The German Federal elections next September are certainly the main international elections next year and will be the first since 2002 in which Merkel will not be the CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate. In my view the CDU membership will pick Friedrich Merz to be their candidate who is more rightwing and conservative than Merkel is as well as being a multimillionaire corporate lawyer and former CDU/CSU Bundestag leader from 2000 to 2002.
In terms of the election itself the CDU/CSU will almost certainly be the largest party in the Bundestag but I cannot see the Greens who are likely to overtake the SPD for second as Robert states supporting Merz for Chancellor and nor can I see a CDU led by Merz supporting the Greens leader, Annalena Baerbock for Chancellor either.
So that leaves Baerbock to become Chancellor if the Greens, SPD and Linke combined seat total is more than that for the CDU/CSU and FDP combined or Merz to become Chancellor if the CDU/CSU and FDP combined total is more than the Greens, SPD and Linke combined. Assuming too of course Merz will follow Merkel's lead and still refuse to do any deal with the AfD
Yes, why not keep on speculating about a subject on which you clearly know very little.
Well what makes you the oracle of German politics then if you want to make such a pompous, patronising comment?
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
That depends on who the immigrants are.
Few people disapprove of doctors from the third world.
Many people disapprove of turnip pickers from the first world.
The major shifts in public support for Brexit wouldn't have happened without the backdrop of the 2014-16 middle east migration crisis. Simply speaking, the Tories will know from their internal polling that if all immigration isn't perceived to have been reduced across the board after Brexit, they will lose support ; and there's no great secret about that.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
That depends on who the immigrants are.
Few people disapprove of doctors from the third world.
Many people disapprove of turnip pickers from the first world.
The major shifts in public support for Brexit wouldn't have happened without the backdrop of the 2014-16 migration crisis. Simply speaking, the Tories will know from their internal polling that if all immigration isn't perceived to have reduced board across the after Brexit they will lose support ; there's no great secret about that.
The flip side is there is no getting away from the basics - with our demographics and pensioner lifestyle expectations we need immigration, whether we want it or not.
Maybe this time the politicians will take the voters with them, but theyre not exactly renowned for their plain dealing.
BoZo is currently the best example that telling lies wins votes
Well he comes from the same stable as Cameron and Osborne so what do you expect ?
I think what really upsets some people is that Boris has, yet again, proved he is more talented and popular and even hard working than Cameron and Osborne.
His ability to pick negotiators seems much more finely tuned than that of Cameron or May.
BTW, I think this is the problem for touring artists. They can get a visa, but the trucks full of gear will need customs paperwork for every item on board
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
But the paperwork is for exports so not things your average person will see day to day.
Boris is promising to remove red tape so the Government will remove some governmental paperwork , point at it and say job done.
People won't see the paperwork but they will pay for it.
The German Federal elections next September are certainly the main international elections next year and will be the first since 2002 in which Merkel will not be the CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate. In my view the CDU membership will pick Friedrich Merz to be their candidate who is more rightwing and conservative than Merkel is as well as being a multimillionaire corporate lawyer and former CDU/CSU Bundestag leader from 2000 to 2002.
In terms of the election itself the CDU/CSU will almost certainly be the largest party in the Bundestag but I cannot see the Greens who are likely to overtake the SPD for second as Robert states supporting Merz for Chancellor and nor can I see a CDU led by Merz supporting the Greens leader, Annalena Baerbock for Chancellor either.
So that leaves Baerbock to become Chancellor if the Greens, SPD and Linke combined seat total is more than that for the CDU/CSU and FDP combined or Merz to become Chancellor if the CDU/CSU and FDP combined total is more than the Greens, SPD and Linke combined. Assuming too of course Merz will follow Merkel's lead and still refuse to do any deal with the AfD
Yes, why not keep on speculating about a subject on which you clearly know very little.
Don’t say that, it just means he moves onto another subject on which he knows very little. Damn, too late.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
The German Federal elections next September are certainly the main international elections next year and will be the first since 2002 in which Merkel will not be the CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate. In my view the CDU membership will pick Friedrich Merz to be their candidate who is more rightwing and conservative than Merkel is as well as being a multimillionaire corporate lawyer and former CDU/CSU Bundestag leader from 2000 to 2002.
In terms of the election itself the CDU/CSU will almost certainly be the largest party in the Bundestag but I cannot see the Greens who are likely to overtake the SPD for second as Robert states supporting Merz for Chancellor and nor can I see a CDU led by Merz supporting the Greens leader, Annalena Baerbock for Chancellor either.
So that leaves Baerbock to become Chancellor if the Greens, SPD and Linke combined seat total is more than that for the CDU/CSU and FDP combined or Merz to become Chancellor if the CDU/CSU and FDP combined total is more than the Greens, SPD and Linke combined. Assuming too of course Merz will follow Merkel's lead and still refuse to do any deal with the AfD
I'm going to disagree with you, my friend, not on the substantive but I think Rottgen might emerge as the compromise candidate. Laschet is the social conservative candidate but much more in Merkel's style than Merz.
In 2018 the first round of the CDU leadership election was Kamp-Karrenbauer 45%, Merz 39% and Spahn 15%.
The runoff was Kamp-Karrenbauer 51.7% and Merz 48.25% so it will likely be close whoever wins
Maybe this time the politicians will take the voters with them, but theyre not exactly renowned for their plain dealing.
BoZo is currently the best example that telling lies wins votes
Well he comes from the same stable as Cameron and Osborne so what do you expect ?
Same stable but I talked to the trainer and he says on this front - lying - Johnson is the best he's ever had by a distance. Couldn't believe his luck when he put him through his paces on the morning he arrived.
Natural talent, very little schooling needed, lies fluently on the Flat and over the jumps.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
The EU is a depreciating asset in trade terms. Even if the EU were to slap tariffs on one of its best customers, its an ever less significant slice of global trade.
This mantra of the EU being an ever smaller slice of the global economy and world trade is a good example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. Of course the EU is shrinking in relative terms, because of the growth of Asia and especially China. The same is true for us. But the EU will remain our biggest trading partner for decades to come, because of geography and the similarity of our economies. Making it harder to trade with the EU doesn't make it easier to trade with anyone else - quite the opposite in fact. The EU's single market facilitates efficient value chains - which is why Germany is so successful in exporting to the Far East from inside the EU. Having a large domestic market also helps firms to achieve critical mass and become successful exporters. The FTA will preserve some of these benefits, relative to a WTO Brexit, so we should be thankful for that at least.
The EU has to run hard to win its share of UK trade, just to stand still with where they were before Brexit. That they were prepared to take that risk with Cameron shows they are not a trade organisation, but a political one. One we were right to leave, because our interests were not alligned.
We can now get back to our relationship with the EU being around trade, where we are much happier.
Replacing our single market membership with an FTA will likely reduce goods trade flows only a little, but services trade will be more affected - so it is quite possible that the net impact will be to widen our overall trade deficit with the EU even while overall bilateral trade flows decline. Our overall trade deficit with the rest of the world will probably narrow owing to weaker GBP and reduced capital inflows. You may be happier with that kind of outcome, I am not.
If twatter had existed twenty years ago we would have been inundated with people claiming that not joining the Euro was a disaster and that the UK would soon be forced to.
If they'd said that not joining the Euro was a disaster because it would eventually lead to us leaving the EU, they'd have been right, and all the people who are now Brexiteers would have said they were talking nonsense.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
I agree can not see anyway Johnson would agree to a Scottish referendum, even if the SNP win a majority. As you say if the SNP do hold a referendum in those circumstances it would be just for show.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Maybe this time the politicians will take the voters with them, but theyre not exactly renowned for their plain dealing.
BoZo is currently the best example that telling lies wins votes
Well he comes from the same stable as Cameron and Osborne so what do you expect ?
Same stable but I talked to the trainer and he says on this front - lying - Johnson is the best he's ever had by a distance. Couldn't believe his luck when he put him through his paces on the morning he arrived.
Disagree.
Boris comes across as an insecure liar who wants to cover up his lack of knowledge or to tell people what he thinks they want to hear.
Whereas Cameron, and likewise Blair and Clegg, were smooth sociopathic liars who had no problem lying when it suited their purposes.
States of Guernsey (parliament) debating the UK-EC TCA - "Much better than we could have expected to achieve" - Chief Minister recommending agreement.
Guernsey (still 6 cases) also updated COVID data today - what's this with all the UK jurisdictions (ex-England) taking a few days off in the middle of a fast moving pandemic?
I didn't think the Channel Islands were in the EU! Apart from fisheries and finance, what's their interest?
As a membership organisation, the EU needs to maximise the value of membership. Although, I guess, none of our business, the EU has negotiated very successfully from its PoV. The essential thing for its interest is that the UK did in the end agree a deal, largely on EU terms, with EU giving away relatively little on its maximalist asks.
David Frost negotiated poorly in terms of specific outcomes. He focused entirely on fish and LPF asks with limited success, while abandoning asks on things such as services, financial services, conformity inspections and data that he could probably have got, and which in some cases are already in other EU trade deals. This means not just important industries finding access to their most important market yet more difficult, but also that the UK will need to concede on something else if it wants to push for these later on.
The UK government can however declare victory and doesn't care about the detail. And so is a winner too.
In the coming year, Trump will attempt to split the Republican Party into nutters and realists, then hope to stand as the "only candidate who can bring them together again"
BoZo stood and won as the candidate who could get the 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists' to vote Tory, but at the expense of Conservative and Unionist voters
The disintegration of the Union will be a model case study in the value of this approach.
Several of the hardline US states have already mentioned secession
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
I was chatting to some salt of the earth Cockney racists the other day, who were complaining that immigrants these days weren't as good as immigrants in the olden days, so maybe there are Brexit voters who will be happy with a shift back to Commonwealth immigration rather than European.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
If xenophobes are never referred to as xenophobes for fear of causing offence we risk losing the word - and its relateds xenophobic and xenophobia - from the modern lexicon. Which would be a great shame since it describes a clear and specific thing for which there is no satisfactory alternative. Bigot and racist are much more aggressive terms and although there can and usually will be an overlap, there sometimes is not. A person can be xenophobic, for example, but neither racist not bigoted.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by pushing to keep Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing port seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
As a membership organisation, the EU needs to maximise the value of membership. Although, I guess, none of our business, the EU has negotiated very successfully from its PoV. The essential thing for its interest is that the UK did in the end agree a deal, largely on EU terms, with EU giving away relatively little on its maximalist asks.
David Frost negotiated poorly in terms of specific outcomes. He focused entirely on fish and LPF asks with limited success, while abandoning asks on things such as services, financial services, conformity inspections and data that he could probably have got, and which in some cases are already in other EU trade deals. This means not just important industries finding access to their most important market yet more difficult, but also that the UK will need to concede on something else if it wants to push for these later on.
The UK government can however declare victory and doesn't care about the detail. And so is a winner too.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
I'm told the mood for 2021 in the Parliamentary Conservative Party is very chipper....
In the coming year, Trump will attempt to split the Republican Party into nutters and realists, then hope to stand as the "only candidate who can bring them together again"
BoZo stood and won as the candidate who could get the 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists' to vote Tory, but at the expense of Conservative and Unionist voters
The disintegration of the Union will be a model case study in the value of this approach.
Several of the hardline US states have already mentioned secession
Interesting times ahead
Wrong, the Tories got 25% in Scotland last year under Boris, the second highest Tory voteshare in Scotland since 1992.
The Tories got 36% in Wales last year under Boris too, the highest Tory voteshare in Wales since before World War 2
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
I was chatting to some salt of the earth Cockney racists the other day, who were complaining that immigrants these days weren't as good as immigrants in the olden days, so maybe there are Brexit voters who will be happy with a shift back to Commonwealth immigration rather than European.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
With respect the SNP will hand them back to Brussels and this deal will improve catches in an incremental way without creating violence amongst different fishing fleets
And maybe a more considered view would be helped by reading this
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by keeping Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
You are showing amazing ignorance, or mendacity, I won't speculate which, in your astonishing belief that the Scottish Governments were ever given power to renegotiate the various agreements with the EU.
See - you are trying to blame everyone else for your party's selling out the fishermen. As they have done yet again, on which the fishermen are very clear.
As for the poll, given how the background has changed and how public sentiment has changed over the last 4 years, it's about as useful as a Which article on the relative merits of an Austin Maxi and a Ford Cortina would be for the average buyer today. ,
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
With respect the SNP will hand them back to Brussels and this deal will improve catches in an incremental way without creating violence amongst different fishing fleets
And maybe a more considered view would be helped by reading this
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
This question will play a big part in a second referendum, in a way that it didn’t in the first one.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
Same asd it has always been for the last 4 centuries or so, one village football ground aside. The different legal systems clearly identify the land in question, for one thing.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by keeping Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
You are showing amazing ignorance, or mendacity, I won't speculate which, in your astonishing belief that the Scottish Governments were ever given power to renegotiate the various agreements with the EU.
See - you are trying to blame everyone else for your party's selling out the fishermen. As they have done yet again, on which the fishermen are very clear.
As for the poll, given how the background has changed and how public sentiment has changed over the last 4 years, it's about as useful as a Which article on the relative merits of an Austin Maxi and a Ford Cortina would be for the average buyer today. ,
You can insult me as much as your little Nat head wants, it does not change the fact the SNP were and are committed to keeping Scotland in the CFP and selling out Scottish fishermen.
As for that poll, I see you still have not found any evidence to contradict it, nor a single poll that shows Scots oppose a Canada style FTA
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
Same asd it has always been for the last 4 centuries or so, one village football ground aside. The different legal systems clearly identify the land in question, for one thing.
Apart from the barbed wire, and the customs posts?
In the coming year, Trump will attempt to split the Republican Party into nutters and realists, then hope to stand as the "only candidate who can bring them together again"
BoZo stood and won as the candidate who could get the 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists' to vote Tory, but at the expense of Conservative and Unionist voters
The disintegration of the Union will be a model case study in the value of this approach.
Several of the hardline US states have already mentioned secession
Interesting times ahead
You keep telling us that Boris lost the votes of Conservatives and Unionists yet he got far more votes and seats than Cameron managed.
Especially in Scotland.
Perhaps your definition of 'Conservatives and Unionists' equates to posh boys and rich Londoners.
And could you remind us how the number of SNPs changed while Cameron was prime minister ?
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
This question will play a big part in a second referendum, in a way that it didn’t in the first one.
Paradoxically, Brexit makes Scotland's independence more likely, but when it becomes independent, Scotland is more likely to align with what's left of the UK than the EU for practical reasons. If your main objective is independence that's an OK result however.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
This question will play a big part in a second referendum, in a way that it didn’t in the first one.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
With respect the SNP will hand them back to Brussels and this deal will improve catches in an incremental way without creating violence amongst different fishing fleets
And maybe a more considered view would be helped by reading this
I'm sure deriding those who disagree with you as xenophobes will prove very persuasive.
I am not
I am deriding those who pretend Brexit wasn't a Xenophobic exercise
You don't understand, do you? It's just a straw man. You pretend that all Brexiters are xenophobes and racists so that you can just disengage from any other arguments they might have for leaving. In fact, being told I was a xenophobe and a racist contributed to me voting "out", on a screw you basis.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
I was chatting to some salt of the earth Cockney racists the other day, who were complaining that immigrants these days weren't as good as immigrants in the olden days, so maybe there are Brexit voters who will be happy with a shift back to Commonwealth immigration rather than European.
‘Them Huguenots were a great bunch of lads.’
Bloody Saxons, most of them don't even speak Welsh!
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Setting aside your tankism regarding self-determination, you need to see past the Boris Bluster about his great deal vs no deal. The deal is shit for the people it was sold to like fishermen - at least that's what the fishing industry is saying in its initial response.
You and the blue rinse brigade can keep telling them its great, they will tell you in detail why its not at which point I anticipate the line once again being wheeled out that we've had enough of experts.
The feel is as important as the fact. Fishing was billed as a glorious stand for Blighty despite it being worth tuppence ha'penny. It was small but important. The dismissing of Scottish interests is also small but also important. Northern people don't tend to forget being sneered at and told their opinions are irrelevant, especially by southern gentlemen like yourself.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
Presumably they are Spanish citizens by now, or have acquired some form of residency.
The German Federal elections next September are certainly the main international elections next year and will be the first since 2002 in which Merkel will not be the CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate. In my view the CDU membership will pick Friedrich Merz to be their candidate who is more rightwing and conservative than Merkel is as well as being a multimillionaire corporate lawyer and former CDU/CSU Bundestag leader from 2000 to 2002.
In terms of the election itself the CDU/CSU will almost certainly be the largest party in the Bundestag but I cannot see the Greens who are likely to overtake the SPD for second as Robert states supporting Merz for Chancellor and nor can I see a CDU led by Merz supporting the Greens leader, Annalena Baerbock for Chancellor either.
So that leaves Baerbock to become Chancellor if the Greens, SPD and Linke combined seat total is more than that for the CDU/CSU and FDP combined or Merz to become Chancellor if the CDU/CSU and FDP combined total is more than the Greens, SPD and Linke combined. Assuming too of course Merz will follow Merkel's lead and still refuse to do any deal with the AfD
Yes, why not keep on speculating about a subject on which you clearly know very little.
Well what makes you the oracle of German politics then if you want to make such a pompous, patronising comment?
Every time you comment on Germany you talk about the possibility of the CDU and the Afd doing a deal.
It's as if a German keeps commenting on British politics and every time says "if the LibDems fail to get an absolute majority at the next election...."
Maybe this time the politicians will take the voters with them, but theyre not exactly renowned for their plain dealing.
BoZo is currently the best example that telling lies wins votes
Well he comes from the same stable as Cameron and Osborne so what do you expect ?
Same stable but I talked to the trainer and he says on this front - lying - Johnson is the best he's ever had by a distance. Couldn't believe his luck when he put him through his paces on the morning he arrived.
Disagree.
Boris comes across as an insecure liar who wants to cover up his lack of knowledge or to tell people what he thinks they want to hear.
Whereas Cameron, and likewise Blair and Clegg, were smooth sociopathic liars who had no problem lying when it suited their purposes.
We're concentrating on form in the book not style in running. The latter is too subjective. Some people prefer a Cameron lie to a Clegg or a Blair or a Johnson one in the same way that people swoon about the Federer backhand even when he loses the point. No, forget all of that nonsense. On the hard stats - actual whoppers in the bag - Johnson has it by a country mile. He is Billy Liar and Walter Mitty and Pinocchio rolled into one.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
I do not know the detail on ex pats living abroad permanently but to be fair the point about the vast majority of ordinary folks enjoying their annual holiday in Spain or Portugal exactly as before is valid
Not quite the sort of numbers Boris Johnson would want, I think. Given the kind of the breathless coverage in much of the Conservative-friendly press so far, I also personally would have expected some numbers a bit higher than that .
Maybe we should stop using the remain brexit descriptions for people and then assume what they think based on that description. Let’s just see how it turns out, report facts not opinions and try not to replay the last four and a half years over and over, it’s like Scottish independence, boring until something tangible is in the offing. We have elections in May offering plenty of scope for new discussion topics.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
Presumably they are Spanish citizens by now, or have acquired some form of residency.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
With respect the SNP will hand them back to Brussels and this deal will improve catches in an incremental way without creating violence amongst different fishing fleets
And maybe a more considered view would be helped by reading this
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Setting aside your tankism regarding self-determination, you need to see past the Boris Bluster about his great deal vs no deal. The deal is shit for the people it was sold to like fishermen - at least that's what the fishing industry is saying in its initial response.
You and the blue rinse brigade can keep telling them its great, they will tell you in detail why its not at which point I anticipate the line once again being wheeled out that we've had enough of experts.
The feel is as important as the fact. Fishing was billed as a glorious stand for Blighty despite it being worth tuppence ha'penny. It was small but important. The dismissing of Scottish interests is also small but also important. Northern people don't tend to forget being sneered at and told their opinions are irrelevant, especially by southern gentlemen like yourself.
Have you read the institute for government report on the Fishing agreement
It is very interesting and should be reading for all those trying to make political points on it
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Setting aside your tankism regarding self-determination, you need to see past the Boris Bluster about his great deal vs no deal. The deal is shit for the people it was sold to like fishermen - at least that's what the fishing industry is saying in its initial response.
You and the blue rinse brigade can keep telling them its great, they will tell you in detail why its not at which point I anticipate the line once again being wheeled out that we've had enough of experts.
The feel is as important as the fact. Fishing was billed as a glorious stand for Blighty despite it being worth tuppence ha'penny. It was small but important. The dismissing of Scottish interests is also small but also important. Northern people don't tend to forget being sneered at and told their opinions are irrelevant, especially by southern gentlemen like yourself.
As I posted earlier this is a Canada style FTA and the polling we have shows most Scots would be happy with a Canada style FTA.
As for Scotland it is getting more from this Deal than the City of London is for example, Scottish whisky and Scottish goods will still go to the EU tariff free and Scottish fishermen will be able to get more of their own catch from Scottish waters.
The City however will see a reduction of access to the EU market with the end of automatic passporting rights across the EU for UK financial firms.
Hence I think there will be more resistance to this Deal in London than in Scotland
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
Presumably they are Spanish citizens by now, or have acquired some form of residency.
No they are dead! My grandma lived just long enough to vote Remain.
Maybe we should stop using the remain brexit descriptions for people and then assume what they think based on that description. Let’s just see how it turns out, report facts not opinions and try not to replay the last four and a half years over and over, it’s like Scottish independence, boring until something tangible is in the offing. We have elections in May offering plenty of scope for new discussion topics.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
This question will play a big part in a second referendum, in a way that it didn’t in the first one.
Generally proceeds ENE from the Solway Firth. Kinks North just before Berwick.
Maybe this time the politicians will take the voters with them, but theyre not exactly renowned for their plain dealing.
BoZo is currently the best example that telling lies wins votes
Well he comes from the same stable as Cameron and Osborne so what do you expect ?
Same stable but I talked to the trainer and he says on this front - lying - Johnson is the best he's ever had by a distance. Couldn't believe his luck when he put him through his paces on the morning he arrived.
Disagree.
Boris comes across as an insecure liar who wants to cover up his lack of knowledge or to tell people what he thinks they want to hear.
Whereas Cameron, and likewise Blair and Clegg, were smooth sociopathic liars who had no problem lying when it suited their purposes.
We're concentrating on form in the book not style in running. The latter is too subjective. Some people prefer a Cameron lie to a Clegg or a Blair or a Johnson one in the same way that people swoon about the Federer backhand even when he loses the point. No, forget all of that nonsense. On the hard stats - actual whoppers in the bag - Johnson has it by a country mile. He is Billy Liar and Walter Mitty and Pinocchio rolled into one.
Perhaps the key thing is to be a 'loveable liar'.
To give the impression that your heart is the right place and you are trying your best.
Rather than look like an arrogant type who thinks its good to lie because other people are 'beneath him'.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
I do not know the detail on ex pats living abroad permanently but to be fair the point about the vast majority of ordinary folks enjoying their annual holiday in Spain or Portugal exactly as before is valid
And no need for silly comments
Sorry Big G but your comment really grated. A lot of people most of whom are far from the champagne socialists of your imagination have had their lives and hopes for their own future turned upside down by Brexit.
You pretend that all Brexiters are xenophobes and racists
That of course is not what I said.
I said Brexit is a Xenophobic exercise.
That remains true however much people are embarrassed by their support for it.
Happy to rewrite it for you.
You don't understand, do you? It's just a straw man. You Brexit was "a xenophobic exercise" so that you can just disengage from any other arguments there might be for leaving. In fact, being told I was a xenophobe and a racist contributed to me voting "out", on a screw you basis.
None of the people I know who voted for "out" can be described as xenophobic or racist.
The German Federal elections next September are certainly the main international elections next year and will be the first since 2002 in which Merkel will not be the CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate. In my view the CDU membership will pick Friedrich Merz to be their candidate who is more rightwing and conservative than Merkel is as well as being a multimillionaire corporate lawyer and former CDU/CSU Bundestag leader from 2000 to 2002.
In terms of the election itself the CDU/CSU will almost certainly be the largest party in the Bundestag but I cannot see the Greens who are likely to overtake the SPD for second as Robert states supporting Merz for Chancellor and nor can I see a CDU led by Merz supporting the Greens leader, Annalena Baerbock for Chancellor either.
So that leaves Baerbock to become Chancellor if the Greens, SPD and Linke combined seat total is more than that for the CDU/CSU and FDP combined or Merz to become Chancellor if the CDU/CSU and FDP combined total is more than the Greens, SPD and Linke combined. Assuming too of course Merz will follow Merkel's lead and still refuse to do any deal with the AfD
Yes, why not keep on speculating about a subject on which you clearly know very little.
Well what makes you the oracle of German politics then if you want to make such a pompous, patronising comment?
Every time you comment on Germany you talk about the possibility of the CDU and the Afd doing a deal.
It's as if a German keeps commenting on British politics and every time says "if the LibDems fail to get an absolute majority at the next election...."
Where? Where did I mention that, nowhere.
However if say Merz is CDU chancellor candidate I think it is unlikely the Greens will do a deal with him and vice versa and if the only viable alternatives are a Green and SPD and Linke deal or a CDU and FDP and AfD deal who knows what would happen.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
I've seen some absolutely crazy people in the Labour Party. But it isn't just them calling sane people racist that creates the problem. Let me give you two examples for illustration: 1. The lovely Gillian Duffy from my hometown. Rochdale has sizeable British Asian communities who thanks to council policies of the past largely live in self-contained Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Kashmiri pockets. With the odd exception of inter-pocket troubles (in Oldham when I was at college there) everyone gets on. Duffy wasn't racist but she sees her British born and raised neighbours as the "other" which is a problem 2. His Eminence The Mayor of Thornaby Steve Walmsley. In a drunken 3am Facebook rant a week before the 2019 locals he declared a fatwa on Mrs RP and myself (both Labour candidates in the seat he hoped to win back for the Thornaby Independents). In it he claimed that as we weren't born and raised in Thornaby that we would never understand the town or its people and that we'd do better if we "went home" to Rochdale. That Mrs RP is a cockney didn't bother him
In both cases the fear is "the other" regardless of where they are from. There are far fewer outright racists than there are people who just dislike outsiders. They have been groomed by certain newspapers to see outsiders everywhere - knocking doors in almost entirely white Ingleby Barwick to be told "too many migrants" is just sad.
You can't pander to bigotry when its in your face. So I understand why people have called it out. The problem is that yoghurt-knitters have gone too far the other way and said that any sensible discussion about migration is racist which is ludicrous.
I have no idea how to fix this very English problem so I am leaving.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
I was chatting to some salt of the earth Cockney racists the other day, who were complaining that immigrants these days weren't as good as immigrants in the olden days, so maybe there are Brexit voters who will be happy with a shift back to Commonwealth immigration rather than European.
‘Them Huguenots were a great bunch of lads.’
Coming over ere ... with their neat haircuts and religious convictions.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
Presumably they are Spanish citizens by now, or have acquired some form of residency.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
I do not know the detail on ex pats living abroad permanently but to be fair the point about the vast majority of ordinary folks enjoying their annual holiday in Spain or Portugal exactly as before is valid
And no need for silly comments
Sorry Big G but your comment really grated. A lot of people most of whom are far from the champagne socialists of your imagination have had their lives and hopes for their own future turned upside down by Brexit.
I do understand the pain of many but in the end we must move on
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
I was chatting to some salt of the earth Cockney racists the other day, who were complaining that immigrants these days weren't as good as immigrants in the olden days, so maybe there are Brexit voters who will be happy with a shift back to Commonwealth immigration rather than European.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
Presumably they are Spanish citizens by now, or have acquired some form of residency.
Spanish health care for the over 65s is guaranteed by the Spanish government and paid for by the UK, you transfer our health care to the Spanish system and the UK pay a flat rate per person. You need a residents certificate and be on the electoral roll. Once one person gets it the partner is also covered regardless of age. I don’t know about the rest of Spain but our local service is excellent, outsourced from GP to ICU with the same company, free at point of delivery and now almost 100% English speaking. I have to pay small amounts for medication up to about 10e a week because my income is over the upper limit.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by pushing to keep Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing port seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
You are literally clueless - a fine qualification for the Chair of a Tory Association.
People voted Tory in the years that followed the referendum specifically to deliver Brexit.
Now that Brexit is here - and does the opposite for them of how you advertised it - do you really think they will keep voting for you?
I know you and a few other parrots will insist its a great deal for fishing and these fishermen don't know what they are talking about. But in the real world you are toast now that promises and rhetoric splat against the wall of reality.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Pretty nailed on.
Meanwhile PB Leavers will go very quiet on sunlit uplands...🌄
No, they will be quoting 2021 GDP growth to proclaim Brexit a success, ignoring the more obvious impact of covid in 2020 in that growth number.
One key issue next year is going to be what happens with the triple lock.
Do the Tories ditch it, break their manifesto promise and piss off a large chunk of their voters?
Or do they keep it, ensuring that the worst financial hit of the pandemic goes on the young?
Incidentally, I expect them to choose option b, but I don’t think it’s quite as straightforward a tradeoff as they believe. How many parents will be in the unfortunate @Cyclefree’s position and seeking to support children going through financial shit due to Covid? I’m guessing it will be a lot. And they won’t be happy about that...
I said back around March that he triple lock would be a casualty of Covid. The Govt. has perfect cover - the manifesto commitment is (along with everything else) subject to the very small-print caveat "subject always to the country not being buggered by unforeseen factors such as tsunami, meteor strike or plague...."
The raft of Covid-fighting measures taken, impacting liberty and the nation's finances, were to protect those of pension age. Sorry pensioners, but you are going to have to make your contribution to righting the nation's finances too. It can't be left to your grand-kids and their kids alone to climb out the black hole. That would not be fair.
And that will leave to some grumbles, from those who always grumble. But no great wailing of "broken promises" from the wider electorate. Becasue they will it is equitable. I really think Boris can sell that. (Although he may leave the job to Rishi....!)
The political classes obsess about the triple lock. The leg most often touted for removal is the minimum 2.5 per cent, which is unlikely to make any difference for the next couple of years if @rcs1000 is right about inflation. Inflation and perhaps even wage increases (depending how they are measured) are likely to be the driver of pension increases but these are unlikely to be delinked.
Why should the Chancellor take the political hit of breaking the triple lock if reducing it to a double or even single lock will make no saving?
Because it is mathematically illiterate to give an ever increasing share of the pie to one group. Eventually, their share of the pie becomes bigger than the whole pie.
So what? As I said, why take the political hit of abandoning the triple lock if it will not produce any savings? It is of no matter whether it should have been introduced in the first place or will need to be reviewed ten years down the line. In 2021 the triple lock is a red herring (assuming @rcs1000 is correct).
If the Chancellor does act on pensions, more useful targets might be higher rate tax relief on contributions, salary sacrifice schemes and 25% tax-free withdrawals.
I doubt that higher rate relief will save that much. I am only allowed to make a total pension contribution of £4k per year before I suffer a penal tax rate
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
I was chatting to some salt of the earth Cockney racists the other day, who were complaining that immigrants these days weren't as good as immigrants in the olden days, so maybe there are Brexit voters who will be happy with a shift back to Commonwealth immigration rather than European.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Setting aside your tankism regarding self-determination, you need to see past the Boris Bluster about his great deal vs no deal. The deal is shit for the people it was sold to like fishermen - at least that's what the fishing industry is saying in its initial response.
You and the blue rinse brigade can keep telling them its great, they will tell you in detail why its not at which point I anticipate the line once again being wheeled out that we've had enough of experts.
The feel is as important as the fact. Fishing was billed as a glorious stand for Blighty despite it being worth tuppence ha'penny. It was small but important. The dismissing of Scottish interests is also small but also important. Northern people don't tend to forget being sneered at and told their opinions are irrelevant, especially by southern gentlemen like yourself.
Have you read the institute for government report on the Fishing agreement
It is very interesting and should be reading for all those trying to make political points on it
The EU has been cunning on the fisheries deal, it seems, by maximising species in its quota for which the only market is the European Union. Even if the UK repatriated that quota, it wouldn't be able to sell it, while also losing its most important market for other species.
There is a reason why fishermen are unhappy. It's not a particularly good deal for them, overall.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
I do not know the detail on ex pats living abroad permanently but to be fair the point about the vast majority of ordinary folks enjoying their annual holiday in Spain or Portugal exactly as before is valid
And no need for silly comments
Sorry Big G but your comment really grated. A lot of people most of whom are far from the champagne socialists of your imagination have had their lives and hopes for their own future turned upside down by Brexit.
I do understand the pain of many but in the end we must move on
Like anti EU people did after 1975 you mean? The UK's relationship with the EU isn't going to go away as a topic of political debate. I would suggest you make peace with that fact if you want to argue about politics with strangers on the Internet!
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
Presumably they are Spanish citizens by now, or have acquired some form of residency.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
That's far, far from what many Brexit voters want, however. Any significant uptick in non-EU migration after Brexit will cause a significant backlash for the Tories among many core Brexit voters, who were expecting the opposite.
I believe non-EU immigration has already risen. I'm not sure that is correct anyway - the issue has always been more about control rather than actual figures. I agree many Brexit voters want to see immigration fall - not sure that is likely to encourage them to vote for most of the other options available. The 2018 result certainly didn't. Either way calling people names has not been the most effective tactic of remainers in recent years. Not quite clear why they don't get this.
You think that since the issue was about control, not actual numbers, people will be relaxed about the numbers going in the opposite direction to the one they thought they were voting for?
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Pretty nailed on.
Meanwhile PB Leavers will go very quiet on sunlit uplands...🌄
No, they will be quoting 2021 GDP growth to proclaim Brexit a success, ignoring the more obvious impact of covid in 2020 in that growth number.
One key issue next year is going to be what happens with the triple lock.
Do the Tories ditch it, break their manifesto promise and piss off a large chunk of their voters?
Or do they keep it, ensuring that the worst financial hit of the pandemic goes on the young?
Incidentally, I expect them to choose option b, but I don’t think it’s quite as straightforward a tradeoff as they believe. How many parents will be in the unfortunate @Cyclefree’s position and seeking to support children going through financial shit due to Covid? I’m guessing it will be a lot. And they won’t be happy about that...
There’s going to be a whole raft of things that get screwed by growth and inflation being at 5-6%, as we may well see in 2021. As well as pensions, there’s an awful lot of public sector pay awards and welfare benefits that are index-linked in one way or another.
There will probably have to be primary legislation to defer what would be seen as excessive rises in spending, as a result of a temporary spike in growth and inflation caused by coming out of a sharp recession.
Personally I think they have to go with option A, and eat the unpopularity and rebellion in the short term. There’s really no room for increases in public spending until the finances are back under control, with the exception of infrastructure investment that creates jobs.
I think they should change the “triple lock” and replace it with the “pensions income guarantee”
Guaranteed as a fixed % of the median or mean wage with a catch up period if necessary (don’t know what the stats are)
My understanding was the purpose of the triple lock was that pensioners had fallen a long way back in purchasing power and it was designed to fix that problem.
Would that mean that, if this year median or mean wages dropped 15%, pensions would do likewise?
The issue is when, as rarely happens, we get a massive fall followed by a massive rise. Either we keep pensions constant across the two years, or we drop them then raise them. Keeping them steady this year, followed by a massive rise next year is unsustainable.
Yes.
When was the last time we had a “massive fall followed by a massive rise”?
And why should pensioners be uniquely protected when the economy is probably in a mess, unemployment is soaring and benefits being cut (as would probably be the case when you have that kind of swing in incomes)
Oh, it’s been a while, probably WWII or even the 1920s. Rather you than me, trying to sell a huge cut in pensions followed by a huge rise though. A money-terms freeze would be a much easier sell politically.
There will be many like our own Scott who are bereft at leaving the EU and will fight on in their quest to rejoin while there will be a much smaller number of no dealers who would only be satisfied with full throttle no deal
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Big G, not sure where my grandparents, working class Tories who retired to Spain on their modest savings where the EU allowed them free access to Spanish healthcare, lie on your spectrum of Hampstead hypocrites to cheerful holidaying proletarians. Grateful for your expert guidance, perhaps you can find it in your Ladybird book of boring tabloid clichés?
I do not know the detail on ex pats living abroad permanently but to be fair the point about the vast majority of ordinary folks enjoying their annual holiday in Spain or Portugal exactly as before is valid
And no need for silly comments
Sorry Big G but your comment really grated. A lot of people most of whom are far from the champagne socialists of your imagination have had their lives and hopes for their own future turned upside down by Brexit.
I do understand the pain of many but in the end we must move on
Like anti EU people did after 1975 you mean? The UK's relationship with the EU isn't going to go away as a topic of political debate. I would suggest you make peace with that fact if you want to argue about politics with strangers on the Internet!
At my age I am perfectly at peace and it is highly unlikely I will witness the UK rejoining the EU in my lifetime
Comments
Damn, too late.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
The runoff was Kamp-Karrenbauer 51.7% and Merz 48.25% so it will likely be close whoever wins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Christian_Democratic_Union_of_Germany_leadership_election
Tory economic incompetence is back on the menu, with Sunak as the architect
The Deal is a Canada style FTA which according to Yougov Scots would be happy with by 44% to 29% compared to No Deal which they would have been unhappy with by 48% to 25% (pages 5 and 6)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/08/18/majority-people-think-freedom-movement-fair-price-
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
As you say if the SNP do hold a referendum in those circumstances it would be just for show.
However, I genuinely believe the country will move on and adapt to the changes and hopefully forge new relationships and ways of trade. It will be very different and there are bound to be ups and downs
Of course the good socialists in our midst like Polly Toynbee will rage at the difficulty she may have in going backwards and forwards to her Tuscan Villa second home, while the populace from the red wall areas will be able to go for their two weeks in the sun in Spain completely unaffected by our leaving
Rushi Sunak says today that the deal can bring people together and in a large part I think he is right
Also Boris has confounded us all again and just when you think he is on the way out he comes up with the goods
You underestimate Boris Johnson at your peril and I do not see him going anywhere soon
Boris comes across as an insecure liar who wants to cover up his lack of knowledge or to tell people what he thinks they want to hear.
Whereas Cameron, and likewise Blair and Clegg, were smooth sociopathic liars who had no problem lying when it suited their purposes.
David Frost negotiated poorly in terms of specific outcomes. He focused entirely on fish and LPF asks with limited success, while abandoning asks on things such as services, financial services, conformity inspections and data that he could probably have got, and which in some cases are already in other EU trade deals. This means not just important industries finding access to their most important market yet more difficult, but also that the UK will need to concede on something else if it wants to push for these later on.
The UK government can however declare victory and doesn't care about the detail. And so is a winner too.
BoZo stood and won as the candidate who could get the 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists' to vote Tory, but at the expense of Conservative and Unionist voters
The disintegration of the Union will be a model case study in the value of this approach.
Several of the hardline US states have already mentioned secession
Interesting times ahead
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
By next year end many of them will indeed be remourning
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
The Tories got 36% in Wales last year under Boris too, the highest Tory voteshare in Wales since before World War 2
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
And maybe a more considered view would be helped by reading this
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1342966557199261702?s=19
See - you are trying to blame everyone else for your party's selling out the fishermen. As they have done yet again, on which the fishermen are very clear.
As for the poll, given how the background has changed and how public sentiment has changed over the last 4 years, it's about as useful as a Which article on the relative merits of an Austin Maxi and a Ford Cortina would be for the average buyer today. ,
This question will play a big part in a second referendum, in a way that it didn’t in the first one.
As for that poll, I see you still have not found any evidence to contradict it, nor a single poll that shows Scots oppose a Canada style FTA
Especially in Scotland.
Perhaps your definition of 'Conservatives and Unionists' equates to posh boys and rich Londoners.
And could you remind us how the number of SNPs changed while Cameron was prime minister ?
https://twitter.com/richardlochhead/status/1342816794285846528?s=21
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2020/12/our-survey-tory-activists-give-johnsons-brexit-trade-deal-an-early-thumbs-up.html
You and the blue rinse brigade can keep telling them its great, they will tell you in detail why its not at which point I anticipate the line once again being wheeled out that we've had enough of experts.
The feel is as important as the fact. Fishing was billed as a glorious stand for Blighty despite it being worth tuppence ha'penny. It was small but important. The dismissing of Scottish interests is also small but also important. Northern people don't tend to forget being sneered at and told their opinions are irrelevant, especially by southern gentlemen like yourself.
It's as if a German keeps commenting on British politics and every time says "if the LibDems fail to get an absolute majority at the next election...."
And no need for silly comments
I said Brexit is a Xenophobic exercise.
That remains true however much people are embarrassed by their support for it.
It is very interesting and should be reading for all those trying to make political points on it
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1343163657891491842
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1343164123144736769
As for Scotland it is getting more from this Deal than the City of London is for example, Scottish whisky and Scottish goods will still go to the EU tariff free and Scottish fishermen will be able to get more of their own catch from Scottish waters.
The City however will see a reduction of access to the EU market with the end of automatic passporting rights across the EU for UK financial firms.
Hence I think there will be more resistance to this Deal in London than in Scotland
https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/1343112158318632960
If it's a failure we should debate it.
To give the impression that your heart is the right place and you are trying your best.
Rather than look like an arrogant type who thinks its good to lie because other people are 'beneath him'.
https://twitter.com/Paul1Singh/status/1343162516508176386?s=20
Did Xenophobes vote Brexit, yes. Is Brexit Xenophobic, no.
We need to move on, we lost.
You don't understand, do you? It's just a straw man. You Brexit was "a xenophobic exercise" so that you can just disengage from any other arguments there might be for leaving. In fact, being told I was a xenophobe and a racist contributed to me voting "out", on a screw you basis.
None of the people I know who voted for "out" can be described as xenophobic or racist.
However if say Merz is CDU chancellor candidate I think it is unlikely the Greens will do a deal with him and vice versa and if the only viable alternatives are a Green and SPD and Linke deal or a CDU and FDP and AfD deal who knows what would happen.
1. The lovely Gillian Duffy from my hometown. Rochdale has sizeable British Asian communities who thanks to council policies of the past largely live in self-contained Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Kashmiri pockets. With the odd exception of inter-pocket troubles (in Oldham when I was at college there) everyone gets on. Duffy wasn't racist but she sees her British born and raised neighbours as the "other" which is a problem
2. His Eminence The Mayor of Thornaby Steve Walmsley. In a drunken 3am Facebook rant a week before the 2019 locals he declared a fatwa on Mrs RP and myself (both Labour candidates in the seat he hoped to win back for the Thornaby Independents). In it he claimed that as we weren't born and raised in Thornaby that we would never understand the town or its people and that we'd do better if we "went home" to Rochdale. That Mrs RP is a cockney didn't bother him
In both cases the fear is "the other" regardless of where they are from. There are far fewer outright racists than there are people who just dislike outsiders. They have been groomed by certain newspapers to see outsiders everywhere - knocking doors in almost entirely white Ingleby Barwick to be told "too many migrants" is just sad.
You can't pander to bigotry when its in your face. So I understand why people have called it out. The problem is that yoghurt-knitters have gone too far the other way and said that any sensible discussion about migration is racist which is ludicrous.
I have no idea how to fix this very English problem so I am leaving.
Although many of those deaths might have been people shocked at being visited at Christmas by Justin Trudeau.....
People voted Tory in the years that followed the referendum specifically to deliver Brexit.
Now that Brexit is here - and does the opposite for them of how you advertised it - do you really think they will keep voting for you?
I know you and a few other parrots will insist its a great deal for fishing and these fishermen don't know what they are talking about. But in the real world you are toast now that promises and rhetoric splat against the wall of reality.
There is a reason why fishermen are unhappy. It's not a particularly good deal for them, overall.
Clueless. A fine choice to Chair the Association.
Still in play?
My prediction for 2021 is that the Tories will lose their mayoralties in the West Midlands and Teesside. Labour clean sweep for city region mayors.