the official campaign.
You want it all to have been down to Farage because that suits your warped and quite deluded world view. You simply cannot accept that your side were beaten by a better campaign that did not rely upon xenophobia.
LOL. Such a fine distinction: "Vote Leave"..."Leave EU"... @Philip_Thompson meanwhile just said "Leave" which is absolutely right to use. They were all the same.
If you had just one functioning brain cell (which I appreciate you don't) you would see what anyone with a pulse could: the "Leave" effort was lead by Farage.
You want to have aligned yourself with the cerebral Leavers (LOL) but you actually aligned yourself with the racists.
Does this sort of crap make you feel better? I sincerely hope so because it is otherwise a serious waste of your and everyone else's time for you to post it several times a day.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
Hong Kong cannot survive this. Its economy will surely collapse.
Cannot see that bothering the Communist Party. Anything that makes Honk Kong weaker and more reliant on the rest of the country. Let's be real here, nothing can stop the Chinese authorities doing whatever they want in Hong Kong - it may well be there will be more of a reaction against the latest moves than they would like, but the endgame is the same; they will take the hits that do come in exchange for taking the place fully under its power.
I assume referring to Hong Kong as Honk Kong is probably a violation of the new law.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
As I've argued before, I disagree.
I think 'Take Back Control' is a terrible slogan. Who really wants to take back control in modern Britain? We want someone else to take control and then complain about the outcome. It screams 'Word to the wise - don't actually vote for this caper'. Allowing themselves to be labelled (though granted it was hard to avoid) as 'Brexiteers' didn't help either.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
"from the horse's mouth"??
LOL. The voting public are the horse's mouth. Not big bad Dom.
Dom Cummings in I don't want people to know I'm relying on a racist shock.
No you're making a fallacy.
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
Yeah as I said whatever helps you sleep at night.
It's all very well to dismiss Philip Thompson's argument here with a sniffy 'whatever'. But his argument is careful, reasoned and liberal, deserving to be examined on its own terms. For my own part I entirely agree with his reasoning here (though not always!)
I would just add that the Brexit issue was a matter to be decided between centrists, as most of the UK population is situated in the political centre. There are enough of either extremists or racists for this to be a major factor in the debate or the result. Ignoring this skews the whole discussion.
It is unique amongst debates as a central plank was about immigration. Of course the Cons had their "tens of thousands" pledge but there was no Cons MP out during the GE campaigns saying "let's get rid of the immigrants".
Here you had a major Leave character pushing an anti-immigration agenda and view. That it was so central ( @isam where is your wordcloud?) marked this out as different.
The whole Make Britain Great Again/Rally against Droite de Suite element which I am prepared to believe @Philip_Thompson was a part of, would not have won without Farage.
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
I disagree. The Leave campaign was better than I expected while the Remain campaign was worse than expected.
Prior to the Referendum it was expected that Leave would campaign on immigration and Remain on the economy. Instead Leave took the battle onto what was perceived to be Remains ground and the economy debate became a question of how much money we pay the EU each year.
It was a tactical and strategic masterstroke. Had Leave been led by Farage and his ilk it'd have been immigration day in, day out and would have lost.
Leave was led by Farage and his ilk.
Nope wrong again.
You wish it were not so. You wish "Leave" was lead by sophisticated scholars of sovereignty all debating the merits or otherwise of Droite de Suite or the much prized ability to reduce VAT on home energy bills. But the reality is that it was absolutely lead by Farage and his ilk with their racist posters and message on immigration.
An honest leaver would accept that and note that it was worth hitching their wagon to such people for the greater good of sovereignty.
You seem to have a problem with basic comprehension and facts. No wonder you voted Remain.
Leave was led by Vote Leave. Farage was explicitly excluded and even threatened law suits when his lot were not declared the official campaign.
You want it all to have been down to Farage because that suits your warped and quite deluded world view. You simply cannot accept that your side were beaten by a better campaign that did not rely upon xenophobia.
LOL. Such a fine distinction: "Vote Leave"..."Leave EU"... @Philip_Thompson meanwhile just said "Leave" which is absolutely right to use. They were all the same.
If you had just one functioning brain cell (which I appreciate you don't) you would see what anyone with a pulse could: the "Leave" effort was lead by Farage.
You want to have aligned yourself with the cerebral Leavers (LOL) but you actually aligned yourself with the racists.
Does this sort of crap make you feel better? I sincerely hope so because it is otherwise a serious waste of your and everyone else's time for you to post it several times a day.
LOL.
Racists? Nothing to do with me, guv. All about that pesky 5% VAT on home energy bills.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
The whole debate began because @Philip_Thompson said something like "it would have been different if Nigel Farage had lead the Leave campaign".
My simple point was that by any objective assessment (and Paul O'Flynn agrees with me as I speed-listen to his interview) Farage did lead the Leave campaign.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Not so bright then.
Well, he's gona back to being a Remainer, so maybe you are right
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
I disagree. The Leave campaign was better than I expected while the Remain campaign was worse than expected.
Prior to the Referendum it was expected that Leave would campaign on immigration and Remain on the economy. Instead Leave took the battle onto what was perceived to be Remains ground and the economy debate became a question of how much money we pay the EU each year.
It was a tactical and strategic masterstroke. Had Leave been led by Farage and his ilk it'd have been immigration day in, day out and would have lost.
Leave was led by Farage and his ilk.
Nope wrong again.
You wish it were not so. You wish "Leave" was lead by sophisticated scholars of sovereignty all debating the merits or otherwise of Droite de Suite or the much prized ability to reduce VAT on home energy bills. But the reality is that it was absolutely lead by Farage and his ilk with their racist posters and message on immigration.
An honest leaver would accept that and note that it was worth hitching their wagon to such people for the greater good of sovereignty.
You seem to have a problem with basic comprehension and facts. No wonder you voted Remain.
Leave was led by Vote Leave. Farage was explicitly excluded and even threatened law suits when his lot were not declared the official campaign.
You want it all to have been down to Farage because that suits your warped and quite deluded world view. You simply cannot accept that your side were beaten by a better campaign that did not rely upon xenophobia.
LOL. Such a fine distinction: "Vote Leave"..."Leave EU"... @Philip_Thompson meanwhile just said "Leave" which is absolutely right to use. They were all the same.
If you had just one functioning brain cell (which I appreciate you don't) you would see what anyone with a pulse could: the "Leave" effort was lead by Farage.
You want to have aligned yourself with the cerebral Leavers (LOL) but you actually aligned yourself with the racists.
There are hardly any racists in the UK. At the last general election the BNP could only manage to put up one candidate, in Hornchurch and Upminster.
On the upside, Hong Kong money is already flooding into the London property market, so if Hongkers entirely collapses under quasi-Nazi law, it might actually maintain the value of my pied a terre, so there's always that
It's all very well to dismiss Philip Thompson's argument here with a sniffy 'whatever'. But his argument is careful, reasoned and liberal, deserving to be examined on its own terms. For my own part I entirely agree with his reasoning here (though not always!)
I would just add that the Brexit issue was a matter to be decided between centrists, as most of the UK population is situated in the political centre. There are enough of either extremists or racists for this to be a major factor in the debate or the result. Ignoring this skews the whole discussion.
There's nothing wrong with Philip's argument as it relates to his own motivation. It's when he tries to pretend that immigration wasn't the central issue of the Leave campaign, and a central motivation of Leave voters, that it gets ridiculous.
See a selection of the Vote Leave ads here (if your blood pressure can stand it...)
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
I disagree. The Leave campaign was better than I expected while the Remain campaign was worse than expected.
Prior to the Referendum it was expected that Leave would campaign on immigration and Remain on the economy. Instead Leave took the battle onto what was perceived to be Remains ground and the economy debate became a question of how much money we pay the EU each year.
It was a tactical and strategic masterstroke. Had Leave been led by Farage and his ilk it'd have been immigration day in, day out and would have lost.
Leave was led by Farage and his ilk.
Nope wrong again.
You wish it were not so. You wish "Leave" was lead by sophisticated scholars of sovereignty all debating the merits or otherwise of Droite de Suite or the much prized ability to reduce VAT on home energy bills. But the reality is that it was absolutely lead by Farage and his ilk with their racist posters and message on immigration.
An honest leaver would accept that and note that it was worth hitching their wagon to such people for the greater good of sovereignty.
You seem to have a problem with basic comprehension and facts. No wonder you voted Remain.
Leave was led by Vote Leave. Farage was explicitly excluded and even threatened law suits when his lot were not declared the official campaign.
You want it all to have been down to Farage because that suits your warped and quite deluded world view. You simply cannot accept that your side were beaten by a better campaign that did not rely upon xenophobia.
LOL. Such a fine distinction: "Vote Leave"..."Leave EU"... @Philip_Thompson meanwhile just said "Leave" which is absolutely right to use. They were all the same.
If you had just one functioning brain cell (which I appreciate you don't) you would see what anyone with a pulse could: the "Leave" effort was lead by Farage.
You want to have aligned yourself with the cerebral Leavers (LOL) but you actually aligned yourself with the racists.
There are hardly any racists in the UK. At the last general election the BNP could only manage to put up one candidate, in Hornchurch and Upminster.
There is the possibility more racists exist than mere BNP supporters.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
The problem for Topping is that the only way he can reconcile himself with the fact Remain lost is by claiming it was all about xenophobia and of course he believes Farage is his perfect example of that. If it turns out that actually it was lots of other reasons to do with the basic fundamental democratic problems of the EU that won the argument then he has nothing left. That is why he is so desperate to claim it was all about Nigel.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Not so bright then.
Well, he's gone back to being a Remainer, so maybe you are right
Ah ha. That is what I was going to ask you.
So, at 12 he instinctively recognizes the power of a great political slogan. At 16 he stares implacably right through it and rejects its shallow populism.
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
I disagree. The Leave campaign was better than I expected while the Remain campaign was worse than expected.
Prior to the Referendum it was expected that Leave would campaign on immigration and Remain on the economy. Instead Leave took the battle onto what was perceived to be Remains ground and the economy debate became a question of how much money we pay the EU each year.
It was a tactical and strategic masterstroke. Had Leave been led by Farage and his ilk it'd have been immigration day in, day out and would have lost.
Leave was led by Farage and his ilk.
Nope wrong again.
You wish it were not so. You wish "Leave" was lead by sophisticated scholars of sovereignty all debating the merits or otherwise of Droite de Suite or the much prized ability to reduce VAT on home energy bills. But the reality is that it was absolutely lead by Farage and his ilk with their racist posters and message on immigration.
An honest leaver would accept that and note that it was worth hitching their wagon to such people for the greater good of sovereignty.
You seem to have a problem with basic comprehension and facts. No wonder you voted Remain.
Leave was led by Vote Leave. Farage was explicitly excluded and even threatened law suits when his lot were not declared the official campaign.
You want it all to have been down to Farage because that suits your warped and quite deluded world view. You simply cannot accept that your side were beaten by a better campaign that did not rely upon xenophobia.
LOL. Such a fine distinction: "Vote Leave"..."Leave EU"... @Philip_Thompson meanwhile just said "Leave" which is absolutely right to use. They were all the same.
If you had just one functioning brain cell (which I appreciate you don't) you would see what anyone with a pulse could: the "Leave" effort was lead by Farage.
You want to have aligned yourself with the cerebral Leavers (LOL) but you actually aligned yourself with the racists.
There are hardly any racists in the UK. At the last general election the BNP could only manage to put up one candidate, in Hornchurch and Upminster.
I think racism has dramatically reduced these past few decades (Stamford Bridge et al aside).
But Farage's campaign certainly tapped into something in the UK that people responded to.
There was a joint campaign for Leave - the higher ground sovereignists as exemplified by Johnson and followed by @Philip_Thompson and then Farage. Both were vital to each other.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
The problem for Topping is that the only way he can reconcile himself with the fact Remain lost is by claiming it was all about xenophobia and of course he believes Farage is his perfect example of that. If it turns out that actually it was lots of other reasons to do with the basic fundamental democratic problems of the EU that won the argument then he has nothing left. That is why he is so desperate to claim it was all about Nigel.
Paul O'Flynn: "We had two campaigns - Johnson, etc for the middle classes; and Farage for the working class"
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
Are there some highlights you could point us to or repeat?
The ten minutes from 36:40ish relates to the argument you fellows have been having a bit
Excellent thanks. From 38:50
"We had two campaigns...Johnson/etc for the middle classes...Farage/Banks for the working class".
Yes, but your quote makes it seem as though that were planned, when Patrick makes it clear that Vote Leave and Leave.EU "genuinely hated each others guts". It was something of a perfect storm I guess.
Personally I agree with 'Boris being the lemonade to Farage's lager in the Lager top' analogy. Leave needed a mainstream figure to get it over the line, but it is silly to think there would have been a referendum at all had UKIP not been doing so well in the polls, by elections and GE, and Boris probably only joined in to further his own career. I actually quite like the idea of FOM, a cosmopolitan lifestyle and am not that fussed about the European Union, I just dont think it fair on the poorest British people to have to suffer all the hardships of mass immigration whilst the richest take all the profit. FOM from countries with similar sized economies, where the push and pull factor means corporates cant just import million of cheap workers is a nice idea that I would vote for.
Always amazes me that the party of the Trade Unions was so keen on it
Just back from Morrisons. Lady on the till coughing her guts up. Hmm.
And update on the £6.75 half bottle of scotch scenario. On the label it says "at least 3 years old" and then "manufactured in Scotland". And that's pretty much it.
Not keen on that "manufactured" word. It doesn't sound quite right for a drink.
LOL, it does have to be distilled and in the barrel 3 years to be able to be called Scotch
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
"from the horse's mouth"??
LOL. The voting public are the horse's mouth. Not big bad Dom.
Dom Cummings in I don't want people to know I'm relying on a racist shock.
No you're making a fallacy.
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
Yeah as I said whatever helps you sleep at night.
It's all very well to dismiss Philip Thompson's argument here with a sniffy 'whatever'. But his argument is careful, reasoned and liberal, deserving to be examined on its own terms. For my own part I entirely agree with his reasoning here (though not always!)
I would just add that the Brexit issue was a matter to be decided between centrists, as most of the UK population is situated in the political centre. There are enough of either extremists or racists for this to be a major factor in the debate or the result. Ignoring this skews the whole discussion.
It is unique amongst debates as a central plank was about immigration. Of course the Cons had their "tens of thousands" pledge but there was no Cons MP out during the GE campaigns saying "let's get rid of the immigrants".
Here you had a major Leave character pushing an anti-immigration agenda and view. That it was so central ( @isam where is your wordcloud?) marked this out as different.
The whole Make Britain Great Again/Rally against Droite de Suite element which I am prepared to believe @Philip_Thompson was a part of, would not have won without Farage.
I would not say that Farage led the campaign, but he was hugely important to it. Without him taking UKIP up to 10% +, I'm sure that David Cameron could have held the line against offering a referendum on EU membership.
It's an object lesson in how a single issue party can have a very big impact under First Past the Post, without winning seats. Consistently win 10% from other parties, and you can throw the system into turmoil. The party or parties that you take votes from have to start moving in your direction.
Paradoxically, you can win 10% under PR, and get a solid number of MP's, and still be kept in the cold by other parties.
As to the campaign, like Casino Royale, at the time, I thought that the Leave campaign was terribly botched. I expected the Remain camp's arguments to have far more resonance than they did. As against that, I thought that the Labour Leave literature (and in Luton, the Leave campaign was mostly Labour Leave) was very good. It was very well pitched towards centrist voters.
Alternatively, Remain wasn't pants, it was a standard issue campaign with some good moments and decent performers - like Ruth Davidson in the debates - it was just confronted with an unexpectedly brilliant opponent, who out-thought them
eg TAKE BACK CONTROL
That is electioneering genius. Very hard to refute or deny, without sounding mad or boring
Yes, that's probably fair. The Remain side weren't very nimble, though, they just worked through their grid (excluding the rather important bits which Corbyn and Seumas Milne sabotaged). In particular they fell straight into Cummings' trap on the £350m a week lie, trying to correct it to 'only' £250m a week and thereby giving it extra legs - not just once but repeatedly.
Indeed. To say Remain was really bad, you have to believe it was led by clueless people. It was not. Cameron and Osborne have their faults, but they are far from stupid.
The main sin of Remain was probably complacency (always a problem with Cameron). They thought they were going to be facing a campaign led by Nigel Farage, Bill Cash and John Redwood, which would indeed have been a walkover; Instead they got Dom Cummings, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
They didn't readjust quickly enough. They didn't anticipate problems.
What is overlooked about the referendum, probably because Leave won, is that Remain had the backing of all three parties of government that decade, and lost. The public disagreed with the establishment on a massive issue, and without the referendum we would never have known. People on here would have been quoting opinion polls telling us we were wrong.
I sometimes wish Remain had narrowly won, as there would have been less chaos, and change would have come through the ballot box at the following GE. Also I reckon remainers would have respected the views of those they surprisingly only narrowly defeated more than those who defeated them. All the bitterness since flows from Remain losing authority at the ref, while leave would have seen a narrow defeat as an opportunity to win seats next GE a la SNP post Indy
But Leave weren't a party - so I suppose you mean Farage and UKIP.
A point I make about the Ref which I sense you will agree with. Leave won 52/48 despite all main parties being Remain, business and the unions being Remain, most opinion formers in all fields being Remain, and the lower risk status quo (which attracts the agnostics and undecideds) being Remain.
So, yes, 52/48. But the mood of the country was far more Leave than that. 60/40 minimum. It was not truly close. In England it was a "mood" landslide. We were then - and we are now - Leave Nation.
Yes I meant UKIP, sorry.
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
Are there some highlights you could point us to or repeat?
The ten minutes from 36:40ish relates to the argument you fellows have been having a bit
Excellent thanks. From 38:50
"We had two campaigns...Johnson/etc for the middle classes...Farage/Banks for the working class".
Yes, but your quote makes it seem as though that were planned, when Patrick makes it clear that Vote Leave and Leave.EU "genuinely hated each others guts". It was something of a perfect storm I guess.
Personally I agree with 'Boris being the lemonade to Farage's lager in the Lager top' analogy. Leave needed a mainstream figure to get it over the line, but it is silly to think there would have been a referendum at all had UKIP not been doing so well in the polls, by elections and GE, and Boris probably only joined in to further his own career. I actually quite like the idea of FOM, a cosmopolitan lifestyle and arent fussed about the European Union, I just dont think it fair on the poorest British people to have to suffer all the hardships of mass immigration whilst the richest take all the profit. FOM from countries with similar sized economies, where the push and pull factor means corporates cant just import million of cheap workers is a nice idea that I would vote for.
I happen to think (and believe I have even said it on PB before) that Farage is arguably the most successful politician of the last 50 years. And absolutely, if UKIP hadn't been successful there would have been no referendum (I say this when people wonder why Cameron offered one). And finally yes also! It was a perfect storm and perhaps not meant, but the fact remains that Farage and Johnson both lead the Leave campaign, albeit for different demographics.
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
I disagree. The Leave campaign was better than I expected while the Remain campaign was worse than expected.
Prior to the Referendum it was expected that Leave would campaign on immigration and Remain on the economy. Instead Leave took the battle onto what was perceived to be Remains ground and the economy debate became a question of how much money we pay the EU each year.
It was a tactical and strategic masterstroke. Had Leave been led by Farage and his ilk it'd have been immigration day in, day out and would have lost.
Leave was led by Farage and his ilk.
Nope wrong again.
You wish it were not so. You wish "Leave" was lead by sophisticated scholars of sovereignty all debating the merits or otherwise of Droite de Suite or the much prized ability to reduce VAT on home energy bills. But the reality is that it was absolutely lead by Farage and his ilk with their racist posters and message on immigration.
An honest leaver would accept that and note that it was worth hitching their wagon to such people for the greater good of sovereignty.
You seem to have a problem with basic comprehension and facts. No wonder you voted Remain.
Leave was led by Vote Leave. Farage was explicitly excluded and even threatened law suits when his lot were not declared the official campaign.
You want it all to have been down to Farage because that suits your warped and quite deluded world view. You simply cannot accept that your side were beaten by a better campaign that did not rely upon xenophobia.
LOL. Such a fine distinction: "Vote Leave"..."Leave EU"... @Philip_Thompson meanwhile just said "Leave" which is absolutely right to use. They were all the same.
If you had just one functioning brain cell (which I appreciate you don't) you would see what anyone with a pulse could: the "Leave" effort was lead by Farage.
You want to have aligned yourself with the cerebral Leavers (LOL) but you actually aligned yourself with the racists.
There are hardly any racists in the UK. At the last general election the BNP could only manage to put up one candidate, in Hornchurch and Upminster.
I wouldn’t go that far. Active racists are probably in the 5-10% box and passive racists in the 15-25% box.
But, our society is neither structurally nor institutionally racist, and nor are three quarters of people and we’ve made huge progress over the last 40 years.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
"from the horse's mouth"??
LOL. The voting public are the horse's mouth. Not big bad Dom.
Dom Cummings in I don't want people to know I'm relying on a racist shock.
No you're making a fallacy.
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
Yeah as I said whatever helps you sleep at night.
It's all very well to dismiss Philip Thompson's argument here with a sniffy 'whatever'. But his argument is careful, reasoned and liberal, deserving to be examined on its own terms. For my own part I entirely agree with his reasoning here (though not always!)
I would just add that the Brexit issue was a matter to be decided between centrists, as most of the UK population is situated in the political centre. There are enough of either extremists or racists for this to be a major factor in the debate or the result. Ignoring this skews the whole discussion.
It is unique amongst debates as a central plank was about immigration. Of course the Cons had their "tens of thousands" pledge but there was no Cons MP out during the GE campaigns saying "let's get rid of the immigrants".
Here you had a major Leave character pushing an anti-immigration agenda and view. That it was so central ( @isam where is your wordcloud?) marked this out as different.
The whole Make Britain Great Again/Rally against Droite de Suite element which I am prepared to believe @Philip_Thompson was a part of, would not have won without Farage.
I would not say that Farage led the campaign, but he was hugely important to it. Without him taking UKIP up to 10% +, I'm sure that David Cameron could have held the line against offering a referendum on EU membership.
It's an object lesson in how a single issue party can have a very big impact under First Past the Post, without winning seats. Consistently win 10% from other parties, and you can throw the system into turmoil. The party or parties that you take votes from have to start moving in your direction.
Paradoxically, you can win 10% under PR, and get a solid number of MP's, and still be kept in the cold by other parties.
As to the campaign, like Casino Royale, at the time, I thought that the Leave campaign was terribly botched. I expected the Remain camp's arguments to have far more resonance than they did. As against that, I thought that the Labour Leave literature (and in Luton, the Leave campaign was mostly Labour Leave) was very good. It was very well pitched towards centrist voters.
Absolutely - see my post to @isam. He and UKIP were hugely successful.
But as to your "he didn't lead it but was hugely important..."
I think he was one of the very few, count them on the fingers of one hand personalities of the entire campaign.
As I said, if it makes you feel better to ignore what was transparently obvious then and now who am I to rub the truth in your face.
But to say that Farage was not front and centre of the Leave campaign is just mind-bogglingly idiotic. And of all things, you are not an idiot. Tyndall, yes, an idiot. You, no you are not.
"Without Boris, Farage would have been a much more prominent face on TV during the crucial final weeks, probably the most prominent face. (We had to use Boris as leverage with the BBC to keep Farage off and even then they nearly screwed us as ITV did.) It is extremely plausible that this would have lost us over 600,000 vital middle class votes."
"Farage put off millions of (middle class in particular) voters who wanted to leave the EU but who were very clear in market research that a major obstacle to voting Leave was ‘I don’t want to vote for Farage, I’m not like that’. He also put off many prominent business people from supporting us. Over and over they would say ‘I agree with you the EU is a disaster and we should get out but I just cannot be on the same side as a guy who makes comments about people with HIV’."
"from the horse's mouth"??
LOL. The voting public are the horse's mouth. Not big bad Dom.
Dom Cummings in I don't want people to know I'm relying on a racist shock.
No you're making a fallacy.
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
Yeah as I said whatever helps you sleep at night.
It's all very well to dismiss Philip Thompson's argument here with a sniffy 'whatever'. But his argument is careful, reasoned and liberal, deserving to be examined on its own terms. For my own part I entirely agree with his reasoning here (though not always!)
I would just add that the Brexit issue was a matter to be decided between centrists, as most of the UK population is situated in the political centre. There are enough of either extremists or racists for this to be a major factor in the debate or the result. Ignoring this skews the whole discussion.
It is unique amongst debates as a central plank was about immigration. Of course the Cons had their "tens of thousands" pledge but there was no Cons MP out during the GE campaigns saying "let's get rid of the immigrants".
Here you had a major Leave character pushing an anti-immigration agenda and view. That it was so central ( @isam where is your wordcloud?) marked this out as different.
The whole Make Britain Great Again/Rally against Droite de Suite element which I am prepared to believe @Philip_Thompson was a part of, would not have won without Farage.
I would not say that Farage led the campaign, but he was hugely important to it. Without him taking UKIP up to 10% +, I'm sure that David Cameron could have held the line against offering a referendum on EU membership.
It's an object lesson in how a single issue party can have a very big impact under First Past the Post, without winning seats. Consistently win 10% from other parties, and you can throw the system into turmoil. The party or parties that you take votes from have to start moving in your direction.
Paradoxically, you can win 10% under PR, and get a solid number of MP's, and still be kept in the cold by other parties.
As to the campaign, like Casino Royale, at the time, I thought that the Leave campaign was terribly botched. I expected the Remain camp's arguments to have far more resonance than they did. As against that, I thought that the Labour Leave literature (and in Luton, the Leave campaign was mostly Labour Leave) was very good. It was very well pitched towards centrist voters.
The Leave campaign was pretty good at central messaging, nationwide, with a tight ship run by Cummings and Boris taking his cue from him.
Out on the ground they almost entirely left activists to themselves.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
As I've argued before, I disagree.
I think 'Take Back Control' is a terrible slogan. Who really wants to take back control in modern Britain? We want someone else to take control and then complain about the outcome. It screams 'Word to the wise - don't actually vote for this caper'. Allowing themselves to be labelled (though granted it was hard to avoid) as 'Brexiteers' didn't help either.
Just back from Morrisons. Lady on the till coughing her guts up. Hmm.
And update on the £6.75 half bottle of scotch scenario. On the label it says "at least 3 years old" and then "manufactured in Scotland". And that's pretty much it.
Not keen on that "manufactured" word. It doesn't sound quite right for a drink.
That's the legal minimum. You can't sell Scotch whisky that isn't made and bottled in Scotland and aged for three years in barrel. If it doesn't say "single malt" or "blended malt" it will be a blended whisky, which is mostly a standard and tasteless grain whisky blended with a number of more expensive malt whiskies for flavour.
Right. Makes sense then. I am about to glug some. Let it take me away from this rather heavy feeling afternoon in North London.
I should say blended whisky isn't necessarily bad whisky. The flavours are less powerful than malts. There is a lot of snobbishness about malts. They cost a lot more.
They don't tend to be as smooth but lots of decent ones.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
As I've argued before, I disagree.
I think 'Take Back Control' is a terrible slogan. Who really wants to take back control in modern Britain? We want someone else to take control and then complain about the outcome. It screams 'Word to the wise - don't actually vote for this caper'. Allowing themselves to be labelled (though granted it was hard to avoid) as 'Brexiteers' didn't help either.
Agree on the bus statement.
Not really. It means “you call the shots”.
Who doesn’t want to call the shots?
Of course TAKE BACK CONTROL was a brilliant slogan
For a start it satisfied basically everyone in three words
For those worried about immigration, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR BORDERS
For those worried about sovereignty, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR LAWS
For those worried about economics, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR EU CONTRIBUTIONS
For those who are just a bit worried about the way things are changing, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF SOCIETY AND MAKE IT NICE AGAIN
Genius. I can't even remember the Remain slogans. Stronger In? Was that it? Stronger in what? Sounds a like a bad porn movie
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
No, the only argument that had salience for me was the slogan I saw a advertised around London a few days before the vote: “Let’s Keep Britain Great”, accompanied by a Union Flag.
It was the argument that it was strongly in our national interest and enhanced Britain's power that would have won over soft eurosceptics. Particularly Tory ones.
Not wankety-wank over euronationalism that would only ever get AC Grayling excited and worry everyone else.
"Let's Keep Britain Great" is almost exactly the same as Trump's 2020 campaign slogan.
Hence it’s brilliance (or it might have been, had it been used throughout) it had an emotional resonance to a group of target voters not typically enamoured by Europe.
Or if it had a grain of truth, it was a great fat porkie
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
I don't buy that. There are plenty of people who on balance would prefer to remain in the EU for economic reasons, but the market for Euronationalism has always been much smaller. Even many avid Remainers shy away from the more federalist elements. Remain ran Project Fear because it was the best selling point for the product they were offering.
I agree. True liking for the EU was (sadly imo) not widespread.
They go low we go high would not have worked.
So we had to go low too - and it still didn't work.
But Vote Leave went high and that's what won me over.
It wasn't Farage banging on about immigrants that won it, it was Johnson, Gove etc giving a positive image about what we could do outside of Europe. It was Johnson's sunny optimism that won it.
Philip, they BOTH won it. They combined to win it. Johnson was key. Farage was key. Both strands - immigration and sovereignty - were needed. This is undeniable. If you're going to deny it it will have to become yet another statement - number 8 it will be - on the list of your absurdities that I maintain and occasionally publish. And I know you don't want that. As so often it's perhaps a language thing. When you say "won it" you mean won YOUR vote. Fine. And Farage won other people's votes. Plenty of them.
EDIT - and massive hats off for saying "Johnson" rather than "Boris". That is huge in my book.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
As I've argued before, I disagree.
I think 'Take Back Control' is a terrible slogan. Who really wants to take back control in modern Britain? We want someone else to take control and then complain about the outcome. It screams 'Word to the wise - don't actually vote for this caper'. Allowing themselves to be labelled (though granted it was hard to avoid) as 'Brexiteers' didn't help either.
Agree on the bus statement.
Not really. It means “you call the shots”.
Who doesn’t want to call the shots?
Of course TAKE BACK CONTROL was a brilliant slogan
For a start it satisfied basically everyone in three words
For those worried about immigration, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR BORDERS
For those worried about sovereignty, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR LAWS
For those worried about economics, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR EU CONTRIBUTIONS
For those who are just a bit worried about the way things are changing, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF SOCIETY AND MAKE IT NICE AGAIN
Genius. I can't even remember the Remain slogans. Stronger In? Was that it? Stronger in what? Sounds a like a bad porn movie
Bad porn movie? I'm surprised you know about such things. What a complex Lady you are.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Really? Personally think that humans are so innately tribal. God knows why, but it's true. Meaning that we ALL harbor some degree of racism. Note that Lyndon Johnson would semi-habitually throw out the N-word in private conversation. Yet he did more to advance the cause of civil rights in America (for example, 1964 Voting Rights Act) than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
As for UK, on my last visit happened to witness a confrontation between a group of British Asian teenagers and White British bobbies. Have no idea how the coppers vote, but they didn't come off as hard-core Moselyites. As for the kids, they didn't look like delinquents or gangbangers. Yet you could have cut the mutual dislike with a meat ax.
Consider my own self to be a decent, left-minded enlightened kind of guy. Yet occasionally find thoughts popping into my head that would shame Strom Thurmond. When this happens, bite my tongue and think about what my mother said when I was ten and she heard my use the N-word; not out of malice, but just cause other kids said it & I thought is was colorful speech (no pun intended).
She told me, that word is a VERY bad word. That I should never say it. That she knew Black kids when she went to high school (there were none in my school, and only one Black person in the whole town) who had bee extremely hurt by that word.
Will never forget what she said, and the way she said it. And I pray I never do.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
When are we doing it again
You'll have to wait for a generation to pass for another referendum Malc.
That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.
What narrative?
Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?
Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.
Difference is that Scotland really is at nearly zero deaths from Covid.
The English update is good news, but it's not zero Covid deaths; it's the number of Covid deaths is less than the variability in the baseline. England is getting there, but noticeably more slowly than many of our neighbours.
Scotland shouldn't be compared to England it should be compared to a region of England as that is comparing like-for-like in population areas.
Many regions of England are at or near zero COVID deaths.
Scotland has fewer ethnic minorities as well, and there does appear to be a genetic component
Excuses excuses.
Indeed. Its not like we are short of our quotient of fat smokers and drinkers with high levels of comorbidity.
Yes, I’ve now seen a long list of excuses why England is performing worse than Scotland, but there are actually a lot of reasons why Scotland *ought* to be performing worse than England, not least levels of heart/lung disease, low general fitness, poverty, obesity, diabetes and alcohol abuse. That we are not must partly be down to good governance, but also to high compliance among the populace. Folk respect the government and experts of Scotland in a way lacking down south.
The reason there was a cross-party political consensus on our EU membership for so long is because different aspects of it appealed to respective political parties.
For John Major, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Hesetine, Ken Clarke, Chris Patten and George Osborne it was a vehicle to advance the British national interest and maintain global power.
For Denis MacShane, Peter Hain, Jack Straw, David and Ed Miliband, and Charles Kennedy it was a way to surpass nation-states with supranationalism and achieve European Unity.
The only Tory I can think of on the centre-right who was decisively in the latter camp was Ted Heath.
Funnily enough, I think Tony Blair was somewhere inbetween the two.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
I have a friend with an unusually bright son, interested in politics, who was twelve years old at the time of the referendum.
The boy was Remain all the way, until he heard the slogan "Take Back Control". He immediately switched. Who wouldn't want to Take Back Control?
Maybe Remain would have been better to be unashamedly Euronationalist.
Building a community of nations. Working together to solve our common problems. Europe is stronger when it works together. Continuing the work of Churchill. Etc.
Ultimately, Remain was scared to put forward a positive vision, and saw Project Fear as the best way forward. Who wants to lose their job, after all? The truth is that Project Fear barely worked in Scotland. It was arrogant beyond belief to think it would be enough in the UK.
I don't buy that. There are plenty of people who on balance would prefer to remain in the EU for economic reasons, but the market for Euronationalism has always been much smaller. Even many avid Remainers shy away from the more federalist elements. Remain ran Project Fear because it was the best selling point for the product they were offering.
I'm not the person to ask, because I've always favoured a looser relationship with the EU. I was just wondering if a more positive Remain case would have resonated more.
After all, before 2014 only a relatively small minority of Scots were genuine nationalists, usually 15-20% of voters. Perhaps a Euronationalist campaign would have resonated with some people. But we'll never know.
It was Scotland all over again: "It's really scary outside the EU. Do you want to risk it?"
It was a terrible strategy in Scotland (where it nearly lost), and it was a terrible strategy in the EU referendum.
That being said, @LadyG is correct that "take back control" was a brilliant slogan. Because it managed to unite those who felt the EU was too protectionist, with those who felt it was not protectionist enough. The Leave campaign was also very smart with regards to £350m, because Remain (bless their cotton socks) spent most of the time saying "it's not really £350m, it's *only* £250m".
As I've argued before, I disagree.
I think 'Take Back Control' is a terrible slogan. Who really wants to take back control in modern Britain? We want someone else to take control and then complain about the outcome. It screams 'Word to the wise - don't actually vote for this caper'. Allowing themselves to be labelled (though granted it was hard to avoid) as 'Brexiteers' didn't help either.
Agree on the bus statement.
Not really. It means “you call the shots”.
Who doesn’t want to call the shots?
Of course TAKE BACK CONTROL was a brilliant slogan
For a start it satisfied basically everyone in three words
For those worried about immigration, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR BORDERS
For those worried about sovereignty, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR LAWS
For those worried about economics, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR EU CONTRIBUTIONS
For those who are just a bit worried about the way things are changing, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF SOCIETY AND MAKE IT NICE AGAIN
Genius. I can't even remember the Remain slogans. Stronger In? Was that it? Stronger in what? Sounds a like a bad porn movie
Bad porn movie? I'm surprised you know about such things. What a complex Lady you are.
Take Back (whatever) also echos Make (fill in the blank) great again.
"Tis a DOG WHISTLE that means, the Others have ruined this country, and the tme has come to kick their asses and kick them out.
As for the Others, clearly that does NOT mean Average White People. It means foreigners, freaks and folks who are more "colorful" that us.
The reason there was a cross-party political consensus on our EU membership for so long is because different aspects of it appealed to respective political parties.
For John Major, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Hesetine, Ken Clarke, Chris Patten and George Osborne it was a vehicle to advance the British national interest and maintain global power.
For Denis MacShane, Peter Hain, Jack Straw, David and Ed Miliband, and Charles Kennedy it was a way to surpass nation-states with supranationalism and achieve European Unity.
The only Tory I can think of on the centre-right who was decisively in the latter camp was Ted Heath.
Funnily enough, I think Tony Blair was somewhere inbetween the two.
For some on the Left a big attraction was employment, environmental and consumer protection.
Really? Personally think that humans are so innately tribal. God knows why, but it's true. Meaning that we ALL harbor some degree of racism. Note that Lyndon Johnson would semi-habitually throw out the N-word in private conversation. Yet he did more to advance the cause of civil rights in America (for example, 1964 Voting Rights Act) than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
As for UK, on my last visit happened to witness a confrontation between a group of British Asian teenagers and White British bobbies. Have no idea how the coppers vote, but they didn't come off as hard-core Moselyites. As for the kids, they didn't look like delinquents or gangbangers. Yet you could have cut the mutual dislike with a meat ax.
Consider my own self to be a decent, left-minded enlightened kind of guy. Yet occasionally find thoughts popping into my head that would shame Strom Thurmond. When this happens, bite my tongue and think about what my mother said when I was ten and she heard my use the N-word; not out of malice, but just cause other kids said it & I thought is was colorful speech (no pun intended).
She told me, that word is a VERY bad word. That I should never say it. That she knew Black kids when she went to high school (there were none in my school, and only one Black person in the whole town) who had bee extremely hurt by that word.
Will never forget what she said, and the way she said it. And I pray I never do.
All people are wary of things that are different to their view of life, all people harbor racist tendencies although it is diminishing across the generations. I’m afraid people don’t even know they are being racist when they fall back on the racial stereotypes they have grown up with. I believe it’s wrong to occasionally drop into that way of thinking and will try and validate or challenge why I think that way.
Mr. xP, you give too much praise to Boris Johnson and not enough censure for the pro-EU campaign.
A positive campaign on economics would've swayed enough people. Instead they developed a bus fixation and tried arguing that we don't give Ultramegabucks to the EU, but only Hypermegabucks.
People are there to be persuaded, that's the point of democracy. The fearful approach taken by Remain proved their undoing. Boris Johnson wasn't some sort of incredible pied piper. He was a plus for the Leave campaign, but we should not forget the campaign overall was dreadful.
It's just that Remain managed to be even worse.
I disagree. The Leave campaign was better than I expected while the Remain campaign was worse than expected.
Prior to the Referendum it was expected that Leave would campaign on immigration and Remain on the economy. Instead Leave took the battle onto what was perceived to be Remains ground and the economy debate became a question of how much money we pay the EU each year.
It was a tactical and strategic masterstroke. Had Leave been led by Farage and his ilk it'd have been immigration day in, day out and would have lost.
Leave was led by Farage and his ilk.
Nope wrong again.
You wish it were not so. You wish "Leave" was lead by sophisticated scholars of sovereignty all debating the merits or otherwise of Droite de Suite or the much prized ability to reduce VAT on home energy bills. But the reality is that it was absolutely lead by Farage and his ilk with their racist posters and message on immigration.
An honest leaver would accept that and note that it was worth hitching their wagon to such people for the greater good of sovereignty.
You seem to have a problem with basic comprehension and facts. No wonder you voted Remain.
Leave was led by Vote Leave. Farage was explicitly excluded and even threatened law suits when his lot were not declared the official campaign.
You want it all to have been down to Farage because that suits your warped and quite deluded world view. You simply cannot accept that your side were beaten by a better campaign that did not rely upon xenophobia.
LOL. Such a fine distinction: "Vote Leave"..."Leave EU"... @Philip_Thompson meanwhile just said "Leave" which is absolutely right to use. They were all the same.
If you had just one functioning brain cell (which I appreciate you don't) you would see what anyone with a pulse could: the "Leave" effort was lead by Farage.
You want to have aligned yourself with the cerebral Leavers (LOL) but you actually aligned yourself with the racists.
There are hardly any racists in the UK. At the last general election the BNP could only manage to put up one candidate, in Hornchurch and Upminster.
I wouldn’t go that far. Active racists are probably in the 5-10% box and passive racists in the 15-25% box.
But, our society is neither structurally nor institutionally racist, and nor are three quarters of people and we’ve made huge progress over the last 40 years.
Yet again I concur (approx) with your figures. Well well.
Case data, Regional England, Pillar1, by specimen date.
Taken the last month, highlighted anything over 5.
Very interesting. We're using the same data. I've only looked at England as a whole, London and Leicester. Your chart clearly shows some other problem areas. It's not just Leicester.
SeanF, great to see your here, don't think so since I've come back from my expedition to Tannu Tuva and back by way of Timbuctu, Tokyo, Tupelo & Toxteth. How you keepin', buddy? Stay health, happy and weird as fuq!
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the referendum campaign, the current government has to make the unworkable work. They are not doing a good job of it, so far.
I think OGH may be barking up the wrong tree here. It seems to me that TM was primarily upset that her friend and former colleague has been sacked.
I don't think it is in her nature to be disloyal in the long term and even if it was she doesn't have many friends left in the Commons (the lack of clubbability was part of her problem).
I had a look at the wikipedia article for the Tory one nation group and it is really noticeable how many jumped or were pushed at the last election. I count there are 26 left:
Really? Personally think that humans are so innately tribal. God knows why, but it's true. Meaning that we ALL harbor some degree of racism. Note that Lyndon Johnson would semi-habitually throw out the N-word in private conversation. Yet he did more to advance the cause of civil rights in America (for example, 1964 Voting Rights Act) than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
As for UK, on my last visit happened to witness a confrontation between a group of British Asian teenagers and White British bobbies. Have no idea how the coppers vote, but they didn't come off as hard-core Moselyites. As for the kids, they didn't look like delinquents or gangbangers. Yet you could have cut the mutual dislike with a meat ax.
Consider my own self to be a decent, left-minded enlightened kind of guy. Yet occasionally find thoughts popping into my head that would shame Strom Thurmond. When this happens, bite my tongue and think about what my mother said when I was ten and she heard my use the N-word; not out of malice, but just cause other kids said it & I thought is was colorful speech (no pun intended).
She told me, that word is a VERY bad word. That I should never say it. That she knew Black kids when she went to high school (there were none in my school, and only one Black person in the whole town) who had bee extremely hurt by that word.
Will never forget what she said, and the way she said it. And I pray I never do.
I think that there are circumstances in which adopting an attitude of us v them makes perfect sense (however unpleasant it may be).
There are plenty of cases where two ethnic groups are fighting each other for control of the same patch of land. Most of us have no choice but to choose a side, in that case.
That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.
What narrative?
Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?
Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.
Difference is that Scotland really is at nearly zero deaths from Covid.
The English update is good news, but it's not zero Covid deaths; it's the number of Covid deaths is less than the variability in the baseline. England is getting there, but noticeably more slowly than many of our neighbours.
Scotland shouldn't be compared to England it should be compared to a region of England as that is comparing like-for-like in population areas.
Many regions of England are at or near zero COVID deaths.
Scotland has fewer ethnic minorities as well, and there does appear to be a genetic component
Excuses excuses.
Indeed. Its not like we are short of our quotient of fat smokers and drinkers with high levels of comorbidity.
Yes, I’ve now seen a long list of excuses why England is performing worse than Scotland, but there are actually a lot of reasons why Scotland *ought* to be performing worse than England, not least levels of heart/lung disease, low general fitness, poverty, obesity, diabetes and alcohol abuse. That we are not must partly be down to good governance, but also to high compliance among the populace. Folk respect the government and experts of Scotland in a way lacking down south.
I suspect Scotland got a smaller dose of virus to begin with.
In life there's always luck involved.
But a smaller dose of virus in the first wave would make Scotland more vulnerable if there are future waves.
Just as there are parts of England which are more vulnerable than others to a second wave.
Comments
This is a very interesting interview regarding the referendum, in my opinion, with Patrick O'Flynn, formerly of Farage era UKIP, now SDP. He joined Vote Leave as he thought Leave couldn't win if fronted by Farage.
Maybe @TOPPING @Richard_Tyndall & @Philip_Thompson would like it too
https://m.soundcloud.com/thepoliticalparty/show-85-patrick-oflynn
Official data is here. You can download it to a spreadsheet, but it takes a lot of messing around to get it into a useful form. Malmesbury seems to have cracked the extraction.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Build a data cube...
And then use POI, again, to build Excel spreadsheets, complete with graphs.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/feb/20/love-and-free-food-mel-brooks-and-carl-reiner-share-the-secrets-of-their-70-year-friendship
The argument was either for the EU membership or against the EU membership. Nothing else.
That some racists were on one side doesn't make that side racists. You're making the same logical fallacy as those who count up non-Tory votes and add them to Labour.
You can not say that in 2019 everyone who didn't vote Tory voted for an anti-Semite to be PM. You can say that about those who voted Labour but not for those who were anti Tory but for other parties.
In 2010 people thought Lib Dems votes should be added to Labour voted to demonstrate the Tories should not be in government. But the Lib Dems are not Labour. And Leave is not UKIP.
China has basically passed an Enabling Act in and for Hong Kong. Beijing can now do what it pleases. They can expel non-residents on a mere accusation. They can seize anyone and take them to the mainland. There is no judicial oversight. Life imprisonment on a whim. On and on
https://twitter.com/XinqiSu/status/1277992718455586816?s=20
Hong Kong cannot survive this. Its economy will surely collapse.
It was the argument that it was strongly in our national interest and enhanced Britain's power that would have won over soft eurosceptics. Particularly Tory ones.
Not wankety-wank over euronationalism that would only ever get AC Grayling excited and worry everyone else.
And a mass exodus is certainly possible.
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1278007353632329728?s=21
Interesting to see the collapse in numbers in Lancashire since the end of May.
They go low we go high would not have worked.
So we had to go low too - and it still didn't work.
I agree that "collapse" is probably hyperbole, there is too much invested. But business will swiftly divert - some will go to Shanghai (you might as well be in mainland China now, what's the benefit of HK?). Some will go to Singapore/Tokyo.
Beijing won't care. They clearly feel untouchable now. Too powerful.
Taiwan is next.
Are there some highlights you could point us to or repeat?
It wasn't Farage banging on about immigrants that won it, it was Johnson, Gove etc giving a positive image about what we could do outside of Europe. It was Johnson's sunny optimism that won it.
Remain's big error - more precisely Cameron's big error - we have to assume he wanted the UK to remain in the EU given he was fronting up the campaign - was to hold the unnecessary and actually quite stupid referendum in the first place.
But, that represents the ceiling of voters he wouldn’t have otherwise put off.
Just rejoice at that news.
I would just add that the Brexit issue was a matter to be decided between centrists, as most of the UK population is situated in the political centre. There are enough of either extremists or racists for this to be a major factor in the debate or the result. Ignoring this skews the whole discussion.
I think 'Take Back Control' is a terrible slogan. Who really wants to take back control in modern Britain? We want someone else to take control and then complain about the outcome. It screams 'Word to the wise - don't actually vote for this caper'. Allowing themselves to be labelled (though granted it was hard to avoid) as 'Brexiteers' didn't help either.
Agree on the bus statement.
Here you had a major Leave character pushing an anti-immigration agenda and view. That it was so central ( @isam where is your wordcloud?) marked this out as different.
The whole Make Britain Great Again/Rally against Droite de Suite element which I am prepared to believe @Philip_Thompson was a part of, would not have won without Farage.
Racists? Nothing to do with me, guv. All about that pesky 5% VAT on home energy bills.
My simple point was that by any objective assessment (and Paul O'Flynn agrees with me as I speed-listen to his interview) Farage did lead the Leave campaign.
"We had two campaigns...Johnson/etc for the middle classes...Farage/Banks for the working class".
https://expatmortgages-uk.com/hong-kong-and-chinese-investment-in-london-properties-soars-to-new-levels/
See a selection of the Vote Leave ads here (if your blood pressure can stand it...)
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Fake_news_evidence/Vote-Leave-50-Million-Ads.pdf
So, at 12 he instinctively recognizes the power of a great political slogan. At 16 he stares implacably right through it and rejects its shallow populism.
Yep - I predict straight 9s coming up.
But Farage's campaign certainly tapped into something in the UK that people responded to.
There was a joint campaign for Leave - the higher ground sovereignists as exemplified by Johnson and followed by @Philip_Thompson and then Farage. Both were vital to each other.
https://soundcloud.com/thepoliticalparty/show-85-patrick-oflynn
38:50
Personally I agree with 'Boris being the lemonade to Farage's lager in the Lager top' analogy. Leave needed a mainstream figure to get it over the line, but it is silly to think there would have been a referendum at all had UKIP not been doing so well in the polls, by elections and GE, and Boris probably only joined in to further his own career. I actually quite like the idea of FOM, a cosmopolitan lifestyle and am not that fussed about the European Union, I just dont think it fair on the poorest British people to have to suffer all the hardships of mass immigration whilst the richest take all the profit. FOM from countries with similar sized economies, where the push and pull factor means corporates cant just import million of cheap workers is a nice idea that I would vote for.
Always amazes me that the party of the Trade Unions was so keen on it
It's an object lesson in how a single issue party can have a very big impact under First Past the Post, without winning seats. Consistently win 10% from other parties, and you can throw the system into turmoil. The party or parties that you take votes from have to start moving in your direction.
Paradoxically, you can win 10% under PR, and get a solid number of MP's, and still be kept in the cold by other parties.
As to the campaign, like Casino Royale, at the time, I thought that the Leave campaign was terribly botched. I expected the Remain camp's arguments to have far more resonance than they did. As against that, I thought that the Labour Leave literature (and in Luton, the Leave campaign was mostly Labour Leave) was very good. It was very well pitched towards centrist voters.
But, our society is neither structurally nor institutionally racist, and nor are three quarters of people and we’ve made huge progress over the last 40 years.
But as to your "he didn't lead it but was hugely important..."
I think he was one of the very few, count them on the fingers of one hand personalities of the entire campaign.
Out on the ground they almost entirely left activists to themselves.
So yes, this is China just beginning to assume America-like powers, globally
For all its many many faults, America is not as scary as China. We are entering a sobering new world
Who doesn’t want to call the shots?
For a start it satisfied basically everyone in three words
For those worried about immigration, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR BORDERS
For those worried about sovereignty, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR LAWS
For those worried about economics, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR EU CONTRIBUTIONS
For those who are just a bit worried about the way things are changing, it means TAKE BACK CONTROL OF SOCIETY AND MAKE IT NICE AGAIN
Genius. I can't even remember the Remain slogans. Stronger In? Was that it? Stronger in what? Sounds a like a bad porn movie
EDIT - and massive hats off for saying "Johnson" rather than "Boris". That is huge in my book.
What a complex Lady you are.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/53236921
https://twitter.com/archer_rs/status/1277505330885386240
Really? Personally think that humans are so innately tribal. God knows why, but it's true. Meaning that we ALL harbor some degree of racism. Note that Lyndon Johnson would semi-habitually throw out the N-word in private conversation. Yet he did more to advance the cause of civil rights in America (for example, 1964 Voting Rights Act) than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
As for UK, on my last visit happened to witness a confrontation between a group of British Asian teenagers and White British bobbies. Have no idea how the coppers vote, but they didn't come off as hard-core Moselyites. As for the kids, they didn't look like delinquents or gangbangers. Yet you could have cut the mutual dislike with a meat ax.
Consider my own self to be a decent, left-minded enlightened kind of guy. Yet occasionally find thoughts popping into my head that would shame Strom Thurmond. When this happens, bite my tongue and think about what my mother said when I was ten and she heard my use the N-word; not out of malice, but just cause other kids said it & I thought is was colorful speech (no pun intended).
She told me, that word is a VERY bad word. That I should never say it. That she knew Black kids when she went to high school (there were none in my school, and only one Black person in the whole town) who had bee extremely hurt by that word.
Will never forget what she said, and the way she said it. And I pray I never do.
"Stronger In’s head of strategy, Ryan Coetzee, had run the Liberal Democrat 2015 election campaign. "
That was the election campaign when the Lib Dems went from 57 seats to 8
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/05/how-remain-failed-inside-story-doomed-campaign
Also, why did they ever let themselves be saddled with a sad word like Remain?
They should have gone for STAY. That's a much warmer, kinder word. Oh, please stay. Won't you stay for another drink? I'd love to STAY
Idiots.
For John Major, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Hesetine, Ken Clarke, Chris Patten and George Osborne it was a vehicle to advance the British national interest and maintain global power.
For Denis MacShane, Peter Hain, Jack Straw, David and Ed Miliband, and Charles Kennedy it was a way to surpass nation-states with supranationalism and achieve European Unity.
The only Tory I can think of on the centre-right who was decisively in the latter camp was Ted Heath.
Funnily enough, I think Tony Blair was somewhere inbetween the two.
After all, before 2014 only a relatively small minority of Scots were genuine nationalists, usually 15-20% of voters. Perhaps a Euronationalist campaign would have resonated with some people. But we'll never know.
"Tis a DOG WHISTLE that means, the Others have ruined this country, and the tme has come to kick their asses and kick them out.
As for the Others, clearly that does NOT mean Average White People. It means foreigners, freaks and folks who are more "colorful" that us.
I don't think it is in her nature to be disloyal in the long term and even if it was she doesn't have many friends left in the Commons (the lack of clubbability was part of her problem).
I had a look at the wikipedia article for the Tory one nation group and it is really noticeable how many jumped or were pushed at the last election. I count there are 26 left:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Nation_Conservatives_(caucus)
It's also worth pointing out that Heath was never very supportive of Thatcher but it never seemed to do her any harm.
There are plenty of cases where two ethnic groups are fighting each other for control of the same patch of land. Most of us have no choice but to choose a side, in that case.
In life there's always luck involved.
But a smaller dose of virus in the first wave would make Scotland more vulnerable if there are future waves.
Just as there are parts of England which are more vulnerable than others to a second wave.